The Spiritual Workers Association came out of the original campaign by Carole and David McEntee-Taylor and Ian Jones to try and prevent the Repeal of the Fraudulent Mediums Act.
Since then we have been joined by members and organisations from all over the world. So why were we objecting to the changes in legislation?
The Fraudulent Mediums Act gave statutory recognition to genuine mediumship. Mediumship is part of the practice of the religion of Spiritualism. We now come under the new Consumer Protection Regulations. So what does this mean?
First of all, if someone is not happy with any goods or service that they have paid out for, they will feel they have been conned. The difference with spiritual work is that it highly subjective. What may seem like a very general reading to one person may be excellent proof to the person who is receiving it. If you add to this the lack of real public education and knowledge about spiritualism and its practices then accusations of fraud could be very difficult to combat. Our ultimate aim is to offer the public a credible organisation that gives them a list of members to choose from who they know will not set out to defraud them. In other words – spiritual workers they can trust.
To achieve this we intend to offer both public and government an organisation with policies and working practises that
- Is representative of the majority of spiritual workers
- Shows how our organisation can succeed where the proposed legislation will fail
- That is self regulating
We aim to keep the SWA as democratic and representative as possible by putting all policy changes on the website and offering you a chance to discuss them with each other and to vote on them.
- Membership of the SWA is open to all spiritual workers (mediums, readers, traders, publishers, healers, complementary therapists, etc), whether they are independent or affiliated to other organisations. It is intended to be an umbrella group to bring together all spiritual workers and organisations to give us a recognised voice and to raise the profile of spiritual work. Membership is not restricted to Britain, we welcome spiritual workers and organisations from anywhere in the world and it is also open to any member of the public who supports our aims. Thus anyone who enjoys attending spiritual events can become a member.
- Membership is free. This is your association and your voice. If membership is free it is truly inclusive. People will only be excluded from membership for not adhering to the standards that they have helped draw up and agreed to abide by - not because they cannot afford to join. We will fund the association by having fundraising weeks, looking for sponsorship and accepting donations. We are sure that sufficient money will be found because we know that this is the way forward.
- We thought it would be good to be different, so rather than a Management Board, we will have a Management Round Table. This will consist of trustees, officers, regional organisers, representatives from spiritual organisations and independent people. These will be voluntary positions with only expenses paid. Expenses will be available for all members to read at the end of every financial year along with the full SWA accounts. Members will vote on any surpluses. They could be given to charity, used to invest in training etc. But this will be a member decision.
- The SWA is intending to be self regulating. This means that we have to set up ways to ensure that all our members work from the highest of motives. This does not mean that we will tell you how to work. As spiritual workers we all work in different ways. This is how it should be. There is no right way to work, however there are ways not to work and it is these that we will be intending to highlight. Most of these are common sense but if they are written down and used as guidelines the public will also know what to expect. These guidelines will be put on all members’ websites and displayed whenever and wherever the member is working. This will give the public confidence that any worker who is a member of the SWA will be trustworthy and will work with integrity. It will also advertise the SWA and encourage more membership.
- We have set up a means of dealing with complaints – initially complainants should contact the Regional Organiser who will mediate. If that fails they will be able to use the official complaints procedure.
- SWA will be member led and split into regions. Each region will have an organiser whose initial role will be to recruit and publicise the SWA and help with the campaigns. As membership grows they will also act as the first point of contact for new members in their area and act as initial mediators in any complaints.
- All members will be given a pack stating the SWA’s guidelines, code of conduct, a window sticker to advertise their membership, a password to enter the forum for debates and discounts on spiritual goods. This will be arranged with spiritual traders who are members and who will able to advertise on the website.
The term ‘Spiritual Worker’ applies to all persons who in any capacity, whether professionally or voluntarily, offer any kind of mediumistic, psychic, holistic, spiritual, therapeutic, complementary or esoteric services to the public.
Please let us have your ideas for standards in all disciplines. We will put these on the website for you all to discuss. We will then collate all your comments into individual documents, by subject, for you to vote and comment on. Most of the information and all the documents are currently on the members' side. This is to ensure that only members can discuss, comment and vote on documents that they are going to adhere to.
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