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When radio broadcasting began in the early 1920s, the radio was a magic box aglow with the future, drawing humanity into a new age. Some thought it would dissolve the distance between time and place, others that human minds would become transparent, one tuned to another. Performers claiming psychic powers turned radio broadcasting into a fabulous money machine. These "mentalists," born from vaudeville, circuses, sideshows, and the Spiritualist and New Thought movements of the mid-late 19th century, used the language of wireless technology to explain their ability to see the past, present, and future. Casting their mystical knowledge as a scientifically honed craft, these mentalists persuaded millions to pay for dubious advice until governmental and public pressures forced them off the air. This book is a history of over 25 performers who practiced their art behind studio microphones during the early years of radio broadcasting, from about 1920 to 1940. Here, laid out for the first time, is the tale of how they made cash rain from the heavens and harnessed the sensation of the radio in search of wealth, health, love, and success.
During the 1850s, a surprising number of Americans believed that the spirits of the deceased could be contacted through trance mediums and seances. Many of the radical leaders of the anti-slavery movement, women's rights, the temperance movement, prison reform and labor reform were involved in spiritualism. Among the liberal religious denominations, Universalism was the one most affected by this movement. This amazing chapter in American religious history present a vast array of characters -- visionaries; prophets and inventors; pioneers in psychic healing and public lecturers who took to the podium, while in trance, to deliver communications from the spirits and to simultaneously agitate for reforms in society. Drawing from journals, newspapers, manuscripts and the personal papers of spiritualists and their opponents, The Other Side of Salvation is a fascinating read for anyone interested in America's religious history. Book jacket.
I created this book to convey what many people feel that they have been misguided by the church that promised to take care of them, no matter what you believe, it's all about believing and treating others well.
Bronze Medalist, 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the US Northeast -Best Regional Non-Fiction Category Honorable Mention, 2015 Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards in the Religion Category From 1776 to 1914, an amazing collection of prophets, mediums, sects, cults, utopian communities, and spiritual leaders arose in Upstate New York. Along with the best known of these, such as the Shakers, Mormons, and Spiritualists, this book explores more than forty other spiritual leaders or groups, some of them virtually unknown, but all of them fascinating. The author uncovers common threads that characterize these homegrown spiritualities, including roots in Western esoteric traditions, liberation from the psychological pressures of dogmatic Christianity, a preoccupation with sex, and involvement in the radical reform movements of the day. In addition to maps and photographs of surviving buildings and monuments, the book also features a gazetteer of sites listing 150 locations connected to these groups, which may be used as a helpful travel guide to the region.
"Teacher, preacher, soldier, spy: the civil wars of John R. Kelso is an account of an extraordinary nineteenth-century American life. A schoolteacher and Methodist preacher in Missouri, in the Civil War Kelso earned fame fighting rebel guerrillas. Seeking personal revenge as well as defending the Union, he vowed to slay twenty-five rebels with his own hand, and when he did so he was elected to Congress. In the House of Representatives during Reconstruction, he was one of the first to call for the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. After his term in Congress, personal tragedy drove him west, where he became a freethinking lecturer and author, an atheist, a Spiritualist, and, before his ...
In A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 2: The African American Islamic Renaissance, 1920-1975 Patrick D. Bowen offers an in-depth account of African American Islam as it developed in the United States during the fifty-five years that followed World War I. Having been shaped by a wide variety of intellectual and social influences, the ‘African American Islamic Renaissance’ appears here as a movement that was characterized by both great complexity and diversity. Drawing from a wide variety of sources—including dozens of FBI files, rare books and periodicals, little-known archives and interviews, and even folktale collections—Patrick D. Bowen disentangles the myriad social and religious factors that produced this unprecedented period of religious transformation.
America's Civil War took a dreadful toll on human lives, and the emotional repercussions were exacerbated by tales of battlefield atrocities, improper burials and by the lack of news that many received about the fate of their loved ones. Amidst widespread religious doubt and social skepticism, spiritualism--the belief that the spirits of the dead existed and could communicate with the living--filled a psychological void by providing a pathway towards closure during a time of mourning, and by promising an eternal reunion in the afterlife regardless of earthly sins. Primary research, including 55 months of the weekly spiritual newspaper, Banner of Light and records of hundreds of soldiers' and family members' spirit messages, reveals unique insights into battlefield deaths, the transition to spirit life, and the motivations prompting ethereal communications. This book focuses extensively on Spiritualism's religious, political, and commercial activities during the war years, as well as the controversies surrounding the faith, strengthening the connection between ante- and postbellum studies of Spiritualism.
The Buddha wanted his students to investigate, to see for themselves whether what he said were true. As a student of the Buddha, the Dalai Lama promotes the same spirit of investigation, and recognizes that new approaches are needed to allow seekers in the West to experience the relevance of the liberating message in their own lives. This volume stands as an introduction to Buddhism, and provides a foundation for the volumes to come.