John Worth Edmonds

Judge John Worth Edmonds (1816-1874) was a noted legal scholar and member of the New York State Supreme Court. He determined to investigate the claims of the Fox sisters to be in communication with the "spirit world." When he concluded that they were, spiritualists everywhere cited his work as proof that a disinterested observer would accept the evidence of the reality of communication with the dead. Judge Edmonds resigned his position on the bench but continued to compile an annual compendium of New York statutes. He also became an apologist for Spiritualism and, later, when she sought a divorce, a defender of Cora Hatch.

His first guide is his late wife, then Lord Bacon, the English philosopher and essayist. Bacon, along with Emmanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic, whose writings inspired most spiritualists, had been one of his spirit guides in life.