Let the Dead Speak: Spiritualism in Australia

This book explores the historical and social dynamics of Spiritualism - a religious movement associated in the popular imagination with nineteenth-century parlour séances and ghost photography. It continues to be practised actively today in Australia, the UK, and USA. The authors draw on their deep fieldwork, interviews, and archival research to analyse Spiritualisms resilience and the enduring popular appeal of mediumship.

There are three key contributions of the book: the first is that the scholarly study of belief should be rehabilitated. The authors propose a model of belief as a dialogue between claims to truth and commitments to institutions supporting those claims. The second is womens agency in Spiritualism. From the movements beginnings, strong female leaders have decisively shaped its religious and political profile. The third is the need to analyse Australian Spiritualism as a distinct variant of a transnational Anglophone family of ritual practice.