"Death, Where Is Thy Sting?" : British spiritualists and the First World War
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation examines the widespread yet underexamined phenomenon of spiritualism in Britain during and immediately following the First World War. While contemporary and historiographical interpretations of the war tend to emphasize its futility and senselessness, this dissertation highlights a population of Britons who, in their belief that death was not extinction, managed to find meaning and consolation in the midst of a seemingly irredeemable conflict. Primarily cultural in its approach, the dissertation draws on a range of sources, including séance transcripts, spirit photographs, letters, diaries, and spiritualist publications. The dissertation examines the complex ways in which spiritualism incorporated and refigured elements of British culture. It highlights the women at the forefront of wartime spiritualism who, by developing their own psychic faculties, sought direct communion with their dead. While the patriarchal British state was sending their loved ones to die and dictating their burials, spiritualist women re-domesticated death, re-feminized mourning, and found novel forms of agency. Meanwhile, séance rituals also provided a way to re-imagine elements of the traditional Victorian "good death." In the religious realm, spiritualism was, for some, an alternative to orthodox Christianity; for others, Christianity and spiritualism were complementary and compatible, with spiritualism providing objective assurance of life after death at a time when the Church's response to the war seemed insufficient. Wartime spiritualists also had complex and contradictory understandings of colonial subjects and racial others, particularly in their conceptions of the far and Middle East: many spiritualists revered the East as a paragon of spiritual evolution—yet with this evolution came a certain naïveté and childishness. Mediums channeled not only dead soldiers, but also Eastern spirits who delivered psychic wisdom in broken English. Though sometimes unruly, these subaltern spirits were always eventually subdued, reaffirming British supremacy at a time of unstable imperial politics and colonial agitation. Finally, wartime spiritualism not only reconnected the living and the dead, but also provided a philosophical and theological justification for the conflict. Spirits relayed redemptive prophecies, often socialist in tone, declaring that the war would result in the spiritual evolution of humanity, the end of sectarianism and national strife, and the dawn of universal brotherhood
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Temple, Murphy Thomas |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Satia, Priya |
| Thesis advisor | Satia, Priya |
| Thesis advisor | Como, David R, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Stokes, Laura, 1974- |
| Degree committee member | Como, David R, 1970- |
| Degree committee member | Stokes, Laura, 1974- |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of History. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Murphy Thomas Temple |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of History |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Murphy Thomas Temple
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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