With the emerging popularity of Spiritualism in the 19^th century a new phenomenon was coming to the forefront. Besides mediums doing public and private platform demonstrations a new direction was gaining momentum. New methods were devised to contact the spirit world and old ways were rediscovered. Contrary to popular belief for example, the talking board dates back to ancient Greek times with much of the same use as today.

As you can see, humanities desire to contact the other side goes a fair way back in documented history. Now you can buy boards with an array of communication tools inbuilt to make the connection easier and the messages less time consuming. One of the most popular methods of the times was table rapping, with the sitting party establishing contact with a spirit through a series of questions which were responded to by knocks from the attending spirit.

The easiest process was to ask “yes” and “no” questions and wait for the spirit to reply with the previously agreed code. A little bit like Morse code, the spirit would give a response to a query by giving a certain number of knocks as a “yes” and a certain number of knocks for “no”. They even had a code for “don’t know” or “don’t want to answer”. This method would have been extremely time consuming and would require a fair bit of patience from both living and spirit. Sessions often lasted for hours and the kind of information coming through was very much guided by the sitters.

There were new methods being invented to allow for easier communication and more time efficiency. It is then the Planchette was invented. It was a mechanism with a small plate fitted with a pencil and some easy to move small wheels. The sitters would put their finger on the top of the platform and the spirit would use their collective energy to move the plate and spell out words and draw pictures.

There were many other popular methods tried and tested and some survived the test of time some have not.

Australia was taken by storm with a wave of spiritualist arriving from overseas to lecture and develop our own home grown crop of mediums. We will examine the driving forces behind that in more detail in the last part of this series of articles. Right now we are examining other forms in which Spiritualism has developed. Physical mediumship was another developing trend, one that has been put to the test many times by scholars of the times. Some so called mediums have proven to be fakes but some have produced some astonishing phenomena. Many of these methods are still alive and well today, however are not widely advertised. There are some groups who practice this highly developed method and are said to be demonstrating some of the most  intense spirit activity that is known today. Starting from producing so und with no vocal aid, materialising human shapes, moving objects to creating light beings in total and   complete darkness.

This practice requires a great deal of energy, concentration and commitment, not to mention skill to maintain and form a meaning relationship and contact with the residing spirit. These groups have a highly developed working relationship with Spirit and each other within the group. There are some mediums however that can produce the same phenomena by themselves, without the aid of a circle of people. To be part of such sessions is like being a member of a very select group of people and opportunities are often hard to come by.

No wonder, with impostors having given this type of mediumship a tarnished reputation from early on, it is easy to see why these sessions are by invitation only.

In the last part of this article we will acquaint ourselves with key figures of the Australian Spiritualist       movement and see how they shaped the movement in this country.