Haunting Photos From the Largest Spiritualist Community

Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president, was a Spiritualist. So is Dan Aykroyd, the creator of Ghostbusters. Spiritualism is a religion based on communication with the spirits of the dead that spread during the second half of the 19th century and it influenced both Woodhull's and Aykroyd's work. Woodhull's desire to create a better life for herself and her fellow Americans was directly informed by her belief in an afterlife. Aykroyd wove Spiritualist ideas into his movies: the existence of ectoplasm, for example. In other words, Spiritualism, though often dismissed as New Age fantasy, is a very real part of American history. According to an estimate by The New York Times in 1897, Spiritualism had more than eight million followers in the U.S. and Europe before the turn of the 20th century.