“Don't you remember anything?! There is no 'devil.' There is no 'hell.' There is only Unrest. There is no down, only sideways; the transparent beside the opaque, and a thin wall to separate them.”
― Leanna Renee Hieber, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy
According to Merriam-webster.com, Spiritualism is a “belief that spirits of the dead communicate with the living, usually through a medium”. However, Spiritualism is more than a belief. Ever since the Spiritualist movement began and spread in the 1800’s, Spiritualism has evolved into a religion that continues to be practiced today. Contacting the dead is not a pleasant subject for most people however, although Spiritualism used to be casually practiced everyday in the homes of the Victorians in the 1800s. How did something that once used to be a method of being able to re-unite with your beloved, dead, grandparents warp into something that incites fear?
Spiritualism was founded by the Fox sisters back in 1848 when Margaretta and Kate Fox claimed to have heard mysterious rappings in their little home in Hydesville, New York. Apparently, their house was reputed to be haunted before the Fox family moved in and there were claims of unexplainable sounds and furniture moving on their own. Margaretta and Fox started speaking to the spirit who was allegedly haunting their home and they eventually developed a system for communicating with it. The Fox sisters would ask the spirit a question and they would get answers in return through the form of rappings. For example, they would interpret one rap for “yes” or two for “no” or they would interpret the number of rapping’s given for a letter in an alphabet. It wasn’t long before the neighbors heard about the Fox sisters’ new found abilities and gathered at their house to witness the spirit rappings for themselves. Soon, they were giving performances in major towns, and that was when the rapping phenomena began to spread.
The Fox sisters gained fame through their public séances and it wasn’t long before other people started claiming that they were also able to speak with spirits and other forms of communicating with the dead were created such as table tipping and slate writing. The Victorian era was marked by “romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and the arts” (http://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/dr-rescher-english-...
... middle of paper ...
... each other. The information that I have learned regarding this topic has helped me a lot in developing my plot for a comic book that I am working on for Senior Show titled “Post-Mortem”. My story is set in the Victorian era where two brothers lament the loss of their loved ones. The older brother especially has a hard time coping with the loss of his fiancé, and the little brother tries to contact her and bring her back. However, instead of drawing back in the beautiful and kind fiancé he ends up bringing back one that is hungry for revenge. Even though my story is based in the Victorian era where contacting the dead had nothing to do with evil spirits, I wanted to make my story more modern by adding a macabre touch.
Works Cited
McClenon, James. "The Scientific Investigation of Wondrous Events." Wondrous Events: Foundation of Religious Belief, University of Pennsylvania Press(1994): 185-207. Print.
Simpkins, Sarah. "Dr. Rescher English 204." STUDYBLUE. STUDY BLUE, 28 Mar. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
.
Roach, Mary. Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. Print.
"Daniel Orozco-Department of English-University of Idaho." Daniel Orozco-Department of English-University of Idaho. N.p., n.d. Web. . .
Chapter 7: New Ghost Dance Religion Offers Last Hope. The Millbrook Press, 1993. eLibrary. Web. 23 Dec. 2013.
The book, What’s So Super About the Supernatural tells of well known stories about poltergeists. A poltergeist is a noisy or high energy ghost who might perform violent activity. A young girl by the name of Tina Resch lived in Ohio and is known to be a poltergeist. “No ghost was ever seen or heard on camera; however when the camera was inadvertently left running, the tape showed Tina surreptitiously pulling over a lamp” (Gardner). The evidence was found after people were reporting the activity. Newspaper reporters went to the scene to check out the action only to find evidence of Tina throwing objects violently around the house. Another example of proof that ghosts exist goes back to a case involving a poltergeist in England. An eleven-year-old boy by the name of Matthew Manning performed several violent actions that his dad had noticed and reported. Gardner writes, “ On one occasion, Matthew’s bed was thrown about and left leaning at an angle against the wall” (Gardner). These examples are not the only reported cases regarding ghosts and paranormal activity. Many stories about the supernatural have been told and passed down for several generations. Spirits are even mentioned in well known religious books that have been passed down for hundreds of
were healers, leaders, song makers, dance composers and ask the spirit for a good hunting
E. W. Ralph. (2005, September 4). Language: English. Editor: T. L.H. Edna. (2012, March 15)
A.) The ghost dance was originated by a Northern Paiute Indian named Wovoka (Jack Wilson in English), who insisted they were sent to earth to prepare Indians for their salvation. This movement began with a dream Wovoka had during a solar eclipse on the night of Jan 1, 1889. Wovoka’s dream included a vision in which all Native Americans were taken into the sky and the earth swallowed all white folk to revert back it its natural state. He believed that by performing the Ghost dance, this dream (vision) would become reality, and ghosts would return from the dead resulting in the ousting of the whites, and the restoration of the Natives land. The Ghost Dance spread rapidly through Western U.S.
... platform for silenced, and therefore considered dead, voices - is as provocative a tool for sociological/ethnographic discernment as one might imagine and, as Gordon’s work amply evinces through its case subjects remains desperately needed . It is no coincidence then that Life is complicated bookends this work – and in the words of Luce Irigiary which Gordon summons (39-40), its complications often give us reason to let the unexamined and unchallenged method lead us astray. But also, because as all the best authors of ghost stories know, working in the proximity - on behalf of - ghosts must leave the exorcist and the ethnographer changed; not only is the spirit of the unseen transformed but so is the exorcist/ethnographer. Such reflexivity and acknowledgment deserves a language in which to articulate shifts in positionality. Ghostly Matters provides that vocabulary.
The religion of the Ghost Dance started with a man named Wovoka. On January 1, 1889, he had a ‘vision’ during a solar eclipse in Nevada (Peterson 27). It brought a message of hope to the oppressed Indians of only the Indians living. The Indians called Wovoka the ‘Messiah’ (“The Ghost Dance” par. 1) and it was believed that he would bring a “day of deliverance” (Phillips 16) to the Indians. The messiah was said to return to the earth so that all the white men would vanish and the buffalo and their ancestors would return (Peterson 27). Wovoka’s vision was that:
“It has often been said that the North American Indians ‘dance out’ their religions” (Vecsey 51). There were two very important dances for the Sioux tribe, the Sun Dance and the Ghost Dance. Both dances show the nature of Native American spirituality. The Ghost Dance and the Sun Dance were two very different dances, however both promote a sense of community.
aranormal activity has been a cause of fear and excitement throughout history. The unknown attracts the curiosity from those who wonder whether the supernatural is real or a figment of the imagination. Ghosts are one of the supernatural beings whose existence is questioned every day. Many want to deny the existence of ghosts because they are terrified of other phantoms who may exist and ignore the evidence that has been brought forth throughout the years. However, ghosts are supernatural pheromones whose existence still impacts today’s society.
...ssified ghost into two categories blessed, and damned spirits. Those who come from paradise appear for a good purpose and those from hell for an awful and demonic purpose. While a few apparitions could be heavenly angels in a form of a ghost, Protestants felt that spirits were mainly evil because they take the form of dead friends and relatives to abuse and harm people.
Neuleib, Janice, Kathleen Shine Cain, and Stephen Ruffus, eds. Mercury Reader for English 101. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013 Print.
I’d like to state the most obvious observation that I’ve made about spiritual formation; that is that I will always need to be seeking for ways to nurture my personal spirituality throughout my life. I know that to most people this may sound like a “duh” statement, but for me it has truly become a reality and one that I must admit I have been struggling to embrace. I was brought up in a church that, like most traditional churches, stayed happy living in the “comfort zone” of their Christianity. They took everything that the Bible said at face value without digging in to find out why they believed what they believed. I had never been challenged to look deeper into the text. In the past few years I have felt the need to tunnel out of this cave of what I feel is best labeled “Christian ignorance”. In the process though, I have had to come to terms with letting go of the things that brought me comfort and provided me with what I thought it took to have a close relationship with God. Some of those things were tangible. Most were not. The things that were the least tangible actually ended up being the hardest to let go of.
Stenmark, Mickael. How to Relate Science and Religion. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004.