The History of Spiritualism

It is not within the scope of this work to deal with the great number of individual cases of mediumship, some of them most dra­matic and interesting, which occurred during this fi rst period of demonstration. The reader is referred to Mrs. Hardinge Britten’s two important compilations, “Modern American Spiritualism” and “Nineteenth Century Miracles,” books which will always be a most valuable record of early days. The series of phenomenal cases was so great that Mrs. Britten has counted over fi ve thousand separate instances recorded in the Press in the fi rst few years, which probably represents some hundreds of thousands not so recorded. Religion so­called and Science so-called united for once in an unholy attempt to misrepresent and persecute the new truth and its supporters, while the Press unfortunately found that its interest lay in playing up to the prejudices of the majority of its subscribers. It was easy to do this, for naturally, in so vital and compelling a movement, there were some who became fanatical, some who threw discredit upon their opinions by their actions, and some who took advantage of the gen­eral interest to imitate, with more or less success, the real gifts of the spirit. These fraudulent rascals were sometimes mere cold-blooded swindlers, and sometimes seem to have been real mediums whose psychic power had for a time deserted them. There were scandals and exposures, some real and some pretended. These exposures were then, as now, due often to the Spiritualists themselves, who strongly objected to their sacred ceremonies being a screen for the hypocrisies and blasphemies of those villains who, like human hyenas, tried to make a fraudulent living out of the dead. The general result was to take the edge off the fi rst fi ne enthusiasm, and to set back the accep­tance of what was true by an eternal harping on what was false.

York with a theatrical company, and had then, with her mother, re­mained in America. Being strictly Evangelical she was much repelled by what she considered the unorthodox views of Spiritualists, and fl ed in horror from her fi rst séance. Later, in 1856, she was again brought into contact with the subject and received proofs which made it impossible for her to doubt its truth. She soon discovered that she was herself a powerful medium, and one of the best attested and most sensational cases in the early history of the movement was that in which she received intimation that the mail steamer Pacifi c had gone down in mid-Atlantic with all souls, and was threatened with prosecution by the owners of the boat for repeating what had been told her by the returning spirit of one of the crew. The infor­mation proved to be only too true, and the vessel was never heard of again.

Mrs. Emma Hardinge – who became, by a second marriage, Mrs. Hardinge Britten – threw her whole enthusiastic temperament into the young movement and left a mark upon it which is still visible. She was an ideal propagandist, for she combined every gift. She was a strong medium, an orator, a writer, a well-balanced thinker and a hardy traveller. Year after year she travelled the length and breadth of the United States proclaiming the new doctrine amid much oppo­sition, for she was militant and anti-Christian in the views which she professed to get straight from her spirit guides. As these views were, however, that the morals of the Churches were far too lax and that a higher standard was called for, it is not likely that the Founder of Christianity would have been among her critics. These opinions of Mrs. Hardinge Britten had more to do with the broadly Unitar­ian view of the offi cial Spiritualist bodies, which still exists, than any other cause.