On this page members and associate members are invited to write about what attracted them to Spiritualism, and how and why they became a Spiritualist. Some members will have been born into Spiritualism, and we would be very interested to hear of your experiences of growing up in a Spiritualist family. We also invite writing on what Spiritualism means to you personally in your life now, which we shall display on a related page - "What Spiritualism Means to me".
A Slow Train Coming
I first became interested in Spiritualism when I was a student, over 40 years ago. I found in a second hand bookshop in the city where I was studying, two old Spiritualist hardbacked books - "After Death or Letters from Julia" - amanuensis W.T.Stead, first published posthumously in 1914, after Stead drowned in the Titanic disaster in 1912; and "Man's Survival After Death" by C.L. Tweedale, who was the vicar of Weeton near Otley, and published this book in 1925.
"Letters from Julia" is a series of letters written by a spirit called Julia to a personal friend, Miss E after Julia had taken an early transition to the Spirit World in 1891. She was able to communicate because Stead had developed the ability of "Automatic Writing". I found the account fascinating. It was difficult to fully believe at first, although it appealed to my imagination. Julia describes her transition, how she was met after 'death', and her life in the spirit world. What seemed to me genuine was the way the later letters have a marked difference in tone from the early ones. As she progresses further into her life beyond the border, so her outlook changes. This is consistent with the Spiritualist belief in eternal progress, but the progression appeared to me authentic and not constructed by Stead's imagination.
Tweedale's book was a large collection of experiences, stories and anecdotes about all the "psi" phenomena that relate to Spiritualism and life after life - the spirit body being distinct from the physical body, out of body experiences, after-death communications, the departed souls' knowledge of our lives, spiritual light, precognition, clairaudience, clairvoyance, the direct voice, materialisations, psychic photography, apports, and more. In all it was a compelling body of evidence, painstakingly amassed and skilfully arguing the case for survival after 'death', from a clergyman's perspective.
As I opened to the possibility that the phenomena and experiences described in these books do in fact occur, and frequently, so an interesting thing began to happen to me. I began to have telepathic experiences myself, usually, at that time, in the form of dreams. Sometimes these telepathic dreams reported what had happened in locations many miles from where I had been sleeping. I certainly had not learnt of these occurrences by means of my physical senses, but by means of my intuitive faculties as operating at that time in dreams. Without realising it at first, and with many vacillations, I was entering a spiritual pathway. I began to meditate. I became more certain of my spiritual orientation and goals.
Over the ensuing years, I read several more books about Spiritualism - by the medium Stephen O'Brien, Doris Stokes, Doris Collins, Ena Twigg, Helen Greaves and others. I became more convinced that the phenomena I was reading about were real, and the writers were sincere and genuine, but there were still doubts in my mind. How I wish now that I had joined the Spiritualist movement sooner! Sadly, I did not approach it until my wife was dying a few years back. I was suddenly thrown into looking for, and needing, personal evidence that the three-quarters beliefs I had in the claims of Spiritualism were really true. I found that evidence in a very short time, and this sustained me through my wife's death and beyond.
I had, though, been regularly meditating for many years prior to that. I did not realise this for a considerable time, but my meditation practices were strengthening my intuitive faculties. I was inadvertently opening my "third eye", which I am now able to use for clairvoyance. I used to feel it when I was meditating, stirring and burning in the centre of my forehead. For a long time I did not know what this sensation meant. Now I know that when I get this sensation I can trust the validity of the clairvoyant impressions and messages that I receive. Meditation was a long and unintended apprenticeship to something else, the development of my intuitive, psychical and mediumistic abilities, such as they are. These abilities are still developing, and I hope always will be. However, I know from using them that the mind is more than the body and can act outside and independently of it. Through meditation, wholesome living, spiritual practices and a calm outlook, we can all open up or strengthen our intuitive abilities. We can all come to realise that the mind is more than the body and can act outside and independently of it. Stilling the body and the mind releases this latent power of our minds, and opens us up to receiving other spiritual gifts as well.
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