Spiritualism
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A doctrine, opposing materialism, that claims transcendency of the divine being, the altogether spiritual character of reality and the value of inwardness of consciousness. countable, uncountable
"What is called spiritualism should, I think, be called a mental species of materialism."
- 2 A belief that spirits of the dead have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living, providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God. uncountable
- 3 concern with things of the spirit wordnet
- 4 A belief that the dead communicate with the living, especially through a medium. Used in a broader sense than spiritism. countable, uncountable
"I wish it were possible to impress this truth upon people who rush into spiritualism from curiosity, or who try "table rapping" or some similar phenomenon "for fun"."
- 5 the belief that the spirits of dead people can communicate with people who are still alive (especially via a medium) wordnet
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- 6 The quality or state of being spiritual. countable, uncountable
- 7 (theology) any doctrine that asserts the separate existence of God wordnet
Example
More examples"The theory of reincarnation is not an invention of spiritualism, on the contrary, you can find this idea in the theory of transmigration of Pythagoras."
Etymology
From spiritual + -ism. In Allan Kardec's book The Spirits Book (1857) (Le Livre des Esprits in the original French), in which a distinction between spiritism and spiritualism is defined.
From spiritual + -ism.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.