What is Spiritualism?

To understand what Spiritualism is, it might help to know a bit about its history.

 In 1848 in Hydesville, America, John David Fox and his family moved into a simple wooden home. But before too long, the family were frequently disturbed at night by sounds of furniture being moved and knockings on doors. As time passed by, the noises became even more frequent and alarming. Chairs were being moved and bedclothes pulled. The family heard strange gurgling noises as if someone was being choked to death and the sound of a body falling to the floor. Eventually the Foxes decided that their home must be haunted.

One cold night, the family went to bed early to try and catch up on some sleep. Mr. Fox shook the window sashes as they were thick with snow and one of the children noticed that every time her father shook a window, there came a sound of rapping to imitate the number. To cut a long story short, by using raps, the children managed to establish contact with a spirit communicator who claimed to be a peddler called Charles Rosna.

This spirit-being said he had been murdered by John Bell, a blacksmith who was living in the Foxes house at the time he disappeared. In the summer of 1848, the family dug up their cellar at a place indicated by the spirit, and located human hair, part of a skull and bones.

The house became known as 'spook house' and some fifty years later, children who were playing in the haunted house found human remains embedded in the crumbling walls. On further investigation, a perfect skeleton minus part of its skull was located - along with a peddler's tin.

Anyway, returning to the Fox family, news of the rappings soon became widespread and this marked the birth of modern Spiritualism. In Great Britain, table turning and afternoon séances became a fashionable Victorian pastime!

The big division between Spiritualism and other religions is that Spiritualists say it is right to believe in the spirit world and right to make contact. The orthodox minded say it is right to believe in a spiritual realm, but totally wrong and against the Bible to seek communion and communication with dead loved ones.

Today, Spiritualism has come out of the séance room and into scientific laboratory surroundings. Also, these days, the majority of mediums are non-professional in that they have full-time jobs and exercise their psychic gifts at the weekends or evenings.

Basically, mediums or spiritualists appear to offer a kind of psychic telephone link between this world and the next. In some cases, the medium goes into a trance and speaks with the voice of the communicator. More often, the medium remains conscious and talks in his or her normal voice what they are hearing mentally.

The telephone comparison is a useful one as it points to some of the difficulties that can occur. Imagine, for instance, that you'd been abroad for a number of years and on returning home, you decided to call up some friends. They can't see you, so to establish that it really was you, you'd probably talk about events in your life before you'd left. - Things your friends knew about or shared with you. - Well, that's just what most spirit communicators do.

Proving one's survival is no easy matter and basically the only way in which this can be done, is through small, seemingly irrelevant details which will piece together like a jigsaw, to prove one's continued existence. According to spiritualists, the dead are not white phantoms floating around on clouds. They are real people in a real world who retain their characteristics both good and bad. Likewise, they retain their memory, personality and intelligence along with their reasoning abilities.

Spiritualists can be found in all cross-sections of society. The last decade or so has seen an amazing increase in public interest in the subject. There are few people who have not heard at least something about mediumship and Spiritualism.

Finally, according to this religion: All will survive the grave, both the sceptic and the believer alike!