Cercle Harmonique Summary

The author, Emily Suzanne Clark, argues that the Cercle Harmonique had an influence on politics in America and their practice as spiritualists created a religious world that intertwined political activism, social reform, and a moral vision for an ideally more equitable America. Throughout the text, Clark connects into the ideals of the Cercle Harmonique and looks at how their seances influenced the way they viewed the world in social, political and religious contexts. The years after the Civil War were a time for hope for black New Orleanians, it was the time of their first path into politics, and the Cercle embraced this path.

The book’s first chapter, “The Creation of the Cercle Harmonique”, sets the stage for the rest of the book, offering
This chapter steps outside the boundaries of the Cercle Harmonique’s seances and connects more broadly to the city they are situated in: New Orleans, Louisiana. The spirits who advised the Cercle saw the best way to change the world was to, of course, start in their own backyard. “If the Afro-Creole Spiritualists wanted to reform the material world and render it more like the spirit world, their own immediate surroundings were a fitting place to start” (pg. 51). The spirit advisors saw local politics as the best way to start a change to the ways of egalitarian republicanism, and harmony was necessary to achieve this ideal governance structure. While they connected and rallied behind this ideal, the city of New Orleans, while being a new pasture for political participation for blacks, it was still a “home to some of the worst Reconstruction violence.” And the spirits had to continually encourage the Cercle Harmonique to keep moving forward in the face of continued
They took on the motto of the French revolution, “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite”, to help convey their political ideology. The Cercle equated their belief in egalitarianism and republicanism and attempting to make it a core part of the American value to a revolution, making references and connection to the French revolution and Haitian Revolutions. They saw their fight for the supremacy of their own ideals as akin to fighting a revolution, and as a natural antithesis to despotism. The Cercle Harmonique made it their personal mission to depose the idea of holding slaves and white supremacy, this was their