By Amanda Estes
Staff Writer
It was 1977 when Gloria Nye’s younger brother said he heard of a church that seemed to share his sister’s spiritual beliefs.
“I was the oddball in the family,” Nye admits.
Nye says she felt different because she didn’t believe in the concept of death. Instead, she was convinced a person’s personality continues to live even after its corporeal vessel gives way to age or disease. Because the essence of the individual never dies, Nye also believed it was possible to communicate with those who have gone through the transition known as death.
When she attended a service at the Portland Spiritualist Church – the congregation her brother had told her about – Nye says she experienced a “feeling of coming home, a feeling of not being alone anymore [and] a feeling of ultimate peace.”
Today, Nye lives in Lewiston with her husband and daughter and is the founder and pastor of the Inner Light Spiritualist Church, which each Sunday draws local parishioners to the Governor William King Masonic Lodge on Route One in Scarborough. The church attracts people from throughout Southern Maine, including Gorham and the surrounding area.
She is an ordained Spiritualist minister, a national Spiritualist teacher, a spirit release therapist and a certified medium.
“For me, [spiritualism] releases the greatest fear of all: our own death,” Nye says during an interview at the Rock ‘n Roll Diner, which has the Masonic Lodge in its sights. “If you can release that fear through validation then you can move on and do the things you’re meant to do in life.”
According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC), the origins of spiritualism date back to 1848 and a small cottage in Hydesville, New York, where two young sisters were believed to have communicated through raps and hand claps with the spirit of a dead peddlar.
“Spiritualism is a common sense religion,” states the NSAC Web site. “Truths are found in nature, in other religions, in writings, in science, in philosophy, in Divine Law and are received through spirit communications.”
The large majority of Spiritualists follow nine fundamental teachings or a Declaration of Principles, which include a belief in “Infinite Intelligence”, a belief in “the phenomena of Nature, both physical and spiritual, are the expression of Infinite Intelligence,” an affirmation of the moral responsibility of individuals and the belief  that “the precepts of prophecy and healing are divine attributes proven through mediumship.”
Nye says everyone has the ability to communicate with the spiritual world.
“We all have an ability,” she says. “The difference is the specific training teaches you to know what’s your stuff, what’s the other person’s stuff and what’s spirit.”
In order to become a certified medium, Nye had to validate her gift by conveying messages from the spiritual world to the physical world with information such as names, dates, physical appearance, advice and details about how the person crossed over. Nye says she can feel in her own body how the person crossed over. She might feel a headache or feel as though she is choking.
While training has helped to sharpen her abilities, Nye says she was born with her gifts. She estimates she was only a toddler when she saw a spirit for the first time.
“I didn’t know enough to be scared,” she says. “It was just this bright light. It came down into the bedroom, looking at me and just smiled.”
Nye says other people may see spirits “that aren’t so nice.”
“There’s some really dark energy out there and I believe those energies have one purpose: to destroy,” she says. “It’s not something to play with.”
Rather than being afraid, Nye says she focuses on the possibility the spirit is looking for the light. Crossing over can be a traumatic event for someone who has led a dark life, Nye says.
Spiritualists do not believe in hell, she says.
The eighth principle of Spiritualist teachings states, “We affirm that the doorway to reformation is never closed against any human soul here or hereafter.”
“No matter what you’ve done, no matter who you are, the door is always open for healing [and] for release,” Nye says.
She says some people spend their lives locked in fear and they believe they deserve the same when they cross over. Nye adds, however, “It’s not God who turns away, it’s the soul that turns away.”
A spirit may remain in the physical world for any number of reasons. Nye says. They may linger out of love or they may seek forgiveness. Other souls may be locked in a state of shock.
Nye says she hopes to work with soldiers returning from the Middle East because she believes the soldiers who can’t forget the images of war or get past the memory of a fellow soldier dying in combat and are subsequently diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, may be experiencing the fear and the emotions of a spirit. Nye wonders, instead of crossing over, maybe the spirit of a fallen soldier attaches itself to something familiar: a fellow soldier.
Spirits may also attach to people who make a career out of helping people in traumatic situations, she says. When paramedics say, “Stay with me,” to a person who is slipping away, some spirits take that as a command to remain, Nye says.
As a spiritual release therapist, Nye says she helps to release the spirits into the light.
“If you can release the [spirit] who has attached to them, you’ve helped to heal that person,” she says.
While Nye doesn’t advertise her spirit release therapy services, she says people have a way of hearing about her. Nye says her mother’s spirit may have helped her along the way.
When her mother passed on, Nye said she told her mother to do something really big to let her know she had crossed over safely. Her mother said she would help her get free advertising.
In 2005, Nye received a call from a newspaper reporter, who had read her mother’s obituary and wanted to do a feature article on Nye.
“I knew it was my mother,” she says. “I miss her, but I feel her.”
Nye says movies teach people to fear spirits “rattling chains”, but they look the same as we remember them.
“They love us,  they feel our grief,” she says. “They want us to know they’re alright.”
The public is welcome to attend a Christmas Party and Potluck Buffet from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. tonight at the Governor William King Masonic Lodge on 649 U.S. Route One in Scarborough. Nye says a Thornton Academy student studying to be a medium will deliver the service and there will be jokes, fun and plenty of interesting people.
Everyone is also welcome to attend Sunday services.
For more information aboi the Inner Light Spiritualist Church, visit www.innerlight-church.org.