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/spˈɪrɪtʃəwəlɪzm/ /spˈɪrɪtʃwəlˌɪzm/ Listen

noun

Spiritualism n.

The quality or state of being spiritual.

(Physiol.) The doctrine, in opposition to the materialists, that all which exists is spirit, or soul that what is called the external world is either a succession of notions impressed on the mind by the Deity, as maintained by Berkeley, or else the mere educt of the mind itself, as taught by Fichte.

A belief that departed spirits hold intercourse with mortals by means of physical phenomena, as by rappng, or during abnormal mental states, as in trances, or the like, commonly manifested through a person of special susceptibility, called a medium; spiritism; the doctrines and practices of spiritualists. "What is called spiritualism should, I think, be called a mental species of materialism."

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Etymology of 'Spiritualism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Spiritualism" Quotes from Famous Books

... man. There was no one to touch her in boys' parts in burlesque. A dashed fine woman she is—though I say it, dashed fine!" He seemed to reflect a moment. "She's a spiritualist. I wish she wasn't. Spiritualism gets on her nerves. I've no use for it myself, but it's her life. It gives her fancies. She got some sort of a silly notion—don't tell her I said this, Carlie—about Rosetta Rosa. Says she's unlucky—Rosa, I mean. Wanted me to warn Smart against engaging her. Me! Imagine it! ...

— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... exaggerated estimate thus implied of his imaginative sins; for the tendency of "Pauline" is both religious and moral; and no man has been more innocent than its author, from boyhood up, of tampering with any belief in the black art. His hatred for that "spiritualism," which is its modern equivalent, is indeed matter of history. But the trick he has here played himself may confuse the mind of those who only know him from his works, and for whom his vivid belief in the supernatural may point to a different kind ...

— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... and spirits, and Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism, began to describe the marvels she ...

— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... cliffs. Altogether it's a curious place, but as for ghosts—well, I've been there many a time and never saw one yet. But then, I do not believe in spooks, and perhaps that accounts for it. It's like the believers in spiritualism, that can readily see their dead ancestors' faces peering out of a cabinet, and all that sort of bosh, but I never could. I'll bet," with a laugh, "that you could go to Pocket Island and see ghosts ...

— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... the new photography to brain study. The relation of the new rays to thought rays is being eagerly discussed in what may be called the non-exact circles and journals; and all that numerous group of inquirers into the occult, the believers in clairvoyance, spiritualism, telepathy, and kindred orders of alleged phenomena, are confident of finding in the new force long-sought facts in proof of their claims. Professor Neusser in Vienna has photographed gall-stones in the liver of one patient (the stone showing snow-white in the negative), and a stone in the ...

— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various

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