About this item
In the midst of a nineteenth-century boom in spiritual experimentation, the Cercle Harmonique, a remarkable group of African-descended men, practiced Spiritualism in heavily Catholic New Orleans from just before the Civil War to the end of Reconstruction. In this first comprehensive history of the Cercle, Emily Suzanne Clark illuminates how highly diverse religious practices wind in significant ways through American life, culture, and history. Clark shows that the beliefs and practices of Spiritualism helped Afro-Creoles mediate the political and social changes in New Orleans, as free blacks suffered increasingly restrictive laws and then met with violent resistance to suffrage and racial equality. Drawing on fascinating records of actual seance practices, the lives of the mediums, and larger citywide and national contexts, Clark reveals how the messages that the Cercle received from the spirit world offered its members rich religious experiences as well as a forum for political activism inspired by republican ideals.
About the Author
Emily Suzanne Clark is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University. She also serves as the Associate Editor of the *Journal of Southern Religion* and was selected as a Young Scholar of American Religion for the 2016-2017 class at the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture.
Her first book, *A Luminous Brotherhood: Afro-Creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans* (UNC Press, 2016) , explores the seance records of a remarkable group who received messages from the spirit world. This practice offered its members rich religious experiences as well as a forum for political activism inspired by republican ideals. In short, Spiritualism was never simply talking to the dead.
