Passage taken from Jan Karel Van Baalen in his excellent book, "The Chaos of Cults"; Pg. 21-23
The word Spiritism deserves preference to the more popular
Spiritualism, first, because it emphasizes the admitted fact that this system
claims to deal with spirits, and also because it is rather difficult to see
where its alleged spirituality enters.
Historical Background
The beginning of Spiritism are lost in
antiquity. We are probably dealing with the oldest religious delusion in
existence. It results, first from the desire to obtain information concerning
the life beyond. Will the next life be as full of sorrow as the present is?
Shall we be happy? Are we to have bodies? Next, Spiritism is the fruit of the
wish to be still in touch with departed loved ones.
The will explain why this cult is the fist one top be taken up. One
could hardly look for Christian Science of Modern Theosophy among the
ancients, although these cults may have absorbed and assimilated ideas which
also prevailed among the ancients. But we do find distinct traces of spiritism
among ancient Chinese, Hindus, Babylonians, and Egyptians; spiritism can be
traced through the Roman empire and the Europe of medieval times. Of the
present day religious delusions it is therefore the only one which existed in
Bible times, and the Scriptures are anything but silent on it.
There have, or course, been periodic revivals of spiritism. The
last three revivals are those caused by the Fox sisters and by the
bereavements resulting from the two world wars.
Thus, in its modern from, Spiritism goes back to two American
girls. In December, 1847, Mr. John D. Fox, his wife and six children had
entered a house in the village of Hyde Ville, N.Y. The two youngest children,
Margaret and Kate, respectfully twelve and nine years old, soon afterward
heard knockings in different parts of the house, which at first were accounted
for as coming from rats and mice. However, when bedclothes were pulled off the
bed by invisible hands, chairs and tables removed from their places, and a
cold hand was felt on the youngest daughters face, and when no effort to
explain these phenomena's in a natural matter succeeded, Kate hit upon the
idea of getting in touch with "Old Splitfoot." Snapping her fingers, shed
said, "Here old spiltfoot, do as I do." Instantly the knocking responded. As
this was repeated several times, it was concluded that something supernatural
was at work. The two girls devised a means of intelligent communication with
the author of the noises, who would reply to questions by a number of raps. he
revealed himself as Charles Rosma, a married man and a peddler, who, at the
age of thirty-one had been murdered by one John Bell, a blacksmith and former
tenant of the Fox home. The body was said to lie ten feet under ground in the
cellar; the murderer had remained unpunished. Portions of a human skeleton
were actually found in the cellar.
From this widely advertised event spiritistic séances spread all
over the United States. In England, "table-turning" was already popular among
the social elite. Hence the American mediums found fertile soil there also,
when in 1852 the "spirits" announced to American devotees that they were going
to invade England, and would be "very religious and very scientific" over
there. other European lands also were successfully visited by American
spiritists.
From 1850-'72, according to an official report, local organizations
sprang up throughout the U.S., but no attempt was made to organize a national
association until 1863. In 1893 the National Spiritualist's Association of the
U.S. of A., was organized as now constituted. Its members were officially
reported as 126,000, its churches 682, and its ministers as 600 for the year
1923. The 1945 Yearbook of American Churches gives a total of 228,000
"spiritualists" in the U.S. scattered over four organizations. The British
Spiritualists Union's 18,000 members met in 500 "churches"--usually hired
rooms, garages, or private drawing rooms, but sometimes more elaborately
equipped with pews, harmonium and lectern. (Newsweek, April 12. 1948)*
* There are now to have been reported over 15,000,000 Spiritists world wide.
You can learn more HERE.
Let me also make it clear, Spiritism is pseudo religion that has Satan's fingerprints all over it. This is just some background information on how this religion came about.
