The spiritual pioneers

Emma Hardinge Britten 1823-1899

Emma Hardinge Britten was an English advocate for the early Modern Spiritualist Movement. She is remembered as a writer, orator, trance clairvoyant, and spirit medium, lecturer, Spiritualist missionary, and self-described witch. She was and is best known for her advocacy of the burgeoning Spiritualism movement in the late nineteenth century. As a child Emma showed great musical talent. By her own account, she also demonstrated mediumistic and precognitive abilities. In 1840, sent to London to build her career under an impresario, she became involved with a group of occultists known as the ‘Orphic Circle’, who used children as ‘clairvoyants and somnambulists’ and were likely a strong influence. By the age of nineteen she had become an actor, performing at the Covent Garden, Sadler Wells and Adelphi Theatres, and in Paris. Invited to perform on Broadway, in 1855 Britten travelled to New York with her mother and remained in America for ten years. During this time she joined the rapidly-growing Spiritualist movement, launched by the Fox Sisters in New York state. Britten shifted the focus of her work from stage to lecture podium and séance table, travelling all over the United States for appearances and sittings. By her own account, this was at the behest of insistent guiding spirits. She edited a periodical, staged a Spiritualist concert and produced a collection of short stories. She also became involved in politics as an advocate for abolition of slavery, women’s rights and other reforms, and was a campaigner, then eulogist, for Abraham Lincoln. While Spiritualism’s heyday is long past, it continues to exist as a religious denomination in the UK and the USA and has spread worldwide. Her influence as a source of teachings remains strong; for instance, the ‘seven principles of Spiritualism’ used by the Spiritualists’ National Union (UK) are derived largely from seven principles first articulated by Britten at a lecture at Cleveland Hall, London on 30 April 1871: I believe in the Fatherhood of God, The Brotherhood of Man, The immortality of the Soul, Personal Responsibility, Compensation and Retribution hereafter for all the good or evil deeds done here, And a path of eternal progress open to every human soul that wills to tread it by the path of eternal good.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 1859-1930

Today, nearly seventy years after his death, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is universally associated with his most popular literary creation, Sherlock Holmes. People are inevitably surprised, then, to find out that the real Conan Doyle was a far more complex man, one whose fervent belief in Spiritualism dominated the final dozen years of his life.

Arthur Conan Doyle, born into a large Catholic family in Edinburgh, Scotland, received most of his education from the Jesuits. But by the time he enrolled at the University there to study medicine, Conan Doyle had rejected Catholicism and Christianity in general. In the mid-1880s, several important developments occurred: he married and began studying psychic phenomena. A year after the death of his first wife in 1906, Conan Doyle married Miss Jean Leckie, and the couple settled for good in Crowborough, Sussex. When the Great War broke out it renewed his interest in Spiritualism, and a converted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became its greatest spokesman.

Spiritualism brought Houdini and Conan Doyle together in 1920, but it was hardly the only thing they had in common. But for all their similarities, the men had divergent approaches to Spiritualism.

After a séance in which he believed he had been contacted by his son Kingsley, who had died in the War, Conan Doyle became a leader of the movement, defending it in lectures around the world.

Soon after their correspondence had turned into a friendship, introductions from Conan Doyle gave Houdini entrée to dozens of mediums during an extended tour of Great Britain. Unknown to Doyle, however, Houdini was far from converting: "The more I investigate the subject," he wrote, "the less I can make myself believe." Inevitably, despite a growing personal friendship, the two great men moved toward a confrontation.

Their falling out began when Houdini joined the Doyles for an intimate séance, in which Lady Doyle proposed to contact Houdini’s beloved mother. Although a skeptic, Houdini did believe in an afterlife, and as biographer Kenneth Silverman wrote, "closed his eyes and tried to rid his mind of all but religious thoughts." But by the time Lady Doyle had filled fifteen sheets with automatic-writing she claimed had come from Cecelia Weiss, Houdini had only become further convinced that he was witnessing a fraud. Although he left without disclosing it -- "I did not have the nerve to tell him," -- Houdini knew that he had not heard from his mother. A rabbi’s wife, she never would have begun with a sign of the cross; although she had barely uttered a word in English while alive, suddenly she was fluent, saying things like "I am almost overwhelmed by this joy." It simply did not sound like his dear mother, and Houdini resented it.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle remained an ardent Spiritualist for the rest of his life. Returning home after a grueling tour of Scandinavia and Holland in 1929, he suffered a debilitating heart attack and died several months later.

J Arthur Findlay

Arthur Findlay MBE JP (May 16, 1883 – July 24, 1964) was a writer, accountant, stockbroker and Essex magistrate, as well as a significant figure in the history of the religion of Spiritualism, being a partial founder of the newspaper Psychic News and also a founder of the International Institute for Psychical Research.

Stansted Hall Arthur Findlay’s family home, built in 1871, was gifted to the Spiritualists’ National Union by James Arthur Findlay, MBE, JP, a former Honorary President of the Union, and in accordance with his wishes is administered by the Union as a College for the advancement of Spiritualism and Psychic Science

Mr Findlay bought the estate in 1923 upon his retirement from business and first mooted the idea of a Spiritualist College at Stansted to the Union in 1945. After personal contacts with three successive Union Presidents a will was drawn up and in 1954 the National Council accepted the proposed bequest of Stansted Hall with an endowment. This was followed by a later gift in the form of stock to be used for furnishing and decorating, and in 1964, a year after the death of his wife, Mr Findlay transferred the Hall, grounds and endowment to the Union. Mr Findlay passed to the higher life in July 1964.

Grace Cooke 1892 -1979

Grace Cooke was born in the early 1890s and began working as a Spiritualist medium in 1913. At the beginning of her career, she offered evidence of the soul’s survival after death. She formed a small church in Middlesex, England, but over time discovered that there was also a need to teach and heal the public. She separated from the church and shifted to spiritual healing and channeled teachings from her spirit guide, White Eagle.

The White Eagle’s teachings embraced many different philosophies, reflecting the spirit’s many lives in different cultures. The guide focused on bringing the “infinite love of the spirit” into the physical realm through healing, unfoldment, meditation and understanding.

During one of Cooke’s sessions, White Eagle said, “We have worked for many incarnations in the personality we take on when we come into physical conditions, to bring to men and women an understanding of the brotherhood of all life, so that the kingdom of God shall come upon earth. But this can only happen when men and women have discovered that within their own souls is the light of the spirit of Christ, the Christ light which is the seed given to every one of them”

By 1930, Cooke was quite skilled in mediumship. British prime minister from 1929-1931, Ramsay MacDonald, vouched for the accuracy of her readings. After she received a series of messages believed to be from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and a group from Paris, the Fraternité des Polaires, Cooke and her husband, Ivan, opened The White Eagle Lodge in 1936, in Kensington, London.

The lodge was bombed in 1940 and took a year to reopen. The Cookes also purchased another location in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1945, a site for the new country center was founded near a village called Liss in Hampshire. Today, there are three main Temples: Headquarters in Britain at New Lands in Hampshire, England; Maleny in Queensland, Australia; and in Montgomery, Texas in the United States. There are also regional centers and small groups around the world. Mrs. Cooke died September 5, 1979, at age 87. A special service was held at the temple at Liss, Hampshire, headquarters of the White Eagle Lodge, which she founded.

Ernest Walter Oaten (1875-1935)

Ernest Walter Oaten was born in Bristol, England in 1875. The Barry National Spiritualists Church and Centre history first mentions Oaten and his wife to be, Miss Amy Johnson, as addressing one of their meetings in 1896. By 1897, Oaten and Johnson were welcomed as promising young Cardiff mediums. “In a stirring address the guides of Mr. Oaten explained ‘The Dual Nature of Man, spiritual and physical’; Miss Johnson gave clear descriptions of those who had passed.” Oaten became President of the Cardiff Charles Street Society and was a regular speaker at the Barry church.

Oaten married Amy Johnson in 1910. He became president of the International Federation of Spiritualists and the Spiritualists’ National Union. He also edited the journal Two Worlds (1919-1945). In his role as chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of the Spiritualists National Union, he pressed for reform of the Witchcraft and Vagrancy Acts. He worked closely with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, fighting for the rights of spiritualist mediums.

In 1934, Oaten made history by becoming the first person to speak about Spiritualism and mediumship on a live radio broadcast of the BBC. The talk was recorded and has now been digitized and is available on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZu9zN1siQ0

Today we can listen to Oaten as he relates his experiences and opinions. “I have sat in more than 4,000 séances, under all conditions – many of them ridiculous in their simplicity and many arranged under strict scientific control,” he says. “Of those séances, considerably fewer than 100 have taken place in the dark. I know that certain forms of psychic phenomena are more easily obtained in the dark, but I have a strong distaste for dark séances, and I always object to sit in the dark with strangers. It is not merely that I am suspicious of mediums. I want to see what the sitters are doing… I have witnessed as much duplicity on the part of sitters as on the part of mediums.”

Oaten was convinced that the spirit world exists around us like the atmosphere. He said that death is similar to a railroad terminal where we change trains to move on to the next world. “Hence, let me say categorically and emphatically – I know that there is a life beyond this, for I have talked with the people who live in it.”

Oaten published Some Problems Concerning the Next State of Life in 1915 and The Relation of Modern Spiritualism to Christianity in 1924. He died on 3 January 1952 in Bristol at age 76.

Gordon Higginson (1918-1993)

Gordon Higginson (1918-1993) was one of the most influential spiritualist mediums of the 20th century. His unique gift, along with his dedication to the spiritualist movement, played a significant role in popularising mediumship in the United Kingdom and around the world. His extraordinary abilities, coupled with his empathetic and charismatic personality, inspired many people to embrace spiritualism as a way to understand and communicate with the spirit world. Let’s delve briefly into the life, work, and lasting legacy of Gordon Higginson, a spiritualist medium who captivated the hearts and minds of countless individuals in search of spiritual growth and understanding.

Early Life and Spiritual Development

Gordon Higginson was born on November 17, 1918, in the small town of Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, England. He was raised in a spiritualist household, as his mother, Fanny Higginson, was a medium herself. From an early age, he displayed signs of psychic abilities, with his mother and other mediums recognising his innate gift. He would often receive messages from the spirit world, a phenomenon that intrigued him as a child.

Gordon’s interest in spiritualism deepened during his teenage years, and he began to develop his skills in various forms of mediumship, such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, and trance mediumship. Despite facing skepticism and ridicule, he remained committed to honing his skills, determined to bring spiritual enlightenment to others.

The Spiritualist National Union (SNU)

Gordon Higginson’s career as a professional medium began in the 1940s, when he started conducting public demonstrations of mediumship. In 1945, he became a member of the Spiritualist National Union (SNU), the organisation dedicated to promoting and supporting spiritualism in the United Kingdom, and of which Croydon Spiritualist Church is a member. .

Higginson’s talents quickly caught the attention of the SNU’s leadership, and he rose through the ranks, becoming a tutor, lecturer, and eventually the president of the organisation from 1970 to 1993. As the president of the SNU, he worked tirelessly to unite spiritualist groups and organisations under one umbrella and to promote spiritualism as a legitimate religion and way of life.

Public Demonstrations and Media Appearances

Gordon Higginson’s public demonstrations of mediumship, which often took place in churches and spiritualist centers, drew large crowds of eager attendees. His warm personality and incredible accuracy in delivering messages from the spirit world left a profound impact on those present.

Higginson’s abilities extended beyond clairvoyance and clairaudience, as he was also an adept physical medium. He demonstrated feats such as materialisation, where the spirits would manifest as physical forms, and direct voice, where the spirits would speak directly using an independent voice box.

Throughout his career, Gordon made numerous appearances on radio and television shows, discussing spiritualism and demonstrating his abilities as a medium. His media appearances helped to increase the visibility of spiritualism and demystify mediumship for the general public.

The Fox Sisters-The Hydesville Rappings - 31st March 1848

One of the greatest religious movements of the 19th century began in the bedroom of two young girls living in a farmhouse in Hydesville, New York. On a late March day in 1848, Margaretta “Maggie” Fox, 14, and Kate, her 11-year-old sister, waylaid a neighbor, eager to share an odd and frightening phenomenon. Every night around bedtime, they said, they heard a series of raps on the walls and furniture—raps that seemed to manifest with a peculiar, otherworldly intelligence. The neighbor, skeptical, came to see for herself, joining the girls in the small chamber they shared with their parents. While Maggie and Kate huddled together on their bed, their mother, Margaret, began the demonstration.“Now count five,” she ordered, and the room shook with the sound of five heavy thuds.

“Count fifteen,” she commanded, and the mysterious presence obeyed. Next, she asked it to tell the neighbor’s age; thirty-three distinct raps followed.“If you are an injured spirit,” she continued, “manifest it by three raps.” And it did. Margaret Fox did not seem to consider the date, March 31—April Fool’s Eve—and the possibility that her daughters were frightened not by an unseen presence but by the expected success of their prank.

The Fox family deserted the apparently haunted house and sent Maggie and Kate to live with their older sister, Leah Fox Fish, in Rochester, New York. The story might have died there were it not for the fact that Rochester was a hotbed for reform and religious activity; the same vicinity, the Finger Lakes region of New York State, gave birth to both Mormonism and Millerism, the precursor to Seventh Day Adventism. Community leaders Isaac and Amy Post were intrigued by the Fox sisters’ story, and by the subsequent rumor that the spirit likely belonged to a peddler who had been murdered in the farmhouse five years prior. A group of Rochester residents examined the cellar of the Fox’s home, uncovering strands of hair and what appeared to be bone fragments. The Posts invited the girls to a gathering at their home, anxious to see if they could communicate with spirits in another locale. “I suppose I went with as much unbelief as Thomas felt when he was introduced to Jesus after he had ascended,” Isaac Post wrote, but found himself swayed by “very distinct thumps under the floor… and several apparent answers.” He was further convinced when sister Leah also proved to be a medium, communicating with the Posts’ recently deceased daughter. The Posts rented the largest hall in Rochester, where four hundred people came to hear the mysterious noises. Afterward Amy Post accompanied the sisters to a private chamber, where they disrobed and were examined by a committee of skeptics, who found no evidence of a hoax. The idea that one could communicate with spirits was hardly new—the Bible, after all, contains hundreds of references of angels administering to man—but the movement known as “Modern Spiritualism” sprang from several distinct revolutionary philosophies and characters. The ideas and practices of Franz Anton Mesmer, an 18th century Australian healer, had spread to the United States and by the 1840s held the country in thrall. Mesmer proposed that everything in the universe, including the human body, was governed by a “magnetic fluid” that could become imbalanced, causing illness. By waving his hands over a patient’s body, he induced a “mesmerized” hypnotic state that allowed him to manipulate the magnetic force and restore health. Amateur mesmerists became a popular attraction at parties and in parlors, a few proving skillful enough to attract paying customers. Some who awakened from a mesmeric trance claimed to have experienced visions of spirits from another dimension. At the same time the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, an 18th century Swedish philosopher and mystic, also surged in popularity. Swedenborg described an afterlife consisting of three heavens, three hells, and an interim destination—the world of the spirits—where everyone went immediately upon dying, and which was more or less similar to what they were accustomed to on earth. Self love drove one toward the varying degrees of hell; love for others elevated one to the heavens. “The Lord casts no one into hell,” he wrote, “but those who are there have deliberately cast themselves into it, and keep themselves there.” He claimed to have seen and talked with spirits on all of the planes.

Alfred Kitson (1855-1934)

British pioneer of teaching Spiritualism to children through the lyceum system first founded in the United States by Andrew Jackson Davis around 1863. Kitson, son of a Yorkshire coal miner, was a veteran of the Spiritualist movement at a time when it was violently opposed in Britain. In 1876 he organized evening classes for children on the lyceum system as a wing of the newly formed Spiritualist Society in Yorkshire. Kitson campaigned vigorously for the lyceum movement and became known as "the Father of British Lyceums." He collaborated with Harry A. Kersey on the English Lyceum Manual, first published in 1887. Kersey and Kitson were also largely instrumental in bringing into existence the Spiritualists' Lyceum Union in 1890. The Union started a monthly Spiritualists' Lyceum Magazine, first published in Oldham in January 1890. When this magazine ceased publication in November 1890 it was replaced by the Lyceum Banner, edited by J. J. Morse from Liverpool until 1902, when Kitson became editor. In 1894 the union changed its name to the British Spiritualists' Lyceum Union. The lyceum movement prospered for many years, but Kitson resigned from secretaryship of the union in 1919 because of ill health.

David Richmond 1816-1891

David Richmond became a Spiritualist while living in America and on his return to his native town of Darlington, England, tried unsuccessfully to open a Spiritualist Church. He moved to Keighley and there established the first Spiritualist Church in England. The UK spiritualist movement started in Keighley in 1853. In that year Mr David Richmond of the Shakers Movement of America brought news of spiritual phenomena to Mr David Weatherhead of Keighley. In June of that year three lectures were held at the Working Men's Hall in Keighley. These were given by David Richmond assisted by David Weatherhead.