spiritualism : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: spiritualism	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for spiritualism
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
spiritualism n (theology) any doctrine that asserts the separate existence of God the belief that the spirits of dead people can communicate with people who are still alive (especially via a medium) concern with things of the spirit Synonym(s): spirituality, spiritualism, spiritism, otherworldliness Antonym(s): worldliness
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Spiritualism \Spir"itualism\, n. 1. The quality or state of being spiritual. 2. (Physiol.) The doctrine, in opposition to the materialists, that all which exists is spirit, or soul -- that what is called the external world is either a succession of notions impressed on the mind by the Deity, as maintained by Berkeley, or else the mere educt of the mind itself, as taught by Fichte. 3. A belief that departed spirits hold intercourse with mortals by means of physical phenomena, as by rappng, or during abnormal mental states, as in trances, or the like, commonly manifested through a person of special susceptibility, called a medium; spiritism; the doctrines and practices of spiritualists. What is called spiritualism* should, I think, be called a mental species of materialism. --R. H. Hutton.