{"id":826,"date":"2021-10-19T12:42:07","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T17:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/?p=826"},"modified":"2021-10-19T12:42:07","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T17:42:07","slug":"spiritualism-ghost-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/?p=826","title":{"rendered":"Spiritualism & Ghost Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Cover<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ghost stories have long been a part of American storytelling traditions.\u00a0 During the 19th<\/sup> century, however, those stories took on new depth as the beliefs of Spiritualism took hold. Many historians date the beginnings of the Spiritualist movement to the 1848 occurrences in Hydesville, New York, where the young Fox sisters engaged in rapping games with unseen spirits. These three sisters raised the possibility of having not merely encounters but conversations with those who had passed away, including the exchange of information and knowledge between this world and the next.\u00a0 Although talking to spirits was nothing new, their work, which included founding the first Spiritualist society, is credited as being the start of Spiritualism, a movement that would eventually expand worldwide and capture the imagination of millions, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much like the time of the Scientific Revolution, where the\ntriumph of reason was expected to destroy magical belief systems, many\nindividuals at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century expected the rising\nindustrialism and new science to quickly stamp out what appeared to be mere\nghost stories. Such was not the case, as Spiritualists quickly adapted the\ntools of science to help further their cause, developing their own language of\ncommunication and tools during an era which saw tremendous advances in\ntechnology.  Historian Molly McGarry\nnoted, \u201cSpeaking to the dead may have seemed no less strange than communicating\nacross cables or capturing the living on film. Like freezing an image on a\nphotographic plate, the Spiritualists\u2019 ghost catching was a collapsing of time:\nthe past perceived in the present for the future\u201d (McGarry, 20). Spiritualism in\nthe 19th<\/sup> century, then, was much less about the reality of life\nafter death and communicating with the spirit world, as this belief predated\nthe Spiritualist movement. Rather, it was the guiding rubric of science and\ntechnological development which shaped Spiritualism in this age, as\npractitioners \u201caimed to authenticate the immaterial presence of spirits of the\ndead through \u2018objective,\u2019 observable, and repeated experiences and through a\nrationalist discourse of \u2018factual\u2019 evidence\u201d (Weinstein, 126). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While no ghosts (that we know of anyway), the Galvin Rare\nBook Room is home to a small collection of works about Spiritualism and ghost\nstories.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The New Revelation<\/em>. New York: George H. Doran Co., 1918 Galvin Rare Book Room BF1272 .D7 1918 \u00a0Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Verser Todd. <\/strong>(catalog link<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first became interested in\nSpiritualism around 1881 after attending a lecture. With further reading and\nstudy, Conan Doyle became a supporter and advocate of the movement. He was\ninvolved with organizations such as the British Society for Psychical Research\nand the Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures, where he served as\nvice-president. In addition to his two-volume work on The History of Spiritualism<\/em>, he also wrote about spirit photography\n(The Case for Spirit Photography<\/em>) and\nabout his own experiences with Spiritualism (The New Revolution<\/em>, and The\nWanderings of a Spiritualist<\/em>). With the loss of his son during World War I,\nConan Doyle continued his work and was considered an international expert in\nthe field. Some credit his work in Spiritualism for one of his more famous\nquotes from The Case-Book of Sherlock\nHolmes<\/em>, \u201cWhen you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever\nremains, however improbable, must be the truth.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Beecher, Spiritual Manifestations<\/em> Boston: Lee & Shepard; New York, C.T. Dillingham, 1879.\u00a0 Galvin Rare Book Room BF1251 .B42 1879 <\/strong>(catalog link<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Beecher was a noted American Congregationalist\nminister, composer, and author, something common among his siblings, including\nhis sister Harriet Beecher Stowe and brother Henry Ward Beecher. His book, Spiritual Manifestations<\/em> (1879) offers\ndescriptions of his own experiences and encounters with Spiritualism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walter Cooper Dendy, The Philosophy of Mystery<\/em>. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1845. Galvin Rare Book Room BF1031 .D5 1845 <\/strong>(catalog link<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practicing surgeon as well as an author.  A collection of anecdotes about spectral\napparitions, this work highlights dreams and spectral illusions in an attempt\nto explain or demystify the mysterious nature of fantastical things, and it is\nwritten in the style of a narrative dialogue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ray Bradbury, The Ghosts of Forever<\/em> New York: Rizzoli, 1981. \u00a0Galvin Rare Book room PS3503 .R167 G47 1981 <\/strong>(catalog link<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally started as a script for a Smithsonian planetarium\nshow that was never produced, The Ghosts\nof Forever<\/em> combines the wordsmithing of Bradbury, in poems and a short\nstory, with illustrations by Aldo Sessa into a delightful space-age adventure\nas only Bradbury\u2019s mind could conjure up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am\u00e9lie Rives (Princess Troubetzkoy). The Ghost Garden: A Novel. <\/em>New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1918.\u00a0 Galvin Rare Book Room PS3092 .G47 1918 <\/strong>(catalog link<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best known for her book The\nQuick and the Dead<\/em>, Rives\u2019 work is set in colonial Virginia and tells the\ntale of lovelorn struggle between the living and the dead. Richmond-born, Rives\nwas a prolific writer who was especially interested in educational reform and\nwomen\u2019s suffrage. Also of note is the study of Rives\u2019 life written by prominent\nUR faculty emeritus W.D. Taylor in 1973. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marguerite du Pont Lee, Virginia Ghosts & Others<\/em>. Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1932. Inscribed \u201cTo my ghosts\u201d by the author to the Marion Garnett Ryland Virginiana Collection at the University of Richmond. Galvin Rare Book room F227 .L48 1932 <\/strong>(catalog link<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Printed in Richmond in 1932, Virginia Ghosts<\/em> contains more than 100 ghost stories from around\nthe commonwealth, many with pictures of the haunted sites and homesteads.\nStories from Richmond include ones near Englewood and Westover as well as the\ngovernor\u2019s mansion.  Not surprisingly,\nthe author was a serious student of psychic phenomena of Richmond and beyond as\nwell as being a proponent of women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McGarry, Molly. Ghosts\nof Futures Past: Spiritualism and the Cultural Practices of Nineteenth-Century\nAmerica<\/em>. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weinstein, Sheri. \u201cTechnologies of Vision: Spiritualism and\nScience in Nineteenth-Century America,\u201d in Jeffery Andrew Weinstock, ed. Spectral America: Phantoms and the National\nImagination<\/em>, 124-140. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghost stories have long been a part of American storytelling traditions.\u00a0 During the 19th century, however, those stories took on new depth as the beliefs of Spiritualism took hold. Many historians date the beginnings of the Spiritualist movement to the 1848 occurrences in Hydesville, New York, where the young Fox sisters engaged in rapping games […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[75,70,74],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rare-books","tag-ghosts","tag-richmond","tag-spiritualism"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9qn1s-dk","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rarebooks.urlibraries.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}