With the average life expectancy of white people in 1850 being only 25.5 years, death was an ever-present shadow over society. People were confronted with smallpox, dysentery, cholera and all manner ...

NEW YORK — While the tradition of consulting seers and oracles for insights into what happens after death is as old as the ancient Greeks and the Hebrew scriptures (in 1 Samuel 28, King Saul seeks out ...

Spiritualism, the belief that the living can communicate with the dead, gained popularity in the early 20th century. The religion's growth was fueled by the immense loss of life from World War I and ...

"Portions of this work have previously appeared as 'Spiritualism among Creoles of Color in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: The Life and Times of Henry Louis Rey, ' Louisiana History, 55 ...