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Spiritualism

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Anonymous

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spiritualism - whas up wid dat??

:confused:

Ok folks, can anyone help me?

I'm trying to find out what this spiritualism lark is all about. So if any of you lovely people have any web references, books etc that you know of please reply. :D

I have found out a little bit (more like a miniscule amount), so I have an idea but want to expand on that.

So over to you guys!!!

Cheers!
 
I've read a good book that I feel goes into the details of it all pretty well. It's called 'The Book on Mediums: Guide for Mediums and Invocators' By Allan Kardec Published by Samuel Weiser inc.
Intresting, to say the least. Hope that helps. If you have trouble finding it in a book store, http://www.magusbooks.com might have it. I bought it in thier store.
 
spiritulisam

Ok so spiritulisam is some thing I know nothing about, but the whole idea of it is very interesting.
Is there anybody out there that can explane it at all?
 
My mum and dad were agnostics, back in the fifties, but they used to experiment with spiritualism for some reason...
I know my Dad was a great hoaxer for sure.
I always thought it was to get a spooky kind of kick like you get with ouija boards, but it seems like many people do want to communicate with loved ones that have passed on.

It is a reaction unlike the religious feeling obtained from christianity-
You could call the feeling of religiosity associated with Christianity an 'Awe' reaction,
and perhaps the religion of science gives an 'Aha!' reaction
whereas spiritualism gives an 'Eeek!' reaction :)
 
Hello!

This is my second message board posting.

I mentioned the spiritualist church in the thread on ouija boards, but here's a brief run-down on my experience of spiritualist church.

There's a cross on the wall of the church, but not much mention of 'the Big J' during the service. The church itself is very plain - think Methodists/Congregationalists. The church I go to has Burne-Jones style stain glass, but very understated. As the church has a small congregation, with no-one among it who can play the organ, the hymns are all sung without musical accompaniment, a bit like those Psalmists in Scotland.

The hymns are a mixture of Methodist/Cong. classics - those rousing Victorian hymns about victory and that sort of thing, (oh the grave where is thy victory, oh death where is thy sting?) with some spiritualist hymns in there too about the indestructibility of the spirit. Also, the Lord's Prayer is said.

There doesn't seem to be much of a Biblical base for the church, which is a tad worrying - but then I think the Bible advises against contacting spirits anyway. There's no Bible readings, just these - imho - rather cheesy passages written my mediums about love, which are about as deep and meaningful as the poems written on those greetings cards which have paintings of wishy-washy sunsets on them. Then they do the contacting part, and it's very, very normal!

The medium takes a sip of water and says, 'I've got an old gentleman coming through, wearing a flat cap. I can see pigeons, and I've got a pain in my side, like he died from a cancer of the stomach. He's showing me a train. His name is Fred', or something like that, then they point to someone and say 'the energy's coming from the woman in the front row with the curly hair'. Oh yes, very into 'energies' too. And you can buy stones from the back of the church at the end of the service (which makes it seem a rather odd mixture of New Agism and Victoriana).

It's definitely worth attending one of these services if you are interested in the afterlife, spirits, ghosts, etc, even if you're a complete sceptic. You never know, you might even get a message...
 
I did once have a link on this board to a website of mine which included some experiences of spiritualism. The ISP hosting that site has since 'melted away', but here's one of my stories.

A medium told me she saw me sitting in a doctor's surgery. There was a needle in my arm, but I wasn't getting an injection, I was giving a blood sample. This was another anonymous message, and it didn't seem to connect to anything in the recent past, but it was interesting for two reasons. Firstly, I was at that time giving regular urine samples to my doctor because traces of blood had been detected in it; several mediums have remarked that they have to 'clean up' their visions or messages in a public meeting, so perhaps the medium had deliberately avoided telling the whole room about my wee-wee problems! Secondly, I had been wondering whether to miss the next Spiritualist meeting and go to a Blood Donor session instead. Thus blood was certainly in my conscious mind, and this could be another possible example of telepathy. Maybe these two strands had come together to produce an image of me giving a blood sample to my doctor.

I did go to the blood donor session, but when the doctor there heard I was on medication for ulcers he refused to take my blood, on the grounds that, if the ulcer was bleeding, I would have more need of the blood myself! (And thus I had time to go to the Spiritualist Church after all. ) Some days later I had another appointment with my own doctor, and I told her what the other doctor had said. She laughed, and then asked if he had taken a blood sample. When I said he hadn't, she decided to take one herself. . . And thus it came to pass, as it had been foretold. . . !

Remarkably, it now seemed that the medium may have actually predicted the future, and in a much more precise manner than usual. If the medium actually had seen me giving a blood sample at the doctor's then telepathy could not be an explanation, since I did not know that it would happen, and the doctor only decided to do it on the spur of the moment. It's also interesting that there was no great emotional significance to this routine medical proceedure, because although my medical problems were annoying they were not crippling or life threatening.

As so often with the paranormal, there seems no clear cut explanation of exactly what happened, or why. Even if the reading had been a genuine prediction, there seems no purpose to it. If I had been told to avoid catching a certain train, and the train subsequently crashed, then some sort of meaning could be attached to the message, perhaps in terms of a guardian angel protecting me.

Another explanation often favoured by skeptics (hard-line sceptics!) is that of co-incidence - if enough random messages are given to enough people, then just by chance some messages would turn out to have significance for the recipient. This may well be true for the vaguer types of message ("your grandfather on the other side says that your back problems will gradually improve"), and it's also true that some people do win the lottery whatever the odds against it. But the message about a blood sample seemed very specific, and it actually 'came true' within a couple of weeks. Interesting and perplexing; more 'evidence' that the world is stranger than some people would like to think? But if it just comes down to co-incidence and chance, I'd rather win the lottery!
_______________________________________

And by chance I had to give the doc another blood sample, just 2 days ago - the first time for years, probably since the occasion mentioned in the above story!
 
rynner -

I suppose it could be an example of the very 'normal' messages that the mediums give. At one meeting I went to, someone got a message from their recently 'passed over' grandma, who said it was a shame that she'd died before the new shelves were put up in her bedroom!!!
 
I'm actually sort of a Spiritualist. Haven't had time to go to church for over 2 years. I once had a medium tell me that I would be doing a course of some kind and that I'd be successful. At the time I was working and not thinking about leaving the job. I then jacked the job in within 2 months due to depression and started a course last September. I actually hadn't given doing a course much consideration till a couple of months before I started it.
 
If your not interested in hearing from relitives that have passed on or hearing future events of your life shown to you or if you are not interested in hearing your inermost secret ponerings answered the spiritualist church is not for you. I was and was blown away. That place changed my life for good.
 
now you know why they burnt witches at the stake. If you don't like the truth burn it.

We are simpy rediscovering what was lost. The high preastesess of the Orical of Delphi were Mediams. That is when I say I am going to the spiritualist church I am going to consult the Orical. One can not dismiss something one does not know.
 
Sorry, Rynner, but seeing someone giving blood, or a blood sample, isn't what I consider a strong case. Not unless you have never, ever, had a blood test ever, in your whole life before, until she 'foretold' it. If someone was to foretell a blood test for me, I wouldn't be exactly impressed, as I'm always getting blood tests for one reason or another (usually due to illness) and if I'm not ill, I'm donating it. And the blood donor lot come round every six months anyway.

A lot of careful consideration is required when examining the case for Spiritualists. After all, the religion itself is basically based on a fraud anyway. As for contacting the dead or prophesying itself, that's not something that is confined to Spiritualists alone.

At the end of the day, it's another instance where some people get much out of it, others are left cold, and some are actually harmed.
 
is there a lot of money in spiritualism? i'm only asking as i was meeting some friends for a for a drink over the weekend at near the top end of suchiehall street in glasgow (the bit were it's all georgian houses being used as offices) and the glasgow spiritualist association had a building there. it's deffinately not a cheap area!
 
prometheus said:
now you know why they burnt witches at the stake. If you don't like the truth burn it.

We are simpy rediscovering what was lost. The high preastesess of the Orical of Delphi were Mediams. That is when I say I am going to the spiritualist church I am going to consult the Orical. One can not dismiss something one does not know.


They burnt witches at the stake because they beleive they *caused* bad things to happen, a lot were just finding ways to get rid of disliked people, widows, lonely old women etc but I'm sure if a "witch" said somebody would die in so many days and they did they woudl be burned for causing it.

No, the Priestesses of the Oracle ar Delphi were Oracles or Seers rather than mediums of the dead. I recall a fairly recent investigation was done there actually and they discovered it was on a slight fault line and various gasses seeped up into the chamber resulting in feelings of euphoria and other odd things. Dosnt mean they did not have power however, perhaps it heightened their abilites or something.


It certainly seems that modern people have something deeply lacking inside we are trying to fill, perhaps its just the christian church's influence has diminished are we are looking elsewhere for guidance or perhaps we are now freeer to express ourselves. Certainly a lot fo people are getting back to nature as it were and rediscovering all sorts of things.
 
What's the current consensus on the hoaxiness of the Fox sisters who founded modern spiritualism?

Is it generally assumed that the one who claimed that it was all a hoax was telling the truth, or is the majority view that she was just embittered in some fashion?
 
The current Hoaxiness consensus depends on which camp you are standing in.

The Fox sisters had been tested - and when they could find no evidence of trickery the investigations became more difficult - or perhaps more scientific. Anyway, a committee consisting entirley of women was set up so the girls could be stripped and searched. This results were that they appeared to be entirely genuine. Even when they were made to stand on pillows with their ankles tied together and their hands secured the rapping continued from the walls, ceilings and floor. I think this was in 1850.

By 1888, both sisters had suffered a hard life, lost husbands and were destitute and it is written that they "sank together into a life of drunken squalor"

They were paid $1500 dollars for the admission and demonstration of how their toe cracking bounced off the walls and sounded like raps. A gew days later the statement of trickery was retracted.

If you have ever seen a GOOD medium at work, whether they were a hoax or not seems irrelevant. The research they encouraged into the paranormal has been well worth while.
 
Here's something that may interest you -

the other week I went to see trance mediumship at a Spiritualist Church. Bizarre. I still can't make up my mind what I actually saw. Supposedly it's when the medium goes into a trance and spirits come in and borrow the medium's body. But was it this or play acting? Or letting in archetypes? Or was the medium schizophrenic and his other personalities come through when he's in a certain state. It was the strangest thing I have ever experienced.

Anyone else ever seen this done? Or can do it themselves?:wince:
 
Hey Dansette,

Trance channelling can be real. Recently I interviewed Gordon Smith (Medium & spiritualist from UK) and he pretty well summed up the current "trend" towards trance channelling.... this is his words... talking about his visits to development circles etc. Warning: It is uneditted

GORDON: "Some people sit (in trance) and again it is to get attention, “I have come from the Nth Realm to help you Earth People… and so on..” and it just doesn’t make sense. I say to them, "What is that nonsense you are sprouting?"

In a real trance where you have linked with a spirit guide or a higher being there has to be a bloody good content to what they are saying before I would allow that person to continue. If it is just all this nice ‘we bring you love and light’ - so what? Get out, you have made this connection and gone to this effort to say something trite like that? You don’t want that...

You are looking to have a connection with a being that has a purpose. There has to be something in the content of what they are saying or expressing that has to cause a feeling or a reaction in the people they are saying it to. Nine tenths of this stuff is just garbage. And I am the first one to admit it as a medium. I know that there is a lot of rubbish surrounding what we do. At the core of it there is real stuff. In trance people’s relatives can sometimes come through and speak to them which is a much closer connection, because they can ask questions and have a conversation. And it is not just “I have your son here…” You are giving them the space to come in and do their own thing. That is really trance mediumship."

And that is straight from the mediums mouth. I agree with Gordon that possibly 99% of the channelling you see is imagination or a clearing out of the psyche - but the other 1% is something special.
 
I would recommend the reading of Joe Fisher's The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts. Basically, if you believe a medium is channelling a spirit, do you believe the spirit is what/who they purport to be?
 
A few days ago, a small bruise appeared on the inside of my elbow, like the ones I usually get after giving a blood sample. It had disappeared by today, but I had to go to the doc for treatment to a burn on my hand.

While I was there, the doc looked at my computer records, and realised I was overdue for a blood test, so took a sample there and then.

Did my body somehow anticipate this action, and create the bruise as a way of making it known? There is a possible explanation in that I had been thinking for some time of going to the doc's about the burn (which actually happened last week), and although I had consciously forgotten about the blood test, my sub-conscious would have known of it, and perhaps produced the bruise in a similar fashion to that of the stigmata which appear on some very religious folk.


Ho hum, I hear you cry, very interesting... :roll: But what's it got to do with this thread?

Well, I don't get many Fortean occurences in my life (unless you count coincidences) but one other possible one is described in my post on the previous page - and that also concerned a blood sample!

(Which, if nothing else, is a coincidence! :D )
 
Murder accused hears sex claims
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 858786.stm

Diane Chenery-Wickens was reported missing on 24 January
A married mother has told a court she had a sexual relationship with a spiritualist minister accused of murdering his make-up artist wife.

The woman, identified as Witness A, told Lewes Crown Court she had sex twice with David Chenery-Wickens, 51, who denies murdering his wife, Diane.

The first time was at premises he rented in Harley Street and the second time at her home, she told the jury.

But the relationship cooled after he sent her a "terribly cursory" text.

Mr Chenery-Wickens is accused of murdering his 48-year-old wife, who worked as a television make-up artist, on 22 January last year.

The prosecution alleges he hid her body in woodland about 10 miles from their home, where it was found by a dog walker five months later.

Witness A told the court on Thursday she contacted the defendant, who she knew was a psychic healer, in 2007 when she was having difficulties in her private life.

Cancelled meeting

He discussed with her plans to sell the cottage he shared with his wife near Uckfield, East Sussex and told her his son had a brain illness.

The relationship eventually "fizzled out" but resumed again, with exchanges of text messages.

However, she said he would come up with excuses when they planned to meet.

The last occasion was on 14 January, eight days before the alleged murder but he cancelled that as well at the last minute.

Under cross-examination from Simon Russell-Flint QC, Witness A was asked whether she was lying and whether she had told lies to her husband about her appearance in court.

She replied: "I haven't told him I'm here, or anywhere else either."


David Chenery-Wickens is alleged to have dumped his wife's body

A second woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she and Mr Chenery-Wickens exchanged "flirty" text messages.

He conducted four spiritualist hearings for her, charging her up to £40 a time, the jury was told.

She said he started texting her in 2007, some four years after they met, and offered to take her out for a drink but she rebuffed his advances.

They met for coffee on 9 January last year and he said he had split up from his wife and that the sale of their cottage was due to go through the following Friday.

She said he told her that there had been a strain on his marriage because he was frequently away for weeks at a time carrying out exorcisms.

The pair were going to go out for dinner on 26 January but he cancelled less than an hour before, saying his cottage had been burgled but did not say his wife was missing.

Jurors later heard 50 voicemail messages retrieved by police from Mrs Chenery-Wickens's mobile phone after she was allegedly murdered.

Many of them were left by Chenery-Wickens himself, with his messages getting progressively more emotional as the days passed.

Others were left by friends, work colleagues and Sussex Police, along with touching messages from her mother urging her to get in touch.

The jury was also shown CCTV footage showing Chenery-Wickens boarding the 11.07 GMT train from East Grinstead station alone on January 24.

The court has heard on previous days that he told police he had travelled to London with his wife so she could attend a production meeting at the BBC.

The trial continues.
 
Man murdered make-up artist wife

A spiritualist minister from East Sussex has been jailed for life after being found guilty of murdering his make-up artist wife.

David Chenery-Wickens, 52, of Duddleswell, denied murdering Diane, 48, and dumping her body. She went missing in January 2008.

He told Lewes Crown Court she had planned to disappear to escape financial and work worries.

Chenery-Wickens was told he would serve a minimum of 18 years in jail.

Mrs Chenery-Wickens' decomposed body was found in an area of woodland, thick with brambles, off Worth Lane, Little Horsted, near Uckfield, last May.

The prosecution was unable to say how, where and exactly when Mrs Chenery-Wickens died because of the length of time her body was exposed to the elements, but it said evidence pointed to her being murdered on 22 January last year.

The court heard Chenery-Wickens killed his wife after she began to uncover his sexual and financial lies.

etc...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/7912212.stm
 
:shock:

I'm sure I recognise her. Spooky feeling I worked with her years ago.
 
TV tonight:

Revelations: Talking to the Dead
Channel 4 from 7:00pm to 8:00pm

Richard Alwyn provides an intimate look at a Spiritualist church in east London, and the parish members who believe that death is the beginning of a new phase of life.
 
‘Ghost’ of dead man Carlos Assaf leads officers on wild goose chase
David Sanderson

When Carlos Assaf was found hanged in his flat police were satisfied that it was a suicide. Then Mr Assaf’s ghost got involved.

Psychics told detectives that they had been contacted from beyond the grave. Far from having killed himself, Mr Assaf, a baker from Lampeter, west Wales, informed the mediums that he had been strangled by gangsters who forced him to drink petrol and bleach.

In their visions the psychics, who were friends of the dead man’s family, saw a lion, a horse and the name Tony Fox.

Determined to follow all possible leads, officers visited more than a dozen pubs called Red Lion or Black Horse and tracked down a certain Tony Fox. They conducted a second post-mortem examination and searched an area of Manchester after the mediums said that it could yield clues.

But the “lion, horse and fox investigation” was a wild goose chase, an inquest into Mr Assaf’s death was told yesterday. There was no bleach in Mr Assaf’s digestive tract, Mr Fox was eliminated from the inquiry and no leads turned up in the pubs.

The inquest in Aberystwyth heard that Mr Assaf, 32, a father of one, had hanged himself from a weight training bench after a row with his girlfriend in March. He had developed “bouts of anger” after becoming addicted to amphetamines.

Recording a verdict of suicide, Peter Brunton, the Ceredigion coroner, said: “There was a great deal of communication between the mediums and the police. A great deal of effort was expended in following these leads up.”

Sergeant Mark Webb, of Dyfed-Powys Police, defended the investigation. “We received communications from friends and family of Mr Assaf involving spiritualist mediums,” he told the hearing. “We interviewed the mediums and, having carried out an investigation, we found the information far from conclusive. We wanted to be absolutely satisfied there was no third party involved.”

However, one of his colleagues, who asked not to be named, said: “We are in danger of becoming a laughing stock. We went haring across the country looking for a lion, a horse and someone called Fox based on info from cranks. Not surprisingly it turned out to be a wild goose chase, which cost at least £20,000.”

Mr Assaf’s mother, Shirley, said: “There is no doubt in my mind now that my son took his own life.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 905709.ece
 
Police worker fired for backing psychic investigations claims religious discrimination
A police trainer who was sacked for believing that officers should use psychics to solve crimes is going to court to prove he was the victim of religious discrimination.
By Matthew Moore
Published: 7:44AM GMT 12 Nov 2009

Alan Power, who has been a member of a Spiritualist church for 30 years, argues that his belief in the power of mediums should be placed on a par with more mainstream religious and philosophical convictions.

He has already secured a legal ruling that his principles are covered by laws designed to prevent religious discrimination in the workplace, and is now seeking to prove that they were the reason for his dismissal.

Mr Power's case follows a landmark ruling last month that environmental views should be considered equivalent to religious and philosophical beliefs, following a legal challenge by a green executive at a property firm.

At a tribunal in London today, Mr Power will claim that Greater Manchester Police broke the law by sacking him for believing that mediums should be consulted in criminal investigations.

In an initial judgement seen by The Independent, Judge Peter Russell said that the case had merit because his Spiritualist views "have sufficient cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance" to be covered by the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.

The judge wrote: "I am satisfied that the claimant's beliefs that there is life after death and that the dead can be contacted through mediums are worthy of respect in a democratic society."

Mr Power's former employers are expected to argue that Judge Russell's ruling was not justified, and highlight that the trainer did not initially claim that his belief in the usefulness of psychics to police investigations amounted to a religious conviction.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: "GMP can confirm that a member of police staff was dismissed from his role as a trainer. The former staff member has appealed this dismissal. As the appeals process is underway it would be inappropriate to comment further."

Last week it was disclosed that police in Wales spent £20,000 following up murder case "leads" supplied by a group of psychics.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... ation.html
 
Can anyone cite examples of cases where psychics have successfully aided police via their 'powers'. I've certainly heard of plenty of instances where their help was solicited, offered or requested, but I can't recall a case where they actually succeeded in supplying vital leads. I'm quite open to the fact that this may have happened...
 
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