Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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National Council of Women of the United States
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 4/13/19

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The National Council of Women of the United States (NCW/US) is the oldest [1] nonsectarian organization of women in America. Officially founded in 1888,[2] the NCW/US is an accredited non-governmental organization (NGO) with the Department of Public Information (UN/DPI)[1] and in Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC).[3]

Establishment

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Frances Willard, President

After her resignation, Willard focused her energies on a new career: the women's temperance movement. In 1874, Willard participated in the founding convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) where she was elected the first Corresponding Secretary.[3] In 1876, she became head of the WCTU Publications Department, focusing on publishing and building a national audience for the WCTU's weekly newspaper, The Union Signal.[5] In 1885 Willard joined with Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Mary Ellen West, Frances Conant and 43 others to found the Illinois Woman's Press Association.[6]

In 1879, she sought and successfully obtained presidency of the National WCTU. Once elected, she held the post until her death.[7] Her tireless efforts for the temperance cause included a 50-day speaking tour in 1874, an average of 30,000 miles of travel a year, and an average of 400 lectures a year for a 10-year period, mostly with the assistance of her personal secretary, Anna Adams Gordon....

Willard's suffrage argument also hinged on her feminist interpretation of Scripture. She claimed that natural and divine laws called for equality in the American household, with the mother and father sharing leadership. She expanded this notion of the home, arguing that men and women should lead side by side in matters of education, church, and government, just as "God sets male and female side by side throughout his realm of law."[11]

Willard's work took to an international scale in 1883 with the circulation of the Polyglot Petition against the international drug trade. She also joined May Wright Sewall at the International Council of Women meeting in Washington, DC, laying the permanent foundation for the National Council of Women of the United States. She became the organization's first president in 1888 and continued in that post until 1890.[7] Willard also founded the World WCTU in 1888 and became its president in 1893.[14] She collaborated closely with Lady Isabel Somerset, president of the British Women's Temperance Association, whom she visited several times in the United Kingdom.

After 1893, Willard was influenced by the British Fabian Society and became a committed Christian socialist.[15]

-- Frances Willard, by Wikipedia


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Susan B. Anthony, Vice President

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Mary F. Eastman, Recording Secretary

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M. Louise Thomas, Treasurer

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May Wright Sewall, Corresponding Secretary

During the preparations of 1887-1888 for the meeting of the International Council of Women, May Wright Sewall, an active member of the Committee of Arrangements, conceived the idea of finalizing the results of that gathering of women into permanent organizations dedicated to the uplifting of humanity. From her carefully-elaborated thought arose the permanent International Council of Women and the National Council of Women of the United States, both organized, and their central boards of officers elected, March 31, 1888,[4] in Washington, D.C. The first official officers of the National Council of Women of the United States were Frances Willard, President; Susan B. Anthony, Vice President; Mary F. Eastman, Recording Secretary; M. Louise Thomas, Treasurer (NOTE: the photo above is of "Minnie" Louise Thomas, of St. Louis, not Maria Louise Palmer Thomas (1825-1907) of Philadelphia, who was affiliated with NCW of US.); May Wright Sewall, Corresponding Secretary. They adopted and presented the following preamble:

"We, women of the United States of America, believing that the best good of humanity will be advanced by efforts toward greater unity of sympathy and purpose, and that a voluntary association of individuals so united will best serve the highest good of the family, the community, the state, do hereby freely band ourselves together into a federation of all races, creeds, and traditions, to further the application of the Golden Rule to society, custom, and law."[2]


All National organisations of women, interested in the advancement of women's work in education, philanthropy, reform, and social culture, were welcome to join. When an organization entered the Council, its president became an acting Vice-President in the Council, and it also had the right to appoint one person to represent it on the Executive Board of the Council. This Board included the general officers of the Council, together with the presidents of all organisations belonging to it, and one delegate besides its president from every organisation. This Board also constituted a committee of arrangements for the first triennial meeting of the Council.[4]

The Constitution of the NCW/US called for triennial meetings of this organization to be held at Washington, D.C. At the close of the various business meetings of 1888 connected with the International Council of Women, it was agreed that the NCW/US would hold the first of the triennial meeting, provided for by its Constitution, in February, 1891 at the Albaugh's Opera House. The central board of officers was responsible for arranging this meeting.[4]

Present day

Today, the National Council of Women of the United States works to address the diverse concerns of women in pursuit of social, economic and political equality while serving as a united voice and forum to promote progressive ideas and influence policy decisions that impact human rights. They represent all races, creeds and traditions.[5]

The National Council of Women of the United States, along with its member organizations and individual members, continues today to uphold their mission statement: to further the application of the Golden Rule to society, custom, and law.

During the annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the Council serves as host to hundreds of women from all over the world, introducing them to the United Nations as an organized body of 192 nations with many Commissions, Conventions and Treaties that impact women and children here and across the globe. Monitoring the United Nations and reporting on current issues and activities, they also develop, implement and present public interest seminars and workshops.[5]

Member organizations

The National Council of Women is an affiliate of the International Council of Women. The following organizations are affiliates of the National Council of Women/US: NANBPWC, Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Nation to Nation Networking, Knowledge iTrust, Pan-Pacific and Southeast Asia Women's Association, Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, Sister To Sister International, Soroptimist International, Ukrainian National Women's League of America, International Health Awareness Network, National Council of Ghanaian Associations, United Nations Association of America (Tampa Bay, FL Chapter), Voices of African Mothers, and Zeta Phi Beta sorority.[6]

Past presidents

• Saideh A. Browne
• Iryna Kurowyckyj
• Belle S. Spafford
• Mary Lowe Dickinson
• Eva Perry Moore
• Vera Rivers
• May Wright Sewall
• Mary E. Singletary
• Suzanne Stutman
• Frances E. Willard

Gallery

• Mary Lowe Dickinson
• Anne E. Wastell
• Imogene Corinne Franciscus Fales
• Susa Young Gates
• Bina West Miller
• Helen Augusta Howard
• Josephine Humpal-Zeman
• Alice Stone Blackwell
• Kate Brownlee Sherwood
• Hannah Johnston Bailey
• Lillie Devereux Blake
• Countess Aberdeen
• Anna Howard Shaw
• Claudia Howard Maxwell
• Louise Rockwood Wardner
• Minnie Jensen Snow
• Emmeline B. Wells
• Miriam Howard Dubose
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony

References

Citations


1. "National Council of Women of the United States". Retrieved 25 April2011.
2. Robbins, Lousie Barnum (1898). History and minutes of the National Council of Women of the United States, organized in Washington, D.C., March 31, 1888. Boston: E.B. Stillings & Co.
3. "United Nations: Civil Society Participation - View Profile". esango.un.org. Retrieved 25 April 2011.
4. National Council of Women of the United States 1891, p. 8-.
5. "National Council of Women of the United States Mission". Retrieved 25 April 2011.
6. "National Council of Women of the United States Member Organizations". Retrieved 25 April 2011.

Attribution

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: National Council of Women of the United States (1891). Transactions of the National Council of Women of the United States, Assembled in Washington, D.C., February 22 to 25, 1891 (Public domain ed.). J.B. Lippincott.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Apr 13, 2019 7:13 pm

International Council of Women
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 4/13/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Image
Highlighted countries have local organizations affiliated with ICW.

The International Council of Women (ICW) is a women's organization working across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C. with 80 speakers and 49 delegates representing 53 women's organizations from 9 countries: Canada, the United States, Ireland, India, United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, France and Norway. Women from professional organizations, trade unions, arts groups and benevolent societies participate. National councils are affiliated to the ICW and thus make themselves heard at the international level. The ICW enjoys consultative status with the United Nations and its Permanent Representatives to ECOSOC, ILO, FAO, WHO, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNCTAD, and UNIDO.

Beginnings

President of ICW / Duration / Nationality

none 1888-1893 - / -- / --
Ishbel Hamilton-Gordon / 1893-1899 / Scotland
May Wright Sewall / 1899-1904 / United States

Sewall obtained permission to hold the World's Congress of Representative Women, the first meeting of the International Council of Women, in conjunction with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.[45] Sewall struggled with other leaders over control of the gathering. Bertha Palmer, president of the fair's Board of Lady Managers and president of the woman's branch of the World’s Congress Auxiliary's, and Ellen Henrotin, vice president of the auxiliary’s woman's branch, viewed Sewall as a radical feminist and resented the implication that the National Council of Women was organizing the World's Congress. Sewall threatened to resign, but remained with the organizing group, who hosted a successful meeting. The weeklong World's Congress brought 126 national women’s organizations together from around the world. Its estimated attendance was more than 150,000.[47][48]....

In 1893, the city of Chicago hosted the World Columbian Exposition, an early world's fair. So many people were coming to Chicago from all over the world that many smaller conferences, called Congresses and Parliaments, were scheduled to take advantage of this unprecedented gathering. One of these was the World's Parliament of Religions, an initiative of the Swedenborgian layman (and judge) Charles Carroll Bonney.[5][6] The Parliament of Religions was by far the largest of the congresses held in conjunction with the Exposition.[7] John Henry Barrows, a clergyman, was appointed as the first chairman of the General Committee of the 1893 Parliament by Charles Bonney.[8]

-- Parliament of the World's Religions, by Wikipedia


Sewall was a member of a Unitarian church in Indianapolis, but psychic research had been an interest since the 1880s.[13][27] Sewall converted to spiritualism after attending a chautauqua meeting at Lily Dale, New York, in 1897.[57][58] At Lily Dale Sewall met with a spiritualist medium, who asked her to write several questions on bits of paper that Sewall claimed never left her hands. Sewall then selected a slate that was wiped clear and tied with her own handkerchief. When Sewall later opened the slate at her hotel, expecting it to be blank inside, she found responses to her questions were legibly written on the slate. From that time she claimed to have had regular communications with her deceased husband, Theodore, and communicated with other deceased family members, a noted Russian pianist named Anton Rubenstein, and Père Condé, who was a medieval priest and physician from France.[57][59]

Spiritualism first appeared in the 1840s in the "Burned-over District" of upstate New York, where earlier religious movements such as Millerism and Mormonism had emerged during the Second Great Awakening.

This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought direct communication with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for example, that God would not condemn unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell.[1]

In this environment, the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) and the teachings of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) provided an example for those seeking direct personal knowledge of the afterlife. Swedenborg, who claimed to communicate with spirits while awake, described the structure of the spirit world. Two features of his view particularly resonated with the early spiritualists: first, that there is not a single Hell and a single Heaven, but rather a series of higher and lower heavens and hells; second, that spirits are intermediates between God and humans, so that the divine sometimes uses them as a means of communication.[1] Although Swedenborg warned against seeking out spirit contact, his works seem to have inspired in others the desire to do so.

Swedenborg was formerly a highly regarded inventor and scientist, achieving several engineering innovations and studying physiology and anatomy. Then, “in 1741, he also began to have series of intense mystical experiences, dreams, and visions, claiming that he had been called by God to reform Christianity and introduce a new church."[10]

Mesmer did not contribute religious beliefs, but he brought a technique, later known as hypnotism, that it was claimed could induce trances and cause subjects to report contact with supernatural beings. There was a great deal of professional showmanship inherent to demonstrations of Mesmerism, and the practitioners who lectured in mid-19th-century North America sought to entertain their audiences as well as to demonstrate methods for personal contact with the divine.[1]

Perhaps the best known of those who combined Swedenborg and Mesmer in a peculiarly North American synthesis was Andrew Jackson Davis, who called his system the "harmonial philosophy". Davis was a practicing Mesmerist, faith healer and clairvoyant from Blooming Grove, New York. He was also strongly influenced by the socialist theories of Fourierism.[11] His 1847 book, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind,[12] dictated to a friend while in a trance state, eventually became the nearest thing to a canonical work in a spiritualist movement whose extreme individualism precluded the development of a single coherent worldview.[1][2]

-- Spiritualism, by Wikipedia


Following Sewall's retirement from public life in 1916, she wrote a book describing her psychic experiences. Neither Dead Nor Sleeping (1920) was published two months prior to her death in July 1920. Indiana author Booth Tarkington, who wrote the introduction to her book, assisted in getting Bobbs-Merrill Company to publish it.[60] The book received some positive reviews at the time of its publication. One New York Times Book Review described it as "striking" and "amazing is hardly too strong of a word." Other reviewers praised her sincerity.[61]

The book's publication surprised many people, especially those who knew Sewall, because it revealed a previously unknown side of her life that she had concealed from the public for nearly twenty-five years. Sewall provided two reasons for concealing her involvement in the spiritualism movement until the publication of her book. She claimed those who contacted her from the spirit world told her keep quiet, and the few living friends who did know about her communications with the dead thought she had imagined them.[62][63] Sewall explained her intent in publishing the book was to provide others with the "comfort of knowing the simplicity and naturalness of the life into which they passed" after their life on earth ended.[59]

-- May Wright Sewall, by Wikipedia


Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon / 1904-1920 / Scotland
Pauline Chaponnière-Chaix / 1920-1922 / Switzerland
Ishbel Maria Hamilton-Gordon / 1922-1936 / Scotland
Marthe Boël / 1936-1947 / Belgium
Renée Girod / (interim) 1940-1945 / Switzerland
Jeanne Eder-Schwyzer / 1947-1957 / Switzerland
Marie-Hélène Lefaucheux / 1957-1963 / France
Mary McGeachy / 1963-1973 / Canada
Mehrangiz Dowlatshahi / 1973-1976 / Iran
Ngarmchit Purachatra / 1976-1979 / Thailand
Miriam Dell / 1979-1986 / New Zealand
Hong Sook-ja / 1986-1988 / South Korea
Lily Boeykens / 1988-1994 / Belgium
Kuraisin Sumhadi / 1994-1997 / Indonesia
Pnina Herzog / 1997-2003 / Israel
Anamah Tan / 2003-2009 / Singapore
Cosima Schenk / 2009-2015 / Switzerland
Jungsook Kim / 2015- / South Korea


During a visit to Europe in 1882, American suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony discussed the idea of an international women's organization with reformers in several countries. A committee of correspondence was formed to develop the idea further at a reception in their honor just before they returned home. The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Anthony and Stanton, organized the founding meeting of the ICW, which convened in Washington, DC, on March 25, 1888. Representing Louisiana at the Woman's International Council was Caroline Elizabeth Merrick. The meeting was part of a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention.[1]

Rachel Foster Avery managed much of the details of the planning of the first meeting of the ICW, and Susan B. Anthony presided over eight of the sixteen sessions.[2] The ICW drafted a constitution and established national meetings every three years and international meetings every five years.

Millicent Garrett Fawcett of England was elected as first president but she refused to serve.

In 1894, the ICW met in Berlin, where Alix von Cotta said that many senior teachers stayed away.[3] In 1899, they met in London, UK.[4]

In the early years, the United States supported many of the expenses of the organization, and dues from U.S. members made up a significant part of the budget. Most meetings were held in Europe or North America, and they adopted the use of three official languages - English, French and German - which discouraged participation by women of non-European origin. The ICW did not actively promote women's suffrage, as to not upset the more conservative members.

International Woman Suffrage Alliance

After Anthony retired as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Carrie Chapman Catt, her chosen successor, began working toward an international women's suffrage association, one of Anthony's long-time goals. The existing International Council of Women could not be expected to support a campaign for women's suffrage because it was a broad alliance whose more conservative members would object. In 1902, Catt organized a preparatory meeting in Washington, with Anthony as chair, that was attended by delegates from several countries. Organized primarily by Catt, the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was created in Berlin in 1904. The founding meeting was chaired by Anthony, who was declared to be the new organization's honorary president and first member.[132] According to Anthony's authorized biographer, "no event ever gave Miss Anthony such profound satisfaction as this one".[133] Later renamed the International Alliance of Women, the organization is still active and is affiliated with the United Nations.[134]....

Changing relationship with Stanton

Anthony and Stanton worked together in a close and productive relationship. From 1880 to 1886 they were together almost every day working on the History of Woman Suffrage.[135] They referred to each other as "Susan" and "Mrs. Stanton".....

Their interests began to diverge somewhat as they grew older. As the drive for women's suffrage gained momentum, Anthony began to form alliances with more conservative groups, such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the nation's largest women's organization and a supporter of women's suffrage.[141] Such moves irritated Stanton, who said, "I get more radical as I get older, while she seems to grow more conservative."[142] In 1895 Stanton published The Woman's Bible, which attacked the use of the Bible to relegate women to an inferior status. It became a highly controversial best-seller. The NAWSA voted to disavow any connection with it despite Anthony's strong objection that such a move was unnecessary and hurtful.[143] Even so, Anthony refused to assist with the book's preparation, telling Stanton: "You say 'women must be emancipated from their superstitions before enfranchisement will have any benefit,' and I say just the reverse, that women must be enfranchised before they can be emancipated from their superstitions."[144] Despite such friction, their relationship continued to be close. When Stanton died in 1902, Anthony wrote to a friend: "Oh, this awful hush! It seems impossible that voice is stilled which I have loved to hear for fifty years. Always I have felt I must have Mrs. Stanton's opinion of things before I knew where I stood myself. I am all at sea..."[145]

-- Susan B. Anthony, by Wikipedia


Twentieth century

In 1904, at the Berlin congress of the ICW, a separate organization formed to accommodate the strong feminist identity of the national suffrage associations: the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.

In 1925, the ICW convened their first coalition, the Joint Standing Committee of the Women's International Organisations, to lobby for the appointment of women to the League of Nations. By 1931 the League of Nations called together a Women's Consultative Committee on Nationality to address the issue of a woman's rights (and nationality) when married to a man from another country.[5] Two additional coalitions were formed in 1931: the Liaison Committee and the Peace and Disarmament Committee. The ICW constitution was revised in 1936.[6] The ICW worked with the League of Nations during the 1920s and the United Nations post-World War II.

Present day

Today, the ICW holds Consultative Status with UNESCO, the highest accreditation an NGO can achieve at the United Nations. Currently, the ICW is composed of 70 countries and has a headquarters in Paris.[7] International meetings are held every three years.

Archives

Papers of the International Council of Women are held at The Women's Library.[8] Other papers are held at the United Nations Library in Geneva, the Library of Congress in Washington, the UNESCO archives in Paris, the International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's Movement in Amsterdam, the Archive Center for Women's History (CARHIF) in Brussels, the Sophia Smith Library at Smith College, Massachusetts, the Margaret Cousins Memorial library in New Delhi, and the Lady Aberdeen Collection in the University of Waterloo (Ontario) Library Special Collections.

Affiliates

National Council of Women of the United States was founded in 1888 at the first ICW gathering. The National Council of Women of Canada was founded in 1893. The National Council of French Women was created in 1901, the National Council of Italian Women in 1903,[9] and the National Council of Belgian Women in 1905.[10] The first National Council of Women of Australia was established in 1931 to coordinate the state bodies existing prior to Australia's Federation.

See also

• List of women's organizations
• Mapping the World of Women's Information Services

References

1. National Woman Suffrage Association (1888). Report of the International Council of Women: Assembled by the National Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D. C., U. S. of America, March 25 to April 1, 1888 pp.9–11.
2. See the University of Rochester Libraries' Online Exhibit of Susan B. Anthony: Celebrating "An Heroic Life" Archived 2013-12-07 at the Wayback Machinefor images of the Report and Proceedings of the first ICW as well as letters from Susan B. Anthony about the planning process.
3. Letter from von Cotta, National Archives, Retrieved 29 December 2016
4. Helene Stöcker (2015): Lebenserinnerungen, hg. von Reinhold Lütgeeier-Davin u. Kerstin Wolff. Köln: Böhlau, 93; Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer: Handbuch der Fr auenbewegung. Berlin: Moeser, 1901, p. 151, https://archive.org/stream/handbuchderf ... 8/mode/2up.
5. See Dorothy P. Page, "'A Married Woman, or a Minor, Lunatic or Idiot': The Struggle of British Women against Disability in Nationality, 1914-1933," doctoral dissertation, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 1984.
6. The ICW Papers are housed at Smith College in the Sophia Smith Collection.
7. Contact Us, ICW web page
8. Library of the London School of Economics, ref 5ICW
9. "Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane" (in Italian). Consiglio Nazionale delle Donne Italiane. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
10. Jacques, Catherine (2009). "Le féminisme en Belgique de la fin du 19e siècle aux années 1970" (in French). Courrier hebdomadaire du CRISP, No 2012-2013. Retrieved 13 February 2019.

Bibliography

• Beyers, Leen (2005), Des Femmes Qui Changent le Monde: Histoire du Conseil International des Femmes, 1888-1988, Bruxelles: Racine, ISBN 2-87386-399-4
• Rupp, Leila J. (1994), "Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women's Organizations, 1888-1945", The American Historical Review, 99(5): 1571–1600, doi:10.2307/2168389, JSTOR 2168389
• Rupp, Leila J. (2011), "Transnational Women's Movements", European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History
• Schneider, Dorothy; Schneider, Carl J. (1993), "Chapter 8. Women's War Against War", American Women in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920, New York: Facts on File, ISBN 0-8160-2513-4

External links

• International Council of Women website
• Records of the International Council of Women - the Women's Library, London School of Economics
• International Archived records of the Council of Women, 1888-1959 at Smith College
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Apr 13, 2019 8:27 pm

Spiritualism
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 4/13/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


SPIRITUALISM....

The spiritualist movement traces its origins to the rappings and other phenomena attributed to spirits of the dead in the house of the Fox sisters of Hydesville (near Rochester), New York, in 1848. Once the Fox sisters determined that the rapping noises emanating from the walls and floors of their house were a kind of Morse code (the telegraph was a relatively new phenomenon at that tine), they began what the early historian of modern American spiritualism Emma Hardinge referred to in 1869 as "the achievement of a telegraphic communication between the visible and invisible worlds." [16] Once word spread that there was an easy method of contacting the dead, others attempted the same telegraphic method used by the Fox sisters and subsequently developed innovations (automatic writing, crystal gazing, possession trances, etc.) that led to new social and economic elites. A new social role emerged -- that of the medium -- who could dissociate and allow the spirits to speak directly through their vocal apparatus (the "mental medium") or induce spirits of the dead to write on slates, move planchettes, levitate furniture, or play accordions in the presence of flabbergasted clients (the "physical medium"). The most charismatic of this new class of mediums could in many instances attract a large following and become quite wealthy. By 1850 there were spiritualist circles surrounding mediums throughout New England and in other parts of the United States. By the early 1860s, spiritualism had become prominent in the parlors and salons of Europe. The horrific casualties of the American Civil War (1861-1865) stimulated the spiritualist movement in the United States, so that by the fin de siecle perhaps millions of individuals had, at one time or another, participated in such circles.

The allure of spiritualism was its simplicity and egalitarianism: almost anyone could attempt, with some margin of success, direct communication with the dead, and spiritualist circles and (later) organizations and "churches" (with Christian-oriented services) were open to anyone with "the will to believe," to use the words of William James (1842-1910), a student and explorer of the phenomena of spiritualism. [17] Seances could be held right in your own home at any time. The bureaucracy of Christianity, with its layers upon layers of mediators and its official discouragement of direct mystical experience, could thus be circumvented. Christianity supplied the theory; spiritualism provided the praxis, with technical assistance from Mesmerism, which taught hypnotic-induction techniques that could be used by aspiring mediums for entering trances.18 Jung, as is well known, had a very early interest in spiritualism and attended many seances throughout his life. Jung used such hypnotic induction procedures to place his cousin Helene Preiswerk into mediumistic trances during the seances he attended with her in the 1890s.

Women rose to positions of significant influence in spiritualist circles. It was there that they could assume spiritual leadership roles denied them by the patriarchal structure of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. Women not only comprised the majority of the most gifted mental and physical mediums, but they provided the organizational and financial support of the movement as well. Perhaps the single most influential woman in occultist circles in the nineteenth century (and in many ways, arguably the most influential woman in Europe and America at the time), was a Russian emigre to the United States, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), spiritualist medium and the founder of the Theosophical movement.

BLAVATSKY AND THEOSOPHY

Little is known of the first four decades of Blavatsky's life, although several biographers have attempted to fill in the gaps.19 She arrived in New York in the summer of 1873, apparently penniless, traveling steerage from France. Blavatsky was, by all accounts, a highly intelligent and canny individual, and before long she had secured an apartment on Irving Place in New York where she conducted spiritualist seances as a source of income. She produced both physical and mental phenomena: levitation, materializations, and messages from the deceased. Like most mediums, she had a "control" or "spirit guide," whom she met while in her trances and who supplied her with information from the beyond. Her first control was named John King, and she often referred to him as her "Holy Guardian Angel." Later, whenever she entered trances she began to have more frequent contact with a collection of guru-like "ascended masters," known as the "brothers" who were spiritual beings that existed in their sanctuary in Tibet. She became their disciple, their tulku, and began to dispense their teachings to her clients.

-- The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement, by Richard Noll


Image
By 1853, when the popular song "Spirit Rappings" was published, spiritualism was an object of intense curiosity.

Influences

Western General: Divine illumination, Panpsychism, Pantheism
Antiquity: Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Western esotericism
Medieval: Mysticism
Early modern: Perennial philosophy Jakob Böhme, Emanuel Swedenborg, Pietism
Modern: Romanticism, German idealism, Liberal Christianity, Transcendentalism, Universalism, New Thought, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Occultism, Spiritualism, Esoteric Christianity, New Age


Spiritualism is a religious movement based on the belief that the spirits of the dead exist and have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. The afterlife, or the "spirit world", is seen by spiritualists, not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve. These two beliefs — that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans — lead spiritualists to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God. Some spiritualists will speak of a concept which they refer to as "spirit guides"—specific spirits, often contacted, who are relied upon for spiritual guidance.[1][2] Spiritism, a branch of spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec and today practiced mostly in Continental Europe and Latin America, especially in Brazil, emphasizes reincarnation.[3]

Spiritualism developed and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English-speaking countries.[2][4] By 1897, spiritualism was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe,[5] mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes.

Spiritualism flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion through periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent spiritualists were women, and like most spiritualists, supported causes such as the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage.[2] By the late 1880s the credibility of the informal movement had weakened due to accusations of fraud perpetrated by mediums, and formal spiritualist organizations began to appear.[2] Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational spiritualist churches in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Beliefs

Mediumship and spirits


Spiritualists believe in the possibility of communication with the spirits of dead people, whom they regard as "discarnate humans". They believe that spirit mediums are gifted to carry on such communication, but that anyone may become a medium through study and practice. They believe that spirits are capable of growth and perfection, progressing through higher spheres or planes, and that the afterlife is not a static state, but one in which spirits evolve. The two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits may dwell on a higher plane—lead to a third belief, that spirits can provide knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about God and the afterlife. Many believers therefore speak of "spirit guides"—specific spirits, often contacted, and relied upon for worldly and spiritual guidance.[1][2]

According to spiritualists, anyone may receive spirit messages, but formal communication sessions (séances) are held by mediums, who claim thereby to receive information about the afterlife.[1]

Religious views

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Spiritualism was equated by some Christians with witchcraft. This 1865 broadsheet, published in the United States, also blamed spiritualism for causing the American Civil War.

Declaration of Principles

As an informal movement, spiritualism does not have a defined set of rules, but various spiritualist organizations have adopted variations on some or all of a "Declaration of Principles" developed between 1899 and 1944 and revised as recently as 2004.[6] In October 1899, a six article "Declaration of Principles" was adopted by the National Spiritualist Association (NSA) at a convention in Chicago, Illinois.[7][8] An additional two principles were added by the NSA in October 1909, at a convention in Rochester, New York.[9] Finally, in October 1944, a ninth principle was adopted by the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, at a convention in St. Louis, Missouri.[6]

1. We believe in Infinite Intelligence.

2. We believe that the phenomena of Nature, both physical and spiritual, are the expression of Infinite Intelligence.

3. We affirm that a correct understanding of such expression and living in accordance therewith, constitute true religion.

4. We affirm that the existence and personal identity of the individual continue after the change called death.

5. We affirm that communication with the so-called dead is a fact, scientifically proven by the phenomena of Spiritualism.

6. We believe that the highest morality is contained in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

7. We affirm the moral responsibility of individuals and that we make our own happiness or unhappiness as we obey or disobey Nature’s physical and spiritual laws.

8. We affirm that the doorway to reformation is never closed against any soul here or hereafter.

9. We affirm that the precepts of Prophecy and Healing are Divine attributes proven through Mediumship.

Origins

Spiritualism first appeared in the 1840s in the "Burned-over District" of upstate New York, where earlier religious movements such as Millerism and Mormonism had emerged during the Second Great Awakening.

This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought direct communication with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for example, that God would not condemn unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell.[1]

Swedenborg and Mesmer

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Hypnotic Séance. Painting by Swedish artist Richard Bergh, 1887.

In this environment, the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) and the teachings of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815) provided an example for those seeking direct personal knowledge of the afterlife. Swedenborg, who claimed to communicate with spirits while awake, described the structure of the spirit world. Two features of his view particularly resonated with the early spiritualists: first, that there is not a single Hell and a single Heaven, but rather a series of higher and lower heavens and hells; second, that spirits are intermediates between God and humans, so that the divine sometimes uses them as a means of communication.[1] Although Swedenborg warned against seeking out spirit contact, his works seem to have inspired in others the desire to do so.

Swedenborg was formerly a highly regarded inventor and scientist, achieving several engineering innovations and studying physiology and anatomy. Then, “in 1741, he also began to have series of intense mystical experiences, dreams, and visions, claiming that he had been called by God to reform Christianity and introduce a new church."[10]

Mesmer did not contribute religious beliefs, but he brought a technique, later known as hypnotism, that it was claimed could induce trances and cause subjects to report contact with supernatural beings. There was a great deal of professional showmanship inherent to demonstrations of Mesmerism, and the practitioners who lectured in mid-19th-century North America sought to entertain their audiences as well as to demonstrate methods for personal contact with the divine.[1]

Perhaps the best known of those who combined Swedenborg and Mesmer in a peculiarly North American synthesis was Andrew Jackson Davis, who called his system the "harmonial philosophy". Davis was a practicing Mesmerist, faith healer and clairvoyant from Blooming Grove, New York. He was also strongly influenced by the socialist theories of Fourierism.[11] His 1847 book, The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind,[12] dictated to a friend while in a trance state, eventually became the nearest thing to a canonical work in a spiritualist movement whose extreme individualism precluded the development of a single coherent worldview.[1][2]

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Emanuel Swedenborg

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Franz Mesmer

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Andrew Jackson Davis, about 1860

Reform-movement links

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The Fox sisters

Spiritualists often set March 31, 1848, as the beginning of their movement. On that date, Kate and Margaret Fox, of Hydesville, New York, reported that they had made contact with a spirit that was later claimed to be the spirit of a murdered peddler whose body was found in the house, though no record of such a person was ever found. The spirit was said to have communicated through rapping noises, audible to onlookers. The evidence of the senses appealed to practically-minded Americans, and the Fox sisters became a sensation. As the first celebrity mediums, the sisters quickly became famous for their public séances in New York.[13] However, in 1888 the Fox sisters admitted that this "contact" with the spirit was a hoax, though shortly afterward they recanted that admission.[1][2]

Amy and Isaac Post, Hicksite Quakers from Rochester, New York, had long been acquainted with the Fox family, and took the two girls into their home in the late spring of 1848. Immediately convinced of the veracity of the sisters' communications, they became early converts and introduced the young mediums to their circle of radical Quaker friends.[14]

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Cora L. V. Scott

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Paschal Beverly Randolph

Consequently, many early participants in spiritualism were radical Quakers and others involved in the mid-nineteenth-century reforming movement. These reformers were uncomfortable with more prominent churches because those churches did little to fight slavery and even less to advance the cause of women's rights.[2]

Such links with reform movements, often radically socialist, had already been prepared in the 1840s, as the example of Andrew Jackson Davis shows. After 1848, many socialists became ardent spiritualists or occultists.[15] Socialist ideas, especially in the Fourierist vein, exerted a decisive influence on Kardec and other Spiritists.

The most popular trance lecturer prior to the American Civil War was Cora L. V. Scott (1840–1923). Young and beautiful, her appearance on stage fascinated men. Her audiences were struck by the contrast between her physical girlishness and the eloquence with which she spoke of spiritual matters, and found in that contrast support for the notion that spirits were speaking through her. Cora married four times, and on each occasion adopted her husband's last name. During her period of greatest activity, she was known as Cora Hatch.[2]

Another famous woman spiritualist was Achsa W. Sprague, who was born November 17, 1827, in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. At the age of 20, she became ill with rheumatic fever and credited her eventual recovery to intercession by spirits. An extremely popular trance lecturer, she traveled about the United States until her death in 1861. Sprague was an abolitionist and an advocate of women's rights.[2]

Yet another prominent spiritualist and trance medium prior to the Civil War was Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825–1875), a man of mixed race, who also played a part in the abolitionist movement.[16] Nevertheless, many abolitionists and reformers held themselves aloof from the spiritualist movement; among the skeptics was the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass.[17]

Another social reform movement with significant Spiritualist involvement was the effort to improve conditions of Native Americans. As Kathryn Troy notes in a study of Indian ghosts in seances:

Undoubtedly, on some level Spiritualists recognized the Indian spectres that appeared at seances as a symbol of the sins and subsequent guilt of the United States in its dealings with Native Americans. Spiritualists were literally haunted by the presence of Indians. But for many that guilt was not assuaged: rather, in order to confront the haunting and rectify it, they were galvanized into action. The political activism of Spiritualists on behalf of Indians was thus the result of combining white guilt and fear of divine judgment with a new sense of purpose and responsibility.[18]


Believers and skeptics

In the years following the sensation that greeted the Fox sisters, demonstrations of mediumship (séances and automatic writing, for example) proved to be a profitable venture, and soon became popular forms of entertainment and spiritual catharsis. The Fox sisters were to earn a living this way and others would follow their lead.[1][2] Showmanship became an increasingly important part of spiritualism, and the visible, audible, and tangible evidence of spirits escalated as mediums competed for paying audiences. As independent investigating commissions repeatedly established, most notably the 1887 report of the Seybert Commission,[19] fraud was widespread, and some of these cases were prosecuted in the courts.[20]

Despite numerous instances of chicanery, the appeal of spiritualism was strong. Prominent in the ranks of its adherents were those grieving the death of a loved one. Many families during the time of the American Civil War had seen their men go off and never return, and images of the battlefield, produced through the new medium of photography, demonstrated that their loved ones had not only died in overwhelmingly huge numbers, but horribly as well. One well known case is that of Mary Todd Lincoln who, grieving the loss of her son, organized séances in the White House which were attended by her husband, President Abraham Lincoln.[17] The surge of spiritualism during this time, and later during World War I, was a direct response to those massive battlefield casualties.[21]

In addition, the movement appealed to reformers, who fortuitously found that the spirits favored such causes du jour as abolition of slavery, and equal rights for women.[2] It also appealed to some who had a materialist orientation and rejected organized religion. In 1854 the utopian socialist Robert Owen was converted to spiritualism after "sittings" with the American medium Maria B. Hayden (credited with introducing spiritualism to England); Owen made a public profession of his new faith in his publication The Rational quarterly review and later wrote a pamphlet, The future of the Human race; or great glorious and future revolution to be effected through the agency of departed spirits of good and superior men and women.[22]

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Frank Podmore, ca. 1895.

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William Crookes. Photo published 1904.

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Harry Price, 1922.

Many scientists who investigated the phenomenon also became converts.[citation needed] They included chemist and physicist William Crookes (1832–1919) and evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913).[23] Nobel laureate Pierre Curie was impressed by the mediumistic performances of Eusapia Palladino and advocated their scientific study.[24] Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849–1912)[25] and physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).[21]

Doyle, who lost his son Kingsley in World War I, was also a member of the Ghost Club. Founded in London in 1862, its focus was the scientific study of alleged paranormal activities in order to prove (or refute) the existence of paranormal phenomena. Famous members of the club included Charles Dickens, Sir William Crookes, Sir William F. Barrett, and Harry Price.[26] The Paris séances of Eusapia Palladino were attended by an enthusiastic Pierre Curie and a dubious Marie Curie. The celebrated New York City physician, John Franklin Gray, was a prominent spiritualist.[27]

The claims of spiritualists and others as to the reality of ghosts were investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, founded in London in 1882. The society set up a Committee on Haunted Houses.[28]

Prominent investigators who exposed cases of fraud came from a variety of backgrounds, including professional researchers such as Frank Podmore of the Society for Psychical Research and Harry Price of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, and professional conjurers such as John Nevil Maskelyne. Maskelyne exposed the Davenport brothers by appearing in the audience during their shows and explaining how the trick was done.

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Houdini exposed the tricks of "mediums".

The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington exposed fraudulent mediums' tricks, such as those used in slate-writing, table-turning, trumpet mediumship, materializations, sealed-letter reading, and spirit photography.[29] The skeptic Joseph McCabe, in his book Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? (1920), documented many fraudulent mediums and their tricks.[30]

Magicians and writers on magic have a long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. During the 1920s, professional magician Harry Houdini undertook a well-publicised campaign to expose fraudulent mediums; he was adamant that "Up to the present time everything that I have investigated has been the result of deluded brains."[31] Other magician or magic-author debunkers of spiritualist mediumship have included Chung Ling Soo,[32] Henry Evans,[33] Julien Proskauer,[34] Fulton Oursler,[35] Joseph Dunninger,[36] and Joseph Rinn.[37]

In February 1921 Thomas Lynn Bradford, in an experiment designed to ascertain the existence of an afterlife, committed suicide in his apartment by blowing out the pilot light on his heater and turning on the gas. After that date, no further communication from him was received by an associate whom he had recruited for the purpose.[38]

Unorganized movement

The movement quickly spread throughout the world; though only in the United Kingdom did it become as widespread as in the United States.[4] Spiritualist organizations were formed in America and Europe, such as the London Spiritualist Alliance, which published a newspaper called The Light, featuring articles such as "Evenings at Home in Spiritual Séance", "Ghosts in Africa" and "Chronicles of Spirit Photography", advertisements for "Mesmerists" and patent medicines, and letters from readers about personal contact with ghosts.[39] In Britain, by 1853, invitations to tea among the prosperous and fashionable often included table-turning, a type of séance in which spirits were said to communicate with people seated around a table by tilting and rotating the table. One prominent convert was the French pedagogist Allan Kardec (1804–1869), who made the first attempt to systematise the movement's practices and ideas into a consistent philosophical system. Kardec's books, written in the last 15 years of his life, became the textual basis of spiritism, which became widespread in Latin countries. In Brazil, Kardec's ideas are embraced by many followers today.[1][2][40] In Puerto Rico, Kardec's books were widely read by the upper classes, and eventually gave birth to a movement known as mesa blanca (white table).

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Middle-class Chicago women discuss spiritualism (1906)

Spiritualism was mainly a middle- and upper-class movement, and especially popular with women. American spiritualists would meet in private homes for séances, at lecture halls for trance lectures, at state or national conventions, and at summer camps attended by thousands. Among the most significant of the camp meetings were Camp Etna, in Etna, Maine; Onset Bay Grove, in Onset, Massachusetts; Lily Dale, in western New York State; Camp Chesterfield, in Indiana; the Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp, in Wonewoc, Wisconsin; and Lake Pleasant, in Montague, Massachusetts. In founding camp meetings, the spiritualists appropriated a form developed by U.S. Protestant denominations in the early nineteenth century. Spiritualist camp meetings were located most densely in New England, but were also established across the upper Midwest. Cassadaga, Florida, is the most notable spiritualist camp meeting in the southern states.[1][2][41]

A number of spiritualist periodicals appeared in the nineteenth century, and these did much to hold the movement together. Among the most important were the weeklies the Banner of Light (Boston), the Religio-Philosophical Journal (Chicago), Mind and Matter (Philadelphia), the Spiritualist (London), and the Medium (London). Other influential periodicals were the Revue Spirite (France), Le Messager (Belgium), Annali dello Spiritismo (Italy), El Criterio Espiritista (Spain), and the Harbinger of Light (Australia). By 1880, there were about three dozen monthly spiritualist periodicals published around the world.[42] These periodicals differed a great deal from each other, reflecting the great differences among spiritualists. Some, such as the British Spiritual Magazine were Christian and conservative, openly rejecting the reform currents so strong within spiritualism. Others, such as Human Nature, were pointedly non-Christian and supportive of socialism and reform efforts. Still others, such as the Spiritualist, attempted to view spiritualist phenomena from a scientific perspective, eschewing discussion on both theological and reform issues.[43]

Books on the supernatural were published for the growing middle class, such as 1852's Mysteries, by Charles Elliott, which contains "sketches of spirits and spiritual things", including accounts of the Salem witch trials, the Cock Lane Ghost, and the Rochester rappings.[44] The Night Side of Nature, by Catherine Crowe, published in 1853, provided definitions and accounts of wraiths, doppelgangers, apparitions and haunted houses.[45]

Mainstream newspapers treated stories of ghosts and haunting as they would any other news story. An account in the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1891, "sufficiently bloody to suit the most fastidious taste", tells of a house believed to be haunted by the ghosts of three murder victims seeking revenge against their killer's son, who was eventually driven insane. Many families, "having no faith in ghosts", thereafter moved into the house, but all soon moved out again.[46] In the 1920s many "psychic" books were published of varied quality. Such books were often based on excursions initiated by the use of Ouija boards. A few of these popular books displayed unorganized spiritualism, though most were less insightful.[47]

The movement was extremely individualistic, with each person relying on his or her own experiences and reading to discern the nature of the afterlife. Organisation was therefore slow to appear, and when it did it was resisted by mediums and trance lecturers. Most members were content to attend Christian churches, and particularly universalist churches harbored many spiritualists.

As the spiritualism movement began to fade, partly through the publicity of fraud accusations and partly through the appeal of religious movements such as Christian science, the Spiritualist Church was organised. This church can claim to be the main vestige of the movement left today in the United States.[1][2]

Other mediums

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Emma Hardinge Britten

London-born Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–99) moved to the United States in 1855 and was active in spiritualist circles as a trance lecturer and organiser. She is best known as a chronicler of the movement's spread, especially in her 1884 Nineteenth Century Miracles: Spirits and Their Work in Every Country of the Earth, and her 1870 Modern American Spiritualism, a detailed account of claims and investigations of mediumship beginning with the earliest days of the movement.

William Stainton Moses (1839–92) was an Anglican clergyman who, in the period from 1872 to 1883, filled 24 notebooks with automatic writing, much of which was said to describe conditions in the spirit world. However, Frank Podmore was skeptical of his alleged ability to communicate with spirits and Joseph McCabe described Moses as a "deliberate impostor", suggesting his apports and all of his feats were the result of trickery.[48][49]

Adelma Vay (1840–1925), Hungarian (by origin) spiritistic medium, homeopath and clairvoyant, authored many books about spiritism, written in German and translated into English.

Eusapia Palladino (1854–1918) was an Italian spiritualist medium from the slums of Naples who made a career touring Italy, France, Germany, Britain, the United States, Russia and Poland. Palladino was said by believers to perform spiritualist phenomena in the dark: levitating tables, producing apports, and materializing spirits. On investigation, all these things were found to be products of trickery.[50][51]

The British medium William Eglinton (1857–1933) claimed to perform spiritualist phenomena such as movement of objects and materializations. All of his feats were exposed as tricks.[52][53]

The Bangs Sisters, Mary "May" E. Bangs (1862-1917) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Snow Bangs (1859-1920), were two spiritualist mediums based in Chicago, who made a career out of painting the dead or "Spirit Portraits".

Mina Crandon (1888–1941), a spiritualist medium in the 1920s, was known for producing an ectoplasm hand during her séances. The hand was later exposed as a trick when biologists found it to be made from a piece of carved animal liver.[54] In 1934, the psychical researcher Walter Franklin Prince described the Crandon case as "the most ingenious, persistent, and fantastic complex of fraud in the history of psychic research."[55]

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Helen Duncan

The American voice medium Etta Wriedt (1859-1942) was exposed as a fraud by the physicist Kristian Birkeland when he discovered that the noises produced by her trumpet were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water and in other cases by lycopodium powder.[56]

Another well-known medium was the Scottish materialization medium Helen Duncan (1897–1956). In 1928 photographer Harvey Metcalfe attended a series of séances at Duncan's house and took flash photographs of Duncan and her alleged "materialization" spirits, including her spirit guide "Peggy".[57] The photographs revealed the "spirits" to have been fraudulently produced, using dolls made from painted papier-mâché masks, draped in old sheets.[58] Duncan was later tested by Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research; photographs revealed Duncan's ectoplasm to be made from cheesecloth, rubber gloves, and cut-out heads from magazine covers.[59][60]

Evolution

Spiritualists reacted with an uncertainty to the theories of evolution in the late 19th and early 20th century. Broadly speaking the concept of evolution fitted the spiritualist thought of the progressive development of humanity. At the same time however, the belief in the animal origins of humanity threatened the foundation of the immortality of the spirit, for if humans had not been created by God, it was scarcely plausible that they would be specially endowed with spirits. This led to spiritualists embracing spiritual evolution.[61]

The spiritualists' view of evolution did not stop at death. Spiritualism taught that after death spirits progressed to spiritual states in new spheres of existence. According to spiritualists evolution occurred in the spirit world "at a rate more rapid and under conditions more favourable to growth" than encountered on earth.[62]

In a talk at the London Spiritualist Alliance, John Page Hopps (1834–1911) supported both evolution and spiritualism. Hopps claimed humanity had started off imperfect "out of the animal's darkness" but would rise into the "angel's marvellous light". Hopps claimed humans were not fallen but rising creatures and that after death they would evolve on a number of spheres of existence to perfection.[62]

Theosophy is in opposition to the spiritualist interpretation of evolution. Theosophy teaches a metaphysical theory of evolution mixed with human devolution. Spiritualists do not accept the devolution of the theosophists. To theosophy humanity starts in a state of perfection (see Golden age) and falls into a process of progressive materialization (devolution), developing the mind and losing the spiritual consciousness. After the gathering of experience and growth through repeated reincarnations humanity will regain the original spiritual state, which is now one of self-conscious perfection. Theosophy and spiritualism were both very popular metaphysical schools of thought especially in the early 20th century and thus were always clashing in their different beliefs. Madame Blavatsky was critical of spiritualism; she distanced theosophy from spiritualism as far as she could and allied herself with eastern occultism.[63]

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Gerald Massey

The spiritualist Gerald Massey claimed that Darwin's theory of evolution was incomplete:

The theory contains only one half the explanation of man's origins and needs spiritualism to carry it through and complete it. For while this ascent on the physical side has been progressing through myriads of ages, the Divine descent has also been going on—man being spiritually an incarnation from the Divine as well as a human development from the animal creation. The cause of the development is spiritual. Mr. Darwin's theory does not in the least militate against ours—we think it necessitates it; he simply does not deal with our side of the subject. He can not go lower than the dust of the earth for the matter of life; and for us, the main interest of our origin must lie in the spiritual domain.[64]


Spiritualists believed that without spiritualism "the doctrine of Darwin is a broken link". Gerald Massey said "Spiritualism will accept evolution, and carry it out and make both ends meet in the perfect circle".[65]

A famous medium who rejected evolution was Cora L. V. Scott, she dismissed evolution in her lectures and instead supported a type of pantheistic spiritualism.[66]

Alfred Russel Wallace believed qualitative novelties could arise through the process of spiritual evolution, in particular the phenomena of life and mind. Wallace attributed these novelties to a supernatural agency.[67] Later in his life, Wallace was an advocate of spiritualism and believed in an immaterial origin for the higher mental faculties of humans, he believed that evolution suggested that the universe had a purpose, and that certain aspects of living organisms are not explainable in terms of purely materialistic processes, in a 1909 magazine article entitled "The World of Life", which he later expanded into a book of the same name.[68] Wallace argued in his 1911 book World of Life for a spiritual approach to evolution and described evolution as "creative power, directive mind and ultimate purpose". Wallace believed natural selection could not explain intelligence or morality in the human being so suggested that non-material spiritual forces accounted for these. Wallace believed the spiritual nature of humanity could not have come about by natural selection alone, the origins of the spiritual nature must originate "in the unseen universe of spirit".[69][70]

Oliver Lodge also promoted a version of spiritual evolution in his books Man and the Universe (1908), Making of Man (1924) and Evolution and Creation (1926). The spiritualist element in the synthesis was most prominent in Lodge's 1916 book Raymond, or Life and Death which revived a large interest for public in the paranormal.[71]

After the 1920s

After the 1920s, spiritualism evolved in three different directions, all of which exist today.

Syncretism

The first of these continued the tradition of individual practitioners, organised in circles centered on a medium and clients, without any hierarchy or dogma. Already by the late 19th century spiritualism had become increasingly syncretic, a natural development in a movement without central authority or dogma.[2] Today, among these unorganised circles, spiritualism is similar to the new age movement. However, theosophy with its inclusion of Eastern religion, astrology, ritual magic and reincarnation is an example of a closer precursor of the 20th century new age movement.[72] Today's syncretic spiritualists are quite heterogeneous in their beliefs regarding issues such as reincarnation or the existence of God. Some appropriate new age and neo-pagan beliefs, while others call themselves "Christian spiritualists", continuing with the tradition of cautiously incorporating spiritualist experiences into their Christian faith.

Spiritualist church

The second direction taken has been to adopt formal organization, patterned after Christian denominations, with established liturgies and a set of seven principles, and training requirements for mediums. In the United States the spiritualist churches are primarily affiliated either with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches or the loosely allied group of denominations known as the spiritual church movement; in the U.K. the predominant organization is the Spiritualists' National Union, founded in 1890.

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Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes

Formal education in spiritualist practice emerged in 1920s, with organizations like the William T. Stead Center in Chicago, Illinois, and continue today with the Arthur Findlay College at Stansted Hall in England, and the Morris Pratt Institute in Wisconsin, United States.

Diversity of belief among organized spiritualists has led to a few schisms, the most notable occurring in the U.K. in 1957 between those who held the movement to be a religion sui generis (of its own with unique characteristics), and a minority who held it to be a denomination within Christianity. In the United States, this distinction can be seen between the less Christian organization, the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, and the more Christian spiritual church movement.

The practice of organized spiritualism today resembles that of any other religion, having discarded most showmanship, particularly those elements resembling the conjurer's art. There is thus a much greater emphasis on "mental" mediumship and an almost complete avoidance of the apparently miraculous "materializing" mediumship that so fascinated early believers such as Arthur Conan Doyle.[41] The first spiritualist church in Australia was the United Stanmore & Enmore Spiritualist Church[73] established in 1913. In 1921, Conan Doyle gave a farewell to Australia speech there.

Psychical research

Already as early as 1882, with the founding of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), parapsychologists emerged to investigate spiritualist claims.[74] The SPR's investigations into spiritualism exposed many fraudulent mediums which contributed to the decline of interest in physical mediumship.[75]

See also

• Camp Chesterfield
• List of Spiritualist organizations
• Spiritism
• Spiritism
• Spiritualism in fiction

Notes

1. Carroll, Bret E. (1997). Spiritualism in Antebellum America. (Religion in North America). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-253-33315-5.
2. Braude, Ann Braude (2001). Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America, Second Edition. Indiana University Press. p. 296. ISBN 978-0-253-21502-4.
3. [1] Allan Kardec, The Spirits' Book, Containing the Principles of Spiritist Doctrine... according to the Teachings of Spirits of High Degree, Transmitted through Various Mediums, Collected and Set in Order by Allan Kardec, translated by Anna Blackwell, São Paulo, Brasil, Federação Espírita Brasileira, 1996, ISBN 85-7328-022-0, p. 33.
4. Britten, Emma Hardinge (1884). Nineteenth Century Miracles: Spirits and Their Work in Every Country of the Earth. New York: William Britten. ISBN 978-0-7661-6290-7.
5. Times, New York (29 November 1897). "THREE FORMS OF THOUGHT; M.M. Mangassarian Addresses the Society for Ethical Culture at Carnegie Music Hall". The New York Times: 200.
6. Leonard, Todd Jay (2005). Talking to the Other Side: a History of Modern Spiritualism And Mediumship: A Study of the Religion, Science, Philosophy And Mediums That Encompass This American-made Religion. iUniverse. pp. 84–89. ISBN 978-0-595-36353-7.
7. Campbell, Geo.; Hardy, Thomas; Milmokre, Jas. (June 6, 1900). "Baer-Spiritualistic Challenge". Nanaimo Free Press. 27 (44). Nanaimo, Canada: Geo. Norris. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
8. National Spiritualist Association (1934) [1911]. Spiritualist Manual (5 ed.). Chicago, Illinois: Printing Products Corporation. p. 20.
9. Lawton, George (1932). The Drama of Life After Death: A Study of the Spiritualist Religion. Henry Holt and Company. p. 148.
10. Urban, Hugh B. (2015). New Age, Neopagan and New Religious Movements. Oakland, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520281189.
11. Catherine Albanese. (2007). A Republic of Mind and Spirit. A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. Yale University Press. pp. 171-176, 208-218.
12. The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind, Andrew Jackson Davis, 1847.
13. Barbara., Weisberg (2004). Talking to the dead : Kate and Maggie Fox and the rise of spiritualism (1st ed.). [San Francisco]: HarperSanFrancisco. ISBN 9780060566678. OCLC 54939577.
14. Ann., Braude (2001). Radical spirits : spiritualism and women's rights in nineteenth-century America (2nd ed.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253215024. OCLC 47785582.
15. Strube, Julian (2016). "Socialist religion and the emergence of occultism: A genealogical approach to socialism and secularization in 19th-century France". Religion. 46 (3): 359–388. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2016.1146926.
16. Deveney, John Patrick (1997). Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician. Sunny Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-3119-1.
17. Telegrams from the Dead (a PBS television documentary in the "American Experience" series, first aired October 19, 1994).
18. Kathryn Troy, The Specter of the Indian. SUNY 2017. p.151.
19. Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania, The Seybert Commission, 1887. 2004-04-01.
20. Williams, Montagu Stephen. 1891. Later Leaves: Being the Further Reminiscences of Montagu Williams. Macmillan. See chapter 8.
21. Arthur Conan Doyle, The History of Spiritualism Vol I, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1926.
22. Lewis Spence, Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, Kessinger Publishing Company, 2003, p. 679.
23. "The Scientific Aspect of the Supernatural, by Alfred Russel Wallace". wku.edu.
24. Anna Hurwic, Pierre Curie, translated by Lilananda Dasa and Joseph Cudnik, Paris, Flammarion, 1995, pp. 65, 66, 68, 247-48.
25. "W.T. Stead and Spiritualism—The W.T. Stead Resource Site". attackingthedevil.co.uk.
26. Underwood, Peter (1978) "Dictionary of the Supernatural", Harrap Ltd., ISBN 0-245-52784-2, Page 144
27. "The spiritual magazine". 1871.
28. John Fairley, Simon Welfare (1984). Arthur C. Clarke's world of strange powers, Volume 3. Putnam. ISBN 978-0-399-13066-3.
29. Hereward Carrington. (1907). The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism. Herbert B. Turner & Co.
30. Joseph McCabe. (1920). Is Spiritualism based on Fraud?: The Evidence Given by Sir A.C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined. London: Watts & Co.
31. A Magician Among the Spirits, Harry Houdini, Arno Press (June 1987), ISBN 0-405-02801-6
32. Chung Ling Soo. (1898). Spirit Slate Writing and Kindred Phenomena. Munn & Company.
33. Henry Evans. (1897). Hours With the Ghosts Or Nineteenth Century Witchcraft. Kessinger Publishing.
34. Julien Proskauer. (1932). Spook crooks! Exposing the secrets of the prophet-eers who conduct our wickedest industry. New York, A. L. Burt.
35. Fulton Oursler. (1930). Spirit Mediums Exposed. New York: Macfadden Publications.
36. Joseph Dunninger. (1935). Inside the Medium's Cabinet. New York, D. Kemp and Company.
37. Joseph Rinn. (1950). Sixty Years Of Psychical Research: Houdini And I Among The Spiritualists. Truth Seeker.
38. "DEAD SPIRITUALIST SILENT.; Detroit Woman Awaits Message, but Denies Any Compact". The New York Times. Detroit. February 8, 1921. p. 3.
39. The Light: A Journal Devoted to the Highest Interests of Humanity, both Here and Hereafter, Vol I, January to December 1881, London Spiritualist Alliance, Eclectic Publishing Company: London, 1882.
40. Hess, David (1987). "Spiritism and Science in Brazil". Ph.D thesis, Dept. of Anthropology, Cornell University.
41. Guthrie, John J. Jr.; Phillip Charles Lucas; Gary Monroe (2000). Cassadaga: the South's Oldest Spiritualist Community. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-1743-3.
42. (Harrison 1880: 6)
43. (Alvarado, Biondi, and Kramer 2006: 61–63)
44. Charles Wyllys Elliott, Mysteries, or Glimpses of the Supernatural, Harper & Bros: New York, 1852.
45. Catherine Crowe, The Night Side of Nature, or Ghosts and Ghost-seers, Redfield: New York, 1853.
46. "Dreadful Tale of a Haunted Man in Newton County, Missouri", Chicago Daily Tribune, January 4, 1891.
47. White, Stewart Edward (March 1943). The Betty Book. USA: E. P. Dutton & CO., Inc. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-0-89804-151-4.
48. Frank Podmore. (1902). Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism. Volume 2. Methuen & Company. pp. 283-287 "It seems reasonable to conclude that all the marvels reported at [Moses] seances were, in fact, produced by the medium's own hands: that it was he who tilted the table and produced the raps, that the scents, the seed pearls, and the Parian statuettes were brought into the room in his pockets: and that the spirit lights were, in fact, nothing more than bottles of phosphorised oil. Nor would the feats described have required any special skill on the medium's part."
49. Joseph McCabe. (1920). Spiritualism: A Popular History From 1847. Dodd, Mead and Company. pp. 151-173
50. Joseph Jastrow. (1918). The Psychology of Conviction. Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 101-127
51. Walter Mann. (1919). The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism. Rationalist Association. London: Watts & Co. pp. 115-130
52. Montague Summers. (2010). Physical Phenomena of Mysticism. Kessinger Publishing. p. 114. ISBN 978-1161363654. Also see Barry Wiley. (2012). The Thought Reader Craze: Victorian Science at the Enchanted Boundary. McFarland. p. 35. ISBN 978-0786464708
53. Simeon Edmunds. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0850300130 "1876 also saw the first of several exposures of another physical medium, William Eglington, in whose trunk a false beard and a quantity of muslin were found by Archdeacon Colley. He was exposed again in 1880, after which he turned to slate-writing. In this he was exposed by Richard Hodgson and S. J. Davey of the SPR in 1885. Davey a clever conjuror, was able to duplicate all Eglington's phenomena so perfectly that some spiritualists, notably Alfred Russel Wallace, insisted that he too was really a genuine medium."
54. Brian Righi. (2008). Ghosts, Apparitions and Poltergeists: An Exploration of the Supernatural through History. Llewellyn Publications. p. 52. ISBN 978-0738713632 "One medium of the 1920s, Mina Crandon, became famous for producing ectoplasm during her sittings. At the height of the séance, she was even able to produce a tiny ectoplasmic hand from her navel, which waved about in the darkness. Her career ended when Harvard biologists were able to examine the tiny hand and found it to be nothing more than a carved piece of animal liver."
55. C. E. M. Hansel. (1989). The Search for Psychic Power: ESP and Parapsychology Revisited. Prometheus Books. p. 245. ISBN 978-0879755331
56. Joseph McCabe. (1920). Is Spiritualism based on Fraud?: The Evidence Given by Sir A.C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined. London: Watts & Co. p. 126
57. Malcolm Gaskill. (2001). Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches. Fourth Estate. p. 100. ISBN 978-1841151090
58. Jason Karl. (2007). An Illustrated History of the Haunted World. New Holland Publishers. p. 79. ISBN 978-1845376871
59. Simeon Edmunds. (1966). Spiritualism: A Critical Survey. Aquarian Press. pp. 137-144.ISBN 978-0850300130
60. Paul Kurtz. (1985). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. p. 599. ISBN 0-87975-300-5
61. Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914, 1988, p. 267
62. Janet Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850–1914, 1988, p. 270
63. G. Baseden Butt, Madame Blavatsky, p. 120
64. Gerald Massey, Concerning Evolution, p. 55
65. Gerald Massey, Concerning evolution, pp. 60–61
66. Frank Podmore, Bob Gilbert, Modern spiritualism: a history and a criticism: Volume 2, 2001, pp. 135–136
67. Debora Hammond, The Science of Synthesis: Exploring the Social Implications of General Systems Theory, 2003, p. 39
68. Wallace, Alfred Russel. "World of Life". The Alfred Russel Wallace Page hosted by Western Kentucky University. Retrieved 2011-03-23.
69. Martin Fichman, An elusive Victorian: the evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace, 2004, p. 159
70. Edward Clodd, Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism, p. 300
71. Peter J. Bowler, Science for all: the popularization of science in early twentieth-century, 2009, p. 44
72. Hess, David J. (June 15, 1993). Science In The New Age: The Paranormal, Its Defenders & Debunkers. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-299-13820-2.
73. "Enmore Spiritualist Church=".
74. Ray Hyman. (1985). A Critical Historical Overview of Parapsychology. In Paul Kurtz. A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 3-96. ISBN 0-87975-300-5
75. Rosemary Guiley. (1994). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. Guinness Publishing. p. 311. ISBN 978-0851127484

References

• Albanese, Catherine L. (2007). A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300136159.
• Brandon, Ruth (1983). The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Braude, Ann (2001). Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-21502-4.
• Britten, Emma Hardinge (1884). Nineteenth Century Miracles: Spirits and Their Work in Every Country of the Earth. New York: William Britten. ISBN 978-0-7661-6290-7.
• Brown, Slater (1970). The Heyday of Spiritualism. New York: Hawthorn Books.
• Buescher, John B. (2003). The Other Side of Salvation: Spiritualism and the Nineteenth-Century Religious Experience. Boston: Skinner House Books. ISBN 978-1-55896-448-8.
• Carroll, Bret E. (1997). Spiritualism in Antebellum America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33315-5.
• Chapin, David. Exploring Other Worlds: Margaret Fox, Elisha Kent Kane, and the Antebellum Culture of Curiosity, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.
• Davenport, Reuben Briggs (1888). The Death-Blow to Spiritualism. New York: G.W. Dillingham.
• Deveney, John Patrick; Franklin Rosemont (1996). Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-3120-7.
• Doyle, Arthur Conan (1926). The History of Spiritualism, volume 1. New York: G.H. Doran. ISBN 978-1-4101-0243-0.
• Doyle, Arthur Conan (1926). The History of Spiritualism, volume 2. New York: G.H. Doran. ISBN 978-1-4101-0243-0.
• Fodor, Nandor (1934). An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science.
• Guthrie, John J. Jr.; Phillip Charles Lucas; Gary Monroe (2000). Cassadaga: the South's Oldest Spiritualist Community. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-1743-3.
• Harrison, W.H. 1880. Psychic Facts, a Selection from Various Authors. London: Ballantyne Press.
• Hess, David (1987). "Spiritism and Science in Brazil". Ph.D thesis, Dept. of Anthropology, Cornell University.
• Kardec, Allan, The Spirits' Book, Containing the Principles of Spiritist Doctrine... according to the Teachings of Spirits of High Degree, Transmitted through Various Mediums, Collected and Set in Order by Allan Kardec, translated by Anna Blackwell, São Paulo, Brasil, Federação Espírita Brasileira, 1996, ISBN 85-7328-022-0.
• Lindgren, Carl Edwin (January 1994). "Spiritualism: Innocent Beliefs to Scientific Curiosity". Journal of Religion and Psychical Research. 17 (1): 8–15. ISSN 2168-8621.
• Lindgren, Carl Edwin (March 1994). "Scientific investigation and Religious Uncertainty 1880–1900". Journal of Religion and Psychical Research. 17(2): 83–91. ISSN 2168-8621.
• Moore, William D. (1997). "'To Hold Communion with Nature and the Spirit-World:' New England's Spiritualist Camp Meetings, 1865–1910". In Annmarie Adams and Sally MacMurray (editors). Exploring Everyday Landscapes: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, VII. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-0-87049-983-8.
• Natale, Simone (2016) Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-07104-6.
• Podmore, Frank, Mediums of the 19th Century, 2 vols., University Books, 1963.
• Salter, William H., Zoar; or the Evidence of Psychical Research Concerning Survival, Sidgwick, 1961.
• Strube, Julian (2016). "Socialist Religion and the Emergence of Occultism: A Genealogical Approach to Socialism and Secularization in 19th-Century France." Religion. doi 10.1080/0048721X.2016.1146926.
• Strube, Julian (2016). Sozialismus, Katholizisimus und Okkultismus im Frankreich des 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-047810-5.
• Telegrams from the Dead (a PBS television documentary in the "American Experience" series, first aired October 19, 1994).
• Tokarzówna, Krystyna; Stanisław Fita (1969). Bolesław Prus, 1847–1912: Kalendarz życia i twórczości (Bolesław Prus, 1847–1912: a Calendar of [His] L ife and Work). Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.
• Weisberg, Barbara (2004). Talking to the Dead. San Francisco: Harper.
• Wicker, Christine (2004). Lily Dale: the True Story of the Town that talks to the Dead. San Francisco: Harper.

Further reading

• Clodd, Edward (1917). The Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism. Grant Richards, London.
• Doyle, Arthur Conan (1975) The History of Spiritualism. Arno Press. New York. ISBN 9780405070259
• Hall, Trevor H. (1963). The Spiritualists: The Story of Florence Cook and William Crookes. Helix Press.
• Kurtz, Paul (1985). "Spiritualists, Mediums and Psychics: Some Evidence of Fraud". In Paul Kurtz (ed.). A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology. Prometheus Books. pp. 177–223. ISBN 0-87975-300-5.
• Lehman, Amy (2009). Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance: Mediums, Spiritualists and Mesmerists in Performance. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3479-4.
• Mann, Walter (1919). The Follies and Frauds of Spiritualism. Rationalist Association. London: Watts & Co.
• McCabe, Joseph. (1920). Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? The Evidence Given by Sir A. C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined. London: Watts & Co.
• Mercier, Charles Arthur (1917). Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge. London: Mental Culture Enterprise.
• Moreman, Christopher M. (2013). The Spiritualist Movement: Speaking with the Dead in America and around the World 3 Vols. Praeger. ISBN 978-0-313-39947-3.
• Podmore, Frank (1911). The Newer Spiritualism. Henry Holt and Company.
• Price, Harry; Dingwall, Eric (1975). Revelations of a Spirit Medium. Arno Press. Reprint of 1891 edition by Charles F. Pidgeon. This rare, overlooked, and forgotten, book gives the "insider's knowledge" of 19th century deceptions.
• Richet, Charles (1924). Thirty Years of Psychical Research being a Treatise on Metaphysics. The Macmillan Company. New York. ISBN 0766142191.
• Rinn, Joseph (1950). Sixty Years Of Psychical Research: Houdini and I Among the Spiritualists. Truth Seeker.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

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Michio Kushi
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 4/13/19

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Michio Kushi

Michio Kushi (久司 道夫 Kushi Michio); born 17 May 1926 in Japan, died December 28, 2014, helped to introduce modern macrobiotics to the United States in the early 1950s. He lectured all over the world at conferences and seminars about philosophy, spiritual development, health, food, and diseases.

Background

After World War II, Kushi studied in Japan with macrobiotic educator, George Ohsawa. Since coming to America in 1949, Michio Kushi and Aveline Kushi, his wife, founded Erewhon Natural Foods, the East West Journal, the East West Foundation, the Kushi Foundation, One Peaceful World, and the Kushi Institute. They had written over 70 books.

In 1974, several staff members of East West Journal left that pioneering publication, weary of following the demanding macrobiotic diet and set on publishing a general-interest magazine for Aquarian readers. In October of that year, they published the first issue of New Age Journal (now known simply as New Age), a newsprint magazine that has grown to a circulation of 35,000, with monthly issues of nearly a hundred pages.

Where EWJ saw the world through the lens of macrobiotic philosophy, NAJ threw open its pages to participants in the human potential movement -- a grab bag of psychologies, diets, spiritualism, physical therapies, and back-to-the-land lifestyles, all aimed at producing personal growth and well-being in the midst of a competitive, materialistic society. New Age Journal shared with East West Journal the concept of a magazine as a tool. Beginning with issue number one, NAJ provided readers with news they could use. That focus has sharpened over the years. A typical issue of New Age offers recipes, gardening tips, yoga instructions, news of conferences and spiritual retreats, plus photo-essays and book and record reviews, to go with in-depth feature stories on the New Age groundswell. New Age also pays a frequent attention to other alternative media efforts, publishing a regular column on independent film and video and running features on community radio. A regular section called "Tools for Living" lists organizations, publications, businesses, and other sources of information, complete with addresses, related to a variety of topics. And nearly all New Age articles, on whatever topic, end with a section on "access" that tells readers how to follow up on what they've just read about.

Peggy Taylor, who has edited New Age since its third month of existence, explained, "The magazine serves a networking function, putting people in touch with one another." She continued:

We always try to offer options for articles, for doing something about it. Our basic position is we all have a lot more participation in the world available to us than we are aware of, or that we use. And the reason we don't use it, most likely, is because we're not really aware of it.

The basic idea of the magazine is to empower people, to live more fully in the world, and take their high ideals -- about just being loving, caring people and wanting to see things work out on the planet -- and actually not just sit off in a closet somewhere and hope, but actually live it.


New Age projects a worldly mysticism that impels readers toward engagement and does not stop short of tweaking the noses of well-known spiritual leaders if it seems called for. At times, the magazine's desire to treat gurus like just plain folks shades over into cosmic gossip. A cover story in 1976 reported a split between Ram Dass and Joya -- two popular American teachers -- in loving detail, revolving around whether the two had broken their vows of celibacy with each other. "Look, I didn't fuck Ram Dass," reporter Stephen Diamond quoted Joya as saying, "but if I had, you'd better believe he'd stay fucked. My Sal -- that's my [presumably former] husband and lover of twenty years -- he tells me I'm the best in the world."

If New Age sometimes descends to earthly triviality, it more often clears the way for readers to become involved in whole-earth activism. New Age has covered the antinuclear movement since 1976, when eighteen activists peacefully occupied the construction site of a nuclear power plant at Seabrook, New Hampshire. Since then, the magazine has published frequent reports from Harvey Wasserman and opened its pages to strategy sessions for the likes of the Clamshell Alliance.

The June 1979 issue of New Age was devoted to discussing the future of the antinuclear movement, a growing groundswell that traces its philosophical roots to Gandhi and Thoreau and, more recently, to pacifists who opposed the Vietnam war. Feature articles by Wasserman and fellow Clamshell Alliance member Catherine Wolffe kept intact New Age's reputation for participatory journalism. Unlike sixties underground media, however, the rhetoric of imminent Armageddon was tempered by hope, and police and utility company officials were seen as unenlightened opponents rather than deadly enemies. An earlier cover story included a "demonstrator's guide" to antinuclear groups around the country and outlined plans for further demonstrations at Seabrook.....

[MISSING MATERIAL, pg. 284] ... popular issues on personal relationships, health, and money. While New Age has a broader scope than East West Journal, the staff lacks EWJ's grounding in a particular philosophy. As a result, New Age frequently flies off in pursuit of its staff's fancy of the moment. One of the subjects in which New Age has been keenly interested is money -- "prosperity consciousness," in Aquarian terminology.

Prosperity consciousness is the notion that commerce can serve as a vehicle for spiritual realization, that seekers who have long felt guilty about making money can "give themselves permission" to be rich, and that this is consistent with the Buddhist ideal of Right Livelihood. The Berkeley Monthly, for one, was founded and operated on this basis. The idea was proposed most enthusiastically in a New Age interview with Robert Schwartz, headlined "American Business Needs You," in 1976. Response to the interview was so favorable that Schwartz was asked to write a column for New Age, which he did.

Effused Schwartz: "I'm getting increasingly excited about the idea of the marketplace and the domain of business and entrepreneurship as valid places to explore our growing personal awareness." He went on to quote one Jim Nixon, "a Californian distantly related to ex-President Nixon," on the virtues of commerce: "Let me say first off that business, as a concept, has attracted too many attackers. It's currently popular to describe business as greedy and manipulative and overly competitive. In some cases, this is true; in other cases, not. I can find only one constant in all successful businesspeople. All successful businesspeople are businesslike -- and that is very Zen.' Wow."

Schwartz, a former consultant at Time, Inc., and a multimillionaire director of a school for executives in Tarrytown, New York, helped New Age accelerate and legitimize a desire in some Aquarian circles to make money. Through his column in New Age, Schwartz became a latter-day Dale Carnegie. He told eager readers that making money could make them better people, that they were all right to want to enjoy the material plane, and that their spiritual growth would proceed apace with the growth of their bank accounts.

New Age published other features on business-as-spirituality, including a special issue on Right Livelihood that further encouraged that trend. New Age endorsed the apparent contradiction of making money as a way of spiritual realization by emphasizing the degree of self-involvement business takes and divorcing the reality of acting in a commercial context from its consequences: the accumulation of material goods and the triumph of some individuals over other, evidently less [fortunate] ....

Image

-- A Trumpet to Arms: Alternative Media in America, by David Armstrong


Kushi studied law and international relations at the University of Tokyo, and after coming to America, he continued his studies at Columbia University in New York City. Aveline preceded him in death (2001), as did their daughter (1995). Michio Kushi lived in Brookline, Massachusetts. He is survived by his second wife (Midori), four sons from his first marriage, and the resulting fourteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 88.[1][2]

Achievements

• 1994 Kushi received the Award of Excellence from the United Nations Society of Writers.[3]
• 1999 Mentioned in the Congressional record in recognition of the dedication and hard work to educate the world about the benefits of a macrobiotic diet.[4]
• 1999 The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History opened a permanent collection on macrobiotics and alternative health care in his name. The title of the collection is the "Michio and Aveline Kushi Macrobiotics Collection." It is located in the Archives Center.

1999 The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History opened a permanent collection on macrobiotics and alternative health care in his name. The title of the collection is the "Michio and Aveline Kushi Macrobiotics Collection." It is located in the Archives Center.

Michio and his first wife Aveline were founders of The Kushi Institute, located in Becket, Massachusetts through 2016, but formerly in a converted factory building in Brookline Village, Massachusetts, adjacent to Mission Hill, Boston.

For their "extraordinary contribution to diet, health, and world peace, and for serving as powerful examples of conscious living", they were awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in Sherborn, Massachusetts, on October 14, 2000.[5]

Criticism

Nutritionists have criticized Kushi's claim that a macrobiotic diet can cure cancer. Elizabeth Whelan and Frederick J. Stare have noted that:

Kushi's claim that cancer is largely due to his own versions of improper diet, thinking, and lifestyle is entirely without foundation. In his books, Kushi has recounted numerous case histories of persons whose cancer allegedly disappeared after following a macrobiotic diet. There are no available statistics on the outcome for all of these patients, but it is documented that at least some of them succumbed to their disease within a relatively short period. Reported testimonials of remission often uncovered the fact that the patients were also receiving conventional medical treatment at the same time.[6]


Books

• 1976 Introduction to Oriental Diagnosis. Red Moon Publications. ISBN 9780906111000
• 1977 The book of Macrobiotics. Japan Publications ISBN 9780870403811
• 1979 The book of Do-In. Japan publications. ISBN 9780870403828
• 1979 Natural Healing Through Macrobiotics. Japan Publications; (December 1979) ISBN 9780870404573
• 1980 How to See Your Health: Book of Oriental Diagnosis. Japan Publications (USA) (December 1980) ISBN 9780870404672
• 1982 Cancer and heart disease : the macrobiotic approach to degenerative disorders Japan publications. ISBN 9780870405150
• 1983 Your Face Never Lies. Wayne; (May 1, 1983) ISBN 9780895292148
• 1983 Macrobiotic pregnancy and care of the newborn. Japan publications. ISBN 9780870405310
• 1983 The Cancer Prevention Diet. St Martin's Press. ISBN 9780722515402
• 1985 Macrobiotic diet. Japan publications. ISBN 9780870405358
• 1985 Diabetes and hypoglycaemia : a natural approach. Japan publications. ISBN 9780870406157
• 1986 Macrobiotic child care and family health. Japan publications. 1986. ISBN 9780870406126
• 1986 On the Greater View: Collected Thoughts and Ideas on Macrobiotics and Humanity. Wayne NJ. ISBN 9780895292698
• 1990 AIDS, Macrobiotics and Natural Immunity. Japan Publications. ISBN 978-0870406805
• 1990 The Gentle Art of Making Love. Avery Pub Group (May 1990) ISBN 9780895294357
• 1991 The macrobiotic approach to cancer. Garden City Park. ISBN 9780895294869
• 1991 Macrobiotics and Oriental medicine. Japan publications ISBN 9780870406591
• 1992 The gospel of peace : Jesus's teachings of eternal truth. Japan publications. ISBN 9780870407970[7]

References

1. New York Times obituary for Michio Kushi, January 4, 2015, access 1/5/2015
2. Lewin, Tamar (January 15, 2013), "Michio Kushi, Advocate of Natural Foods in the U.S., Dies at 88", The New York Times
3. http://www.kushimacrobiotics.com/pdf/201994.pdf
4. https://www.congress.gov/congressional- ... le/E1138-1
5. The Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Recipients List Archived 2009-02-14 at the Wayback Machine
6. Stare, Frederick J; Whelan, Elizabeth. (1998). Fad-Free Nutrition. Hunter House Publishers. p. 127. ISBN 0-89793-237-4
7. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libw ... 8279563UI0)=creator&dum=true&tb=t&indx=1&vl(freeText0)=michio%20kushi&vid=BLVU1&fn=search

External links

• Smithsonian Institute's Michio and Aveline Kushi Macrobiotics Collection
• More information: http://www.michiokushi.org
• A live Interview with Michio Kushi
• Kushi Institute in Massachusetts
• Letter from Michio: A message On behalf of Michio Kushi
• Kushi institute in Lisbon, Portugal
• Kushi Institute in Zagreb, Croatia
• Kushi Institute in Barcelona, Spain
• Kushi Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sat Apr 13, 2019 11:01 pm

The Gnostic In Us All: Thinking From The Macrobiotics Of Michio Kushi
by Catherine L. Albanese (Keynote)
March 29, 2018

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Abstract: Way back when in graduate school, I wrote a paper on the Gospel of Thomas, one of the documents discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. The debate over its gnosticizing elements was alive and well, and I weighed in with an argument that its thorough oblivion to history rendered it Gnostic—in the capital-“G” sense. Of course, there were other Gnostic elements cited then by scholars—such as Thomas’s turn within to a self on divinity’s edge and its enigmatic sayings with their salvific and mystical secret. Later, in 1976, I published the paper in an academic journal. That was the end of my Gnostic story.

Or so I thought. But in 1986, I began the practice of macrobiotics. As I studied the teachings of Michio Kushi, its foremost American teacher, I began to smell more than a whiff of religion. His wife, Aveline, had published a cookbook with the subtitle For Health, Harmony, and Peace. Michio Kushi himself, with longtime political interests in world government, elaborated on a cosmological spiral, with humans descending from a “unique principle” as it divided into yin and yang. Finding balance with yin and yang energies through diet and lifestyle would lead to alignment and peace. What lay ahead, if macrobiotic principles were followed, was “one peaceful world.”

Somewhere on the road to one peaceful world, Kushi discovered the Gospel of Thomas. He began to use it regularly, incorporating it into popular “spiritual” seminars.
I will leverage an account of the gnostic (here small-“g”) content of macrobiotics on Michio Kushi’s commentary on the Gospel of Thomas—The Gospel of Peace (1992)—and also on related works. My task will be to think through the gnosticism of brown rice and a peaceful world in terms of late twentieth-century American society and culture, to find the lines of connection, and to explore them as encrypted signs—in the twenty-first century still—of the gnostic in us all.


Catherine L. Albanese is J. F. Rowny Professor Emerita and Research Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. With a Ph.D. in American religious history from the University of Chicago (Divinity School, 1972), she is former department chair at UCSB Religious Studies (2005-2010) and former president of the American Academy of Religion (1994). Her award-winning book, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion, was published in 2007 (Yale). She is the author of numerous other books and articles, including America: Religions and Religion, now in its fifth edition (Cengage, 2013). In 2014, she was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sun Apr 14, 2019 12:29 am

Whole Living [New Age Journal]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 4/13/19

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Whole Living
Cover of Whole Living
Editor-in-chief Alexandra Postman
Categories health and lifestyle
Frequency Ten editions annually[1]
Total circulation
(June 2012) 760,606[2]
First issue As Whole Living since May 2010
As Body+Soul since 2002
As New Age Journal in 1974[3]
Final issue January 2013
Company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
Country United States
Based in New York City[3]
Language English
Website wholeliving.com
ISSN 1098-447X
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Cover from the October 2009 edition of Body + Soul, with Martha Stewart and her daughter, Alexis Stewart.

Whole Living was a health and lifestyle magazine geared towards "natural health, personal growth, and well-being,"[4] a concept the publishers refer to as "whole living." The magazine became a part of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia in August 2004.[5]

The magazine was originally launched as the New Age Journal in 1974.[3] The magazine was first rebranded as Body+Soul beginning with an edition in early 2002. In 2004, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia acquired the magazine and other publishing assets from Thorne Communications. The magazine became Whole Living in May 2010.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has announced it intends to cease publication of Whole Living.[6] The final installment will be the January/February 2013 issue. A $2.5 million offer to buy the title from private equity firm OpenGate Capital fell through and no other buyers have appeared. The content from Whole Living will be included in Martha Stewart Living.

New Age Journal

New Age Journal, or New Age: The Journal for Holistic Living was an American periodical prominent in the late 20th century, and defining itself as covering topics related to the period's "New Age"; it has been succeeded, in turn, by Body & Soul. It described itself around the late 1990s as concerned with "achievement, commitment, health, creative living, and holistic nutrition".[7]

It was founded in 1974[8] by Peggy Taylor and other editors of East/West Journal,[9] and based in the Boston metropolitan area.

In 1994 it won an Alternative Press Award for General Excellence from the Utne Reader.[9]

Its publishing of work by Joseph Campbell, Ram Dass, Andrew Weil, Christiane Northrup, Deepak Chopra, and Cheryl Richardson is said to have come before they were respectively widely known.[8]

Makeovers

Under new editorship, it was "relaunched" in 2002 as the bi-monthly Body and Soul or Body & Soul.[8] In 2004, it was bought by Martha Stewart's Omnimedia, which as of 2009 publishes Body+Soul (presented on its cover as "whole living | body + soul") eight times per year. In 2010, the magazine was relaunched as Whole Living.

In 2000, Robert Scheer created the website New Age Journal, which states that "We are not affiliated with any magazines printed on paper."[10]

Personnel

• David Thorne, head of owning companies from 1983 to 2004

Its editors included:

• Marc Barasch
• Jennifer L. Cook
• Jody Kolodzey
• Rex Weyler

Indexing information

• New Age Journal had ISSN 0746-3618 and OCLC 9978138 for issues from 1983 to 1998; published at the outset by Rising Star Associates (Brighton, MA).
• New Age Journal had ISSN 1098-447X and OCLC 38498642 for issues from 1998 to 2002; published by New Age Pub. (Watertown, MA).

References

1. Pettas, Joanna (November 29, 2007). "Body + Soul Ups Ratebase, Frequency for 2008". Foliomag. Retrieved November 25,2010.
2. "eCirc for Consumer Magazines". Alliance for Audited Media. June 30, 2012. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
3. "Body + soul is leaving Watertown for New York". The Boston Globe. September 1, 2009. Retrieved November 25, 2010.
4. Body & Soul’s Reincarnation: A New CEO, A New Editor, And A New Look. Body & Soul.
5. Mandese, Joe (August 13, 2004). "MediaPost Publications Health Deals Designed To Help Martha Stewart Heal Thyself 08/13/2004". Mediapost. Retrieved November 25, 2010.
6. Hagley, Keach (December 6, 2012). "Martha Stewart to Shut Down 'Whole Living'". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 11,2013.
7. New Age Journal, Answers.com.
8. Transcription of "After 28 years, New Age Journal changes its name to Body & Soul", Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, July, 2002, BNet Business Library.
9. New Age: The Journal for Holistic Living.
10. "About us", NewAgeJournal.com.

External links

• Whole Living website
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sun Apr 14, 2019 1:11 am

Peggy Taylor: The True Story of a Shy Girl / Super Woman!
by Linda Wolf, Teen Talking Circles Muse
Posted on February 26, 2014

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Peggy Taylor is someone I have been inspired by for over two decades. I first met Peggy when my eldest daughter, Heather, attended the Power of Hope camp. Since then, we have interconnected professionally and informally over the years. I was super jazzed that she was available to be interviewed this past week on Bainbridge Island, where she comes weekly to be with her grandson, Mateo. Peggy lives on Whidbey Island, with her husband, Dr. Rick Ingrasci, a master of ceremonies of the world’s best “better parties” and their two Havanese dogs, Chico and Loki.

Peggy Taylor is remarkable, flat out! She is one of the most down to earth people I know, while also being smack dab at the forefront of some of the most progressive, enlightened, and effective programs, projects, (and books) available to teens and adults today. Her belief that we are all creative, that it is our birthright to express ourselves artistically – no matter how “good” we think we are – is at the heart of everything she does. Her resume is astounding: Co-founder, publisher, and editor of New Age Journal; co-founder of Hollyhock Institute; co-author of Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everyday Life (which has sold over 250,000 copies); co-founder with Charlie Murphy of Power of Hope, brilliant summer camps for teens, and PYE: Partners for Youth Empowerment; and in 2010, co-founder with Jamie-Rose Edwards, a former Power of Hope Camper, of YWE: Young Women Empowered, a creative leadership program for teen girls in the greater Seattle area. On top of all this she is the founder and co-director of her community choir, the Open Circle Singers, where everyone is encouraged to sing their hearts out whether they can stay “in tune” or not! She’s also a devoted mother and grandmother, plays a mean game of Scrabble, and is just an all around warm, caring, and great human being! The following is our interview…

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Linda Wolf: Peggy, I love your new handbook, written with Charlie Murphy, Catch the Fire: An Art-Full Guide to Unleashing the Creative Power of Youth, Adults and Communities. I know for myself, that we often do the work that heals us. I’d love to know what your own teen years were like?

Peggy Taylor: My teen years were very, very difficult. My mother died when I was fifteen and my father was an alcoholic, and remarried an alcoholic and then our house burned down. It was just one thing after the other. I lived in a kind of reign of terror. My father never actually hurt me, but the fear was always there. Consequently, I became very shy. I don’t think I was shy because I was naturally shy.

Linda: Were you very close with your mother?

Peggy: No, I wasn’t. I loved my mother, but I felt like I couldn’t really connect with her. She had a breast infection when I was born, and so I was separated from her for my first week of life. I think that got in the way of our bonding. Luckily, I had amazing grandmothers, and several other women who kind of adopted me along the way, and that made a huge difference in my life. But that all stopped when I got into my teenage years, except for my grandmothers.

L: What was your relationship like with other teen girls?

P: Very shy and insecure. I had friends, but I always felt like I was on the outskirts. I traveled between groups. One year I got elected to student council and couldn’t have been more surprised. But the thing that saved me was a camp I attended, Brown Ledge Camp, when I was about 12 or 13. I went for a couple of years. My mother was a real fan of Parent’s Magazine and there was an ad in it for a summer camp in Burlington, Vermont that was advertised as having ‘no extras.’ We didn’t have a lot of money, so no extras sounded great to her.

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I don’t think she noticed the byline on the ad, which said, “Brown Ledge Camp: The Different Camp for Different Girls.” Brown Ledge was run by a former Broadway actress named Barbara Winslow. Most of the girls at the camp were from very liberal, intellectual families from New York City, which couldn’t have been farther from the lifestyle of my parents. It was like another world. There were only three rules: you had to be in your bunk during rest hour and at night, you had to be at meals, and you weren’t allowed to leave the premises. Other than that, you could just do anything you wanted, anytime you wanted. They had a merit system where you could earn badges. It was all choice-based learning.

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Brown Ledge Campers, circa late 1950s / early 1960s

In school, I was the kind of student who could get a B+ just by showing up; I don’t remember doing a speck of homework my whole career. I’d bring my books home and wouldn’t touch them. I thought I lacked self-discipline, I was so down on myself. Then, I got to Brown Ledge, and I couldn’t learn enough. I just completely woke up. I realized there was nothing wrong with me, there was something wrong with my school system. I remember coming home to Gloversville from camp and my mother saying, “Oh, you’re so uppity, if you don’t change you’re never going back to that camp again.” What was happening to me was that I was feeling good about myself! And this is the response I got. But I had a completely new perspective! The value base of Brown Ledge Camp really shifted me.

L: Did you experiment with drugs and alcohol as a teen? It was the roaring 60s, after all!

P. No, I was very shy about all that. I bought a pack of Salem Cigarettes one day and smoked them while looking in the mirror, but never did it again! I was pretty straight and narrow. I didn’t drink, or smoke really. I never did drugs. I played the piano a lot! I used to love American Bandstand, the TV show, and would come home from school everyday and call my girlfriend and we’d watch American Bandstand. I was a senior in high school when the Beatles came out.

L. Did you write, draw, dance?

P. No, I played piano. Classical. I never did dance.

L: So, after high school, you went to college?

P: Yes, I went to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, where my mother had gone. I’d already gone to Syracuse University summer school and had a couple of fabulous professors and loved it. But I got to Skidmore and I found the view of the professors very limited. I was really looking for something more holistic and integrative, but I didn’t have the words for it. I dropped out after two years. I would have been the perfect student at a place like Antioch. I might have stayed in school if I’d gone there, but not Skidmore. After Skidmore, I never had much appreciation for higher learning institutions. I have a bit more now. Actually, when I worked at New Age Journal and someone came for an interview with me, my staff would jokingly say they’d stop them before they got to my office and have them erase any mention of having gone to college. Eventually, I did go back to college, Lesley College, but that was later.

My father had told me I’d never be able to hold down a job, and I believed him. My father thought I was a dilettante. He didn’t understand my interests. I was the odd one in the family. After dropping out of Skidmore, I fled to Boston, where I was introduced to a whole community of people involved with wanting to change the world from the bottom up. In Boston, I was introduced to Macrobiotics, and that community became like family.

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I started the first Macrobiotic restaurant in Boston, which was very successful, then lived for a year in Japan, which is where the Macrobiotic movement started. Then, I moved to London and ran a Macrobiotic restaurant there. By that time, I’d met Eric (Utne), my future husband, and he came over to help me run the restaurant.

After Eric and I got married we moved to Minneapolis and I had my son, Leif, in 1972. I was 25. Minneapolis was very hard for me. I didn’t like living there at all. In Minneapolis, I was too much of a hippie for the straight people, and too straight for the hippies. Plus, I’m a mission driven person…

L: What do you mean mission driven?

P: I just wanted to change the world. I’d always had that drive, but I didn’t have words for it when I was younger. In the Macrobiotic community I found people all charged up about changing the world.
I realize now, in retrospect, that there were plenty of issues going on in the Macrobiotic community – spousal abuse and all kinds of things that I just didn’t see. But, to me, it was a wonderful community of people who were trying to make a better world. It was there I learned that I could actually have a strong community of friends, which I didn’t know before. Finally, Eric and I moved from Minneapolis back to Boston where Eric started working for East West Journal. Soon after we started New Age Journal with a bunch of other staffers of East West, but 3 months into it, we realized it wasn’t going to support us all. Finally, it was just Eric, another woman and myself running it.

L: Soon after you and Eric divorced, and later you met your current husband, Dr. Rick Ingrasci, and together you were part of co-founding Hollyhock Institute on Cortes Island, in British Columbia, right? How did that happen?

P: While I was working at New Age Journal, Rex Weyler, who I’d met at the Rocky Mountain Healing Art’s Festival, came out to Boston from Vancouver to help me with the Journal. At that time he worked with The Greenpeace Chronicles. He had found the abandoned Cold Mountain Institute up on Cortes, which was a former learning center known for Gestalt therapy practices. We joined him and a large group of friends to buy it at a discounted rate.


Description: Correspondence, reports, meeting materials, notes, lists, memoranda, printed matter, and photographs, relating to nongovernmental exchange programs between Americans and citizens of the Soviet Union and its successor republics, and to promotion of Gestalt psychology, environmentalism, nuclear safety and alternative energy sources in the Soviet Union and its successor republics.

-- Survey of the Francis Underhill Macy papers, by Online Archive of California


Around that time, I’d gotten completely burned out running the magazine. I had always felt that unless I was doing something that mattered, I didn’t deserve to be walking the Earth so I always worked very hard. We were just starting Hollyhock, and I was up there for a month with Rick and Leif. I remember there was another woman up there who was also burned out, and the two of us hung out in the lodge and played Mozart duets for hours and hours every day. Playing these duets, I started feeling, “Wow, just playing this music, just creating beauty is reason enough to stay alive.” So, I found my way out of the magazine and started learning Dalcroze [url=x]Eurhythmics[/url], a kinesthetic approach to learning and teaching music at Longy School of Music. I then entered a joint masters program between Longy and Lesley College and got a degree in creative arts and learning. At Lesley College, I came to the realization that the arts was my way to heal. I found the arts extremely liberating. I thought, “Who needs therapy, just do art, in the right context.”

After I got my degree, I’d wanted to do creativity training for small nonprofits. But I didn’t feel strong enough to do it alone. Coming from my family I had developed quite a damaged sense of self-confidence. So I began looking for a work partner. We were living on Whidbey Island then; I was in my late 40s, and no partner was showing up. I began to wonder if maybe I was done living a passion drive life. “Maybe, I should just go to work at the local drugstore and learn to live a quiet life.” And then, an old friend, Joanna Macy, called one night. She was on Whidbey leading the Deep Ecology Summer School, and she wanted me to come over to meet someone named Charlie Murphy. So, I went over and listened to Charlie as he was giving a presentation on the work he was doing using poetry, music, and recording with kids in New Haven, Connecticut. As I sat and listened I thought, “OMG, here he is — this guy is my partner,” but, I had no idea how to tell him. It was so out of the box. I hadn’t done any youth work; he’d had done lots of it. So, I just left and didn’t even introduce myself to him.

Back home, I told my husband Rick and he said, “Call him up and tell him.” I’m like, “What am I going to tell him.” It didn’t make sense! So, I just sat on it and waited. This was the summer of 1995. I knew he was going to be my partner, but I had no idea how it would happen. I was still working as the editor of New Age Journal at that time, and we were about to collaborate with Hollyhock on a big conference in Seattle, The Body and Soul Conference. We decided we wanted conference weavers for the beginnings of all the talks in the hotel conference rooms, so, I invited Charlie to be a conference weaver and to have his band (Rumors of the Big Wave) play. Also, I asked him if he would be on a panel with me, on creativity and social change. And he said, “Oh sure.” Poor guy, he was so unsuspecting. He had no idea I was absolutely sure we were going to be partners!!! and I’m kind of like weaving the web, but I still had no idea how it would happen! At the end of the conference, Charlie told us he was running a gathering for kids that summer called Power of Hope. And I thought, “BINGO!” I figured he was going to need help, so I volunteered to help out, and by the turn of that year, we were partners, working together.

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Charlie & Peggy

L: That must have been quite a conference. Plus Charlie’s band was so great! So you never told him all that time that you knew he was going to be your partner? You just held it in and just kept showing up to help him? That’s a lot of faith and patience, or full out shyness!

P: Yeah! He was working at the Y at the time, so I started going and working with him. I’d never worked with kids. I’d worked with adults, and I was still completely stage shy at that point. I remember in the early days when we had just gotten Power of Hope (POH) started, around 1997, I’d tell Charlie, “I really want to lead such and such,” but when the time came, I’d say, “No, I can’t do it.” And he’d get so mad at me, he’d say, “But you said you wanted to do it.” I’d tell him, “You have no idea what it’s like inside me.” I was just so shy. But, the work was changing me. It was really through leading Power of Hope adult trainings, and forcing myself to go to Hip Hop workshops and Free Styling sessions at POH Camp, that my shyness eventually went away. And it hasn’t come back!

When we started Power of Hope, I felt like I was facing a major soul challenge. I felt compelled to step out of the shell that had grown up around me because of my upbringing and acculturation. Sometimes I say I started this whole organization for my own personal growth. But, this is why I think the work is so relevant for a lot of the youth and for a lot of adults in our trainings. I can’t tell you how many people come up to me in disbelief when I say in trainings that I used to be terribly shy and that I’ve been able to step out of it. They want to know how to do that as well. And what I began to notice with Power of Hope was that many of the kids would arrive very shy and significantly decrease their shyness within the week and that shyness wouldn’t come back. They would actually shed it. The next year when they’d come back to camp, it was still gone!

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Power of Hope Counselors & Friends

To me, I see this transformation from shyness as a needed element of social change. If people are afraid, especially women are afraid of being seen and heard, how can we become fully engaged citizens? Sometimes I call Power of Hope “the anti-shy camp.” Kids come and get positive feedback for taking risks and they step right out of their shells.

L: I’d like to deconstruct that word shy. In my sense of it, shy is kind of a protective layer over low self-esteem, or feeling ashamed, or not good enough or just not enough.

P. Some people can be very outgoing and still have low self-esteem. I think of shyness as more of a kind of skittishness. More fight or flight based. It’s very fear driven, and yes, of course, low-self esteem is all tied into it.

L: The fear of what?

P: Stepping up and being seen — being judged that something’s wrong with you and you’ll be exposed for who you are.

L: And ostracized.

P: Yeah and ridiculed, so why even try. I’ve come to believe that this yearning to become more fully present exists in all of us. I feel like we’re all part of a cultural trance and most of us have a powerful yearning to step fully onto the stage, so to speak, not in the sense of an actor playing a part, but the stage of our own life. When you do that and you receive a welcome response, I think it gets into your cells very quickly. It really is transformational.

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When young people are initiated in a supportive community by taking a creative risk, making themselves heard and receiving acceptance, they’re never the same again. We see this happen in our work all over the world. The need to be seen and recognized and heard goes beyond culture. It’s a basic human need. I don’t think people recognize the powerful transformation that comes with the simple act of expressing oneself creatively and being acknowledged. That’s why I get so fired up about it. It’s not rocket science. It’s very basic and very simple but somehow has not been clearly recognized in education and youth work.

L: I know. We see it all the time in Teen Talking Circles, this powerful transformation in young people and adults when they feel seen and loved for who they are no matter what they’re going through.

P: From the beginning of our POH camps, we’ve had talking circles every night. We have something called “family groups” and use a talking object. That’s always been a part of what we do. Verbal expression. In your work, Linda, all the safety you create in circle for sharing feelings and self-expression is just another way to get there. My fire is really about what happens when you add the creative/expressive element into even a talking circle. As soon as you begin to express through the arts, the right brain gets active. Whether you begin with metaphor, creative writing, drawing, or a theater game, something deeper happens. One of our coded ideas is, “The arts are the doorway to the inner life, the life of the soul.” As soon as you bring creative expression in, a door opens and everybody moves into a deeper place.

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A lot of adult groups start their programs or meetings with a moment of silence. I say, “Why not mix it up and start with a quick theater game!” Silence is lovely and silence is nice sometimes, but when you play a theater game, you activate the imagination and people come alive. Or you can ask people in the circle to come up with a metaphor that represents their life right now and share that along with their name. When people take a creative risk, big or small, the right brain gets activated, aliveness starts pumping through the group and the conversation quickly moves from the head to heart and head.

L: So true, which is why we have in our TTC handbook so many POH exercises as ice breakers. They really shift the connection between people, lower the fear level and bring up the energy level quickly.

So, what’s next for you, Peggy, now that you’ve come out with the book? It’s such an achievement and such a gift to all of us working with teens and adults.

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Peggy & Mateo

P: As far as work, I really want to turn Catch the Fire into an enhanced E-book so there are short videos to demonstrate all of the activities. We’re also developing a four-part in-depth facilitation training—similar to our Heart of Facilitation training—that we can offer in other parts of the world. Nadia Chaney and I are going to be doing a four-part training in London this year. But quite frankly, I try to work half time now so I can spend two days a week with my grandson Mateo and follow my own creative interests. I’m fascinated with personal storytelling, and have been taking workshops with a woman named Ann Randolph, who does a one woman show. She’s amazing. She leads a workshop called Writing your Life for the Page and the Stage (http://www.annrandolph.com). The art of personal story telling is emerging as a performance art, the same way poetry did through poetry slams. Getting my stories on stage is the next step for me.

I no longer have the same desire to work full-out, building organizations to make change anymore. I lost my empire building juice at about 60. You can understand, right!

L: Yes, absolutely. I also feel something even more self-expressive is emerging in me.

P: What do you think it is for you?

L: I’m not sure. I’m taking a sabbatical this year. I was a child actress, so maybe I’ll go back to doing some kind performance work. I’m also interested in theater improv and the idea of story telling is such a magnet. I’ll have to look into the workshop Ann is offering. Photography is always still a great passion. I’d like to do some photography workshops/retreats, incorporating circle, and of course I’ll still keep leading our Teen Talking Circle Facilitator trainings. We have one coming up in June. I love leading the Women’s Circle Retreats in Mexico and this year, my daughter, Heather will be co-leading the circle with me, along with Kellie Elliott, who will be leading 5Rhythms. I’m enjoying taking the time off to just play piano and ping-pong, read, cook, and hang out with the family and friends without so much stress! Letting my left brain have a rest! That said, who knows! I’m playing it much more by ear these days… One thing I’ve really committed to is not engaging myself in what I don’t really want to be doing anymore.

Thank you so much for talking with me, Peggy. I’m so grateful for our friendship and this has been fabulous, getting to know you better.

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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sun Apr 14, 2019 1:33 am

Eric Utne
by sourcewatch.org
Accessed: 4/13/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


This article is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

Biographical Information

"Eric Utne is a publisher, educator, and social entrepreneur. He was founding publisher and editor of the New Age Journal, now owned by Martha Stewart/Omnimedia. In 1984, he founded Utne Reader, of which he was chair for 15 years. In June 2006 the magazine was sold to Ogden Communications, publisher of Mother Earth News, Natural Home, and ten other special interest publications. Eric is the father of four Waldorf-educated sons and was integrally involved in the founding, growth, and development of City of Lakes Waldorf School and Watershed High School. He was the 7th & 8th grade class teacher at CLWS [City of Lakes Waldorf School] from 2000-2002. He has a B.E.D. (Environmental Design) from the University of Minnesota. He is the President of the Board of Trustees of Sunbridge College, a Masters Degree-granting Waldorf teacher-training college, based in Spring Valley, New York. In November 2006 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum." [1]

He is married to Nina Utne. His son is Leif Utne. Eric Utne once worked at Erewhon. [1]

Affiliations

• Member, Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Executive Committee, 2006-present
• President, Sunbridge College, Board of Trustees, 2003-present
• Member, Board of Advisors, World Future Council, 2006-present

The Aspen Institute and the Club of Rome

Part of the indoctrination process sought for through the Aquarian conspiracy was not only to degrade morals and immerse the public in numerous diversions, but also to inculcate the basic principles of the New Age cult, towards establishing a one-world-religion. The means of achieving this objective has been the Environmental movement. This movement was spearheaded by the Aspen Institute, who, together with the United Nations, the Club of Rome, the Tavistock, and other such organizations originating from the Round Table, began propagandizing around the issue of nuclear energy. [1] The reason being that proliferation of nuclear energy as an alternative posed a threat to the oil interests that were dominated by the Rockefellers and the Saudis. However, they claimed deceptively that it was the environment that was being destroyed, and therefore instead rallied against “industrialization” and for “limits to growth”.

The American oilman, Robert O. Anderson, was a central figure in this agenda. Anderson and his Atlantic Richfield Oil Co. funneled millions of dollars, through their Atlantic Richfield Foundation, into select organizations to confront nuclear energy. Robert O. Anderson’s major vehicle to spread his propaganda strategy among American and European establishment circles, was his Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. The Aspen Institute was founded in 1949, by Aldous Huxley, and John Maynard Hutchins, in commemoration of the 200th birthday of German philosopher and author of Faust, and a member of the Illuminati, Goethe.


Robert O. Anderson also contributed significant funds to a project initiated by the Rockefeller family, together with Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King, at the Rockefeller’s estate at Bellagio, Italy, called the Club of Rome. In 1972, this Club of Rome, and the U.S. Association of the Club of Rome, gave widespread publicity to their publication of the notorious “Limits to Growth.”. Supported by research done at MIT, this report concluded that industrialization had to be halted to save the planet from ecological catastrophe.

These organizations were exploiting the panic induced when Paul Ehrlich, a biologist at Stanford, and admirer of Bertrand Russell, in 1968, wrote his Malthusian projections in a best-selling book called The Population Bomb. In it, Ehrlich suggested, “a cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people.... We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.” [2] Ehrlich also advocated placing birth control chemicals into the world’s food supplies.

The chief individual in this agenda is director of the Aspen Institute, Canadian multi-millionaire Maurice Strong. Strong is being heralded as the “indispensable man” at the center of the U.N.’s global power.
He has served as director of the World Future Society, trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation and Aspen Institute, and is a member of the Club of Rome. Strong is now Senior Advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Senior Advisor to World Bank President James Wolfensohn, Chairman of the Earth Council, Chairman of the World Resources Institute, Co-Chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum, and member of Toyota’s International Advisory Board.

However, Strong also now heads the Golden Dawn, operates an international drug ring, and is a top operative for British Intelligence. [3] He was a founding member of both the Planetary Citizens. Strong and other luminaries, like Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, Sir Edmund Hillary, Peter Ustinov, Linus Pauling, Kurt Vonnegut, Leonard Bernstein, John Updike, Isaac Asimov, Pete Seeger, are listed as original endorsers of Planetary Citizens. Founded by Donald Keys, a disciple of Alice Bailey and former UN consultant, and presided over for many years by the late Norman Cousins (CFR), the Planetary Citizens organization supports the expansion of UN power and institutions. In Earth At Omega, Keys maintains:

We have meditations at the United Nations a couple of times a week. The meditation leader is Sri Chinmoy, and this is what he said about this situation: “The United Nations is the chosen instrument of God; to be a chosen instrument means to be a divine messenger carrying the banner of God’s inner vision and outer manifestation. One day the world will ... treasure and cherish the soul of the United Nations as its very own with enormous pride, for this soul is all-loving, all-nourishing, and all-fulfilling”. [4]


Maurice Strong also sits on the board of directors, and serves as director of finance, for the Lindisfarne Center. Lindisfarne was founded by New Age philosopher William Irwin Thompson, a former professor of humanities from MIT and Syracuse University. Thompson said:

We have now a new spirituality, what has been called the New Age movement. The planetization of the esoteric has been going on for some time... This is now beginning to influence concepts of politics and community in ecology... This is the Gaia [Mother Earth] politique... planetary culture.” Thompson further stated that, the age of “the independent sovereign state, with the sovereign individual in his private property, [is] over, just as the Christian fundamentalist days are about to be over. [5]


-- Chapter Twenty-Two: One-World-Religion: The Aspen Institute and the Club of Rome, "Terrorism and the Illuminati," by David Livingston


• Member, City of Lakes Waldorf School, Board of Directors, 2002-2005
• Co-Founder, Social Venture Network, 1987?
• Senior Fellow, Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota
• Honorary Advisor (2004), The Other Economic Summit USA
Former member, Governing Council, New World Alliance
Signatory, Green Tea Party Manifesto [2]

Green Tea Party Manifesto

"So how can you participate? If you want, you can host a green tea party of your own. This can be a one-time thing, or the same group might want to meet regularly, to deepen connections and more fully explore the possibilities for collective wisdom (along with hearty snacks and refreshing libations). You can also “green tea” any group or meeting you’re part of―in the workplace, church, school, etc. We provide tips handy for either on our website. So join the movement, and come together, right now―over tea! April 4, 2010"[1]

Signatories

Accessed February 2013: [2]

• Paul Hawken - Author, environmentalist, and social entrepreneur; Founder of Wiser Earth.org.
• Sandy Heierbacher - Director, National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation.
Eric Utne - Social entrepreneur; Founder, Utne Reader magazine.
• Paul Strickland - Director, Center for Religious Inquiry, St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, Minneapolis.
• Mary Jo Kreitzer - Director, Center for Spirituality and Healing, University of Minnesota.
• Leif Utne - Social entrepreneur; Media and communications consultant.
• John Miller - Educator; Senior fellow, Center for Spirituality and Healing, University of Minnesota.

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

References

1. Green Tea Party Manifesto Home, organizational web page, accessed February 25, 2013.
2. Green Tea Party Manifesto Home, organizational web page, accessed February 25, 2013.

-- Green Tea Party Manifesto, by sourcewatch.org


Image
http://www.greenteaparty.us, Accessed: 4/13/19


• Advisory Council, Hoffman Institute Foundation [3]

ABOUT US

The Hoffman Institute Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to transformative adult education, spiritual growth, and the personal dimensions of leadership. We serve a diverse population from all walks of life, including business professionals, stay-at-home parents, therapists, students, tradespeople, and those seeking clarity in all aspects of their lives.

With affiliated Hoffman Centers in 10 countries, more than 100,000 people have found that the residential, week-long Hoffman Process improves the quality of their lives, their relationships, and their careers. In the United States, the Process is offered at beautiful retreat sites on both the west and east coasts.

Through our proprietary methodology, participants learn how to transform counterproductive beliefs, perceptions, and emotional patterns that are limiting their lives. They are taught how to live from the positive dimensions of their beings, resulting in lives that are more free, open, loving, spontaneous, joyous, creative, balanced, and whole.

In the 2006 peer-reviewed magazine “Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing,” the Hoffman Process was shown to have outstanding results. Program participants demonstrated significant and lasting increases in emotional intelligence, forgiveness, compassion, life satisfaction and vitality, coupled with significant and lasting decreases in depression, hostility and anxiety. A survey of worldwide research literature shows that no other interventions produce comparably strong and lasting results.


Our primary fundraising emphasis is to provide scholarship support to a diverse population of individuals who are also dedicated to public service through education, social work, medicine, ministry, and the non-profit sector. We also raise funds for research and development, faculty training and development, and special programs that include our partnership with New York City-based Youth-at-Risk and the Hyde Schools in Maine, New York, and Connecticut. Additionally, from 2005-2009, we provided a co-curricular program for 150 graduate students from 20 countries at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University.

-- by hoffmaninstitute.org


Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch


• Earth Corps for Global Service
• Fritjof Capra

References

1. Center for Spirituality and Healing Eric Utne, organizational web page, accessed April 12, 2012.
2. Green Tea Party Manifesto Home, organizational web page, accessed February 25, 2013.
3. Hoffman Institute Foundation Advisory Council, organizational web page, accessed September 19, 2013.
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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sun Apr 14, 2019 1:58 am

Green Tea Party: The conservative movement to save the planet
by Kate Aronoff
Harper's Magazine
May 30, 2017, 12:42 pm

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At first glance, it might be easy to pass Debbie Dooley off as a political sideshow—a novel and energetic bundle of contradictory beliefs, topped with curly blond hair and a Bayou drawl. During the Republican primary, she wrote op-eds for Breitbart News supporting Donald Trump. She is frequently billed as one of the founders of the Tea Party, and she holds a spot on the board of the Tea Party Patriots, an organization founded to push the Republican Party closer toward its fringe on every issue from taxes to immigration.

She is also one of the country’s most effective grassroots campaigners for clean energy.

Dooley is the co-founder of Floridians for Solar Choice (F.S.C.), a coalition that has been instrumental in implementing pro-solar policies in the Sunshine State. Last August, they convinced 73 percent of voters to pass a statewide ballot initiative known as Amendment 4, which exempted solar panels from being factored into the property taxes paid by homeowners and businesses. Then, in November, F.S.C. helped defeat Amendment 1, a measure lobbied for by the state’s biggest power providers that would have restricted the use of rooftop solar panels. Energy companies and dark money donors had poured $25 million into attempts to defeat Amendment 4, and another $20 million into trying to pass Amendment 1. In both cases, Dooley took on the Koch Brothers and won.

She did it with an appreciably smaller budget than that of her opponents. She invited traditionally conservative groups like the Tea Party Network and the Florida Retail Federation to work with the liberal-leaning Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy. They invested resources in going door-to-door with Florida voters to build support for clean energy. Al Gore, who Dooley considers a friend—“even though we disagree on a lot”—told voters to reject Amendment 1 at a campaign stop for Hillary Clinton at a Miami-Dade community college.

Dooley crisscrossed the state getting voters on both sides of the aisle on board. As someone who’s against raising the minimum wage and who supports immigration restrictions, she knows which issues will push the buttons of liberals and leftists—and steers clear of them. “I’m a University of Alabama fan, and I’m from Louisiana,” she told me, referencing the infamous college football rivalry. “During the season when I visit my relatives, I don’t deliberately say anything to try and cause dissension…we’ll joke goodheartedly about it, but we try to ignore that subject.”

Renewable-energy policymaking tends to happen at the state level. Because utility coverage often falls along state lines, measures that favor solar energy do too. So even if Trump were to try going after renewables, there is only so much he could do from Washington—and plenty that statewide coalitions like Dooley’s can help pioneer outside of it. States like New York and California are obvious places for left-leaning groups to advocate for renewables these next four years; but Florida and other red states could prove a tougher nut for them to crack. With so much of the electoral map shaded red, Dooley’s approach might be able edge greens closer to bringing renewables into Trump country.

A preacher’s daughter from small-town Louisiana, Dooley has been active in conservative politics since the mid-seventies. She first got involved in clean-energy issues in the state where she now lives, Georgia, where she was one of several thousand Georgia Power customers made to foot the bill for a pair of nuclear power reactors at Plant Vogatle near the South Carolina border. Part of what spurred her interest in clean energy was the birth of her grandson, Aiden, and a concern for his future on a planet increasingly ravaged by environmental destruction. But just as big a motivator—and the one she’s much likely to name in the press—is her opposition to “state-created monopolies,” and the regulatory bureaucracy surrounding electric utilities. For her and other members of the Green Tea Coalition, as she calls her group, expanding solar isn’t about saving the planet from rising tides. It’s about energy freedom. “Progressives may talk about climate change,” she told me, “but conservatives will talk about individual liberty.”

Depending on her audience, Dooley picks and chooses which of these beliefs to lean on. Appearing on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes to discuss her fight against Georgia Power in 2013, she nodded along as Hayes described the monopoly’s dominance of the power sector. “We care about the environment,” she told Hayes, “we just believe things should be done in a conservative way. We want to give consumers a choice.” With John Stoessel on Fox Business News in 2016, she struck a different tone. “I do believe that Mr. Trump will surround himself with the brightest minds just like Ronald Reagan did. We do need entitlement reform,” Dooley told him. She bristled when Trump’s position on climate change was brought up, but remained diplomatic: “That’s something I don’t agree with him about. As far as global warming, I believe that we’re damaging the environment…I believe we should be looking to innovation, not regulation.”

The question of innovation versus regulation has provoked one of the last decade’s most heated debates among environmentalists. The Green Tea Coalition—like Al Gore, Elon Musk, and many conservative economists—consider themselves “eco-optimists.” They tend to emphasize the importance of the market: given a level playing field, clean energy will outcompete traditional fuels and drive down emissions—no regulations needed. More left-leaning greens, meanwhile, hold that while technological innovation is crucial, extractive industries need to be curbed directly via federal- and state-level policymaking in order to transition away from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels have two major problems that paint a dim picture for their future energy dominance. These problems are inter-related but still should be discussed separately. First, they cause climate change. We know that, we’ve known it for decades, and we know that continued use of fossil fuels will cause enormous worldwide economic and social consequences.

Second, fossil fuels are expensive. Much of their costs are hidden, however, as subsidies. If people knew how large their subsidies were, there would be a backlash against them from so-called financial conservatives.

A study was just published in the journal World Development that quantifies the amount of subsidies directed toward fossil fuels globally, and the results are shocking. The authors work at the IMF and are well-skilled to quantify the subsidies discussed in the paper.

Let’s give the final numbers and then back up to dig into the details. The subsidies were $4.9 tn in 2013 and they rose to $5.3 tn just two years later. According to the authors, these subsidies are important because first, they promote fossil fuel use which damages the environment. Second, these are fiscally costly. Third, the subsidies discourage investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy that compete with the subsidized fossil fuels. Finally, subsidies are very inefficient means to support low-income households.

-- Fossil fuel subsidies are a staggering $5 tn per year: A new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuels, by John Abraham, the guardian.com (8/7/2017)


By contrast, Dooley predicts that solar will fail or fly based on how heavily its advocates rely on climate change in their appeals: “The message [on solar] needs to be not one on climate change, but about being good stewards of the environment God gave us.” As she points out, the nature of solar power also makes it an easy fit for her brand of small government conservatism. Unlike traditional fuels such as oil and gas—which are dependent on centralized extraction, refining, and distribution processes—solar can enable homeowners to go almost entirely off the grid.

Tory Perfetti is one of Dooley’s recruits to the renewables cause, and now serves as the chairman of F.S.C. and Director of Conservatives for Energy Freedom. He’s the former chairman of Pinellas County’s Chamber of Commerce and, like Dooley, a lifelong conservative. “Being a competitive, free-market capitalist,” he said, predisposed him to wanting to take on the state’s big power providers and their campaign against rooftop solar. “I didn’t own solar then and I don’t own solar now. I don’t drink coffee, either. However, I don’t think it’s okay that Starbucks would be a monopoly, and the only business allowed to sell coffee.”

A similar ethic has informed both his and Dooley’s enthusiasm for Trump, despite the president’s embrace of Goldman Sachs executives—a number of whom have found their way into top White House posts. “I think the cabinet is a very good cabinet,” Dooley told me when asked about the preponderance of corporate veterans that Trump has appointed. “And they’re outsiders.” Even picks like longtime ExxonMobil CEO-come-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are acceptable to her. “You can be pro-coal and pro-fossil fuels and still like renewable energy,” she said. “They’re not mutually exclusive…I think we’ll see solar and clean energy flourish under a Trump Administration.”

That renewable energy and fossil fuels can peaceably coexist is an image that oil and gas companies are eager to feed. Exxon was one of six major oil companies to support a carbon tax in advance of the Paris Climate Agreement, and several have promoted their paltry investments in renewable fuels as a sign that America really can have it all when it comes to its energy landscape.

Recent studies suggest otherwise. Oil Change International found last year that some 75 percent of known fossil-fuel reserves need to stay buried in order to prevent catastrophic levels of warming. And, according to power-grid experts, being able to scale solar energy up to the point where it can replace traditional fuel sources also means that it can’t be restricted to rooftops alone; utility companies and the electric grid they maintain will have to be involved.

Still, Florida’s unlikely alliance of climate hawks and Tea Partiers shouldn’t be written off. The climate clock makes relating to clean energy as an exclusively Blue state phenomenon increasingly dangerous. As it has in Florida, monopolistic and fossil fueled utilities might turn out to be a foe vile enough to unite voters behind a vision for a clean energy future. For her part, Dooley doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Neither, however, does unbridled extraction.

“Capitalism and the free market is a natural fit for solar,” Dooley contends, “the government needs to get out of the way.”

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Re: Freda Bedi, by Wikipedia

Postby admin » Sun Apr 14, 2019 2:19 am

Rick Ingrasci and "Creative Community" - Whidbey Institute
by Whidbey Institute
February 19, 2014

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The fourth annual Winter Gathering took place at the Whidbey Institute at the beginning of this month, providing an opportunity for play, learning, and growth. The theme was The Power of Creative Community in Decisive Times.

Rick Ingrasci, Hollyhock Retreat Centre (Cortes Island, B.C.) co-founder, started this series at Whidbey Institute in an effort to bring dynamic, creative arts-based convening to this part of the bioregion. The arts-based facilitation at the conferences has roots, he said, in the work of his wife Peggy Taylor and associate Charlie Murphy, co-founders of PYE Global. Peggy and Charlie started Power of Hope teen camps at Chinook in 1996.

Rick and Peggy have been central figures at Chinook for decades: they met founders Fritz and Vivienne in the 1970s, moved to South Whidbey shortly after our 1990 Earth and Spirit conference, and ran the Whidbey Cybercafe & Bookstore under the auspices of the Whidbey Institute for five years in the mid-nineties. The back room speaker series that ran at the Cybercafe eventually wound down, but not before engaging a number of notable authors and creating some dear memories.

Rick’s body of work now includes the StoryDome, an immersive storytelling project run through the nonprofit NewStories. The StoryDome was created for the Seattle World’s Fair 50th Anniversary Festival and has since been used as teaching tool at many gatherings and workshops. “What we’ve really wanted to do all along is not just have the StoryDome be an exhibit or an add-on, but to have it be [a central part of] a process of helping people transform their world view toward a more holistic perspective.” At this time, the StoryDome is used once a month by South Whidbey Middle School sixth graders, who experience an immersive science lesson in the dome and follow it with writing, art, and creative exercises in math, geometry, and astronomy.

For those interested in experiencing the StoryDome Project’s powerful visual storytelling, Rick Ingrasci and Maggie Chumbley are facilitating an inaugural workshop, Living Your Life in a Larger Story, on Saturday March 1 at the Bayview School. The workshop is designed to “cultivate personal creativity, compassion, and community by deepening our relationships with ourselves, each other, and the natural world.”

Rick’s efforts with the StoryDome, Hollyhock, and the Institute follow parallel tracks. “I’ve been beating the same drum all my life,” he said, “and the world ultimately is moving into this perspective.” He said that a part of the Chinook founders’ vision—”the idea that we were facing an ecological crisis that was fundamentally a spiritual crisis”—still drives his work today. “There’s been continuity in the philosophy and purpose of the Institute, which is to shift the consciousness of the culture toward a more ecological or ecospiritual worldview.” In Rick’s opinion, the Institute is stronger than ever as we shift toward more active engagement among younger leaders and a greater focus on working with our regional community. “Having that kind of strong community in the bioregion is part of how you create [practical] models of change.”

To learn more about Winter Gatherings or the March 1 StoryDome Project workshop, email Rick.

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Photo from the Winter Gathering closing ceremony: Blessing Mother Earth
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