In Georgetown, a church that communes with the dead
WASHINGTON: The church sits perpetually in the shadows.
Tucked back from Q Street NW, it is eclipsed by grand Victorians, including Bob Woodward’s. It’s easy to walk right by this place, with its brick facade in need of a power wash and stained-glass windows so dirty some look monochromatic.
If you did, you might miss what was for me the church’s standout attraction: A small marquee to the left of the Gothic entranceway reading, “The Church of Two Worlds” and advertising Sunday healings and “messages.”
For more than a decade, I was a regular passerby, living down the street without ever having a reason to step inside. But I had always wanted to know more. Like, where exactly is this second world? Were messages received in a seance? And could these healings do anything for my lower back?
More important, I wanted to know how an out-of-place establishment like this could sustain itself, practically unnoticed, in the tony neighbourhood of Georgetown.
Realtor Nancy Taylor Bubes, who has lived across the street since 1999, has never even been inside. “Are we allowed to walk in there?” she asks.
The Church of Two Worlds was founded here in 1936 by the Reverand H. Gordon Burroughs. It was the only church in the city practicing spiritualism, whose goal is to prove the continuity of life by contacting the dead.
Because they believe that spirits are more advanced than humans, spiritualists think that these entities provide followers with practical knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as offer insights into the nature of God, whom they often refer to as Infinite Intelligence.
Before settling on Q Street, the church met all over the city, holding services in hotel banquet rooms and, for a time, at the French Embassy.
In February 1960, it bought its current property, built in 1906 as a Methodist church, for US$43,000 (RM154,800) from the Bible Presbyterian Church of Washington.
The Church of Two Worlds is a member of the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, which is headquartered in Lily Dale, New York, and has, according to its website, 84 chartered members (with 11 alone coming from California).
It is among dozens of churches in the Washington area that practice what some might call, for lack of a better term, “alternative” spirituality, including readings, past-life regressions, and healing with crystals or energy.
“As a human race, we’re more evolved at this point in history, so traditional religion does not fit everyone,” says Claudia Neuman, operations manager of Pathways Magazine, which promotes alternative health and metaphysical resources in the Washington area and can be found in 400 local stores.
“Spiritualism is not an extreme concept at all,” she says, though she prefers to use the term “metaphysics” in reference to practices involving the nonphysical world.