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Talk (summary) given by Roger Straughan on "A Matter of Communication : the 1939 Report on Spiritualism to the Archbishop of Canterbury," to the QFAS Spring Conference at Friends’ House, 10th May. 2008 “The main instigator of the report was Francis Underhill, later Bishop of Bath and Wells, who, moved a resolution at the Church Assembly in 1935 requesting their Graces the Archbishops to appoint a commission to investigate spiritualism in the light of its growing popularity among both laity and clergy. The then Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, did not want a formal commission but instead appointed a small body of ‘prominent Anglicans’ under Underhill’s chairmanship ‘to investigate the subject of communications with discarnate spirits and the claims of Spiritualism in relation to the Christian faith.’ The correspondence between Lang and Underhill suggests that they were not on the same wavelength. Lang, for example, condemns spiritualism for its ‘dubious methods’ and speaks of the dangers of ‘dabbling’ in it (that favourite term of abuse that critics so often resort to – why don’t we ever hear anything about dabbling in Anglicanism, or Catholicism or even Quakerism?). Underhill on the other hand had researched the subject, and had had some sittings with mediums. 3 invitees to the committee declined and a 4th, Evelyn Underhill, who was a cousin of Francis Underhill, resigned rather dramatically after the first meeting. The committee first met in 1936 and finally reported to Lang in 1939. Their report contained 4 parts. Part 1 lays out the origins of the committee and includes Evelyn Underhill’s letter of resignation, in which she condemns, as she sees it, the ‘utterly sub-Christian, anthropocentric, and hopelessly unsupernatural [?] character of the spiritualist outlook’ and insists that the Church of England should never be seen to have anything to do with it. [Editor’s note: I believe this prejudice may have arisen from her own superficial and unfortunate experience of “dabbling” in Spiritualism at one time –Cherry Simpkin.] Part 2 tries to define spiritualism, asks whether it can properly be called a religion and looks at its then current position and its relationship with the Christian faith. It sets out the characteristics of various spiritualist organisations and their basic beliefs, and describes different types of psychical phenomena and mediumship. Finally there’s a brief and rather confusing discussion of facts, evidence, hypotheses and revelation. Part 3 summarises the evidence of witnesses given to the committee. It is not clear how these witnesses were chosen. Most of them were either spiritualists or psychical researchers and their evidence is often contradictory. The overall impression is one of entrenched positions and irreconcilable disagreements. The committee also attended at least one séance, but say little about that. After hearing this so-called evidence, the committee remained divided in its own opinions. Part 4 sets out the conclusions of the majority report, followed by a minority report signed by 3 members. There are contradictions even in the conclusions of the majority. For example it is claimed at one point that spiritualism adds nothing to the understanding of Christianity. Yet in the very next paragraph we’re told that spiritualism can enhance our belief in the Communion of Saints’ and that there is no reason at all why the Church should regard this ‘vital and personal enrichment of one of her central doctrines with disfavour …’ Yet some of the majority’s conclusions are quite bold. They admit that some communications probably do come from discarnate spirits and that spiritualism contains a truth which add knowledge and experience to faith. However, they also state that it should not be treated as a substitute for religion as there is a danger that it might have man at its centre rather than God. The Church itself is also accused of not proclaiming and practising its faith strongly enough and of being too cautious in its references to the departed and in its prayers for them. Intriguingly, the majority report recommends that Church representatives should keep in touch with ‘intelligent persons who believe in spiritualism’ but add a footnote advising that no publicity be given to this. The minority report advises against the Church having any truck with spiritualism and calls for more literature about its dangers. In the booklet on the whole report by the Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies (CFPSS) Garth Moore in his very good assessment of the whole report describes the conclusions of the minority as ‘utterly predictable and containing nothing but the familiar indictments of what its authors would no doubt have regarded as the occult.’ When he received the report, Archbishop Lang said that he was ‘somewhat disappointed’ and wished that the majority report ‘had laid greater stress upon the dangers awaiting individuals who may be inclined to dabble in spiritualist methods.’ The bishops then decided by a large majority that the report should not be published. However, some 7 years later, an unknown member of the committee felt so aggrieved at the whole affair that he invited Maurice Barbanell, the editor of the spiritualist magazine, ‘Psychic News’, to his office, told him he was going out for an hour and that, if he were to look in a certain drawer, he might find something of interest. A copy of the majority report duly appeared in ‘Psychic News’. Even after that, successive Archbishops tried to maintain the Church’s official silence on the matter, and it wasn’t till 1979 that the full text was released and published in the journal ‘The Christian Parapsychologist’. So what should we make of this report? It is much like the curate’s egg – or, rather, the Archbishop’s egg. It limits itself to examination of spirit communications and spiritualism and doesn’t distinguish this from the much wider area of psychical research. Its theology is dogmatic and often confusing; and its overall style is often rather dense, convoluted and hard to follow. On the other hand it did air some important issues and the majority report is open-minded and brave enough to admit the possible value of spirit communication. I want now to move to some broader questions that the report highlighted and which we still need to think about in a group like QFAS as to where religious, spiritual and psychical matters overlap. If we believe that our psychical experiences are valid and not a delusion, as I imagine most of us here do, how do we fit these into our religious and spiritual understanding? Is spiritualism a religion in its own right? Is it compatible with other forms of religion? What does it add to them? That all depends on how you define spiritualism and how you define religion. One big problem is that it’s impossible to generalise about spiritualism, as the report tries to do, as if it were a single coherent movement or church. In fact there are a bewildering array of different groups and organisations calling themselves ‘spiritualist’, which vary and disagree enormously. Some are specifically Christian, while others are humanistic and aggressively non-Christian. Controversy over whether spiritualism should see itself as Christian or not goes back a very long way. Many spiritualist churches hold to 7 basic principles, which were derived not from any religious scriptures but from an early medium, Emma Hardinge Britten. What all spiritualist organisations have in common, though, is what the report described as ‘a belief, with attendant practices, that the spirits of the dead can hold communication with the living, through mediums and in other ways’. One of the witnesses wanted to add to this a reference to ‘the intelligent progressive principle which underlies the whole of creation’ and to ‘continuous individual progressive spiritual life in the hereafter.’ That opens up another huge area for debate, but at the very least the report should not dogmatically assume that spiritualism by definition is not part of accepted Christian tradition. My own view here is that, rather than being a separate religion, spiritualism is compatible with most if not all religions. Believing that we survive death and can communicate with those who have died does not in itself constitute a religion. You can hook that on to all kinds of belief systems and ideas about God. Where spiritualism does come closer to being a religion is in claiming that spiritual wisdom can be revealed and transmitted by guides and higher spirits. However, that part of spiritualism does not have the same sort of backing of factual evidence that the more down-to-earth communications can have. Whether we accept a particular example of spiritualist teaching will depend on the same factors that apply to many other forms of religious teaching e.g. what sort of authority does it rely on; can we trust that authority; does it, as Quakers would say, speak to our condition in some way? So that aspect of spiritualism – the transmission and acceptance of spiritual teaching - seems to require some kind of faith, like any other religious system of belief. The report contrasts faith with reason and knowledge but surely faith always rest upon reason and knowledge of some kind? Our reasons for our belief might not be very good or scientific ones, but then very little of what we think we know is based on hard science. A lot of it comes from personal experience, not laboratory experiment. Unreasoning faith can be very dangerous. Spiritualism is more than a belief in spiritual teaching. It purports to offer a different kind of factual evidence that other religions don’t i.e. of our survival of death, and the possibility of communication. That is very important because nowadays the dividing line is so much between religions but between materialism and non-materialism. Are we just a collection of particles or is there a spiritual dimension to life, which means, among other things, that an important part of us can survive the death of our physical bodies? Spiritualism and psychical research in general have such a crucial role to play in that they offer very compelling evidence that materialism should be rejected on rational grounds, and not just on grounds of faith. Many people have moved from non-belief by becoming convinced by the evidence of spiritualism and psychical research. One such was Reginald Lester, who founded the CFPSS. He described how he lost his faith after the death of his first wife, found the Church totally inadequate in helping him, and so embarked on a long and rigorous investigation of many mediums, which finally lead him to accept the fact of survival and to found the CFPSS. I have myself received information from a medium which meant nothing to me but which I passed on to a friend whom it referred to. It convinced her and her daughter, neither of whom held religious beliefs, that her deceased husband, a friend of mine, was able to communicate and still support them at a time of crisis. That’s why I would reject the accusation that having dealings with mediums has to be a self-centred activity – it can be a way of bringing great comfort and benefit to others. The Report shows a kind of spiritual snobbery in indicating that those with faith do not need evidence. But surely the point is that many people don’t have faith, and that’s even more true today than it was in 1939. I’d like to leave you with one final question to ponder upon. What links do you see, if any between spiritualism and Quakerism? They are both located some distance from the centre of the orthodox Christian church, though they could both claim to represent the original roots of Christianity. Neither relies on a hierarchical systems and they don’t have sacraments and rituals. They both emphasise the importance of personal experience in spiritual matters, and they both believe that we can have a personal relationship with a spiritual dimension that exists both within and beyond our everyday lives. Even more interestingly, they both place great importance on groups of people coming together to sit reverently in a circle and wait for whatever may be given to them, which is often unpredictable and tailored to our individual needs. If all that is ‘sub-religious’, to quote Evelyn Underhill, then I for one am very much in favour of sub-religion!” |