Messages from Beyond: Spiritualism and Spiritualists in Melbourne's Golden Age, 1870-1890The Spiritualist movement had its beginnings in the United States in the late 1840s and within a few years had spread to Australia. With its séances, mediums, trances, 'magnetisers', table-tilting and other mysterious psychic phenomena, it attracted media frenzy and public furore, but also many deeply serious converts--often highly intelligent and talented people who rejected orthodox religion in favour of scientific rationalism, but were still vitally concerned with moral debates. One of them was the young Alfred Deakin, later to become Prime Minister. Spiritualists sought 'rational, discoverable answers' to life's mysteries. They sought to 'prove' empirically the continued existence of the human personality after death, while maintaining--somewhat paradoxically--that the movement was a genuine religion. In Messages from Beyond, however, Al Gabay shows that for most believers the séance was not a 'scientific' enterprise but a religious and highly ritualised event. In this fascinating history, Gabay explores the origins of the Spiritualist movement and relates its rise and fall to the wider intellectual and religious currents in colonial Australian society. He argues that the atmosphere of Freethought and Secularism in colonial Melbourne, as well as the passionate debates of the time on the authority of the Bible and Evolution, were fundamental to the success of the movement, and that it was a cultural product of its time. |
Contents
The Organization of the Cause | 14 |
A Rational Religion | 43 |
Mediums Speakers and Prophets | 71 |
Copyright | |
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Messages From Beyond: Spiritualism and Spiritualists in Melbourne's Golden Age Al Gabay No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
A. J. Davis Alfred Deakin Association Australia became believed Bible Bishop Britten Browne cause Charles Strong Christian Church circle colony committee Crookes culture Deakin papers debates decade divine doctrines Dr Motherwell early Eclectic Emma Hardinge Britten experience F. B. Smith faith Fox sisters Freethinkers H. G. Turner Hall Harbinger of Light History Howitt human ideas influence interest James John Ross Joseph Symes journal later lectures manifestations materialists medium mediumship Melbourne mesmerism mind minister moral Motherwell Motherwell's nature nineteenth century November pamphlet Peebles phenomena philosophy phrenology physical Podmore political popular Presbyterian psychic radical raps reform Religion and Freethought religious revealed ritual scientific séance secular Secularists sitters social Society Spiritualism Spiritualist Stanford Sunday Swedenborg Swedenborgian Symes teachings Terry's Thomas Stanford Thomas Walker tion trance truth Tyerman Unitarian universe VAPS VAPS Minutes Victorian W. H. Terry W. L. Richardson William Terry women
References to this book
The Difficulties of My Position: The Diaries of Prison Governor John Buckley ... John Buckley Castieau No preview available - 2004 |