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This article discusses how the race issue was approached in American Modern Spiritualism. Its starting point is Allan Kardec's hypothesis, published in the Revue Spirite, that American spiritualists rejected belief in reincarnation due to the strong race prejudice that existed in the United States. The analysis takes place on two levels: first, we examine the current status of the subject in the recent historiography of Spiritualism; then, we describe the way Kardec dealt with this doctrinal divergence between spiritists and spiritualists, taking as a case study the French-speaking spiritualists of New Orleans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay presents results of an exploratory project from 2000-2002 on folk medicine amongLatinx healers in Los Angeles, initiated because little research had been conducted on botánicas anywhere in the United States. The findings reveal that most of the healers are steeped in more than one religious and healing tradition, and that many of these specialists are not, as sometimes assumed, poorly educated, unsophisticated, or adversaries of biomedical care. In addition, clientele are not exclusively Latinx, immigrants, or impoverished, and they seek help for physical, emotional, interpersonal, legal, and other problems including alcoholism, the last of which practitioners attend to with plant and ritual therapies as well as by recommending treatment centers. Data from this study can help inform educational and medical programs regarding faith-based and herbal therapies by vernacular practitioners in Los Angeles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Spirit photographs are joint portraits that visually unite the bereaved and the deceased without use of a corpse. Arising from the same ideas that founded Spiritualism in the nineteenth century, these enchanted mementos are said to have been discovered by William H. Mumler in 1861, in Boston, Massachusetts. Spirit photographers typically worked with mediums who enabled the appearance of magical ‘extras’ of the deceased, and as the majority of mediums were women, their contributions to this development within personal mourning rituals have been limited almost exclusively to this activity. Fuelled by the acknowledged proximity of two women to the invention, Helen F. Stuart and Hannah Frances Green, this article challenges Mumler’s widely accepted status as the originator of spirit photography. Although Stuart was the owner of the studios where Mumler stumbled upon his invention and Green was a secretary and medium in the same studios, scholars have tended to refuse these women larger roles. This article establishes the viability of a new narrative, presenting the strong likelihood that these women were in fact one and the same person and proposing that this woman be recognised as a pioneer of spirit photography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary interest from scholars examining spirituality have suggested that young children have an innately rich spiritual dimension that can be nurtured when they are given opportunities to express it or when such expressions are recognised. Based on direct observations in natural settings, this article addresses the importance of children’s spirituality and how outdoor play spaces, especially community parks, can contribute to a child’s spiritual development through enriching activities in nature, pretend play, storytelling and intergenerational play. The article also aims to encourage consideration of a variety of strategies that can be used to support the holistic development of a young child and nurture children’s spirituality. Supporting a child’s spiritual development with playful activities in outdoor spaces can help to identify the child’s interests, strengths and creativity through relationships that shape bonds with both families and community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the 19th century practice among the religious group the United Society of Believers, popularly known as the Shakers, of communicating with dead Native Americans, particularly during the period the Era of Manifestations. The article also discusses the significance of the movement the Second Great Awakening in attracting attention to Shaker practices and promoting séance spiritualism in the wider U.S. culture after 1848. It also discusses the significance of Shaker leader Ann Lee and Shaker interest in the Native American removal policies of the U.S. government.

This study explored the role of spiritual factors and social support on the health status of 246 older Korean adult immigrants age 65 years or older. Ordinary least squares regression results revealed that private religious practice, spiritual coping, and social support were significantly associated with improved health status. However, stressors such as the lack of English proficiency and transportation, longer residency in the United States, and financial problems were significantly associated with lower health status. Social workers need to consider providing appropriate spiritual interventions and social support programs for older Korean adult immigrants so that they may better handle their stressors and health problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequent pairing of electrical machines and Native American spirits in nineteenth-century Spiritualism was a topic first addressed by Werner Sollors in a 1983 article for American Quarterly. Building on Sollors’ observations, this article suggests that the juxtaposition of machines and Indian spirits reflects an alchemical worldview, one that framed Spiritualist conceptions of materiality and spiritual progression. As an industrializing America transformed nature into a modern infrastructure, Andrew Jackson Davis and John Murray Spear spiritualized technology, likening electricity and electrical machines to the rarefied matter of the spirit world. By the same alchemical logic, the rarefication of an Indian-inscribed nature was thought to yield Native American spirits, who circulated in and through the nation's new machines. This narrative has continued to shape the metaphysical imaginary, even as the popularity of Spiritualism has declined, reflecting a sustained meditation on the ultimate meaning of industrialization in America. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tailoring services to address patients' spiritual needs is widely recognized to be an important component of service provision in health care settings. Yet, despite the growth of the Asian American population, little research has examined predictors of Asian American patients' satisfaction with this process. To address this gap, the present study employed a national sample of Asian Americans (N = 2,102) to identify predictors of satisfaction with the manner in which their spiritual needs were addressed during hospitalization. The results indicate that nursing, visitors, the discharge process, room quality, and food service played significant roles in satisfactorily addressing Asian American patients' spiritual needs. The implications are discussed for social workers as key players in the health care team and administrators of the discharge process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Spiritualism in the United States, focusing on the period after the U.S. Civil War when images of the assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln were widely available in popular culture. The 1870 meeting between former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, a strong believer in the occult, with spirit photographer William Mumler in Boston, Massachusetts is recounted. Other topics include sisters Kate and Maggie Fox notable for communicating with the dead, the 1869 novel "The Gates Ajar" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, and the social impact of large-scale loss and grief due to the Civil War on the American public.

American spiritualism and the oil industry developed around the same time and in relatively close geographic proximity. Both nineteenth-century phenomena were invested in a belief in the unseen, whether in the form of deceased loved ones or of underground oil reserves. Spiritualists such as Abraham James turned to the oil industry because of its lucrative financial opportunities and because of its potential to demonstrate the “practical” applications of spiritualism and Harmonial philosophy. Spiritualism offered an alternative to evangelical Christian and classical republican conceptions of industry, and a vibrant communication network through which events in the oil fields could be related to the general public. Reading accounts of James's work as an “oil wizard” reveals the industrial aspirations of spiritualism and the psychometric aspects of the oil industry, both of which have been largely erased in twentieth-century historiography. Spiritualist publications, newspapers, technical manuals, and popular accounts of the oil industry throughout the nineteenth century produced James as a new kind of male medium, capable of meeting the exigencies of the oil fields. He proved infinitely reproducible as an agent of “practical spiritualism” and was discussed alongside the other drillers, operators, laborers, teamsters, and investors at work in the oil region. As petroleum geology began to establish itself as a discipline in the early twentieth century, accounts of the early oil industry reframed James, along with other practitioners of divination, as an amusing, if somewhat embarrassing, anomaly in an attempt to distinguish the modern “scientific” oil industry from its chaotic and superstitious beginnings. While later historians have offered a more sympathetic reading of divination's role in the oil fields, James and his Harmonial wells have largely disappeared from the historical record. Yet, despite scientific innovation and revisionist history, the oil industry still bears traces of its psychometric past and must contend with the ways in which its future is dependent on successfully channeling the unseen. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Patience Worth, a British Puritan girl who lived and died sometime in the seventeenth century, produced a prolific four million words in the form of novels, plays, poems, prayers, and short stories. “Produced” is the best word for what she did; we certainly can't say she “wrote” them. We can't, in fact, say that Patience Worth existed at all. But neither can we comfortably say that Pearl Pollard Curran (1883–1937) wrote the material in question, though she is usually credited as its author. Between 1913 and 1937, Curran (Fig. 1), a St. Louis, Missouri, housewife, spoke these four million words aloud (often in an idiosyncratic, pseudo-Shakespearean dialect) with the aid of a Ouija board and a planchette. A series of secretaries transcribed what she said: Curran claimed that Worth was a thwarted authoress who had long been searching from beyond the grave for a suitable host and that she had selected Curran as her channel. Some of the material she (they?) generated was ultimately published with the assistance of Casper S. Yost (1863–1941), editor of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and founder of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Intrepid librarians have cataloged this perplexing material in ways that attempt to account for its convoluted provenance: “Hope Trueblood, by Patience Worth, communicated through Mrs. John H. Curran, edited by Casper S. Yost, published by Henry Holt and Company, 1918.” Questions of authorship, ownership, and voice are central to this perplexing body of work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines today's functioning of Christian seminaries. In contemporary America, the overwhelming percentage of seminaries focus on student intellectual development and theological accuracy. The author observes, however, that such an emphasis is a major departure from seminary historical practices in the United States and is contrary to the primary goals of the future ministers themselves and the congregations they serve. Evidence is presented that suggests that seminaries should return to more spiritually and practically based practices that are more in tune with the needs of both the future ministers themselves and their congregations. The author recommends steps that can be taken to accomplish this change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay discusses African-American author Harriet E. Wilson's involvement in the U.S. spiritualist movement in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late-19th century. Wilson worked as a medium in Boston following the publication of her novel "Our Nig," as evidenced by references to the author in the spiritualist newspaper "Banner of Light." The novelist's spiritualist lecture tours are explained, as is her work with the Children's Progressive Lyceum. She also later started her own lyceum.

This article examines the engagement of Islam by a certain family of religious movements, which I term 'Scientific Religion', that developed in the United States during the nineteenth century. Not only was Scientific Religion a religious matrix in which Islam was regularly portrayed in a positive light, but also more Scientific Religionists took on an Islamic identity than any other group of Muslim sympathizers. This was due to the fact that, unlike many of the more mainstream liberal religions, Scientific Religion did not rule out the possibility that exclusive commitment to one specific traditional religious identity could be used to promote Scientific Religion values. In fact, the largest and most prominent US Islamic-identity convert groups of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were significantly influenced by Scientific Religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses the use of Atlantic African spiritualist practices by the fictional character Jim, a slave, in the novel "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. Twain utilized blackface minstrelsy imagery in order to depict these spiritualist leanings. Minstrelsy often relied on stereotypes attached to African American slaves. The author contends that Twain used minstrel imagery to make his work more accessible to a white American audience. She argues that Jim's belief in spiritualism represents a pan-African culture that is deeply embedded in the overall culture, black or white, of the United States. The character Huck Finn also demonstrates knowledge of African culture.

In recent years, the study of spiritualism and occultism has been proposed as a key to understand the political, social and cultural issues of nineteenth-century America. While the position of spiritualism's supporters has been the subject of most accounts, however, sources that critically questioned the spiritualist claims have been usually left aside. In this article, I will rely on this extremely rich body of sources, in order to understand how the debate about spiritualism played an essential role in the shaping of sceptical perspectives in nineteenth-century America. Focusing in particular on anti-spiritualist performances played on the stage by professional magicians and on psychological writings that questioned the phenomena of the spiritualist seances, I will argue that in both contexts the ‘spirit medium’ came to be understood as a performer, and the sitters as spectators. As a critical reading of texts such as film theory pioneer Hugo Münsterberg's 1891 ‘Psychology and Mysticism’ may suggest, the exposure of spiritualist trickery shaped a discourse on perception and sensorial delusion that anticipated in many ways later debates on cinematic spectatorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During an initial period of rapid expansion, American Spiritualists did not form churches or settle ministers. As a result, something other than numbers and locations of churches and ministers must chart the 19th-century rise of this religious movement. Fortunately, the leading Spiritualist newspaper of the period, the Banner of Light, published extensive lists of public meetings, lectures, and prospective lecturers. In addition, both the and the newspapers published early lists of their subscription agents. Even though they do not directly address the central Spiritualist activity of the séance, these lists offer a detailed view of where and when the initial and rapid growth of American Spiritualist activity occurred. Data gathered from these lists put explanations about the rise of this 19th-century Spiritualist movement on a better empirical foundation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latinos comprise a diverse ethnic group in the United States, yet central concepts describing Latinos persist. The purpose of this study was to assess the degree to which Latinos agree with the statements found in the marriage and family therapy (MFT) literature used to describe Latinos and Latino families, as well as their help-seeking attitudes and experiences. Research questions were derived from five constructs used to describe Latinos: familism, personalism, sense of hierarchy, spiritualism, and fatalism (Ho in Family therapy with ethnic minorities. Sage, Newbury, CA, ; Ho et al. in Family therapy with ethnic minorities, (2nd ed.). Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, ). Overall, participants agreed with most of the statements pertaining to familism and personalism. However, mixed results were found for the constructs related to sense of hierarchy, spiritualism, and fatalism, as well as for participants’ help-seeking attitudes and behaviors. Latinos in this sample sought mental health professionals. However, MFTs were not sought as frequently as psychiatrists, psychologists, and clergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A criticism is presented of the television series "The Wire" in which the author examines the use of the framing soundtrack of musician Tom Waits' "Way Down in the Hole" as a vehicle for expressing black spirituality and the Black Church. The author argues black spirituality and the Black Church are marginalized by the show's emphasis on Baltimore, Maryland's public, social, and transportation institutions and the song creates a paratextual narrative that embodies this marginalization.

This article presents examples of materials about early American spiritualism in the virtual library Google Books (http://books.google.com/). The library includes books such as John W. Edmonds and George T. Dexter's Spiritualism (1853), Eliab W. Capron's Modern Spiritualism (1855), Robert Dale Owen's Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1860), Benjamin Coleman's Spiritualism in America (1861), and Uriah Clark's Plain Guide to Spiritualism (1863). Digital libraries such as this one give us free access to bibliographical materials of great importance to the history of spiritualism that were difficult to find some years back. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ArtScroll--a major contemporary Orthodox Jewish publishing house based in Brooklyn, New York--offers a compelling case for studying the role of materiality in religious print culture. This essay draws upon actor-network theory to examine the "material agency" of key ArtScroll publications, such as prayer books, Bibles, and cookbooks, showing how these artifacts play an active role within various arenas of Jewish social life, from public prayer to domestic display to kitchen labor. By focusing on the role of book covers, binding materials, and graphic icons in the constitution of ArtScroll's material agency, this essay explores how these devices help to define patterns of ritual performance and consumer lifestyles and how they contribute to struggles over institutional identity and the politics of Jewish authenticity. By examining the actual processes of distribution of actions among people end their books, this analysis complicates the stereotypical image of Jews as a "people of the book" and challenges sweeping claims about Jewish text-centrism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the taxonomies of ritual mixing. It offers a history of ritual mixing and examines the possible role of ritual mixing on the religious syncretism particularly on the three distinguishable levels such as the individual, professional and institutional. The author relates her first experience with ritual mixing as she studied childbirth rituals and conducted a study on healing rituals in the U.S.

A bereavement ritual observed during anthropological fieldwork in Peru gives basis to this article which asserts that bereavement has become an incomplete rite of passage. The article reviews the role of ritual and rites of passage, examines other anthropologic examples of death and bereavement rituals, and identifies the lack of post-funeral ritual for many bereaved individuals in the United States. While funerary rituals which end with the funeral and burial of the dead are helpful in providing immediate structure for the bereaved, they are not congruent with the long-term emotional needs and reconstruction of meaning within grief. The author acknowledges value of both private ritual and reunions of the community of mourners, and recommends that bereavement counselors and/or the funeral industry offer to help bereaved construct a "ritual of remembrance and new meaning" after time has allowed them to move along in meaning reconstruction processes of making sense, finding benefits, and identity change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines a practice commonly associated with American political elections in the nineteenth century—the building of large bonfires by gangs of young boys on the night of the vote—in order to make a larger point about the meaning that an election ritual communicates to a voting public. I argue that the ritual message that elections send to public is more fluid, even contradictory, than is often acknowledged. The election night bonfire operated as a symbol of the polysemic nature of the election ritual for nineteenth century urban publics. Its disappearance can be associated with a more general attempt on the part of American political elites to control the meaning of politics in American democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children in public schools challenge people’s conceptions of them by talking about their spiritualities and spiritual practices. Based on a one-year multicultural feminist critical narrative inquiry, this article examines how Black and Latina/o first grade children co-researchers interview family members to think about their beliefs, encourage others, and to acquire more spiritual knowledge . I provide three counterstories in which children choose a mother, an older sister, and a younger brother to interview. These counterstories demonstrate children’s diverse literacies and spiritual practices, and families’ involvement in children’s lives. I discuss implications for educational practices in support of Black and Latina/o children and their families. I highlight ways pedagogical practices can be critiqued and transformed in order to better support children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In concentrating on spiritualism’s mediums and intellectual captains, scholars have paid little attention to the movement’s meaning to average séance‐goers. An investigation of spiritualism in nineteenth‐century California and Nevada – and especially in San Francisco – shows that mediums offered their patrons a valuable social product by tying together religion with entertainment and therapy. In doing so, spiritualists created a cultural technology of ‘spirit materialization’ that prefigured the electronic technology of spirit materialization in the twentieth century – telephone, film, radio, television. Spiritualists also helped create a therapeutic culture that prefigured psychotherapy. In reconciling Americans to the transience of nineteenth‐century social life, in offering them new conceptions of family and community, and by setting the stage for modern therapeutic culture and mass entertainment, Spiritualism became both a bridge to modernity and part of the infrastructure of modernity. The tension between religion, therapy, and entertainment, however, propelled spiritualism in contrary directions and ensured that it would not retain its popularity in the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first nationally representative study of spiritual transformations documents that spiritual/religious change is a common and powerful experience in America. About half of all adult Americans report having had such an experience. Such change is strongly related to current religious beliefs and behaviors, but shows little relationship to most nonreligious demographics. A series of open-ended items indicates that the leading causes of spiritual/religious change are normal religious activity and having had a serious personal problem, most often an illness or accident to oneself or someone close or the death of someone close. A strengthening of faith is the most common consequence of this experience. This is followed by changes in character (e.g., being more understanding, helpful) and the stopping of perceived bad habits (e.g., drinking, partying). The lasting importance of such spiritual/religious change is also shown by closed-ended measures and the predictive power that the variable has in explaining various beliefs and behaviors even when controlling for other religious variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 400 fastest‐growing churches (based on the percentage change in average worship attendance in the previous five years) in the Presbyterian Church (USA), a mainline Protestant denomination, were invited to take part in the US Congregational Life Survey. Completed surveys were received from 19,033 worshipers in 93 fast‐growing churches. These fast‐growing churches were compared to a random sample of 523 PC(USA) churches that also took part in the survey to examine factors related to church growth. Results reveal that measures based on the input of worshipers in each church significantly distinguish between the two groups. Churches are more likely to be growing churches when: (1) larger percentages of worshipers are growing spiritually; (2) the percentage of worshipers who started attending in the previous five years is larger; and (3) larger percentages of worshipers see their leaders as empowering. In addition, churches that were larger five years before the survey were more likely to have grown in the intervening years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worshipers in a national random sample of 309 conservative and mainline Protestant congregations in the USA completed surveys during religious services in 2001. An index was created to capture a dimension of congregational identity: worshipers’ vision for their congregation’s future and their commitment to it. Results show that worshipers in conservative Protestant congregations are more optimistic about their congregation’s future than worshipers in mainline Protestant congregations. In both types of congregations, positive views about the future are associated with higher levels of worshiper involvement in the congregation. However, in conservative Protestant congregations a positive future‐focused identity is also linked to greater spiritual vitality. In mainline Protestant congregations, a positive future‐focused identity is more highly related to greater community involvement by worshipers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention to culturally specific rituals germane to end-of-life rituals are important for the nurse who is delivering culturally competent care. The Patient Self-Determination Act implemented in the United States in 1991 brought with it some specific assumptions of values related to end-of-life care involving patient autonomy, informed decision making, truth telling and control over the dying process (USC, 1990). The assumptions and values assumed in this act are not necessarily shared by persons in the United States who are from a minority culture, particularly one other than White of European descent. This manuscript considers the values of the Patient Self-Determination Act passed in the United States and specific cultural beliefs which may pose a conflict for the care giver in the delivery of culturally competent care. The Giger and Davdihizar (2004) Transcultural Assessment Model is used as a way to assess patient and the family in an effort to plan culturally appropriate care that recognizes the uniqueness of each individual at the end of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The uses of the faculty of mediumship, beyond supporting evidence of psychic phenomena and proof of the afrerlife, are explained in light of the Spiritist Doctrine. In addition, Spiritist groups are becoming more numerous in numbers and more organized in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the critical issues related to the existence of divine healing in psychotherapy. The flurry of astounding discoveries in medicine of curing illness and eradicating seemingly invincible diseases doused the efficacy of divine healing. A meta-analysis of 29 earlier studies involving approximately 126,000 patients indicated that the odds of survival were significantly greater for people with higher scores on measures of religious participation than for people who had lower scores, even after controlling for a variety of social and health-related variables. It is important to examine any relationship between religion or spirituality, and experiences such as divine healing because there is empirical support for the relationship, and there seems to be incongruity between what many Americans think and what professionals often believe. The article informs that it has been scientifically documented that persons who are religious or pray for divine healing are more likely to show remission of depression or cancer than their counterparts, but science cannot present any evidence that helps us understand the nature or process of healing.

This article focuses on finding an analogy between sacrificial rituals and a contemporary practice that makes intuitive sense. On September 11, 2001 many Americans found themselves in need of symbols to grasp. All over the country, the destruction of the World Trade Center, the temple of material progress and success, was a blow to the American sense of self immediately, Americans rushed to do the most meaningful act they could conjure: give blood to the victims. Americans recognized that the attack on September 11 had the intention of draining the life energy of the nation, and that it had the very real potential for doing so. By offering the strength within their own bodies, Americans tried to demonstrate that their collective energy would not be drained.

Objectives: Religion and spirituality provide the means by which many individuals and their families cope with illness. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that health outcomes may be influenced by patients' religious beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. Methods: We examined three representative nonspecialty journals (Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine) between 1998 and 2000 for references to the role of religion/spirituality. Of the 2,385 studies found, only 20 (0.8%) examined some aspect of spirituality (n = 5), religion (n = 13), or both (n = 2). Spirituality was treated as a dependent variable in all seven articles in which it was studied. Results: The effect of religion was analyzed in 11 of the 15 articles in which it was measured, and its effect was statistically significant in 8 of the 11 studies in which it was analyzed. Conclusions: Although religious variables were a key element of most of the studies in which they were measured, overall, little attention appears to be paid to these concepts in general medical journals, even though they may be useful for refining outcomes research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it sacred or secular? Was it used for ritual purposes in the past? How would it be used for ritual purposes in the present? Such are the questions raised by a recent dispute over a Hawaiian object (ki'i). The dispute erupted when a group of Hawaiian representatives discovered that the Roger Williams Museum intended to sell the object in question. Hawaiians sought repatriation of the ki'i under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), and the dispute was heard twice by the NAGPRA Review Committee. This article explores the dispute and analyzes discourses of "tradition" utilized by both parties. Primary attention is paid to Hawaiians' claims, particularly the way in which they linked aspects of cultural history to present conflicts concerning land issues and sovereignty. Engaging recent literature concerning the theorization of tradition in the Pacific, the article concludes by arguing that Hawaiian claims about the ki'i, though seemingly spurious at points, express the suppleness of tradition in ways that move beyond the mere invention of tradition, provoking us to contemplate traditional sources of novelty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the shared characteristics of hysteria and spiritualist mediumship in the U.S. Birth of spiritualism; Discovery of mesmerism by Franz Anton Mesmer; Relationship between hypnotism and hysteria; Details of the study 'Studies in Hysteria, by Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud.

The article focuses on the deterritorialization and reterritorialization of the Orisha religion in Africa, Nigeria, Cuba and the United States. There is a relationship between religion and territory in the Oyo empire in the West Africa. The paper looks at Orisha worship became established in Cuba. It did not disappear, but became a religion of slaves, and this transplantation provides a good illustration of the dialectal relations between civilization and society. The paper focuses on the introduction of Santeria into the U.S. and its development there. With Cuban emigration to the United States, other type of relationship between civilization and the society have been established. Santeria is recontextualized in a multicultural society segmented into communities. It has also penetrated the black American community. Santeria can be defined as a system of local cults whose essential element related to the adoration of the Santo, i.e. the original deity born of syncretism between African and Catholic beliefs. Santerism arose from the association of spiritism and Santeria produced in the centers of Puerto Rican spiritism in New York. Santerismo has smuggled in some practices of Orisha worship while still likening it to dangerous witchcraft.

Discusses the loss of religious allegiance among the youth of the Oneida Community in Syracuse, New York in 1848. Factors that contributed to the breakup of the community; Changes sought by Theodore R. Noyes and Frank Wayland-Smith, sons of founding community members, for the religious commune of the community; Impact of Noyes' plan to allow the community to explore spiritualism.

While most religions provide a meaning system that helps people cope with personal problems, there has been relatively little research on how and why men and women seek religious consolation and comfort. Data from a national longitudinal survey, Americans' Changing Lives, Waves I and II, were used to examine whether physical and mental health problems precipitate seeking religious consolation. The findings indicate that seeking religious consolation is most likely among those who identify with and practice a religion suggesting that religious consolation intensifies among religious persons. Chronic (non-serious) conditions were associated with increased religious seeking over time, and cancer was associated with higher religious seeking, especially among women. Depression was associated with greater seeking of religious consolation among both men and women. The results reveal clearly that women are more likely than men to seek religious consolation, but men seek religious consolation for a wider range of health and situational problems (e.g., unemployment). The finding also demonstrate the importance of considering the role of religious consolation in studies of religion and health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the reformative nature of 19th century spiritualism in the United States. Belief in immortality and the ability of the dead to communicate with the living; Association of spiritualism and certain reform movements; Change of focus from phenomenal spiritualism to philosophical spiritualism; Empirical nature of spirit communication.

BACKGROUND. Issues in end-of-life care in the United States are receiving increasing discussion in light of the aging population and the documented need to improve the quality of care for dying patients and their families. Family practice faculty are in a key position to contribute valuable information, given their missions to model necessary values, attitudes, and skills and directly teach quality end-of-life care. METHODS. We conducted interviews with 20 family practice faculty members in 3 residencies, and verbatim transcripts were coded by the authors. We held a second round of 12 interviews in 3 different residencies to check validity and expand the themes emerging from the original interviews. Corrected and elaborated themes were presented to focus groups from 2 other residencies. RESULTS. Themes of reaching consensus; establishing a treatment plan; mobilizing a caregiving system; dealing with relationships with patients, families, and the treatment team; and issues of personal domain were described as important in end-of-life care. CONCLUSIONS. The discussion of quality end-of-life care and how to provide it emphasized traditional medical concerns of diagnosis and prognosis, treatment, and caregiver support. Opportunities for innovation and improvement exist within the less explored areas of the relationship between the provider, patient, and family, and issues of personal meaning and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies a letter on spiritualism sent by R.T. Mason, a prominent figure in Wisconsin during the 19th century, to Wisconsin State Historical Society founder Lyman Copeland Draper. Mason's investigation of spiritualism; Mason's reasons for leaving the Church and turning to spiritualism.