We are pleased to say that our regular Thursday evening meetings – 7.30pm at the Village Hall are becoming even more popular with around 25 to 30 people attending every week.
We are Spiritualists, which means basically that we believe that not only is there life after death, but that it’s provable through mediumship, communication between this world and the next, from those gone before and loved ones left here.
When we meet for such a demonstration of this, we do so in a religious context, not that of a television studio or theatre. Not that good mediumship is to be decried, wherever it takes place, or the mediums denigrated who take our message of that universal life after death out to the general public. But ours in Littleport is specifically conducted within the framework of our religion.
How is this expressed? Our meetings in Littleport consist of an opening prayer, an address from the minister, and a demonstration of mediumship followed by a closing prayer. In America, where Spiritualism began, this is the service format they call a ‘message service’. Messages are relayed to members of the congregation through the visiting medium, from people they can identify as known to them from the personal details and shared memories given.
Like every religion in the world, Spiritualism has its different groupings. They all agree on a set of principles given by the medium and teacher considered the Mother of Spiritualism in this country, Emma Hardinge Britten. The philosophy of our religion is based on these principles, but with a particular difference for congregants of the New Christian Spiritualists’ Society. We state that there is ‘liberty of interpretation’ and that ‘we follow the teaching and example of Jesus who is our Lord and Saviour’.
There are many churches around the country and overseas that operate under the umbrella of the New Christian Spiritualists’ Society, some with their own buildings, and some like Littleport in community halls. The choice of service format is theirs as we have no rules and regulations as behoves a liberal Christian attitude.
Over and above everything else, we try and live out the two commandments that Jesus offered his followers that stands good for all time. To love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, with all thy heart, and with all thy mind. And to love one another.
The established churches will not accept us because we do not accept the article of faith that they require their adherents to sign up for. It strikes at the root of our understanding, that we, being members of the Human Race, are all spirits in a physical body who come from the spirit, and return to spirit as spirit individuals after we shed our physical body. We therefore can’t agree that the only way to get eternal life is to be a Christian.
If you would like to come to a meeting you would be welcome. For lots more information you can find us on Facebook Greater Littleport And District New Spiritualists’ Society, and the NCSS itself has a website, www.newchristianspiritualistssociety.com