So how did you get here?

How did you get here?
A straw poll of which denominations or pathways we were on before,during or after Spiritualism.
Know a couple of ex Catholics and a Methodist already on here.
What's you story please?
Ta
KK
[Progressive via SNU/Lyceum].

How did I get here?
Brought up C of E,Sunday school,religious instruction at school.
I firmly believed in God and still do to a certain extent.

Interest in Spiritualism began from the age of 16 years.
My first small experience was the cat {departed} jumped onto my bed during the night.
My screams woke up my parents.

Had a relative by marriage who was a medium in the town of Gateshead.
I remember being given a book in which there were pictures of Physical Mediumship.
My questions fell on dumb ears. I was told I was too young to understand.
{So why was I given the book to look at pictures of something that meant little to me but on the other hand fascinated me}
Small events over my young life led to me question why I was subject to such experiences.
Lost interest after that as I grew into adulthood.
Has returned over the last few years since hubby passed into spirit.

Petal

Brill. Thank you petal.
Can you remember what book you were given?

KatyKing wrote:Brill. Thank you petal.
Can you remember what book you were given?

No sorry,I can't,KK.
All I remember was looking through the photos,they fascinated me.
Some showing ectoplasm exuding from the medium.
Some showing those in the physical sitting or standing while above were faces showing,surrounded by what I thought or assumed was 'white smoke'.

Very old book indeed.
Petal

Well you had it for a purpose and thats' for sure.

I was the son of a lukewarm Scottish Presbyterian father and a red hot Polish Roman Catholic mother, raised as a Catholic back in the days when the Catholic church was really hard-nosed. Read Robert Ardrey's book African Genesis (terrific read, by the way) at 14 and decided i was an agnostic.

No spiritualists in family. Growing up, if I'd heard of such a thing I'd have thought that mediums and seances died before Queen Victoria!

I had a then-inexplicable clairaudient experience in my late 20's that probably saved me from serious injury, if not being killed: but while it undoubtedly laid the seeds for future growth, it had no immediate effect on my life.

Returned to the Christian faith in my mid-30's. Married for the first and only time at 49, we decided to marry in the Catholic denomination but got flack from the priest about her prior divorce, so married in the United Methodist Church.

I found it too low-church for my tastes, so we joined an Anglican Catholic denomination. My wife found it too high church, so we drifted to the United Methodists.

After her death in 2010 I began searching for answers that faith couldn't provide. Got interested in the Near-death experience, which lead me to Spiritualism.

Here I am, and here I intend to stay!

I would rank my own mediumistic abilities as somewhere between a wooden plank and a turnip! But I have had some success with a simple form of automatic writing (more like Ouija Board via pen-in-hand).

Jim

You could sit Colin Fry between a turnip and a wooden plank. In fact......
E' still be a top medium.
Couple of qs Jim.
How do United Methodists where you go view Spiritualism have you found?
How is your ankle healing?

I've more or less told my story elsewhere.

Raised Catholic in the Australian bush. At the age of 13 discovered some of the great Catholic mystics e.g. Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, John of the Cross and was entranced (poor joke ).

Lost faith is Catholicism at 18 and drifted into young person hood and a more humanist philosophy. Became quite ill physically and had a number of healing experiences which I didn't understand at the time. Career and life took over.

Very ill again in my 50's. Tripped over a tarot book in a library in 2002 and became very interested in symbolic language and meaning. Was able to get in touch with 'right brain' so to speak. Rediscovered poetry.

First experienced reading from a medium in 1984 at recommendation of a friend. Found it interesting but didn't go further. Another reading in 1986 which was quite predictive in a subtle way but I didn't understand that until later.

Life circumstances brought me to another medium in 2006 and I've become more involved since then, but on the periphery. Have sat in two development circles. Left one on conflict in the Church in 2010 but joined another soon after. Learned a lot from both but took a six month sabbatical from the second because I didn't seem to be getting anywhere and felt that I needed to find a stronger spiritual path.

I'm taking things slowly at present and deciding which direction to take. Will I continue development or take some other path?

Thank you Q. Doors will open once you knock.
What a mixed set of denominational backgrounds so far.

Talking about our various backgrounds in religion,I remember at my father's funeral which was conducted by a C of E vicar,as he was half way through the sermon,he stopped and looked directly at me.
There was a small smile on his face as he hesitated then said 'Your father is always at your side.....' then carried on without a flicker in his words as if these words were part of his sermon.
I always had the feeling he was telling me,not God was there,but my own sweet father.

Maybe vicar was a Spiritualist?
Fine tradition of vicar mediums in C of E.
Bishop of Southwark of a few years ago was one of us.

Quite a few years went by before I had any further experiences of spirit.
Then marrying Ken (my second husband) who was an excellent medium,not trained,natural.
We used to attend the spiritualist church in Windsor.
He could 'see' spirit very clearly.
Sitting in one of the pews,he kept turning his head,glancing around.
There was a lady sitting behind him whom he knew.
Spoke to her with a few words of conversation.

Arriving home,he told me he had seen one of his old work mates.
I asked where,hadn't noticed him speak with anyone.
The reply was 'Sitting beside his wife,behind us'.
Remarked I hadn't seen anyone.....
I was told that her husband had departed about a week ago.
But was keeping wifie company while she was hoping for a wee message from him.
She never got it....
Petal

I was born and raised Roman Catholic, when younger I remember that the priest said that all the sinners would burn in hel...l, and I was thinking I didn't want to go to heaven when there were people suffering in hel..l .

I started having weird experiences in my mid teens, the first was a strong vision I had while not being able to move my body, later in my senior year in high school I had what I considered an out-of-body experience and was standing somewhere in a tree above a fire that was burning in someones house. I recognised the firemen as some of the guys I went to school with! When I heard the next morning that there was a fire and all the guys I saw were there trying to put the fire out, I didn't know what to think of the experience.

I had many many more experiences and tried to find a book that would explain about the places I saw while out-of-body but all the books I found were ones that told how to have and obe experience. It may not have been what the experiences were called but later I had a few different type experiences that led me to explore Spiritualism (I didn't even know it existed until I was in my thirties). I had a book almost fall in my hands at work and I opened to a page that explained something similar.

I don't have too much happening lately, it seems to only happen when I am healthy and have plenty of sleep. Not much of that lately, . So my search continues....

Lynn

Great story thanks for sharing Lynn.
Hope sleep comes easier soon.
Try surrounding bidding.
Think on retiring and after you finally put the book down.....
................................................................
Spirit above to cover me
Spirit beneath to support me
Spirit before to guide my dreams
Spirit behind to watch my back
Spirit around to enfold me
Surrounded protected with highest and best
Spirit is with me. Now I rest...
....................................................................
Never fails....
:-)
:-)

Never pushed in any direction by my parents or at school. My father believed in God but not the church having grown upat the time he did.

Living in the country in the UK away from friends read a lot the Bible, Roman and Greek history. Had the fortune that my parents were able to send me on 3 school trips Norway and Denmark, Greece and Cret and Switzerland from the state school helped open my eyes more.

Lots of arguments with a deeply religous friend who's father was the local church council leader but they argued the Bible supported Apartheid. We continued arguing through his Doctorate of Divinity and I ended up winning he went to work in South Africa as an opponent of Apartheid. Also at school stood as a Communist candidate in mock elections.

Decided I believed in God after much thinking but not Christian theology or teh Old Testament. I realised I was very much in line with the humanist philoophical ideas so became an Agnostic Humanist. By preference I work in companies which show these tendencies or try to influence them to be more human.

Then Spirit took a more direct hand in contacting me, the story is on the site in the forum https://www.spiritualismlink.com/f7-experiences-with-spirit-and-the-paranormal under Arranged Marriages

Fascinating story. Thanks Jim. I was very briefly secretary of the Chadderton Grammar School Young Communist League cadre. Just two members me and a lad called Hughes. His dad gave him a clip round the ear for joining so he formally tendered his resignation. It kinda fizzled out after that and these days one's slightly to the right of Genghis Khan politically.

Remember my dad was always strictly labour,the labour party was his God.

He had a small cupboard in which all his treasured possessions were hidden.
He unlocked it with a key which was hidden in a vase,strict security in our house.

He silently handed me this book with reverence and said 'keep this safe'.
The book was by Karl Marx,I think,if I remember rightly.
The book was minus the top bit where the title had been cut off.
Dad put his finger to his lips as to say 'Sssssh'.
His father had bestowed the book on him with great secrecy.
I got the impression it was revered as much as the bible.
Apparently from what I can make out Karl Marx was the idol of the labour or communist party back in the early 1920's.
Not sure of this info but anything to do with him was forbidden.
So any reading material had to be hidden from view.
I kept it a few years until hubby found it and it was straight in the bin.
So much for Karl Marx and communism.

We still enjoy the odd sponsored jolly to the old T&G Hotel on the front at Eastbourne as I'm a union official. There's a statuette of comrade Lenin in the reading lounge presented by some long ago Soviet delegation. My first encounter with Higher Education was as a mature student at Ruskin College Oxford the Labour movements great educational cathedral of the second chance. Every now and again we'd have Slavic characters wearing terrible polyester suits in our common room keen to sign up us union leaders of tomorrow for freeby trips abroad. I went on one to Bulgaria. It was cr*p. Sunny Beach near Varna. Felt like an extra in an episode of The Prisoner. Our state minders were all into black market currency dealing. Three times their official rate of exchange for our pound notes. They needed pounds or dollars to buy anything half decent in the Party Member and tourist only hard currency shops. Ordinary people queued up for ages for basics like bread and cheese.

That communism was a fabulous system just so long as you were one of the elite.

I didn't know any different really... My Mother took me to our local spiritualist church when I was eight years old - a small, damp room above a shop, with no running water (they used to carry jugs up the stairs for drinking etc..). Never really knew what it was all about, nor did anyone really explain things to me.

Originally my Father wasn't interested but some years later, he took up the mantle of healing and without going down that route here, he became a very well respected and established healer. Gordon Higginson used to introduce him at Stanstead as a man of few words... as he only wished to heal. My Fathers philosophy being that he didn't to say anything, the real measure being in the results and those receiving healing being the only ones qualified to speak of them.

As I grew older so also did my interest. However, no one ever really seemed to explain things - well, not to the satisfaction of my young mind. I've memories of sitting in the next room, either at our home or that of friends of my parents whilst they held their circle, as I do of attending the large healing demonstrations up and around the country we so often attended. Of going to various spiritualist churches and watching with keen interest the divine services - yet every-time I asked questions, my thirst for knowledge seemed to be quenched ever so slightly, whilst what I can only explain as a hunger within, grew more and more.

Like most I had a spell away from spiritualism; this began with my entrance in to the Army. A little later in life my beliefs and faith were put to the test, when my first born Son was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis and us being advised that this beautiful gift we had received, although just a couple of months old, was not expected to live beyond the age of sixteen. Nothing tests the faith more, than seeing your Son join a group of thirty-five other infants at a Hospital, and slowly one, by one, over the following years, passing to the others side. Until the day arrives, when 'he' is the sole survivor of that group...

Getting over my falterings, I resumed in my early twenties the only 'belief', 'religion' 'faith' - whatever you wish to label it, that I had ever known - spiritualism. Being a little older and wiser, I decided that I wasn't going to rely on asking others for answers any more - instead I began to sit in development circles, meditate and basically read anything I could... Not that I digested and believed it all, I simply accepted what I felt resonated with me and discarded the rest.

This new found levels of study didn't just end there... I also studied other religions, my methodology being - how could I discuss, embrace or even present my own views, if I had no empathy or understanding of the beliefs and views of others? And in turn how could 'I' expect others to accept mine - when I was ignorant other the 'filters' of life they applied.

Perhaps that early quest for answers is why these days, I enjoy helping and where possible inspiring others find their path. And I say 'inspire' as opposed to teach as I do 'not' consider myself to be one... preferring to take the view that if I can 'inspire' someone, perhaps just a little... then the learning that follows is part of their path, their journey, their spiritual development. A little like fanning the embers - until a light appears. As in, I never 'lit' the ember, I simple helped ignite what was already there.

.... sorry I just realised I was going on a bit there. Hope that gives a little insight

Groucho Marx had the right idea when he said....
'I don't want to join any group that would have someone like me as a member'.
Old co-operative party was the best, everybody in our church was co-op. You near enough got your party card along with your Lyceum badge back in the fifties. When that went so did I. Since then I'd not give you tuppence for any of these clowns passing themselves off as politicians today [Sarah Palin excepted, we could do with a few like her in England]. Seems like this lot are all in it for what they can get out of it.

Great story Les and gets us back on track too. Thank you for sharing it. Looks so far that us 'birthright' Spiritualists are a minority on here.

KatyKing wrote:
Couple of qs Jim.
How do United Methodists where you go view Spiritualism have you found?
How is your ankle healing?

I haven't really sounded people out there, Peter. But I know that the pastor is a believer in the near-death experience. Also, some of the things I've hear some people say at meetings reflect a belief in certain concepts we as Spirituqlists tend to adhere to, such as the soul's eternal progress, and the idea of the spirit body reverse-aging back to its prime.

My ankle is healing, though not as fast as I'd like. Indoors, on level surfaces, I'm about 100%. Stairs are slow for me, and outdoors I'm rather slow and stiff, but have walked as much as 4 miles, roundtrip.

I'm also gradually phasing out use of the cane, when outdoors. I never use it indoors.

Jim

Good news about the ankle JIm. Slow and steady wins the race.
Interesting info on Methodists. Don't know many of those but they seem an open sort of denomination at least round here.