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Séances and Scandals: Female Mediums and Persecution in Interwar Australia

The new religious movement of Spiritualism (the religion that speaks with the dead) flourished across the Anglosphere between the world wars. In Australia, for example, Spiritualist apologist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle toured the country in 1920-1921, speaking to a total audience of more than 50,000 people. Mediums offering private readings also thrived, especially in the inner-city arcades of capital cities. The crucible of Spiritualism at this time was its churches. Already well established by the early 1920s, their numbers grew remarkably—Melbourne and Sydney each had more than thirty congregations by the early 1930s.

Women were integral to the interwar Spiritualist revival: most private and church mediums were women, as were many church leaders. Their work met the growing demand driven by the grief and uncertainty wrought by war, the Spanish flu and the Great Depression. Yet they also paid a price. Female mediums were subject to arrest under vagrancy laws, hauled before courts and, in many cases, convicted.

This talk examines the role of women in Australian Spiritualism, situating their contributions within the broader context of changes in women’s social status after the First World War. Spiritualism provided women a platform for authority, visibility and income when access to public, political and economic life was limited. Yet these gains occurred amid cultural and legal resistance. The same qualities that empowered Spiritualist women—public presence, financial autonomy and spiritual leadership—also exposed them to scrutiny and sanction. Their story reveals the possibilities and constraints of female agency in interwar Australia.

7th May 2025, 11am AEDT

Burwood: C2.05.01
Waurn Ponds: IC1.108
Zoom: Click here

Andrew Singleton is Professor of Sociology and Social Research at Deakin University. His new book, co-authored with Matt Tomlinson (Australian National University), is Let the Dead Speak: Spiritualism in Australia (Manchester University Press, 2025).