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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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