Parapsychology tries to portray itself as a science, but it bears far more resemblance to religion than to physics or traditional psychology. The relationship between parapsychology and religion began right from the start because the field grew out of spiritualism, a 19th century religious movement. It continues today through parallels in the manner with which people hold their beliefs, the refusal to accept the findings of science, and the use of parapsychology to try to prove the existence of a soul.
It is interesting that the origins of parapsychology can be identified with a relatively great degree of precision. Modern parapsychology is a direct outgrowth the 19th and early 20th century preoccupations with spiritualism, or the belief that living human beings can communicate with the spirits of the dead in order to learn more about the afterlife and the future.
Spiritualism, in turn, was a creation of two mischievous girls in Hydesville, New York: Margaret and Kate Fox (and later their manager/sister, Leah). These two girls, apparently bored during March, 1848, began making strange rapping noises with their toes — noises which spooked their superstitious mother. Rather than dissuade their mother from her growing belief that the noises were the creation of spirits, the girls encouraged it — perhaps because it brought them a lot of attention.
That spiritualism would get its start in this region of New York is not surprising. It came to be known as the “Burned-over District,” so-called because it was repeatedly “burned over” by regular religious revivals. Both Mormonism and Christian Science got their start here, and it was also the location for various Shaker settlements and the Oneida Community.
Over time, the Fox sisters’ ability to create sounds grew in sophistication, leading to ever-increasing popularity as they took their show in the road. They exhibited their ability to communicate with spirits to various scientists, believers, and even on stage. Eventually they started charging a dollar per person for private seances, a nice sum for the time, and this earned them a very comfortable lifestyle. Their involvement in spiritualism also broke down social barriers between them an members of the wealthier families: despite they fact that they came from a poor background, they traveled in very rich circles.
The Fox sisters were not treated with completely unbridled credulity — there were quite a few early skeptics, including a few newspapers which demonstrated greater skepticism and critical thinking than is common of newspapers today. Almost all accused the sisters of “jugglery” and “fraud,” and then went further to say that anyone who actually believed the girls were idiots and lunatics. Would you expect to hear similar condemnations of John Edward and his believers today?
However, it was also to newspapers that the Fox sisters owed much of their fame. Specifically, they were indebted to Horace Greeley’s New York Weekly Tribune. Greeley was an avid believer in the authenticity of strange phenomena and was completely convinced of the honesty of the Fox sisters. He spread the news about what they did and the public developed an appetite not simply to read more, but to experience it for themselves.
Where there is a market, there will also be those willing to supply that market, and the same certainly held true for spiritualism. The Fox sisters did not remain alone but were joined by a wide variety of people all over the country who claimed to have similar spiritual powers. Calling themselves mediums, they held seances (for a fee, of course) in which they claimed to communicate with the spirits of the dead. By 1850, a mere two years after everything began, there were perhaps one hundred mediums in New York City alone. By 1860, the number of believers in spiritualism could be numbered in the millions.
