Printing press, radical liberalism and communication with spirits: dissemination of spiritualist doctrines in Colombia (1868-1889)

Abstract

This article studies spiritualistic practices in Colombia during the second half of the nineteenth century as an act of resistance to the Catholic Church. It is framed in a context of Romanization of the Catholic Church which put at risk those who were political and religious dissidents such as spiritualists. The analysis of the documents for a history of spiritualism in Colombia between 1868 and 1889 was carried out recognizing in this religious dissent universal ideas such as equality, fraternity, anticlerical freedom, secularization of the state and the defense of values such as freedom of worship. The research showed that in cities such Bogotá and Medellín, spiritualism had a wide diffusion in the circles of artisans and new bourgeois who in the nineteenth century were mainly related to the liberalism of the radical wing, along with the world of printing press and the Colombian artistic and cultural development of that period.