Art for Happiness Week Healing Light Spiritualist Church September 2
The Spirit of Stoke-on-Trent: Reflections on the healing heritage of Brexit Majuscule…
What lies on Stoke-on-Trent's horizon?
All eyes are on a bitter and divided Stoke-on-Trent, as it goes to the polls amidst a flurry of sickening political deceit, backstabbing and the occasional well-aimed egg-throwing.
But I wanted to use this opportunity to reflect on another of Stoke-on-Trent's vernacular vagaries. For not only is the city the 'Brexit Upper-case letter' of Britain, information technology has also been the hub of a thriving Spiritualist movement for some 150 years. And possibly Spiritualism has something of value to reflect on in these dystopian times.
The healing power of Spiritualism…
Spiritualism is a religion that is misunderstood, ridiculed and even feared, withal, as I have written earlier, one of its core practices – hands-on healing – has begun to make its mode into mainstream healthcare in contempo years.
But for Spiritualists, there is more to the healing dynamic of their religion and philosophy than the laying-on of hands. Even mediumship (communicating with the dead) – so often disparaged by wider society every bit praying on and exploiting the vulnerable – is understood as being essentially about developing a healing human relationship between those who have 'passed to spirit' and those who are left behind.
Healing encounters…
Of course, death also has its place in mainstream healthcare. In stop-of-life care it is widely recognised that the complex and unpredictable spiritual (and/or religious) needs of patients and families often come to the fore. Equally people face their ain mortality, the meaning of life and how it may fit into a broader picture, is cast in new relief. Sometimes this manifests in requests for visits from religious leaders to set for death; at other times some very dissimilar spiritual visits will occur. Nurses in palliative intendance have frequently reported paranormal visitations and events as patients approach death; and bereavement counsellors volition ofttimes discover those mourning their loved ones talking of seeing, sensing or hearing the spirits of the deceased.
In both contexts – for those approaching death and those left behind – these otherworldly spiritual connections are experienced equally therapeutic and comforting, often easing the passing and the subsequent transition to a life without that person for those left behind.
They are in essence healing encounters.
Healing the spirit? An angel statue watches over the graves in Longton Cemetary
A healing arroyo…
But Spiritualism takes these extraordinary encounters as its starting point. These are seen as very normal and ordinary parts of everyday life; not reserved for moments of crunch. Spirit doesn't just call at the death bed; for Spiritualists, it exists as an ever-nowadays and active part of everyday life. And this serves as a healing framework for daily life which offers connexion, continuity and shared experiences.
When a medium delivers a message from the expressionless, therefore, it is met with tears of laughter, as much equally tears of loss.
Just mediums do not only talk to the dead. Like any other person standing in front of a church building congregation they will also offer a reading or address at each service. This is often used to highlight shared responsibilities and commonalities despite apparent differences – from Aleppo to pets, the Christmas story to the NHS, there is a reminder that spirit's universal presence binds the world together, frequently against the odds.
Even for non-Spiritualists (for there are many who attend these services in the hope of a message from beyond the grave) there is common sense and comfort in this message which offers a welcome dissimilarity to the images of conflict, devastation and hate beamed into homes daily past global news corporations.
Only so what? What tin can we usefully take from that broader narrative of healing? Is it just feel-good palliatives in a world beyond hope, or might at that place be some message of value to be gained by reflecting on this other side to Stoke-on-Trent's cultural traditions?
From curing to caring…
A healing touch..?
The unspoken subtext in any medical encounter is the need for it to be healing on some level, not simply curative, or treatment-based, or scientifically measurable, but for information technology to have at its heart a sense of having been cared for; hence nosotros call it health care practice. There is besides general consensus that developing healing relationships in wellness care encounters will ameliorate clinical outcomes, ensure college rates of patient compliance, and have benign impacts on job satisfaction for practitioners.
Embracing healing in health systems, it seems, is win win.
At the aforementioned time, healing has a complex and ambiguous relationship with health, illness and wellbeing. On the 1 manus, information technology might seem logical to think that healing implies overcoming some course of disease, sick-health or suffering. Yet on the other, someone can exist terminally sick – or perfectly healthy – and still undergo greatly healing experiences.
If healing, therefore, exists somewhere across the immediate physical biological science of bodies, how practice we locate it and how tin information technology be accessed in wellness care encounters? Well perhaps Spiritualism has some of the answers.
The reality is that healing is independent of health, affliction, curing, treatment, and even death; and the narrative of healing in Spiritualism shows that very clearly. In acknowledging and attention to the intangible, Spiritualism draws attention to more than the machinery of the body we inhabit here-and-now, relocating that body in the moments, places and relationships which make our lives worth living.
This tin merely be a adept thing when the root causes of so many of today'due south greatest challenges to wellbeing lie not simply in physiological malfunctioning of mankind-and-bone-bodies, but in the social, cultural and spiritual dis-eases of their containing societies.
So here'due south hoping for a brighter future for Stoke-on-Trent, premised less on its reputation as Brexit Capital and a piffling more on the city's uniquely healing heritage…
Visualising our unseen subconscious connections..?
[I will exist speaking in more detail nigh healing, healthcare and messages from Spiritualism at the 2017 Spirituality and Wellbeing Conference in York this weekend].
Spreading Spiritualist Stereotypes with #MyPsychicLife
For the Twittersphere 'My Psychic Life' (Channel iv 9pm 4 November 2015) was set up up to fail earlier information technology even aired. The trolls and the cynics were out in strength ready to criticise and attack the poor characters who had opened their lives to the cameras…
As is axiomatic from the full general season of tweets, when people hear the discussion 'psychic' they call up con-artist, tricksters, frauds and deception.
Stereotyping for sensation..?
Unfortunately, as is often the example in sensation-seeking broadcasting (and Tweeters!), this is simply addressing one stereotype from what is actually a very broad church. And yes, I employ the word 'church building' deliberately, because Spiritualism as a religion has churches and centres up and down the U.k. in most towns and cities from Edinburgh to the E End, from Leicester to Lochgelly, Maidstone to Manchester.
Merely the program decided to sidestep that more than mundane aspect of everyday organized religion and belief, and spring right into the world of flamboyant psychics on the entertainment excursion. The programmers claimed to desire to understand why mediums are more popular than ever, but their arroyo was like trying to sympathise feminism in British society by following the Spice Girls around for a day.
The existent face of Spiritualism..?
Channel 4 missed a real opportunity here. I'g not sure where they got the figure of a 79% increase in people claiming to be 'Spiritualist' in the final demography (it's actually nearer 17%, though considerably higher in some areas). But what they failed to do completely was to explore what that meant in terms of the irresolute spiritual landscape of the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. At the same time in that location was a decline in the number of people registering every bit 'Christian' by most 12% and an increase of x% in those who said they had 'no religion'.
The fact that people are abandoning God and finding solace (and entertainment) in mediums is an interesting feature of a complex and changing religious landscape. Information technology deserves more nuanced exploration.
The programme, like so many, made the mistake of equating Spiritualism with people who identify equally professional psychic mediums. Yes, there are Spiritualists who earn coin as 'professional mediums', but this is but a pocket-size handful of the thousands of people up and down the country who identify with Spiritualism as a religion. For them this isn't about flamboyant shows in Blackpool or hooking big London agents. It's about a personal belief and faith which – like whatever organized religion for everyone – underpins their everyday life experiences, only hinges on some things which those without that particular religious frame of reference might find difficult to eyebrow.
Afterwards all, is it whatsoever weirder to believe in a human with a big white beard in the heaven than it is to believe people who have actually lived can continue to exist in some mode?
What is the hush-hush..?
The word Spiritualism was mentioned a scattering of times. But Channel 4 did nobody any favours by equating it with a handful of people who resembled more than closely the characters in Hilary Mantel's 'Beyond Black' than the very normal people yous might observe sitting in a Spiritualist Church building in a Lord's day divine service. A great book, by the style, but 1 which was written for amusement rather than cultural or theological accuracy.
The narrator of 'My Psychic Life' claimed 'for centuries their work has been a secretive world'. I'm not convinced the programme did anything to lift the lid on that purported secrecy. Actually, people like Derek Acorah and Psychic Sally have been highly visible for many years, then at that place is no secrecy effectually this high profile side of entertainment mediumship. Aqueduct iv just reinforced a few more stereotypes and hammered the nails a little deeper into the coffin of Spiritualism for the trolls to delight in.
If there is any secrecy around this world, information technology is purely because nobody has bothered to inquire what it actually means for those who claim Spiritualism as their religion. Through our enquiry project nosotros've learnt that Spiritualism is not an evangelising faith, and so they won't come knocking on your door bringing deceased Aunt Ethel with you lot. Simply if y'all take a genuine interest in what it is actually all nearly, nosotros accept besides establish that the churches will welcome you to join them at 1 of their services where you're likely to learn a lot more interesting things well-nigh living with spirit than you volition have gleaned from an hr watching 'My Psychic Life'.
Time to spread a lilliputian tolerance..?
And in modern Britain we are meant to be more than tolerant towards all religions (and mental health). I tin can't imagine the aforementioned people would tweet so confidently accusing all Muslims of existence terrorists, for case, simply perhaps they would? And whilst the seriousness of the accusation is admittedly on a very dissimilar scale, the reasoning and logic behind it is just equally bigoted and ill-informed. Information technology's a shame Aqueduct four missed the opportunity to enlighten us all…
Talking with the dead vs. talking with Tweeters… which is more scary?
The OU run these things with their academics often and, as usual, advertised the forthcoming session amidst their followers before this calendar week. Sometimes they become a lot of people taking part, sometimes very few; but the aim is always to open a conversation about areas of research that are ongoing among the research community at the university.
Now I know Spiritualism isn't everybody'southward cup of tea; and that is fair enough. Nonetheless, it has been a function of the religious landscape of Britain since the 1850s, and for its community of followers it has brought comfort, faith, friendship and laughter through skilful times and bad. Just like any other religion.
However, Spiritualism also attracts an incredibly negative – often hostile – response from some people. Nosotros accept first-hand experience of that from our enquiry fieldwork. When our associated exhibition (Talking With The Dead) opened, one commentator on Facebook said:
I promise that this exhibition doesn't sanitise what, in other circumstances,
would exist chosen a fundamentally morbid cult. A cult that cynically preys
on the bereaved person's honey for their dead relative, and thus dangerously
warps and freezes the grieving and healing process. I hope information technology also acknowledges
the movement's historical back up for pseudo-science 'research', and its
tolerance of fakery.
In some ways the annotate was perfect for united states of america in terms of highlighting the demand for this inquiry in the first identify – because it summarised so succinctly some of the widespread misunderstandings and prejudices that surroundings this long-established faith. This person clearly felt very strongly but appeared to be basing his criticisms on a very outdated and limited understanding of what Spiritualism actually is. The experience for many thousands of British people is very different, and his description is not i which its practitioners would recognise.
It was also interesting that he mentioned healing – because healing is a key part of Spiritualist philosophy, and indeed spiritual healing is now widely provided in the NHS as a beneficial therapeutic intervention for people living with chronic long-term health issues.
Thankfully in that location have been only positive responses elsewhere to our exhibition and the inquiry project every bit a whole; but Twitter is seems promises to be a very different beast. Within hours of the Open University Tweeting the Q&A event nosotros were being ridiculed. It wasn't but Spiritualism under attack, however; this became a critique of the Open University itself, of me personally, and of the wider research customs.
I found myself wondering if my colleagues in Religious Studies conducting research into Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and diverse Indigenous peoples' religions from around the earth go the same criticisms levelled at them. We live in a country which, by and large, prides itself on its cultural tolerance. Paradoxically, extremism in many forms is on the rise. Social science can play a key office in trying to understand how and why that arises, and how nosotros might be able to overcome it. Social science plays a cardinal role in understanding the way lodge works, how people alive together in peace, and how we can help to forge a better future. And function of that is to understand the office of religion and spiritual conventionalities in all its guises.
Then for those of you who have already ripped the project apart, criticising the OU and the enquiry team for conducting this project, I wonder if you might be able to fix aside your fears, and challenge yourself to learn something informed about this unique part of Britain's history which continues to play a growing role in society today.
From curing to caring? Rethinking healing with a bit of spiritual assistance…
Time to achieve out..?
Feeling a flake under the atmospheric condition? Struggling to face the daily grind? Contesting an injury or longterm illness? Or merely looking for half an 60 minutes of uninterrupted relaxation? Well possibly you need some spiritual healing…
A touch of instinct…
Anyone who has e'er looked afterwards a small child will exist familiar with the natural human being instinct of laying on of hands to soothe an injury. Whether information technology's the distraction of a cool or warm hand placed on the hurting site, or the powerful placebo of love and attending, it's usually a calming matter to practise which has some benign impact.
Only is there something else going on at a deeper subconscious level backside this natural human act?
The idea that the human bear upon can heal is something which stretches right back in time, from Bible stories about Jesus to modern solar day evangelical faith healing. But did y'all know that spiritual healing isn't just a religious thing?
Curing with care…
Across the UK a number of NHS hospitals now offer 'spiritual healing' to alleviate pain and symptoms for chronically ill patients. It is part and bundle of a progressive arroyo to managing longterm chronic weather condition in an overburdened NHS (healers usually requite their services for gratuitous!).
Take fourth dimension out to heal…
The popularity of spiritual healing (and other hands on therapies such as Reiki or crystal healing), non only amongst spiritually minded people but the wider population too, is attestation to the fact that such therapies oft involve more fourth dimension, care and attention being given to the private than with standard medical appointments. The basic features of personal time, individual attention and a 18-carat sense of beingness cared for in themselves accept beneficial therapeutic impacts. Things which were in one case the mainstay of medical care as well, before information technology moved to a focus on cure (and more than recently an overwhelming accent on cost!).
Healing Stoke…
Merely you lot don't have to be in a hospital to be healed. You could pop along to your local Spiritualist church. Most Spiritualist Churches will have defended healing rooms where you lot can receive healing for free or for a small donation towards the healer'south travel expenses (normally a pound).
Gladstone: a magical place of peace and healing!
Stoke-on-Trent has three very active Spiritualist churches, in Burslem, Fenton and Longton. All these churches offering healing, but it doesn't end at the church door; healing tin occur at any time and in any place, and then we are bringing healing to the wider customs in Stoke-on-Trent past offering free healing sessions at Gladstone Pottery Museum.
Your invitation to relaxation…
Healing can benefit anyone because it is peaceful and not-invasive and demands nothing more of yous than sitting comfortably and relaxing. You don't demand to take any particular organized religion or belief system to benefit from information technology, and you don't even accept to be 'ill' or in need of a 'cure'.
If yous've never tried it earlier why not pop along to see what you lot're missing…!
Saturday 10th October
Twyford Room, Gladstone Pottery Museum
1.xxx to 3 pm
Gratis (normal admission applies for the rest of the museum)
Y'all can turn upward on the 24-hour interval or book in advance on 01782 237777
We look forwards to seeing you in that location! #SpiritOfGladstone
Robbie, angels and an enchanting history: Locating Spiritualism in the modern world
Loving angels instead..?
According to the 2011 Census, 59% of the population of England and Wales draw themselves as Christian, a decline of nearly 11% since 2001. On the other hand, although the numbers remain minor, those choosing to register themselves as Spiritualist showed an increase of virtually 21%.
The first Spiritualist church in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland opened in 1853 in Keighley, Yorkshire, and the get-go national conference of Spiritualists was held in Manchester in 1890. As well as having defended buildings, early Spiritualist groups met in school halls, working men's clubs and medium's own houses. Today the Spiritualists' National Marriage has near 350 registered Spiritualist churches and centres throughout the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland.
For many, however, the 'hub' of Spiritualism in the UK is somewhere ameliorate known for its ceramics and oatcakes than its spiritual side…
Longton: an enchanted cityscape?
The longest serving President of the Spiritualists National Marriage was Gordon Higginson, and he was built-in in 1918 in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. His mother, Fanny, was already an established medium at Longton Church and, similar her, he went on to serve there until his death. Today Longton Church's website claims it 'is one of the leading centres for Spiritualism.'
Stoke-on-Trent, famous for its Victorian pottery industry, and making the globe'southward finest bone china, lives in the shadow of its by glories. Affectionately nicknamed 'The Potteries', this area is now most famous for its postal service-Pottery decline and for beingness the near working grade metropolis in the United kingdom (Edensor 2000) – and, of grade, the birthplace of Robbie Williams!
The hidden enchantments of a spirited Stoke..?
Stoke was also the setting for Arnold Bennett's Anna of The Five Towns, where he describes it as both squalid and enchanting:
"The entire landscape was illuminated and transformed by these unique pyrotechnics of labour atoning for its crud, and dull, weird sounds, as of the breathings and sightings of gigantic nocturnal creatures, filled the enchanted air… nothing can be more prosaic… yet be it said that romance is even here – the romance which, for those who have an eye to perceive information technology, e'er dwells amid the seats of industrial manufacture, softening the coarseness, transfiguring the squalor, of these mighty alchemic operations."
Despite Bennett describing Stoke-on-Trent as having an 'enchanted air', this is a city that is dominated past its intractable struggle to opposite industrial and economic turn down. In contempo years Stoke Urban center Council has tried to reinvigorate the region and its popular epitome both by cartoon on the city's industrial heritage and by redesigning Stoke every bit a metropolis of culture.
This prototype of Stoke, withal, and the almost exclusive emphasis on its pot-based past overlooks another important and standing attribute of its cultural heritage, namely Spiritualism. In the 1960s, whilst the number of potbanks was declining daily, at that place were twelve very active Spiritualist churches. This, together with information technology beingness the home of Fanny and Gordon Higginson, made Stoke-on-Trent the national hub of a thriving Spiritualist motility. This legacy, together with the active life of the city's remaining Spiritualist churches today, represents a hidden enchanted, whilst simultaneously ordinary, heritage for those who take, equally Arnold Bennett puts information technology, 'an eye to perceive information technology'.
And that'southward why a team of researchers at the Open University chose this particular location to explore the place of Spiritualism in modern British gild…
Spiritualism in Stoke-on-Trent
Tracing histories
The earliest written testify of Spiritualism in Stoke-on-Trent is from a newspaper article in the Staffordshire Daily Lookout in 1873. Since and so the city has enjoyed a rich and vibrant Spiritualist history with some well-known faces. In the Victorian era, the possibility of spirit communication and psychic phenomena attracted the attention of scientists and intellectuals. But it was during Globe War I when Spiritualism reached a new meridian in United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland. With so many young men failing to return from the front, many sought mediums to obtain some closure.
Sir Oliver Lodge, built-in in Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent, had several séances in the expanse, one of which was with medium Annie Brittain in Hanley soon subsequently his son Raymond died at the front end on 14 September 1915. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also visited Annie Brittain, particularly after the death of his son Kingsley at the Somme in 1917, and the expiry of his younger brother Innes in February 1919, a brigadier general in World War one.
Information technology was also Annie Brittain who told medium Fanny Higginson from Longton that she would have a son who would go a famous platform medium; and we already know about what her son Gordon went on to achieve!
Longton Spiritualist Church
Today, there are iii very active Spiritualist churches in Stoke-on-Trent. Longton Spiritualist Church building is off Normacott Route (at the dorsum of Gladstone Pottery Museum), while Fenton Spiritualist Church tin can be found on King Street (corner of Royal). Burslem Spiritualist Church is situated on Haywood Route, near the infirmary. In the 1980s, the construction of the A50 afflicted Fenton and Longton Spiritualist churches. Both were demolished, yet both rebuilt in the 1990s. This is not a organized religion bars to history – it is live and well and thriving!
With this rich history, is it any wonder that even Stoke-on-Trent'southward very ain Robbie Williams once said if he hadn't fabricated his career in music he might have been a Spiritualist medium instead (the angels would have loved that, Robbie!).
Gladstone Pottery Museum Exhibition: Talking With The Expressionless
Talking With The Dead
You can notice out more than well-nigh the history and nowadays 24-hour interval function of Spiritualism in Stoke-on-Trent by visiting 'Talking With The Expressionless' at Gladstone, Pottery Museum, Stoke-on-Trent.
Hither you volition be able to mind to stories about what it's like to alive with spirit in everyday life, you can wander around a Spiritualist'southward living room, and yous can option upwards a copy of our 'Spirit Trail' that maps all the sites that have been registered for Spiritualist worship and services beyond the city between 1870 and 2015. Yous may be surprised at what a magical and enchanted history this seemingly very prosaic city hides!
Spirit inspires enduring memories
Don't forget to leave a bulletin on our memory tree and share your experiences and reflections on the exhibition and any attribute of a 'spirited Stoke' using the hashtag #SpiritOfGladstone
Spirited Stoke on Facebook
Spirited Stoke on Twitter
Spirit Fine art: mediumship, art and the unseen landscapes of spirit…
What does the world expect similar with spirit in it?
Visualising landscapes…
The kickoff time I ever sat in a Spiritualist church and listened to the medium at the front I found myself wondering what the world of spirit looked and felt like to her. I wanted to know what she actually saw, how she saw it, and how she interacted with this strange unseen world. What did the 'spirit world' she was talking near look and experience like?
The reason I was asking these questions wasn't really considering of a item desire to know what the spirit world might wait like (although that in itself is an interesting question!); but it was because being a geographer by training I always notice myself wondering what information technology looks and feels like to exist in the world from other people's perspectives. We all have a physical 'reality' we move around and bump into everyday. We besides all have other layers on top of that concrete landscape of 'things' and 'places'; nosotros have memories and attachments, we accept relationships and rules, we have expectations and habits. All of which influence the way we see and feel the world (for more on this see my previous mail service 'Making a place your own').
But some people take additional layers of complexity to their worlds. Sitting in the audience of the Spiritualist church that evening I realised this lady had a complication I'd never even thought near; and as a geographer I was fascinated. What was even more heady from a geographical/philosophical indicate of view was the way in which the medium's interactions with this unseen world overlapped and were woven through the worlds of people in the audition.
Materialising landscapes…
That was about ten years ago, and the 'Spirited Stoke' (or SpELS) project and our 'Talking With The Dead' exhibition are, in part, the result of that first experience of a sit-in of mediumship and the questions it opened upward for me every bit a geographer.
As I came out of my reverie that evening – reflecting on the structures, meanings and implications of this unseen landscape for those who traversed it – I realised the medium had drawn a picture of a man. And that man had been recognised by someone in the audience. I take since learnt that what she was doing was 'Spirit fine art' – a form of mediumship where the medium draws the messages they are receiving.
We are very lucky as part of the series of events linked to our exhibition at Gladstone, to take internationally renowned Spirit artist Ann Bridge Davies doing 2 demonstrations of mediumship through Spirit art for us.
Ann told me:
Ann, medium and artist.
"Spirit art is the drawing of portraits, landscapes and familial objects belonging to those who have passed to spirit by someone who never knew the people. The mediumship is through the language of art rather than spoken linguistic communication… It is always exciting when a portrait is recognised by a person who doesn't know the artist. And sometimes people accept photographs on their phones or in their pockets which provide proof of the likeness."
If you're interested in finding out more than nearly how the artist-medium works – and maybe even receiving your own bulletin – why not come along to ane of Ann's demonstrations at Gladstone Pottery Museum? The first is on Thursday 17th September 1.xxx – three pm and the 2nd on Saturday 17th October 1.30 – three pm.
The sessions are free but y'all are advised to book your place in accelerate through the museum. To book, please phone call 01783 237777.
Talking With The Dead: Spiritualism in Stoke-on-Trent
'Talking with the dead: Spiritualism in Stoke-on-Trent' at Gladstone Pottery Museum
The @SpELSProject exhibition is now open to the public and we have a serial of associated workshops and activities coming up over the next ii months which you can view here:
Workshops and activities
Exercise pop along if yous tin can – and don't forget to share your reflections, experiences and thoughts with the hashtag #SpiritofGladstone…
Spiritualism in Stoke-on-Trent… #SpiritofGladstone
A subconscious history
The city of Stoke-on-Trent hides a unique history of Spiritualism. The earliest written evidence of local Spiritualism is from a paper article in the Staffordshire Daily Sentry in 1873. Since then the city has enjoyed a rich and vibrant Spiritualist history.
From the Victorian era, the possibility of spirit communication and psychic phenomena attracted the attention of scientists and intellectuals, and during World State of war I Spiritualism reached a new height of popularity across Britain. With so many immature men failing to render from the forepart, many sought mediums to obtain some closure.
Well known figures came to Stoke-on-Trent to seek such conversations with the dead. Sir Oliver Lodge attended several séances, one of which was with medium Annie Brittain in Stoke-on-Trent, soon after his son Raymond died at the forepart on xiv September 1915.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as well visited Annie Brittain, particularly afterwards the expiry of his son Kingsley at the Somme in 1917, and once more post-obit the decease of his younger blood brother Innes in Feb 1919, who had served as a brigadier full general in Earth War 1.
Window on the soul: Looking from Longton Spiritualist Church towards Gladstone Pottery Museum
It was besides Annie Brittain who told Longton medium Fanny Higginson that she would have a son who would grow upwards to be a famous platform medium. Gordon Higginson was born in 1918 and went on to become the longest serving president of the Spiritualists' National Matrimony for 23 years.
With such a rich history, is it any wonder that even Stoke-on-Trent's very own Robbie Williams once said if he hadn't fabricated his career in music he might accept been a Spiritualist medium instead? No doubt whatsoever one of the 3 Spiritualist churches notwithstanding very agile in Stoke-on-Trent (Burslem, Fenton and Longton) would welcome him into their congregations with open up arms!
Find out more than at 'Talking With The Expressionless' an exhibition on Spiritualism in Stoke-on-Trent at Gladstone Pottery Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, 1 September to 31 October.
And don't forget to share your experiences of Spiritualism, Stoke or the exhibition with us using #SpiritofGladstone
Facebook: SpiritedStoke
Twitter: @SpELSProject
SpELS dispels some myths: Spiritualism, stigma and prejudice in an age of political correctness.
Don't mention religion..!
A very happy childood. Just don't mention faith!
I was brought up in a family where organized religion was a taboo subject field. My dad had been raised a strict Catholic, but after enduring a childhood of corporal punishment inflicted by monks, he chose to get out Catholicism backside when he became a father in his 30s. The outcome, as often seems to happen with those who walk away from a strict religious upbringing, is that organized religion became a no-get area; we never discussed information technology, and the silence told us that all religion was seen as an evil cultural construction which acquired nothing but war and misery.
As a result I had a huge gap in noesis about what religion actually meant in the everyday lives of people to whom it mattered.
Religious intolerance…?
We live in an age when the headlines are total of national conflicts and terrorist attacks, driven by religious clashes and intolerance. Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, religion is a touchy subject and many, like my dad, would exist quite happy to practise away with all of it. Nonetheless, religion also continues to play an of import community building function in modern society. Away from all the wars and disputes, a sense of religious belonging enhances wellbeing in the everyday lives of many people.
Religious tolerance…?
We also live at a time when diversity and respect for difference accept get central motifs in our society. Rather paradoxically therefore, whilst the number of religious wars and attacks appear to proliferate around the world, nosotros are too – on the whole – more mindful of religious tolerance and sensitive to the diverseness of behavior which circulate in our communities.
Which makes the reception of our research project past some all the more interesting.
Why does Spiritualism spook..?
SpELS is a resarch projection exploring what is, according to the 2011 Census, the country's fastest growing organized religion: Spiritualism. Although a relatively young organized religion (with its modernistic roots in the mid-19th century), it nonetheless has a visible presence in almost every town and metropolis from Glasgow and Alness to Bodmin and Dagenham. Despite its geographical spread and growing popularity, withal, there is a lack of wider understanding about what Spiritualism actually is.
Tracing Spiritualism…
Recently we've been wandering the streets of Stoke-on-Trent looking at the location of premises previously registered for Spiritualist worship. This has taken us to a wide range of places from full blown church buildings, to rooms above high street shops, to the site of residential terraces long ago 
And we've been a bit taken aback by the response of some people when we tell them! A common attitude seems to be that people think nosotros are dabbling in the occult or something. They literally back off – physically recoiling from the states – equally we explain that nosotros're looking at the history of Spiritualism. 'Oh no!' They cry, 'Best leave all that lonely…'
Nosotros had a actually interesting conversation with a taxi driver i evening, which went something like this:
'Spiritualism? Oh yea they believe in all that possession stuff don't they?'
'Well no, not really. They believe in the continuation of the soul after death. That the spirit lives on and continues to develop spiritually.'
'Oh. Do they?' [Pause] 'Well I believe that… Only similar, don't spirits possess and cause disease and things?'
'Is that what you lot believe?'
'It'southward in my organized religion…'
'Well, it's dissimilar for Spiritualists. They believe spirit is there to help us, non cause us problems.'
'Oh…'
Possessions and fakery…
I estimate partly the lack of awareness and reticence to show interest in Spiritualism is down to the way its adherents are represented in popular culture. In sum, the main thing that Spiritualism is known for – talking with the expressionless – is ripped out of the context of the religion and community it sits within and placed uncomfortably into a world which doesn't want to accept the time to understand it or adjust any preconceptions about what it might entail. From the eccentric Madame Arcati in 'Animated Spirit', to con-artist Oda Mae Brown in 'Ghost', portrayals of people who talk with the dead routinely play on the slightly mad and slightly comical older lady (yes, usually a lady) as a distressing character who is easy to ridicule and dismiss. At the other end of the spectrum there are darker, more sinister portrayals like Alison Mundy in 'Afterlife' where the medium is possessed or haunted past spirits which roam battered and bruised around the earthly obviously awaiting justice.
Street art on an old Spiritualist building: artistic cosmos or possessive desctruction..?
Invariably, people who talk with the dead are seen as 'dissimilar', 'outsiders', not quite at home in our modern globe.
No wonder people are a lilliputian wary.
The existent face up of Spiritualism..?
The truth of the matter is that what Spiritualists do is really a lot more mundane. A cocky-respecting Spiritualist medium is unlikely to let themselves be 'possessed' in a dramatic functioning; a church service will often open and close with hymns and prayers just like many other religious traditions; and the medium, rather than being an eccentric recluse living in some windswept spooky cottage, or constantly haunted by restless souls, quite probably lives next door and works quite happily equally a nurse, a fire-fighter or a teacher.
A typical Spiritualist Church service
These are very normal people, practicing a very ordinary religion, in very mundane places.
But they make some extraordinary claims, and this is what seems to ready them autonomously.
What they are unlikely to do, however, is to button their religion upon others. You won't find Spiritualists knocking on doors for recruits; and although you quite possibly work aslope someone who has some interest in Spiritualism, and has perhaps visited a Spiritualist church, chances are they won't talk to you about information technology unless information technology crops upwardly in conversation. They won't exist out to catechumen you lot. For Spiritualists believe that Spirit will come up to the person when they are prepare, and it'south upwards to each individual to make the choice to mind or non. And although they have '7 principles' they try to follow, their ultimate aim – they will tell you – is to seek the truth about our beingness on earth and across it.
The truth is out in that location…
So in a earth of contradictory tolerance and intolerance, religion continues to divide and judge in very visible, sometimes vehement ways. Different religious persuasions remain locked in the fight for supremacy, and their right to claim 'the truth'.
Meanwhile, quietly, in a street about where you lot alive, people are gathering together not to preach the truth, only to notice it; with a fleck of aid from a comforting energy they call 'Spirit' that volition not possess them or punish them or con money out of them.
If the census results are anything to become by, at that place's more and more people who are doing so.
And they're non waging wars or attacking other religious faiths.
So what is everyone and then scared of..?
Perhaps the real fearfulness of Spiritualism lies in its apparently comfortable human relationship with expiry. And withal tolerant nosotros are, nosotros're non quite gear up for that simply yet.
Where angels fear to tread..?
Healing mind, body and soul: Guest blog by Dr Nadia Bartolini
Healing hands..?
Spiritualism is mostly known for its emphasis on mediumship. Becoming aware or attuned to The Other Side is frequently associated with developing mediumistic capabilities in a circle. This process takes time, dedication and trust.
While mediumship can be perceived as the cornerstone of Spiritualism, I have been very interested in another, peradventure lesser known aspect of Spiritualism: healing. I am unsure why healing has caught my attention. Is it indeed considering I was less aware of it and feel as though I take uncovered a more hidden aspect of Spiritualism? Perhaps it's considering I am all the same trying to figure out what healing is almost? Regardless of the reasons, I accept been going to healing more than and more, and to my surprise (because I can't quite understand why), I very much savor it.
If mediumship focuses on demonstrating advice with the spirit world, I am gradually thinking that healing could be seen as highlighting the 'caring' aspect of Spiritualism. This is not to say that mediumship is not nearly caring – quite the contrary. But I had non previously appreciated the extent to which healers are equally important as mediums. Healers also develop in circles, and their souvenir is equally valued and necessary as that of mediums.
Letting Go
Painting of the old Fenton Church before information technology moved to new bounds
Since starting this projection, I have taken frequent trips to Stoke-on-Trent. Due to personal obligations, I take been traveling to Stoke on Mondays and I have therefore tried to nourish the Fenton Spiritualist Church'due south healing services that occur on Mon evenings.
As an ethnographer, at kickoff, I wanted to observe healing: what happens to patients when they receive healing? Is there a reciprocity that is appreciable between the healer and the patient? And so, I became curious to feel healing and discover out whether it would affect me in some way. That said, I as well wondered whether I could challenge myself: could I actually be however and relax for twenty minutes in a strange environment? Would I exist able to trust a healer enough to allow myself get, mind, torso and soul? In other words, would I be open enough to receive healing, and if so, would I feel anything?
Being in the Moment
I have now had the opportunity to obtain healing from all the healers at Fenton. Each ane of them is unlike and as I take been told, I would have my ain preferred healers (which I do). From a patient point of view, I suppose that some personalities have an easier time to let go, but I am one of these people that finds it quite difficult. It's not that I can't relax; I simply accept always found it hard to do it with other people. When I am solitary, I can meditate quite easily. However, I always feel on border somehow when I am supposed to allow become with, basically, a stranger.
I was a scrap nervous on my first healing experience. I found myself being led to a small-scale, private room. The healer shut the door and asked me to sit in a chair that was placed in the heart of the room. She reassured me, calmed me and suggested that I shut my optics and endeavour to relax. She asked if I was ok with her touching me: my back, my head, my artillery, my hands. I said I was. As I airtight my optics and felt her presence close to me, I was immediately aware of a deep sense of at-home. My rational heed couldn't quite explicate information technology, but I decided and then and there to trust her… and I permit myself be in the moment. With my eyes close, my other senses kicked in: I could hear soft music coming from the speakers; I heard the distant hum of cars outside; I sensed her hands moving to my shoulders; I felt my muscles tense and then relax. As my listen became accustomed to the music, I imagined drifting abroad – not to a identify, but to an emptiness. I noticed that my breathing was deeper, slower, and I got into a rhythm… and all of a sudden, I 'awoke': I couldn't feel her presence anymore. I opened my optics and saw her sitting calmly in a chair by the wall in front of me. She was smiling, and and then was I.
Relaxing music adds to the healing temper
Feeling the Energy
Now that I know what to expect when I go to healing, I find myself drawn to it. I can't quite explicate why, simply as the terminal healer told me, possibly I just demand a little down fourth dimension. In that location is something to this, of form. In this twenty-four hours and historic period, information technology is difficult to find time to sit quietly and empty our minds. Merely I remember there is more to it than that. This is why I am always surprised when every one time in a while, at that place is a story in the printing that surfaces condemning complementary medicine, such equally this recent article in The Guardian.
So, if I don't need anything 'healed', why am I drawn to 'healing'? Mayhap it has to do with the presence of a healer – of some other person'southward trunk in proximity – creating a sense of calm, of energies flowing from i body to another. All I tin say is that after healing, I feel amend. I feel re-energized. Subsequently healing, I join healers and patients in the common area of the church and we sip tea and conversation almost how we've been. This familiarity, this sense of community and feeling of 'care' are just as important as the 20-infinitesimal healing session. I think this is worth considering – even though I have no data to prove that I am better, I certain do feel better.
Well-nigh Spiritualist churches will offer healing. If y'all're around the Stoke-on-Trent area and feel in need of some healing energy, why not visit ane of the churches the SpELS projection is working with and experience it for yourself?:
Burslem Spiritualist Church
Fenton Spiritualist Church
Longton Spiritulaist Church
Source: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/EverydaySpirituality/
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