RELIGST158

This course will examine the popular mystical practices of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when millions of people in Europe and America described themselves as spiritualists and shared a recognizable set of practices. These served as a platform for spiritual immediacy guided by the central questions: What is the relationship between seen and unseen? How can the living communicate with the dead? What technologies apply to our inner lives? This course considers the historical emergence of spiritualism, spiritualism and art, spiritualism and technology, and mysticism and women to explore how the invisible became a central metaphor for the ambition to expand and remake the real.