Body and Soul: A Sympathetic History of American Spiritualism

by Robert S. Cox

A product of the "spiritual hothouse" of the Second Great Awakening, Spiritualism became the fastest growing religion in the nation during the 1850s, and one of the principal responses to the widespread perception that American society was descending into atomistic particularity. In Body and Soul, Robert Cox shows how Spiritualism sought to transform sympathy into social practice, arguing that each individual, living and dead, was poised within a nexus of affect, and through the active propagation of these sympathetic bonds, a new and coherent society would emerge. Phenomena such as spontaneous somnambulism and sympathetic communion with the dead—whether through séance or "spirit photography"—were ways of transcending the barriers dissecting the American body politic, including the ultimate barrier, death. Drawing equally upon social, occult, and physiological registers, Spiritualism created a unique "social physiology" in which mind was integrated into body and body into society, leading Spiritualists into earthly social reforms, such as women’s rights and anti-slavery. From the beginning, however, Spiritualist political and social expression was far more diverse than has previously been recognized, encompassing distinctive proslavery and antiegalitarian strains, and in the wake of racial and political adjustments following the Civil War, the movement began to fracture. Cox traces the eventual dissolution of Spiritualism through the contradictions of its various regional and racial factions and through their increasingly circumscribed responses to a changing world. In the end, he concludes, the history of Spiritualism was written in the limits of sympathy, and not its limitless potential.

Genres: History, Spiritualism, Religion, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2003

Reviews

[Betsy Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book and I think it provides great insight into the history of American spiritualism, but just be aware that this is not a basic history and this shouldn't be the first book about spiritualism that you read.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, if dense, history of Spiritualism that places great emphasis on its philosophical underpinnings and the earlier movements (Swedenborgianism, somnambulism, and mesmerism) that fed into it.

[P. Es · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always had a smooshy spot for the history of spiritualism in America, it's repercussions, etc.

[Joanna Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting stuff about sleepwalking and other physiological responses to the practice of Spiritualism.