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Ask where Spiritism begins, and most of us will correctly answer Paris, 1857. But ask where the English-speaking conversation with the spirit world begins, and fewer of us will say it's a farmhouse in upstate New York where, on a night in March 1848, two young sisters heard knocking in the walls and, instead of running, asked it a question.
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They were not the first to speak with spirits. Swedenborg had been writing of the spirit world for decades before them, and Andrew Jackson Davis published his own revelations a year before Hydesville. What the Fox sisters brought us was not the invention of mediumship. It was the beginning of a movement that touches millions today and continues to grow.
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This month that story reaches a movie screen, made by a director many of us already know well. It is a remarkable story. It is also a human one, and human history is never a clean line: there are claims and refutations, characters that bend under pressure, and people who retract previous statements when conscience speaks louder than the crowd. In short, the history of the Fox sisters is fraught with drama, much like our own lives. And that is what makes it so interesting—and so worthwhile.
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There is plenty more on the radar besides: a new book in English, two new groups on the map, an early-bird discount closing on the 31st, and an unusually full August in Spiritist history — Kardec publishing Heaven and Hell, Bezerra de Menezes twice over, and Sir Oliver Lodge.
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Let us know what’s on your radar!
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ON THE RADAR
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- The Fox Sisters Reaches the Screen (August 29): The story that opened the modern Spiritualist movement has its world premiere in Los Angeles this month, directed by Wagner de Assis — the filmmaker behind Nosso Lar and Kardec. (Much more in this month’s feature, below.) Tickets
- Spiritism, Explained to an English-Speaking Audience: Dr. Alexander Moreira-Almeida sat down with Jeffrey Mishlove on New Thinking Allowed for a wide-ranging conversation on who Allan Kardec was, his method of investigation, the Spiritist view of mental disorders, and the Spiritist psychiatric hospitals of Brazil. Watch the interview — and hear both of them in person at Integrating Well-being: Spirituality, Spiritism & Science in Davenport, Florida on September 12, in person or by livestream.
- 19th Spiritist Conference of Georgia — Early Bird Closes August 31: “The Spiritist View of Afflictions” comes to The Venue Marietta on October 10–11, with Haroldo Dias, Vanessa Anseloni, Eduardo Haddad, and Rafael Rezende. Register
- Forty Years of Group Hope (September 26): Group Hope Joanna de Ângelis in Anaheim (the oldest Spiritist group in California) marks its 40th anniversary on Saturday, September 26, with a lecture from Mário Sérgio, president of Mansão do Caminho. Forty years of one community holding the door open — congratulations from all of us, grouphopejda.org!
- Two New Groups on the Map: Two Spiritist communities joined SpiritistGroups.org this month. The Emmanuel Spiritist Society is a brand-new group serving Lake Nona and greater Orlando, Florida, meeting online on Wednesday evenings. The Spiritist Society of Pennsylvania (“Words of Light”) gathers in Phoenixville, near Philadelphia, four times a week online and in person, and expects to begin meetings in English soon. If your group isn’t on the map yet, adding it is free, as always.
- New Book Alert! Why Am I Here: How Spiritism Makes Sense of Suffering, Reincarnation, the Afterlife by Debora Esajian, released in July. Links in New Resources below.
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FEATURED THIS MONTH
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The Sisters Who Started a Movement
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In March of 1848, the Fox family was renting a small house in Hydesville, New York, and something within would not let them sleep: knocks were heard in the walls, night after night, with no cause anyone could find. On the 31st, the youngest daughter did what nobody else had thought to do: Kate Fox, about eleven years old, snapped her fingers and asked the knocking to snap back. It did. Then it counted. Then it began to answer questions.
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They were not the first to claim contact. Swedenborg had written of the spirit world a century earlier, and Andrew Jackson Davis published his own revelations the year before Hydesville. What was new was that ordinary people, in an ordinary house, could ask and receive an answer, and that anyone might try the same at their own table. That is what spread: from Rochester to New York to London, and across the Atlantic before Kardec had begun his inquiry in Paris.
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Then there is the human part. In 1888, in debt and bitterly estranged from her sister Leah, Margaret stood before a paying audience in New York and declared it all a fraud. A year later she retracted, saying she had spoken under pressure from opponents of Spiritualism and that the confession had no foundation in fact. Doubt prevailed. Historians argue over both statements still. The story of the Fox sisters is a human history, made of people who are pressed, who yield, and who sometimes find their way back, like a woman who said what her circumstances demanded of her, and then, when conscience spoke louder than the crowd, retracted her words -- and paid for that too.
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This month, the sisters return in a feature film to claim our attention once more. The Fox Sisters is directed by Wagner de Assis (the filmmaker behind Nosso Lar and Kardec), shot in Brazil and the United States, and performed entirely in English. It has its world premiere on Friday, August 29, at the NoHo CineFest in Glendale, California, with the director and cast in attendance. Tickets are on sale now.
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NEW RESOURCES
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Read
Watch
Let’s Listen To It Again:
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Spiritist Conversations: Spiritism and Spiritualism — Brothers From Different Mothers
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If this month’s feature left you wondering where Spiritualism ends and Spiritism begins, this is the conversation for you. Dan, Suzana, and Flavio welcome Lawrence Savill of the Poole Spiritualist Church for a generous look at a close, and sometimes confusing, family relationship.
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Coming Up:
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- August 28–30: 4th International Spiritist Congress Joanna de Ângelis: “Overcoming the Pains of the Soul” (Fátima, Portugal)
- August 29: The Fox Sisters World Premiere (LOOK Dine-In Cinemas, Glendale, CA — USA)
- September 12: Integrating Well-being: Spirituality, Spiritism & Science (Davenport, FL — USA)
- September 18–20: 9th European Spiritist Gathering (Wégimont, Belgium) — for information, contact european.spiritist.meeting@gmail.com
- September 26: Group Hope Joanna de Ângelis 40th Anniversary (Anaheim, CA — USA)
- October 10–11: 19th Spiritist Conference of Georgia: “The Spiritist View of Afflictions” — early bird until August 31 (Marietta, GA — USA)
- October 24: SPIRITISMx 2026 (8th edition): “Mediumship: Understanding a Natural Ability” (St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, UK)
- November 7: The 20th US Spiritist Symposium: “The Compass for Spiritual Progress” — a landmark anniversary edition! (AC Hotel Fort Lauderdale Airport, Dania Beach, FL — USA) — Register
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THE SPIRITIST TIME MACHINE
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- August 1, 1865: Allan Kardec publishes Heaven and Hell, the fourth work of the Spiritist Codification, in Paris.
- August 7, 1941: Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore discarnates. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, he returned again and again in his work to the unseen world and the transcendence of death.
- August 11, 1826: American medium Andrew Jackson Davis is born in Blooming Grove, New York. Called “the John the Baptist of Modern Spiritualism,” he gave the movement much of its early vocabulary — including Summerland — and was already at work when the Fox sisters heard their first knock.
- August 16, 1886: Dr. Bezerra de Menezes becomes a Spiritist. “The Doctor of the Poor” would go on to shape the spread of Spiritism in Brazil as few others have, joining teaching to free medical care for anyone who came to his door.
- August 18, 1927: Cosme Mariño discarnates in Buenos Aires. Founder and long-serving president of the Argentine Spiritist Confederation, he built the network that made Spiritism a public force in Argentina.
- August 22, 1926: Brazilian writer and educator Amélia Rodrigues discarnates in Salvador, Bahia. After her passing she joined the spiritual team led by Joanna de Ângelis and went on writing through mediumship.
- August 22, 1940: Sir Oliver Lodge — British physicist, radio pioneer, and friend of Arthur Conan Doyle — discarnates in Wilsford cum Lake, England. His account of communication with his son Raymond remains one of the most examined cases in the literature.
- August 29, 1831: Adolfo Bezerra de Menezes Cavalcanti is born — twice president of the Brazilian Spiritist Federation, and by all accounts still at work.
- August 31, 1926: The Portuguese Spiritist Federation (Federação Espírita Portuguesa) is founded in Lisbon.
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We hope you enjoyed what’s on our radar for this month.
Do you have suggestions about what we should feature? Email us!
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Would you like to help promote Spiritism in English? We’re always looking for volunteers to lend a hand with The Spiritist Radar and our sister projects, SpiritistBooks.org and SpiritistGroups.org. Reply here or reach Dan Assisi at daniel@spiritistinstitute.org.
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The Spiritist Radar is a publication of The Spiritist Institute.
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