[f. SPIRIT sb. + -ISM. So F. spiritisme.] = SPIRITUALISM 3.
This form has to some extent been preferred by those specially interested in the subject, as being more distinctive than spiritualism.
1864. Reader, 542/1. Spiritism (spirit-rapping, as commonly understood).
1865. Cornh. Mag., Oct., 504. The Maories seem to be in advance of us, if not of our French and American cousins, in spiritism.
1876. C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond., 98. The line of demarcation between Swedenborgianism and modern Spiritualism—or Spiritism, as it is now called—must of necessity be shadowy and ill-defined.
1880. Howells, Undiscov. Country, iv. 69. In the development of the phenomena which now agitate the world, mesmerism came first, and spiritism came second.
