Ferguson, Rev. Jesse Babcock (d. 1870)
Ferguson, Rev. Jesse Babcock (d. 1870)
Noted American minister in the antebellum South whose early studies of animal magnetism beginning in 1842 led him to Spiritualism. He initially experimented by hypnotizing his wife. In 1853 he had his first experience with a rapping medium in Ohio, and soon afterward both his wife and daughter developed psychic powers, wrote and spoke automatically, and saw visions. Ferguson recounted these events in his book Spirit Communion: A Record of Communications from the Spirit Spheres (1854). They later became the subject of a second volume, Supramundane Facts in the Life of the Rev. J. B. Ferguson, by T. L. Nichols (1865).
In 1864 he traveled to England as part of the entourage of the Davenport brothers. The tone of the press toward him was courteous and respectful. He even accompanied the Davenports to France, but because he could not speak French he soon returned to London. Robert Cooper describes him in his Spiritual Experiences (1867) as "a giant in intellect, a child in simplicity and an angel in goodness and one of Nature's noblemen."
Sources:
Ferguson, Jesse Babcock. Spirit Communion: A Record of Communications from the Spirit Spheres. Nashville, 1854.
Nichols, T. L. Supramundane Facts in the Life of the Rev. J. B. Ferguson. London, 1865.