The Spiritualist Association of Great Britain is a British spiritualist organisation. It was established in 1872.
History
The SAGB grew out of the Marylebone Spiritualist Association. The story of the association's early struggles "to propagate spiritual truths in the Marylebone area of London" is told in an SAGB publication, "One Hundred Years of Spiritualism", which also states that Queen Victoria allegedly held several séances after the death of the Prince Consort. A famous and outspoken supporter of the SAGB was Arthur Conan Doyle, who in later years "often expressed a wish that he should be remembered for his psychic work rather than for his novels". Serving the principles of the Spiritualist movement, and open to members and non-members alike, the SAGB offers rooms where the public, whether Spiritualist or not, may sit for readings with spirit mediums. Sunday services are free and include a public Demonstration of mediumship. Private 30-minute sittings are available daily during opening hours for a fee. They may be recorded if the client wishes. The nature of the sittings is strictly limited by a policy which states that the mediums are "to try to provide evidence of survival and not to predict the future." The library of the SAGB was named after the spiritualist William Crookes. The SAGB's current headquarters is at the Victoria Charity Centre at 11 Belgrave Road, London.
Beliefs
As an organization, the SAGB describes their goals as: The SAGB and its mediums abide by the following seven principles of belief:
That there is an Infinite Intelligence, Who governs all
The SAGB historic headquarters at 33 Belgrave Square was sold in 2010 for 6 million pounds. It relocated to a new home in the Victoria Charity Centre at 11 Belgrave Road, London, near Victoria Station. In 2013, the Charity Commission for England and Wales launched an investigation in to the sale of the property, after discovering that the subsequent owners sold the property for 21 million pounds shortly after purchasing it from the SAGB. The Committee published a report of its findings on 30 March 2017. The Commission's report concluded SAGB's trustees had failed to fulfil their legal duties and responsibilities towards the charity, and that ‘the failures and breaches were not minor or technical in nature’ but ‘amount to basic and serious mismanagement’. The charity responded to the Commission's report claiming that they "could not have foreseen what would happen in future" regarding property prices.
