Julia's Bureau

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Julia's Bureau

A public institution founded by William T. Stead in 1909 in London for free communication with "the beyond." Visitors were allowed to have three sittings with three different mediums to experience communication. Shorthand records were kept. For distant inquirers, psychometric readings were given. Robert King, Alfred Vout Peters, Mrs. Wesley Adams, J. J. Vango, and Etta Wriedt were employed as mediums. In its three years' existence about 1,300 sittings were given; running the bureau cost Stead about £1,500 a year.

The idea for the bureau was suggested to Stead in his own automatic scripts by the spirit of "Julia A. Ames," an American journalist, who was his constant communicator. In 1914 the work of Julia's Bureau was taken up by a new organization, the W. T. Stead Borderland Library, founded by Estelle W. Stead along the lines of other Spiritualist societies.