Only one church service last week and it was the first time I had attended Stranraer Spiritualist Church. Not only a great welcome from Marie and Linda but a wonderful relaxing and cosy atmosphere in the church. This church is way out on a limb as far as Spiritualist churches in Scotland are concerned as our nearest churches to this town are Dumfries 73-miles east and Cumnock 64-miles to the north. So it is great to see the Stranraer church shining so brightly in the SE of Scotland.
A big part of the rest of the week was taken up by taking time for those who have contacted myself or a Spiritualist church for help, answers, information etc. What maybe should be termed as ‘pastoral work’, maybe something that is a bit overlooked in spiritualism as not all are looking for ‘sittings’ etc
A few weeks ago I overheard a conversation by a group of people waiting for a healing service to start and they rhymed off the mediums they had seen in the past year. It left me wondering if they could name the spiritualist healers they had attended in the past twelve months? Our healers should not be taken for granted because they work as hard as mediums
Now to answer some of your questions; –
Joe asks, “If there was a league table of religions in Britain where would Spiritualism be?
Hi Joe – The last article I saw on this was that Spiritualism was said to be the 8th largest religion in the UK and that I believe was taken from the results from the 2001 National census. So within the next year new data will come to light from the 2011 census. I have no doubt our numbers will be up in the past ten years but will that be enough to move us up a position or two? We will have to wait and see.
Angela’s question is – “What is mental mediumship
Mental mediumship occurs when a spirit sends messages through the mind of the medium. This can produce phenomena such as:
Clairvoyance: Seeing spirits
Clairaudience: Hearing spirits
Clairsentience: Sensing spirits in some other way
What are “Spirit beings?” asks Leslie
Spirit beings are people who have physically died and moved to the spirit world.
Spiritualists believe that people do this regardless of their allegiance to a particular faith or even their lack of faith.
Spiritualists believe that spirit beings can ‘show’ themselves (or in some way make themselves known) to people in the material world.
James comments “When I attended Spiritual services in the late 80s and early 90s at times I was the only male in the congregation, is it still the same, mostly females attend your services?”
I know where you are coming from James. My first Spiritualist church was ASK in Stewarton and there were a good few male members of our church, but when I went out taking services at other churches in Ayrshire it was often 100% female congregations. When I stepped on the platform of my first Glasgow church, Jocelyn Square at the Saltmarket, I was surprised to see so many men in the congregation. I remember counting them to try and forget how nervous I was and the male attence that night was 40%. Now in Ayrshire and in other parts of Scotland the difference between male and female is far less pronounced
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