Definitions for: Spiritualism

[n] the belief that the spirits of dead people can communicate with people who are still alive (especially via a medium)
[n] any doctrine that asserts the separate existence of God

Webster (1913) Definition: Spir"it*u*al*ism, n.
1. The quality or state of being spiritual.

2. (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.

3. 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. --R. H.
Hutton.

See Also: belief, theological doctrine

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