Spiritualism Identical with Ancient Sorcery, New Testament Demonology, and Modern Witchcraft: with the Testimony of God and Man Against it — William Donald (W. M'Donald) (1866)

A rare Civil War–era response to the rise of modern Spiritualism.

Published in 1866, Spiritualism Identical with Ancient Sorcery, New Testament Demonology, and Modern Witchcraft is William M’Donald’s forceful Christian polemic against séances, mediumship, spirit communication, trance phenomena, and the expanding Spiritualist movement of the nineteenth century.

Rather than accepting reported communications as contact with the departed, M’Donald interprets them through biblical accounts of necromancy, possession, sorcery, and spiritual deception. Scripture is presented as the proper authority for judging invisible agencies and extraordinary manifestations.

Why This Work Matters

The book preserves the opposing side of the nineteenth-century debate over mediums and psychical phenomena. Read alongside Spiritualist defenses of the same period, it documents the theological alarm, cultural conflict, and competing explanations generated by the movement’s rapid growth.

Collector’s Note

The physical listing is for the original 1866 volume shown in the photographs. Early oppositional works on Spiritualism are considerably less commonly encountered than the movement’s better-known affirmative literature. The photographs form part of the condition description and should be reviewed carefully.

Details

• Author: William M’Donald, also printed as W. M’Donald
• Publication year: 1866
• Subjects: Spiritualism, Christian demonology, witchcraft, sorcery, mediumship, necromancy, and religious controversy
• Available formats: PDF and original physical book