Emma Hardinge Britten 1823 – 1899

Emma Hardinge Britten is, perhaps, the most renowned and the most respected advocate and proponent in the early modern spiritualist movement. She was born in London and from an early age showed an interest in and excelled in singing and as a musician. She was somewhat a child ‘prodigy’ as she was earning her living as a music teacher at the young age of 11.

It was as a child that Emma began predicting the futures of people that she met, telling them what she had seen in visions as well as relating information about their deceased relatives, of whom she had no prior knowledge.

In 1855, wanting to pursue a career in acting, Emma moved to New York, but her career took a much different path. A year later Emma became converted to the Spiritualist philosophy and found fame as a Psychic Medium. She was influenced heavily by the mediumship of Miss Ada Hoyt and began to develop her own abilities as a medium.

As a young medium, she furnished one of the best genuine cases of early Spirit return. The young Emma, in trance, was controlled by the spirit of a member of the crew of the mail steamer, Pacific, which had sunk and disclosed the facts of the tragedy. Because of the nature of the details given through her mediumship, Emma Hardinge was threatened with prosecution by the owners of the boat when the story was made public, but all the details were found to be true and accurate. Impressed with Emma’s accuracy, she was invited to the Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual Knowledge by the famous Spiritualist, Horace Day and began hosting seances for them.

Emma’s mediumistic gifts included Psychometry, Automatic Writing, Prophecy and Inspirational Writing/Speaking. Emma was best known for her inspiration writings and addresses which were very informative and inspiring. They were almost always given out or written without any preparation and, more often than not, the subject was chosen in the auditorium by the audience, giving Emma no time to prepare them.

As a propagandist for Spiritualism, Emma she was unequalled. She committed herself to spreading the truth about Spiritualism and related areas of thought and travelled extensively throughout England, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia with zeal and enthusiasm.

The concepts and original wording of the Seven Principles came through Emma’s mediumship as she was inspired in 1871, by the communicating Spirit of Robert Owen, to summarise the philosophy of Spiritualism in principles that all Spiritualists would agree. These have since become known as the Seven Principles of Spiritualism.

In 1887 Emma founded and edited for five years the Two Worlds of Manchester a Spiritualists’ Newspaper. She was also among the six founders of the Theosophical Society in New York, in 1875.

Emma’s dream of having a training school for Mediums was realised in 1900 with the founding of the Britten Memorial Institute and Library in Manchester, but sadly she never lived to see it, having passed into the spirit world the year before it was opened. Emma passed away in Manchester, England.