Spiritualism is a religious movement based on the belief that spirits of the deceased exist and are able to communicate with living people. It began to develop in the 1840s and had reached its peak of popularity by the 1920s, particularly in English-speaking countries. This vintage book contains a record of the progress made in the explanation of occult phenomenon through scientific reasoning by Joseph Grasset (1849 - 1918), a French parapsychological investigator and neurologist. Contents include: "Definitions-Historical Account-Difficulties in Making this Survey", "A Definition of Occultism and Occult Phenomena", "Historical Account", "The Period of Animal Magnetism", "The Period of Spiritualism", "The Present Period", "Occultism the Promised Land of Science", "What Occultism is Not", etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.