From the Archives: Spiritualist Camp Meeting
- Renee Glass
- Jul 12, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 23
In the mid-1800s, spiritualism began to spread across the United States and Europe, providing hope to some and provoking the ire of others. The claim was that living people could interact with the world of the dead with the assistance of a medium, an individual who was particularly in tune with spirits. While spiritualism fell out of favor in the early 20th century, its cultural impact persists in practices such as psychic readings, séances, and the use of Ouija boards.
Toward the end of the 19th century, spiritualists could be found across the country, including in the Ozarks. The following 1899 article from the Leader-Democrat reports on a spiritualist camp meeting that was held in Springfield's Zoo Park, the future site of Dickerson Park Zoo.
INTEREST INCREASES
Large Crowds Flock to the Spiritualist Meeting,
Spiritualists Have Their Factional Differences
The spiritualist camp meeting goes on at Zoo park, with gradually increasing attendance at each session.
Particulars attention is being devoted to skeptics, the idea being to give them practical demonstrations in the way of tests. Mrs. Richmond and Mrs. Ropp continue to be the "stars" of the meeting, if that word may be applied in this connection, but other noted speakers and mediums are to be here in a day or two.
A spiritualists' camp meeting is a very singular affair. There is a commonplace treatment of the matters pertaining to the other world by the professional mediums that seems harshly irreverent to those who have been taught to regard the memory of the dead with deepest respect. It is strange to hear a message from the spirit land delivered to some one in the audience, with no more appearance of seriousness on the part of the medium than a telegraph boy would show in handing a dispatch to a merchant. It is strange to hear the audience laugh and applaud when the medium has made a good hit in identifying some spirit who wishes to communicate with a friend or relative in the crowd.
But spiritualists have grown so familiar with these ghostly messages that they can have fun with things that give other people a creepy feeling.
The camp meeting is causing a great deal of comment. There are so many persons not classed as spiritualists who really lean toward this faith and long to test the claims of the doctrine. Many church members attend the meetings and seem to get as much comfort as anybody else in communicating with their dead friends. One old Christian mother said to Mrs. Richmond: "This is nothing more than the Methodist doctrine growing in grace. The medium, you say, grows in knowledge and power from day to day."
Mrs. Richmond does not know what she has said to the audience til her husband reads the stenographic report of the addresses to his wife after the meeting. The woman's manner when under the spirit control is very natural. She seems to be in a normal state of mind. She speaks on any subject the audience may suggest. Her language is faultless and the chain of thought well connected. Her addresses would read well if printed just as they are delivered.
But spiritualists, with all their light from the other world, have bitter feuds among themselves. They cannot agree on all points of spirit philosophy, but when it comes to mundane matters even mediums show the same weaknesses for discord and strife that mars the relations of other folks.
Here in Springfield there are two hostile factions among the spiritualists. Rev. J. Madison Allen and his wife, Rev. Teresa Allen, have been the teachers of one branch of spiritualists in Springfield for several years. Both are mediums of high power and pioneers in the faith. They do not take part in the camp meeting exercises. They hold their own circles while the big demonstration goes on day and night at the Zoo park.
The Allens were teachers in the spiritualist institute which G. W. Walser, the founder of the agnostic town of Liberal, Mo., established there a few years ago. The school opened with three teachers and three pupils, and never got much beyond that stage of growth. Spiritualism was Walser's last unconventional fad, after he had exhausted all the potency in the various doctrines of negation and found that there was not enough cohesion in radical unbelief to hold his community of freethinkers together. The Allens came back to Springfield after the failure of the liberal school for the scientific teaching of mediumship, and they have been the inspirational speakers for their faction since their return.
The big feature of the camp meeting will be the spirit dance, which is to come off toward the close of the gathering. In this entertainment the spiritualists in the flesh are to have inhabitants of the other world for partners. It is not claimed that the ghostly participants in the dance will be materialized to the eyes of the audience, but each gifted disciple of the occult philosophy will feel the presence of his or her companion in the rythmic step.
The materializing medium will arrive in a day or two. It is intended to exhibit spirit forms on the platform at each night meeting after this wonder worker reaches the camp.
The Zoo park is a fine place for the meeting, and the visitors are delighted with the acommodations of the camp.
Some of the preachers of the city attend the meetings, but most of them assume an attitude of hostility toward the exercises.
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Note
This blog article was originally published July 12, 2024 by Renee Glass. It was republished with edits June 23, 2026 by Brandon Broughton.
Resources
"Interest Increases." The Leader-Democrat, 21 July 1899, p. 2.
Melton, J. Gordon. "Spiritualism." Britannica, 6 Nov. 2025.