Pre-1975 Racism in Mediums

From: The Next World: Extraordinary Experiences of the Afterlife - Gregory Shushan

Racism, classism and religious intolerance are disturbing trends in the pre-1975 narratives. Information conveyed by spirits was filtered through the mediums’ minds and thus overlaid with the institutionalized bigotry of their times. 

For example, according to alleged spirit communications via French medium Adèle Maginot, “The souls of Negroes are as white as ours; it is only in the skin they differ from us; but in heaven everyone is white.” While perhaps a tone-deaf attempt at inclusivity, Maginot continued, “There are no negroes who like their color. When they compare it with that of the whites, they envy the white color. They prefer us in all. Black women seek after white men, and black men after white women. They have no affection for their color, had they any they would be deprived of it in heaven where all men are white”

Racial segregation was also a characteristic of the afterlife as described by alleged spirits through Andrew Jackson Davis, the so-called “American Swedenborg” and proponent of free love. In addition to an “exclusively African realm” ridiculously named Monazolappa, there were two Native American realms, Wallaveesta and Passaeta. Unlike Leonard’s and Flint’s scripts, however, this was not a system of self-segregation, for Davis explained that whites have “pre-eminence” in the other world, and represent “the higher race to come”

Christian supremacy was also a common theme in the afterlife descriptions, featuring in both Leonard’s and Cummins’ scripts. For example, non-Christian religious practices were characterized as bad and immoral, and will prevent their devotees from reaching higher realms. Similarly, Eileen Garrett communicated a statement from a spirit – said to have progressed as high as the third sphere – that “the Christian religion is above all others” which are simply “wrong”; and that it is the duty of Christians to enlighten “heathens” and “savages”.

Ferguson sees such sentiments as being rooted in Victorian and Edwardian Spiritualism’s “abiding love-hate relationship with individualism, free will, materialist theories of mind, degenerationism and the eugenics ideology.” This is supported by the references to afterlife self-segregation, evidently designed to maintain the oppressive status quo, while also alleviating the guilt of these self-styled free-thinkers. The practice of racial segregation in the afterlife evolved from being seen as systematic and presumably divinely ordained, to being a matter of choice. Alleged former slaves in the spirit world even testified to their happiness at their resumed slavery. In 1857 white medium J.H. Connant claimed that a former slave she had channeled told her that slaves were happy with their lot in the otherworld, that their master didn’t make them work hard, and that when he went away they were happy when he returned. The notion of the guilt-free ownership of slaves in the otherworld recalls one of Leonard’s communicators explaining that some servants lacked the mental or spiritual capacity to desire emancipation from their benevolent masters.

 Spiritualism appealed “to those who recognized in the spirit plane of existence their own vision of heaven.” In this case it is one characterized by racial, social, and religious intolerance aimed at maintaining 19th and early 20th century earthly class hierarchies, in a homogenized, segregated spiritual realm exclusive to white Anglo-American middle-class Christians.

Such dynamics are almost entirely absent from the afterlife descriptions associated with the more recent mediums, as seen above. While these accounts also share with the earlier literature typical NDE elements (darkness, light, subtle body, relatives, life review, being of light, universal consciousness, choice of fate) and other afterlife concepts (idealized mirror-image of earth, mind-dependence, levels of spiritual ascent), they are inclusive and non-judgmental. John Edward (2003: 26), for example, “communicated” that the afterlife is a realm of equality, where only the spiritually enlightened proceed to more “advanced levels” – specifically stating that this includes overcoming racism.

Mediumistic descriptions of the afterlife are infused with contemporary spiritualist attitudes to racial and religious diversity, while also following historical changes in social consciousness over time.

Mediums themselves stressed the great difficulties involved in spirit communication, characterizing it as a collaborative effort, in which the medium must interpret psychic impressions through his or her own cultural and educational limitations.