Let me introduce to you my great grandmother - who was a practicing spiritualist medium at a time when she could still have been convicted under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. Police officers would regularly attend her seances undercover, trying to prove she was up to no good. Unfortunately for them, her guides would always draw her attention to the fact that there was 'someone with big feet' in the room who shouldn't be - and she would calmly welcome 'the police officer amongst us' and scare the living daylights out of them!Today Alan Power is going to court to claim that his psychic beliefs led to his sacking from the police. Alan is using rules designed to prevent religious discrimination in the workplace. His former employers are claiming his beliefs did not amount to a 'religious conviction' - despite Alan having been a member of the Spiritualist Church for 30 years. As the Spiritualist Church is one of only two legally recognised religions in Britain today, my feeling is that Alan has a point. Good luck to him.
The police regularly use psychic investigators to try and gain insight into problematic cases, but appear to prefer to keep this aspect of their work out of the public eye. In 2006 apparently 28 police forces denied using psychics at all - which still leaves many more who either do, or are unwilling to commit either way.
Given Alan Power's experience such silence is understandable. And I'm sure he is far from alone in facing discrimination in the workforce because of his spiritualist beliefs - namely, that there is life after death and it is possible to communicate with the dead. After all, wasn't there some other famous man who was meant to have returned from the dead and communicated with his people..? And I'm not sure any employer could get away with sacking someone for believing in Jesus; even in this secular age.
8 comments:
Hi great article, I must say as a psychic Medium myself it is very personaly difficult because of public opion to share your veiws, especially if it could result in losing your job and have people talk behind your back. It all comes back to fear and lack of knowledge, not so may years back the same discimination was carried with peoples sexuality and further back women going out to work. Although my heart goes out to Mr Power at this time, this is exactly what is needed to raise awarness and get it out into the open.
Good luck to him and I sincerely hope he succeds. As you say Sara, the police do use psychics at times - I have a friend (who shall remain nameless) who does this.
I share my Spiritualist belief with people if they ask me what my beliefs are. It is interesting, that no one would dare question a Muslin, Seik or Christian about their beliefs, but when 'the spooky lot' start to talk about theirs, then they get all dismissive and perhaps a little defensive. At least we are open about what we do!
Remind me again - which century are we living in?
Complete disbelief was my reaction to this story. I am hoping that this not the real reason for the sacking.
However I do wonder whether, as a society, we are becoming more focused on being careful not to offend anyone or fearful of expressing beliefs because of retribution. This is not a good situation and I find it worrying.
I don't have any psychic beliefs, except in the sense of the old priest who is quoted (don't ask me where!) as explaining that 'Faith is a gift of God which enables us to believe, without doubting, that which we know to be untrue'.
However, I do know that my grandmother, a good spiritualist, did often predict things, and that these things turned out to be true often enough for us to take it for granted that she could do it. Sometimes she would read the tea leaves (though I never heard her call it tasseography) and she also used playing card spreads and an egg-shaped crystal ball.
I once asked her what she looked for in these things, and she told me that she just used them to concentrate, and listened to whatever came into her mind. Sometimes voices came into her mind out of the blue, without any of her aids. It may that her answer to my question was evasive because my parents were Roman Catholics and as we were living in her house she didn't want to cause me any trouble.
I do know from overheard snatches of conversation that she believed in the immortality of the soul which has a journey through a number of spiritual planes after earthly death. She was a spiritual healer and also knew about the medicinal uses of herbs.
I'll tell just one story of many. My mother, who was expecting her second baby, was having a cup of tea with Nan, and asked her to read her tea leaves. Nan looked at them, then put the cup aside claiming she wasn't up to it that day. This hadn't happened before, and my mother insisted she try again. So Nan looked again, then said, 'I'm sorry, my dear, but you're not going to have this baby. But you'll be all right.' My mother told me years later that this had been a great shock to her, but she trusted Nan's gift so felt reassured for her own part. Sure enough, the little one was stillborn some time later but my mother went on produce four more of us.
So why am I a psychic agnostic? Because, as the great American poet Donald Rumsfeld put it:
'... there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know'. Think how many of these unknowns have become knowns since the time of Isaac Newton. What would even Newton, who acknowledged the advantages of 'standing upon the shoulders of giants', make of the concept of non-locality, for example?
Many people know from their own experience, not just the stories of others, that there is 'something more out there'. I'm happy to wait until the scientists catch up with what we already intuit.
Thank you everyone for your comments (and Kevin, I'm glad you liked the article!).
It is indeed a contradictory state of affairs, the world we currently live in. On the one hand so desperate not to offend, and on the other so quick to condemn.
It will be interesting to follow his case and others which will undoubtedly follow...
I find this article quite disturbing to be honest. Sounds like we are back in the bad old days again!
I do share my beliefs at work and have no worries about doing so either. Why should I hide what I believe in? I like to think that I may just leave that 'spark' of interest with those that don't believe. I find people are more open now but I sometimes get a glazed expression.
I do feel for Me. Power and I wish him luck with his case.
I particularly like Michael's comment about the priest saying we believe that which we know to be untrue. I think this sums it up. Ultimately we have all been born into a secular age which is dominated by rationalism. I've often described myself as a magician who doesn't believe in magic. However, that dominance of rationalism is coming to an end.
Until recently, with the emergence of the American religious right and the fundamentalist wings of various global religions, we were living in an increasingly secular age. However, we are now moving into the Age of Aquarius and rationalism is losing its hold on society. At the same time the big established top down religions are also losing their positions because the new age is bottom up.
So rationalism and top down religions are in their death throes and asserting their positions but, in the end, they have to give way to grass roots ideas. Paganism, and the spiritualist church falls into the same broad category, is one of those grass roots ideas.
I don't like to plug but I want to share these ideas. I wrote about this in my book Satanic Viruses and on my blog here.
Thanks for dropping by, Jack :)
Yes, the end of rationalism could well be in sight, and it is certainly prompting physicists to push the boundaries of how we might understand the physcial unvierse. It seems the rise in popularity of what might be loosely called 'alternative' spiritualities (or as you say, grass roots, bottom-up), could also be indicative of a growing need to find 'another way' to know.
Post a Comment