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This is a letter from my friend Jim who I have been corresponding with for ages, we exchange experiences and ideas about all sorts of things. This letter is posted on his communications site and is recent - it shows what a lot of work there is in running a big place like the Adelaide Spiritualist Church - as well as keeping down a full time job !
If you are on a church committee you will see that we all have the same aims, and have found different ways of facing the challenges, I hope it is of interest and help to you all.
Hi All,
Ok, over a year ago we decided that we really had to make something happen or Spiritualism was going to wither and become some general new age “product” reflecting an amalgam of ideas and generally reflecting psychic work not Mediumship.
The reality was that we had very few skilled workers to achieve this, Lis is a very good teacher but the physical work of running a Mission is just endlessly demanding, leaving little over to achieve anything.So at this stage what we had regularly going on then, is in fact what we have now, an open “gentle” day time group which does a long meditation, some healing and a bit of clairvoyance.
Its almost an atypical group which suits beginners and people who like that style and normally gets about 12 people.Then we have a Thursday evening open development class, which I run. Now this is more challenging and aimed to keep more experienced people learning while not losing the newcomers.
Now the visiting medium’s program has had an impact here on the approach I use, numbers and type of person attending. Talking with Rose Owen, when she was over as the visiting Medium, I discovered that she only runs an open circle and despite the appearance of newcomers had been successful in developing people. That gave me more confidence because I run it using many of the exercises that Lis used in the closed platform development Group which I was part of for nearly 2 years but which closed last year as some key members stopped wishing to step up.
I’ve also developed some other ideas of my own with Spirit’s help and in addition I have some of Rose’s exercises. With an average of 22 attending its challenging and I have to be right on my toes because all of them want to develop clairvoyant abilities(and as ever with spirit all the newcomers do as well) well over half want to dedicate themselves to become platform workers and almost all have the basic talent to get there.
As of now its the critical group to try and hold together while we get something else available for them as they grow out of it.We do now also have a monthly group, which Lis instigated, drawing in platform mediums from other churches who wish to continue development work. We then have a 3 hour drop in healing clinic on a Friday, by donation and using 4 healing beds. All of our healers have to be registered, experienced and properly trained(registration involves a mandatory two day course which Lis has written and runs for us.
This is excellent and there is another advanced two day course in the pipeline). We have about 9 healers who work there with 6 regulars and get about 15 clients (although the other Friday we had 30). One Saturday a month we run another similar clinic and are extending this irregularly to be a Community day.
At the moment we run one open day, a day of readings and healing with the readers working in gazebo’s we erect in the gardens. This always draws a big crowd, links to our Anniversary (the 84th in November) and we put on a mini demo during the break, this year Michael Cartwright, SNU trained living in Victoria will do messages while Lis will do some spiritual art at the same time.T
he sharp end of life is, in reality, our Sunday Meeting. This is where most newcomers arrive and it is where we have to be at our best. We do not have hymns at the Mission, no bible, we are proud to be non denominational and to welcome everyone in. We start with an opening prayer (the Lords prayer only appears if the Medium can’t survive without it), then the address, a guided absent healing meditation, hands on healing (20 minutes) followed by 35 to 40 minute clairvoyant demonstration. Currently averaging about 40 people more when a good clairvoyant is on and less when they don’t rate them. Equally donations per head go up for a good performance down for a bad one.
This is an important piece of information to have, although it has to work with the pick up of some experienced attendees about the actual standard. Two other things we do know; get it wrong on a night and newcomers don’t come back get it right and they return.
Yes you have to have other offerings but many are happy to come to just this, if it is good enough, in the modern world it may be the only time available. It has to be consistently good and fun. We must improve it especially the level of clairvoyance and the talk (we are stuck with the healing segment because we are so well known for it and people seem to love it even though its not a great starting energy for clairvoyance)As a framework all of this works but we needed more, hence the program to bring in a group of really top-level mediums to bring exposure, training and awareness to Adelaide.
It has clearly worked and the interest is well up. It is also drawing wider attention as we hoped it would. It creates a continual buzz. In November we have a husband and wife from Victoria, she does the messages he draws a picture while she is connected, a local medium, then Michael Cartwright from Victoria and by a lovely accident a Scottish Medium April Mackie who runs a Church in Glasgow plus our garden party.
Obviously in early January we have the well known (in the USA) Rev Anne Gehman and we feel lucky about that. It looks like by a happenstance of fate another Glaswegian Medium who is President of a Church at the month end and then Michael Glossop from the UK at the end of February. In April Rose Owen returns to run more Mediumship courses, the rest of the year needs planning yet.Clearly next year we will continue this all but hope to add in more formalised training to improve mediumship. In addition we are intending to look for, identify and properly train some other Group Leaders.
Is it working, yes we had over 50 % of our members turn up at yesterday’s AGM, an unheard of number to take part, with a growing membership (and quite deservedly Lis was unanimously elected to life membership after over 13 years involvement in the Mission, 11 years Membership 9 years on the committee and 8 years, in Feb 2007, as leader).
Do you know things actually improved when we went back to the basics, Spiritualism, the promotion of which is enshrined in our constitution?
The energy in the Mission is terrific now.Anyway enough about us I will pass on some thoughts in a separate email.
Light and Love Jim
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