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Summary:
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From Pat Deveney's database:
Spiritual Herald, The.
A Record of Spirit Manifestations.
1856--1856 Monthly
London, England, and New York, NY. Language: English.
Publisher: H. Ballière (London and New York). Editor: James Smith, J.J. Garth Wilkinson.
1/1-6, February to July 1856. The Spiritual Telegraph (May 31, 1856) under the heading "Just Published" announces this as printed in 8vo., with parts 1-3 for sale at 15 cents each in New York and 6 pence in London. Robert A. Gilbert points to this journal, edited by J.J. Garth Wilkinson (1812-1899), an ardent exponent of New Church ideas, as one indication of the conflation of Swedenborg's ideas with spiritualism--an uneasy mix from the Swedenborgian side. Gilbert, "Magus Incognito." The journal was explicitly dependent on the American variety of spiritualism--which it avidly described but then philosophically discussed--but was hopeful that a native British version was in the process of being born. In the first issue, the editors stated: "The object of this periodical is to present the subject of spiritualism to the people of England in facts and arguments, and to supply the deficiency of the popular press, which seems determined to keep the public blind to the greatest mental revolution of modern times. These facts will be supplied from the numerous details of the American papers, and from the wonderful phenomena now of daily occurrence in our own English homes, recorded for the benefit and instruction of those who are candid and intelligent enough to investigate the most remarkable crisis that has occurred since the opening of the Christian era." The optimism was misplaced so far as this journal was concerned and a true British spiritualist press did not arise for another several years. In the final issue the editors flatly said that "the periodical has failed for want of English manifestations or want of English courage. . . . [W]e have proved by experiment the weakness of the cause in England . . . ." Constant attempts to reconcile the official teachings of Christianity with the pronouncements of the spirits, coupled with cautions on spirits as "guides" of spiritual life. The discussion of "What is Spiritualism?" is headed by the notable quotation: "I never said it was possible. I only said it was true." The final issue notably from the New York Christian Spiritualist a version of "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe's spirit, mediated by Thomas Lake Harris! In announcing the cessation of the journal in July, the publisher faced the recurring problem of un-expired subscriptions by offering to apply them to a bound volume of the issues that appeared or to return them altogether.
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The Spiritual Herald, published in 1856, is one of the earliest British Spiritualist papers and catches the movement in its first English season, a few years after the rappings crossed the Atlantic. Its content is the founding repertoire: mediums, trance, table-turning and the raps, reported by witnesses who were still working out how to report such things at all. One account describes a table rising eight inches and floating for half a minute — or, as the writer prefers to put it, while the company slowly counted twenty-nine — with oscillations that reminded them of a flat disc of deal on the surface of agitated water. Another writer admits to having spent a long time raising and trying to adopt all kinds of absurd hypotheses rather than accept the obvious one. Running beneath the spirit phenomena is the older science of animal magnetism, still supplying the vocabulary and half the case histories, and running beside them is the argument with the churches and with unbelief. The anxiety about deception is present from the very first issues, which is worth noting: it was born with the movement rather than bolted on later.
Generated by Claude from the periodical's digitized text; a thematic reading, not a bibliographic description.
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