AHC: Geopolitical Consequences Of A Spiritualist Ideology Replacing Marxism

Hello everyone,

I am a long-time lurker, but this is my 1st post at the forums. I've had an idea for an ALT knocking around my head for a while now, and I'm having a bit of trouble working out the details. So, I turn to you good folks for advice and insight.

The idea is this: Marxism never rises for whatever reason, and its ideological niche gets filled by a Spiritualist/Spiritist equivalent of liberation theology that has the same enormous impact on history as Marxism itself did. Many of the Spiritualists were already heavily involved in left/progressive/reform politics as it is, so I think that this is a potentially plausible TL if done right.

The details of the ALT ideology hold, like Spiritualism, that there are many "levels" of Heaven in the afterlife, but that a spirit's chances of advancing to the higher levels can be significantly improved if the material/economic conditions of its current physical body are radically transformed. This gives a strong materialist concern to the philosophy, and creates a revolutionary left that practices seances, mediumship, and so on. Perhaps the movement operates in "cells" led by charismatic revolutionary mediums.

I have been trying to come up with a good PoD, and have only thought of two. Either:

a) Karl Marx becomes a Spiritualist/Spiritist at some early point in his life, and codifies a systematic radical political philosophy based on its principles; or,

b) Marx dies in a duel as a young man, and his intellectual niche gets filled some as-yet unnamed Spiritualist/Spiritist thinker whose work catches on and has the same impact as OTL Marx's (this one seems a bit ASB to me, though).

Question being: what are the geopolitical implications? I originally conceived of this AH as being pretty much the same as OTL until the time of the Russian Revolution, but now I'm thinking that's not very plausible, given the geographical origins of Spiritualism and Spiritism.

Opinions are appreciated. Note that I am not postulaing that seances, mediums, etc., actually work in this TL, only that a modified version of Spiritualism's teachings, practices and tropes are perpetuated by a revolutionary movement.

Thanks in advance. I have enjoyed reading a lot of your works on this website for many months.
 
Marxism's attraction was that it supposedly put history and socialism on a scientific basis. So it could appeal to intellectuals and those who prided themselves on scepticism (i.e., on 'seeing through' the illusions to the real truth)

If spiritualism is going to replace Marxism, it needs to fulfill the same function. OTL, spiritualism was supposed to be a scientific version of belief in the afterlife. But spiritualism never had a very coherent theory, and it was very other-worldly. To replace Marxism, those are both going to have to change. You also need a revolutionary and economic component to spiritualism which it lacked OTL.

Spiritualism and Marxism moved in some of the same intellectual and liberal/left circles OTL, so while unlikely its certainly possible.
 
As far as geopolitical consequences, just wild speculation here, but a spiritualism marxism might prove more attractive in the colonies earlier than marxism did OTL. So African, Asian, and Indian revolutionary movements might kick off decades before OTL. Of course, that might just mean that the movements get machine-gunned or gassed because the colonial powers c. 1920 are much nastier than their 1960 equivalents.
 
The problem with a religious equivalent to Marxism is that it's harder to adapt for theists. It's fairly easy to downplay the atheist bit of Marxism just to being secularist, so that you can get things like Baathism. A more obviously spiritually inspired liberation theology would struggle a lot more to be accepted in many parts of the world, due to the poor being pretty religious.
 
If spiritualism is going to replace Marxism, it needs to fulfill the same function. OTL, spiritualism was supposed to be a scientific version of belief in the afterlife. But spiritualism never had a very coherent theory, and it was very other-worldly. To replace Marxism, those are both going to have to change. You also need a revolutionary and economic component to spiritualism which it lacked OTL.
Perhaps you missed it in my origiinal post, but I had covered this. In broadline outline, the hypothetical ideology gives Spiritualism an economic/material focus by postulating that man's chances of achieving a higher spiritual plane after death can be improved by transforming the material conditions of life on the physical plane. This translates as a call for revolution against oppressive material and economic conditions in the here and now.

Also, IOTL, Spiritualism did eventually become systematized into several "chruches", so giving it a more coherent and centralized theory such as this isn't too far-fetched, I think.
 
As far as geopolitical consequences, just wild speculation here, but a spiritualism marxism might prove more attractive in the colonies earlier than marxism did OTL. So African, Asian, and Indian revolutionary movements might kick off decades before OTL. Of course, that might just mean that the movements get machine-gunned or gassed because the colonial powers c. 1920 are much nastier than their 1960 equivalents.
That's an interesting possibility if we place these rebellions during the Great War. If, say, a spiritualist revolution spreads across the British Empire, stoked by German agents provocateur, the changes to history would be... fascinating.

Hm, thanks for the suggestion!
 
The problem with a religious equivalent to Marxism is that it's harder to adapt for theists. It's fairly easy to downplay the atheist bit of Marxism just to being secularist, so that you can get things like Baathism. A more obviously spiritually inspired liberation theology would struggle a lot more to be accepted in many parts of the world, due to the poor being pretty religious.
Not necessarily. Most Spiritualist traditions were nominally Christian, so the table-rapping, seances and mediums could be just as easily downplayed if the overall theory sufficiently addressed the material concerns of the revolutionaries.

Now, granted, in majority Muslim countries, it might be a harder fight, but since OTL Marxism was primarily a European movement for the first several decades of its existence, I don't think a Spiritualist alternate would face more difficult obstacles.

Also, mrmandias pointed out, Spiritualism was considered a more scientific understanding of life after death, so the theory could appeal to atheists and secularists, as well. There's really nothing about Spiritualism's core tenets that require belief in a monotheistic deity, or any deities at all, really.
 
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