The Spiritualist Church ...

.... grew out of the Spiritualist movement which began in the 1840s in America. Spiritualist Churches are found around the world, but are more common in English-speaking countries. In North America the churches are primarily affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, and in the UK with the Spiritualists National Union. A large number of Christians refute that the Spiritualist Church is part of Christianity, claiming it is contrary to Scripture: we will not join that debate. It is for each of us to decide which denomination is best for us. Anyhow there have been serious disagreements about religion since the beginning of time.

History
The origin of mediumship is associated to the Fox sisters at New York in 1848, but the unofficial beginning of spiritualism is claimed to be much earlier. By 1853 the movement had reached San Francisco and London, and by 1860 was worldwide. The Fox family remained very active in Spiritualism for many years. Other notable Spiritualists were Mercy Cadwallader, who became a sort of missionary for the movement, and Emma Hardinge Britten, who wrote many books on mediumship and its place in American popular and religious culture.

In 1853 the first Spiritualist Church in the British Isles was established by David Richmond at Keighley in Yorkshire.

In 1855 the first Spiritualist newspaper in Britain, The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph, was published, and by the 1870s there were numerous Spiritualist societies and churches throughout the US and Britain. However there was no national organisation of mediums in Britain or the USA even though some regions of Britain had organised Federations. National Federation of Spiritualists (NFS) was founded in 1891 and grew rapidly. It changed its name change to the Spiritualists' National Union (SNU) in 1902. British spiritualists of this time were often adherents of temperance and anti-capital punishment groups, often held radical political views and were frequently vegetarians. A few campaigned for Women's Rights and a tiny minority Free Love: the popular perception of Spiritualists in the Victorian age was that they were radicals.

'Two Worlds was the major British magazine of spiritualism and had a fairly large circulation, and it advertised the existence of local circles. Trance mediumship flourished and table turning was a popular craze. D.D.Hume one of the greatest physical mediums made spiritualism fashionable by his high profile activities, and it was common among everyone from the aristocracy down. There were many fake mediums practising in the period, exposed by both the Spiritualists, and the fledgling Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882, whose members spent much time investigating the phenomena. By 1924 there were 309 Churches who were affiliated to the SNU and many more belonged to other organisations. A new magazine, Psychic News, had joined Two Worlds on the newsstands of Britain. American spiritualism was individualistic and more anti-organisation than its British counterpart. From 1920 to 1938 there was the British College of Psychic Studies led by Mr and Mrs Mackenzie in London. The College of Psychic Studies at Stansted  grew after this and continues to this day.

In 1957 there was a major schism and Spiritualist Churches in Britain divided into the Spiritualist's National Union, holding spiritualism to be a religion, and the circles of Christian Spiritualism, who hold it to be a denomination of Christianity. The two groups hold very different theological beliefs. National Spiritualist churches form the majority and are affiliated to The Spiritualists' National Union (S.N.U.), including the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain. The SNU also has some member churches in other English speaking countries.

Christian Spiritualist Churches are mainly affiliated to The Greater World Christian Spiritualist Association. There are Spiritualist churches in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, The Republic of South Africa and groups in many countries including Japan, all Scandinavian countries, Korea, Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Iceland. Many such groups and also individuals, are members of The International Spiritualist Federation (ISF) which was founded in Belgium in 1923 and is an umbrella organisation for all spiritualists. They hold Congress every two years in different parts of the world. Other Spiritualist groups in the UK include

The White Eagle Lodge, founded by the medium Grace Cooke, & The Institute of Spiritualist Mediums, focuses on physical phenomena only.

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