But Spiritualism ultimately was not an institutional religion by and for “great men” like Whitman and James; it was a messy, homespun set of beliefs that were embraced and spread mainly by women, and so American history has downplayed it as aberrant and foolish rather than accept its place in our national psyche. As a political and social movement, Spiritualism has become a ghost itself, a legacy of feminist liberation and belief without dogma that still haunts the land.
