NZ Skeptics Articles

A Visit to the Dunedin Spiritualist Church

Hamish Dickson - 10 June 2024

This was the first time to a Spiritual Church for me, and I had no idea what to expect. The service started at 6pm on a Sunday, at their own facility in South Dunedin. When I arrived, I found a small room that could probably seat 50, along with a small tearoom that opened out to the main part of the church. It was clean and tidy, and looked very much like any other church - apart from the absence of any Christian paraphernalia.

What immediately caught my eye was their impressive library, with an assortment of books about the supernatural and spiritualism. I counted five books written by Deepak Chopra alone. I spent about 10 minutes looking through them, with no one coming up to annoy me, so off to a good start.

There was a lady who looked to have authority, as she had a name badge. I talked with her about the library, and she said they rent out the books for $1 for two weeks, with the money going towards buying more books. She also said the Church owns the building outright, which she said was a mixed blessing because its upkeep costs a lot. She also said they had just put a new roof on, and then pointed to the heat pumps still in boxes and said “they’re next, when we get enough money to install them.” I asked about the speaker for the evening, who I had read about earlier. She gave me the impression she did not agree with everything the speaker would say, and warned me it’s pretty “out there”.

The service started with a song, “Stand by me”, before a healing session. There were five healers there who formed a circle facing each other at the back of the room, and each of them had a person to be healed on a seat in front of them. I decided I would volunteer to be healed, but I was not even asked what I wanted to be healed from.

The process lasted about 15 minutes, and involved me closing my eyes and being asked to imagine I was sitting on a giant flower. I felt my shoulders being touched softly, and hands being waved in front of my face. I could see the other people being healed as well, but the methods were different for each healer. After the session I was asked if there was anything I was thinking about, but holding back - I said no. My healer said she had to straighten my back so the energy could flow better from my heart, and she also unblocked energy from my right eye, which is my male energy. I thanked her, and then we all sat down after another song.

Next we heard from the guest speaker, Penny. Penny said that she is a member of the church, and that she apparently can channel spirits from other planets, among “other entities”. These other entities included dragons and Arch Angels, such as Michael and Gabriel. Also a spirit called Xemu, who is apparently an Indigenous American. She then began talking about vibrations and frequencies, and light languages.

Her ideas sounded suspiciously like Scientology - the bit you get to after spending about $200,000. I’ll spare you the pain, and just leave you with the video below about Light Languages, as it is too bizarre to explain without sounding like a Deepak Chopra quote random generator.

Next there was another song, and finally the big event - the mediumship session.

Three mediums took the floor, and took turns giving readings to the audience. One said she was going to leave the room and come back a little later. Did she have a sneak at her Facebook profile? - who knows! She returned and singled out one lady, making statements about goings on in her life, followed by affirmations from her in the form of an “ah-ha” after each sentence. There was nothing interesting to report about this session.

Next up was the lady who had been my healer. She singled out another lady there, and said “I sense there is something you are holding back that you aren’t ready to deal with yet”. Sound familiar? After more affirmations, she gave the advice that it’s better to deal with “it” when you are ready.

The next medium announced to the congregation that she had two men come through from the spirit world. One tall one with grey hair, and the other short with a reddish (booze) nose. There were no immediate hits, until one lady said “I knew a tall man with a nose like that”. The next 10 minutes consisted of an exchange between the medium and this supposed hit, mainly involving a lot of misses. I’d never seen such a train wreck using cold reading!

I talked with the last medium after the service. She said she was trained by an Englishman called Charlie Kelly. After watching some of his videos, I would say she genuinely believed she was channelling spirits.

The mediumship was followed by a donation plate that was handed around, much like in any Christian Church. Most people gave less than $10, and many people just put coins in.

The evening was way tamer than many church groups I have attended. After the service, tea and coffee were provided. I chatted to the lady who channels intergalactic beings; apparently she holds a Masters Degree in counselling, and practices as a counsellor. I asked her if she combines her spirituality with counselling, and she said that no, “they are very separate”. She was very clear about this. She then asked me what my favourite star was. I said “I was more of an Orion Nebula kind of guy myself”. We got onto the topic of light language, and she suggested a few videos on YouTube if I was interested.

I then chatted to a guy who was a committee member of the church. He was one of three men out of 26 people who had attended the evening. He was very friendly, and said his big thing was astrology. He then asked me what my sign was. I said I preferred not to say, as people would judge me on that rather than knowing who I am first. He agreed that this was a good approach. He told me he can tell what star sign people are just by looking at their eyes. I thought, there’s a challenge, so I said “okay, take a guess”. He took four tries, with the last being Virgo. At this point I thought I’d let him off the hook, and told him he was close with Virgo. I told him I’m a Leo, and even showed him my driver’s licence to prove it. Interestingly, he didn’t seem to be phased at all with his recent misses.

The Spiritualist Church is having an expo later this month, and also a two hour medium session on the last Sunday of this month, so I have a lot to look forward to! Overall I found the people to be very nice, and at least on the night saw no overtly cult-type behaviour. There were diverse beliefs, no love bombing, and the absence of a strong leader or elite body.