Glowworm, The.
Advocate for Misapprehended SPIRIT-PHILOSOPHY, and a Defender of its Adherents.
The Glowworm Shows the Matin to be Near
1869 Monthly
Melbourne, Australia.
Editor: B.S. Naylor, editor and publisher.
1/1, November 1869.
12 pp., 6d.

This is described as the first spiritualist journal in the colony—i.e., in Victoria. Noted in "Journals Devoted to Spiritualism" in Year-Book of Spiritualism for 1871, which mentions that there were more than 20 mediums in Melbourne at the time, "many of whom belong to the upper ranks of society, including the legislature." The journal was begun in reaction to what the editor calls a "score of vituperious expressions" carried in the local newspapers and in the pulpit that had labeled spiritualists as "Cunning Imposters, who trade on the credulity of Weak-minds." "This publication appears as the avowed Organ of the Spiritists of Victoria, who have been driven, by the gross misrepresentations of both the Press and the Pulpit, to issue a Periodical of their own; wherein they may express their views and sentiments, both clearly and copiously; and they now Appeal from the prejudice to the judgement of every Reader, male or female; therefore, Censure us in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge!’ Naylor took up the "vituperious expressions" of spiritualism’s enemies in numbered paragraph (for easy reference by animadverters), doing his best to refute them all -- including the claim that the spiritualists were backing away from an offer of £500 to anyone who could prove that the phenomena were produced naturally -- and supplemented his responses with general information on the best sorts of tables for "table-rapping" (an "ordinary Loo-table"), spirit writing and the coming prevalence of planchets, Bad spelling as common in a beginner’s spirit-writing, etc. The journal carried an advertisement for W.H. Terry, Bookseller and Importer of Advanced Literature, who was to start the dominant Australian spiritualist journal, the Harbinger of Light, in 1870. In soliciting support for his venture, Nayler noted that the cost of publishing the journal was £20 for the first issue and £15 for the second.

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