A lot of traffic, relatively speaking, about my intemperate screed contra modern academic treatments of Modern Spiritualism. Some finger-wagging, but a lot of support (thanks, all, for that).
The angels are in the details. It's not a waste of time to study how one's predecessors wasted theirs. The economics and the free play of the memes are what's really interesting.
Under those headings, here's one (deliberately selected) page from The Banner of Light for early January of 1867 (post-war-trauma, pre-collapse-of-the-movement, according to contemporary academic models).
What can it tell us about the demographics of the movement-as-marketplace, about the first-circle and second-circle Spiritualists?
Well, here's an interesting thing, cribbed from the lower right-hand corner of the page: a map of the distribution network for the BofL as of January of 1867.
The three-tiered distribution model -- wholesale, retail and subscription agency -- is an indirect measurement of volume: wholesalers moved the BofL in volume through their own local distribution networks (of retailers), retailers sold over the counter, and subscription agents brought in onesy-twosy subscriptions, for a fee, that were fulfilled direct from the BofL offices by post.
For me, notable conclusions: no distribution in the US South whatsoever (yet we know folks were reading it there, as they're writing in, periodically) and none in those hotbeds of "Western Spiritualism," Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan (where we have reason to believe interest and readership were high-ish.)
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