Spiritualism: Back to the roots

The world of the Paranormal is big business now, especially lately! Thanks to programmes like Most Haunted in particular a resurgence of interest in the subject awoke. The general public can also go on arranged ghost hunts and try their hand at communicating with another world…the spirit world! But of course various aspects of the Paranormal have been going for years and years, aspects which we have forgotten about or perhaps associate only with ghost hunting companies now. There are a vast number of unexplained phenomena within the world of the Paranormal, which over the course of the next few months I will touch on, but first time to go back to basics.

Well Spiritualism is a religion that began in the United States of America in New York, back in the 1840’s. Spiritualists often set March 31, 1848, as the beginning of their movement. On that date Kate and Margaret Fox of Hydesville, New York reported that they had made contact with the spirit of a murdered peddler. What made this an extraordinary event was that the spirit communicated through rapping noises audible to onlookers. The evidence of the senses appealed to practically minded Americans and the Fox sisters became a sensation!

This new religion was extremely popular and it mainly seemed to be popular with the middle to upper classes, in particular women!

In the years following that label ‘sensation’ greeted the Fox sisters at demonstrations of the varying forms of mediumship such as séances and automatic writing. These proved also to be profitable and soon became popular forms of entertainment and spiritual catharsis. The Foxes were to earn a living this way, others would soon follow their lead and continue to do so.

Over the years there have been many mediums, some fake of course but most genuine! I myself have witnessed various mediums undertake different ways of trying to communicate with spirits, some work some don’t, but nonetheless we love it. It is so intriguing to see if loved ones or others really are still here with us and of course we love testing mediums!

In this day and age when other religions are fading away people are still turning to Spiritualism. Just a thought… but perhaps because it attempts to shed light on what’s beyond death in a re-assuring and non-doctrine like way?

So thanks to the Fox sisters spiritualism is well known, without them letting the world know about the ability there might not have been no Most Haunted, no Colin Frys’ or Derek Acorahs’ on the television and lastly no ghost hunting companies like Paranormal Nights! So really we owe them a great deal. So thank you Kate and Margaret Fox for opening the eyes of the world!!