Spiritualism in Antebellum America

By Brett E. Carroll and Bret E. Carroll

"At a time when the New Age movement is starting to make good on the Spiritualists' vision of America as a 'grand clairvoyant nation', Carroll's work raises provocative questions about the tension betwen freedom and authority in the harmonial religions of today." --Church History

" . . . offers the most comprehensive, sane examination of its topic yet available, no mean achievement for a subject long afflicted by religious partisanship and now perhaps in danger of sympathetic attraction." --Journal of American History

". . . fascinating reading it will be for those with a taste for good scholarly writing and a love of the American past and the manifold varieties of the spiritual quest." --The Quest

"In addition to being an excellent introduction to mid-19th-century Spiritualism, Carroll's work also offers scholars a new vantage point from which to view the religious creativity that was so prominent in antebellum America in general." --Choice

During the decade before the Civil War, a growing number of Americans gathered around tables in dimly lit rooms, joined hands, and sought enlightening contact with spirits. The result was Spiritualism, a distinctly colorful religious ideology centered on spirit communication and spirit activity. Spiritualism in Antebellum America analyzes the attempt by spiritually restless Americans of the 1840s and 1850s to negotiate a satisfying combination of freedom and authority as they sought a sense of harmony with the universe.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253333156
• ISBN13: 9780253333155
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 9.5"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Spiritualism Unmasked

This is a brilliant, thoroughly researched, and thoroughly illuminating book. Though the prose and the ideas will be tough sledding for anyone looking for a light read on nineteenth-century mediums and seances, careful readers will be richly rewarded for their patience. This is an outstanding book for students of American religious and cultural history.