The Spiritualist Church of New Zealand Act 1924

Bronwyn Rideout - 19 August 2024

So… I was planning on writing about an Autism scam that did the rounds on Australia news networks this month. Instead, Mark unintentionally sent me down a rabbit hole when he asked for an article about the approaching 100th anniversary of the Spiritualist Church Of New Zealand Act 1924 next month. It’s branded a National Spiritual Day, which I’m anticipating may cause confusion and upset in other religious circles.

With the spread of the spiritualism movement globally during the 1800s came the inevitable formal organisation of mediums and their audience, through numerous associations and independent churches. While many came to see spiritualism as a religion in its own right, there remained many practitioners who saw Jesus as a great medium and viewed spiritualism as a denomination of Christianity. This didn’t sit well with the various branches of Christianity that would declare acts of mediumship as part of the occult, or even a twinge Satanic/demonic, but the fact of the matter is that new age/esoteric/occult groups have never shied from incorporating Christian elements into their worship. The same can be said for many Christians. We see this in the fringes, where Christian mysticism is practised (i.e. Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry) and anywhere angel divination cards are sold.

Spiritualism in New Zealand follows a similar timeline as it did in the UK and the US. Spiritualism first appeared in New Zealand in the 1860s in Otago. Emma Hardinge Britten played an important role in that growth, as had written about séance practices for NZ newspapers.

An early spiritualism advocate, as well as clairvoyant and spirit medium, Emma originally travelled to the US to write about the gullibility of Americans attending seances. But, far from calling her a skeptic, Emma had a history of occult involvement and clairvoyant moments. However, she was drawn in herself and, eventually, she and her husband travelled through the US, Canada, the UK and finally New Zealand and Australia as so-called spiritualist missionaries. Of course, they weren’t the only ones to embark on such a speaking tour, nor were they the first spiritualists to do so, but Emma was relatively well-known.

Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, spiritualist groups and publications would pop up across the country. The first spiritualist church service would be held in Wellington in 1900, and in 1907 the National Association of Spiritualists was formed. In 1914, there were enough spiritualist churches to justify the existence of the National Association of Spiritualist Churches New Zealand. Now, spiritualists were not only subject to ridicule by the New Zealand public, but also legislated against. Notably, the Witchcraft Act was still law, and there were cases in the early 1920s against mediums and various spiritualist churches on charges of fortune telling. Spiritualists were savvy enough to know that if they were going to survive, they needed to legitimise their organisation.

Then in 1923, the first conference of the NZ Spiritualist Churches was convened, and a decision was made to draft a bill to parliament to officially form the Spiritualist Church of New Zealand (SCNZ) and bestow it legal status, which was granted September 22, 1924. However, Robert Ellwood, in Islands of the Dawn, reports that a majority of spiritualist churches then, and still in the 1990s, were independent of the SCNZ, and several were affiliated with English spiritualist organisations instead. Despite the Act, spiritualists were still not exempt from the Witchcraft Act, which was still in operation. Spiritualists argued that mediumship was a sacred practice, and campaigned for the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1965 and 1973, before finally seeing success in 1981 when the Summary Offences Act only penalised those who acted as a medium with intent to deceive, or who purported to act as a Spiritualist medium.

The number of spiritualist churches has decreased over time, but there were a growing number of individuals and non-spiritualist groups who wanted to join a national spiritualist organisation. The constitution of the SCNZ, however, would only accept churches as members. So, the organisation rebranded as Spiritualism NZ in 2017 to officially broaden its membership.

You may ask where the rabbit hole is in all of this. Well, let me tell you.

One of the driving forces behind the 1924 bill was William Theophilus Anderton. Anderton was born in England, trained as a tailor, and became a Methodist preacher as a young adult.

Anderton was a left-wing politician, having been a member of both the Independent Labour Party and the British Socialist Party. He married and raised two daughters and a son. After the First World War, Anderton started to profit from his side gig at a herbalist shop. Anderton’s Wikipedia page completely ignores this, but Anderton was also a spiritualist and emigrated to NZ for a year to work for various spiritualist churches, both as a lecturer and holding seances. In the Papers Past archive, his name appears as an officer of the Spiritualist church during the course of a slander trial where he was a witness, having just completed his year in NZ.

The slander in question? Whether the defendant had a letter from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle where he denied sharing a platform with another Kiwi spiritualist (and Anderton in some versions of the story).

However, there appears to have been some sort of confusion, and the letter the defendant actually held was in relation to a letter the plaintiff wrote to a newspaper in response to an anti-spiritualist article.

According to Te Ara, he played an important role in organising all of the churches in order to propose the aforementioned bill. For reasons that are unclear, Anderton eventually became ashamed of this work with the Spiritualists and left the movement in 1926.

However, Anderton still had his quirks. He became involved in the Labour Party in both Auckland and Christchurch, and set up his own herbalist practice in Christchurch before permanently settling in Symonds Street in 1923. The practice would remain in the family until 1983, and continues to operate today as the natural health and wellness brand Red Seal.

Some may recall that Red Seal attracted some controversy in early August 2021 related to COVID-19. Tom Hunt of Stuff.co.nz reported on two incidents of anonymous COVID-19 conspiracy theory messages ending up in Red Seal products. Both items were purchased in different grocery stores in Paraparaumu, and the notes were found in products that are normally sealed. While no one wanted to speculate on whether the products were tampered with, Red Seal caught some heat for their response to a customer. When sent a picture of a piece of paper reading: Why is the Government refusing to publish the numerous COVID-19 vaccine deaths?? The company responded with, “Good question…why?”

Just as Wikipedia avoided mentioning Anderton’s more paranormal and pseudoscientific leanings, so too does Red Seal, who outright neglect to mention that Anderton was a Labour Party politician and a significant part of the Spiritualist church; rather, they refer to him as an English-trained naturopath or “…herbalist and naturopath…”. Anderton never described himself as a naturopath, but rather as a consulting herbalist, healer, and neurologist.

Anderton’s daughter Jenny (or Dorothy Jennie) married Norman Douglas in 1937, and took over her father’s business in 1964. Norman would become a long-term MP for the Labour Party, and their two sons, Malcolm and Roger, would also become politicians with the Labour Party. After the Rogernomics year, Roger would leave the Labour Party and establish ACT New Zealand with Derek Quigley.

And, because this is ACT, I did look into any connections to ZAP, but didn’t find anything linking Douglas to Trevor Louden’s other activities.

Roger’s daughter Megan Douglas was an up-and-coming designer in the 1990s, but in the early 2010s turned her hand back to the family trade with her company World Organics. According to Douglas, Roger invested some of the money he received when selling his share of the family business into his daughter’s business. She didn’t refer to William as a naturopath in an interview, although it is alluded to on the About page of the World Organics website. Megan herself is also a trained herbalist and naturopath, while also holding a BSc in Health Sciences.

Back in 2014, it was reported that World Organics sold products through a “…tupperware-style party plan model…” or direct selling. While MLMs are a form of direct selling, not all forms of direct selling are MLMs. Current versions of the World Organic website indicate that they are likely not an MLM, but possibly engage in other forms of Direct-selling. However archived versions of their website, and a trail of dead links to consultant pages, do show that there was a Party plan model in place at one point. You can read more about what the business opportunity claims were here. Looking at the internet archive, the opportunity was still promoted in 2021, and they remain listed as a full member on the Direct Selling Association of New Zealand list.

So who knew a little article about a little known Act would be a detour into a tale of slander, pseudoscience, a New Zealand political dynasty, bypassing a Scientology knock-off, and landing straight into a company with a defunct MLM or Party Plan model.

Not me, that’s for sure.