National Independent Spiritualist Association

National Independent Spiritualist Association
Formation	February 1917
Dissolution	December 1925
Legal status	Dissolved by court order
Purpose/focus	Spiritualism
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California
Key people	James H. Longden, H. J. Stevens, George Francis, W. A. Jackson, Edward K. Earle

The National Independent Spiritualist Association, Inc. was a Los Angeles, California-based Spiritualist accreditation body, incorporated in February 1917 by former members of the California State Spiritualists Association and working mediums who were previously refused standing by the CSSA. The corporation from the start was more lenient and profuse in the issuance of Spiritualist ordination credentials, extending papers to the likes of Charles Newman, Michael Angelo Crespo, and John Bertrum Clarke, whose criminal activities would draw the attentions of city authorities in the early 1920s, and from those cases back to NISA and its president, W. A. Jackson. The corporation was ultimately dissolved by the courts in December 1925 following conspiracy convictions of Jackson and other directors in a case litigated by City Prosecutor of Los Angeles J. M. Friedlander.

Press Coverage

• "Spiritualists Up in Arms, Claim Powers are Usurped", Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, CA): 1, 8 Feb. 1917, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/616684653/ 
• "EXPOSE OF SPIRITUALISTS BECOMES NATION-WIDE - More Than Dozen Organizations Due for Survey; Wholesale Ordinations Indicated", Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA): 1, 9 Nov. 1924, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380415390, "A nation-wide investigation of the activities of more than a dozen purported Spiritualist church organizations will follow the issuance Friday night of criminal conspiracy warrants for ten officers and directors of the National Independent Spiritualist Association Inc., and the discovery among the documents seized at the headquarters of the concern ordination certificates signed in blank from church corporations in half a dozen states." 
• "Investigators Work Tirelessly on Tons of Files in Psychic Expose - STARTLING FACTS FOUND IN JACKSON'S PAPERS - Michael Crespo, Recently in Toils, Shown to Have Played Major Part in Spiritualist Body", Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA): 2, 9 Nov. 1924, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380415398/ 
• "PSYCHICS' FILES REVEAL ORDINATION WARNINGS - Spiritualists Gave Credentials to Many Despite Knowledge of Unfitness, Notes Show", Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA): 1 & 2, 10 Nov. 1924, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380418370/, "That W. A. Jackson, president of the National Independent Spiritualist Association, Inc., and other officials and directors of the organization named in warrants for criminal conspiracy and other offenses, authorized the issuance of ordination credentials as ministers of the gospel or spiritual healers even after references given by the applicants had warned them against the applicants' character and declared them incompetent, was the burden of evidence unearthed yesterday by investigators for City Prosecutor Friedlander in the ton of documents seized at the association's offices Friday night." 
• Sloan, Charles, "STRANGE PATTERNS WOVEN IN PSYCHIC FRAUD FABRIC - Dealings in Hypnosis and Dead Men's Wills Revealed in Tons of Seized Documents", Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA): 1 & 7, 7 Dec. 1924, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/381250513/, "Plans for distilleries in Mexico, deals in bat guano, real estate, copper mines, oil stocks, dead men's wills; the obtaining of wealth by exertion of suggestion or hypnotic influence upon the weaker minds of its owners; the wolf of greed in pastoral clothing; drugless healing and the practice of magic, black and white; the distortion of biblical truths into falsities of psychic commercialization; hypocrisy supreme -- these are the geneses of a most remarkable series of revelations uncovered by City Prosecutor Friedlander and his aides after a month's investigation of tones of documents seized in recent raids on pseudo-spiritual organizations and practicing soothsayers in Los Angeles." 
• "SPIRITUALISTS CONVICTED OF CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY - Judge Finds Cult Leaders Guilty in Conduct of Organization; to be Sentenced Saturday", Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA): 1 & 5, 27 Feb. 1925, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/158612516/, "William A. Jackson, Lois A. Jackson and Gertrude Hull, president, secretary, and director, respectively, of the National Independent Spiritualist Association, Inc., world headquarters for independent spiritualists, were yesterday found guilty by Police Judge Pope of criminal conspiracy, the charges growing out of an investigation of psychic activities in Los Angeles conducted by The Times last November. Sentence will be passed tomorrow noon." 
• "SPIRITUALISTS GET JAIL TERMS. Cult Leader and Wife Get Fines in Addition. Attorneys for Jackson File Notice of Appeal. Prison Sentence of His Wife is Suspended.", Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA): 4, 1 Mar. 1925, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380452729/, "William A. Jackson, president of the National Independent Spiritualist Association, Inc., was sentenced to a term of ninety days in the City Jail and the payment of $500 fine and his wife, Lois A., secretary of the organization, was sentenced to a term of thirty days and payment of a $250 fine by Police Judge Pope yesterday, following their conviction on charges of criminal conspiracy in connection with the issuance of ministerial ordination certificates by the association." 
• "COURT REVOKES CHARTER OF SPIRITUALISTS HERE. Action Instituted by 'Times' Strikes at Fake Cults, Pseudo Churches and Sets State Precedent", Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA): 17, 3 Dec. 1925, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/380710649/, "Establishing a legal precedent for the State supervision and control of so-called nonprofit organizations operating under California statutes, Judge Doran of the Superior Court yesterday revoked the charter of the National Independent Spiritualist Association, 514 Lankershim Building, Los Angeles, international headquarters of independent spiritualists."