John Bovee Dods

John Bovee Dods (1795 – 21 March 1872) was a philosopher, spiritualist, mesmerist, and early psychologist. He was born in New York City and died in Brooklyn, but much of his productive life was spent in Maine.

John Bovee Dods, c. 1850

In 1830, Dods spent 10 weeks in Richmond, Virginia organizing Unitarians and Universalists into a single church, The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond. This is believed to have been the first instance of the 2 faiths combining together into one organization, presaging the formation of the Unitarian Universalist Association by 130 years.[1] However, due to a tremendous outcry from Richmond's mainline Christians, the church was forced to change its name after Dods had left to First Independent Christian Church in 1833. The same church group continues today as First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond.[2] As Dods did not accept the offer to be pastor of the church, he instead recommended John Budd Pitkin. Dods himself returned to Maine, and later moved to Massachusetts where he preached, wrote, and founded a school. It was here where Dods became interested in spiritualism and psychic phenomenon.[1]

His Universalist preaching in Massachusetts was short lived. He began to theorize that animal magnetism put humans in touch with the divine, and in some ways was a precursor of New Thought theories. He published his book Spirit Manifestations in 1854, and officially became a spiritualist.[3] Dods became one of the more well known mesmerists in New England, along with others such as La Roy Sunderland, Joseph Rodes Buchanan, and Phineas Parkhurst Quimby.[4][3][5]

Dods was a prolific writer. He published works such as Twenty-Four Short Sermons on the Doctrine of Universal Salvation (1832), Thirty Sermons (1840), Six Lectures on the Philosophy of Mesmerism (1849), The Philosophy of Electrical Psychology (1850), Immortality Triumphant (1852), and Spirit Manifestations: Examined and Explained (1854).[6]

References
  1. George H. Gibson, "The Unitarian-Universalist Church of Richmond," in The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 74, No. 3, July, 1966. JSTOR 4247223
  2. "The Little Church of Council Chamber Hill and the Conflicts of Belief in a Southern Community," Pat Vaughan, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond, 2015
  3. Albanese, Catherine L. (2007). A republic of mind and spirit: a cultural history of American metaphysical religion. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 202–204. ISBN 978-0-300-11089-0.
  4. Taves, Ann (1999). Fits, trances, & visions: experiencing religion and explaining experience from Wesley to James. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-691-02876-7.
  5. Peel, Robert (1966). Mary Baker Eddy: the years of discovery. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 153–154.
  6. "Dods, John Bovee 1795-1872". worldcat.org.

Further reading
  • Appleton's Cyclopedia
  • The Gospel Of Jesus (1858) Edited By Rev Gibson Smith contains an Editorial Preface By John Bovee Dods
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