Spiritualist Church

In the 1850’s until about 1920 or so, the Spiritualist movement was going on. I know they’re not usually considered “pagan” per se, but when I was reading over the Society’s major tenets from back then, their beliefs strongly echoed in general what we believe as pagans today (aside from séances and other Fox Sisters trickery, of course). (thank you to Aaron Stracke) There was a registry kept in New York for an annual convention they had, and the highest number of people in the movement outside of New York was Chicago. It was estimated at over 100,000 people in Illinois alone that were in the movement around 1859. Spiritualist Churches were being built, there was one here in West Dundee that had a polished tinsilver dome that could be seen for miles and is noted in Kane county records from the time. The women and men on the farm where it was built considered themselves equals, and the women wore an early version of bloomers (both things very enlightened for the time). They also participated in the Underground railroad.