CANAAN – A gathering in this Somerset County town honored the native son who helped draw up guiding principles for a religious group whose members believe in the continuity of life and the ability of the dead to communicate with the living.

About 35 people, including members of spiritualist churches in Portland, Augusta, Fairfield and Bangor, assembled during the weekend for the annual ritual at the town hall in Canaan, the birthplace of Harrison D. Barrett.

Barrett, who died in 1911, was remembered Sunday as an author, editor, psychic researcher, religious reformer and first president of the National Spiritualist Association of Churches.

Barrett trained as a Unitarian minister, but is said to have turned to spiritualism after a sister who died at age 12 communicated with him. Although they borrow some Christian tenets, spiritualists believe that death is a “transition to spirit,” and that the dead can communicate with the living.

Maine has a half-dozen spiritualist churches, with about 200 members, said Graham Connolly, a British-born microchip designer from Portland who serves as state president of the National Spiritualist Association. Nationwide, there are an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 spiritualists.

Sunday’s service included some standard Christian hymns, a guided meditation, healing ceremonies, and mediums passing along to those in the audience messages from spirits in the world beyond.

Outside, participants lit votive candles and placed a bouquet in front of a boulder inscribed to Barrett.

Connolly told those assembled that they are “ambassadors for spiritualism” and urged them to “share your knowledge and love with those around you.”

Like many other Sunday worship services around the nation, the spiritualist service in Canaan included prayers for those killed and loved ones left behind in Tuesday’s terrorist attacks. Many attending wore red-white-and-blue ribbons or U.S. flag lapel pins.

Spiritualism originated in the mid-1800s after a murdered peddler telegraphed the whereabouts of his body and the identity of his murderer to three young girls in New York state, Connolly said.

By the turn of the century there were about 250,000 spiritualists nationwide.