A Seance in Whitney's Opera House

Detroit Free Press, October 2, 1879

WHITNEY'S.—To-night Anna Eva Fay will give a seance in Whitney's Opera House, during which she will, it is said, offer some manifestations, of alleged superhuman origin, of the most startling character. Miss Fay has often been subjected, in England, to the severest scientific tests, and yet her scheme has never yet been detected.

If You Like Ghosts, Detroit Has Plenty

Detroit Free Press, June 2, 1940 (enlarge)

Hamilton the Hair Buyer, Le Nain Rouge, Sans Souci, Le Loup Garou and the Devil's Mill at Presque Isle all lumped into the mystical history of the Marxist enclave known as Detroit.

Ghost Story #23: A Substantial Ghost

Detroit Free Press, June 18, 1875

For every bump-in-the-night, unexplainable at first groaning moonshine still in the basement ghost in the annals of Detroit history there was also one of these stories where the shade was easily traced to intelligible figures of flesh without need of scientific experimentation or seance. It was simply a man keeping watch over a vacant house on Vinewood Street in Springwells in the summer of 1875 when a nosy woman peeped into the darkened window at the inopportune time that he had finished with his bath. Out of modesty he threw a sheet upon himself while she shrieked in terror. In response to the first peeping and the subsequent neighbor's stirring about interfering upon his intended sleep he cast the figure of a phantom upon their psyches and all was well with the reasonable cast who wished to speak no more on the matter of apparitions.

Ghost Story #22: The Red-Haired, Moon-Faced Monster Man of Shelby Street

Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1866

Euphemisms are a beautiful thing because they allow even a respectable outlet such as the Detroit Free Press (Haha! As if! Foisted upon respectability anyhow.) to call somebody a whore with possibly the most ambiguous word relating to the oldest profession. The old Cyprian! Surely one could also mean a specie of bee, the worship of Aphrodite, an inhabitant of Cyprus or even the Carthaginian bishop-martyr known by that very name. Capitalized, of course. Always capitalized except when referring to a trollop. 

Anyway, some prostitutes were getting drunk with some Johns on Shelby Street and after the gin and beer had flowed all morning, Lizzie and Hattie went to "Europe" or out to get the former her sea legs back from the rollicking within and soon enough she passed out under a maple tree holding the latter woman's gold watch for safe-keeping while the latter slept in a nearby bush. 

Lo! When Lizzie awakened a red-haired, copper-faced monster man with a head the size of the moon was upon her! Was it the Nain Rouge? Le Loup Garou? Rocky Dennis? It was only a visage. A shade. A spirit of the spirits. A thief in the night. 

Whatever it was it took Hattie's watch and the owner, being the shrewd business woman that she was, took Lizzie to court. Said court cited a lack of evidence and intent to convict. The annals of time confer a similar conclusion on all accounts. Therewith resides that thing referred to as folklore. Another euphemism contained within itself where humbug formerly resided.

The First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor

Detroit Free Press, July 24, 1929

The earliest mention that I have seen of the First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor at 21729 Fenkell Avenue in Detroit was in an article from 1939 involving a witch hex and a ghost attack on the family of Roy and Della Tomlin, then recent transplants to the city from the nearby suburb of Livonia.

The story made the front page of one of the city's daily newspapers and Mrs. Tomlin was later found to be insane, Mr. Tomlin unfit, the children were sent into foster care and the spiritualist sect mentioned therewith and led by Rev. E. Armitage, female pastor, persisted into at least the early 2000s.

Detroit Free Press, October 25, 1931

Rev. E. was at the head of the congregation for at least a decade, and likely longer since they didn't feel a need to advertise much at all.

The October, 1931 advert announces that Rev. Amanda Flowers of Grand Rapids would give a service and a circle, presumably a psychic reading of some sort within their Spiritualist sect.

The Plymouth Mail, December 1, 1939

Parishoners seemingly came from as far as the remote western suburbs as this 1939 advert in the Plymouth Mail attests to.

There was a mid-week message service on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. and a Sunday song service at 7:00 p.m. with a lecture at 7:30. The public was welcome. Additionally, that December there was a Ladies' Aid bazaar at the church on December 2nd at 1:30 p.m.

Chimes, November 1, 1961

After a mention or two in the psychic monthly Chimes around the early 1960s it seemed to disappear. By then it was led by the Rev. Carroll Ware, quite the ambiguous Christian name when determining gender (if that's allowed), and the Pastor, Rev. Katherine K. Cation. A developing class was offered on Tuesdays evenings at 8 p.m. and a Sunday service at 7:30 p.m.

Detroit Free Press, June 5, 1973 (enlarge 1, 2)

The church "was holding its own" by 1973, after seemingly falling off the newsworthy map, with Rev. Glenn V. Mickle at the helm. he felt that the Spiritualist message of contacting the dead had become a lukewarm concept which now had to complete with the far flashier mediums of radio and television over the preached written word.

Detroit Free Press, June 14, 1981 (enlarge)

By the 1980s it was reduced to a bit player in the punchline to a long shirking off of the subject as a marginal trifling. 

Nonetheless, The Rev. Lynn Tucker and John Wilson, presumably both of the First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor but definitely the latter, were in charge at the house of worship.

It's demise in the following decades might have been more by attrition than due to squalor than a lack of wanting for spiritual guidance.

In the 1990 book Profits of Deceit: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Fraud by Patricia Franklin it is mentioned that the area had two motorcycle gangs, the Scorpions and Forbidden Wheels, whose virile engines provided "deafening tributes to horsepower" for the parishioners of a neighborhood riddled with fire bombs, gunshots, vacant flats and crack houses.

The next mentions are between 2001 and 2005 when a combination of the Glory of God Ministry International and the Zion Tabernacle Church are seemingly interwined, with the latter's name only appearing in print in 2003, though I haven't searched the name further.

Popular Delusions Scientifically Explained!!

Detroit Free Press, April 1, 1855

POPULAR DELUSIONS 

Scientifically Explained!!

A LECTURE WILL BE DELIVERED IN THE

YOUNG MEN'S HALL,

On Monday next, April 2d,

On the phenomena of

Ghosts and Vampires,

     In which some of the causes of Modern Spiritualism will be explained, and cautions given with regard to premature interments by 

HENRY GOADBY, M. D.,

Fellow of the Linneaus Society, of London. Admittance 25 cents. Doors open at 71/2 o'clock; Lecture will commence at 8.

Leader of Cult Admits Slaying At Home 'Altar'

Detroit of the 1920s and '30s was a rollicking mishmash of industrial and culture-shock malaise. The Polish and Hungarians imported their witches and superstitions from Europe to salve over the working class struggles, the Italians brought all that plus the Black Hand and black folks had the religious fervor all subjugated groups experience when given the leading hand in their own salvation and demise. From competing Christs to voodoo hexes transported from the Southern homeland. For Robert Harris it all culminated in himself becoming the King of the Order of Islam (later Nation of Islam). Within that realm he was given the divine right of sacrifice to the Gods. 

Detroit Free Press, November 21, 1932 (enlarge)

He chose James J. Smith as the chosen lamb for slaughter. Upon the altar he brought the poor unsuspecting soul--randomly chosen from the throng of human specimens by chance when he was the first person encountered by Harris upon leaving his home at 1429 Dubois Street; though the story was later changed to accommodate the fact that Smith lived with him and supposedly agreed to be sacrificed--quieted him with a car axle and removed his soul from the living sphere with an 8-inch knife to the heart. 

The why was almost as simplistically fatalist as the how, as it was determined 1,500 years ago that in the 9th hour of the 20th day he should die and die he did. 

Harris's fingerprints were compared to those at the brutal Benny Evangelista family murder scene a few years earlier but proved neither a match or a resolution for the unsolved case.

Harris was eventually linked to leader of the sect Wallace Fard Muhammad--he was then going by the name Wallace Farad--whom eventually was recognized as the founder of the Nation of Islam. While touted as a "negro" (or at least a white-skinned Arab) by his anointed successor Elijah Muhammad and later by Malcolm X, police contend that Farad was actually Wallace Dodd, an New Zealand national born of a Polynesian mother and a British father. 

When the Nation of Islam put out a $100,000 reward to prove that Fard wasn't of African heritage, it is said that his wife came forward with documentation before the sect backed down from their previous offer. The Nation of Islam contends this supposition, claiming that the entire Dodd/Farad connection was an FBI hit piece and the evidence supporting it was bogus.

The San Francisco Examiner, July 28, 1963 (enlarge)

I've come across at least two other instances of plots being uncovered to sacrifice more victims but in those cases undercover black police informants or family members came forward to halt the cult's crazed actions. 

Included among the proposed victims was a 21-year-old welfare worker who had taken several members off the dole who had other means of income while investigating truancy among the black schoolchildren. It turned out that they were purposely being withdrawn and educated by the cult.

TO BE CONTINUED

FURTHER READING

1931

Warrant Is Asked For Mayor's 'Guest'; Detroit Free Press, November 20, 1931

1932

Voodoo Slayer Admits Plotting Death Of Judges (2); Detroit Free Press, November 22, 1932

Raided Temple Bares Grip Of Voodoo In City (2); Detroit Free Press, November 23, 1932

Negro Leaders Open Fight To Break Voodooism's Grip (2); Detroit Free Press, November 24, 1932

500 Join March To Ask Voodoo Kings' Freedom (2); Detroit Free Press, November 25, 1932

New Human Sacrifice With A Boy As Victim Is Averted By Inquiry (2); Detroit Free Press, November 26, 1932

Evangelist Case Still Is Unsolved; Detroit Free Press, November 27, 1932

Pastors Decry Growth Of Cult Practice Here (2); Detroit Free Press, November 28, 1932

Pontiac Temple Discovered; Detroit Free Press, November 29, 1932

Suburbs Also In Voodoo Net; Detroit Free Press, November 29, 1932

Voodoo Chief Held Unsound; Detroit Free Press, November 30, 1932

Voodoo's Reign Here Is Broken; Detroit Free Press, December 30, 1932

1933

Banished Leader Of Cult Arrested; Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1933

Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad founded and organized the Nation of Islam in the early 1930s in Detroit. A headquarters and school, set up Hasting Street, was raided by police and Detroit schools officials on April 16, 1934. Several members were arrested and held. They were charged with contributing to the deliquency of minors by withdrawing children from the public schools and "teaching subversive doctrines." The next day 500 Nation members marched to police headquarters to see those who were arrested. They were met by Detroit police. --Detroit News

1937

Death Rituals Revived In City By Voodoo Cult; Detroit Free Press, January 19, 1937

1959

Trouble Is Old Stuff For Secret Cult; Detroit Free Press, August 14, 1959

1963

Black Muslim Fake (2); The San Francisco Examiner, July 28, 1963

1965

Violence, Dissension Hit The Black Muslims; The San Francisco Examiner, February 28, 1965