A Long History
Rise of Spiritualism
Industrial Revolution
Industrialism and Ghosts
Post-bellum America
Supernatural and Hope
Supernatural Restores Faith
Ghosts Build Communities
Comfort to Bereaved
Why the Supernatural was Entertaining
Transcending the Real
Ghosts and Mystery
Ghosts and Thrills
Entertainers Cash In
Laughing at Ghosts
Anthony Hopper
Why Were Americans Interested in the Supernatural?
Comfort to the Bereaved
People in all eras have most likely formed strong connections with family
and have often suffered mightily when these loved ones passed away. Americans
living in the latter half of the 19th and the early part of the 20th centuries
were no different. In fact, their suffering was sometimes intensified
by their spiritual doubts. In The Dead Have Never Died, Edward
Randall echoed these concerns:
In the beginning I looked upon the death change with horror. I recall the casket containing the mortal remains of my mother lowered into a grave on a bleak April day, the pitiless rain, the biting winds, the lowering clouds. After the frozen earth had fallen into the open grave, I, a boy, walked alone, and then and there resolved that I would never rest content until I had solved the problem there presented and come to know,--if it was given man to learn,--something of that great change (1).
Randall
was not alone either in his suffering or in his desire to ascertain for
certain whether or not his mother continued to survive in some form. The
popularity of his books and others like it, such as Looking Beyond:
A Souvenir of Love to the Bereft of Every Home by J.O Barrett, demonstrated
that many, post-bellum Americans’ were anxious about the state of
their deceased loved ones (2).
These people no longer worried as much about whether the decedents went
to Heaven or Hell, they fretted more over whether the departed went anywhere.
19
Last update
ghost, supernatural, Spiritualism, antebellum,
medium, materialization,
apparition, gothic, post-bellum, phantom, paranormal, 1800s, 1900s,
Anthony Hopper, literature, growth,
industrialism, needs, psychical, psychic, afterlife, non-material, spirit,
American, United States