Survival Evidence . Peripheral or essential?

A disappointing low response on PN free access to Lis and Leslie Price article so far. Do have a look and maybe add your views. You don't need to be a PN subscriber to read the full article and anyone can post a comment.
This is a spin off really. www.churchofalice.org a SNU affiliate in Oregon has lots going on. Some Spiritualists in UK might not immediately recognise aspects of what they offer compared to our own scene here in UK. Do you think that survival evidence is essential to each and every church or centre meeting for enacting Spiritualism or might evidence be peripheral sometimes?

Agreed with Mac, that evidence of survival needs to be offerred regularly, but need not be offerred every time.

But I would ask: doesn't "evidence" connote "trying to convince the observer of the reality of survival"? If so, I agree that there's a limit to how many times a given individual needs to witness same to be convinced. That may well take more than one time: but if you're not convinced after, say, 10 times, I doubt that 10 more or 100 more times is going to make a difference.

But then, isn't Spiritualism about establishing on-going lines of communication with those on the other side: as well as establishing survival as a fact?


Jim

I tend to agree mac and Jim. Wondered what others thought. Maybe because we have a lot of social meetings we attract a social crowd. Some come for specials and socials who seldom or never come to traditional meetings. My 'enacting Spiritualism'. Meetings where demonstration brings evidence.
I do think those are essential. But who for? Convinced Spiritualists in the main attend those types of traditional meetings. Just musigs really. We're a big cause possibly the bigggest in membership in the region and there's room for all sorts and conditions. Maybe I'm tending towards thinking that wherever Spiritualists are in whatever they are doing where others are involved then Spiritualism in some form or other is 'there' somehow,even if only potentially. Were that to be the case then the centrality of demonstrations for evidence might be engaged with. We get sceptics coming along sometimes and break time at tea with Spirit Saturdays when mediums are outside building if its fine can be like Hyde Park Corner. There's always one or two passers by who want to talk. Not just born again type Xtians bringing challenges.
Like you Jim I think convincement is personal one may be assured after a single encounter but someone else maybe after a hundred or another never, on this side of life. Perhaps the answer to peripheral of essential could be.... Both [depending on who you ask].

I am with Mac and Jim here, in the current environment we could not find an evidential medium to work on our platform every Sunday so we do what we can but make sure people know what we stand for whenever possible.

My experience is that the promotion of what Spiritualism is and the Proof of Survival is vital element. Without that we can just wander off into teh unproveable realms of teh new age and psychism all too easily.

Jim

What' s the drawback Jim?Are mediums in short supply per capita in Oz or is it the distances involved in travelling?
We are spoiled where we are three different platform mediums each week and different faces throughot the year.
On the other hand the smaller churches struggle to get a variety of mediums because they can't pay the exes the big churches can. That leads to them tending to have the same old faces on the platform over say two months and eventually folk drop away because they like variety. Recently I have wondered if a big church in an area such as ours might not cause a shopping mall effect. In the same way that small shops suffer if a mall opens locally. We do go out to serve the small causes when we can but there's only so much time you can offer. Medium training in-house is what many small churches lack and I've yet to come across a successful way to make that happen. If we don't get more mediums out there in the sticks then there may come a time when there will be a few mega churches in each region and nowt else and that can't be good.