Broken Hill will play host to another festival in August, with the inaugural Outback Spiritual Festival to be held at the Broken Hill Outback Resort on the weekend of the 26th and 27th.
The event will see people from across Australia – and the world – learning, healing, growing, connecting and sharing all things spirituality and healing.
Organiser Jill Blackburn has lived in Broken Hill for over 15 years and is of course very much into the spiritual side of things. Following the loss of a close friend and a cancer diagnosis, Ms Blackburn began thinking of bringing an event like this to the Silver City for the town to have access to spiritual healers and performers, as well as promote the landscape of Broken Hill.
Across the weekend, festival-goers will be treated to a line-up of mediums, psychics, spiritual healers, performers, exhibitors and retailers, with Ms Blackburn making sure to utilise Broken Hill and its people and businesses to a large degree.
Many local residents and businesses are offering their services to contribute towards the success of the festival, including sound healer Jane Elworthy, plant medicine healer Jacqui Bushell, energy healer Peter Taylor, medical healer Dave Doyle, among other Aboriginal artists, Indigenous healers and physic mediums, with McCarthurs Mineral Specimens – based at 303 Argent St – on board with the festival also.
Ms Blackburn told the Truth since she first began planning for and promoting the event, the reception from people had has been hugely positive.
“A lot of people have said that they think this has been needed, that this is really good timing and they hope that people can take a lot out of it,” she told us.
“Often out here you feel ‘I’m the only one that thinks this way’ or ‘I’m the only one that’s like this’ and then you meet other people and it’s just the best feeling.”
The two-day event will include exhibitors selling products including oracle cards, crystals and jewellery, practitioners delivering reiki massages and physic readings, a paranormal investigation team, and sound healers playing music on an open air stage.
Ms Blackburn says another important feature are the workshops.
“It’s an amazing way to access a lot of different information. We’ve got people coming from all over Australia teaching different things,” she said.
“The workshops are where you basically go in and sit with a particular person in a group for an hour or upto three hours and learn about whatever it is they’re speaking about. There’s plant medicine, meditation, yoga, fertility healing, all sorts of things. And that’s really where you get your money’s worth because you get these experts in such close proximity for such an intense course.”
The topic of spirituality and healing practices has been one that, in the past, has carried some scepticism from those outside of the community, but it’s a changing viewpoint according to Ms Blackburn.
“I just I feel like society in general is more accepting and more curious about the spiritual healing side of life. It just feels like the right time to give people the opportunity and access to a big broad range of different expressions of spirituality and healing. People I come across are curious or accepting and very open hearted to include you as well.”
“And I hope it keeps going because the normal ways of healing, like the traditional, current ways of healing, aren’t necessarily working for everyone and giving everyone the satisfaction they need, so they’re looking and searching for something alternative I think.”
Ms Blackburn hopes the Outback Spiritual Festival becomes an annual event that Broken Hill becomes known for, believing “there are a lot more people here that are interested in it than anyone else knows”.
“It’s like a multi experience festival. It’ll be a place where you can come and just hang out for the whole day or the whole weekend if you want, and just experience all that there to offer,” she said.
“We wholeheartedly welcome everyone. And you don’t have to be any certain type of person to come. You just have to have an interest. And that goes for both exhibitors that want to share their beliefs and thoughts and whatever they offer, as well as people coming just to enjoy the day.”
Tickets for the Outback Spirit Festival to be held over the weekend of August 26 and 27 are on sale now and can be purchased at https://bit.ly/41cY5dT.
Exhibitors and performers are welcome to send an expression of interest via the form at https://outbackspiritualfestival.com.au or email [email protected] for more information.
