Sacrifice and the Medium: Narrative construction of the cult in Russian spiritualism in the second half of the 19th century

Abstract

The aim of the study is to reconstruct the elements of the narrative that contributed to the transformation of a spiritualist group into a cult association. The focus of the study is on Russian spiritualists’ perceptions of the figure of medium as a special anthropological type, its purpose and features, as well as the specificity of Russian spiritualists’ evaluation of mediums’ activities. The basic thesis of the research – cult character of spiritualist group was created by means of a narrative about the medium as the person, sacrificing himself in the name of spiritual enlightenment of mankind and, simultaneously, allowing making over himself physical “violence”, consisting in an establishment over him total control. The article examines the characteristics of the medium that are intrinsic to spiritualist discourse, through which the notion of the medium as a victim was constructed. The spiritualist cult was shaped by the transfer of spiritualist guilt to the medium, which was to some extent facilitated by the widespread understanding of the medium as a sacrifice for the social unity.