Response to Bettelheim - Judith Bettelheim

African Arts, Autumn, 2001 by Stephen C. Wehmeyer

Judith Bettelheim raises some interesting questions in response to my article on the Indian altars of the Spiritual Church. The purpose of the initial article was to fill a significant lacuna in the existing scholarship on the Spiritual Churches by identifying persistent themes and aesthetics in Church practice which can be linked to central African antecedents. I note numerous resonances between Spiritual Church altars and New World Kongo-based systems: Cuban Palo Mayombe, Haitian Petwo or Bizango, and American Conjure or Hoodoo. Through what channels and in what company these Kongo elements arrived on American shores is a welcome question for later speculation, and Dr. Bettelheim has boldly taken up the gauntlet.

Bettelheim's identification of Kardecian Spiritism as a primary source (or at least a primary vehicle) for the visual and operative arts associated with New Orleans Indian altars is extremely problematic, however, and must be addressed. The aesthetic similarities between Caribbean Spiritist altars and contemporary New Orleans Spiritual Church altars are obvious, pointing to a number of influences held in common and suggesting recent interplay between the two systems. Whether these similarities indicate a clear vector of origin is another matter entirely, and I must strongly question Bettelheim's untempered assertion that the altar traditions of the Spiritual Church necessarily derive from versions of Kardecian Spiritism.

While space does not permit a complete point-by-point refutation of Bettelheim's argument, I will concentrate here on what I believe to be the most significant flaw in her response: the tacit assumption that the diverse influences which unite in Indian altar traditions (for the sake of this discussion, Kongo or Kongo-derived metaphysics, Folk Catholicism, Spiritualism, and Indian imagery) are first brought together by Kardecian Spiritists in the Caribbean. Bettelheim's casual dismissal of the importance of American Spiritualism is a grave error, largely arising from her limited awareness of the movement and its history. Although the specific denomination of Spiritualism known in New Orleans as the Spiritual Church was not established as such until 1920, with the founding of Mother Leafy Anderson's Eternal Life Christian Spiritualist Church #12, all of the elements which define its visual and ritual traditions met and mingled in New Orleans and other parts of the American South well in advance of the origin of Kardecian Spiritism.

Scholars and believers alike consider the modern Spiritualist movement to have originated in Hydesville, New York, in 1848, with the celebrated Fox sisters. Spiritualist circles, demonstrations, churches and publishing houses sprang up in almost every region of the U.S. (including New Orleans), as well as in most of Europe, within two to four years of the Hydesville phenomenon (Britten 1870; Nelson 1969; Braude 1989; Pimple 1995). Allan Kardec (the spiritual name of French skeptic-turned-Spiritist Leon D.H. Rivail) published his first Spiritist book, Le livre des esprits, in 1857, almost a decade later. Kardecian Spiritism as such, to say nothing of offshoots like Espiritismo Cruzado and Umbanda, simply did not exist prior to 1857.

In contrast, there are published accounts of an extremely active American Spiritualist community in New Orleans as early as 1852-53. Spiritualist historian Emma Britten writes: "Many excellent mediums were found among the colored [sic] population ... either the noble Creoles are determined to take Spiritualism by storm, or the spirits are determined to take them ... there are elements enough in New Orleans to spiritualize the entire South" (Britten 1870:425).

Nor should one assume that American Spiritualism in the South was only influential among educated whites and free blacks. Most Spiritualists were outspoken abolitionists and often engaged in fiery polemics against slavery at lectures and seances. Others, as conductors on the Underground Railroad, were more directly and subversively involved in securing freedom for slaves (Braude 1989:218).

In its pre-Caribbean manifestation (circa 1857), Kardec's Spiritism lacks any specific reference to Indian spirits or their images. It must be emphatically pointed out that this is not the case with Kardec's predecessors in the United States. Since the earliest days of the movement, Indian spirits have been an essential part of the beliefs and practices of American Spiritualists and have been associated with a host of generic, stereotypical behaviors and visual arts. Early Spiritualists write of mediums speaking in Indian tongues. Indian spirits were (and still are) frequently depicted by painting or drawing mediums (Braude 1989). Documents in Indian letters were received by automatic writing and kept as untranslatable but tangible proof of Spirit presence. In Spiritualist periodicals like the Telegraph Papers and Banner of Light, Indian spirits were quoted, written about, and depicted in illustrations. We can be certain that Indian spirit beliefs, behaviors, and imagery were an important facet of Spiritualist practice in New Orleans and throughout the South (as in the rest of the U.S.) from 1852 onward.