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 Natures 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.
