PSYPIONEER

An Electronic Newsletter from London

Volume 1 No 3 July 2004

According to legend, a Spiritualist church was founded in Keighley, England in

1853. But what really happened in the town? York Spiritualist historian Gerald
OHara has unearthed forgotten accounts of a pioneering community See page
21.

Highlights of this issue

Did A. J. Davis found the Movement? 17
How the Lyceum came to Australia 19
Stainton Moses and the Crystal Visions 20
News from Keighley 21
Early Spiritualism and Sexism 22
Emmas Library 24

Did A.J. Davis found the Movement?

The reference books tell us that the Modern Spiritualist movement began in 1848 with
manifestations around the Fox sisters in Hydesville, New York State, and this is
celebrated on 31 March each year.

There's a fashion in history today to ask " What if " questions. What if this famous
leader had died (or not died) - and what if this war or that had been differently won
and lost. So let's join it and ask, " What if the Fox family had never come to
Hydesville - would there have been Spiritualism?

Clearly the practice of mediumship in many traditional societies would have been
unaffected. Throughout black Africa, for example, healers and mediums have
continued their work for centuries, including the "detection" of witches. In some
cultures, like Tibet, sacred oracles guided the government.

In England cunning folk still worked especially in country districts, finding lost
objects and advising on affairs of the heart. Across America, by the 1840s and in
fashionable France, mesmeric practitioners (followers of Mesmer's theory of animal
magnetism) were spreading altered states of consciousness. Cahagnet in France
published spirit messages, such as " Arcanes de la vie future devoiles"(1848). The
adolescent mesmeric subject Emma Hardinge was working with the Orphic Circle,
though her occultists were antagonistic to the idea of spirit communication.

And then there was the young Andrew Jackson Davis, a mesmeric clairvoyant in New
York State who was internationally famous before the Fox sisters.

This beings us to our main theory; that it was Davis who was the real founder of
Modern Spiritualism. We intend to test this by drawing firstly on his book " Beyond

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the Valley" (Boston, Colby & Rich, 1885), described as a sequel to " The Magic
Staff", an autobiography. " The Magic Staff" has been reprinted by SNU
Publications. But "Beyond the Valley " has been largely forgotten.

This is not surprising. Although some of Davis's books have been reissued in the
States over the years, his literary style has not been popular with modern readers,
especially when expanded in trance. His reputation also suffered because of
complications in his marriages. By 1884, he had serious problems with his voice and
general health and was about to change his profession to doctor!

"Beyond the Valley" is a mixed bag, with chapters devoted to historical phases in the
author's middle life (not in order either) together with addresses, and question and
answer sections that might accumulate in the drawer of a platform speaker. The book
is not well organised, and appears to have been mainly compiled in the winter of
1884-5 while Davis was staying in the house of a friend in New England, Alfred E.
Giles, having separated from his second wife Mary.

One of the documents incorporated by Davis (in Ch. XV) is from the Spiritualist
newspaper " Religio -Philosophical Journal" of Chicago dated April 6 1872 and is a
sermon by Rev. W.E. Copeland, a Unitarian minister of Emporia, Kansas. It makes
the case for Davis in fulsome terms, and we may usefully quote it here.

" Davis" claims Copeland, " has impressed upon Spiritualism the peculiar ideas and
phraseology of the Harmonial Philosophy. So far as the religion is orderly and
definite, it is through the labours of Davis."

(However, although Davis sometimes called himself a Spiritualist, Davis was at pains
in a footnote to distinguish Spiritualism, which was " almost wholly founded upon
and devoted to the authority of " Spiritual Intercourse" ", from the Harmonial
Philosophy which was " founded upon and devoted to the authority of Nature, Reason
and Intuition.")

Copeland calls Davis the most remarkable man of modern times, and asserts that " the
series of books written by Davis contain a compendium of theology and morality
which made a part of one's life, cannot well fail to make of the disciple a genuine
Christian." He calls a Davis " a liberal Christian of the advanced school with
millions of disciples.

The claim, which most concerns us, is this. The Unitarian minister writes:
" I have for years watched Spiritualism, read its books and heard its lectures, and I can
find but little which Davis did not teach before a medium spoke, and that little is only
an amplification of some points in the Harmonial Philosophy. Davis is the father of
the religion called Spiritualism. His lectures are the fountains from whence flows the
water of life, with which our Spiritual brethren sate their thirst."

More follows on the immense contribution made by Davis to religious and social
reform, and the need for Spiritualism, if it is to progress, to have a well-digested
system of truth. But let us pause to consider Copeland's claim that Davis fathered
Modern Spiritualism.

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Clearly there was some contribution from the Fox sisters, and from the development
of circles which followed. But none of the sisters produced any systematic account of
the new teaching. Moreover, as the practice of mediumship spread, many foolish
communications from other mediums were put into print as early as 1850, which
damaged the new movement.

Davis did have some following abroad, including Europe. But as years went by other
systems became popular, such as Kardecism in Roman Catholic countries and the
Christian Spiritualism of Stainton Moses in Britain. Certainly there was a good deal
less in circulation when Copeland wrote on 1872, and Davis was still pre-eminent in
the States.

Copeland's own career illustrates the search for new teaching. For information on this
I turned to Dr John Buescher, editor of the web site www.spirithistory.com, which
features the history of American spiritualism. Dr Buescher is also the author of the
article " Spiritualism" which appears in the " on line " Dictionary of Unitarian and
Universalist Biography.

Dr Buescher told me that William Ellery Copeland (1838-1904 held a number of

Unitarian pastorates, and went on to live for a time in a socialist utopian community
and even to edit a socialist newspaper. He was also a mason, and became a non-
resident member of a theosophical colony based in Oceano, California. He was
perhaps typical of many seekers who for a time were influenced by Davis.

But we need to examine other aspects of Andrew Jackson's work before reaching a
final verdict and will therefore be going " Beyond the Valley" next month.
(A.J. Davis 4 )
.........................

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.

How the Lyceum came to Australia

In 2001, a valuable history was issued of Spiritualism in Melbourne's Golden Age
1870-1890. The author, Dr Al Gabay is senior lecturer in history and religious studies
at La Trobe University, Australia. He previously published in 1992 a biography " The
Mystic Life of Alfred Deakin", the pioneer Australian spiritualist who became three
times Prime Minister. (see PP2), For his research, he used rare source material from
the Victorian Spiritualists Union. The new work " Messages from Beyond" is from
Melbourne University Press, and is available in the UK through Eurospan Distributors
of Covent Garden, London at 13.95 plus 2 postage.

Dr Gabay devotes a chapter to William H. Terry, founder editor from 1870 of the
monthly newspaper" Harbinger of Light" who in October 1872 began the Melbourne
Progressive Lyceum with 25 scholars. (That was just a few months after Alfred
Kitson in England!) Terry was its first conductor and taught there until 1899. By 1878
there were 150 regular scholars, and in 1886 there were 256 scholars enrolled, but
numbers were severely reduced by a financial depression in 1891.

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Dr Gabay describes the advanced teaching methods which closely followed those of
A.J. Davis. Deakin edited a children's paper"" Lyceum Miniature" while Terry
produced " Lyceum Leader". A favourite outing in the 1880s.was the annual Lyceum
Christmas picnic, which up to 200 people would attend. (Don't forget- it is summer in
Australia when it is winter in the UK!). But in 1882, there was a tremendous row
when Thomas Walker, a trance lecturer originally from Lancashire, became a
Secularist, and tried to take Australian Lyceumists away from Spiritualism.

Dr Gabay concludes that the Lyceums were inspired by a Romantic view of human
nature, similar to Wordsworth's belief in the divine image within. If you are interested
in psychic history, this is an excellent work- and look out for Emma Hardinge
Britten's visit to Australia in its pages. LP.
.

Biographical numbering. In this and later issues of the newsletter, readers may see
items prefixed (e.g. Stainton Moses (1).) This is to make easy, reference over many
months to items about major pioneers.

(Stainton Moses 2)

Stainton Moses and the Crystal Visions

Among the rarest of this authors publications is a booklet reprinted by LIGHT of
three articles which appeared in its pages on January 7, 14 and 21 1888 under the title
Visions. (The Pioneer project hopes one day to reprint the booklet, identifying the
persons mentioned from the surviving Moses notebooks.) These 1877 visions were
received with the aid of a crystal.

Introducing the visions, SM wrote, Thrice only have I been brought into contact with
spiritual beings who profess never to have been incarnate in this world. One of these
was known to me as The Angel Harmony. Her method of teaching was, as I have
said, by symbolic vision. I became clairvoyant, and saw these visions, having first of
all prepared myself by gazing fixedly into a crystal.

Commenting on the first vision, Rector said:

The grouping of the friends on the other side is made for your convenience. We
know no time nor space and I am enabled to place this scene before your spiritual eye.
Withdraw your eye now and gaze fixedly on the crystal. It will enable you to free
yourself from the body and accompany her.

SM adds Accordingly I got my crystal, and using it in the way I had been directed, I
soon seemed to be free to move as I was impressed. I joined (or seemed to join) the
angel

Later SM noted

I was conscious of the presence of HARMONY, and gradually I resumed the

conditions there described. After gazing for some minutes at the crystal, I seemed to

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be disengaged from the body and stood with the Angel in as very peaceful scene. We
seemed to travel rapidly

We will return to this question of Stainton Moses and the crystal, but suggest that his
use was only occasional, and the crystal was not involved in the receipt of material
later edited for the famous volume Spirit Teachings.

LP.

NEWS FROM KEIGHLEY

Mr Editor-Sir- I take up my pen to communicate to you a few words concerning the

oldest, and perhaps the best-conducted, spiritual organisation in the United Kingdom.

The Spiritual Brotherhood and Lyceum in their constitutions are very simple: all
contributions to the same are bestowed voluntarily. Several of the members seem to
take turns at opening and presiding over their Sunday meetings, and in reading the
lessons before the general address is given to the public.

The members are all equal in rights and privileges, and anyone of the general public
has equal right with the members to address the meeting and to put questions.

The Lyceum is conducted also by the brethren and sisters taking their turns as
conductors and teachers; thus the burdens are borne by many, which makes the work
easy and pleasant, instead of wearying and wearing out the devoted few, as is too
often the case.

I may here mention that The Spiritual brotherhood in this place have collected or
collated a small pocket book of Progressive Lyceum Exercises got up in neat
wrapper, and consisting of hymns and of pleasant marches accompanied with the
music, in which all, both young and old, can take part: and also of rational and
philosophical lessons and recitations. The entire consists of about fifty pages and can
be supplied by D.W. Weatherhead, Low Street, Keighley, at the low price of 2d. per
copy to other schools or Lyceums: single copies, 3d. each.

The contents of this little work are very suggestive and interesting to the thoughtful
Spiritualist, and simple enough to attract the attention and to elevate the mind and the
feelings of the young. It is easier and less cumbersome than the larger Lyceum
Guides, and it is cheap enough for the children to purchase and to take home with
them to commit to memory. All Spiritualist Lyceums and schools should have this little
book.

The order or constitution of The Spiritual Brotherhood at Keighley is so effective

and so happifying in its results, that the people will not relinquish it on any
consideration whatever. I am distinctly informed that they have no inclination to
affiliate with any other society except in spirit and in truth, which affiliation, they
claim, is the only true national spiritual association. Their motto seems to be
harmonious, voluntary, effective, local associations or communions, without any
centralising, overriding, national society. Any national co-operative effort, they
affirm, should be democratic, yet distinct from all local societies or communions, and

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should be supported or aided by individual voluntary gifts or offerings, as in the case
of the Spiritual Institution.

The Sunday meetings are well attended even at this season of the year. The
brotherhood have just held their anniversary in the Mechanics Institution, in which
they had large and overpowering audiences to listen to excellent trance orations
through Mrs Scattergood. They also intend to hold a picnic and tea-party in the
grounds owned by Mr Weatherhead, high upon the hill-sides, having a beautiful and
very extensive view, at which they will be happy to meet all who can make it
convenient to be present on Saturday, August 22nd, to meet at the Lyceum between one
and two oclock.

Another piece of news is that our secularistic friends at Keighley are about to
relinquish the Working Mens Hall to some other party or parties, and I wish, and
almost hope, that they may come over en masse to membership of The Spiritual
Brotherhood . I must now close this, or it may prove to be too lengthy for the
columns of your highly-useful journal.
- Yours truly. D RICHMOND
Keighley, August 10, 1874.

This letter, which appeared in The Medium and Daybreak August 14 1874, is one
of the fruits of York historian Gerald OHaras extensive investigation into the earliest
stirrings of English Modern Spiritualism. Gerald argues that the brotherhood at
Keighley was not a church. We will print more of his evidence in the next issues.

Early Spiritualists and Sexism

Spiritualists generally believe in the equality of the sexes, and are against what we
now call sexism. Sexism is unjustified distinction between men and women. It is
sexism, for example, to prevent women driving cars.

Spiritualists were pioneers in the spread of womens rights, and this reminder (not
always welcome) was made to feminists and to historians generally in Dr Ann
Braudes classic American work Radical Spirits (1989). This has recently been
reprinted by Indiana University Press with a new introduction describing the impact
of the book (available in the UK through Plymbridge.)

It is surprising to learn, however, that the actual word sexism was being used, with
a different meaning, by early American Spiritualists. This is revealed in a fascinating
paper written by John Buescher, the founder of the web site. www.spirithistory.com.
Dr Bueschers work appears in the September 2002 issue of the Journal of the
American Academy of Religion, an open membership body which promotes the study
of religion. This is entitled More lurid than lucid: The Spiritualist Invention of the
word Sexism.

In 1866 the Massachusetts Spiritualists Association was revising its declaration of

principles, and one member of the revision committee, J.H.W. Toohey said of
mediumship The qualifications are constitutional, if not organic, and for the time,
become fundamental mere sexism being of secondary significance.

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In this statement in the newspaper Banner of Light Toohey partly meant by sexism
the physical and outward sexual characteristics that place one in the category of male
or female.

In their final report, the revision committee declared their support for the equality of
the sexes, and the moral integrality of sexism. Some other Spiritualists were not sure
what the last part of that sentence meant.

The editor of the The Spiritual Republic a Spiritualist paper in Chicago, Frank L.
Wadsworth failed to find sexism in the dictionary and wondered if it might be free
love, another expression of uncertain meaning.

Lily Barney Sayles, a womens suffrage activist, who had been present when the
principles were debated, reinforced that suspicion. It was indeed, she said, more lurid
than lucid, and a gentleman there had smiled knowingly when she asked if it meant
every man and woman had the right to do as they pleased in sexual matters.

Medium Levi Coonley, also present, had suggested the term encouraged promiscuity
and libertinism. But Henry Wright defended it as asserting the right of women in
marriage to choose if and when they wished to have babies.

There was currently much discussion among Spiritualists and other reformers about
the importance of a mothers role, and her influence on the unborn child, so this line
of thought was sympathetically received.

Toohey explained that the expression moral integrality of sexism was intended to
take a positive view of the sexual roles of both men and women.

In the background, as Dr Buescher explained,

Spiritualists looked to a natural law of sex, whereby spiritual feelings of attraction,

regarded as manifestations of a subtle form of magnetism or electricity, would
determine sexual relations. The committee that coined the word sexism meant sexual
naturalism and the unhindered flows of mutual attractions, in line with the calculus of
amatory affinities that the French social philosopher Fourier had envisioned.

Another Spiritualist who shared in these debates was John Spear who in 1858 had
declared that sexualism (we would say sexuality) was universal in nature with even
planets being male and female and having life cycles. Dr Buescher notes that Spear
had a personal interest. He had decided that his true spiritual affinity was not his wife
of thirty years, but with Caroline Hinckley, who was visibly pregnant at the time this
discourse was given to him in trance, and written down by her!

Another group of Spiritualists, called Alphites or Alphaists, looked forward to

eliminating human sex altogether. They had their own journal The Alpha and
hoped that women might conceive through spirit visitation alone. In 1872, Addie
Lucia Ballou had a trance vision of this spiritathesis. Moreover, John Spear, already
mentioned, thought it might be possible one day to dispense with clothes.

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Other Spiritualists, less extreme, at least hoped for a gradual improvement of the race
through social reform. Scientific developments in evolution and genetics eventually
led to a toning down of rhetoric about the powers of parents to shape their offspring.
The term sexism was not reintroduced until 1968, by which time the word had the
meaning we know today. LP

Emma Hardinge Britten (1)

Emmas Library
In 1968, with a grant from the Parapsychology Foundation of New York, Mostyn
Gilbert produced an Index of Books in the Britten Memorial Library in the SNU
offices, Manchester, England. It ran to 131 duplicated pages, with alternate pages the
other way up. There was also a Supplementary list of books, periodicals, extra
periodicals and pamphlets of 16 pages in the same format.

Mostyn was not given access to archival material, such as the Britten scrapbooks that
were brought to the attention of Dr Dingwall when he was re-editing Modern
American Spiritualism for University Books, nor to other EHB personal possessions
which can be found today in the Britten Museum at Stansted.

It is clear from the Index that the library is a composite collection formed in the sixty
years after the death of Mrs Britten. Of possibly 4000 books, only about 100 are
definitely linked with her. The itinerant nature of her life doubtless reduced her own
volumes. Important collections have been added from Leslie Curnow, Abraham
Wallace and Ernest Oaten, and possibly Alfred Kitson and J.J. Morse. Not all books
are relevant.

In so large a library there are naturally many treasures, and some opportunity to
compare multiple editions of the same title. We hope to share some information from
this index in the months ahead

Interesting Australian entries include:

Browne, Hugh J. Rational Christianity

Melbourne, 1879

Browne, Hugh Roman Catholicism before the birth of Jesus. E.H. Brittens copy
from the Author
Melbourne 1897

Britten, Emma .H. The Faith, Facts and Frauds of Religious History
Melbourne 1879.
E.H. Brittens own copy: the first four pages have been removed.

Denovan, W.D. C. The Evidences of Spiritualism Melbourne 1882

Curtis, James Rustlings in the Golden City Ballarat Australia 1896 ( 2nd edition)
and London 3rd edition revised, 1902.

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