Talking to the Other Side: Spiritualism as Vernacular Religion in Central Ohio (original) (raw)

Abstract

I can talk to the other side as easily as I can talk to you. I've always been able to do that. Anybody can learn to communicate with spirits. As a matter of fact, I would say most people do it to some degree.-Reverend Joseph Mauriello (Interview with the author, 2013) Beginning in the 1840s, a powerful form of popular religiosity known as Spiritualism spread rapidly across the United States, England, and Europe. Focused primarily on communication with spirits of the dead, Spiritualism evolved as both a philosophical system with a complex metaphysics and a popular form of practice that could be engaged by anyone in the home (Braude 24; Cox 1-21; Gutierrez 3-10; Owen 1-17). While Spiritualism declined as a major religious practice in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it is still very much alive and well in most parts of the United States, including my home city of Columbus, Ohio, where at least a dozen Spiritualist churches and a wide variety of mediums are active (Urban, New Age 67-89). This chapter explores the role of Spiritualism in contemporary America, with a special focus on three mediums in central Ohio. These include a Spiritualist reverend who claims to have been able to talk to ghosts since childhood, the head of a Christian Spiritualist church in downtown Columbus, and a medium who channels a variety of beings ranging from the Prophet Muhammad to Vishnu and Quetzalcoatl. From its origins in the nineteenth century in upstate New York, Spiritualism has largely been a "folk" practice, associated as much (if not more) with children, women, African-Americans, and other non-elite groups as with philosophers and intellectuals. Typically practiced in the home through simple technologies such as séances, planchettes, and Ouija boards, Spiritualism has always been and continues to be a popular and "domestic" religion (Braude 24; Urban, New Age 67-89).

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