by Karen | Dec 1, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Large numbers of people from Syracuse, Auburn and Ithaca flocked to Moravia, New York to see spiritual manifestations in the 1870-80s. The Morris Keeler House stood at the base of a range of hills that overlooked the town of about 1200 people. The Keelers provided lodging to a dozen people at a time, but lodging was not what the house was known for. It was thought to be built on a magnetic hill. “There [was} something undefinable in the atmosphere of the place,” the Genesee Courier stated in 1871.
Every spirit house needs a medium. Mary Mehan was born to Denis and Hanora Mehan in 1841. As a young girl, she was adopted out to a family in Moravia, but her parents wanted her back because of a disagreement about religion. Mary ran away from home after her return and ended up moving in with the Keelers where she worked as a domestic servant.
The Keelers soon discovered that Mary had a talent for contacting the spirit world. In a second–floor room, about twelve by fourteen feet in size, they partitioned an alcove to create a cabinet. The partition contained a small rectangular-shaped window with a black cloth curtain. It was at this window that spirits appeared. There was also a piano in the room which often played.
Mary held seances twice a day, every day, charging 50 cents per person for large groups. The seances generally lasted about two hours. Half was held in darkness and half by lantern light. Some spirits visited regularly, including: Honto, a Native American woman: Rosa, an angel guide; and Sukey, a Native American girl.
Mary was known for physical displays, voices, and piano music. Physical manifestations included hands touching attendees while they sat in darkness; hands, arms, and faces appearing at the window in a lit room, lights flickering and dancing about, and colored clouds gathering overhead. Voices spoke in whispers to normal speech, and some spirits spoke with accents.
Mary married John Andrews in 1863 and they had three daughters, Minnie, Nettie and Fannie. The family lived with the Keelers, John working as a farmhand, until about 1870, when they moved next door. Mary continued to hold seances at the Keeler House, apparently making enough money that the family could afford to move to a better house in town by 1880.
Mr. Keeler died in 1886 and his family disputed his will, questioning his sanity because of his association with Spiritualism. In the court case, it was found that: “While to some minds a belief in spiritualism might seem strange and be an evidence of weak and even morbid intellect, it cannot be held as a matter of law or fact to be evidence of insanity.”
Mary’s ability to continue her seances at the house is unknown. She died in Monrovia in 1901.
Additional Reading:
Hazard, Thomas R. (1872) Eleven Days at Moravia. William White & Company, NY.
Kelso, Isaac (2010) “The Beginnings of Full Form Materializations.” Psypioneer, Vol. 6, No. 11.
by Karen | Nov 24, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Annie Lord was born in Maine to Cyrus and Lydia (Luce) Lord in 1842, the second of their three children. Dr. Lord held regular spiritual circles in his home. Jennie, who was six years older than Annie, was first to display a talent for communication with the spirit world. It wasn’t until Annie was about 12 years old that she felt tingling in her arms and hands, like touching a “galvanic battery.”
Dr. Lord was instructed by the spirits to work with Annie by sitting in a circle with her three times a day for ten days. At the end of that time, he was told that she would be a physical medium. She placed a guitar under a table at noon, in broad daylight, and the instrument played. That was followed by loud raps on the walls, floor, and ceiling. Their practice sessions continued. They added bells, a tambourine, and other small instruments. She used a white porcelain slate, held under a table, to write messages.
When Annie joined the circle in a darkened room, her abilities increased. In 1864, at the house of Mr. T. Lane in South Malden, Massachusetts, about 20 people attended her séance. A table was set with small instruments, including hand bells, a musical box, and trumpets. Other instruments, a guitar, banjo, violin, drum, and violincello rested on the floor. According to one witness, “All the instruments seemed to sound in concert and exact time to our singing….”
At one point, she went to the home of Mr. Burnell of Westbrook, Maine where her skills were tested. She held her circles in daylight so they could be observed. During that time, footsteps were heard throughout the house. She produced 37 written communications on new paper placed in a locked drawer. She also manifested music, singing, and fresh flowers.
Annie’s health was fragile, and she moved to Auburn to recuperate. Unfortunately, her reputation followed her. Hundreds requested audiences. She was used by some of her guides to diagnose diseases and prescribe for the sick. She was even known to cure mental illness.
Eventually, she was taken in by Colonel William Cushman and his wife in Ottawa, Illinois. “Her constitution was naturally frail and delicate and had been so fearfully overtaxed that it seemed impossible under merely mundane influences that her life could be extended.”
Annie married Mr. Chamberlain, a man much older than her, and as she grew older, spent less time with her mediumship. She lived a long life and died in 1920 in Milford, Massachusetts.
Additional Reading:
Britten, Emma Harding (1872) “Annie Lord Chamberlain: A Biographical Sketch” Western Star, December 1872.
“Spiritualism: Musical and Other Manifestations in Boston, U.S.A.” Spiritual Magazine, October 1864, Reprinted in Christian Spiritualist, 1873, Thomas Scott, Helborn, U.K.
by Karen | Nov 17, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Geraldine Cummins was born in Cork, Ireland to Professor Ashley Cummins, M.D. As a young woman, she was an accomplished athlete and member of the Irish Women’s International Hockey Team. She was also an active suffragette. After receiving a private education that focused on the arts, she began a career as a journalist and creative writer. By 1919, she had published three plays for the Abbey Theater and a novel on working-class Irish, The Land They Loved.
Cummins began working as a medium specializing in automatic writing after being encouraged by E.B. Gibbes and Hester Dowden, a spiritualist who was known for having contacted the spirits of Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare and other writers. Cummins would sit at a table and cover her eyes with her left hand, leaving her right hand free to write. She said she would concentrate on the stillness. “Soon I am in a condition of half-sleep, a kind of dream-state that yet, in its peculiar way, has more illumination than ones waking state.”
According to Gibbes, Cummins received messages through two spirit guides. Astor, who identified himself as Greek, was self-confident, arrogant, and anti-Christian. His handwriting was “bold, firm and round.” The other guide, Silenio, emerged several years later. He was a meek and mild individual who identified as a Christian. His handwriting was finer and more slanted that that of Astor.
Cummins and Gibbes wrote several books based on her communications. Her books included: The Scripts of Cleophas, an early Christian history, and Acts of the Apostles, communicated by the spirit of Cleophas, one of Paul’s followers. Gibbes books included: Evidence of Life from Beyond the Grave, based on her recorded seances and The Road to Immortality, which included messages from Frederick W.H. Myers after his death.
She allegedly worked as a British agent during WWII and used her psychic abilities to support the allied cause. In the 1940s and 50s she helped psychiatrists develop a model for using spiritualism to treat mental illness. Cummins “read” an object that belonged to the patient to identify childhood traumas or ancestor experiences that may have created the problem.
Cummins continued to write, publishing a biography of spiritualist Edith Somerville and The Fate of Colonel Fawcett in 1955. Her last book was an account of her conversations with the spirit of Mrs. Willett (Winifred Coombe Tennant). Cummins died in August of 1969.
Additional Reading:
Anderson, R. I. (1983) “The Mediumship of Geraldine Cummins.” Theta 11, 3, 1983.
Gibbes, E.B. (1933) The Road to Immortality, F.W.H. Myers through Geraldine Cummins, London.
Gibbes, E.B. (1936) “The ‘Controls’ of Geraldine Cummins.” Psychic Science, October 1936, Vol XV, No. 3, London.
Gibbes, E.B. (1946) Evidence of Life Beyond the Grave from Scripts of Geraldine Cummins. Psychic Book Club, London.
by Karen | Nov 10, 2020 | Karen's Korner
MacKenzie King was one of three children born in Berlin, Ontario to John King and Isabel Grace Mackenzie. His father was a lawyer, so King not only attended the Berlin schools, tutors were hired to teach him additional politics, science, and math. At the University of Toronto, he earned three degrees in the 1890s. In 1896 he earned his LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School.
King was appointed Deputy Minister at the head of the Canadian government’s Department of Labour in 1900. He was first elected to Parliament in a 1908 and appointed as the first-ever Minister of Labour the following year. He served as the Prime Minister for three non-consecutive terms from 1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948.
King’s mother, brother Macdougall King, and favorite sister Isabel, all died within a few years of each other. His guilt over leaving his mother to pursue his 1917 election campaign in North York, and finding her dead when he returned, may have sparked his interest in communing with the deceased.
King was never a member of the Spiritualist Church and remained a Presbyterian. He was introduced to spiritualism by the Marchioness of Aberdeen. Lady Aberdeen told him of Mrs. Etta Wriedt, an American “direct-voice” medium who was well known and respected. During seances, he communicated with his mother, his brother and sister, and such friends as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Most of King’s contacts with mediums in Britain were made through Miss Mercy Phillimore, secretary of the London Spiritualist Alliance. She said “Mr. King was an investigator. He did accept the spirit hypothesis and he had the courage to say so, but he never ceased to be critical in appraising evidence. He was a highly intelligent man with shrewd judgment, and to say he consulted mediums for advice in statecraft is preposterous. It is also outrageous, an insult to his memory.”
Mrs. Helen Hughes, a Glasgow medium who sat with Mr. King for many years, said, “It was as if he had his mother living over here in Britain—what would any son do, if he came here on business? He’d look her up; he’d want to see her and talk to her. He didn’t want her advice about public affairs, for he knew more about them than she did. He wanted to know how she was…and wanted to talk to her about family matters.”
On January 20, 1948, King called on the Liberal Party to hold its national convention to choose St. Laurent as the new leader of the Liberal Party. Three months later, King retired after 22 years as prime minister. In October of that year, he grew ill in London and was visited by King George VI, Winston Churchill, and Prime Minister Nehru of India. King died in 1950, at his country estate in Kingsmere from pneumonia.
Additional Reading:
Dawson, Robert Macgregor (1958). William Lyon Mackenzie King: A Political Biography 1874–1923. University of Toronto Press.
Fraser, Blair (1951) “The Secret Life of Mackenzie King, Spiritualist. Macleans Ottawa Editor December 15, 1951
by Karen | Nov 3, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Victoria Claflin was born in 1838, in Homer, Ohio. Her mother, Annie, was a Spiritualist who passed her beliefs on to her two living daughters. Victoria’s abilities began early. When she was only five years old, she would commune with two of her sisters who died as babies and her childhood caretaker. Her father took advantage of her gifts and used her in his traveling carnival show as a clairvoyant and fortune-teller.
At the age of 15, to escape her father’s abusiveness, Victoria eloped with Canning Woodhull, an alcoholic, philandering doctor. She almost lost her life when she gave birth to their son, and the child was plagued with mental development delays the rest of his life. After five years of marriage, Victoria divorced her husband in 1864.
Continuing with her rebel attitude, Victoria embraced Spiritualism. As a medium, she accurately recalled past events and predicted the future. She could find missing objects and heal people. Theodore Tilton wrote in her biography: “This strange faculty is the most powerful of her powers. She shoots a word like a sudden sunbeam through the thickest mist of people’s doubts and accusations, and clears the sky in a moment.”
Victoria was a popular medium, traveling with her sister, Tennessee, to hold seances across the country. She said her spirit guide was the Greek orator Demosthenes. He had been speaking to her since she was a child, but she didn’t know his name until she was 30. Demosthenes directed her to St. Louis, where she met her second husband, Col. James Blood
Demosthenes also directed her to New York City in 1868. She and her sister moved to the city where they met Cornelius Vanderbilt. Being a recent widower, Vanderbilt appreciated their friendship and set the sisters up in business. They started the first woman-run Wall Street investment firm. Victoria would go on to found her own newspaper, to speak before Congress on women’s suffrage, and to run for U.S. President in 1872 against Ulysses S. Grant.
Victoria divorced James H. Blood in 1876 and moved to England with her sister. In 1883, she married a wealthy banker from England, John Biddulph Martin. She spent the following years writing. She published Human Body: The Temple of God (1890), and a magazine with her daughter, The Humanitarian, for nine years, beginning in 1892.
Victoria Claflin Woodhull Martin died in 1927, in Bredon’s Norton, Worcestershire, England.
Additional reading:
Hix, Lisa. “Ghosts in the Machines: The Devices and Daring Mediums That Spoke for the Dead.” Collector’s Weekly. https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/ghosts-in-the-machines-the-devices-and-defiant-mediums-that-spoke-for-the-spirits/
“The annual convention of the American Association of Spiritualists in Boston, Massachusetts, 1872.” The Banner of Light, The Boston Investigator, The New-York Times, The Brooklyn Eagle.
https://spirithistory.iapsop.com/1872_american_association_of_spiritualists.html
Victoria Woodhull Biography https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51861/51861-h/51861-h.htm
The Woodhull Foundation https://www.woodhullfoundation.org/about-us/who-was-victoria-woodhull/
by Karen | Oct 27, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Mexican Spiritualism began in a cave near Contreras, southwest of Mexico City in 1866. A Catholic priest, Roque Rojas went into a trance state. The spirit of Padre Elias, who represented the Holy Spirit, spoke through him. When Rojas died in 1920, a young woman, Damiana Oviedo, took his place. She received divine instructions to prepare others to carry on his teachings
Spiritualism in Mexico is not considered a religion, instead it is a spiritual doctrine. They believe the spirit never dies. After death, it wanders from one to 100 days, until rebirth. There are 7 reincarnations in all. The practice is condemned by the Catholic church, but many followers consider themselves Catholics. There is an emphasis on the Holy Trinity and Padre Elias. The Virgin Mary is also an important figure. It is during the rite known as Catedra that she can work through the trance medium.
Meetings can be held in various places, a centro (center), recinto (precinct) or templo (temple). The recinto is either the mediums house or a freestanding building for spiritualistic sessions. In larger centers, several mediums work together. There is no organization, but the Templo del mediodia in Tolnahuac district in Mexico City acts as a cathedral of spiritualism.
Communication with spirits is typically through mediumistic trance and spirit possession. The medium gives advice on health, domestic and business problems by answering through a tutelary spirit. Some of these spirits have been Aztec tribesmen, some were only known by their first names, and others were fully identified. For example, Pedro Jaramillo was a famous faith healer from the early 1900s from northern Mexico, came as a spirit tutor.
Religious services are biblically based. The Giving Light service is practiced regularly. They believe a spirit remains in darkness and is not given light until it manifests through the medium. Communication with the recently passed is believed to be difficult and there must be a waiting period, perhaps six months before any conversation was possible. Mediums also practice healing and cleansing. They believe there were two kinds of illnesses, organic and spiritual. The first is cured by doctors, the other by Spiritualists.
Francisco I. Madero was a noteworthy Mexican medium of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who practiced in France and Mexico. Madero was dedicated to God and practiced in an effort to make the world a better place. His main form of communication was automatic writing, and he used a planchette and table for readings. Madero followed the writings of the French Spiritualist Kardec who wrote the classic Medium’s Book, used by students to learn unfoldment. Madero wrote his own book, Manual Espirita, in 1911, which was only recently translated.
Photo is of Templo del mediodia
Additional Reading:.
Kelly, Isabel Folk practices in north Mexico; birth customs, folk medicine, and spiritualism in the Laguna Zone, 1965
https://www.cmmayo.com/SPIRITISTMANUAL/interview-stephen-hermann-author-of-mediumship-mastery.html
by Karen | Oct 21, 2020 | Karen's Korner
When Sol Bloom introduced H.R. 8989 to the Ninety-sixth U.S. Congress in 1926, he had no idea it would start a firestorm. Bloom was an Orthodox Jewish American from New York who began as an entertainer and sheet music publisher. He served his first term in the House of Representatives in 1923. Three years later, his bill was supposed to make fortunetelling a crime punishable by up to a $250 fine and/or six months in jail within the capital district.
When hearings started, Bloom invited Harry Houdini to testify before the committee. As someone who saw Spiritualism as a “curse,” Houdini attempted to seize control of the hearings and put Spiritualism on trial. Recognizing that Spiritualism might be criminalized, Spiritualists attended the proceedings. Two women stepped up to defend the religion, Dr. Jane B. Coates and astrologer Madame Marcia Champney.
Jane B. Coates was born in Maryland in 1872 to Robert and Mary Boarman. She married Leonard R. Coates, a broker in the iron and steel industry in 1889. They were well to do, owned their own home free of a mortgage and employed three servants. During their marriage, they had six children and Leonard, who was 13 years older than Jane, died before 1920. Jane moved to Washington, DC with her children and was involved with manufacturing patients in the medical industry. By 1926, she was minister of the Spiritualist Church of America.
Madame Marcia Champney was a crystal ball reader, clairvoyant, tarot card and horoscope reader for the rich and powerful. On Thursdays, she entertained Supreme Court justices, congressmen, Senator’s wives, and socialites.
The hearings began February 26th and resumed in May for three additional days. As the meetings continued, Coates said, “I have saved many young girls from marrying the wrong man and have kept others from going wrong. My religion goes back to Jesus Christ. Houdini does not know I am a Christian.”
Madame Marcia added: “There are many men in the Senate and House who consult me regularly.”
Debate turned to pandemonium. The sessions were interrupted by attacks and constant outbursts. The mediums called Houdini a liar and traducer, while he presented reams of unsubstantiated evidence. During breaks there were scuffles in the hallways. The police were called many times.
In a dramatic climax, Houdini waved around an envelope of $10,000 in cash asking the mediums to prove their abilities. “This is my answer to anything they say. If they can, here is the money.”
“That money belongs to me,” Madame Marcia said. She claimed to have foreseen both Warren G. Harding’s election and his death. Madame Marcia was not awarded the cash, but during the hearing she made another prediction. Houdini would be dead by November.
The Spiritualists successfully defended themselves at the hearing, and H.R. 8989 did not pass. Houdini perished under mysterious circumstances on October 31, 1926.
Additional reading:
Puglionesi, Alicia. “In 1926, Houdini Spent 4 Days Shaming Congress for Being in Thrall to Fortune-Tellers.” Atlas Obscura, October 11, 2016,
Young, Jeremy C. “Empowering Passivity: Women Spiritualist, Houdini, and the 1926 Fortune Telling Hearing.” Journal of Social History, Vol. 48, no. 2, 2014
Photo: During the trial, Houdini and Senator Capper, mediums behind them.
by Karen | Oct 13, 2020 | Karen's Korner
William Charles Partridge was born to William and Mary Ann (Potter) Partridge in 1893 in Bradninch, Devonshire, England. He was raised in the Anglican church and enjoyed participating in Sunday School, choir and other church activities. The estate where he lived, “The Willows,” was haunted and he had his first experience with hearing footsteps at the age of 12.
William finished school at 15 and moved to Exeter where he took a three-year horticulture course. That was followed by an apprenticeship with a florist. During that time, he continued his interest in religion by visiting various churches in search for the truth.
William moved to Canada in 1913 and worked for Lord Clarendon and Lord Hyde near Pickering, Ontario. When WWI broke out, he joined the Canadian Army, 116th Battalion, Canadian Infantry. He was shipped to France and spent 20 months fighting in the trenches of France and Belgium.
William met Annie Elizabeth Galway, who had attended Spiritualist meetings in Belfast with her aunt and had developed clairvoyant abilities early on. They were married while he was on leave. After the war, William and Annie returned to his family estate at Bradninch. He tended the orchard and flower gardens. They had four children, including James Lloyd who was born in 1920.
The Willows continued to be “haunted,” with spirit rappings at the doors and under chairs continuing in 1919. A medium was called to the house and identified the “ghost” as the spirit of William’s mother. She also told William that he would end up moving back to Canada. After attending Spiritualist meetings in Exeter and sitting in on development classes, the medium’s prediction came true. The Partridges moved to Canada in 1925.
William worked for a stockbroker until 1928, when the market crashed. The family suffered like the rest of the nation for a while, but that did not shake William’s interest in Spiritualism. He and Annie attended the Britten Memorial Church under the direction of Reverend Martha Stier McGuire, one of the best mediums in Canada. They also made annual pilgrimages to the Fox family cottage.
After studying three years in a development circle, an Indian spirit came to William while he was in a trance state and threw him to the floor. He was told that he would receive healing powers. William became a gifted medium, producing knocks and table tipping, as well as exhibiting clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry and healing.
William purchased property along the Muskoka River near Bracebridge, Ontario to create a camp like the one he had visited in Lily Dale in New York. The Springdale Park Spiritual Association of Ontario was founded in 1938. William became pastor of the Springdale Church.
William and Annie were active members of the society until Annie was stricken with ill health. They moved to British Columbia where their son James was living. Annie died in 1977. William remained near his son until 1984, when he died at the age of 91.
Additional Reading:
Denniss, Gary (1998) The Story of Springdale Park. Springdale Park Spiritualist Association, Bracebridge, Ontario.
“Canada’s Spiritualists Unite!” Psychic News, No. 1328 (16 Nov 1957)
Photo from Ancestry.com
by Karen | Oct 6, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Rev. Asahel Hatch Jervis was born in Oswego County, New York in 1793. He became a Methodist Church minister in Rochester, New York, and married Mary Cooley in 1821. They had four children, two girls who died young, and two sons. Kasimir would later follow in Asahel’s footsteps and become a clergyman.
In 1848, the news of the mysterious spirit rappings that took place in the Fox home in Hydesville, NY reached Rochester. The Fox sisters had their first public demonstration in the city in 1849. Asahel became interested in this new phenomenon and eventually volunteered to take notes for the sisters. According to Conan Doyle, similar manifestations began to occur in the homes of Rev. A. H. Jervis, Mr. Lyman Granger and Rev. Charles Hammond of Rochester, and Deacon Hale from the neighboring town of Greece. Six families in nearby Auburn alsobegan to develop mediumship. The Fox sisters were not present during these events.
The rappings were scorned by the religious authorities at the time. Asahel defended the Fox sisters and criticized the opinions appearing in the Christian Advocate. The publication would not accept his rebuttal to their remarks, but he published his response in the Cayuga Chief in 1850, writing, ”It is easy to ridicule what you have no knowledge of, or argument to meet; but facts are stubborn things, and we may as well be willing to meet them first as last, for meet them we must.”
One event that took place at the Jervis home in 1849 was documented. The family sat at a tea table, and Asahel’s friend, Mr. Pickard, asked questions. He found that the spirit he spoke to was that of his mother. She gave him a terrible message. “Your child is dead.” Alarmed, Mr. Pickard took the next stage home, about 60 miles from Rochester. When he arrived, he found that one of his children had indeed died.
Soon, rappings were spreading, extending as far as Cincinnati and St. Louis to the West, and Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York to the East. Asahel wrote, “…I have been enjoying the best opportunity for calmly investigating, for almost two years, in the company with judges, lawyers, doctors, and citizens of all professions and callings, as well as ministers and members of different churches…”
Asahel’s wife, Mary, died in 1852 and he remarried four years later to a woman much younger than himself named Lavinia. He became a minister at the Church of New Jerusalem in Rochester. This was a Swedenborgian Church, which was originally organized in England in 1787. Students studied the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a scientist and visionary who lived over a century before. The theology was introduced into the U.S. in 1784.
Asahel died in 1877, a defender of Spiritualism and the right to question traditional faith.
Additional Reading:
Britten, Emma Hardinge (1870) Modern American spiritualism: a twenty years’ record of the communion between earth and the world of spirits. Banner of Light Office, Boston.
Capron, Eliab Wilkinson (1855) Modern Spiritualism: Its Facts and Fanaticisms, Its Consistencies and Contradictions. Bela Marsh, Boston
Doyle, Arthur Conan (1926) The History of Spiritualism. Cassell and Co., London.
by Karen | Sep 29, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Wella Percy Anderson was born in 1833 in Maine. He was from a poor family and trained to be a cabinet maker after receiving a minimal education. His only experience in the field of art was painting signs. Lizzie “Pet” was born in the Portland, Maine area in 1836. She possessed the gift of “second sight” since childhood. “…she was called by everybody; always seeing and telling things which were incomprehensible to family or friends.”
Wella and Pet married in 1865. They had one son, Wella R., who was born in 1866 and died in 1885. Pet worked as a trance medium and was recognized for her clairvoyance and clairaudience. It took two years for Wella to develop his skills as a trance artist. Pet supplied the energy needed to connect with the spirits. Wella worked with pencils, letting the spirits draw while he held the pencil.
The couple soon made a name for themselves by drawing life-size, pencil bust portraits of the departed. The studio was usually dimly lit. Wella would work for 12-minute sessions, holding only one session per day. It might take up to ten sittings to complete one drawing. Over the next several years, they made hundreds of sketches of dearly departed loved ones.
In 1869, the Andersons attracted the attention of Mr. J. Winchester. They followed him to California where they began making sketches of 28 spirits who were part of The Ancient Band. The band was comprised of great leaders, intellectuals, and artistic people from history who came together to share their knowledge— to “institute a system of liberal education for the people, simplify the sciences, and popularize and liberalize religious ideas in such a manner as to make the human family a BAND OF BROTHERS.”
In 1874, their biographical and descriptive catalogue was published as The Ancient Band. It included Yermah (image above), an Atlantean; Adehl, a Brahmin; and Arbaces, an Egyptian priest. Their work was displayed at the Pacific Art Union in San Francisco as a Spirit Art Gallery and listed as the portraits of pre-historic and ancient spirits.
Wella and Pet were divorced in 1875. Wella remarried Mary Bartiett in 1888 and died before 1900. Pet married Theodore Bovee in 1889 and continued to work as a medium, advertising in San Francisco, Denver and Chicago. She died in 1896.
Additional Reading:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t7qn79z6m&view=1up&seq=3
https://ehbritten.blogspot.com/2017/07/recording-yermah-note-on-wella-and-pet.html
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