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Updated 2010.07.18

Spiritualism

Excerpted from Spiritualism; Modern Spiritualism; Modern Spiritualist Movement; Spiritualist Church: by Rev. Simeon Stefanidakis, First Spiritual Temple, 16 Monmouth Street, Brookline, MA 02446-5605

First of all: What is Spiritualism?

Spiritualism is a way of looking at and living life which accepts the reality that we were created, first and foremost, in God's image as SPIRIT; that underlying all which appears to be material, there is a spiritual foundation. In other words, Spiritualism is the opposite of Materialism.

Therefore, any religious or philosophical movement which accepts the reality of the Spirit can be said to be Spiritualist in nature. One would be very hard pressed to find any religious movement that does not accept some type of spiritual force and consciousness underlying and vitalizing the Human person. Therefore, Spiritualism can be said to be the foundation upon which most faiths and denominations are built.

Spiritualism -- or "Spiritual-ism" -- represents any teaching or "ism" of the Spirit.

If this is so, then the logical conclusion would be that, once the Human Person sheds the Human Body -- through death -- what remains is the Human Spirit. That Spirit must, then, be free to go somewhere and continue to exist in some manner. In other words, the Material World and its body are temporal, while the Spirit is eternal. Again, most, if not all, religions preach this basic tenet of life and death. Many of Saint Paul's letters revolve around this seeming dichotomy between material/temporal and spiritual/eternal. Jesus Christ and many other prophets came to help show us this basic truth.

Yet, despite this common ground amongst the world's religions, we have much confusion and controversy over the following points:

ONE: Where is that "somewhere" to which the Spirit goes, following death?

TWO: What type of existence does the Spirit have, once it gets there?

THREE: Is there any contact between those of us here, in bodily form, and those who have passed out of bodily form, through death?

What is a Spiritualist?

A Spiritualist is a person who answers these three basic questions as follows:

ONE: At death, the Spirit goes to another realm -- dimension, level of consciousness, whatever you wish to call it -- of life and existence, known simply as Spirit or the Spirit World (as opposed to the Material World).

TWO: Once the Spirit passes into the Spirit World, he or she continues to grow (not physically), mature, learn, relate with others, evolve spiritually, etc. In other words, what motivates the Spirit while in earthly form continues to motivate the Spirit in the Spirit World. This makes perfect sense, if we agree that life continues, unbroken, sometimes here and sometimes there.

THREE: Yes, there is contact between those of us, here, and those in Spirit. This contact happens primarily -- but not always -- through mediumship.

A Spiritualist -- and here is another source of confusion -- can be of any faith or denomination. In fact, Spiritualism does not belong solely to Modern Spiritualists, any more than Christ belongs solely to Christians. Christ came to show us all the way back to God, our Father! Spiritualism helps show us all the truth concerning Spirit, Soul, and Body.

Therefore, what is the Spiritualist Religion?

The Spiritualist religion emerged from a philosophical and spiritual movement which commenced -- in a more objective form -- in the middle of the Nineteenth Century; specifically, March 31, 1848. This movement is called the Modern Spiritualist Movement.

Initially, it began in pockets of light and mediumistic activity throughout the planet. It proclaimed, in no uncertain terms, the answers to the three questions posed above. And it did so through the demonstration of Spirit communication -- or mediumship -- both of the physical and of the mental kind.

Was this Movement widely accepted? No, because it threatened the deeply ingrained Victorian sense of Materialism. Yet, if you consider what was emerging through such writers as Thoreau and Whitman, along with such religious movements as Unitarianism and Universalism, the advent of Modern Spiritualism really should not have been such a cultural or theological shock. But, it was! Why might that have been?

The blame must fall, in part, upon Spiritualists themselves. Something happened to detract the Modern Spiritualist Movement from its intended course: the medium became the message! The message of Spiritualism became lost amidst all the phenomena and hoopla surrounding the medium. The medium -- and what he or she could do or demonstrate -- became, for all practical purposes, the focal point around the Movement and its religion. Or, as so eloquently expressed by Eileen J. Garrett, the mediums became the High Priests and Priestesses of the Modern Spiritualist Movement.

In addition to this, Modern Spiritualists -- in order to affirm their religion -- tended to attack other religions, especially Christianity and the Christian Church. Even to this day, there seems to be a rather strong anti-Christian or anti-Church sentiment amongst many Spiritualist organizations.

So, what is a Spiritualist Church?

A Spiritualist Church is a church which professes, as its faith and driving force, the religion of Spiritualism, as manifested through the Modern Spiritualist Movement. Such churches can be independent, or they can be affiliated with Spiritualist Church bodies such as this country's National Spiritualist Association of Churches or England's Spiritualists' National Union.

The degree of religiosity and Judaic-Christian teaching varies greatly amongst Spiritualist Churches. Some prefer not to be called Churches at all; rather, centers or societies. Others shy away from any sense of religiosity or theology. Regardless of how church-oriented each may be, most Spiritualist Churches have one thing in common: the focal point of their worship service or meeting is the demonstration of mediumship; claiming that mediumship represents the proof of their religion.