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When the Extraordinary Hits Home
Health services are generally in French, though a monthly bilingual
service has been introduced recently to accommodate English-speak-
ing visitors from other Spiritualist congregations. Most of the medi-
ums are bilingual and give messages in English when the individual
addressed does not understand French well. Attendance is variable,
ranging from fifty or more at the principal Sunday service to barely
a dozen on some Thursday evenings. Men make up about a fifth to a
quarter of the group on most occasions, though the number of male
and female healers and mediums is roughly equal. From 2002 through
2004 , the congregation became somewhat younger, losing a number
of members over sixty and attracting newcomers in the thirty-to-fifty
age group.
This is the cohort that predominates in the closed groups, sometimes
called closed circles; that is, groups not open to the public. Closed
groups focus more on clairvoyance than on healing, but healers (who
may also be mediums) are generally drawn from the closed groups.
At the Spiritual Church, closed groups are also known as courses in
spiritual development. Most meet twice a month under the direction
of a minister or medium. The closed groups give members an oppor-
tunity to discover for themselves the experience of clairvoyance; a few
members go on to become recognized mediums by the church and are
allowed to give messages at services. While it is usual to speak of giv-
ing clairvoyance in the Spiritual Church, those who do so are called
“mediums” rather than clairvoyants. From Michel’s point of view, a
clairvoyant may be a mere fortuneteller, whereas a medium is in con-
tact with the spirit world and seeks not only to give information about
the future but to put it in a wider spiritual context.
Michel sees training in clairvoyance as a means to deepen spiritu-
ality, and also as a practical tool for everyday living, in that the exer-
cises done in class (i.e., in the closed group) tend to sharpen the par-
ticipants’ intuitive powers in their daily lives. In fact, most long-term
participants experience not only heightened intuitions but revelatory
dreams, premonitions, flashes of clairvoyance, and sometimes, visions,
outside the group context. Everyone I have interviewed has developed
personal spiritual practices and rituals in their daily lives, even though
no instructions in this regard are ever given in the church. At most, a
