Harding Britten, Emma

Emma Harding-Britten (nee Emma Floyd) was born May 2, 1823 in London , England , in the family of the school principal Ebenizer Floyd ^[1] . ^{[~ 1]} In childhood, the girl showed extraordinary musical abilities and at the age of 11 she began to give her own piano lessons ^[2] . In her youth, Emma showed abilities for mediumship and clairvoyance: it was alleged that she predicted the fate of people whom she accidentally met and told them in detail about friends and relatives, guided by the information that she received, apparently, in the form of visions ^[3] .

As Emma herself told in her autobiography, her first visionary experience led her to a mysterious occult society in London , where magnetism and clairvoyance were used for "experimental" purposes. There is no evidence of the activities of this society, it is only known that Emma was influenced by a certain doctor Harding, who later appeared in the autobiography under the name of “baffled sensualist”. She entered into close relations with him and borrowed the surname from him, which she retained after her second (official) marriage ^[1] .

Conversion to Spiritualism

In 1854, Emma Harding began her career as an actress and a year later, under a contract, went to New York ^[2] . At the same time (according to Conan Doyle ), "... being a strict follower of the Evangelical teachings, she did not share the views of the spiritualists and was horrified after the first visit to the spiritualistic session." However, a year later she gained noisy fame precisely in spiritualistic circles, after she had publicly predicted the disappearance of the Pacific steamer, the same ship on which she had arrived from England to the United States with her mother.

During a trip across the ocean, the girl met with the officers of the team, and after arriving she took the habit of entering the port every time a ship arrived from England. In February 1856, she again appeared at the port, because she was waiting for a parcel for herself. Arrival of the ship was delayed due to the storm. That night, Emma suddenly felt a “spiritual presence” in the room and told her mother, who by that time was already interested in spiritualism, knew about the events in Highsville and was familiar with the medium Mrs. Kellogg.

On the advice of her mother, Emma laid out the letters of the alphabet on the table. Her hand, starting to move involuntarily, spelled the following message: "Philip Smith, Pacific. My dear Emma, ​​I have come to tell you that I am dead. The Pacific ship sank, all who were on board died, no one will ever hear about him and his team ” ^[4] . After a sleepless night, Emma, ​​still doubting the truth of the message received, went to visit Mrs. Kellogg. At that moment, when she climbed the stairs, the mistress went out to meet her. While in a trance, Mrs. Kellogg said out loud the same message that Emma received at night. This episode, as well as the subsequent meeting with Kate Fox , made Emma Harding a convinced spiritualist ^[4] . After the message of Miss Harding was published, the owner of the ship began to threaten her with a court. But the information was confirmed: the ship disappeared without a trace in the waters of the Atlantic ^{[2] [5]} .

Preaching and community activities

After the New York Times published an article detailing what happened, Emma was invited by the famous spiritualist Horace Day and offered to hold a series of spiritualistic sessions in the Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge . Soon she began to travel around the country and give so-called “trance lectures” - under such names as “The Opening of Spirits”, “Philosophy of the Spiritual Society”, “The Basic Connection of the Natural and Spiritual Worlds”.

In 1864, Harding took an active part in the campaign for the re-election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States . After her speech entitled “The New President of the United States,” Emma was already invited as a political speaker to tour the country with 32 performances. The peak of her oratorical career was the speech delivered on April 14, 1865, 36 hours after the assassination of Lincoln. In the newspapers, she was called Emma Harding's “greatest achievement in life”.

However, her lectures of a “spiritual” nature were received with less enthusiasm. In 1866, the Saturday Review posted a satirical review, calling Miss Harding's eloquence “pompous”. A. Conan Doyle was of a different opinion:

In 1870, Harding published the book Modern American Spiritualism, a kind of encyclopedia of the early spiritualist movement. In the same year, she married the spiritualist William Britten from Boston . This marriage, according to contemporaries, was "ideal."

In 1872, Emma Harding-Britten tried to organize The Western Star magazine, but after several devastating fires in Boston she was forced to close it because many subscribers went bankrupt. Only six issues of the magazine saw the light. Moving to New York , Emma became interested in Theosophy and became one of the six founders of the Theosophical Society, headed by Elena Blavatsky . ^[2] . Theosophy was the subject of the book “Art Magic or Mundane, Sub-Mundane and Super-Mundane Spiritism: A Treatise in Three parts and Twenty Three Sections on the subject of Theosophy”, which was anonymously edited by Britten and published in Chicago in 1898. Progressive Thinker Publishing House . Who in fact was the author of the book remains unknown.

In 1876, in New York, Harding-Britten published the book "Art Magic", which set forth the teachings of the Order of the Brotherhood of Light, the foundation of which, according to Britten, dates back to the time of Ancient Egypt ^[7] .

Return to England

In general, the Harding-Britten sessions and lectures in the USA were met with fierce resistance from outside - both church and public figures. People who attended her performances were subjected to psychological pressure and physical abuse. In one of the southern states of the United States, a written warning was issued stating that those who would attend the Harding lecture would appear before the Lynch trial. Succumbing to the entreaties of her mother, Emma returned to England, where spiritualism took much deeper roots, and where no one threatened her with physical harm. ^[four]

In 1887, Harding-Britten founded the spiritualistic weekly The Two Worlds in Manchester, which for decades has maintained a leading position in its field. In 1878 - 1879, with her husband, she went to preach spiritualism to Australia and New Zealand , where she founded dozens of churches of the “New Doctrine,” and also wrote a book, “Beliefs, Facts, and Frauds in the History of Religion.” Upon returning to New York, she took up a new work, a detailed “chronicle of the era of spiritualism,” which was titled “Nineteenth Century Miracles” was released in 1884 . In 1892 - 1893, Harding-Britten published in Britain the journal The Unseen Universe.

Emma Harding-Britten died on October 2, 1899 in Manchester , England. It is to her that the spiritualists attribute the authorship of the Seven Principles of Spiritualism, which are practically in their original form accepted as the basis by the modern National Union of Spiritualists of Great Britain: ( Eng. Spiritualists' National Union ) ^[8] .

1. Fatherhood of the Lord. 2. The brotherhood of people. 3. The unity of souls and the guidance of angels. 4. The continuity of the being of the human soul 5. The personal responsibility of man for his actions, 6. Posthumous remuneration and punishment - for all the things that are done on earth. 7. The path of eternal development, open to every human soul. ^{[~ 2]}

Original text

1. The Fatherhood of God. 2. The Brotherhood of Man. 3. The Communion of Spirits and the Ministry of Angels. 4. The Continuous Existence of the Human Soul. 5. Personal Responsibility. 6. Compensation and Retribution hereafter for all the good and evil deeds done on earth. 7. Eternal Progress open to every human soul. (In the Spiritualist tradition, it is also proper to acknowledge the "Motherhood of God and the Sisterhood of Man.")

According to A. Conan Doyle, E. Harding-Britten during his lifetime "... was called the Apostle Paul in a female form." ^[6] The Britten Memorial Institute and Library and The Britten Memorial Institute and Library, The Britten Memorial Museum were named after her ^[2] .

• "Modern American Spiritualism", New York, 1870;
• Nineteenth Century Miracles, New York, 1884
• Faith, Fact and Fraud of Religious History, Manchester, 1896
• "Extemporaneous Addresses", London, 1866

• Music and Theosophy

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