For the past three years the S.A.F.F. has been working hard to warn New Age people and Spiritualists of the definite threat of suppression of their beliefs but far too many have an inherent trust in the ideology of justice and a commonly held belief that the facts will speak for themselves. They won't! Fundamentalists are saying that Spiritualists are Satanic opera-tors who have set out to to destroy society, They abuse children and ment-ally damage vulnerable individuals whilst doing the devil's work. Astonish-ingly a growing band of influential people are listening to these lies. They may ot believe them 100% but, and this is where propaganda wins, they usually conclude that 'there's no smoke without fire'.Fundamentalists believe vehemently in the idea of the Second Coming of Jesus which will herald the End of the World ( Armageddon) In particular the fundamentalists believe that Armageddon will occur before the year 2000. So they began the 'Decade of Evangelism' and hope to convert over TWENTY MILLI ON people in the U.K. and Europe by year 2000. The more souls they save the more certain is their own place in Heaven when everyone else on earth perishes. One of the main planks of fundamentalist doctrine is that illness, dis-ease and all forms of evil are caused by demons entering the body through the opening up of the psyche to 'occult' influences. They declare that spiri-tualistic contact, whether it appears beneficial or not, causes infestation of the body by demons and that supernatural effects are a pretence by Satan to facilitate drawing vulnerable people into his clutches. Spiritualist mediums and sensitives are not considered to be mislead but to be knowingly in league with Satan and are therefore termed Satanists. The only escape for one possessed by Demons or in league with Satan is to renounce their belief in Spiritualism and undergo repeated exorcism at the hands of a fundamentalist inspired preacher who has acquired Jehovah's power of abso-lution. Disturbed people who unsuccessfully sought co mfort in spiritualism are used by the fundamentalists to 'testify' to the alleged ill-effects of seances and trafficking with spirits. Maureen Davies Trustee of the REACHOUT trust (which has been instrumental in causing a tremendous amount of ill-feeling about occultism and psychism in the U.K.) terms Spiritualism Sata-nic. She herself claims to have at one time been a member of a spiritualist church and tells of how 'dangerous' it was. James Randi's Television series, which has recently upset so many spiri-tualists, is a manifestation of this intolerance. Readers of Psychic News will be well aware that although billed as a 'test of the claims of psy-chics' the programme was in fact designed to discredit Spiritualism and Psychism right from the off. Randi's disrespect for spiritualism and psychism grew programme by programme, backed up by articles in popular magazines which re-enforced the message. The headline used in "TV Quick" magazine(July 27 1991) was "SHE PREDICTED THAT MY DAUGHTER WO ULD DIE". Interlaced with stills contributed by the programme makers, we are told in the subheading that Randi "WARNS viewers against believing people who claim to have paranormal powers". The Randi programme is a more readily identi-fiable symptom of a sustained campaign against Spiritualism and Psychism which is gaining momentum and if it were just a matter of publicity & propaganda then the repercussions would be no different to the ongoing disbelief and ridicule that we have historically had to suffer. That is not the case. At least a dozen Psychic Fayres & exhibitions have been forced to close or change venue by fundamentalist activity in the past few months, Psychic books are being pressured out of libraries by fundamen-talists who complain about them, Visiting mediums are continually subjected to allegations and ridicule to affect attendances at their meetings and Night Schools on psychism are difficult if not impossible to arrange. Recently one fundamentalist charity has atte mpted to redifine the Fraudu-lent Mediums Act to apply to public performances of spiritualism. We fought our corner there with the Director of Public Prosecutions, but the funda-mentalist charity concerned still mailed out a warning leaflet to all Civic Halls, Town Halls, Leisure Departments, Theatres and other venues; effect-ively frightening them into disallowing booking the venue for spiritual performances. The powerful political connections of the fundamentalist network were clearly seen in the attempt by Geoffrey Dickens to outlaw religious observances related to spiritualist definitions belief and dialo-gue. The campaign by the S.A.F.F. defeated that amendment, but others are at the planning stage and in a recent book new legislation is called for as a first step in remedying the 'problem'. The fundamentalists have extremely powerful friends on the political far right and a whole package of suppressive legislation is planned for alter-native healing, homoeopathy, spirit healing, herbalism, psychic coun sel-ling, hypnosis, meditation etc. In fact recently fundie pressure on public demonstrations of hypnotism caused much stricter guidelines from the Home Office which has ordered local authorities to be very careful in licencing performances. Effectively censoring the public's access to the experience. The people backing the fundies are not just peripheral politicians; many of them are already MPs and a cabal of evangelical Lords and Ladies regu-larly hold breakfast prayer meetings in the House of Lords!Unfortunately too many spiritualists are still suffering from the sleeping sickness of rationalisation where even though a clear thread of political activity has been traced through numerous fundamentalist networks, the ordinary psychic still believes that they are immune from harm because they have done nothing wrong. Unfortunately there are a host of 'rule of prece-dence' laws which have been ignored over the past few decades but which could be directly invoked to prosecute spiritualists if the atmosphere o f prejudice because conducive to the authorities. What can be done about all this? Psychics & occultists need to decide that whatever the apparent differences in doctrine between the myriad of existing beliefs this threat is a universal one which denudes human rights for us all and it is those rights which we should all communally support. We must overcome old divides and present a united face on this issue to combat this intolerance and promote our own interests.Secondly communication is the name of the game. Collectively the Occult Census estimated that there are around 250,000 people actively involved in psychic healing and researching the supernatural in the U.K. yet this large body of people are fractionalised into thousands of sub-groups which remain isolated and ineffective. It is because of the isolation of most beliefs that so few psychics know what is really happening. The fundamentalists strategy has worked so well against us because the majority are 'blink-ered'. Commu nication is exactly what the S.A.F.F. accomplishes. The organisation acts as a central dissemination point for information relating to the fundamentalist's campaigns. S.A.F.F. action has proved that advance warn-ing of fundamentalist trouble making can successfully quash it. They succeed only when their victims are unprepared. Members who join The S.A.F.F. are sent mailing shots frequently which inform and educate them. In return the members act as local reconnaissance agents and send in clip-pings of news items, broadcasting recordings and any other information relating to the fundamentalist campaign for distribution to other members through our newsletters. S.A.F.F. experience is very great and our member-ship,drawn from all occult & psychic beliefs and religions, is very commit-ted. Our track record is impressive and our successes are legion. People can also work within existing groups which can be affiliated to the S.A.F.F. so that their specific interests are taken care of whilst still keeping up to date and informed. We work with very many local groups and national associations to pool ideas, talents and resources. To finalise. There is a clever and definite campaign in motion designed to suppress and outlaw Spiritualism and other psychic beliefs and religions via the use of propaganda and hidden political agendas. Sooner or later this will affect you personally if nothing is done to stop the rot. There is common ground for thinking people to join together to provide a united front and present the truth to combat the lies. If we don't do it our-selves nobody is going to do it for us and there will be no point in com-plaining about the suppression of our beliefs after the situation has become irreversible. For more information please write to The S.A.F.F.