A measure of personal growth...

hiorta wrote:It seems that Spirit will do what is best at the time, to convey Truth where and when possible. Our notions of 'right path' or of Spiritual evaluations have no concern for them. Reaching the Soul is their sole reason - so to speak.

I took this quote from another post in another thread but it explained something to me.

Reaching the Soul ....... what a lovely way of seeing this 'search'. They reach the Soul when the Soul is ready.

I have had ample experience of that in my own life. I was reflecting on these things when I thought about this thread yesterday. The right signposts and direct encounters have come at the right time.

I was looking for connections between Spiritualism and Quakerism and found this very interesting article in Wikipedia.

It suggests that some of the earlier spiritualists were Quakers interested in reform of traditional beliefs. The paths to belief fascinate me. This article gives interesting summaries of other faiths along side Spiritualism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritualism

Despite the answer below, there is a great difference between Quakers and Christians. The Quaker movement branched from The Anglican Church post-reformation. Quakers carried on with the reformational movement and removed Church Christianity (ie, the use of priests, scarements, saints, bishops, etc, as a buffer between the worshipper and God). They also meet and can stay in complete silence, worshipping God from within (ie, somewhat Mystical Christianity where God is inside).
So, in terms of differences, these can be found in the lack of sacrements, saints, bishops, priests, and no large grandeous churches (Quakers have simple worship).


This information came from Answer.com when I googled a question about the difference between Quakerism and Christianity.

Intermediaries between the individual and God are not required and God is within each individual. These seem to be the main differences. And therein lie the similarities between Spiritualism and Quakerism as well.

Some Spiritualist Churches have gone the way of having 'reverends' though.

Of course, there is much more to it than this.

One thing I love about the Quaker approach is the deep power of collective meditation and reflection.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_Quakers_and_Christians#ixzz1nLA4nSuf

Good stuff Q interesting readig. In latest Two Worlds there' an interview with SNU 'upper ehelons' Minister Judith Seaman who says....
'I also feel my job is to train good ministers, ,who are then ready for the role they undertake..... This role has grown so much now...'
SNU has declined in parallel with growth of minister numbers. When it becomes one persons job to shepherds then the rest are seen as sheep. Many have strayed.
That said Quakers have ministers and Bishops and a Vatican. I've been on a course at their Woodbrook Centre and the full timers there and in their Yearly Meeting are priests and bishops in all but name. My old dad said that
"Anyone trying to organize real spiritualists would do better by practising 'herding cats' first... 'It'll never work well because we all think and everbody's got their own ideas"

KatyKing wrote:
That said Quakers have ministers and Bishops and a Vatican. I've been on a course at their Woodbrook Centre and the full timers there and in their Yearly Meeting are priests and bishops in all but name. My old dad said that

That surprises and disappoints me, KK. I thought that Quakers were free of thatkind of spiritual hierarchy. I'll see on Sunday (that is today, now) as I plan to attend a service nearby. I last went ten years ago and they didn't seem to have minsters and bishops then.

The VSU here had their own 'revererend' and couple of the outlying churches did as well. The people who held these positions had done no specific training at all. Their congregations just decided to 'ordain' them. The VSU person who held this position hd been president of the association for a few years and had done a basic course of spiritualism. She also had a profession in the lay sense.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see. . Maybe we are different in the colonies!

Spiritualists may be trying to have it both ways.

On the one hand, we say that we are a religion. Being recognized as such affords tax advantages, and legal/constitutional protections.

On the other hand, we don't want. . . ministers, ordinations, conventional church services, . . .

We do have all that Jim. SNU GW Corinthians etc. all ordain ministers and some ministers wear clerical collars. But before we had those we had officiants only. Folk licensed and insured to conduct weddings and funerals. We always had rates [local tax] breaks as places of worship. The theological - ecclesiological shift has come in these past ten years with ministers. Prior to that we had more folks involved. Now there's a creeping malaise of 'well she's the minister let her do it or decide it' and an emergent elite ministerial caste. We do need do-rs to keep the churches running but we elected those. There's a big difference between a democratic church run by members and elected officials and all with one vote and an equal say than one with a quasi-vicar under orders from a national organization who ordained her running the show.
The SNU model of ministry is Presbyterial as is the GW with the ordained presbyters in charge overseen by their national masters. The Corinthian model is Congregational but they are still ordained by ministers NOT members although the members can vote them out.
It's that infestation of churchianity that has seen a rise in the independent causes out of and away from what some see as the pesky priestcraft of SNU.

Interesting. . . mainstream Christian denomonations, here in the US at least, are seeing more, not less, involvement by lay members. Partly due to changing social attitudes, partly due to rising costs of everything, coupled with declining church revenues (churches have to rely more on volunteers to do it, or just NOT do it, because they can't afford to pay to have it sone).

In the Catholic Church especially, it's largely due to a decline in vocations to the priesthood and religious life: there just AREN'T priests and nuns around anymore to do things, as there used to be.

In Australia the Catholic Church is bringing in priests from Third World countries to work in some parishes partly because of the decline in vocations.

Religious orders of nuns and brothers are also in terminal decline.

A lot of priests were coming to the US from Ireland, and from Vietnam. But I read somewhere that the Vatican tried to reverse this trend, a few years back, because it was leading to a shortage of priests in THOSE countries.

It's funny how spiritualism is going in the opposite dirction even though we don't have a paid full time ministry the shift is away from members [laity] towards clergy [cod vicars]..

I think that people want places with a sense of community and practical spirituality in action. There are a couple of churches/centres here that offer that. One of them is a Christian Spiritualist Church (with two reverends, male and female) and the other is simply a centre.

The male and female reverends are quite dynamic. If they were not there I wonder whether the church would continue. I think we should be content for these things to live and then die. It is the quality of life/service in between which is important.

Institutional churches don't do this living/dying stuff all that well.

I'm amazed at the number of churches that exist in the UK. It must be the spiritualist centre of the world

Brazil I reckon but they're Spiritists. Slightly different to spiritualists so maybe England has most spiritualist churches in the world for the population. There are not nearly so many in Wales Scotland or Northern Ireland per capita. In Wales they tend to be in seaside retirement towns.
Spiritualist officiants are popular for secular weddings and for those maybe a clerical collar could be more hindrance than help.

However defined. . . the UK sure has the US beat by a country mile!

SAdly that has become teh case Jim, it would have been neck and neck for a while after an early lead to the US. It was estimated that in 1860, before the formation of any central organisation there were over 2 million Spiritualists in the USA, I believe your place had 8 Spiritualist Churches once upon a time.

Left Behind wrote:However defined. . . the UK sure has the US beat by a country mile!

Yes what we have in quantity is marked by a failure to match it in quality perhaps?

""There are not nearly so many in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland per capita""...KK

In Scotland there is at least one in every small town - even in a village. Some towns have three, all of them fiercely Independent.

Whether this is a 'good' thing or not remains to be seen. Their 'flavours' vary, but this reflects the thinking of the local folk, which in turn reflects the life that was imperiously imposed upon them - miners or fishermen, military, etc. The days of being sternly addressed by befrocked individuals on what 'god wants of them' are permanently gone. Christian Churches are falling like autumn leaves on a windy day, their time now over.

The SNU have become the new 'thou shalt nots' and as a result of this and their adopting the 'fishing net' way of Mediumship, seem likely to remain an insignificant minority.

However, reaching out to Souls seeking Light was never about numbers and the many who had long abandoned war-favouring, materialist Christianity, seem to have found a new depth to themselves in these locally based Centres.

The Spirit will shine through.

Welsh spiritualist marooned on desert island is eventually found. The skipper on the rescue dinghy is amazed to see that, next to his grass hut; the chap has erected two imposing churches during his sojourn on the island.
'Why two?' He asks the castaway who replies.
'Well see boy that there on the left is the SNU church.'
'What's the other church for then ?'. asks the rescuer.
'Ah now see boyo that I cannot say. You see that's a Greater World chapel and me being SNU I'd never set foot in one of those'