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| Periodical: | Illustracion Espirita (Mexico) |
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| Summary: |
From Pat Deveney's database:
Ilustracion Espirita, La. The volume numbering began again at vol. 1, no. 1, February 15, 1872, after the move to Mexico City. There was a hiatus in publication from 1879-1889 due, it was said, to General Gonzales's "military duties." The journal (whose title should more properly be read as "Enlightenment" in English rather than the English cognate, was the first Mexicao spiritualism and one of the longest lasting of the early journals there, begun the same year as the first Spanish journal, El Criterio, which it cites and resembles, without the more overt socialism of the Spanish journal. It started in Guadalajara where the first spiritist circles were begun in Mexico, then moved to Guanajuato, all under fierce attack from the Catholic Church, and then, after problems with the postal regulations, moved to Mexico City in 1872 under the influence of General Refugio I. Gonzalez (1816-1892), who had achieved some distinction in the war against Maximilian by being taken prisoner (and turning to spiritualism in his captivity). He translated Kardec and had started the Circulo de la Luz" in Guadalajara, and then in 1872 the Sociedad Espirita Central de la Republica Mexicana in Mexico City, and had long argued that the Church's opposition to spiritualism was based on its mistaken belief that the movement was based on magic and necromancy. He aspired to a "cristianismo sin iglesia ni sacerdotes." From the first the journal functioned as the defender of spiritism -- and of "science" (the enemy of the supposed superstitions of Catholicism) and (pure) Christianity. The journal was "the first-born sister" of Luz en Mexico begun by Gonzalez in 1872 and edited by Moises Gonzalez, Refugio's son. The two were published in alternate weeks and this journal absorbed Luz en Mexico on its demise. The journal stressed, against the ideas of the positivists, the idea that psychology was a science of the soul, and published "scientific" articles on magnetism and various psychic phenomena. Over the years it covered polite controversies with various Catholic officials who attacked or banned spiritualism, reviews of spiritualism historically and in Europe and the United States, philosophical articles on the plurality of worlds, charity, liberty, brotherhood, pre-existence, etc., communications from mediums on the usual Kardecist themes ("Esperanza," reincarnacion), Biblical exegesis, spirit poems ("El Beso en suenos"of one's deceased mother), progressive aspirations (Education of Women), "Modern Magic," etc., and discussions of a surprising variety of spirit phenomana (levitation, spirit photography, bilocation, living men appearing in dreams, etc.) usually excerpted from foreign journals. It also reprinted the testimony of J. Murray Spear ("celebre escritor publico") before the London Dialectical Society and carried a long series by Louis Jacolliot, who was very popular in Spanish-speaking spiritualism. In 1878 it reprinted a note (from Revue Spirite) of H.P. Blavatsky's New York Theosophical Society and the 250 occult works it had the disposal of its members, and marveled at the emotions engendered by these claims "even on the other side of the oceans from La Mancha." The journal was noted in the exchanges of L'Initiation, April 1889 and Übersinnliche Welt, 1893, and reviewed regularly in G.L. Ditson's articles in the Banner of Light (for which Refugio I. Gonzales wrote) on the foreign spiritualist press. Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico.
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| Issues: | Illustacion Espirita V1 1872-1873 |
| Illustacion Espirita V2 1873 | |
| Illustacion Espirita V3 1874 | |
| Illustacion Espirita V4 1875 | |
| Illustacion Espirita V5 1876 | |
| Illustacion Espirita V6 1877 | |
| Illustacion Espirita V7 1878 |
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