![]() With roots primarily in Protestantism, spiritualism (unlike the occult) was not interested in magic and (unlike paganism) did not incorporate earth-based deities into its beliefs or practices. ![]() Spiritualism, however, which arose in the United States in the 1840s, offered public rather than private displays of supernatural events, with a keen investment in establishing scientific confirmation of the ability to communicate with the dead. At this time, paganism-whether as an ancient or contemporary earth-based spirituality-was usually envisioned as having occult interests in secret knowledge and practices. Practised in telepathy and automatic writing and an acquaintance of Theosophical leader Madame Blavatsky, Stead hoped his new journal would foster attention to and respect for spiritualism and related subjects, such as paganism and the occult. Stead launched the periodical Borderland: A Psychical Quarterly (1893–1897) with the vision of bringing the study of immaterial phenomena to ‘the great mass of ordinary people’ (1893, 5). ![]()
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