Author: Janice H.

The Spiritualist Prime Minister: a book review

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It has been 150 years since William Lyon Mackenzie King (1874-1950), Canada’s longest serving prime minister, was born in what is now Kitchener, Ontario. The anniversary of his birth passed with little fanfare, possibly because of King’s reputation as “weird Willie.” A new book called The Spiritualist Prime Minister: Volume I, William Lyon Mackenzie King and the New Revelation, by Anton Wagner, reveals what was weird about him.

Born Dec. 17, 1874, King was the grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie (1795-1861), leader of the failed Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada. King’s mother, Isabel, was his daughter. King grew up in Ontario with his parents and three siblings in what has been described as a happy family. He obtained several degrees from the University of Toronto and graduate degrees from Harvard University. In 1900, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Labour in Wilfred Laurier’s federal Liberal government. He was elected as a member of Parliament for the first time in 1908 and was appointed to cabinet a year later, but lost his seat in 1911 when the Liberals were defeated. He became leader of the Liberal Party in 1919, following Laurier’s death.

Over the next 21 years, he was prime minister for three stretches: 1921 to 1926, 1926 to 1930, and 1935 to 1948. During this time Canada went from having a primarily agricultural economy to becoming industrialized. King was prime minister during the difficult years of the Depression in the 1930s, and during the World War II.

Although he is said to have been a poor public speaker, King succeeded in keeping the country united through these tumultuous times. Today, many historians acknowledge him as Canada’s greatest prime minister. But King had interests and beliefs that the public did not know about. It is these activities, not his political accomplishments, that are the focus of Wagner’s book.

Raised a Presbyterian, King was a deeply religious man, but in addition to his Christian beliefs, he became a spiritualist: he was convinced of the continuity of life after death, and in the existence of a spiritual world that interacted with and guided him in the material world. Such beliefs were not uncommon at that time. Many people had lost loved ones in World War I and in the great flu epidemic of 1918, and sought to communicate with them on the other side. While it may have been acceptable for ordinary people to try to contact deceased loved ones, it was another thing for the prime minister to do so. Meanwhile, Wagner writes, King was convinced he was “an agent of God, working out His will ‘on Earth as it is in Heaven.’”

Some people have suggested that King was on the brink of insanity. Wagner speculates he may have been suffering from prolonged grief disorder. King was unmarried and had few close friends. Both his parents and two of his siblings had died by 1922, and he was undoubtedly lonely. He was particularly attached to his mother, believing that she was “pure and holy and Christ-like” and was watching over him. A large portrait of her hung in his Ottawa study, and she regularly appeared to him in dream visions. 

Around 1917, King began consulting a fortune teller, having his horoscope read and consulting phrenologists, numerologists and palm readers. He participated in a séance for the first time in 1932 with the medium Etta Wriedt, and from then on took part in dozens of seances in the United States, England and Canada. At home, he began to act as a medium himself and, along with his “spiritual companion”, the married Joan Patteson, had regular table rapping conversations with spiritual entities over “the little table.”

King also met and corresponded with my grandparents, psychical researchers Dr. T.G. Hamilton and his wife, Lillian, of Winnipeg. It was because of this connection that I was asked to review Wagner’s book.

A few people knew about these activities, but they were not public knowledge. King kept a diary in which he recorded his daily activities, including his occult beliefs and practices. He intended these diaries to become the basis of his memoirs, but he died before he got a chance to write them. After he died, the instructions he left concerning the diaries were unclear. Some of his executors wanted to burn them in order to preserve King’s reputation but, in the end, they were not destroyed. In fact, they were eventually transcribed, with some omissions, and the 30,000-page typed copy is available online from Library and Archives Canada.

One of the first historians to write about King’s inner life was C.P. Stacey. In A Very Double Life: the Private world of Mackenzie King, published in 1976, Stacey wrote that King often frequented prostitutes. This information, as well as revelations about King’s spiritualist beliefs, led to his reputation as being weird. But until Wagner’s book was published in 2024, those occult activities had not been studied in depth. Volume I is an exploration of King’s life as a spiritualist, while Volume II takes a closer look at the many mediums he interacted with.  I have not read volume II.

Wagner is not an expert on Canadian political history. He has doctorates in drama and theatre, and has produced documentary films on arts and culture. He did, however, do extensive research for this book, not only from the primary sources of King’s diaries and letters; volume I includes a 15-page bibliography.

Volume I includes several examples of how King’s occult beliefs impacted his political decisions. Early in his political career, King consulted a fortune teller before choosing an auspicious date for an election – and he was disappointed when the prediction proved wrong. In 1937, King’s belief that he was part of a divine plan to save the world from war took him to Germany, where he badly misjudged Hitler and his intentions. And at the end of the war, King asked for advice from the recently deceased Franklin Delano Roosevelt regarding a spy scandal and what he should reveal to the Soviet Union about the development of the atom bomb.

Unfortunately, interesting as the topic is, I found the text hard to follow. So many people and events were included that the contents might have benefitted from better organization and an index, although a chronology at the end of the book does help.

The Spiritualist Prime Minister, by Anton Wagner, PhD, is published by White Crow Books in association with the Survival Research Institute of Canada.

This article is also posted on the collaborative blog https://genealogyensemble.com

The Great Central Fair of Philadelphia, 1864

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Philadelphia lawyer McGregor J. Mitcheson (1829–1886) had a reputation as a passionate and eloquent defender of his clients’ interests in the courtroom, so it comes as no surprise that he was also a persuasive fundraiser. In 1864, he was one of many volunteers who helped to raise money to improve sanitary conditions, food and medical care for government soldiers during the American Civil War.

When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, thousands of men signed up to fight for the Union army. Soon, however, the filth and poor diets in the camps where the soldiers were housed led to outbreaks of disease. People realized that the government was not equipped to shelter and feed so many soldiers.

Civilians in the northern states responded by founding the United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) in the summer of 1861, as well as other charitable relief organizations. These groups raised money for the Union cause and distributed supplies, including food, clothing and bandages, to military camps and hospitals. A branch of the USSC was set up in Philadelphia by some of the city’s leading male citizens, while the women set up their own organization to receive donations from church groups and other small, local aid societies2.

The Great Central Fair in Logan Square, Philadelphia, 1864.

These organizations held a variety of fundraising events, including concerts, plays and floral fairs, but the biggest and most successful event In Philadelphia was the Great Central Fair. It was held for 21 days in June, 1864, at downtown Logan Square. Volunteers built a vast central hall featuring Gothic arches, outbuildings, interconnecting corridors and a 216-foot flagpole. A range of donated goods were for sale including fine arts, lingerie, umbrellas and canes, arms and trophies and children’s clothing, while available services included a horse shoe machine and a button-riveter.

A number of northern cities hosted sanitary fairs between 1863 and 1865, but the only one that raised more money than Philadelphia was New York City. In total, the Philadelphia Great Central Fair raised more than a million dollars – $20 million in today’s money.

This huge endeavor required many hours of organization by hundreds of volunteers. An executive committee oversaw dozens of smaller departments and committees that were in charge of soliciting contributions of goods, money and services from members of every trade, profession and business in the city.

My three-times great-uncle McGregor J. Mitcheson dedicated many hours to the cause as secretary of the fair’s Department of Labor, Income and Revenue. Involvement in that department was something of a family affair: at one time, McGregor’s brother Duncan M. Mitcheson was assistant treasurer, and his sister Mary F. Mitcheson was a member of the women’s committee. McGregor was also chairman of a hard-working sub-committee, the Committee on Organization.

McGregor J. Mitcheson and his wife Ellen Brander Alexander, probably taken when they were visiting his sister Catharine Mitcheson Bagg in Montreal. 

The Department of Labor, Income and Revenue was one of the busiest of the Sanitary Fair organization, and it succeeded in raising nearly a quarter of a million dollars, or one-fourth of the fair’s proceeds. Its goal was to raise donations equivalent to the wages of one day’s labor from working people in every branch of industry, one day’s income from their employers, and one day’s revenue from all corporations. Railways and coal mining companies proved to be the most generous donors. This committee also had a large table at the fair where a variety of goods were sold, bringing in $7228.

Committee members personally visited company worksites such as iron works and large mills. Owners would tell their employees to stop work and call them together to hear a speech about the need to help the soldiers. Most employees were so inspired that they agreed to donate a full day’s wages, and their employers also gave generously. Official fair historian Charles J. Stille credited this success with the fact that the organizing committee had nothing to do with partisan politics, and had no specific religious affiliations. Everyone was free to give or not to give.

The committee raised funds in Philadelphia, in smaller Pennsylvania cities such as Bethlehem, Harrisburg and Reading, in rural parts of the state and in neighbouring New Jersey. Members of this committee were so hard-working that it acquired the nickname the laborious committee.

Stille singled out McGregor J. Mitcheson for his hard work. “Through spirited explanatory addresses by Mr. Mitcheson, at the invitation of the proprietors of the leading establishments, six eight, and even twelve manufacturers have been thus visited by the officers and committee; the works stopped, the people collected and addressed, as we have stated, within one day.”3

McGregor also played a memorable role in the fair’s closing ceremony. A large crowd turned out on the evening of June 28 to watch as members of the fair’s executive committee marched onto a platform in the square. The bishop offered a prayer of thanksgiving, then McGregor J. Mitcheson led the singing of the Doxology,4 a hymn of praise. After that, McGregor invited the crowd to sing the Star-Spangled Banner, and finally the crowd broke into an enthusiastic rendition of Yankee Doodle.

Photo Sources:

Queen, J. F. (1864) Buildings of the Great Central Fair, in Aid of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, Logan Square, Philadelphia, June. United States of America Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1864. Philadelphia: P.S. Duval & Son Lithography, -07. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021670451/

Cabinet card photo by William Notman, Montreal. #70199. Bagg family collection.

Notes and Sources

  1. McGregor J. Mitcheson (born Joseph McGregor Mitcheson) was the youngest son of English-born merchant Robert Mitcheson and his Scottish-born wife Mary Frances McGregor. His older sister, Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, was my direct ancestor. McGregor grew up in Philadelphia and practised law there for many years. He married Ellen Brander Alexander Bond, a widow, in 1869, and they had three children.  
  • The Doxology is a four-line hymn often sung during church services The version sung at the fair’s closing ceremony: Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise him, all creatures here below; Praise him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

This article is simultaneously posted on the collaborative blog Genealogy Ensemble, https://genealogyensemble.com.