In the October 2015 issue of Psychic World, my article “Don’t Shoot The Medium” explored ten areas of church management which are often neglected.  I showed that there are other sub-standard areas in Spiritualism requiring attention, than just mediumship.  That does not mean I am unmindful of our deficiencies in that area.  And here are just three strategies for better mediumship, without even touching on development techniques.

In this case, strategy means looking at the environment in which mediumship takes place, the need for preparation and how the structure of the movement pulls on mediumistic standards.   

First, we need to ask ourselves “how many mediums of a proficient standard do we have nationally?”  Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘proficient’.  Not necessarily the like of bygone exponents like Gordon Higginson, Albert Best, Helen Hughes and Estelle Roberts.  They were highly inspired mediums who, at their best, reached a level akin to genius.  Clearly, rigorous - though less demanding - criteria would serve for our purpose in the present day.

Let us settle for a more modest definition implied by Ernest Oaten in the early 20th century, who simply said:  “Our task is to convince thoughtful people of our case.”  This does not require mediumistic geniuses, but those who can routinely provide sound guidance with substantial evidence of identity from those communicating through them.  And, we might add, “in a friendly and welcoming environment.”

There are probably five hundred people regularly employed as mediums in the UK at the present time.  Up to three hundred and twenty of these are working in SNU churches on any one Sunday.  I estimate there to be around a hundred - of the five hundred - mediums who fit the ‘proficient’ tag.  That’s 20%, or an average of just over six in each of the SNU’s fourteen UK districts.  Let’s call them our Premier League.

Never dismiss sub-standard mediums; they can surprise with good – if less consistent - evidence.  Many of them are actually very good speakers.  And a movement of five hundred churches and only one hundred proficient mediums is actually highly dependent upon sub-standard mediums.  Without them most of our churches would have to close.  The questions are:  (1)  How much damage are they doing and, (2)  What can be done about it?

The answer to both questions is:  Plenty!  Plenty of damage and, provided we, as a movement, are willing to take the actions and make the necessary sacrifices, plenty that can be done about it.  

All three strategies will involve national change and local commitment if they are to prove successful.  But the prizes are high – and necessary if Spiritualism is to survive.  I believe these radical strategies, each advocated by a national president, could do much to transform mediumship.

The Gordon Higginson Strategy:  Preparation

Gordon Higginson, a first-rate medium if ever there was one, offered this first strategy in a 1982 lecture, now on a CD called “The Other Self”.   In it, he said:  “You should never put anyone in a developing circle until they have undergone at least a year – and ideally, two years – of teaching.”

This is not simply so mediums will be able to deliver good addresses – of which more below – but so that their mediumship will be informed by spiritual, rather than just mediumistic, development

This harks back to Andrew Jackson Davis, who said:  “Let your phenomena improve your philosophy and your philosophy improve your phenomena.”  Such an exercise will also help some people discover that speakership, rather than mediumship, is their true calling.

Of course, a church needs to be of a certain size in order to offer such teaching facilities, which is one more reason why large congregational strength is a major key to our revival.  (See my article “Don’t Shoot the Medium.”) It also needs fledglings who are not looking to mediumship to provide them with instant stardom, but who understand Spirit purpose and the role of their mediumship in helping further it.

Some church committees may argue that this would discourage prospective mediums away as they have no-one who can give teaching.  Such problems can be dealt with ‘on the march’ with neighbouring churches – where they exist - handling teaching as a joint enterprise and rotating the venues between each of them.

The Harold Vigurs Strategy:  Specialisation and Energy

In his 1946 Presidential address booklet to the SNU, Harold Vigurs lamented what was then a new trend in churches - expecting mediums to deliver the address as well as the demonstration of mediumship.  It is often forgotten now that we had specialist speakers up until the 1940s who handled the address and ensured that our teachings were sound.  And the medium’s full energies would be held in reserve for the demonstration.

Vigurs acknowledged that cost was the issue driving this trend but warned that, if it continued, we would lose our philosophy.  With the standards we see today, can anyone deny that he was right?

As lawyer at the Home Office, Vigurs was no fool.  He was a visionary president and an astute observer of the Spiritualist scene.  He also knew his history, including the conversation that Emma Hardinge Britten had with her own guides in the 1850s.  

They had explained to Emma that mediumship and speakership used different parts of the brain and trying to use both was detrimental to both forms of her mediumship.  Asked to choose between giving messages and inspired oratory, she chose the latter and became what the Daily Telegraph called, “the finest orator in England.”  And, of course, the Mother of the SNU.  How we laud our pioneers, yet are deaf to their words.

The effectiveness of this partnership seems to have been forgotten by the movement and even respected voices such as Vigurs’ seem not to have influenced the churches.  By the 1950s, money – or the lack of it - had spoken louder than wisdom, the combined speaker/demonstrator became the norm and has been ever since.  To the detriment of our platform this past 70 years.

I have spoken with many of our finest mediums over the past half century – Albert Best, Ron Baker, Robin Stevens and Jessie Nason stand out particularly.  They all said the same as Paul Jacobs said to me, more recently:  “I rarely give a good address and a good demo.  The energy goes one way or the other.”  Many mediums will recognise this.

What that implies is that half of the output of even our finest mediums is sub-standard – depending upon which way the energy goes.  A movement which wants to have influence in the world cannot afford to have sub-standard anything.  Especially platform standards.

One difference between the speaker and the medium is the type of intelligence they each bring to their respective roles.   Speakers primarily possess intellectual intelligence and arrive at conclusions by a process of study and analysis.  By and large, platform mediums have an intuitive intelligence – a quicksilver mind - and can ‘cut to the chase’ very quickly, without any scrutiny or analysis.  And still be right.  Such minds are necessary for cleanly picking up spirit links.  It follows that, except in rare cases, these two characteristics are unequal – even incompatible - in one person. The address is therefore best dealt with by the one and the demonstration by the other.  Then the full energies of each have only one place to go.

There is, of course, only so much energy at the disposal of our exponents and it is not difficult to understand how a good address can sap the available energy for the mediumship demonstration.  Yet it seems to have escaped us.  Hiding from us in plain sight, you might say.  

If shortage of cash is at the root of this problem, then that problem needs to be addressed – again - by congregational growth.  But whereas churches can never be self-sufficient in mediums, they can become so in speakers.  It’s a much more common skill, after all.

As it is, congregations seem to tolerate a bad address as the price to be paid for the prospect of a spirit message.  This is not their fault – it is the way we have brought them up.  It is unfortunate and has degraded the quality of our churches’ offering to the public for too long.  It is also too high a price for those ‘thoughtful people’ whose minds need feeding, who have drifted away after a few months to Spiritualism’s horrendous cost.  To lose ‘thoughtful people’ is to lose an incalculable number of those who would have been great speakers and writers for our movement.  Not to mention leaders.

A return to this long-neglected strategy will improve the quality of both mediumship and teaching in our churches.  In turn, it will improve our retention of congregations – something that mediumship by itself has proved incapable of doing.  As for the cost, this is the price we must pay for excellence.  And the larger congregations we gain will solve the problem.

The David Bruton Strategy:  Gathering our Resources

This strategy could have been attributed to any national president of the SNU, or any part of the national leadership, since they all have to be ‘big picture’ thinkers.  They of all people know that we are a scattered - rather than a gathered - people.  But David has spoken out about it in an interview with Two Worlds shortly after his election in 2010.  He said:  “We need to look at the best use of our resources.  In some towns there are two or even three churches, duplicating cost and effort.”  From a national perspective, it is easy to see the waste – financial, managerial and mediumistic, that these duplicate - and triplicate - churches create.  

Let us just now look at the mediumistic consequences of this – and the possibilities.

1. If we had 100 well-run churches and our 100 Premier League mediums we would have the perfect movement.   Other things being equal, such churches would grow.  There might be a problem in distributing our ‘product’, since 100 Spiritualist churches would not give us adequate UK coverage.
2. So, what if we had 200 churches?  This would let in our next 100 reasonably good mediums – our ‘Championship League’, to stick with football parlance.  This in turn would give us an excellent service every second week and an acceptable service in the intervening week.  Combined with the Vigurs Strategy, any deficiencies in the mediumship, would be compensated by better addresses.
3. With 300 churches and a proficient medium every three weeks, the wheels would really start to come off.   And some churches might not attract a premier league medium on a consistent 3-week cycle.  Geography, too, will be a problem since ‘Premier and Championship league’ mediums would need to travel.  Even so, with the Vigurs plan . . .  etc.
4. We have around 500 churches.  Do the math.

You may rightly say “Dream on,” to this somewhat theoretical scenario.  But there is an exact number of churches that are within three miles of each other that are splitting what could be a large and flourishing congregation into two or even three meagre ones, providing little energy for mediums to work with.  This only soaks up the supply of good mediums more quickly, spreading the services of our best mediums too thinly and is a significant contributor to sub-standard mediumship.

Such divisions, which usually have their roots in long-forgotten feuds – by providing too many venues - only benefit sub-standard mediums and leaders of duplicate churches addicted to their official positions.  Our churches are not there to solve the self-esteem issues of sub-standard church leaders, or to open more vacancies for sub-standard mediums, but to provide an efficient and sensibly-spaced distribution network of high standard Spiritualist venues.

To summarise, these three strategies are a rational means of managing the mediumship we have, by:

• giving spiritual teaching as a preparation for mediumistic development;
• making better use of energy by separation of mediumship and speakership;
• rationalising of the number of duplicate churches in local areas.  

 

Duplicate churches represent a huge waste as they are, but offer a great opportunity if these divisions are addressed by progressive church leaders.