by Karen | Mar 10, 2020 | Karen's Korner
The earliest documentation of Spiritualism mediumship in the Creole community of New Orleans was in 1852. Rev. Thomas Lake Harris arrived from New York City and stayed at the Verandah Hotel for several months. Born in England in 1823, Harris moved to the US as a child. He became a Universalist minister at age 20 and was one the followers of Andrew Jackson Davis. He developed as a Spiritualist, poet, and medium, and left the Universalist church to go on lecture tours. During his New Orleans visit, he held private séances. The New Orleans Daily Crescent referred to him as one of the “apostles of the tribe of Spiritual Rappers.”
Henry Louis Rey was a Creole medium who documented the
locations, dates, and participants who attended his Cercle Harmonique seances.
He also recorded the happenings that transpired during the circles and the
names of the spirits who visited. His followers included: Jean François and Rey
Chatry, Joanni Questy, Samuel Snaër, Nelson Desbrosses, and Aldophe Duhart. Rey’s
seances continued until he enlisted for the Civil War, and resumed afterward.
Francois Petit Dubuclet was the son of the Louisiana State Treasurer.
He was a cigar maker who eventually led the Cercle Harmonique under
Henry Rey’s direction as both a medium and healer.
Adolphe Duhart was born in New Orleans in the 1830s and
educated in France. He was a poet and dramatist who taught at L’Institution
Catholique. As a member of Rey’s séance circle, he became a medium.
Nelson Desbrosses was a native of New Orleans who attended
private schools and became a notable poet. He learned the laying on of hands to
conduct spiritualist messages.
Séances from 1865 until 1867 moved to the home of J. B. Valmour in Tremé. Valmour was of mixed ancestry, French/ African or Spanish/African. He worked as a blacksmith and healed people at his private apartment for free. Valmour’s healing abilities and skill as a medium became so notable that he turned to healing in open squares. He kept a large register full of spirit messages received from various mediums. After his death, Valmour returned from the spirit word to give messages during seances.
Pere Ambroise was a local spirit who often visited Creole Spiritualist circles. Ambroise was most known for his description of the spirit world and the process of reaching it after death. He said, “When we detach ourselves from our material bodies, we enter into the invisible world, each in accordance with the manner in which he had conducted earthly life.”
Black Spiritualism grew during the mid to late 1800s. They
adopted the principles set out by the National Spiritual Association in 1899.
Unlike their northern counterparts, Creole Spiritualists focused on social
reform.
Additional Reading:
Clark, Emily Suzanne (2014) A Luminous Brotherhood:
Afro-creole Spiritualism in Nineteenth Century New Orleans. University of
North Carolina Press.
Daggett, Melissa (2016) Spiritualism among Creoles of Color in Nineteenth Century New Orleans: The Life and Times of Henry Louis Rey. University Press of Mississippi.
Pinn, Anthony B. (2009) African American Religious Cultures. ABC-CLIO
by Karen | Mar 3, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Faubourg Treme was the largest neighborhood of free black people in New Orleans in the mid-1800s. In that diverse city, rich and poor, black and white, and free and enslaved created the culture that distinguishes New Orleans today. Part of that culture was born out of Spiritualism.
In 1858, Thomas Gales Forster and J. Rollin M. Squire, Banner
of Light editors arrived in New Orleans to lecture on Spiritualism and hold
private séance circles. One person who took an interest in their demonstrations
was clerk, accountant and political activist, Henry Rey.
Rey, the son of Louis Barthelemy and Rose Agnes Rey, descended from Haitian Immigrants who moved to New Orleans after the 1809 Haitian Revolution from Cuba. Rey’s interest in Spiritualism began when his father died in 1852. After his father’s spirit appeared to him, Rey attended a séance at the home of medium Soeur (sister) Louise. She gave him a pencil and paper and through Rey, his father wrote, “Write our dictation, and then you will not be tired.”
Rey married Adele Crocky in 1857 and they had four children.
During those years, he not only became a medium, he documented the locations,
dates, and participants who attended his Cercle Harmonique seances. He
also recorded the happenings that transpired during the circles and the names
of the spirits who visited. Rey’s records dated from the 1860s and 1870s and were
written in French.
Like other black Creoles, Rey fought for the South during the Civil War in hopes of gaining a pension and right to vote, but neither happened. Instead, he was appointed to the school board and work to integrate the school system. He also served in the Louisiana House of Representatives (1868- 1870) and became the Third District Assessor.
Rey’s Cercle Harmonique ended in 1877 as Spiritualism began to wane. For a short time in 1890, Rey resumed his mediumship, but did not continue. Fellow medium, François “Petit” Dubuclet, became Rey’s close friend over the years and held on to the séance registers after Rey died in 1894. They were passed to his son-in-law and then donated to the University of New Orleans. Today, one can read that the records not only document Rey’s séance circles, they reflect the political and social events of the time.
Additional Reading:
Daggett, Melissa (2016) Spiritualism in
Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: The Life and Times of Henry Louis Rey. Jackson:
University Press of Mississippi.
by Karen | Feb 25, 2020 | Karen's Korner
The land on which Queen City Park in Burlington, Vermont now stands was purchased from the Central Vermont Railroad in the early 1880’s. It was the intent of The Forest City Park Association to turn the forested land abutting the shore of Lake Champlain into a private park for spiritualist camp meetings as well as a summer resort.
The first Lake Champlain Spiritualist Camp Meeting was held in
the autumn of 1882. Initial investors had their own camping spots and tents
that they rented out during the year. Annual gatherings soon included séances,
vendors, workshops and a variety of entertainment. A special train was
designated to take people from Burlington to the park, streetcar tracks were
extended, and ferries took passengers to and from Shelburne Bay.
In 1886, cottages and a hotel were built to accommodate the increasing number of guests. The first hotel burned a few years later and was replaced by an 80-room structure with an elegant dining hall that seated 150 people in 1890. In 1915, a chapel was constructed, and the park flourished until a fire engulfed most of the property in the late 1930s.
Today, Queen City Park is a small enclave in South
Burlington, located below the southern edge of Red Rocks Park. The original
artesian well and the bell that once sat upon pavilion roof are all that remain.
Blodgett’s Landing, located along the eastern shore of
Sunapee Lake, New Hampshire, was originally established as a Spiritualist
community in 1876 by George Blodgett. The landing was one of eleven ports serviced
by a fleet of steamships that took guests around the lake.
In 1883, the property was divided into 125 lots. Tents were
replaced by cottages, with 28 erected by 1885. The Hotel Sunapee featured a
large dining room. There was also a pavilion, bowling alley and laundry at the camp.
The Forest House Hotel was built by Blodgett in 1890 and the
Sunapee Spiritualists were incorporated in 1893. Camp meetings were held
annually for 4-5 weeks in July, August or September. Harmony Hall was erected
as a gathering place in 1900, followed by the Spiritualist Temple in 1901.
Activities during the meetings included speakers, medium
readings, music and literary entertainment, and Saturday night dances. Mrs.
Bliss, Mr. Joseph Caffray and Carrie M. Sawyer, noted materialization medium,
were mentioned as guests at the camp.
Camp meetings were discontinued in the early 1900s, but the
landing survived as a vacation resort. Today the property is part of the town
of Newbury. A cottage owners association maintains the appearance of the
grounds.
In 1876, Spiritualism came to Ottawa County, Kansas with a
group from the Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin. The association established the Universal
Church and attracted over 100 parishioners. To deal with increasing membership
they moved their meetings to Lindsey Creek. The First Association of
Spiritualists of Delphos received their charter in 1881.
The group continued to flourish. In 1880, they held the 5th Annual Solomon Valley Spiritualist Camp Meeting from September 22nd to October 1st. They offered mediumship demonstrations as well as other social events, including plays, teas, and formal dinners.
While many Spiritualist churches and camps dwindled in the early 1900s, the Delphos organization moved from Delphos to Wells, Kansas. In 1934, they purchased land to build the Sunset Spiritualist Church. Two early church buildings were destroyed, but in 1966 the building which stands today was completed.
The church has kept up with the times, developed a social media presence, expanded its services and turned its annual camp meeting into events nearly year-round. They have a weekly development circle, a Body, Mind & Spirit Festival and weekend classes. Today, they have a séance building, central bathhouse, 20 cabins, and snack bar. In 2014, they celebrated their 80th Annual Camp Meeting since moving to Wells.
https://www.vtcng.com/otherpapersbvt/community/looking-back-queen-city-park/article_3872d88f-4a4a-5280-ada7-587d8718b3b3.html
https://johngreenwood.net/Sunapee-History/html/body_spiritualists_of_lake_sunapee.html
https://www.newburyhistorical.org/pdf/Newsletter_v8no2.pdf
Emma Hardinge Britten, “Spiritual Camp Meetings,” Nineteenth Century Miracles; or, Spirits and Their Work in Every Country of the Earth. A Complete Historical Compendium of the Great Movement Known as “Modern Spiritualism.” New York: William Britten, 1884, pp. 542-550.
Sunset Camp Organization
by Karen | Feb 18, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Many Spiritualist camps were formed in the late 1800s and either turned in to small ordinary communities or went out of existence entirely. In this blog, I continue my discussion about some of the lesser known camps.
Pine Grove Spiritualist Camp on Niantic Bay near New London, Connecticut
was established in 1882. The settlement grew from a collection of tents to nearly
200 small Victorian cottages.
Today, Pine Grove is a private community of 155 homes. Winding
streets surround the Memorial Temple, a three-story Victorian with a wraparound
screen porch. The Pine Grove Beautification Committee keeps up the grounds. Events
are held from June through September. Mediums are available for readings. Workshops,
message circles and Sunday Temple Service is offered. There are even sleepovers
at the cottage and ghost walks in October.
The New London Spiritualist Church, chartered in 1930, is
located on Freedom Way in Niantic. They conduct Sunday services and are
affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches.
After word spread about the Fox Sisters, the First
Association of Spiritualists in Philadelphia began meeting in 1852 and formally
signed their constitution in 1867. Nearby Neshaminy Falls, located a few miles
north of the city, offered an ideal location for annual summer meetings.
Spiritualists held seances, discussions and music in
an open-air pavilion. Lectures included topics such as “Woman and her relation
to Spiritualism.” Emma Hardinge-Britten was one of the speakers, traveling from
her home in New York City.
With overflow crowds in attendance, ten to twelve thousand on any given Saturday, the association purchased 113 acres just below the dam to house attendees and built small cottages. Spiritual retreats continued until the 1930s. Today, Neshaminy Falls is a small unincorporated community.
Woolley Park in Ashley, Ohio was incorporated by S.J. Woolley, Sol Roosevelt and Thomas M Seeds as a meeting place in 1892. Summer homes were built around the park, which had a swimming pool and restaurant. Year-round residents still live in these homes but it is not a Spiritualist community.
In 1950, a group of these spiritualists left to form the White Lily Chapel. The chapel was chartered with the National Spiritualist Association (NSA). In 1953, they purchased “the Old Opera House” building, remodeled it and provided Wednesday dinners for the public.
They left the NSA and established a charter with the State of Ohio in 1963. Even though the church burned in 1980, they rebuilt on the same property. Today they offer weekly Sunday worship services and an Inspiration Study Class which include psychic awareness, healing circles and messages.
Additional reading:
https://www.iapsop.com/spirithistory/1867_ohio_state_association_of_spiritualists.html
https://iapsop.com/spirithistory/1880_spiritualist_camp_meetings.html
https://travispsychic.wordpress.com/2017/01/26/spiritualism-in-north-central-ohio/
by Karen | Feb 11, 2020 | Karen's Korner
During the 1800s, many traveling protestant ministers brought religion to rural areas with tent revivals. Those locations eventually became annual meeting places and religious camps. Spiritualists had no need for revivals, but they formed their own camps in the 1880s. In 1906, over forty Spiritualist camp meetings were held.
New England was home to the earliest Spiritualist camps.
They were usually located in wooded areas near a lake, ocean or stream.
Followers used the natural setting for inspiration and lived in tents if the
gathering lasted more than a day. As the meetings became more formalized, land
was purchased, pavilions were erected, and cabins and hotels were built to
provide lodging.
Pierpoint Grove, located about 10 miles north of Boston in Melrose, became a Spiritualist camp in the mid-1860s. The grove consisted of about fifty acres of wooded land. Those from Boston could commute daily, but attendees who came from as far away as Texas camped in tents for the three-day August event. Mediums, including African American, Mrs. Hattie Wilson, spoke at the events.
Other camps opened in Abington, Concord and Harwich, but the
predominant camps were Lake Pleasant near Greenfield, Massachusetts and Onset
Bay Grove near Wareham, Massachusetts.
Lake Pleasant was first developed as a resort by the
Fitchburg Railroad Company in 1872. It featured a depot, bandstand, dance
pavilion and tables near the lake. Organizations rented the area for picnics, parties,
and Fourth of July celebrations. In the summer of 1874, a local Spiritualist
group sponsored a two-week meeting in mid-August. Seventy-five tents were
supplied by a Boston company, and the Fitchburg band played daily. Mediums and
speakers held sessions in front of their tents.
By 1880, the grove consisted of 90 cottages, 175 tents, a
hotel and eight restaurants. Well-known Spiritualists like Emma Hardinge
Britten spoke there. Four years later, they built a roller-skating rink and a
new bandstand. The camp meeting association purchased the land from the
railroad in 1887. Growth continued until 1907 when a fire swept through the
community, destroying 130 buildings.
Today Lake Pleasant is still home to Victorian cottages and
camping lots. The National Spiritual Alliance is headquartered there. They
offer Sunday services, development circles, courses and workshops, and ordain
ministers.
It was during a meeting at Lake Pleasant that Dr. H.B Storer;
E. Gerry Brown, editor of Spiritual Scientist; and H.S. Williams decided
to construct another camp. They chartered the Onset Grove Association in 1877
and purchased a 125-acre waterfront plot along Buzzard’s Bay. Onset Bay Grove
opened the same year with plans laid out for streets, parks and 700 building
lots. The cottages were given Native American and natural names
such as Weetamoe and Sagamore Cottage.
Onset Grove held its annual meeting in July, so it didn’t
conflict with the Lake Pleasant meeting. They featured lecturers, mediums,
mesmerists, clairvoyants, spirit photographers and healers, including medium
Cora Scott, author Lyman C. Howe and Henry C Wright.
Over time, the grove became popular as a resort and diversified until non-spiritualists made up most of the community. By 1915, Spiritualism no longer dominated the town.
Additional Reading:
Maddigan, Michael J. (2016) Spiritualist Onset:
Talking with the Dead by the Sea. Maddigan Publisher.
Moore, William D. Moore. (1997) “‘To Hold Communion
with Nature and the Spirit-World:’ New England’s Spiritualist Camp Meetings,
1865-1910.” In Annmarie Adams and Sally MacMurray, eds. Exploring
Everyday Landscapes: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, VII.
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
by Karen | Feb 4, 2020 | Karen's Korner
John Greenleaf Whittier was born to John and Abigail (Hussey) in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1807. Their farm was not very profitable, and Whittier suffered from bad health. He received little education but loved to read his father’s books on Quakerism. A teacher introduced him to poetry and his first poem was published in the Newburyport Free Press in 1826.
Two local editors encouraged Whittier to attend Haverhill Academy. He worked odd jobs to raise money for his tuition fees and attended the academy from 1827 to 1828, completing his high school education in only two terms. He was hired as editor of the National Philanthropist. By 1830, he was editor of the New England Weekly Review, a Whig journal in Hartford Connecticut. He became interested in politics, but after losing a congressional seat, he turned his attention to abolitionism.
In 1833, Whittier published the
antislavery pamphlet Justice and Expediency. He was a founding
member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and signed the Anti-Slavery
Declaration of 1833. He traveled widely, attending conventions, speaking to the
public, and lobbying politicians. He was editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman
and the National Enquirer. At the same time, he continued to write
poetry.
Many times, political activists who were interested in the rights of women and blacks became interested in Spiritualism. Whitter regarded reincarnation as a possibility and had many Transcendentalist companions. His interest in Spiritualism may have come from his mother.
Col. T. W. Higginson described Abigail Whittier as “a brilliant person, unsurpassed in my memory for the light cavalry charges of wit.” He said that when he visited her, she never failed to inquire about his “spiritual communications.” Whittier approached him in a more guarded way, with less fascination than his mother.
Judge Gates wrote, “I think it can be
truly said that Mr. Whittier is not a believer in spiritualism, but he
acknowledged that there was something about it which he could not explain and
did not understand.” Whittier frequently related an incident which occurred in
Boston. An old friend asked Whittier to visit a medium with him. He
was not feeling well, so the friend went alone. When the friend returned, he
had a message for Whittier.
“‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I saw Henry Wilson.’ ‘Did you? What did Henry have to say?’ ‘ He spoke of you in very complimentary terms.’ ‘What did he say about me?’ ‘He said if he were to live his life over again, he would pattern more after you, because he thought you had made less mistakes in your political life than any one he had known.’” Whittier was taken a back because Henry Wilson had stated something similar just before his death.
Being raised as a Quaker, Whittier would
not accept another religion. He spoke of Spiritualism as something to be
explained. Mary Baker Eddy’s secretary participated in a séance attended by Whittier,
poet Lucy Larcom and Mr. Colby of the Banner of Light. Eddy was
attending to demonstrate that spiritualism was mind reading and not
communication with the dead. Whittier’s motivations for attending the séance were
unclear.
After the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 which ended slavery
Whittier turned to other forms of poetry for the remainder of his life. If he
attended other seances, it was not recorded. He died at this home in Massachusetts
in 1892.
Additional Reading:
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth (1902) John Greenleaf Whittier.
Macmillan Co., London.
Kennedy, W. Sloane (1892) John Greenleaf Whittier: His Life, Genius, and Writings. D. Lothrop Co., NY E-book https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37191/37191-h/37191-h.htm
Tomlinson, Irving C. (945) Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy.
Christian Science Publishing Company, Boston.
A Mystery
The river hemmed with leaning trees
Wound through its meadows green;
A low, blue line of mountains showed
The open pines between.
One sharp, tall peak above them all
Clear into sunlight sprang
I saw the river of my dreams,
The mountains that I sang!
No clue of memory led me on,
But well the ways I knew;
A feeling of familiar things
With every footstep grew.
Not otherwise above its crag
Could lean the blasted pine;
Not otherwise the maple hold
Aloft its red ensign.
So up the long and shorn foot-hills
The mountain road should creep;
So, green and low, the meadow fold
Its red-haired kine asleep.
The river wound as it should wind;
Their place the mountains took;
The white torn fringes of their clouds
Wore no unwonted look.
Yet ne’er before that river’s rim
Was pressed by feet of mine,
Never before mine eyes had crossed
That broken mountain line.
A presence, strange at once and known,
Walked with me as my guide;
The skirts of some forgotten life
Trailed noiseless at my side.
Was it a dim-remembered dream?
Or glimpse through aeons old?
The secret which the mountains kept
The river never told.
But from the vision ere it passed
A tender hope I drew,
And, pleasant as a dawn of spring,
The thought within me grew,
That love would temper every change,
And soften all surprise,
And, misty with the dreams of earth,
The hills of Heaven arise.
John Greenleaf Whittier 1873.
by Karen | Jan 28, 2020 | Karen's Korner
William Lloyd Garrison was born in 1805 in Newburyport, Massachusetts. His father was a sailor, but after becoming unemployed in 1808, he deserted his family. Garrison sold homemade candy and lemonade as a boy, and at the age of 13 worked as an apprentice compositor at the Newburyport Herald. He soon began writing articles under the pseudonym, Aristides.
Garrison’s mother died in 1823. By then, his apprenticeship had ended, and he
was the sole owner, editor, and printer of the Newburyport Free Press.
In 1828, he was appointed editor of the National Philanthropist in
Boston.
While working for the newspapers,
Garrison became involved in the anti-slavery movement. He co-founded The
Liberator in 1831. He advocated for the immediate emancipation of all
slaves which was an unpopular view during the 1830s. The Liberator only
had 400 subscribers, but Garrison gained a reputation as one of the most
radical abolitionists. He helped organize the New England Anti-Slavery Society in
1832, and the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.
There were many anti-slavery movements
in the 1840s. Garrison believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery
document and that women should be allowed to participate in the Anti-Slavery
Society, both radical ideas at the time. In 1851, when Frederick Douglass
stated that the Constitution could be used against slavery and not abandoned, a
rift formed between he and Garrison that was never healed.
After Civil War ended in 1865,
Garrison published his last issue of the Liberator. His wife, Helen,
had suffered a small stroke in 1863, and became increasingly frail. She died in
1876, and Garrison was so overcome with grief he was bedridden for days. He
began to attend Spiritualist circles in the hope of communicating with her.
Suffering from kidney disease,
Garrison condition weakened in early 1879. He moved to New York to live with
his daughter Fanny’s family. On May 24, 1879, he died just before midnight. No
public mention was made of Mr. Garrison’s fascination with Spiritualism at his funeral,
but others were aware of his interest. Timothy B. Taylor said Garrison “was
a pure, genuine, out-and-out SPIRITUALIST!”
Giles B. Stebbins said, “He used good
judgment, aimed to see only reliable mediums, kept all this thought and ideal
on this great matter in the realm of fine morals and spiritual culture, and was
earnest in expression of the peace, and strength, and joy, and the clear views
of life and its work and duty, which Spiritualism gave him.”
Luther Colby reported that Garrison
attend a séance at the home of Mrs. Mary M. Hardy in 1879. “Mr. Garrison called
upon Mrs. Susie Nickerson-White, of Boston, test medium; during the sitting she
was controlled by his spirit-wife, who, in answer to his question if he should
live to welcome his daughter on her return from the Old World, informed him
that his time on earth was short, and that he would not be living when she (the
daughter) returned.”
Additional Reading:
Colby, Luther. “William Lloyd
Garrison,” Banner of Light (Boston), June 7, 1879.
Mayer, Henry (1998) All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery, St. Martin’s Press, New York.
Stebbins, Giles Badger. “Wm. Lloyd
Garrison a Spiritualist—Testimony of G. B. Stebbins,” Banner of Light,
December 27, 1879.
Stewart, James Brewer (1992) William
Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation. Harlan Davidson, Inc. Arlington
Heights, IL.
Taylor, T. B., “William Lloyd Garrison’s Religion,” Banner
of Light, July 5, 1879.
https://iapsop.com/spirithistory/garrison_as_spiritualist.html
by Karen | Jan 21, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Frederic Myers was born in 1843 in Keswick, Cumberland, England, the son of Reverend Frederic and Susan Myers. He was educated at Cheltenham and Trinity Colleges, graduating in 1864. Afterward, he became a fellow and college lecturer. He gained some recognition as a man of letters and as a poet, but he was not to become known for his poetry.
Myers married Eveleen Tennant in 1880 and they had three children. He was an early supporter of voting rights and higher education for women, so it is not surprising that Eveleen became a distinguished photographer. Despite his marriage, it was a platonic relationship with Annie Marshall, his cousin’s wife, that had impacted him the most. Their friendship ended abruptly when she committed suicide in 1876.
Annie’s death probably led to Myer’s interest in the mind and consciousness. In 1882, he became a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research with Edmond Gurney and Henry Sidgwick. Myers developed a number of psychical ideas and a theory of a “subliminal-self.” He believed that an explanation of consciousness must be part of a unified model of mind which included not only normal psychological phenomena but also a wide variety “supernormal” phenomena. He coined the term telepathy in 1882 and concluded that there was evidence that the mind was not totally dependent on the brain.
Myers co-authored Phantasms of the Living (1886) which documents 701 case sightings of apparitions. It also explores a telepathic theory to explain the listed cases. The book received mixed support from the medical community at the time, but that did not deter Myers. His collection of essays, Science and a Future Life was published in 1893, and his largest contribution was published until two years after his death in 1903. Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death consists of two large volumes and presents an overview of Myers’s research into the unconscious mind. He believed he provided evidence for the existence of the soul and survival of personality after death. The book cites cases of telepathy, automatic writing, psychokinesis, mediumship, hypnotism and possession.
Myers’ investigations into mediums and their supernatural abilities was mixed. In the 1870s, he was discouraged by the lack of incontrovertible evidence in support of mediumship. He participated in sittings with Eusapia Palladino in the 1890s, and even though he admitted that she used trickery at times, she produced genuine psychokinetic effects in other instances. He sat with trance medium Leonora Piper in Boston and Rosalie Thompson in London in the late 1890s and was convinced they were authentic.
Myers’ health failed in 1900, and he traveled abroad for the winter in search of a cure. His symptoms abated but soon returned, and he died in Rome in 1901 at the age of 58. Myers might have died over 100 years ago, but his ideas did not. In 2009, Edward F. and Emily W. Kelly published Irreducible Mind. Both are members of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. In the book, they interpret Myers’ ideas in the light of new scientific research.
Additional Reading:
Kelly, E.F. and E.W. Kelly (2009) Irreducible Mind, Rowman and Littlefield, New York.
Myers, F.W.H. (1903) Human
Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (2 vols.). Longmans, London
and New York
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/frederic-wh-myers
Photo from the National Portrait
Gallery, London
by Karen | Jan 14, 2020 | Karen's Korner
Agatha Wehner was born in Steinach, Germany in 1896, received an 8th grade education and worked as a clerk. She immigrated to the United States in 1923 to be a governess, and married Leo Wojciechowsky soon after. They had two children, Ingeborg (1926) and William Roland (1927). After living in Montclair, New Jersey for a time, they settled in New York City.
During a mediumship class with Bertha Marks, Agatha was informed that the spirits wanted to use her hands to write and paint for them. Agatha thought this was strange since she didn’t know anything about either. She ignored the suggestion until one day while she was riding the bus and she spotted an art shop. A voice told her to buy paints, so she went inside not knowing anything about art supplies. The proprietor sold her a set of watercolors and brushes.
At home she asked, “Now what do I do now?” The spirits told her to sit comfortably and be patient. She was then instructed to tie a pencil between her finger than thumb and to sit with a pad of paper. She couldn’t keep her hand still, and began writing lower case letter Es, over and over again, thousands of them.
Eventually, she was able to reach a deep trance state. Her automatic writing appeared as a strange script with an unknown alphabet that she couldn’t translate. Her first painting was of three Native American men. In the early 1950s, she produced hundreds of abstract drawings with faces.
She was often told the name of the artist who was working
through her. At one point, Paolo Veronese, a Renaissance painter from Venice,
made his name known to her. She went to the art museum to find some of his work
and was so overwhelmed by the beauty of his masterworks that she returned home
and ripped up all of her watercolors.
As well-known Spiritualist medium, Agatha traveled internationally as a healer. She resumed her painting and sold some of her better pieces in Germany. She became recognized as a Surrealist and had solo exhibitions from the 1960s to 1980s in New York, Cologne, Berlin, and Hamburg. She also did hand paintings. People would make a tracing of their hand and mail them to her. She would fill the outline in with faces while in a trance.
“This is the work of different entities who take over and
step into my body, directing my hand. I really have nothing to do with it,”
Agatha said of her work. Many of her paintings are colorful landscapes with
faces imbedded in the scene.
When she died in 1986, Agatha left behind a body of spiritual works that can still be viewed in many galleries across the United States
Additional Information:
https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/people/2219/agatha-wojciechowsky
Video of Agatha painting by Charles O’Neal, 1974.
https://agathawojciechowsky.com/
by Karen | Dec 24, 2019 | Karen's Korner
Silver Birch was the spirit guide channeled by trance medium Maurice Barbanell. The teachings of Silver Birch were first published in Psychic News and Two Worlds and then as books. Silver Birch spoke about both the winter solstice season and Jesus Christ.
He said that the solstice season is an important of time of regrowth
and resurrection, a time that the spirits receive “the greatest communion from
the Great Spirit.” A festival that focuses on the rebirth of the sun is
important because it represents the beginning of a new cycle. Festivals held in
the physical world are also held in the spirit world. “You do not yet
understand very much the influence of the sun,” he said. “At these times, we held
for many days what you call séances. We received at those festivals much
inspiration.”
Even though he spoke of the importance of celebrations that predate Christianity, Silver Birch also spoke about the “Nazarene.” He said that advanced spirits take advice from more developed ones. Among those spirits “is the great figure of the Nazarene, who is still imbued with the task of teaching humanity age-old truth enshrined in all that we seek to do, that love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Silver Birch explained that the Nazarene is not the deified version
one sees portrayed in the churches. He explained that, “The Nazarene was a
messenger of the Great Spirit who came into your world in order to fulfill a
mission of the Great Spirit. He fulfilled his mission on earth, but he
has not yet fulfilled the rest of his mission, which is still being directed
from the world of spirit.”
The Jesus that we read about in the Bible “has since evolved
and there is now a far greater spiritual consciousness expressed through him than
there was in the earthly incarnation, for the amount that he expressed then had
to be in consonance with the limitations of his day.” He is now a great
spirit teacher who encourages them on their missions and gives them new hope.
Silver Birch also warned that it was wrong to worship the
Nazarene. He said that worship should be given only to the Great Spirit. “The
Nazarene came into your world by fulfilling the natural laws which the Great
Spirit had ordained,” he said. “The same natural laws which all must fulfill in
order to be born into your world.”
Silver Birch’s one wish was that “you could see and hear the
Nazarene and feel that great love as he encourages us to go forward with new
strength, with new hope, with new vision and with new purpose.” The Christmas
season embodies the expectation of new growth and rebirth. Let’s keep that in
mind as we celebrate the holidays with family and friends.
Additional reading:
Austin, A.W. (1998) Teachings of Silver Birch.
Psychic Press, UK
Ballard, Stan A. and Roger Green (1998) The Silver Birch
Book of Questions and Answers. Psychic Press, UK
Ortzen, Tony (1998) The Spirit Speaks. Spirit Truth
Press
