SPIRE 



5501 



SPIRITUALISM 



America, grows three or four feet high and 

 bears slender, curving branches that in Spring 

 are completely covered with clusters of tiny 

 white blossoms. 

 Willow - leaved 

 spiraea is a popu- 

 lar florists' plant. 

 It does not grow 

 so tall as meadow- 

 sweet, and the 

 pink or white 

 flowers grow at 

 the tops of the 

 branches in large, 

 plumelike tufts. 



SPIRE, in ar- 

 chitecture, that 

 part of a tower 

 or steeple which SPIRAEA 



rises from the top in the form of a pyramid. 

 (For examples, see illustration under CA- 

 THEDRAL, page 1228.) The cathedral at Cologne, 

 Germany, has spires over 500 feet high, while 

 the finest spire in England, that on the Salis- 

 bury Cathedral, is 406 feet in height. The gen- 

 eral effect of a building surmounted by spires 

 is very striking. In Milton's Paradise Lost 

 these lines occur: 



The glorious temple rear'd 

 . Her pile, far off appearing like a mount 

 Of alabaster, topt with golden spires. 



SPIRITUALISM, spir'itualiz'm. The term 

 usually refers to the modern form of the belief 

 in the survival and communication of the 

 spirits of the departed. This grew out of cer- 

 tain disturbances in a house at Hydeville, 

 N. Y., in 1848; the disturbances appeared in 

 the presence of the two Fox sisters and con- 

 sisted of raps and mysterious moving of ob- 

 jects. By agreeing that one rap should mean 

 "No," and three "Yes," the knocker revealed 

 himself, in answer to questions, as the spirit of 

 a murdered peddler. The movement found 

 favorable soil and grew rapidly to enormous 

 proportions. Mediums appeared everywhere 

 and spiritualists were numbered by the hun- 

 dreds of thousands; "seances" were widely held 

 and spread to England and the Continent, at 

 which eager sitters sought communication with 

 deceased relatives, and in that intercourse 

 found a religious consolation. 



The seances took the form of movements, 

 apparently without physical contact, of table 

 tipping and floating of objects, of communica- 

 tions through the medium, who was sometimes 

 in a trance state, of spirit materializations, of 



writing on sealed slates, and of a variety of 

 startling performances which one and another 

 medium devised. Prominent in the group were 

 the performances in a "cabinet," which the 

 medium entered securely bound, while bells 

 were rung, tambourines played, chairs over- 

 turned and faces appeared almost as soon as 

 the "cabinet" doors were shut; when opened, 

 the medium seemed as securely bound as ever. 

 Trance mediums contributed elaborate mes- 

 sages describing the spirit world and proving 

 the identity of their source, often referred to 

 the great personages of past ages. 



This bare account of the movement gives 

 no suggestion of the intensity of the interest 

 and the absorption in mediums and their do- 

 ings, which was widespread for two or three 

 decades. Mediums were frequently detected in 

 frauds of the most flagrant character, and the 

 many failures were referred to unfavorable 

 sceptical conditions. Investigations of a more 

 or less critical character were made from time 

 to time ; but it was not until those made under 

 the auspices of the Seybert Commission (1888) 

 by the Committees of the Society of Psychical 

 Research and by investigation with a knowl- 

 edge of conjuring that the fraudulent character 

 of most of the manifestations was minutely 

 analyzed. See PSYCHICAL RESEARCH; CONJUR- 

 ING. 



On the other hand, these newer investiga- 

 tions, together with the proposal of telepathy 

 as a possible explanation, the trance revelations 

 (of Mrs. Piper and others) and the automatic 

 writings of unprofessional mediums, brought 

 the spiritualistic hypothesis again to the front. 

 Some investigators concluded that the revela- 

 tions thus emerging, so far beyond the knowl- 

 edge of the mediums, and the frequency of 

 premonitions and apparitions corresponding 

 with the moment of death of the person com- 

 municating, all pointed to the spiritualistic as 

 the only adequate explanation of the source of 

 the messages. 



Historically, modern spiritualism is con- 

 nected with the unbroken series of "occult" 

 interests and manifestations that stand as the 

 heritage of magical belief and gave rise to the 

 pseudo-sciences (see SCIENCE AND THE SCIENCES, 

 subhead Pseudo-Sciences). More particularly 

 the performances of somnambules (see HYPNO- 

 TISM) in a "mesmeric" state set the pattern 

 for the reading of sealed messages, seeing with- 

 out eyes, and similar performances which 

 formed the stock in trade of the spiritualistic 

 mediums, Again tfce table tipping and rapping 



