Ernest Walter Oaten was born in Bristol, England in 1875. The
Barry National Spiritualists Church and Centre history first mentions Oaten and
his wife to be, Miss Amy Johnson, as addressing one of their meetings in 1896. By
1897, Oaten and Johnson were welcomed as promising young Cardiff mediums. “In a stirring address the guides of Mr.
Oaten explained ‘The Dual Nature of Man, spiritual and physical’; Miss Johnson
gave clear descriptions of those who had passed.” Oaten became President
of the Cardiff Charles Street Society and was a regular speaker at the Barry
church.
Oaten married Amy Johnson in 1910. He became president of the International Federation of Spiritualists and the Spiritualists’ National Union. He also edited the journal Two Worlds (1919-1945). In his role as chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of the Spiritualists National Union, he pressed for reform of the Witchcraft and Vagrancy Acts. He worked closely with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, fighting for the rights of spiritualist mediums.
In 1934, Oaten made history by becoming the first person to speak about Spiritualism and mediumship on a live radio broadcast of the BBC. The talk was recorded and has now been digitized and is available on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZu9zN1siQ0
Today we can listen to Oaten as he relates his experiences and opinions. “I have sat in more than 4,000 séances, under all conditions – many of them ridiculous in their simplicity and many arranged under strict scientific control,” he says. “Of those séances, considerably fewer than 100 have taken place in the dark. I know that certain forms of psychic phenomena are more easily obtained in the dark, but I have a strong distaste for dark séances, and I always object to sit in the dark with strangers. It is not merely that I am suspicious of mediums. I want to see what the sitters are doing… I have witnessed as much duplicity on the part of sitters as on the part of mediums.”
Oaten was convinced that the spirit world exists around us like the atmosphere. He said that death is similar to a railroad terminal where we change trains to move on to the next world. “Hence, let me say categorically and emphatically – I know that there is a life beyond this, for I have talked with the people who live in it.”
Oaten published Some Problems Concerning the Next State of Life in 1915 and The Relation of Modern Spiritualism to Christianity in 1924. He died on 3 January 1952 in Bristol at age 76.
Additional Reading:
Barry National Spiritualists Church and Centre https://spiritualbarry.weebly.com/history.html
Ernest Walter Oaten (1895-1952). Psypioneer Vol 2 No 3 Mar 2006
Davies, Owen (2019) A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War. Oxford University Press, UK
If you enjoyed this blog, check out my collection, Treasures from the Spirit World.
Photo from https://www.leslieflint.com/ernest-oaten-bbc-1934
We have so much to thank Ernest for to allow us to express our way of life in a public way. It was interesting to read about he sat in light for séances. This was able to be easily done in the past as more people sat for the power. Now a days we are less dedicated to do so, so we need the darkness to attract more power with fewer sitters willing to sit week after week for many years just to get the power and nothing else. I do now see that Physical mediumship is returning to the home circle and this is so important to bring back the words of Spirit. I am about to sit with a group of like minded people for physical mediumship to allow Spirit a voice once again. Thank you for sharing this and so many more stories of our way of life and bless those who spread the word in the past and today.