Spiritualism emerged from protestant Christianity, but grew to differ from it in important ways. I view it as part of the "rationalist" evidential movement, and has much in common with non-conformism. Seen as part of the bigger picture of nineteenth century psi exploration of table turning, mind reading, seances, etc, it formed the roots of modern paranormal research, but on their own I believe both spiritism and Spiritualism to have contributed little in terms of hard evidence that would satisfy a skeptic. It has certainly been dogged by fraud and showmanship, which make talented mediums far from easy to discern.
There is so much I don't understand about spiritualism, like why spirits do not describe the physics (or non-physics) of their environment. I'm aware there are exceptions, but generally speaking their communications are utterly mundane and have little or no connection with the sense of universal understanding NDErs undergo. None of the things near death experiencers want to relate are routinely described by mediums, and the explanations why, and why not, do not convince me. I'm biased towards mediumship being a form of telepathy that may be under the influence of discarnate entities and the medium's own psyche, but am far from convinced it's a direct connection with deceased family and friends. These are my best guess based on the literature and I'm happy with others arriving at different judgements.
There is so much I don't understand about spiritualism, like why spirits do not describe the physics (or non-physics) of their environment. I'm aware there are exceptions, but generally speaking their communications are utterly mundane and have little or no connection with the sense of universal understanding NDErs undergo. None of the things near death experiencers want to relate are routinely described by mediums, and the explanations why, and why not, do not convince me. I'm biased towards mediumship being a form of telepathy that may be under the influence of discarnate entities and the medium's own psyche, but am far from convinced it's a direct connection with deceased family and friends. These are my best guess based on the literature and I'm happy with others arriving at different judgements.