Spiritualists' National Union
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Spiritualists' National Union (SNU) is a Spiritualist organisation, founded in the United Kingdom in 1901, and is one of the largest spiritualist groups in the world. Its motto is Light, Nature, Truth.
Over its history, it has organised test cases regarding the legal status of spiritualist mediums, with regard to such matters as exemption from national service. In legal terms, spiritualist mediums were considered to violate such laws as the Vagrancy Act 1824, which outlawed fortune telling, and the Witchcraft Act 1735. The Union campaigned against these laws for many years.[1][2][3][4] They were eventually repealed by the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951, which legalised the practice of mediums unless it was shown that they were profiting financially from a fraudulent service.
It has also performed more everyday services, such as organising war memorial services in the wake of the First World War.[5]
In more recent times, the Union has organised educational courses in spiritualism-related subjects, and has participated in scientific research into mediumship, which found that mediums appeared to operate purely based on cold reading.[6]
Mission Statement and Goals In 2000 the SNU adopted the following mission statement:
To Promote the Religion and Religious Philosophy of Spiritualism as based upon The Seven Principles
It also re-defined its goals as:
To procure perfect religious equality To assist in the formation of new Societies and Churches To strengthen the fraternal relations between Spiritualists To increase all classes of membership To print, publish and distribute literature To promote mission work To do all such lawful things as are for the advancement of Spiritualism
Contents |
[edit] History
The SNU was founded on 18th October 1901 as the Association of the Spiritualists' National Union Ltd. In 1916, it campaigned to get government recognition for the religion of spiritualism. In 1923, the International Spiritualist Federation was founded. Then, in 1937, the Church of England Committee set up by Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Cosmo Lang investigated spiritualism, but several conservative anglicans prevented its publication. It was later leaked and shown to portray spiritualism fairly favourably.
[edit] The Seven Principles
The SNU has organised seven principles for its members to live by:
- The Fatherhood of God
- The Brotherhood of Man
- The Communion of Spirits and the Ministry of Angels
- The continuous existence of the human soul
- Personal responsibility
- Compensation and retribution hereafter for all the good and evil deeds done on earth
- Eternal progress open to every human soul
These were created by Emma Hardinge Britten, an early member, apparently after being devised through mediumship with a spirit called Robert Owen in 1871.
These are the whole of the S.N.U. doctine. Many members also hold beliefs on matters such as reincarnation and whether animals have spirits, but the Union has never made any official declarations. There is currently an Ethics Committee in the Union, which is researching the beliefs held by member churches.
[edit] Recent Presidents
- 1970 - 1993 Gordon Mons Higginson
- 1993 - 1996 Eric L. Hatton
- 1996 - 2000 Mrs J.J. Seaman
- 2000 - todate D.P. Gascoyne
- Hon. Presidents-in-Spirit: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Gordon Mons Higginson
- Hon. President: E. Hatton MSNU.
- Hon. Vice-President: T. Horton MSNU, Mrs D. Hudson MSNU.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "High Court of Justice. King's Bench Division. Spiritualists and Military Service. Oaten vs. Anty", The Times, April 8, 1919, pp. 6.
- ^ "News in Brief", The Times, July 5, 1927, pp. 13.
- ^ "Spiritualists and the Law: Mr Morrison's Statement", The Times, December 16, 1943, pp. 2.
- ^ "Spiritualists and the Witchcraft Act", The Times, July 20, 1946, pp. 2.
- ^ "News in Advertisements", The Times, April 17, 1919, pp. 9.
- ^ Henderson, Mark. "Is there anybody out there? No, actually", The Times, September 23, 2004, pp. 3.
[edit] Links
|
|||||||||||
