Rev. Samuel Weil: The Spiritualist Rabbi

Rev. Samuel Weil has all but been forgotten as an early Spiritualist leader, yet he stands unique in the history of the Spiritualist Movement in that he was a practicing Jewish Rabbi who came to embrace the teachings of Spiritualism. 

There isn't much written about Rev. Samuel's life, and only a few anecdotes of his early life are found in his book, The Religion of the Future: Or, Outlines of Spiritual Philosophy. One of these stories accounts a moment in his childhood which he used to demonstrate his own experience with psychic phenomena, 

"My father, physically a powerful man, who never was sick, went to America from Germany in 1841. My Mother, myself, and a brother remained in the old country. When my father was gone about three months, I awoke in the middle of the night weeping and sobbing bitterly. "O, mother, cried the four year old boy, "father is dead, I saw him being carried out of the room by some men." My father, who had been especially attached to me, had actually died in New Orleans from yellow fever, then raging epidemically there." 

Another short reference to his childhood comes from an article summarizing a speech he gave in Rochester, NY in 1897, ""He had inherited a religious feeling from his mother, but had early become a doubter and wished to have some manifestation of God. And this, said he, came at last in the principles of of Spiritualism." 

Aside from these later recorded anecdotes, the earliest reference to Rev. Weil is from an article written in 1876 stating that he had been a "Minister, Preacher, and Sabbath-School Teacher" for his congregation in Columbus, Ohio for three years, and was relocating to Denver, Colorado to serve a similar role in another congregation. 

In 1880 a new Synagogue was built in Bradford PA and the congregation hired Rev. Weil to relocate there as their Rabbi. In his book Religion of the Future, Rev. Weil mentioned in passing that he attended a Conference held in Pittsburg, PA by American Reform Rabbis as a member; he wrote that there was a proposal to deem all accounts of biblical miracles as "childlike fancies of their ancient ancestors" to which he states that he earnestly protested against this. 

The proposal apparently did not pass, and he later wrote that he felt science and spirituality do not have to necessarily contradict each other, stating "Modern Spiritualism will find the Bible an intelligible book, as far as miracles are concerned; for he has seen that the definition of a miracle does not involve a contravention of natural law, but an employment of a higher psychic force" 

At some point between 1880 and 1893 Rev. Samuel began to become more openly interested in Spiritualism, both in researching psychic phenomena, as well as studying and teaching Spiritualist principles. In his book, he gives an account of his experiences of the comfort brought to him through Spiritualist phenomena while visiting Lily Dale, New York: 

"As happens often, my father, who died when I was a child, left no portrait of himself behind, and the knowledge of the tentative process of photography in the year 1841, had not reached the rural German district in which we resided. Naturally, I often deeply regretted that I had no likeness of my father. In August 1888, I visited the mediumistic photographer, Dr. Keeler, at Lily Dale (Cassadaga) Chautauqua County, New York, and obtained, to my inexpressible delight, a photograph of my father, depicted on the same card whereon my own photograph appears. The spirit's bust is seen to the right of mine, and the features are quite plain and distinct, though usually such photographs are somewhat fainter than those of mortals. I posses a photograph, besides, of my transfigured mother, and two children of mine that had died. In the summer of 1889, I visited Dr. Keeler again and obtained two more photographs, representing other deceased relatives, and even the photograph of a lady who used to be a member of my flock."

In 1893 his work The Religion of the Future: Or, Outlines of Spiritual Philosophy was published. The book is set up as a text book on Spiritualism, which he also refers to as "Spiritual Religion" and "Spiritual Philosophy". 

His book is truly a testament to the fact that Rev. Samuel was probably one of the most profoundly educated Spiritualist leaders of his day; Rev. Samuel cites virtually every source he used in the text, which includes hundreds of quotes from both Jewish and Christian Scriptures, scientific articles and textbooks, works of German philosophy, works on Mesmerism, works of Emmanuel Swedenborg, and texts from several Spiritualist sources including: Andrew Jackson Davis, Cora L.V. Scott, Pascal Beverly Randolph, Hudson Tuttle, and Alfred Russel Wallace.

He seems to have almost a mastery of understanding over the volumes of Andrew Jackson Davis (which in itself is astounding) but also seemed to be particularly a student of Cora L.V. Scott, quoting her perhaps more than any other Spiritualist writer. 

In addition to all of this, he also references popular literature and poetry (in German and English), and regularly references Shakespeare. He also includes references to several other religious traditions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Theosophy. And in a passing reference also mentions his knowledge of the Talmud and Midrash. He also includes an additional list in the book for readers, that recommends other works to study that he did not cite from or mention in the book. 

The work is divided into three parts: first, The Facts, which largely deal with scientific and philosophical observations on psychic phenomena; second, The Source, which discusses Modern Spiritualism and it's principles, and third, The Consequences, which Rev. Weil lays out his own application of Spiritualist principles to ethics, and discusses social issues, with a particular focus on economic inequality and labor issues. 

In this final section of his work he also discusses Spiritualism as it relates to the Bible, placing it as a "new dispensation" in a line from Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus of Nazareth. Rev. Samuel reaffirms the fairly standard Spiritualist teachings on Jesus of Nazareth: that he was a highly spiritual ethical human being, who was "blindly worshiped" rather than followed as a teacher. Yet, Rev. Samuel seems to add a new layer of interpretation of Jesus that many Spiritualists before him had not touched on, that he was a specifically Jewish Sage, presenting universal teachings of Spiritualism clothed in Jewish wisdom. 

In 1895 Rev. Weil founded his own Spiritualist congregation in Bradford, PA named the Free Religious Association, which then changed it's name to the First Spiritual Church of Bradford in October 1896. According to an article, "The people who formed the society are believers in Spiritualism. The tenets of the church will be largely on the line of thought presented by Mr. Weil's book. The Religion of the Future." 

An article in the New York Tribune gives an outline of the mission of Rev. Weil's Church:

1. The Society shall be called the Free Religious Association of Bradford.
2. The purposes of the association shall be the advocacy of a rational religion without a priesthood, a moral code without a theology, a God without a dogmatic system, a religion of liberty, recognizing no limits to thought; a religion of conscience, seeking the approval of no other monitor; a religion of reason, submitting all things to its decision; a religion of action, holding the chief good to be "man's humanity to man;" a religion of equality, acknowledging in its most comprehensive sense human brotherhood; a religion of love, yielding obedience to it as the great fundamental law of moral agency.
3. The association will be governed by the will of the majority of its members.

Rev. Samuel Weil may very well may have been the first Rabbi to publicly embrace the teachings of Spiritualism but he was certainty not the last. Spiritualism in both practice and its teachings have a long history of Jewish men and women serving as Ministers, Mediums, and Healers. Although this is unfortunately not well documented, that will hopefully change as time goes on.