THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALISM
Spiritualism has an unfortunate reputation. It is associated with little old ladies holding seances in there parlours. Many people do not realise that its a recognised religion, which began in America in 1848 with two sisters , in a tiny hamlet of less than forty homes in upstate New York. The sisters Kate and Margaret Fox began communicating with strange rapping sounds that had been troubling the family for some months. Their father had spent a considerable amount of time trying to locate the source of the noises , without success.
On the evening of the 31st of March the noises were occuring as usual , Kate the
youngest sister was playing a game . She stopped , snapped her fingers together several times and called out "here spirit do as i do". The spirit immediatly returned the same number of raps. This was horrifying for the girls mother, however Kate was not afraid.
Mrs Fox the girls mother asked the spirit if it could count to ten, the spirit responded by ten raps .Feeling brave she then asked for the number of her living children .Four raps came back ,the correct answer . That same night neighbours were invited in to ask questions and hear the raps for themselves. The spirit managed to answer most of their questions correctly. On the following nights as many as three hundred people would huddle in their small house to listen to the spirit.
The sisters worked out a code to enable them to communicate better with the spirit . they discovered that his name was Charles B . Rosma , a traveling salesman who had died and was buried under the house.
Word of these sisters and their spirit visiter travelled quickly , people came from far and wide to listen to the raps,it was reported that crowds where vast ,filling roads and lining fences all trying to experience something for themselves.
As a direct result from their communication with charles Mr and Mrs for decided to send their daughters to family elsewhere so they could grow up away from the fuss. Kate was sent to her brothers house in Auburn and Margaret went to live with her older sister in Rochester.
While living in Rochester , Margaret discovered she could communicate with spirit through automatic writing. on November 14 1849 Leah Fox rented a hall for three nights and organized Margarets first public meeting . The hall was full each night , some believed , others were skeptical .
After the first evening a committee was set up to investigate what had occured and to report back their findings the next evening. They found that no fraudulent activity had occurred that night . This was not acceptable so a second commitee was formed and then a third all came up with no evidence to disprove margaret as a medium.
Publicity increased and the future of spiritualism was assured. The Fox sisters travelled across America visiting major cities gaining converts everywhere they went . Other people discovered that they too had a mediumistic talents , and this lead to a craze of seances as more and more people became curious about mediums and communicating with spirit.
Today there are hundreds of spiritualist churches in england and across the world. They are quite informal like any other church they include prayers and hymns. Every sevice also includes a demonstration of mediumship , where a medium passes on messages from spirit to members of the congregation.
Anyone can go to a spiritualist church service , and there is no need to feel weary about going as the atmosphere is warm and welcoming . Churches also offer other activities such as lectures and what are commonly termed as developement circles , (which are for the training of mediums) and healing sessions .
BELIEFS OF SPIRITUALISM
The main beliefs of spiritualism is that the soul survives physical death and lives on eternally . Proof is offered via communication with the spirit world . The philosophy about life and the hereafter is based on the received wisdom of many spirit teachers . We see good in all religions but believe that no individual religion holds the whole truth.
The purpose of life on earth is to learn and grow ,so that we become more spiritual beings and express the spark of divinity that is within every last one of us.