Lincoln and Spirutalism

[loetar44]

(05-24-2015 05:06 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Kees, if you read through these sites (you can click on each of the charlatans for more info), this might help:
http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/insi...ubjectID=2

Thank you Eva. However, perhaps I formulated my question wrong, but I know that Mary attended a lot of séances and that historians say that President Lincoln only attended one (or maybe a few) séances, only to humor his grieving wife. This is the most widely spread opinion, as is also stated in the article you mentioned.

But Michelle L. Hamilton wrote in her thesis for MA in History on November 14, 2013 the following: “In February 1863 a group of individuals gathered at a residence in Georgetown a suburb of Washington, D.C. These people had gathered to take part in a spiritualist séance. The spirits were ready for the party and demonstrated their power by causing a piano to levitate. Amused by the incident, one of the guests’s decided to climb up on the piano to see if he could prevent it from levitating. This did not dissuade the spirits and the piano continued to rise up and down as the piano was being played. While the scene might have the aura of fantasy, the séance did occur and the person that decided to sit on the piano was none other than President Abraham Lincoln. Brought to the séance by his wife Mary, the President was intrigued by the events that he saw that night, BUT IT WAS NOT HIS FIRST SÉANCE AND IT WOULD NOT BE HIS LAST.

I have not read the thesis but Hamilton suggests that Abraham Lincoln attended a lot of seances and that he believed in it. Of course Lincoln’s friends were horrified and also for modern historians and scholars it is not possible that such an epic figure as Lincoln would have willingly participated or even believed in communications with the spirits of the dead. Historians have taken statements that Lincoln was not interested in spiritualism or any other metaphysical beliefs as definitive proof that all claims he did were exaggerations. But where is the real proof? That question intrigues me.

And if Lincoln did believe, why are his metaphysical beliefs generally viewed sympathetically, while Mary’s similar beliefs are nearly universally condemned...