by Karen | Mar 5, 2023 | Karen's Korner
Herman Storer was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1825 to William and Mary Storer. He began work as a printer and publisher and married his first wife, Sarah Butler, while living in New Haven. She died in 1849 at the young age of 21. Herman remarried to Emily Trowbridge. By 1865 they were living in Brooklyn, and he was working as a chemist. It’s not clear when he became a physician, but he is listed as being one in the 1880 Boston census.
When he became a Spiritualist, Herman worked consistently, either as a medium, lecturer or healer. He was a Spiritualist for more than 50 years and very prominent in camp meeting work, especially during the 1870s and 1880s. He took an active role at Nickerson’s Grove camp and later at Onset Bay. “He had a large clientele as a Spiritualist healer, but he did not wholly discard the use of medicine; much of it, however, he claimed to use under spirit direction. He was a broad and liberal minded man,” according to the Boston Globe, 28 Dec 1896.
The Boston Post, 1 April 1895, published an article about Storer relating his conversion to Spiritualism to those attending the Boston Spiritual Temple on the 47th anniversary of modern Spiritualism: “The calendar indicates that we have made forty-seven stops on the spiritual highway, but the calendar does not indicate the progress made in public opinion since the dawn of modern spiritualism. I have been a spiritualist for forty-five years, and the joy and blessing of my life I attribute to this source.
“I began, as ignorance usually begins, by denying the manifestations. My friend, an editor of a country journal, had been down to Eliken Phelps’ and published the wonderful manifestations said to have happened there. I sent out word to him that I would not attempt to build up my journal on the basis of sensational stories. He came in to see me, and I saw that he was thoroughly convinced of the seances. At his invitation I went down to Stratford and called upon Dr. Phelps. I heard something in the front room. I went and looked. There the piano was being pushed from where it usually stood to where it now rests, and a piece of music came up and rested on the stand.
“I looked at the doctor. He had been a Congregational minister and was the picture of a reverend and reliable man. My house has been full of brother ministers and lawyers belonging to the family. They have been confounded and no evidence of anything, but spirit work has been discovered. I asked them if a medium could be found to give some more evidence. He mentioned Miss Brook, a girl of 13, at Bridgeport. I went down there at once and was invited to join the circle at her home in the evening. The circle began to ask silent questions, and though the raps came we were all ignorant, except the questioner, as to the responses. By and by it came my turn. I asked if there was any spirit that would communicate with me. At once the table was covered with raps.
“My first wife spelled out her maiden name and how long she had been in the spirit—less than two years. And then came a message spelling her baby’s name. Facts followed facts, then my future mediumship was predicted, which after two years came true and has been with me ever since.” Storer died the following year in April 1896.
by Karen | Feb 14, 2023 | Karen's Korner
William J Colville was born about 1859 in England. Little is known about his early life. His mother died when he was a young boy. His father lived only a few years after her death. From a young age Colville “expressed certain traits peculiar to highly sensitive organisms; and though he and others may have been spiritually unconscious of what was working beneath the surface, yet indications of some occult force were at times unmistakable,” according to an article in Medium and Daybreak Vol 9, No 442, Sept 20, 1878.
He was brought up in an orthodox church and first felt his talent was the work of the devil, but he overcame that fear. When he was 17, he attended a lecture by Mrs. Cora L.V. Tappan in 1874. Inspired, he returned home and composed a poem “The Resurrection.” He began to occasionally read his inspirational poetry, received while in a trance state, in private homes.
By the time he was 19, he was able to “deliver discourses with the same fluency as at the present time. The special phase of his mediumship, which is inspirational speaking, is about to undergo a great change.” After that, physical phenomenon, rapping, table oscillations took place. He had 12 guides for public demonstrations, including native American spirits.
In September of 1878, he addressed a select meeting at the Spiritual Institution in London before leaving for the United States. He made his home in Boston for the next decade. He was a popular speaker in the city and at Spiritualist camps. He attended Queen City Park in Burlington, Lookout Mountain in Tennessee and was a regular guest at Lily Dale in New York. At the 1888 Tenth Anniversary of American Spiritualism lectures in Boston, he made his farewell appearance before traveling to California.
Between lectures, Colville also published several articles, books and edited journals. His books included: The Spiritual Science of Health and Healing (1887), Universal Theosophy: The Science of Health and Healing (1887), Spiritual Therapeutics; or, Divine Science, (1888), A History of Theosophy (1896), and Old and New Psychology (1897).
While in California, Colville lectured, taught classes, and was business manager for George Chainey and Anna Kimballâ’s Gnostic in San Francisco. He then published an edited The Problem of Life (1890-1893) with Alzire A. Chevailler. The publication was, “Devoted to Spiritual Science and Philosophy and all Subjects Pertaining to the Welfare and Progress of Humanity / A Magazine Devoted to Spiritual Science and Philosophy as related to Universal Human Progress.”
In his first issue, he wrote, “ How many are there who enter the ranks as teachers and practitioners of Spiritual, Mental, or Christian Science, who realize anything more than a very small part of the work they are called upon to do, and how many are there who even attempt to begin at what is really the right end of the line, if true progress is to be made? The moral elevation of the race is of primary importance, its intellectual advancement is of secondary value, its physical soundness comes third.”
Colville returned to London in 1914 and gave lectures to the London Spiritualist Alliance and The Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland. During his life he toured the U.S., England and Australia. He died in San Francisco in January of 1917. His obituary stated that “W. J. Colville, one of the foremost British lecturers on theosophical topics, died yesterday at the Wiltshire apartments after a brief illness with pneumonia.” He was 57 years old and “spent many years lecturing and writing.”
by Karen | Feb 10, 2023 | Karen's Korner
Josiah Francis Baxter was born to Josiah and Elizabeth Baxter in 1841 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He married Eliza C. Holmes about 1862 and worked as a school teacher in Plymouth, Winchester, Nantucket and Amesbury. They had one daughter, Elizabeth, who married Otto Baron.
Frank’s interest in Spiritualism began sometime around 1870. In 1875 he taught a course of six lectures. Soon after, he began to deliver addresses at New England Spiritualist camps, including, “The Reality of Spiritualism,” given in 1876 at Shawsheen Grove.
By 1877, Frank was listed as a test medium at the Onset Bay Grove Spiritualist camp. The Boston Globe 23 July 1877, reported that, “Among them was a communication purporting to come from a girl named Matilda Frances Lyons. Through Mr. Baxter she recalled several things of her life on earth. Her father and mother, who were both present, responded to a question of the speaker, and asserted that what had been said was true, every word.”
Frank was known as one “who has won golden opinions for his eloquence of speech and song, and for his mediumistic gifts, and lectures at the Brooklyn Institute.”
His work as a lecturer and medium continued through the 1880s and 1890s.He frequently attended Lake Pleasant and Cassadaga Lake/Lily Dale. One address at Onset Bay was entitled: “The Rise and Progress of Modern Spiritualism and its Demands upon its Advocate.”
A booklet of one of his lectures was printed in 1893 entitled: “The Development of Spiritualism and its Demands upon its Recipients.” In it he wrote, “Spiritualism should be presented by competent lecturers, exemplified by honest mediums, demonstrated by positive manifestations, not only in every city, but in every town throughout the United States, and our efforts should ever be bent in such direction. Our best literature should also be extended through some system to all these places. Our lecturers and workers should always find a welcome in every place, sought, encouraged, and pleasantly environed, instead of finding themselves left apart and treated as strangers.”
Frank was present at the Ohio State Spiritualist convention in May of 1897. He participated with other well-known Spiritualists: Rev. Moses Hull, of Massachusetts, Maggie Waite of California, Hon. L. V. Moulton of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond of Chicago.
Frank’s wife, Eliza, died in 1897, but Frank continued with his lectures, traveling from Maine, all the way through the Midwest, including Indiana, Ohio, and Missouri. In 1899, he spoke at the Woman’s Progressive Union in New York. His lectures included: “Heaven: What, Where and Who’s There” and “The Scope and Value of the Spiritualist Platform.”
For 30 years, Frank was a lecturer, singer and medium. He was also a member of the Temple Heights Spiritualist Corporation of Northport for many years. He died in February 1904 from typhoid fever at the age of 62.
by Karen | Jan 17, 2023 | Karen's Korner
Bishop Beals born in 1832 in Versailles, New York to Amplius and Olive Beals. His father was a physician, and he and his family were members of the Universalist church. In 1856, when living in New York City, Beals joined the congregation of Rev. E. H. Chapin and he became interested in Spiritualism. He attended a demonstration by 14-year-old medium, Miss Libbie Lowe, and was struck with wonder. He said that she woke the latent power of mediumship within him.
Beals served in the New York Infantry during the Civil War and was discharged due to a disability in 1861. It wasn’t until after the death of his mother in 1865, that he began a career as a public teacher and speaker. He worked as a trance speaker, poet, singer and musician.
In an interview for the Carrier Dove, vol. 3 no. 10 October 1886, Beals stated, “I do not recollect a time that I was not visited with strange, prophetic dreams and trance-like visions. I have always been conscious of the nearness of the spiritual world. I was, even in childhood, a worshipper at the shrine of nature, and later in life I found her sweet influences far more in harmony with my religious aspirations than were the religious doctrines of popular churches.”
Mrs. C. H. Decker Buchanan said that Beals was sensitive and preferred to let “his works praise themselves. The circling waves of harmony surround his efforts; his resolves spring from the purest motives, and when understood must endear him to all who are associated with him socially.”
During the mid-1870s through the 1890s, Beals traveled through New York and New England, across the Midwest, including Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, and then went west to California, where he spoke in Santa Barbara, Stockton, and San Francisco. His lectures included: “The World’s True Redeemer,” “The Evolution of Thought,” “New Dispensation,” and “What is Truth?” His lectures were often accompanied by music, song and his own poetry.
Beals moved to Oakland, California in the 1880s and married late in life to Eliza Cone in 1895. The Waterloo Press, 7 March 1895, described him as one of many curious people. “…this professor, who is of ordinary stature with long (will-be-silver) locks of hair swinging to and fro about his head attracting the attention of everybody, made his appearance in this city last week.” It continued, “He compared men of today with those of from one hundred to five hundred years ago and said that men are now governed by laws of mercy.”
Beals returned to his home state of New York and died in 1909 while living in the Lily Dale area.
by Karen | Jan 3, 2023 | Karen's Korner
Helen (Nellie) Temple was born in 1843 in Manchester, Vermont, the fourth child of Jabez and Mary Temple. Her first spiritual demonstration was held in Glens Falls, New York in the old Universalists church when she was 14 years old. By the age of 16, she was listed in the census as a Spiritual Medium living with her parents in Whittingham, Vermont. The family moved to Colrain, Massachusetts and she began her public speaking career at the age of 18.
Helen was a well-known by 1861 and was listed in many Spiritualist publications. She married farmer, Luther A. Brigham in 1865 and had a son a year later, but that did not slow her down. She continued with her public speaking, appearing in various places during the 1870s-1890s in New England and New York.
Helen’s husband died in August of 1895 at the age of 60. Helen continued with her public speaking. In 1896, she was a guest at the Psychical Hall, reciting impromptu poems chosen by the audience. According to the Post Star, Glens Falls, NY, “The public are respectfully invited to witness these wonderful phenomena of the voicings of the angel world.”
Helen moved to New York City where she lodged with Belle V. Cushman, president of the Spiritual and Ethical Society of New York. In 1896, they sailed from New York to England and traveled around Europe for 6 months. She became friends with Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In 1897, Helen continued with her impromptu public poetry, composing works such as “No Night There,” “The Choir in Our Village,” “Lake George,” and “How It Ended.” In 1899 at Glens Falls, she spoke on a variety of subjects, including “Why Does God Allow Evil to Predominate in the World?” and What is Heaven Like?” Her poems included: “Fall Blossoms,” “Spirit Guidance,” and “Father, Brother and Sisters in the Spirit Land”
Helen’s appearances continued through the early 1900s. In 1901, she was a speaker at Queen City Park Spiritualists Camp in Burlington, Vermont. In 1902 she traveled to Australia and New Zealand. The Topeka Daily Capital, 1909 3 October, reported on the Convention of the Society for Scientific Revelation at the Temple of Health in Kansas City, Missouri. They wrote, “Another lecturer and teacher, whose beautiful lessons have been given in all parts of the world, Mrs. Helen Temple Brigham, of New York City, will also be present. Mrs. Brigham has just returned from a lecturing tour through Europe and Australia. She has been pastor of one church or society in New York City for more than 40 years. Her lectures are uplifting and filled with words of wisdom which brings her close to the heart of her audience the very moment she begins to talk. God has gifted but a few with such powers of description and inspiration, as is possessed by Mrs. Helen Temple Brigham.”
Helen passed on to the spirit world in 1923. The North Adams Transcript, 17 February 1923, wrote, “Mrs. Brigham was always ready to give her hometown the best of her ability and had preached from every pulpit in the town, lectured for the benefit of various organizations and the hospitality of her home was famous. A woman of charming personality, Christian character and beloved by all who knew her, she was for fifty years the pastor of the Spiritual and Ethical society in New York. During this time, she spent most of her summers at her home here. Mrs. Brigham had traveled extensively from Canada to Mexico and in foreign countries. She had lectured in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”
by Karen | Dec 15, 2022 | Karen's Korner
The other day I was watching the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, during which an angel helps a distraught businessman by showing him what life would be like if he never existed. I assume most people identify with Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey. But the character I love the most is Bailey’s guardian angel, Clarence, played by Henry Travers.
Most people probably imagine guardian angels as perfect beings with flawless dispositions clad in white robes, halos and wings. Clarence is a kindly, unassuming soul. After he saves George from an intended suicide, we find that he is not a perfect being. He has come to earth to earn his wings. To do that he must help George.
It’s been said that angels are the most under-employed souls because people here on this earthly plane never ask for their help. It is no coincidence that Spiritualists believe in the Ministry of Angels. We believe that angels never existed on Earth in physical form but are immortal beings who take on the role of God’s divine helpers. It is through them that He makes known His purpose and will. Angels serve God and act on His authority for the good of His other creations. Their role is to show us our spiritual path. They awaken an awareness of God’s plan within us.
Most of us are familiar with the notion of guardian angels. These are angels who take on the special responsibility of helping us discover our true purpose here on Earth. Guardian angels come close to us when we are in trouble or need. They assist us by offering protection and support, and easing our fears in times of distress. “They bring the light of eternal truth for our upliftment and they rejoice when we are happy and fulfilled,” Carol Austin wrote.
We can ask angels for help, but it must be understood, that they will not interfere with our responsibility to conduct our lives in accordance with our own conscience. That responsibility is ours alone to bear. “We know that with the guidance of compassionate spiritual and angelic beings we shall move towards fulfilment of the purpose for which our earthly lives were intended,” Austin wrote.
I love our Christmas Eve service at the Spiritual Path Church, because every year we meditate to open ourselves to the angels. This is something many people have never done before and our service is open to the community. The practice helps people who attend become aware of their guardian angels.
“It was a time of my life when I needed to feel more grounded in my spiritual practice and I ‘happened’ to see an angel meditation being offered at a local church,” Ruth Kovac says. “My friend and I went, and I found it a peaceful place to be, and found a peaceful place inside myself. I am grateful for that and for the community that I found.”
“One present I give myself each Christmas Eve is attending a candlelight service called, Sitting in the Power of the Angels,” Gerri Heckler added. “Too much jingling, shopping and parties can easily pull me away from how I like to feel during this season. Soft candlelight and soothing music quiets my mind and connects me with God and His glorious angels who quickly restore my soul with joy, peace, hope and love–the perfect gifts to share with others.”
During the movie, it’s mentioned that every time you hear a bell ring an angel has gotten its wings. The Third Principle of Spiritualism maintains the human experience of linking with individual spirits and higher beings and affirms that we can both commune and communicate with them. It is my fervent wish and hope for everyone that you too will find your own Clarence this holiday season.
