BARBANELL, Maurice This is Spiritualism

INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO THE MEDIUM AND PSYCHIC LILLIAN BAILEY

8vo., burgundy cloth lettered in gilt to spine with publisher’s device blindstamped to lower board; together in the unclipped blue and white dustwrapper (21/- net to front flap); pp. [v], 6-223, [i]; containing twenty six captioned black and white photographs; a very good copy, slightly pushed and sunned at spine tips; light spotting throughout, though mostly affecting the outer edge of the text block and prelims; front free endpaper browned; the wrapper good, rubbed with a little loss along folds, with slight toning to the lower panel; some nicks, chips, creases and short closed tears; particularly to head and foot of spine; completely unrestored, internally. 

First edition. This copy inscribed by the author to the front free endpaper: “To dear Lilian Bailey, one of the greatest of all mediums & a living exemplar to spiritualia. Affectionately, Maurice Barnabell”. Also affixed to the front paste-down is a compliments slip from the Psychic Press Ltd., with the typed message ‘With the compliments of Mrs Lillian Bailey’. A previous owner has included a series of newspaper clippings concerning Bailey, one with an affixed photograph, and two from Psychic News dated June 2005. 

Maurice Barbanell was a British lecturer, journalist, and author in the field of Spiritualism, who served as editor of the Psychic News and The Two Worlds for over three decades. This is Spiritualism was his first and best-known work, in which he puts forward a series of psychic experiences alongside a series of photographs which defy human understanding. Previously a sceptic, Barbanell initially undertook a six-month period of personal investigation of Spiritualism, during which time he had his own personal experience of mediumistic trance. He went on to give a series of home circles in which an Indian spirit guide, ‘Silver Birch’, spoke through him to the assembled group. In 1932 Psychic News was founded, and Barbanell worked as editor for the newspaper for over fourteen years. A friend to a series of British mediums, he resumed contact from the ‘other side’ when, just one week after his death in 1981, spirit messages from him were claimed through the mediumship of Gordon Higginson, a close friend. 

Lilian Bailey was a deep-trance medium and psychic who became highly regarded and widely known in spiritualist circles, famously conducting secret seances for European royalty, world leaders, and Hollywood stars. Her career began in 1930’s, when she began to give a series of group séances, private sittings and public demonstrations based in Manchester. She became one of the most accomplished trance mediums in Britain, and in 1941, she toured the country with Maurice Barbanell. Most famously, in 1953 she was blindfolded and taken to a building, where she quickly went into trance and channeled King George VI to come through and speak to his widow. Her audience was found to be Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who subsequently gave Bailey a gold brooch as a token of gratitude. 

A fascinating association copy. 

SKU: 1800268