Mediumship: The Importance of Reverence

I notice this morning that a new book has been published about the Physical Mediumship and Healing of the Welsh medium Alec Harris. It is based upon his wife Louie’s book, “They Walked Among Us” but includes additional material about Alec’s Healing work and his physical mediumship in South Africa, where he emigrated. It is available on Amazon.com I believe.

It is fascinating for me because the best materialisation mediumship I ever saw was at an Alec Harris séance in Cardiff, South Wales. I describe the incident when my grandmother materialised at the séance in my book “Please God Why?” and it is an incident that made such a deep impression upon me that I have never forgotten it, nor ever will. As important to me as the appearance of my grandmother as solid flesh and blood, was the feeling of absolute reverence that I experienced throughout the séance. It is a feeling I have only rarely experienced in a church, where in fact one would expect to experience it regularly. The exceptions have been mainly during Healing Services at International Spiritualist Federation meetings, although I recall one Easter service at an Anglican Cathedral in Yorkshire did approach the same level of reverence. It is difficult to recall a normal Spiritualist church service where I felt it. I guess this says a great deal about the effect upon the atmosphere of so many minds reaching out praying to receive “a message.”

Perhaps this indicates the need for a rethink in the way we approach attendance at church services. Evidence of survival is understandably, an important part of a Spiritualist service for it is the basis of all that we believe and accept as our philosophy. However, has it become too important? Maybe the shortage of really inspired speakers in most Spiritualist churches has led to a lowering of our standards. A service in our churches should be uplifting on all counts. The music, prayers and hymns should raise our hearts and souls above the mundane, as should the address or sermon which should always focus in an interesting and inspiring way, upon the modern meaning of our philosophy of life. The same should also be true of the demonstration of mediumship. The medium should be so closely attuned to the spiritual world that its atmosphere pervades the church. When that occurs, the links with loved ones in spirit will be particularly special and will often have a philosophical impact upon members of the congregation, even those not receiving a link. In my opinion each service should aim to be a perfect blend of our world with the greater world of spirit and to achieve this, all aspects of the service need to be in harmony with one another. Were this to happen more frequently, I believe far more people would be attracted to Spiritualist churches or centres. What’s more they would keep returning for more of the same because they would be learning how to make sense of earthly life, which for most is a very confusing affair.