Australian Spiritualist, The.
A Weekly Paper of Spiritualistic Science.
Excelsior / Advocates the Harmony of the Scriptures with Modern Science & Free-Thought
1881--1881 Weekly
Brisbane, Australia.
Language: English.

1/1-4, March 19 to April 9, 1881. 8 pp., one penny per issue.

This may have some connection with the earlier journal of the same name published in the early 1860s from Wollongong. The journal struggled to distinguish itself from its contemporary, The Telephone, also published in Brisbane, by modestly holding itself out as a primer of spiritualism. "The Telephone we deem in the wrong place. It would do well in America, where Spiritualism is well grouonded, but for Australia, and Queensland especially, it is too far advanced in its doctrines. What is wanted is a Ladder for the people. This is what the Spiritualist will aim to show the public. It will start on the bottom step, and as the people rise so will the standard of the Spiritualist." With this goal in mind the journal featured lectures on spiritualism generally, accounts of post-mortem life ("My Experience Since I left the World," by "Alice"), exhortations on the moral education of youth, excerpts from Swedenborg, and, notably, Richard Baxter's revision from the spirit world of his classic Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650).