Emma Hardinge Britten

Who was Emma Hardinge Britten?

Emma Hardinge Britten is known for her work as an advocate for the early Modern Spiritualist Movement. Due to the publication of her speeches and writing on the spiritual movement, and an incomplete autobiography which was edited by her sister, much of Emma’s life and work is publicly recorded. She is remembered as a writer, orator, and practitioner of the movement. Her books, Modern American Spiritualism and Nineteenth Century Miracles, are extremely detailed records of the history of early modern spiritualism movement in America.

Hardinge was born in London, England in 1823 under the name Emma Floyd. Her father was a sea captain. Early in her childhood, Emma’s father died. She, therefore, grew up supporting herself and her family. She accomplished this by teaching music and acting, and eventually became a decent actor herself. She developed a reputation for apparent abilities as a spiritual medium during her early years. As a child, Emma had a habit of predicting the futures of people she encountered, relating to them what she had seen in visions, along with information about their deceased relatives of whom she had no prior knowledge. She also developed the amusing talent of preemptively playing songs on the piano, which her audience was thinking of requesting.