spiritualism
[spir-i-choo-uh-liz-uh m]
- the belief or doctrine that the spirits of the dead, surviving after the mortal life, can and do communicate with the living, especially through a person (a medium) particularly susceptible to their influence.
- the practices or phenomena associated with this belief.
- the belief that all reality is spiritual.
- Metaphysics. any of various doctrines maintaining that the ultimate reality is spirit or mind.
- spiritual quality or tendency.
- insistence on the spiritual side of things, as in philosophy or religion.
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Origin of spiritualism
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words for spiritualism
clairvoyance, insight, premonition, presentiment, spiritualism, ESP, parapsychology, pietism, cabalism, cabala, quietism, kabala, telesthesia, cabbalism, ontologism, orphismExamples from the Web for spiritualism
Contemporary Examples of spiritualism
Nevertheless, the triumph of West Coast spiritualism over East Coast secularism has civilization-wide implications.
All three were anxious," Gray writes, "that the rise of Spiritualism would block the advance of scientific materialism.
Historical Examples of spiritualism
Moreover, when he was about thirty, he had busied himself with spiritualism.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
She has a most amazing fund of common-sense and is "down" on Spiritualism to a degree.
Kent Knowles: QuahaugJoseph C. Lincoln
I believe in dreams and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now.
Kent Knowles: QuahaugJoseph C. Lincoln
Science, as a rule, has avoided the subject of Spiritualism.
This is the oldest and still the most popular theory—the theory of spiritualism.
Mind and Motion and MonismGeorge John Romanes
spiritualism
- the belief that the disembodied spirits of the dead, surviving in another world, can communicate with the living in this world, esp through mediums
- the doctrines and practices associated with this belief
- philosophy the belief that because reality is to some extent immaterial it is therefore spiritual
- any doctrine (in philosophy, religion, etc) that prefers the spiritual to the material
- the condition or quality of being spiritual
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for spiritualism
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper