Spiritual Times, The.
Devoted to the Facts, Philosophy, and Practical Uses of Modern Spiritualism / A Weekly Organ for the Promotion of Spiritual and Progressive Topics / A Register of Passing Spiritual Phenomena, and a Miscellany of Spiritual Literature.
Other titles: Spiritual Times and Weekly News
1864--1866? Weekly
Eastbourne, then London, England. Publisher: Robert Cooper; F. Farrah. Editor: J.H. [James Henry] Powell; W.H. Harrison.

1/1, March 5, 1864-October 1866, 118 issues (though the journal may have been continued thereafter). One-half penny and then 2d a week, 10s yearly post-free, 4-8 pp. The first five numbers appeared as the Spiritual Times and Weekly News, with the first page devoted to spiritualism and the rest to items of general interest. After five issues, with the issue of Saturday, April 9, 1864, marked "No. 1.--Vol. 1.--New Series," the journal appeared in quarto size with 8 pp. under the title of Spiritual Times, and was devoted almost entirely to spiritualism. This was the first weekly British journal published from London. Cooper began it to oppose the ridicule and contempt that the secular press expressed toward spiritualism. He had started out as a self-described "secularist" and a firebrand with the courage of his convictions. He met Powell in 1862, and the two of them explored spiritualism, became enthusiastic about the spirits, and proceeded to tour the provinces, lecturing in the face of violent opposition. Powell (1830-1872) had had a Dickens-like youth and early manhood, trying to make a living in a variety of trades and acting as a bookseller and maker of poems. In 1860 he published the Domestic Magazine (5-6 issues) that featured his fiction. The same year, after reading an account of D.D. Home's phenomena, he ventured to London and through the help of his old friend T.S. Shorter met the writing medium Dr. Dixon and also met Cooper. About 1865 the two started the Spiritual Lyceum in London, to whose offices this journal was eventually moved -- all at Cooper's expense. The ventures collapsed when Powell, on the dubious basis of allegations from the New York Times that Benjamin Coleman had quoted in the Spiritual Magazine, republished an attack on the the medium Sothern which cited "facts that did not reflect favourably on Mr. Sothern's private character." Sothern sued the Spiritual Times for libel, and Cooper (who, all unawares, was attending a demonstration by the Davenport Brothers in Dublin at the time) was thrown in jail. On Cooper and the affair, see Cooper, Experiences, Including Seven Months with the Brothers Davenport (London: Heywood, 1867). Emma Hardinge Britten in Nineteenth Century Miracles (1883), 209, hints at the scandal and litigation when she says that the "unfortunate prosecution incurred by Mr. [Benjamin] Coleman, involving in its results the publisher of this paper, occasioned its suspension after a short-lived existence." The journal was initially advertised as "a Family Newspaper and an organ for the discussion of Spiritual and Progressive topics; and offers to those interested, a medium for the intelligent exposition of views bearing upon the great facts of the age." Contributions by William Howitt, P.B. Randolph ("The Phantom Gambler," later reprinted in Soul World), Thomas Shorter (editor of the Spiritual Magazine), Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie (on "Benjamin Mazel's Spiritual Philosophy/Cosmogony," "The Doctrine of Reincarnation," "Man's Origin on the Earth," "The Journey unto Real Life," "The History of Joan D'Arc," "Spirit Upon Spirit -- conversations between Mackenzie and his spirit guides Swedenborg and Bacon on reading Judge Edmonds, etc.), Powell, Cooper and others, with filler from contemporary journals and letters to the editor, notably a letter presenting a summary of the ideas of R.P. Ambler. The journal regularly carried notices of the trance lectures of P.B. Randolph in Britain. It carried advertisements for musical compositions by Shorter and Cooper (including "Our Rifles are Ready! Hurray! (a Song for volunteers))" and by Powell, and solicitations for the lectures of Powell and for Mrs. Powell's "Mesmeric Treatment." Powell went on to edit for a time the Spiritual Monthly and Lyceum Record in Boston in 1870 and was instrumental in introducing the young Father Thurston, S.J., to spiritualism. He also wrote a life of William Denton. Harrison's involvement with the journal as an editor rests on claims in various encyclopedias but cannot be verified. BL.

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