During Spiritualism’s heyday,
philanthropists, political activists, (including vegetarians and animal welfare
activists), and all kinds of intellectuals and Establishment figures believed
that spirits in the Afterlife could be contacted to aid learning and help those
in the physical world live a better life. Queen Victoria and the royal family
are said to be ardent believers. Spiritualism’s ‘Pope’, the flamboyant
socialist Hannen Swaffer (who opposed capital punishment and always wore a hat)
was an ardent campaigner for Spiritualism.
