The Revolution of the Spirits for the Spiritual Brotherhood: Russian Spiritualist Movement and Its Social Ideals

Abstract

The article offers a reconstruction of the social ideals of Russian spiritualists. Main sources include texts revealing spiritualists' ideas about the structure of the spiritual world; structure and characteristics of spiritual circles; and literary works by spiritualists reflecting their social ideals. Although the social and political views of Russian spiritualists were mostly conservative, their ontological views contained elements of social radicalism. The author distinguishes between the two types of spiritualists - rationalists and traditionalists - depending on their attitude towards the Orthodox Church, Christian theology and their specific views about the spiritual world. All spiritualists viewed the society critically as gripped with disease. Rationalist spiritualism was critical towards Christian dogmatic and practice, and although its supporters advocated the preservation of the social and political status quo, they hoped for both gradual social and political transformation and the realization of social ideals in the spiritual world. The traditionalists, despite their commitment to monarchy and the Church institution, expected a millenarian overturn and thus challenged the social and political order. Overall, the spiritualist social ideals are close to communitarian social projects based upon the idea of Christian brotherhood.