ABSTRACT
Spiritualism throughout its development has remained a cult, since it has retained the three characteristics of the cult as a type of religious institution. It emphasizes the importance of personal experience of psychic and mystical phenomena, it still represents a break with the traditional religion of the Christian West, and it represents even more a sort of resistance movement to the major ideological basis of our society, namely materialism (both in the sense of a belief that only the material world is real and in the sense of an exclusive concern with material values). It has also retained its concern with the problems of individuals, both in connection with healing and with the relief of those distressed by the death of relatives and friends.
