International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals

   

Periodical: Freelight

Summary:  From Pat Deveney's database:

Freelight.
A Monthly Magazine.
Other titles: Spiritualist and Freelight
1871-1872 Monthly
London, England. Language: English.
Publisher: J. Burns. Editor: Richard Bedingfield ("B.T.W.R."). Succeeded by: Thinker's Magazine
1/1, November 1871-2/1, May 1872 (?) 1 s., 72-80 pp. This was a highbrow literary magazine with decidedly "Christian" (in the sense of a free-religious, mystical emphasis on the Divine Spirit to the neglect of formal church structure) overtones. Its purpose, as it informed its readers in the first issue, was to "rise from the negation of spirit, which is the old and foolish 'freethought,' to a divine affirmation of God in all things." Bedingfield, the editor, was notable for being labeled a "pantheist" and for being a cousin of Thackeray. The journal's connection with spiritualism is limited to the fact that James Burns was the publisher and it had contributions by Moncure D. Conway, George Sexton, Thomas Low Nichols, and John Page Hopps. Noted as among the journals for sale at the Banner of Light in Emma Hardinge's Western Star, July through December 1872.

Other Sources:Harvard University, University of Manchester, Oxford University.
Issues:Freelight Index 1871-2
Freelight Nov 1871
Freelight Dec 1871
Freelight Jan 1872
Freelight Feb 1872
Freelight Mar 1872
Freelight Apr 1872
Freelight May 1872
Claude-Generated Themes:   Freelight is an eclectic liberal-reform digest that braids New Thought mental science — success, affirmation, 'the silence,' opulence — with genuine phrenological self-culture, its pages measuring cerebral organs and character alongside a literary-idealist frame that quotes Goethe and appeals to Art, Poetry and Philosophy over church dogma. Lighter threads of spiritualism, breath-culture hygiene and suggestion round out the mix. It sits in the self-culture / free-thought idealist current of the period rather than serving as the organ of any one movement, and its spiritualist vocabulary is incidental. The overall effect is a magazine of self-improvement and mental science dressed in belles-lettres.

Generated by Claude from the periodical's digitized text; a thematic reading, not a bibliographic description.
Topics:Anarchism and Radical Individualism | Spiritualism