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Spiritualism (Spiritism or Spiritualist Church)

Spiritualism is a religion with an estimated 13,000,000 followers or Spiritualists. Spiritualism is of ancient origin; The modern origin of Spiritualism can be traced back to either scientist and medium Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) of Sweden in 1744 -or- Catherine and Margaretta Fox a.k.a.. the Fox sisters in Hydesville, New York in 1848. The first Spiritualism Church was founded in 1853.

[NOTE: In 1888, the sisters admitted to be fraudulent mediums when paid $1,500 (now equivalent to over $2,500,000.00) by the New York Herald newspaper. However, a year later, they retracted their confessions.]

Spiritualism is a religion marked by the belief that each and every person has a spirit and spirits of the dead can communicate with spirits of the living. This happens under the "right" conditions, usually through mediums (who go into a "trance" during "séances") and other types of psychic individuals, who may occasionally demonstrate a variety of psychic power including clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy and telekinesis.

Some mediums and other types of psychic individuals claim that they actually see dead spirits, who still wander around our material world. In some cases, the dead spirits may be deceased relatives of individuals, who they hang around and try to serve as spirit guides. Furthermore, some mediums claim to have the ability to "channel" dead spirits (or allow dead spirits to temporarily use their bodies to communicate to the living).

[NOTE: In more modern terminology, mediums may be referred to "channelers" and what they do is referred to as "channeling".]

Most Spiritualism churches are independently organized and small, but there are many of them scattered throughout the world. Some of the larger Spiritualism churches include the Church of the New Jerusalem (formed by followers of Emanuel Swedenborg), The Swedenborgian Church (also, formed by followers of Emanuel Swedenborg) and the Spiritualists' National Union based in the United Kingdom.

Furthermore, there are many followers of Spiritualism who are not members of any Spiritualism church, but use the services of mediums and other types of psychics to communicate with dead spirits.

Unfortunately, Spiritualism suffers greatly from an ongoing history of many fraudulent participants. However, there are very likely good apples in the basket along with the bad apples. In recent decades, the police have successfully used medium/psychics to help solve some "otherwise, unsolvable" criminal cases.

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