ghostismn.
/ˈɡəʊstɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /ˈɡoʊˌstɪzəm/ Now rare.† 1. Ghostliness or ghostly activity; the presence or manifestation of ghosts. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > supernatural being > ghost or phantom > [noun] > state of being
ghostliness1657
ghostism1782
ghostship1796
ghosthood1842
ghostdom1846
spectrality1850
ghostiness1874
spectralness1892
life-in-death1901
1782 E. Blower George Bateman II. vi. 55 Something, so contrary to all their ideas of ghostism, in the fleshy appearance of those supposed inhabitants of the regions of spirits.
1798 A. Seward Lett. (1811) V. 176 The bell tolling over the heath, is still a fine, though somewhat hacknied, accompaniment to ghostism.
1882 Wrexham Advertiser, & N. Wales News 28 Jan. 8/7 The people of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd have been lately suffering from an infliction of ghostism.
2. Belief in ghosts; spec. the belief that incorporeal spirits (esp. those of the dead) can make themselves known to or communicate with the living, typically by means of a medium (medium n. 6b); a system of belief or practice founded on this; = spiritualism n. 5. [Compare earlier anti-ghostism n.]
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > the occult > spiritualism > [noun]
ghostism1850
spiritualism1851
spiritism1856
psychomancy1865
metapsychics1905
metapsychism1922
1850 Dumfries & Galloway Standard 16 Oct. If there yet remain the smallest vestige of witchism or ghostism, it is to be hoped that the railway, as a pioneer of civilization, will dissipate both.
1880 T. Mitchell Key to Ghostism 245 Another of the claims of Ghostism is, that the angels are all ghosts of dead men.
1902 Banner of Light 12 Apr. 2/4 For my part this Spiritualism, Occultism, or Ghostism or whatever it is called, scares me.
1943 Amer. Sociol. Rev. 8 130/1 There was nothing [sc. no accepted term or word] but ‘ghostism’..to cover the theory about disembodied spirits.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2021; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1782