An Artist Among the Spirits: The Celebrated Life of Reverend Adele Clemens

I’ve been very excited to read An Artist Among the Spirits: The Celebrated Life of Reverend Adele Clemens by Jon Saint Germain since I heard about its announced publication. I’m happy to say that I’m beyond pleased with this work.This little book is not only a wonderfully researched biography about a remarkable woman, but is really an amazing snapshot into the American spiritual landscape ranging from roughly the early 1900s to the 1970s. In addition to Rev. Adele, the work covers other remarkable figures and spiritual movements such as Father Divine, Spiritualist Churches, the Black Spiritual Church Movement, Theosophy, New Thought, etc.Rev. Adele is most well known for assisting Mikhail Strabo in writing two pamphlets: How to Conduct a Candle Service and The Guiding Light to Power and Success. These are two of the most popular books on the spirituality of burning candles, and essentially codified the practice as used in Spiritualist and Spiritual Churches.I’m thoroughly impressed at the amount of information that the author managed to fit into 96 pages. Each section could probably be turned into a book on its own, but the author and editors did a wonderful job of condensing information in a presentable and accessible manner.I was particularly pleased at the author’s explanation of how Spiritualism and New Thought teachings were (and still are) often blended together by spiritual teachers, such as Rev. Adele, resulting in unique new perspectives of timeless truths.