Cora L. V. Scott
Encyclopedia
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
movement of the last half of the 19th century. Most of her work was done as a trance lecturer, though she also wrote some books whose composition was attributed to spirit guides rather than her own personality.
Biography
She was born on April 21, 1840 near Cuba, New York. Her parents, though initially Presbyterian, became interested in the UniversalistUniversalist Church of America
The Universalist Church of America was a Christian Universalist religious denomination in the United States . Known from 1866 as the Universalist General Convention, the name was changed to the Universalist Church of America in 1942...
religion, and in early 1851 joined the Hopedale Community, an intentional community
Intentional community
An intentional community is a planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision and often follow an alternative lifestyle. They...
in Hopedale, Massachusetts
Hopedale, Massachusetts
Hopedale is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,911 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Hopedale, please see the article Hopedale , Massachusetts....
. Led by Adin Ballou
Adin Ballou
Adin Ballou was an American prominent proponent of pacifism, socialism and abolitionism, and the founder of the Hopedale Community...
, the community was committed to abolitionism
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
, socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, and nonviolence
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
. Finding Hopedale too crowded, the Scott family moved to Waterloo, Wisconsin later that year to found a similar intentional community, with the blessings of Adin Ballou. It was there, in early 1852, that Cora first exhibited her ability to fall into a trance and write messages and speak in ways very unlike herself. Her parents soon began to exhibit her to the surrounding country, and in this way she became a part of the network of trance lecturers that characterized the Spiritualist movement.
Cora's father died in 1853, and in 1854 she moved to Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
and became well-known among the most important Spiritualists in the country. By the age of 15, she was making public appearances in which she spoke with "supernatural eloquence" on almost any topic put forward by the audience, all while claiming to be in a trance. Contemporary audiences found the spectacle itself incredible: a very young and pretty girl declaiming with authority on esoteric subjects; it was enough to convince many people that she was indeed a channel for spirits.
Married four times, Cora adopted the last name of her husband at each marriage, and at various times carried the surnames Hatch, Daniels, Tappan, and Richmond. Her first husband, who she married at age 16, was the professional mesmerist Benjamin Franklin Hatch. Over 30 years her senior, Hatch was a skilled showman who managed Cora in order to maximize revenue, much to the dismay of serious spiritualists. The marriage ended bitterly, but since the period of their marriage coincided with her greatest fame, Cora is best known as Cora Hatch.
Cora was a critic of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, in a number of lectures she dismissed evolution:
In fact, the weak points in the Darwinian theory are easily found out by the student of science or natural philosophy. One is, that he makes the doctrine of the theory of selection and evolution account for the existence of distinctive types. In our opinion this is most erroneous; there is no such progress going on in nature; there has never been known to be such a process in nature as the one type of existence ever becoming merged into or becoming another type. There is no change going on in the lower orders that are said to resemble man by which it is possible that they become future men. The gorilla and the ape, though resembling man in appearance, fail to resemble in any distinctive qualities of expressed intelligence, and there has never been known in the history of the world a specific change from the lower to the higher degree of existence. Besides, that which is said to be the organic and continuous property of evolution applies not to the change and transition from one type to another of existence, but to the perfection and development of the type already formed; so that if nature does select her types, it does not and has not been shown that she has ever confused those types, interblent them, or in anyway lost them, but persistently, sacredly preserved the germs of every specific type in existence up to the present time.
Cora instead supported a pantheistic type of spiritualism
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
:
But, as we stated, if we are to trace man's origin we must consider him in his complete nature, and not merely in his physical nature. It is sufficiently easy - a process of the highest facility - to trace, with the scientific data that are in the world, the results of natural law up to the development of man - the monad, or distinctive particle which exists by itself; the duad, which means two monads added together, makes another stage, etc., etc. These atoms in their sixfold nature, constantly changing and developing, are fully and absolutely empowered by the law of existence to develop all phases of physical life that are known. But atoms are not intelligent; the monads, duads, triads, are not intelligent; molecules are not intelligent. No atom contains or atomic structure contains within itself that which is the final source and cause of organisation; and when the physical scientist declares that he has discovered the process of creation, he omits the one power of creation that alone is capable of solving the mystery.