Exploring the Connections Between Religious Experience, Spiritualism, and Women’s Rights

Abstract

Applying a feminist viewpoint to an anthropological analysis of the religion of Spiritualism, the study of religious experience, and the American women’s rights movement shows these worlds to be interconnected.  The objective of this article is to articulate these connections by first describing the foundations of the study of religious experience and the historical background of the American Spiritualist religion and then moving into a discussion of how the women’s rights movement was intertwined with Spiritualism. This piece was part of a larger research project, and the sections included here review key pieces of literature connected to religious experience and Spiritualism which reveal how vital each field has been to the aforementioned women’s rights movement. Ultimately, it is revealed that the three inter-connected worlds of religious experience, Spiritualism, and the women’s rights movement were largely dependent on each other for success in a kind of symbiotic relationship.