In the mid-nineteenth century, John Edmonds’ study of spiritual communication generated intense criticism and personal hostility. Edmonds published his book Spiritualism even though he understood that doing so would cost him renomination to the New York Supreme Court. He stated:

I was, week before last, …requested to withhold publication of my book, and was assured that if I would do so, my nomination and election would be secured. I declined to withhold it, and my defeat there {at the convention of one part of the Democratic Party} was not at all unexpected to me^

The difficulty apparently was not Edmonds’ spiritualist beliefs, but his publishing a book on them. Edmonds subsequently withdrew from seeking re-nomination to the New York Supreme Court.

After Edmonds’ no longer sought judicial re-election, the New York Times harshly attacked his book and his intellect. The New York Times affirmed Edmonds’ judicial merit and concurred with his judicial decisions:

We concur fully in the general concession that no Judge upon the bench has been more careful, conscientious and fearless in his office than Judge Edmonds, and his decisions have been moreover very able and correct.

But such judicial merit, it argued, now should be recognized as an aberration that provides no basis for continuing confidence in Edmonds’ judicial ability:

But this fact is, to our minds, even more remarkable than that he should have embraced his present notions, just as it is more wonderful that an insane man should act rationally on certain subjects, than it is that he should be insane. And such mental habits, opinions and lines of study as those to which Judge Edmonds is now surrendered, must render the operations of his intellect utterly unreliable, and destroy all confidence in the continued justice and correctness of his judicial actions.

The article provided what many readers today probably would consider to be an accurate description of Edmonds’ book:

The whole collection is a jumble of commonplaces, puerilities, and absurdities; and the claim that they come from men to whom they are ascribed, is an attempt on popular credulity too audacious for the most comprehensive charity. …

the whole troop of spirits all talk just alike, — in English equally bad, in style equally affected and equally stuffed with attempts at poetic finery; — they all talk about the same things, in the same way: and not one of them utters a sentence which any man of ordinary brains and literary practice could not shape….

The New York Times complained that Spiritualism was united by a “steady hostility to the essential elements of Christian faith” and compared its doctrines unfavorably to that of the “Mahomedans, the Mormons, and other imposters.” It concluded that, if read, the book will hurt the “weak-minded and credulous” while prompting “disciplined and healthy minds” to commiserate with Edmonds. It also concluded that the book was “too dull and uninteresting to attract many readers. “^ About two weeks later, it published a short, biting parody of Edmonds’ book.^

Not only did spiritualism attract many adherents, it also generated a large, scholarly styled polemical literature. Some books scientifically attacked spiritualism, e.g. Modern spiritualism, scientifically demonstrated to be a mendacious humbug (1856), and Spiritualism answered by science (1871). Publications attacked spiritualism as being counter to biblical religion, e.g. Spiritualism an old epidemic under a new phases (1857), Spiritualism, a Satanic delusion, and a sign of the times (1857), and Spiritualism identical with ancient sorcery, New Testament demonology, and modern witchcraft; with the testimony of God and man against it (1866). Some publications attacked spiritualism as being counter to both Scripture and known facts, e.g. Spiritualism being examined and refuted: it being found contrary to Scripture, known facts and common sense (1893), and Spiritualism exposed giving Scriptural evidence and facts of experience, showing the evil nature and awful tendencies of spiritualism (c. 1900). Businessmen attacked manipulative tricks of media, e.g. Spiritualism and charlatanism; or, The tricks of the media. Embodying an exposé of the manifestations of modern spiritualism by a committee of business men of New-York (1873). The New York Times suggested that Edmonds’ book was an indication of insanity. Later anti-spiritualist books argued that study of spiritualism produces insanity, e.g. Spiritualism and insanity: an essay describing the disastrous consequences to the mental health which are apt to result from a pursuit of the study of spiritualism (1909), The philosophy of spiritualism and the pathology and treatment of mediomania (1874), and Spiritualism and insanity (1877). Spiritualism was a popular topic in public deliberation. It was commonly dismissed as fallacious. But it was not successfully cast out of public discourse.

Spiritualism became a serious concern to important authorities. Controversy over spiritualism didn’t come merely from a monomaniacal fringe or from elites exploiting otherwise insignificant subjects for larger political purposes. Prominent political and religious leaders were concerned about spiritualism’s consequences. For example, in 1854 in Trinity Church in Washington, D.C., a prominent clergyman preached about the risks that spiritual communication posed to public deliberation and to persons’ souls. The preacher was Reverend Clement Moore Butler. He served as U.S. Senate Chaplain from January, 1850, through December, 1853. He entitled his sermon “Modern Necromancy.” Attacking Judge Edmonds and other spiritualists, he pointed to the problem of conflicting testimony:

On one occasion in the same room, a departed spirit through a Roman Catholic medium declared that there was a purgatory, and that it was essential to pass through its cleansing fires; while another Spirit through a Protestant medium insisted, by the most energetic raps, that there was no purgatory.

Communication with spirits did not help to bring deliberation to agreement or mutual understanding; rather, such communication created additional conflict and confusion. Such communication also belittled dead authorities:

It is amazing that any person in his right mind should believe that these great {dead} men could be, at the same time, answering the summons of every ignorant and credulous person from California to New York and from Maine to Georgia, and that they should spend whole evenings in slowly rapping out a few sentences of unimportant intelligence, or of sentimental and mystical absurdity, of which they would have been ashamed on earth.

Noting weighty motivation for his sermon, Reverend Butler strongly condemned communicating with spirits:

I have brought this subject to your attention because much interest has been excited in regard to it in this community {Washington, D.C.}, and because I have been requested to express my views, and because I fear that some of you may be led, thoughtlessly, from curiosity, and with no idea of its impropriety, to tamper with this impious delusion of communicating with spirits, to the injury of your own souls and the souls of others.

As an Episcopal priest, Reverend Butler was a member of a community that, at least formally, valued prayer and believed in the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of the dead, Heaven, Hell, and eternal life. The spiritual communication of Judge Edmonds and other spiritualists seems to have concerned Reverend Butler because he believed that it threatened important knowledge and good order in deliberation.^

Edmonds’ efforts to serve the public with knowledge about spiritualism caused him considerable personal suffering. In further elaborating upon spiritualism in 1859, Edmonds described his personal situation:

I have been sorely tried, temporally and mentally. I have been excluded from the associations which once made life pleasant to me. I have felt, in the society which I once hoped to adorn, that I was an object marked for avoidance, if not for abhorrence. Courted once, and honored among men, I have been doomed to see the nearest and dearest to me, turn from me with pity, if not disgust. Tolerated, rather than welcomed among my fellows; at an advanced age, and with infirm health, compelled to begin the world again;^

Edmonds could have practiced forms of spiritualism without seeking to serve the public with knowledge about spiritualism. He could have discretely offered his wife’s spirit food and money. He could have burnt incense or candles before an image of her, or placed flowers on her grave. He could have called out to all holy deceased men and women to pray for her soul. Many persons around the world, including highly respected public figures, do such activities today. Edmonds’ encountered harsh criticism and personal contempt not because others found his actions incomprehensible, but because they perceived that Edmonds’ attempts to promote knowledge through spiritualism threatened the public good. Creating through spiritual media new texts from authorities like Francis Bacon and Abraham Lincoln posed much greater risks to public deliberation than non-semantic, personal communion with dead ancestors.

Ideals of public deliberation and the marketplace of ideas are no substitute for historical evidence indicating how public deliberation actually works. Symbolic competition, like competition to sell goods and services, can perform badly.

At his death in 1874, John W. Edmonds was honored as an eminent public figure. Edmonds’ funeral, held in New York City, was a major public event:

A large gathering of our leading citizens, and a number of persons from abroad, viewed the remains, and followed them to the tomb. The floral decorations on and around the casket were profuse and elegant, and among them was a magnificent cross and crown, inscribed, “The Gazette’s Tribute to John W. Edmonds, its First Editor.” The procession that the followed the remains to the grave was one of the largest ever seen in this city.^

Edmonds had been a prominent public supporter of spiritualism since 1853. Surely among the leading citizens at Edmonds’ funeral were some who considered spiritualism to be utter nonsense. They probably came because they had long been among Edmonds’ friends.

How Edmonds’ life was remembered depended on the field of communication. Upon Edmonds’ death, a New York lawyer recorded in his diary:

Died, John W. Edmonds, father of “Spiritualism.” I think he was foolish and sincere. According to his own pneumatology, he must be drumming under Miss Fox’s dinner table^

Such text would not be appropriate as an obituary in a newspaper or a biography in a book. Those genres provide a publicly relevant record of a person’s life. Edmonds had a distinguished career of public service that culminated in his service as a judge on New York State’s highest court. He subsequently was widely attacked and ridiculed in print for his spiritualist beliefs.

Edmonds’ spiritual activities challenged writers of obituaries and biographies. Was Edmonds’ communication with the dead a religious belief, such as those that had a well-recognized position in public life? Edmonds described spiritual communication in terms of empirical science and a trial court. That wasn’t the typical style of religious expression. Describing Edmonds as having gone insane with grief over the death of his wife in 1850 contradicted the experiences of those who knew him and the documentary evidence of his subsequent legal writings. Communication with the dead in ways that did not advance knowledge claims was widely accepted. Yet communication with the dead that produced knowledge claims seemed counter to public welfare. The combination of its referents, style, and publicity made Edmonds’ spiritual communication with the dead extraordinary and incongruous.

Writers of Edmonds’ obituaries obscured the peculiar form of his spiritualist claims. Edmonds died at age seventy-five in 1874. The New York Times, which had ridiculed Edmonds’ spiritual claims, allocated about 9% of the words in Edmonds’ obituary to his spiritual activities. It associated his spiritual claims with doctrine and belief:

In his latter years Judge Edmonds was generally known for his advocacy of what is called “spiritualism,” having made a public avowal of his belief in that doctrine in 1853. In support of his belief he wrote several works, the most elaborate of which was a work entitled Spiritualism, issued in 1853.^

The Albany Law Journal’s obituary included these two sentences verbatim as its description of Edmonds’ spiritual activities. However, because the Albany Law Journal described more expansively Edmonds’ public and legal service, the word share devoted to Edmonds’ spiritualist activities in its obituary fell to about 5%.^ The Central Law Journal, which acknowledged the notoriety of Edmonds’ spiritual beliefs, gave them a word share of 24%. This obituary emphasized professional respect for Edmonds:

Judge Edmonds’ name is doubtless familiar to most of the lawyers throughout the country, not only from the fact of his acknowledged ability and purity as a judge, but also from the fact that his name has been frequently brought before the public in connection with his peculiar religious belief. He was a firm believer in spiritualism, and, as he supposed, held constant communication with departed friends. So far as we are aware, there never was any complaint that these vagaries, if such we may be privileged to call them, influenced in any way his professional conduct.

While Edmonds did retain considerable professional respect, his published spiritualist writings emphasized communication with dead authorities, not departed (personal) friends. In addition, Edmonds and the New York Times vigorously disputed whether Edmonds’ spiritual communication with Francis Bacon had affected one of his judicial decisions.^

Biographical reference works changed over time to diminish the importance of Edmonds’ spiritual beliefs. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography (1887) allocated about 33% of the words in Edmonds’ biography to Edmonds’ spiritual beliefs:

Judge Edmonds became a convert to the doctrines of spiritualism in 1851, and in 1853 openly avowed and defended them, believing himself to be in almost constant communication with departed spirits. His peculiar views were sustained with the greatest courage and persistence, and it was said that they cost him his place on the bench of the supreme court. He was a jurist of unquestioned ability, and the honesty of his convictions was never doubted. Besides his contributions to periodicals in favor of his belief, he published “Spiritualism” in connection with George T. Dexter, M.D. (2 vols., New York, 1853-‘5);…and “Letters and Tracts on Spiritualism” (London, 1874).

The National Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900) gave Edmonds’ spiritual activities a smaller word share (13%), but accurately indicated that Edmonds understood spiritualism as empirical science:

After making many experiments, with Dr. George T. Dexter as the chief medium, he became convinced that the living could communicate with the dead. He openly avowed his belief, and in 1853-55 he and Dr. Dexter published a volume entitled “Spiritualism.” This work evoked much criticism, but no one questioned the honesty of Judge Edmonds’s convictions or the correctness of his record of the happenings at his spiritualistic sittings.

This text’s rather charitable third sentence might best be interpreted to describe Edmond’s convictions and records in terms of his subjective experience. The Dictionary of American Biography (1931) reduced Edmonds’ spiritual activities to an 8% word share with an adaptation of the previous text:

He had for some years conducted investigations in the subject of spiritualism. In 1853, becoming convinced that the living could communicate with the dead, he openly announced his belief, and, in collaboration with Dr. Dexter, published Spiritualism, a work which provoked much comment, though the honesty of his convictions was never impugned.

This adaptation de-emphasized empirical facts and analysis: the word “experiments” became “investigations,” “criticism” became “comment,” and the second sentence omitted an ending phrase that asserted that no one questioned “the correctness of his record of the happenings at his spiritualistic sittings.” Perhaps indicating biographical difficulty, Dictionary of American Biography (1931) tracked much more closely the prior biographic treatment of Edmonds’ spiritualism than it did any other aspect of Edmonds’ biography.

John W. Edmonds is now a largely forgotten figure in American history. American National Biography (1999), the most current reference source for American biography, does not include John W. Edmonds. It does, however, include Edmonds’ brother, the artist Francis William Edmonds. In the nineteenth century, John Edmonds was much more prominent than Francis William Edmonds. The public difficulty with John W. Edmonds’ biography indicates failure of critical self-consciousness in public deliberation.

Even after he began communicating with spirits in 1851, John W. Edmonds contributed significantly to legal knowledge. In the introduction to a book that he published in 1863, Edmonds observed that persons seeking to know the law of New York had to search for statutes through fifty volumes “with slovenly indexes” and uncover relevant adjudications in two hundred volumes of reported cases. Edmonds condensed the statutes into five topically organized volumes that included references to relevant adjudications. Edmonds described the enormous work involved:

the perusal of some 45,000 pages of Statute law, about one half of which I have gone over eight or ten times, and the examination of some 25,000 reported cases – half of which I have had to examine twice over.^

While leading public authorities regarded his spiritual communication as incredible, absurd, and perhaps a sign of insanity, Edmonds’ compilation of law became the standard authority:

So accurately and systematically was the work performed that it at once superceded the former editions of the Statutes and was adopted as the standard authority. He has since added two supplemental volumes and an index.^

Edmonds had served as a state circuit judge in 1845-47 before he went on to serve on the Supreme Court of New York State in 1847-52 and on the Court of Appeals for New York State in 1852-53. Other than his spiritualist claims, Edmonds was a highly credible legal authority.

Edmonds wrote other important legal reference works in addition to his condensed laws of New York State. In 1868, Edmonds published a 631-page volume reporting selected cases that had come before him as circuit judge, but which heretofore had not been reported or reported only partially. At Edmonds’ death in 1874, a second, unfinished volume of such cases was in progress through the press. This volume, of 493 pages, was published in 1883 along with republication of the first volume.^ Edmonds’ case reports were not merely vanity publications. They contributed to legal knowledge.

Edmonds practiced law successful as a spiritualist. Well after Edmonds became a leading exponent of spiritualism, he continued to work as a name partner at the New York law firm Edmonds, Bushnell, & Hamilton. Edmonds about 1860 provided an important legal opinion concerning the disposition of dividends by the New York Life Insurance Company, a leading insurance provider.^ Edwards spiritualist beliefs were incredible. His outstanding record as a lawyer and jurist was beyond question. In technical matters of law, his spiritualist beliefs seemed to have mattered little.