This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.
SPIRITUALISM
Spiritualism is a doctrine based on the belief that communication with the spirit of the dead is possible. The transmission is carried out by a medium who performs the feat in a special ceremony called a séance, sometimes by means of allied forces such as telepathy, levitation, clairvoyance, and related mysterious powers of the brain that defy scientific explanation. Witches, shamans, and other priests of the preternatural use spiritualism to effectuate medical cures. The strength of spiritualism is particularly evident where medical science does not exist because of the absence of facilities or lack of available therapies. In areas of the world where scientific medicine has not been established, the vacuum has been filled by voodoo, Santeria, and similar magical practices that use spiritualism as a pathway to healing.
Spiritualism is also active in advanced countries and in all circles of society. As I canvassed the members of our profession, I remembered a prominent and admired colleague who believed in fairies, spirits, and the afterworld. He was a physician, a teller of tales, a popular writer, a fierce champion of just causes, and a strong supporter of the spiritualist movement. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Scotland and received his medical doctor degree in Edinburgh. He practiced medicine, sometimes in esoteric conditions as in a whaler ship in the Arctic. But Conan Doyle was foremost a writer who created fictional characters as charismatic as Sherlock Holmes and wrote novels as fascinating as The Lost World, where dinosaurs roam the top of Venezuelan …
AAN Members
We have changed the login procedure to improve access between AAN.com and the Neurology journals. If you are experiencing issues, please log out of AAN.com and clear history and cookies. (For instructions by browser, please click the instruction pages below). After clearing, choose preferred Journal and select login for AAN Members. You will be redirected to a login page where you can log in with your AAN ID number and password. When you are returned to the Journal, your name should appear at the top right of the page.
AAN Non-Member Subscribers
Purchase access
Letters: Rapid online correspondence
REQUIREMENTS
You must ensure that your Disclosures have been updated within the previous six months. Please go to our Submission Site to add or update your Disclosure information.
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.
