The Remarkable Minnie Harrison

By Travis Sanders

One of the last remarkable materialization mediums was Minnie Rose Harrison. Born in the UK in spring of 1895, she was the youngest of 11 children, but not the only mediumistic one.

While at a conference, during Minnie’s teen years, her oldest brother, Albert, experienced some paranormal phenomena, which lead to an invitation to a private home circle. While the family sat in circle, 5 of the sibling developed into deep trance-control mediums: Albert, Jack, Mary, Agnes, and of course, Minnie.

By 1915, Minnie married Tom Harrison and began her own family, and by 1930, Minnie’s sister Agnes, was a professional working-medium for the Marylebone Spiritualist Association. Agnes tried convincing Minnie to come work there, but Minnie didn’t like the idea of charging for sittings, and was quite content with her participation in the Lyceum movement of the SNU and serving local churches.

As a youth, her son, Tom, would chair for her, as she would take the platform. Tom would routinely watch his mother go into trance at the podium and deliver the most remarkable clairvoyance and evidence of survival while in the entranced state.

In 1946 “Aunt Agg” who by this point had become a wonderful direct voice medium as well, would pass into Spirit, but this would not be the last of her! In 1946 Minnie, her son, and several routine sitters would start their own Saturday Circles, where Minnie’s own powers of physical phenomena would develop.

Very quickly into the weekly sittings, while entranced, direct voice phenomena would develop. The main speakers where Minnie’s primary control, Sunrise, and you guessed it, Aunt Agg, who would oversee much of the physical phenomena as it began to develop; and as the materialization eventually began to unfold, Aunt Agg would materialize regularly and assist in other spirit people manifesting.

   

In addition to remarkable voice phenomena, apports weren’t uncommon. However, one in particular didn’t occur in the seance room. On Minnie’s 53rd birthday she was tinkering about in the kitchen. She opened the cupboard to grab something, and when she open the cupboard again a few minutes later, filling the bottom to the top of the cupboard, was a 3ft tall lilac bush. The power Minnie developed over the years had allowed Spirit to use the darkness of the cupboard as a cabinet to bring Minnie a birthday gift- much appreciated indeed, as Minnie being unconscious through the seances, never got to experience the phenomena for herself.

As time when on, the materializations grew stronger. 1947 Aunt Agg materialized and approach Dr. Britain Jones, a surgeon sitting in the circle, and said “I understand you wish to take my pulse?” To which she extended her wrist, solid as flesh, and Dr Jones indeed found a pulse, to which Agnes responded “Thank you Mr Jones, I am living, and continue to!” In another experiment Aunt Agg allowed Dr Jones to cut a piece of her ectoplasmic robe. As he did so Agnes could be seen grimacing, while an entranced Minnie, in cabinet, let out a small moan.

The first attempt at this experiment didn’t allow to ectoplasm to withstand the light at the end of the seance, though on a second attempt, under the instruction of the spirit world, an empty jar was brought into the seance, where the spirit operators filled it with a special type of liquid. This liquid allowed the ectoplasmic piece to withstand the light at the end of the seance and lasted several weeks before it slowly dissolved.

Another aspect of Minnie’s work she was known for where her Christmas seances. Every year a tree would be decorated with toys and candies and presents, and during the seance, Spirit children would come and play with the toys, as well as messages of love and hope would come through. When asked about where the toys and candies went, Spirit controls said they were played with by the spirit children, and often spiritual replicas of them where made for the spirit children to interact with in the spirit world. The physical objects would then be apported to children in need so that they would be surprised when they woke up on Christmas day.

In 1958, Minnie passed into spirit, but the importance of her work was kept alive through her son, Tom Harrison, who would lecture and write books for many years about the remarkable mediumship of his mother!

Sources:
Life After Death: Living Proof by Tom Harrison 
Great Moments of Modern Mediumship Volume 1 by Maxine Meilleur. 

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Moses Hull: Adversary Turned Ally

by Travis Sanders

The seventh son of a seventh son, Moses Hull, was the second born twin, born in 1835 to James and Mary Hull, in Waldo, Ohio. His twin Aaron, died around 2 years of age, and at 4 years old, his family moved to an “Indian” reservation, where he received little to no formal education, about 18 months total. This however, didn’t prevent Moses’ inquisitive mind from leading him to greatness.

At 14, Hull became a Methodist after “finding God” and eventually converted to Adventism, where he excelled as a marvelous debater. He could pick apart any argument on the subject of Theological beliefs, but this eventually lead to him to dissecting and eventually renouncing Adventism in favor for Spiritualism, after debating William Jamison in Michigan in 1862.

Just prior to this he began hearing voices, and through the beliefs instilled in his Christian faith, he told the voices- “Get behind me, Satan!” To which the voices replied “You pray for light, but when it comes to you, you tell it to go to the rear?”

While not a practicing medium himself, Hull became a fierce champion of the Spiritualist movement, encountering many prominent Spiritualist of the time, including Victoria Woodhull, who he worked with as he launched his Equal Rights Campaign in 1872.

Hull opened a school in Montua, OH, that eventually moved to Lily Dale, NY, and  attracted the attention of Morris Pratt, who donated a building to the cause, and in 1903 the Morris Pratt College opened and still operates to this day.

In 1906, Hull ran from congress as a Socialist, but died the following year in 1907.

Sources

Spirit Book: Buckland
Encyclopedia.com
Wikipedia