Let the dead speak explores the historical and social dynamics of Spiritualism, the religious movement associated in the popular imagination with nineteenth-century parlour séances and ghost photography.

1 The Age of Aquarius 2 An Ever-Widening Circle of Interest3 The Victorian Spiritualists’ Union and the Changing Face of Twentieth Century Australia4 The Service5 Healing and Perfection6 Metaphysical Therapy7 The Theatre for Belief8 A Little Outpost9 Typically Spiritualist10 Race and Ethnicity in the Spirit World11 How Australian Is Australian Spiritualism?Afterword. Here and HereafterAppendix A: Emma Hardinge Britten in Australia, 1878–1879Appendix B: Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Wanderings of a Spiritualist: Missionary Work in Australia, 1920–1921Appendix C: Transcript of the Canberra Spiritualist Association Service of 6 August 2017Index

Let the dead speak explores the historical and social dynamics of Spiritualism, a religion that is associated in the popular imagination with nineteenth-century parlour séances yet continues to be practiced today in Australia, the UK, and USA.The authors draw on deep fieldwork experience, interviews, and archival research to analyse Spiritualism’s energetic resilience and the enduring popular appeal of mediumship. Three arguments shape the book. The first is that the scholarly study of 'belief' needs to be seen in a new light as the conjunction of claims to truth with commitments to institutions making those claims. The second is that women have decisively shaped Spiritualism’s religious and political profile throughout its history. The third is that Australian Spiritualism is a distinct variant of a transnational Anglophone family of ritual practice, one including vibrant churches in the UK and USA. The uniqueness of Let the dead speak lies in its interdisciplinary approach and its focus on the lively present of a movement popularly associated with the past. This is the only book to examine Spiritualism fully across cultural and historical contexts.The authors show how Spiritualist resilience follows a wave pattern rather than a decline-and-fall arc, and they foreground Spiritualists’ own voices to offer a critically sympathetic account of how modern Spiritualism is practiced.