TY - JOUR
AU - Pilbeam, Pamela
AB - 120 R e VI ew S OF BOO k S Laboratories of Faith. Mesmerism, Spiritism and Occultism in Modern France. By John w arne Monroe. Ithaca and l ondon: Cornell University Press. 2008. xi + 293 pp. £29.50. ISBN 978 0 8014 4562 0. New religions abounded in the nineteenth century. The affiliates of Mesmerism, Spiritism and Occultism argued that they were scientists and modernizers, in search of empirical backing for their faiths. This book probes their motivations and their role in religious history. It claims that they were an integral part of the attempt to make religion more personal and meaningful through visions, pilgrimages and cults such as the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary. It also suggests that disenchantment with contemporary culture leads as many as 54% of the French today to believe that Mesmerism is able to effect cures and 16% to hold that spirits can be contacted by mediums in séances. R e VI ew S OF BOO k S 121 Tables turning and/or talking attracted enthusiasm among mid-nineteenth-century left-wingers, such as the renegade Fourierist, Victor Hennequin, who claimed that they spoke for the ‘soul of the earth’. Victor Hugo asserted that Shakespeare, via the 
TI - Laboratories of Faith. Mesmerism, Spiritism and Occultism in Modern France. By John Warne Monroe
JO - French History
DO - 10.1093/fh/crp090
DA - 2010-01-18
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/laboratories-of-faith-mesmerism-spiritism-and-occultism-in-modern-AVC2VH60PA
SP - 120
EP - 122
VL - 24
IS - 1
DP - DeepDyve
ER -