page_title: Spiritualism (beliefs)
section_title: Christian Spiritualism
hierarchical_section_title: Spiritualism (beliefs) / Beliefs / Christian Spiritualism
caption_attribution_description: English: Collection: A. D. White Architectural Photographs, Cornell University Library Accession Number: 15/5/3090.00232 Title: First Spiritual Temple, Boston Architect: Henry Hobson Richardson (American, 1838-1886) Photograph date: ca. 1885-ca. 1895 Building Date: 1884-1885 Location: North and Central America: United States; Massachusetts, Boston Materials: albumen print Image: 5 3/4 x 7 5/8 in.; 14.605 x 19.3675 cm Style: Romanesque Revival Provenance: Transfer from the College of Architecture, Art and Planning Persistent URI: http://library24.library.cornell.edu/collections/adw/74547-10040055.html There are no known U.S. copyright restrictions on this image. The digital file is owned by the Cornell University Library which is making it freely available with the request that, when possible, the Library be credited as its source.
context_page_description: Spiritualism is a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at least two fundamental substances, matter and spirit. This very broad metaphysical distinction is further developed into many and various forms by the inclusion of details about what spiritual entities exist such as a soul, the afterlife, spirits of the dead, deities and mediums; as well as details about the nature of the relationship between spirit and matter. It may also refer to the philosophy, doctrine, or religion pertaining to a spiritual aspect of existence.
  It is also a term commonly used for various psychic or paranormal practices and beliefs recorded throughout humanity's history and in a variety of cultures.
  Spiritualistic traditions appear deeply rooted in shamanism and perhaps are one of the oldest forms of religion. Mediumship is a modern form of shamanism and such ideas are very much like those developed by Edward Burnett Tylor in his theory of animism, in which there are other parallel worlds to our own, though invisible to us and not accessible to us in our state. A psychic is to be one of the connecting links between these worlds.
context_section_description: Spiritualism has been related to the practices of early Christianity  and has developed into an additional form of Christian Spiritualism, e.g. the still active First Spiritual Temple in the USA founded in 1883 and the Greater World Christian Spiritualist League (later to become the Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association) in the UK which was founded in 1931.
  Foremost in the movement towards Christian Spiritualism in the United Kingdom was one of the leading pioneers in the spiritualism movement, medium and Reverend William Stainton Moses. He was a member of the BNAS (British National Association of Spiritualists), vice-president of the Society for Psychic Research and launched the London Spiritualist Alliance which later became the College of Psychic Studies.
  Contemporary Christian Spiritualist denominations also include those within the American Spiritual Church Movement pioneered by Leafy Anderson, such as the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ, founded in 1925,  Pentecostal Spiritual Assemblies of Christ Worldwide, founded in 1938, whose motto is "Pentecostal by Birth, Spiritual by Lifestyle, Apostolic by Experience, and Christian by Demand. A Spiritual Church... On a Spiritual Foundation... Walking in the Supernatural...," and Universal Hagar's Spiritual Church, founded in the 1920s.
caption: First Spiritual Temple, Boston, Massachusetts, albumen print, ca. 1885–1895
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