Australia

(geography) An island continent of 2,941,526 square miles (7,618,517 square kilometers), with low elevation and moderate relief, situated in the southern Pacific.

The world's smallest continent, southeast of Asia between the Pacific and Indian oceans.

An island continent in the Southern Hemisphere with a total area of 2,941,526 mi² (7,618,552 km²). It is bounded on the west by the Indian Ocean and on the east by the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea. Numerous small and several large islands lie off the coast, including Tasmania and New Zealand. Australia is generally of remarkably low elevation and moderate relief. Three-fourths of the land mass lies between 600 and 1500 ft (180 and 450 m) in the form of a huge plateau. A cross section from east to west shows first a narrow belt of coastal plain, then the steep escarpments of the eastern face of the Great Dividing Range, stretching 1200 mi (1900 km) from the north of Queensland to the south of Victoria. The descent on the western slope of the Dividing Range is gradual until often elevation in the inland basins is below sea level, rising gradually again across the great plateau until the low ranges of western Australia fringing the plateau are reached, and beyond these lies another coastal plain. With the exception of the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York peninsula in the north and the Great Australian Bight in the south, there are few striking features in the configuration of the coast. Australia may conveniently be divided into three great structural and landform regions.

The region called East Australian Highlands consists of a narrow plain extending north and south along the eastern coast. Flanking the plain are the series of ranges and tablelands making up the Great Dividing Range. The East Australian Highlands is the best-watered region in Australia, and some of the river systems are of considerable size. On the flanks of the East Australian Highlands are Australia's principal coal deposits—in the vicinity of Sydney and Newcastle and in the Bowen and Ipswich fields in Queensland. Petroliferous basins at Surat (Roma), flanking the divide in Queensland and off the coast of Victoria in Bass Strait, are Australia's most promising deposits of petroleum and natural gas.

The region known as the Interior Lowland Basins comprises a region of sedimentary rocks that occupy one-third of the continent between the western slope of the eastern highlands and the inner eastern margin of the ancient shield which forms the Western Plateau. Little land is over 500 ft (150 m), and some is below sea level. The rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, draining the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range, have a marked seasonal variation in flow but never dry up in the lower reaches. South Australia's shallow lakes are more often dry expanses of encrusted white salt than bodies of water—the result of low rainfall and high evaporation. In most parts of the region water from deep artesian wells is available.

The region known as the Western Plateau is the largest area, occupying almost three-fifths of the continent, and is a great shield of ancient rocks standing 750–1500 ft (225–450 m) high. Much of it is buried in desert sand, and only a few ridges of ancient mountains (such as the Macdonnel and Musgrave ranges) break the monotony of the plateau surface. Only in the southwestern corner of the continent and along the northwestern coast is rainfall sufficient to support a sclerophyll forest of eucalypts and a monsoon woodland, respectively. In the north, coastal rivers are of considerable size but change from flooded torrents after rains to a succession of water holes in dry seasons.

Tasmania is a small mountainous island lying 150 mi (240 km) southeast of Australia across Bass Strait, with a total area of 26,383 mi² (68,332 km²). The island is structurally similar to the East Australian Highlands. The dominant feature is the central plateau, falling from a general level of 3500 ft (1070 m) in the northwest toward the southeast. A dense eucalyptus forest covers most of the island except along the wetter west coast, where beech forest predominates. The rivers have short, rapid courses with little seasonal variation in flow. See also New Zealand.

Smallest continent and sixth largest country (in area) on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans. Area: 2,969,978 sq mi (7,692,208 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 20,345,000. Capital: Canberra. Most Australians are descendants of Europeans. The largest nonwhite minority is the Australian Aborigine population. The Asian portion of the population has grown as a result of relaxed immigration policy. Language: English (official). Religions: Christianity (mostly Protestant; also Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, other Christians), Buddhism, Islam. Currency: Australian dollar. Australia has three major physiographic regions. More than half of its land area is on the Western Australian plateau, which includes the outcrops of Arnhem Land and the Kimberleys in the northwest and the Macdonnell Ranges in the east. A second region, the Interior Lowlands, lies east of the plateau. The Eastern Uplands, which include the Great Dividing Range, are a series of high ridges, plateaus, and basins. The country's highest point is Mount Kosciusko in the Australian Alps, and the lowest is Lake Eyre. Major rivers include the Murray-Darling system, the Flinders and Swan rivers, and Cooper Creek. There are many islands and reefs along the coast, including the Great Barrier Reef, Melville Island, Kangaroo Island, and Tasmania. Australia is rich in mineral resources, including coal, petroleum, and uranium. A vast diamond deposit was found in Western Australia in 1979. The country's economy is basically free enterprise; its largest components include finance, manufacturing, and trade. Formally a constitutional monarchy, its chief of state is the British monarch, represented by the governor-general. In reality it is a parliamentary state with two legislative houses; its head of government is the prime minister. Australia has long been inhabited by Aborigines, who began arriving at least 50,000 years ago. Estimates of the population at the time of European settlement in 1788 range from 300,000 to 1,000,000. Widespread European knowledge of Australia began with 17th-century explorations. The Dutch landed in 1616 and the British in 1688, but the first large-scale expedition was that of James Cook in 1770, which established Britain's claim to Australia. The first British settlement, at Port Jackson (1788), consisted mainly of convicts and seamen; convicts were to make up a large proportion of the incoming settlers. By 1859 the colonial nuclei of all Australia's states had been formed, but with devastating effects on the indigenous peoples, whose populations declined sharply with the introduction of European diseases. Britain granted its colonies limited self-government in the mid-19th century, and an act federating the colonies into a commonwealth went into effect in 1901. Australia fought alongside the British in World War I, notably at Gallipoli, and again in World War II, preventing Australia's occupation by the Japanese. It joined the U.S. in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Since the 1960s the government has sought to deal more fairly with the Aborigines, and a loosening of immigration restrictions has led to a more heterogeneous population. Constitutional links allowing British interference in government were formally abolished in 1968, and Australia has assumed a major role in Asian and Pacific affairs. During the 1990s there were several debates about giving up its British ties and becoming a republic.

For more information on Australia, visit Britannica.com.

That Australia is the world's driest continent has influenced the nature of its earliest photography. Its first recorded photograph was a daguerreotype of Sydney taken in 1841 by a certain Captain Lucas. The earliest surviving is a portrait taken in 1845. Until the advent of dry-plate technology, photography was confined to sites with available water. Thus large collections of wet-plate photographs of inland places, such as those preserved at the Benedictine Community of New Norcia in Western Australia, and of the Hill End goldfields in Victoria, are rare. Ironically, however, the world's largest surviving wet-plate negative, measuring 160 × 91.4 cm (63 × 36 in) and taken by Charles Bayliss (1850-97) in 1875, shows Sydney.

From its earliest appearance, Australian photography revealed the development of the colonies and both reflected and helped to shape ideas related to nation building. To Australian viewers, early colonial photography between the 1850s and the 1870s (A. H. Stone (1801-73), Captain Sweet (1825-86), H. B. Merlin (1830-73)) documented civic development as a sign of progress towards a European-style civilization, with the concomitant displacement of Indigenous peoples; but also betrayed a sense of alienation from Europe. Europeans probably perceived the images as primitive and unfamiliar. But as modernization advanced and Australians used the medium with increasing confidence, the unfamiliar was represented by means of more familiar artistic codes.

Photographs of Indigenous peoples are an integral part of the image of a modernizing Australia. They were taken by travelling photographers (Charles Walter (d. 1907), Charles Kerry (1858-1928), J. W. Lindt, and Ryko), anthropologists (Baldwin Spencer (1860-1929) and A. C. Haddon (1855-1940)), churchmen (Francis Russell Nixon, bishop of Tasmania (1803-79)), policemen (Paul Foelsche (1831-1914)), and many unidentified photographers. Photographers shifted from documenting the perceived ‘primitive’ state of Aboriginal people (Thomas Dick (d. 1927)), or their life at early mission stations such as Coranderrk, to omitting them altogether, as in much official photography from the early 20th century onwards. The reappearance of photographs of Aboriginal people on missions reflected official removal and assimilation policies. Aboriginal people also commissioned professional portraits, which were probably used to demonstrate their ability to assimilate into the broader community, and assembled collections of photographs to preserve their own memories. Recent work by Indigenous photographers (see native peoples, photography and) provides a range of responses to these historical iconographic traditions. Certain individual images, such as the historic land-rights photograph Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Pours Soil into the Hand of Traditional Gurindji Landowner Vincent Lingiarni, Northern Territory (1975) by the Indigenous photojournalist Mervyn Bishop (b. 1945), have achieved iconic status.

Land is an important theme in Australian photography and reveals relationships between ‘the bush’, rural and urban development, and nation building. Geological surveys documented physical features of landscape from a scientific perspective. Many of the photographers are anonymous, though the Victoria and Queensland government geologist Richard Daintree (1832-78) was unusual in documenting human experience together with the physical landscape in north Queensland. Surveys revealing rural land-use patterns, once used to advertise the economic potential of the land, are now used as markers for documenting land degradation.

In 1903-4 panoramic landscapes from a balloon were taken by the American adventurer Melvyn Vaniman. Extensive scaled aerial photography was used for mineral exploration; an important series was the 1934 Western Mining Survey that included work by Axel Poignant and Stuart Gore (1905-84). Later aerial work was done by the Dutch immigrant photographer Richard Woldendorp (b. 1927).

The sale of items showing picturesque landscapes prefaced, inspired, and documented the rise of national parks, and stimulated tourism. Photographs by J. W. Beattie (1859-1930) appeared on an 1899 Tasmanian postage-stamp series, one of the world's first pictorial issues. The use of photographs in the journal Walkabout played a significant role in building a romantic image of the ‘outback’ for the Australian National Travel Association from 1934. In the 1970s, immigrant photographers Olegas Truchanas (1923-72) and Peter Dombrovskis (1945-96) represented the idea of pristine wilderness, and their photographs have been heavily used by the Tasmanian Wilderness Society. While Truchanas's photograph of Lake Pedder failed to save it from being dammed in 1972, Dombrovskis's photograph of Island Bend on the Franklin River influenced the course of the 1983 federal election.

Australia has been a visual nation, creating images of itself to promote immigration, investment, and tourism. Australian official photography can be understood in the context of British imperial relationships, and the confluence of photography with the half-tone process. Federal collections of official photographs were purchased from each state, and commissioned from commercial photographers. Successful photographs reproduced well and were used repeatedly to depict the unfamiliar Australian landscape within an English aesthetic. Strategies used to shape ideas about Australia included international exhibitions and fairs, lantern-slide shows, and distribution of photographic prints and postcards. While some collections, such as that of Australia House, London, no longer survive, others, for example that of the Australian Overseas Information Bureau, are preserved in the National Archives of Australia.

Commercial photography rarely presents a critical image of relationships on cultural or industrial frontiers. Commercial photographs of developing industries, including gold mining (Antoine Fauchery (d. c. 1870) and J. J. Dwyer (1869-1928)), pearling (E. L. Mitchell (1876-1959)), timber and agriculture (Nicholas Caire (1837-1918)), depict a rural idyll, rather than danger, death, or evidence of interracial tensions and violence. Masculine heroism, combined with an industrial aesthetic, is exemplified by the photography of Wolfgang Sievers (b. 1913). The rise of modernist architecture was documented by Sievers, Mark Strizic (b. 1928), and Max Dupain (1911-92). Newspapers employed photographers including Fred Flood (1881-1965) and Sam Hood (1872-1953), and they now influence how Australia has been seen historically. Commercial, fashion, and portrait photographers included Athol Shmith (1914-90); and Susan Watkins (b. 1912), whose work reveals modernist influences derived from her time in Dorothy Wilding's London studio.

Parallel with photography's commercial and propaganda functions, stylistic traditions of pictorialism developed. Iconic photographs from this genre include Bridge Pattern (c. 1934) by Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953), Tea Cup Ballet (c. 1935) by Olive Cotton (1911-2003), Sunbaker (1937) by Max Dupain, and European Migrants Arriving in Sydney (1966) by David Moore (1927-2003). There has been a tradition of photographic societies in Australia, including the Sydney Camera Circle, Adelaide Camera Club, and the Western Australian Van Raalte Club. Early photographic journals included Australasian Photo-Review and Harringtons. A more formal structure for photography was created in 1973 with the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, co-founded by David Moore, which provided space for the study and exhibition of photographs.

Australian photographers have made their mark internationally on expeditions, voyages, and in wartime. Frank Hurley accompanied several Antarctic expeditions and created his iconic image of the ice-bound Endurance in 1915. J. W. Lindt accompanied the 1883 Australian expedition to annex south-eastern New Guinea. The writer and marine photographer Alan Villiers (1903-82) recorded the last days of sail. Hurley used composite photographs to represent the First World War (Morning after the first Battle of Passchendaele, 12.10.1917) and was also an official photographer in the Second World War with Damien Parer (1912-44). Neil Davis (d. 1985) was the best-known official Australian photographer in Vietnam, and David Dare Parker (b. 1958) was Australia's official war photographer in 2003 in Iraq.

— Joanna Sassoon

Bibliography

• Cato, J., The Story of the Camera in Australia (1977).
• Newton, G., Silver and Grey: Fifty Years of Australian Photography 1900-1950 (1980).
• Davies, A., and Stanbury, P., The Mechanical Eye in Australia: Photography 1841-1900 (1985).
• Galimany, D. (ed.), ‘Australian Photography’, History of Photography, 23 (1999)

Drama was much more popular than dance during the first half of the 19th century, though some incidental stage choreography is recorded from 1833 onwards and in 1840 Mme Velbein was appointed to oversee dance at Sydney's Royal Victoria Theatre, with Mme Rosine becoming ballet mistress at Melbourne's Royal Theatre in the same year. Dance performances became voguish around this time and the first European ballet companies began to visit. La Sylphide was danced in Melbourne during the 1840s and La Fille mal gardée in Sydney and Melbourne in 1855. In the same year, the visiting Lola Montez caused a sensation. In 1889 a corps de ballet appeared in a Melbourne production of Sinbad the Sailor and was retained as the corps of the Royal Comic Opera Company with ballerina Mary Weir. New ballets arranged for the Royal Comic Opera and the Melba Opera Company at the beginning of the century were critically well received, but ballet still remained a minority enthusiasm. In 1913, however, A. Genée danced in Melbourne with the Imperial Russian Ballet in performances of Coppélia and Les Sylphides and sparked widespread public interest in the art. This was rekindled in 1926 and 1927 when Pavlova toured the country. During the 1920s some distinguished dancers and teachers also settled in Australia including Mischa Burlakov, who with Louise Lightfoot founded the First Australian Ballet, which staged several Fokine ballets. In 1934 Victor Dandré presented the Levitoff Russian Ballet with Spessivtseva and Vilzak and in the same year Molly Lake established an Australian branch of the Cecchetti Society. In 1938 the first Royal Academy of Dancing examiner was appointed and de Basil's Ballets Russes had a highly successful tour which they repeated in 1938 (under the name Covent Garden Russian Ballet) and in 1940 (as the Original Ballet Russe). It was on this tour that Lichine premiered his Graduation Ball in Sydney. Two important members of this company stayed on in Australia-Helene Kirsova, who opened a studio in Sydney, followed by her own company, the Kirsova Ballet (1941-6), and Borovansky, who opened a school in Melbourne in 1939. A company emerged from the school in 1940, becoming fully professional in 1944. Its repertoire was predominantly Russian but it also featured work by Australian choreographers Laurel Martyn and Dorothy Stevenson whose Sea Legend was the first all-Australian ballet. Premiered in 1943 in Melbourne it had music by Esther Rofe, and designs by Alan McCulloch and Jean Oberhansli. Though struggling with constant financial difficulties (it had to disband after every season) the company produced several fine dancers including Kathleen Gorham and Garth Welch, and built up a solid audience for dance. Following Borovansky's death in 1959 the company's final season was directed by van Praagh. It was then absorbed into Australian Ballet which she founded in 1962 with Government subsidy.

After the 1940s interest in ballet gathered momentum with the founding of many clubs, guilds, and new companies. West Australian Ballet, for example, was established in 1953/4 and Queensland Ballet (orig. Lisner Ballet) in 1960. Australia also became firmly established on the international touring circuit.

Modern dance activity dates back to 1938 with the opening of the Bodenwieser Studio in Sydney and the subsequent founding of the Bodenwieser Ballet, but it did not become prominent until the 1960s. In 1965 the educational modern dance group Ballet in a Nutshell was founded, becoming in 1971 the professionally run Dance Company (NSW). This was renamed the Sydney Dance Company and its distinctive identity formed by choreographer-director Graeme Murphy. The Australian Dance Theatre was also founded in 1965 by Elizabeth Dalman (with subsequent directors including Meryl Tankard). Many other smaller companies have since emerged including Dance North based in Townsville since 1973, Dance Exchange founded by Russell Dumas and Nanette Hassall in 1976, the Australian Choreographic Ensemble founded by Paul Mercurio in 1992 in Sydney to showcase a range of new choreography, the Chrissie Parrott Dance Collective based in Perth, and a physical theatre group called Desoxy Theatre, founded by Teresa Blake and Daniel Witton in Melbourne in 1990. In recent years there has been a growing interest in aboriginal dance with the formation of Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre, while Asian influences are increasingly evident in the popularity of bharata natyam and butoh dance. In 1993 the first Green Mills Dance Project was held in Melbourne, a mixed festival of dance performances and classes that is fast gaining in international status. The country's main schools include the Australian Ballet School (Melbourne), the Scully Borovansky School (Sydney), and the Bodenwieser Dance Centre (Sydney).

Sigmund Freud wrote his short paper "On Psychoanalysis" in response to an invitation from Andrew Davidson, the Secretary of the Section of Psychological Medicine and Neurology for the Australasian Medical Congress in Sydney in September 1911. Papers by Carl Jung and Havelock Ellis were also presented. Ernest Jones was another distinguished early contributor, for he personally read a paper at the Australasian Medical Congress in 1914 entitled "Some Practical Aspects of Psychoanalytic Treatment."

Two notable Australian figures who accepted Freud's challenge to develop the study of psychoanalysis were Paul Greig Dane and Roy Coupland Winn, who practiced between the two world wars. Before the World War I (1914-1918) a Presbyterian clergyman, Donald Fraser, had lectured on psychoanalysis in Sydney, but Dane appears to have been the first physician to become a wholehearted and consistent exponent of Freud's early theories in the careful use of catharsis and abreaction after the war. Paul Dane's interest in psychological methods of treatment was stimulated by the work of earlier pioneers such as John William Spring-thorpe and Clarence Godfrey. Dane was one of the first in Australia to use hypnosis and abreactive techniques. He also introduced group therapy for returned soldiers His interest stemmed from contact with Joan Riviere in England. Dane, although not an analyst himself, was the first chairman of the Melbourne Institute for Psycho-Analysis and was intimately associated with its foundation and early history. Dane died in 1950.

Siegfried Fink, an associate member of both the Swiss and the British Psycho-Analytical Societies, worked in Sydney until his death in the 1960s. Fink was thus a contemporary of both Dane and Winn. He was one of the founding councilors of the Sydney Institute for Psychoanalysis.

Roy Coupland Winn, after serving with great distinction in World War I, returned to the medical staff of Sydney Hospital and after several years went to London to continue medical and psychiatric training, becoming an associate member of the British PsychoAnalytical Society and later a full member. Back in Sydney, for several years he was Honorary Physician at Sydney Hospital but in 1931 he resigned and went into full-time psychoanalytic practice.

Winn was thus the first full-time analyst in Australia. Later, when Clara Lazar-Geroe came to Australia from Hungary and began to train analysts at the Melbourne Institute, Winn was very supportive. He joined the Board of Directors of the institute, a position that he held until his death in 1961. In 1951 he had made a generous endowment in founding the second training institute in this country, the Sydney Institute of Psychoanalysis, with Andrew Peto, also from Hungary, as training analyst (Graham, 1965).

Clara Lazar Geroe, the first Australian training analyst, arrived in Melbourne on March 14, 1940. She received her training in medicine in Prague. Her psychoanalytic training in Budapest naturally was in the school of Sandor Ferenczi, her training analyst being Michael Balint.

At the International Psychoanalytical Congress in Paris in 1938, Ernest Jones suggested that Hungarian analysts seeking emigration might consider New Zealand and Australia. Negotiations regarding New Zealand failed. "However, in Melbourne and Sydney some influential people, among them Bishop Burgman, Paul Dane, M. D. Silberberg, Reginald S. Ellery, and Roy Coupland Winn, reacted positively to the idea of an analyst coming to Australia. Their enthusiasm, and the enterprise of Paul Dane particularly, carried the day. After much negotiation, Geroe, with her family, settled in Melbourne to become Australia's first training analyst working at the newly formed Melbourne Institute for Psychoanalysis. She had been appointed as a training analyst by the British Psycho-Analytical Society of which she was a member" (Graham, 1980).

The founding of the first institute was made possible by a generous gift from Lorna Traill. The first meeting was held in the home of Hal Maudsley, a central figure in the history of psychiatry in Australia. The institute was opened at 111 Collins Street, Melbourne, by Judge Foster on the birthday of its benefactor, Lorna Traill, on October 10, 1940. The first Board of Directors included Paul Dane, Norman Albiston, Reginald S. Ellery, P.Guy Reynolds, and A.R. Phillips. There were two psychoanalysts on the Board, Ernest Jones of London and Roy Coupland Winn from Sydney. Geroe started her work with the institute and in private practice early in 1941. She conducted a large seminar for twenty to twenty-five doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, educationists, probation officers, and others.

The traditional small seminar method was followed for candidates in training, both medical and non-medical. Geroe also organized many other seminars for groups of teachers, kindergartens, and parents for discussion of their special problems with infants and children. The Institute Clinic catered to patients who could not afford private analytical fees; Geroe's Child Guidance Clinic developed a close liaison with the Children's Court clinic. Geroe lectured for many years in the Psychology Department of the University of Melbourne and to students taking the Diploma of Psychological Medicine. She was appointed Honorary Psychoanalyst at Royal Melbourne Hospital—certainly the first appointment of this type in Australia.

The first medical student to go into training in Australia was Frank Graham, who started with Winn in 1939, then began training with Geroe in 1941. The first psychiatrist or medico to train was A.R. Phillips and the first lay analyst Janet Nield.

Early on, psychoanalysts qualified or in practice in Australia were all members or associate members of the British Psychoanalytical Society. They formed "The Australian Society of Psychoanalysts," a sort of unofficial branch of the British Society but having no independent status. Harry Southwood and Frank Graham were the first to graduate in Australia in this way as associate members of the British Psycho-Analytical Society.

In 1966 the British Society suggested that this interim arrangement should be formalized by an Australian application to the International Psychoanalytical Association for Study Group status. At the IPA Congress at Copenhagen in 1967, with the support of the British Society, the Australian Study Group was established under the direction of an international Sponsoring Committee. At this stage, there were twelve Australian psychoanalysts, members of the Study Group, who were appointed direct members of the IPA. They were: O.H.D. Blomfield, R.A. Brookes, Clara Lazar Geroe, Frank W. Graham, I.H. Martin, R. Martin, J. Nield, D. O'Brien, V. Roboz, Rose Rothfield, H.M. Southwood, and I. Waterhouse.

Of the seven members of the IPA Sponsoring Committee, Fanny Wride (chair), Adam Limentani, Ilse Hellman, Lois Munro, and Leo Rangell all visited Australia at various times and helped with clinical and structural development. The other members of the Sponsoring Committee were Maria Montessori and M. Mitscherlich-Nielson.

In Vienna, in July 1971, the IPA at its business meeting accepted the recommendation of the Sponsoring Committee and raised the status of the Study Group to that of Provisional Society. After the requisite two years as a Provisional Society, the Australian Psycho-analytical Society was admitted as a Component Society of the International Psychoanalytical Association at the IPA Congress in Paris in 1973. The constitution of the third Institute in Adelaide in 1979 represented the fruition of many years of dedicated and determined work by Harry Southwood. Assistance by the IPA was required in relation to the coordination of training in the three centers. The IPA appointed two Site Visiting Committees. The first in 1980 (Drs. Joseph, McLaughlin, Moses) and the second in 1987 (Dr. Cooper, Prof. Sandler.)

Over the years, Australian analysts have been encouraged and stimulated by working visits by distinguished colleagues—the outstanding ones in the sixties being Michael Balint and Enid Balint. Other influential invited visitors included Betty Joseph, Edna O'Shaughnessy, Sydney Klein, and Anne-Marie Sandler.

Apart from these visits, the isolation of the Australian Society has been mitigated by the fact that many members completed their initial training with the British Society or have spent long periods in London for further analysis, supervision, or seminar work. Non-medical analysts have played an important part in the growth and development of psychoanalysis. From the beginning psychoanalysis has been viewed as a separate discipline in its own right.

Psychoanalysis has had a marked influence in many areas, most particularly in child psychiatry and social work. Following the lead of Paul Dane in the treatment of ex-servicemen in the Commonwealth Repatriation Department, Frank Graham introduced psychoanalytically oriented group therapy at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1950 and later inspired the formation of the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists.

In the academic world, some departments of psychology have psychoanalysts on the staff or maintain a working contact with psychoanalysts, as do several departments of philosophy, sociology, and politics; the law has been less influenced. The first publicly advertised senior position on the medical staff of a major teaching hospital for a psychoanalyst was established largely through the efforts of William Orchard at Prince Henry's Hospital Melbourne, in about 1970. Frank Graham was the first appointee. Another appointment of this kind was Janet Nield as Honorary Psychotherapist (1953-71) at The Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney.

In the 1990s, a widening of the field of activity of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society has involved contributions by the society or its members to university teaching (at MA and PhD levels) and open seminars. There is a growing list of publications and public lectures by members. The Freudian School of Melbourne and The Australian Centre for Psychoanalysis in the Freudian Field are devoted to the Lacanian approach in Melbourne. There is an active school of Self-Psychology (Heinz Kohut) based in Sydney. Graduates of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis (Karen Horney) have played an active role in developing psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the Psychotherapy Association of Australia.

Bibliography

Blomfield, O.H.D. (1986). Psychoanalysis in Australia. Journal of the International Association for the History of Psychoanalysis., 2, 9-11.

Brett, Judith. (1998). Clara Lazar Geroe. In Australian dictionary of biography. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Brett, Judith, Gold, Stanley, and Geroe Clara. (1982, September). Psychoanalysis in Australia. MEANJIN, 41 (3), 339-357.

Graham, Frank W. (1965). Obituary: Dr. Roy Coupland Winn. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, p. 616.

——. (1980). Clara Lazar-Geroe. An Obituary. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, p. 603.

—O. H. D. BLOMFELD

Aboriginal Magic

From birth to death, the Australian aborigine, like most members of tribal societies, was surrounded by magical influences. The origins of all life were considered to emerge from the Dream Time, or the sacred time. This time could be reached while in the altered state of dreaming, and native rituals brought together the normal world with the "Dreaming." Death was believed to be a return to this sacred time.

In many tribes the power to perform magic, sympathetic or otherwise, was possessed by only a few people Among the central tribes it was practiced by both men and women—more often, by the former, who conserved the knowledge of certain forms of their own. There was also among them a distinct class of medicine men, whose duty it was to discover whose magic had caused the death of anyone. Among the central tribes, un-like many others, magic was not made a means of profit or emolument. Women were often sternly forbidden to go near the places where the men performed their magical ceremonies. To frighten them away from such spots, the men invented an instrument called a "bull-roarer"—a thin slip of wood swung at the end of a string that makes a screaming, whistling noise, which was believed to be the voice of the Great Spirit. Aborigines also preserved long oval pieces of wood, which they call churingas. Since the spirits of their ancestors were thought to reside within, these were kept concealed in the most secret manner.

Sympathetic magic is integral to aboriginal practice. Certain ceremonies are employed to control nature to ensure a plentiful supply of food and water, or to injure an enemy. One of the commonest forms is the use of the pointed stick or bone, which is used in one form or another by all Australian tribes. The former is a small piece of wood, varying in length from three to eighteen inches, resembling a skewer, and tapering to a point. At the handle end it is topped with a knob of resin, to which is attached a strand of human hair. Magical songs are sung over it, to endow it with occult potency. The man who wishes to use it goes into the bush alone, or with a friend, where he will be free from observation, and planting the stick in the ground, mutters over it what he desires to happen to his enemy. It is then left in the ground for a few days. The evil magic is supposed to proceed from the stick to the man, who often succumbs, unless a medicine man chances to discover the implement.

The Australian aborigine has a special dread of magic connected with places at a distance, and any magical apparatus purchased or obtained from faraway tribes is supposed to possess potency of a much greater kind than if it had been made among themselves. Thus certain little stones traded by Northern tribes are supposed to contain a very powerful form of evil magic called mauia. These are wrapped up in many folds of bark and string. According to their traditions this type of magic was first introduced by a "batman," who dropped it to Earth, where it made a great explosion at a certain spot where it can still be procured. Sticks procured from a distance, with which the natives chastise their wives, are sufficient by their very sight to make the women obey their husbands.

Much mystery surrounds what are known as "debil-debil" shoes, which consist of a pad of emu feathers, rounded at both ends, in order that no one should be able to trace in which direction the wearer is journeying. These are supposed to be worn by a being called kurdaitcha, to whom deaths are attributed. The Australian aborigine believes that death is due to evil magic. A man may become a kurdaitcha by submitting to a certain ceremony, in which the little toe of his foot is dislocated. Dressed up and painted grotesquely, he sets out accompanied by a medicine man and wearing the kurdaitcha shoes when he desires to slay an enemy. When he spears him, the medicine man closes up the wound, and the victim returns to consciousness oblivious to the fact that he is full of evil magic. When he later sickens and dies, it is known that he has been attacked by a kurdaitcha. Many long and elaborate ceremonies are connected with the churinga.

In 1988 the bicentenary celebrations in Australia placed primary emphasis on the achievements of the colonists, against a background of protest from displaced aborigines. Traditional aborigine beliefs and life-styles have suffered severe disruption. Displaced from their own lands, their world of supernatural beliefs shattered by the materialism of white society, many aborigines have succumbed to the alcohol introduced by the settlers, or to suicide. Others endure a miserable poverty-stricken existence, stranded between two contradictory cultures. A few successfully adapted aborigine artists have been acclaimed for their expressive and visionary paintings and poetry.

Spiritualism in Australia

Spiritualism became a public issue in Victoria, Australia in the 1860s when a gentleman, writing under the pen name of "Schamlyn," entered into a heated controversy with the editor of the Collingwood Advertiser in defense of Spiritualism. Another influential supporter of the spiritual cause was a gentleman connected with the editorial department of the Melbourne Argus, one of the leading journals of Victoria. This was an organ well calculated to exert a powerful sway over the minds of its readers.

As the tides of public opinion moved on, doctors, lawyers, merchants, and men of eminence joined the ranks. Tidings of phenomena of the most astounding character poured in from distant towns and districts. Members of the press shared the general enthusiasm. Some would not, and others could not, avow their convictions. Yet their private prepossessions induced them to open their columns for debate and correspondence on the subject.

Adding to the stimulus imparted, many of the leading colonial journals indulged in tirades of abuse and misrepresentation, only serving to increase the influence, and not diminishing its force. At length the clergy manifested their interest by furious abuse. Denunciation provoked retort; discussion compelled investigation. In Sydney, many converts of rank and influence suddenly appeared. The Hon. John Bowie Wilson, land minister and a champion of temperance, converted to Spiritualism, and his public defense of the cause led many to begin their own investigation. Among many who affiliated with the cause in Sydney were several members of the New South Wales Parliament and Cabinet, the attorney general, and several judges. Possibly most influential of all was William Terry, the editor of the Melbourne Harbinger of Light. As American Spiritualist writer Hudson Tuttle notes: "About 1869 the necessity for a Spiritualistic journal was impressed deeply on the mind of Mr. Terry. He could not cast it off, but pondered over the enterprise. At this time, an exceedingly sensitive patient described a spirit holding a scroll on which was written 'Harbinger of Light' and the motto, 'Dawn approaches, error is passing away; men arising shall hail the day.' This influenced him, and in August 1870, he set to work to prepare the first number, which appeared on the 1st of September of that year.

"There was no organization in Australian Spiritualism, and Mr. Terry saw the advantage and necessity of associative movement. He consulted a few friends, and in November 1870, he organized the first Victorian Association of Spiritualists. A hall was rented, and Sunday services, consisting of essays and reading by members, enlivened by appropriate hymns, were held. In October 1872, impressed with the desirability of forming a Lyceum, he called together a few willing workers, and held the first session on October 20th, 1872. It is, and has been from the first in a flourishing condition, numbering 150 members, with a very handsome and complete outfit, and excellent library. He has remained an officer ever since, and conducted four sessions. He assisted in the establishment of the Spiritualist and Free-thought Association, which succeeded the original one, and was its first president. He has lectured occasionally to appreciative audiences, and his lectures have been widely circulated. His mediumship, which gave such fair promise, both in regard to writing and speaking, became controlled, especially for the relief of the sick. Without the assistance of advertising he had acquired a fine practice. With this he combines a trade in Reform and Spiritualistic publications, as extensive as the colony, and the publication of the Harbinger of Light, a Spiritual journal that is an honor to the cause, and well sustains the grand philosophy of immortality. No man is doing more for the cause, or has done more efficient work."

A short but interesting summary of the rise and progress of Spiritualism in Australia is given in the American Banner of Light in 1880, in which Terry's pioneering efforts were lauded.

" The Harbinger of Light, published at Melbourne, Australia, furnishes a review of the origin of its publication and the work it has accomplished during the ten years just closed. At its advent in 1870, considerable interest had been awakened in the subject of Spiritualism, by the lectures of Mr. Nayler, in Melbourne, and Mr. Leech, at Castlemaine. The leaders of the church became disturbed, and seeing their gods in danger, sought to stay the progress of what would eventually lessen their influence and possibly their income. But Mr. Nayler spoke and wrote with more vigor; the addresses of Mr. Leech were published from week to week in pamphlet form, and widely distributed. At the same time, Mr. Charles Bright, who had published letters on Spiritualism in the Argus, over an assumed name, openly identified himself with the movement, and spoke publicly on the subject. Shortly after, 11 persons met and formed an association, which soon increased to 80 members. A hymn book was compiled, and Sunday services began. As elsewhere, the press ridiculed and the pulpit denounced Spiritualism as a delusion. A number of articles in the Argus brought some of the facts prominently before the public, and the growing interest was advanced by a public discussion between Messrs. Tyerman and Blair. In 1872, a Sunday school, on harmonial principles, was established, Mr. W. H. Terry, the proprietor of the Harbinger, being its first conductor. Almost simultaneously with this was the visit of Dr. J. M. Peebles, whose public lectures and work in the Lyceum served to consolidate the movement. A controversy in the Age, between Rev. Mr. Potter, Mr. Tyerman and Mr. Terry, brought the facts and teachings of Spiritualism into further notice.

"Soon came Dr. Peebles, Thomas Walker, Mrs. Britten and others, who widened the influence of the spiritualistic philosophy, and aided the Harbinger in its efforts to establish Spiritualism on a broad rational basis. Mr. W. H. Terry is deserving of all praise for his unselfish and faithful exertions in carrying the Harbinger through the years of as hard labor as ever befell any similar enterprise, and we bespeak for him, in his continued efforts to make known the evidences of a future existence, and the illuminating truths of Spiritualism, the hearty co-operation and sympathy of all friends of the cause."

Writing to the Banner of Light on the subject of Anglican clergyman J. Tyerman's accession to the Spiritualist ranks, an American correspondent stated, "The Rev. J. Tyerman, of the Church of England, resident in one of the country districts, boldly declared his full reception of Spiritualism as a great fact, and his change of religious faith consequent upon the teachings of spirits. Of course, he was welcomed with open arms by the whole body of Spiritualists in Melbourne, the only city where there was any considerable number enrolled in one association. He soon became the principal lecturer, though not the only one employed by the association, and well has he wielded the sword of the new faith. He is decidedly of the pioneer stamp, a skillful debater, a fluent speaker, ready at any moment to engage with any one, either by word of mouth or as a writer. So widely, indeed, did he make his influence felt, and so individual was it, that a new society grew up around him, called the Free-Thought and Spiritualist Propaganda Society, which remained in existence till Mr. Tyerman removed to Sydney, when it coalesced with the older association, under the combined name of Melbourne Spiritualist and Free-Thought Association."

Another valuable convert to the cause of Spiritualism, at a time when it most needed good service, was Florence Williams, the daughter of the celebrated English novelist G. P. R. James. She officiated for many years at the first Spiritualist meetings convened for Sabbath Day exercises and was an eloquent lecturer.

The visits of several zealous propagandists have been alluded to in previous quotations. Among the first to break ground as a public exponent of Spiritualism was the Rev. James Martin Peebles, formerly a minister of Battle Creek, Michigan. Peebles was well known in the United States as a capable writer and lecturer. He visited Australia on two occasions several years apart and in his account, which appeared in the Banner of Light some five years after his first visit, he described the changed spirit that marked both the progress of the movement and the alteration in the tone of public opinion.

"Relative to Spiritualism and its divine principles, public sentiment has changed rapidly, and for the better, during the past five years. Upon my late public appearance in Melbourne, the Hon. John McIlwraith, ex-mayor of the city, and commissioner of our Centennial Exhibition, took the chair, introducing me to the audience. On my previous visit some of the Spiritualists seemed a little timid. They preferred being called investigators, remaining a good distance from the front. Then my travelling companion, Dr. Dunn was misrepresented, and meanly vilified in the city journals; while I was hissed in the market, caricatured in Punch, burlesqued in a theatre, and published in the daily press as an 'ignorant Yankee,' an 'American trickster,' a 'long-haired apostate,' and 'a most unblushing blasphemer.' But how changed! Recently the secular press treated me fairly. Even the usually abusive Telegraph published Mr. Stevenson's article assuring the Rev. Mr. Green that I was willing to meet him at once in a public discussion. The Melbourne Argus, one of the best daily papers in the world, the Australasian, the Herald, and the Age, all dealt honorably by me, reporting my lectures, if briefly, with admirable impartiality. The press is a reflector; and those audiences of 2,000 and 2,500 in the great Opera House on each Sunday for several successive months, were not without a most striking moral significance. It seemed to be the general opinion that Spiritualism had never before occupied so prominent yet so favorable a position in the eyes of the public…"

Peebles initially introduced Thomas Walker, a young Englishman, to Australia. Alleging himself to be a "trance speaker" under the control of certain spirits, whom he named, Walker lectured in Sydney, Melbourne, and other places. In March 1878 Walker participated in a debate with a Rev. M. Green, a minister of the Churches of Christ, an American free-church denomination that perpetuated that peculiarly nineteenth-century form of public religious discourse. Green had acquired some reputation in Australia both as a preacher and as one bitterly opposed to Spiritualism, which he constantly ridiculed. The debate, held in the Temperance Hall, Melbourne, attracted large audiences, and was extended for several nights beyond the period originally agreed upon.

Spiritualism was also promoted by the visits of Emma Hardinge Britten and medium Henry Slade. The Melbourne Age of August 20th, 1878, recorded their activities: "Spiritualism is just now very much to the front in Melbourne. The lectures of Emma Hardinge Britten, delivered to crowded audiences at the Opera House every Sunday evening, have naturally attracted a sort of wondering curiosity to the subject, and the interest has probably been intensified by the strenuous efforts that are being made in some of the orthodox pulpits to prove that the whole thing is an emanation from the devil. The announcement that the famous Dr. Slade had arrived to strengthen the ranks of the Spiritualists, has therefore been made at a very critical juncture, and I should not be surprised to find that the consequence will be to infuse a galvanic activity into the forces on both sides. Though I do not profess to be a Spiritualist, I own to having been infected with the fashionable itch for witnessing 'physical manifestations,' as they are called, and accordingly I have attended several circles with more or less gratification. But Slade is not an ordinary medium even among professionals. The literature of the Spiritualists is full of his extraordinary achievements, attested to all appearance by credible witnesses, who have not been ashamed to append their names to their statements…I see that on one occasion, writing in six different languages was obtained on a single slate, and one day, accompanied by two learned professors, Slade had a sitting with the Grand Duke Constantine, who obtained writing on a new slate held by himself alone. From St. Petersburg, Slade went to Berlin, where he is said to have obtained some marvelous manifestations in the house of Professor Johann Zöllner, and where he was visited by the court conjurer to the Emperor, Samuel Bellachini…My object in visiting Slade can be understood when I was introduced to him with my friend, whom I shall call Omega, and who was bent on the same errand. Slade and Mr. Terry constituted the circle of four who sat around the table in the center of the room almost as immediately as we entered it. There was nothing in the room to attract attention. No signs of confederacy, human or mechanical. The hour was eleven in the morning. The window was unshuttered, and the sun was shining brightly. The table at which we sat was a new one, made especially by Wallach Brothers, of Elizabeth Street, of polished cedar, having four slight legs, one flap, and no ledges of any kind underneath. As soon as we examined it Slade took his seat on one side, facing the window, and the rest of us occupied the other three seats. He was particularly anxious that we should see he had nothing about him. It has been said that he wrote on the slate by means of a crumb of pencil stuck in his finger-nails, but his nails were cut to the quick, while his legs and feet were ostentatiously placed away from the table in a side position, exposed to view the whole time. He first produced a slate of the ordinary school size, with a wet sponge, which I used to it. A chip of pencil about the size of a grain of wheat was placed upon it on the table; we joined hands, and immediately taps were heard about the table, and in answer to a question—'Will you write?'—from Slade, three raps were given, and he forthwith took up the slate with the pencil lying on it, and held half of it under the table by his finger and thumb, which clasped the corner of the half that was outside the table, and was therefore easily seen by all present. His left hand remained near the center of the table, resting on those of the two sitters on either side of him. Several convulsive jerks of his arm were now given, then a pause, and immediately the sound of writing was audible to every one, a scratching sound interrupted by the tap of the pencil, which indicated, as we afterwards found, that the t's were being crossed and the i's dotted. The slate was then exposed, and the words written were in answer to the question which had been put by Omega as to whether he had psychic power or not. I pass over the conversation that ensued on the subject, and go on to the next phenomenon. To satisfy myself that the 'trick' was not done by means of sympathetic writing on the slate, I had ten minutes previously purchased a slate from a shop in Bourke Street, containing three leaves, and shutting up book fashion. This I produced, and Slade readily repeated his performance with it. It was necessary to break the pencil down to a mere crumb, in order to insert it between the leaves of the slate. This done, the phenomenon at once recurred with this rather perplexing difference, that the slate, instead of being put half under the table, forced itself by a series of jerks on to my neck, and reposed quietly under my ear, in the eyes of everyone present. The scratching then commenced; I heard the t's crossed and the i's dotted by the moving pencil, and at the usual signal I opened the slate, and found an intelligible reply to the question put…The next manifestation was the levitation of one of the sitters in his chair about a clear foot from the ground, and the levitation of the table about two feet. I ought to have mentioned that during the whole of the séance there was a good deal of by-play going on. Everyone felt the touch of hands more or less, and the sitters' chairs were twice wrenched from under them, or nearly so, but the psychic could not possibly have done it."

Britten includes her own reflections in her Nineteenth Century Miracles (1883): "As personal details are more graphic than the cold narrations of passing events, we deem it expedient in this place to give our readers an inside view of Spiritualism in Australia, by republishing one of the many articles sent by the author to the American Spiritual journals during her sojourn in the colonies. The following excerpt was written as the result of personal experience, and at a time when Spiritualism, in the usual inflated style of journalistic literature was 'in the zenith of its triumphs.' It is addressed to the Editor of the Banner of Light, and reads as follows: "Spiritualism in these colonies finds little or no public representation outside of Melbourne or Sydney, nevertheless warm friends of the cause are scattered all over the land, and endeavors are being made to enlarge the numerous circles into public meetings, and the fugitive efforts of whole-hearted individuals into associations as powerful as that which exists in Melbourne. At present, the attempt to effect missionary work in any portions of Australia outside Sydney or Melbourne, becomes too great a burden to the luckless individual, who has not only to do the work, but to bear the entire cost of the undertaking, as I have had to do in my visits to various towns in Victoria. Expenses which are cheerfully divided amongst the many in the United States, become all too heavy for endurance when shouldered upon the isolated workers; hence the paucity of public representation, and the impossibility of those who visit the colonies, as I have done, effecting any important pioneer work beyond the two great centers I have named. Mr. Walker at Sydney, and I at Melbourne, have been favored with the largest gatherings ever assembled at colonial Sunday meetings.

"Having, by desire of my spirit guides, exchanged rostrums, he filling my place at Melbourne, and I his at Sydney, we find simultaneously at the same time, and on the same Sundays, the lessees of the two theaters we occupied raising their rent upon us one hundred and fifty per cent. The freethinkers and Spiritualists had occupied the theatre in Sydney four years at the rate of four pounds per Sunday. For my benefit the landlord raised the rent to ten pounds, whilst the same wonderful spirit of accordance caused the Melbourne manager to increase upon Mr. Walker from eight pounds to a demand of twenty. With our heavy expenses and small admission fees this was tantamount to driving us out altogether. Both of us have succeeded after much difficulty, and fighting Christian warriors with the Christian arms of subtlety and vigilance, in securing other places to lecture in; and despite the fact that the press insult us, the pulpit curse us, and Christians generally devote us to as complete a prophecy of what they would wish us to enjoy everlastingly as their piety can devise, we are each attracting our thousands every Sunday night, and making such unmistakable marks on public opinion as will not easily be effaced again… "Dr. Slade's advent in Melbourne since last September has been productive of an immense amount of good. How far his labors here will prove remunerative I am not prepared to say. Frankly speaking, I do not advise Spirit Mediums or speakers to visit these colonies on financial advancement intent. There is an abundant crop of Medium power existing, interest enough in the cause, and many of the kindest hearts and clearest brains in the world to be found here; but the lack of organization, to which I have before alluded, and the imperative necessity for the workers who come here to make their labors remunerative, paralyses all attempts at advancement, except in the sensation line. Still I feel confident that with united action throughout the scattered force of Spiritualistic thought in these colonies, Spiritualism might and would supersede every other phase of religious thought in an incredibly short space of time. I must not omit to mention that the friends in every place I have visited have been more than kind, hospitable and appreciative. The public have defied both press and pulpit in their unstinted support of my lectures. The press have been equally servile, and the Christian world equally stirred, and equally active in desperate attempts to crush out the obvious proofs of immortality Spiritualism brings.

"In Melbourne, I had to fight my way to comply with an invitation to lecture for the benefit of the City Hospital. I fought and conquered; and the hospital committee revenged itself for a crowded attendance at the Town Hall by taking my money without the grace of thanks, either in public or private, and the simply formal acknowledgement of my services by an official receipt. In Sydney, where I now am, I was equally privileged in lecturing for the benefit of the Temperance Alliance, and equally honored, after an enthusiastic and successful meeting, by the daily press of the city in their utter silence concerning such an important meeting, and their careful record of all sorts of such trash as they disgrace their columns with. So mote it be. The wheel will turn some day!"

During the years 1881 and 1882 the Australians were favored with visits from three more well-known American Spiritualists. The first of these was William Denton, an able and eloquent lecturer on geology, who usually combined his scientific addresses with one or more lectures on Spiritualism. The community also welcomed Ada Foye, a test-writing, rapping, and seeing medium, and Mrs. E. L. Watson, a trance-speaker.

All was not an upward path. At about this same time the government, through its chief secretary, promulgated an interdict against the proprietor of the Melbourne Opera House, forbidding him to allow Spiritualists to take money at the door for admission to their services, and in effect, forbidding them to hold services there at all. Walker, Peebles, and Britten had occupied the Opera House for months together, and admission fees had been charged regularly at each of their Sunday services, without let or hindrance. As reported in the Harbinger of Light of March 1882, Spiritualists organized to fight the new policy.

In the 1870s, Richard Hodgson , an Australian by birth, became involved in the study of paranormal phenomena as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, England. In 1884 the Society for Psychical Research sent him to India to investigate Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and the Theosophical movement. He determined she was a fraud, and had no place in the realm of parapsychology. He and the SPR were both criticized by Theosophists and others—a criticism that followed the society into the end of the 1900s. He died suddenly in 1905 before the Theosophists made their way to his native country.

By the 1910s and 1920s, the Theosophists, worked their way into Australia. Charles Leadbeater took hold of the group in Australia along with James Wedgwood, both of whom espoused doctrine that was not in concert with Blavatsky's original direction. Growing dissatisfaction with Leadbeater's leadership along with Annie Besant, especially when Leadbeater was continually under investigation of immorality by Australian police, helped dissipate that part of the Spiritualist movement.

Psychical Research

Psychical research in Australia can be traced to 1864 when it briefly arose in response to the mediumship of William Archer, a table tilter. It soon died out when it was discovered that Archer was not producing any paranormal phenomena. During Slade's 1878 visit to Sydney, E. Cyril Haviland, latter the author of two pamphlets and other writings on Spiritualism, was initially convinced of the truth of Spiritualism. Haviland, Harold Stephen, and several other gentlemen of literary repute in Sydney combined to form a Psychological Society, the members of which included some leading citizens of the city. However, the society was shortlived. Through the early 1900s, there were sporadic informal attempts to conduct some psychical research, but no sustained interest was generated.

A Society for Psychic Research was organized at Melbourne University in 1948 but soon disbanded. Psychical research was thus still in its infancy in the 1950s when a few courses in parapsychology began to be offered in Australian universities. The first degree in parapsychology was issued in 1960 from the University of Tasmania. Slowly through the 1980s, with the leadership of the likes of Ronald K. H. Rose, Raynor Johnson, Michael John Scriven, H. H. J. Keil, and Michael A. Thalbourne, a psychical research community had arisen, in spite of an hostile academic environment.

Currently there is an Australian Institute of Psychic Research (P. O. Box 445, Lane Cove, NSW 2066) and an Australian Society for Psychical Research, headquartered at Murdoch University in Western Australia. The institute publishes a bulletin, and the society issues a newsletter called Psi. Ghost hunting societies also have emerged in Australia at the end of the twentieth century. One of the more well-known groups is the Brisbane Ghost Hunters, based in the Queensland capital.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Brisbane Ghost Hunters. www.members.tripod.com/claricaun/angel2.gif. June 6, 2000.

Britten, Emma Hardinge. Nineteenth Century Miracles. New York, 1870. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1970.

Drury, Nevill, and Gregory Tillett. Other Temples/Other Gods: The Occult in Australia. Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1982.

Johnson, Raynor C. The Imprisoned Splendour. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953.

——. Nurslings of Immortality. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957.

——. The Spiritual Path. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1971.

——. Watcher on the Hills. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959.

Lewis, James R. Encyclopedia of Afterlife Beliefs and Phenomena. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1995.

Rose, Ronald. Living Magic: The Realities Underlying the Psychical Practices and Beliefs of Australian Aborigines. New York: Rand McNally, 1956.

Washington, Peter. Madame Blavatsky's Baboon. New York: Schocken Books, 1993.

Australia (continent)

Area	8,468,300 km2 (3,269,629 sq mi)
Population	~31,260,000 (estimated population of Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Papua and West Papua provinces of Indonesia for 2009)
Pop. density	~ 3.7/km2
Demonym	Australian
Countries	Australia, Papua New Guinea, and portions of Indonesia
Languages	English, Indonesian, Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, 269 indigenous Papuan and Austronesian languages and about 70 Indigenous Australian languages
Time Zones	GMT+10, GMT+9.30, GMT+8
Internet TLD	.au, .pg and .id
Largest cities	List of cities in Australia by population {{{1}}} Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Perth Adelaide Gold Coast-Tweed Newcastle Canberra-Queanbeyan Canberra Wollongong
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Australia is the smallest of the geographic continents, though not of geological continents.^[1] There is no universally accepted definition of the word "continent"; the lay definition is "One of the main continuous bodies of land on the earth's surface." (Oxford English Dictionary). By that definition, the continent of Australia includes only the Australian mainland, and not nearby islands such as Tasmania or New Guinea. From the perspective of geology or physical geography, however, a "continent" may be understood to include the continental shelf (the submerged adjacent area) and the islands on the shelf, which are taken to be structurally part of the continent. By that definition Tasmania, New Guinea and other nearby islands such as (Aru Islands) are part of the Australian continent, since they are part of the same geological landmass. These islands are separated by seas overlying the continental shelf — the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, and Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania.

When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, including the last glacial maximum about 18,000 BC, the lands formed a single, continuous landmass. During the past ten thousand years, rising sea levels overflowed the lowlands and separated the continent into today's low-lying semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania.

Geologically, the continent extends to the edge of the continental shelf, so the now-separate lands can still be considered a continent.^[2] Due to the spread of flora and fauna across the single Pleistocene landmass, the separate lands have a related biota.

New Zealand is not on the same continental shelf and so is not part of the continent of Australia but is part of the submerged continent Zealandia. Zealandia and Australia together are part of the wider region known as Oceania or Australasia.

Contents 1 Geography and nomenclature 2 Geology 3 Biogeography 4 See also 5 Notes

Geography and nomenclature

Mainland Australia showing the continental shelf (light blue) extending to the islands of New Guinea in the north, and Tasmania in the south

The Australian continent is the smallest and lowest-lying human-inhabited continent on Earth, having a total land area of some 8,560,000 square kilometres (3,305,000 sq. mi.). Australia and adjacent islands are connected by a shallow continental shelf covering some 2,500,000 square kilometres including the Sahul Shelf^[3][4] and Bass Strait and half of which is less than 50 metres deep.

As Australia the country is mostly on a single landmass, and comprises most of Australia the continent, it is sometimes informally referred to as an "island" continent, surrounded by oceans.^[5]

Prior to the 1970s, archaeologists called the single Pleistocene landmass by the name Australasia,^[6] although this word is most often used for a wider region that includes lands like New Zealand that are not on the same continental shelf. In the early 1970s they introduced the term Greater Australia for the Pleistocene continent.^[6] Then at a 1975 conference and consequent publication,^[7] they extended the name Sahul from its previous use for just the Sahul Shelf to cover the continent.^[6] A biologist, unaware of the terms used by archaeologists, suggested in 1984 the name Meganesia, meaning "great island" or "great island-group", applying it to both the Pleistocene continent and the present-day lands,^[8] and this name has been taken up by biologists.^[9] However, others have used Meganesia with different meanings: travel writer Paul Theroux included New Zealand in his definition^[10] and others have used it for Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.^[11] Another biologist, Richard Dawkins, unimpressed with Sahul and Meganesia, coined the name Australinea in 2004.^[12] Australia-New Guinea has also been used.^[13]

Geology

The continent primarily sits on the Indo-Australian Plate. The lands were joined with Antarctica as part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana until the plate began to drift north about 96 million years ago (mya). For most of the time since then, Australia-New Guinea has remained a single, continuous landmass.

When the last ice age ended in about 10,000 BC, rising sea levels formed Bass Strait, separating Tasmania from the mainland. Then between about 8,000 and 6,500 BC, the lowlands in the north were flooded by the sea, separating New Guinea and Australia. khara

Biogeography

As the continent drifted north from Antarctica, unique flora and fauna developed. Marsupials and monotremes also existed on other continents, but only in Australia-New Guinea did they out-compete the placental mammals and come to dominate. Bird life also flourished, in particular the ancestors of the great passerine order that would eventually spread to all parts of the globe and account for more than half of all living avian species.

Animal groups such as macropods, monotremes, and cassowaries are endemic to Australia. There were three main reasons for the enormous diversity that developed in both plant and animal life.

• While much of the rest of the world underwent significant cooling and thus loss of species diversity, Australia-New Guinea was drifting north at such a pace that the overall global cooling effect was roughly equalled by its gradual movement toward the equator. Temperatures in Australia-New Guinea, in other words, remained reasonably constant for a very long time, and a vast number of different plant and animal species were able to evolve to fit particular ecological niches.
• Because the continent was more isolated than any other, very few outside species arrived to colonise, and unique native forms developed unimpeded.
• Finally, despite the fact that the continent was already very old and thus relatively infertile, there are dispersed areas of high fertility. Where other continents had volcanic activity and/or massive glaciation events to turn over fresh, unleached rocks rich in minerals, the rocks and soils of Australia-New Guinea were left largely untouched except by gradual erosion and deep weathering. In general, fertile soils produce a profusion of life, and a relatively large number of species/level of biodiversity. This is because where nutrients are plentiful, competition is largely a matter of outcompeting rival species, leaving great scope for innovative co-evolution as is witnessed in tropical, fertile ecosystems. In contrast, infertile soils tend to induce competition on an abiotic basis meaning individuals all face constant environmental pressures, leaving less scope for divergent evolution, a process instrumental in creating new species.

For about 40 million years Australia-New Guinea was almost completely isolated. During this time, the continent experienced numerous changes in climate, but the overall trend was towards greater aridity. When South America eventually separated from Antarctica, the development of the cold Antarctic Circumpolar Current changed weather patterns across the world. For Australia-New Guinea, it brought a marked intensification of the drying trend. The great inland seas and lakes dried out. Much of the long-established broad-leaf deciduous forest began to give way to the distinctive hard-leaved sclerophyllous plants that characterise the modern Australian landscape.

For many species, the primary refuge was the relatively cool and well-watered Great Dividing Range. Even today, pockets of remnant vegetation remain in the cool uplands, some species not much changed from the Gondwanan forms of 60 or 90 million years ago.

Eventually, the Australia-New Guinea tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian plate to the north. The collision caused the northern part of the continent to buckle upwards, forming the high and rugged mountains of New Guinea and, by reverse (downwards) buckling, the Torres Strait that now separates the two main landmasses. The collision also pushed up the islands of Wallacea, which served as island 'stepping-stones' that allowed plants from Southeast Asia's rainforests to colonise New Guinea, and some plants from Australia-New Guinea to move into Southeast Asia. The ocean straits between the islands were narrow enough to allow plant dispersal, but served as an effective barrier to exchange of land mammals between Australia-New Guinea and Asia.

Although New Guinea is the most northerly part of the continent, and could be expected to be the most tropical in climate, the altitude of the New Guinea highlands is such that a great many animals and plants that were once common across Australia-New Guinea now survive only in the tropical highlands (where they are severely threatened by overpopulation pressures).

See also

Oceania portal

• List of basic Australia topics
• Plate tectonics
• Paleoclimatology
• Oceania

Notes

1. ^ That is, it is larger than numerous smaller fragments of Gondwanaland such as Zealandia and Madagascar.
2. ^ Johnson, David Peter (2004). The Geology of Australia. Port Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press. pp. page 12. 
3. ^ "Big Bank Shoals of the Timor Sea: An environmental resource atlas". Australian Institute of Marine Science. 2001. http://www.aims.gov.au/pages/reflib/bigbank/pages/bb-04.html. Retrieved 2006-08-28. 
4. ^ Wirantaprawira, Dr Willy (2003). "Republik Indonesia". Dr Willy Wirantaprawira. http://www.wirantaprawira.net/indon/land.html. Retrieved 2006-08-28. 
5. ^ Löffler, Ernst; A.J. Rose, Anneliese Löffler & Denis Warner (1983). Australia:Portrait of a Continent. Richmond, Victoria: Hutchinson Group. p. 17. ISBN 0091304601. 
6. ^ ^{a b c} Ballard, Chris (1993). "Stimulating minds to fantasy? A critical etymology for Sahul". Sahul in review: Pleistocene archaeology in Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia. Canberra: Australian National University. pp. p. 19-20. ISBN 0-7315-1540-4. 
7. ^ Allen, J.; J. Golson and R. Jones (eds) (1977). Sunda and Sahul: Prehistoric studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia. London: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-051250-5. 
8. ^ Filewood, W. (1984). "The Torres connection: Zoogeography of New Guinea". Vertebrate zoogeography in Australasia. Carlisle, W.A.: Hesperian Press. pp. p. 1124-1125. ISBN 0-85905-036-X. 
9. ^ e.g. Flannery, Timothy Fridtjof (1994). The future eaters: An ecological history of the Australasian lands and people. Chatswood, NSW: Reed. pp. pp. 42, 67. ISBN 0-7301-0422-2. 
10. ^ Theroux, Paul (1992). The happy isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-015976-2. 
11. ^ Wareham, Evelyn (September 2002). "From Explorers to Evangelists: Archivists, Recordkeeping, and Remembering in the Pacific Islands". Archival Science 2 (3-4): 187–207. doi:10.1007/BF02435621. 
12. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2004). The ancestor’s tale: A pilgrimage to the dawn of evolution. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 224. ISBN 0-618-00583-8. 
13. ^ e.g. O'Connell, James F.; Allen, Jim (2007), "Pre-LGM Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea) and the Archaeology of Early Modern Humans", in Mellars, P.; Boyle, K.; Bar-Yosef, O. et al., Rethinking the Human Revolution, Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, pp. 395–410 

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Coordinates: 26°S 141°E / 26°S 141°E / -26; 141

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