How will these resources help you?

In the 1840s, two American sisters claimed they could communicate with a ghost through messages tapped on a table. What began as an entertaining parlour game quickly spread on an international scale, and became a new religion whose acts of worship included séances and spirit-communication: Spiritualism. After World War I, mass public grief gave Spiritualism a heightened importance as dead sons were seemingly brought back to life in their families’ homes. But with this new belief system came equal scepticism, and fierce theological and legal battles were fought. These resources will take your students along the timeline of Spiritualism’s rise from the mid-nineteenth century to the aftermath of the Great War, to its decline after the legal trial of Spiritualist medium Helen Duncan in the 1940s. This topic aligns with AQA and Edexcel GCSE specifications regarding the Christian belief in the afterlife, as it discusses a moment in history where this was especially prevalent in society – and a moment where the Christian tradition of heaven wasn’t enough to soothe the pain of bereavement. These resources allow students to explore a seldom-discussed but vital chapter in global religion, and encourages students to think about the moral dilemma embedded in the way Spiritualism both comforted and exploited public grief.