Spiritualism - Dictionary Definition and Overview

Spiritualism :  (noun)
1: (theology) any doctrine that asserts the separate existence of God
2: the belief that the spirits of dead people can communicate with people who are still alive (especially via a medium)
3: concern with things of the spirit [syn: spirituality, otherworldliness]

Based on WordNet 2.0

Spiritualism : \Spir"it*u*al*ism\, n. 1. The quality or state of being spiritual.

2. (Physiol.) The doctrine, in opposition to the materialists, that all which exists is spirit, or soul --
that what is called the external world is either a succession of notions impressed on the mind by the Deity, as maintained by Berkeley, or else the mere educt of the mind itself, as taught by Fichte.

3. A belief that departed spirits hold intercourse with mortals by means of physical phenomena, as by rappng, or during abnormal mental states, as in trances, or the like, commonly manifested through a person of special susceptibility, called a medium; spiritism; the doctrines and practices of spiritualists.

What is called spiritualism should, I think, be called a mental species of materialism. --R. H. Hutton.

Based on WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003)
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