5 Famous Aussie Spiritualists
During the 19th century, there was a movement where mediumship and spirit communication became quite popular. In fact, it became its own kind of religion. It was known as spiritualism. One of the core beliefs in the spiritualist movement was that a person survives the death of their physical body by ascending into the spirit realm. For those who had lost faith in traditional Catholic values, spiritualism offered them a new religion and they were referred to as spiritualists. When you read the paranormal history books, people will often be able to tell you about famous figures within spiritualism from England and even the US, but they don't know much about the work that was done here in the land of Oz. It is time to change that, so let's meet 5 famous Spiritualists from Down Under!
William Terry
Image Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography
William Terry was originally born in London in 1836 and ended up calling Melbourne home in 1853 when he travelled here with his father and siblings. In the late 1850s, his family became involved in spiritualism where William discovered that he had psychic abilities along with the gift of mediumship. Giving up on the family drapery business, in 1869 he decided to become a full-time medium. The following year he set up a shop on Russell Street in the city of Melbourne where he sold spiritualist faith books as well as offering his services as a trance medium, magnetic healer, and clairvoyant herbalist. His shop would later become the Melbourne headquarters for the Victorian spiritualist movement. He was responsible for sponsoring tours from famous mediums such as Henry Slade (who was later charged for fraudulent activity back in London) and in 1870 Terry launched The Harbinger of Light, Australia's first spiritualist magazine based on the faith which he edited until he retired in 1905. He helped to establish the Victorian Association of Progressive Spiritualists and became an inaugural fellow and councillor of the Theosophical Society in Australia. He even toured the USA as a representative of the spiritualist movement here in Australia. Terry passed away in 1913 and is buried at the Melbourne Cemetery. While he wasn't born in Australia, he remains one of the key figures in establishing the spiritualist movement here in Australia.
Alfred Deakin
Image Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography
This former prime minister from Melbourne was a prominent figure in the spiritualist movement. Born in Collingwood in 1856, long before he became Prime Minister of our country, he was president of the Victorian Association of spiritualists in 1877. He was a teacher at Progressive Lyceum which was a spiritualist Sunday School where he would also meet his future wife. Deakin would often attend seances, arrange lectures and even organize experiments to test various paranormal phenomena. He also published A New Pilgrim's Progress an allegory of the progress of a soul towards perfection which was supposedly channelled through Deakin from preacher John Bunyan who published the original The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come in 1678. Aside from spiritualism, Deakin was also a journalist, politician, and even a lawyer. He famously defended (unsuccessfully) infamous murderer and Jack the Ripper suspect Frederick Deeming. Later on, Alfred Deakin became Prime Minister of Australia three times: from 24 September 1903 to 27 April 1904, 5 July 1905 to 13 November 1908, and 2 June 1909 to 29 April 1910, making him the second, fifth, and seventh Prime Minister of Australia for which he is most well-known. Deakin passed away in 1919. While he is most famously a prime minister who led Australia into the federation, he was also a very important figure within the spiritualist movement.
Charles Bailey
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
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Born in 1870 in Melbourne, Bailey became a world-famous apport medium, later exposed as fraudulent. His loyal following, however, stuck with him until he passed away. In 1889, Bailey who was a bootmaker at the time attended his first seance where he was told that he had abilities of his very own. He began his work with mediumship as a part-time professional medium. In 1902, his work was highlighted in William Terry's publication Harbinger of Light intriguing the world with his ability to apparently summon items from thin air, otherwise known as apports. Famous spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was particularly fascinated with Bailey's abilities producing coins through to live birds and even a live shovel nose shark measuring 18 inches long. For a period of time, Bailey was the personal medium to Melbourne millionaire Thomas Welton Stanford, who made a collection of the apports Bailey produced which is now preserved at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. While figures such as Doyle were initially impressed by his abilities, Bailey would later be exposed as a fraud finding that one of his controls was responsible for bringing in the apports which would later 'appear'. Even after being exposed with figures such as Harry Price outing the claims, Bailey was still practising up until 1930 where he still had a small, devoted following. Bailey passed away in 1947 and remains the most controversially famous apport medium in the World.
A.J Abbott
A.J Abbott (Albert James) was a self-proclaimed spiritualist from Melbourne Australia. Well, he was really born in Devonshire England in 1856. His family moved to New Zealand and then to Melbourne Australia where he became the pastor of the Free Christian Assembly in Melbourne. As many were in the early 19th century, Abbott became fascinated with spirit photography. In 1910, he gave lectures to an intrigued audience about seances, and spiritualism with a presentation projecting images of spirit photography onto a white screen using glass slides. The images were copied from a book by famous spiritualist medium and artist Georgiana Houghton in 1882, which included photographs by many spirit photographers that were later exposed as frauds. The full collection of AJ Abbott's slides is on display at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia in Canberra, a building that many claim is haunted itself due to its previous life as a morgue and the Australian Institute of Anatomy where it held human remains. The collection covers many areas of spiritualism and is not just limited to spirit photography.
To read more check out my article: The Aussie Spiritualist A.J Abbott and his Spirit Slides
Richard Hodgson
Image Source Théodore Flournoy. (1911). Spiritism and Psychology. New York: Harper & Brothers - Public Domain
Born in 1855 in Melbourne Australia, he originally intended to work in the field of law. After graduating from the University of Melbourne, his interest in philosophy and the very concept of the paranormal led him to be introduced by a fellow student to spiritualist literature where he eventually found his way to his first séance. He travelled to the UK where he studied at St John’s College in Cambridge. It was there he met Henry Sidgwick (who would become one of the founding members of The Society For Psychical Research) and studied philosophy under his guide. In 1882, he joined the Cambridge Society For Psychical Research where he was involved in investigating the claims of mediums as well as exposing some of the fraudulent activity. In 1887, he became the secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research. It was here he was introduced to the infamous Leonora Piper. She was a popular trance medium that Hodgson became fascinated with. The information given in the sessions he conducted with Piper were so specific and convincing to Hodgson, that he felt it was proof of survival after death and changed his outlook on life completely. Not long before his death, he was quoted as saying “I can hardly wait to die” and 6 months later on December 20th, 1905, he suffered heart failure while he was playing a game of handball. Of course, Hodgson had long promised colleagues he would be back for a visit which were said to have been communicated through the famous Leonora Piper. The evidence however, was deemed inconclusive and the sessions ceased.
To read more check out my article: Richard Hodgson - The 'Aussie' psychical researcher
Of course, it doesn't end there! Check out Issue 43 of Haunted Magazine to read about two amazing female Australian spiritualists!
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