The History of Spiritualism, Vol. II

What It's About

This second volume continues Arthur Conan Doyle's history of the spiritualist movement, picking up where the first left off. It moves through the careers of major mediums — from Eusapia Palladino to figures active between 1870 and 1900 such as Charles H. Foster and Stainton Moses — before turning to the founding and work of the Society for Psychical Research. Later chapters examine specific phenomena associated with the movement, including ectoplasm, spirit photography, and voice mediumship, and survey spiritualism's spread through France, Germany, and Italy. The closing chapters address spiritualism's role during and after the First World War, and its development as a religious movement with its own view of the afterlife.

Key Concepts

Mediumship and the investigation of physical phenomena (ectoplasm, materialisation, voice manifestation); the rise of psychical research as a semi-scientific discipline; spiritualism's appeal as a source of religious consolation, particularly amid the bereavements of the First World War; and the movement's own doctrines regarding life after death.

About the Author

Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and trained physician. In the latter part of his life he became one of the most prominent public advocates for Spiritualism, a conviction deepened by personal loss during the First World War, and he devoted much of his later career to writing, lecturing, and campaigning on its behalf.