Media

Communication

Realising that it is God in whom we live move and have our very being has dramatic implications both physically and spiritually, not least because it helps us realise that we are all connected to God.  This can be hard to comprehend especially if we have been taught false images of God and view him as something like an old man sitting on a cloud who we have to somehow get on the right side of, as if that was in some way possible.  The God who is love created us in being, sustains that being and somehow communicates with all that he created.  Carl Gustav Jung recognised this of course when he spoke about what he called the collective unconscious and we are beginning to understand this more and more through quantum physics.

Jung believed that God somehow communicated to us through what he called synchronicity.  Synchronicity holds that events which appear as meaningful coincidences and which have no causal relationship are meaningfully related.  This can be a hard concept to grasp and of course is even more difficult to prove scientifically.  However once it has happened to you, you begin to see it more and more and synchronicity becomes increasingly hard to ignore.  Events seem to happen which point to something larger, give you direction in your life even and help you understand that you are not an isolated individual as modern science wants us somehow to believe.  Of course we understand this only too well in Spiritualism where psychics and mediums have shown that we are not just connected physically but psychically too, even beyond physical death.

This unconscious connection and communication with the divine (it is a communication with the divine as it points to the very source of being, in other words God) has immense religious implications as it shows that there is not just one pathway to God but many pathways, all of which have something to offer and teach us about who and what we truly are.  Again mediumship helps us see some of these implications, not least that we are eternal beings, who survive physical death and who are somehow shaped and moulded for that eternal life by the way that we live our lives each and every moment.  Every decision, through the law of cause and effect, (something which can be scientifically proven), somehow shaping our future existence, not just once we die, but also during our earthly lives.

Spiritualism then helps us see who and what we truly are as mediumships points out the fact that we are eternal beings and shows that we are all somehow connected.  That being so, then what we do to others we truly are doing also to ourselves.  This of course is something which all religions have pointed out since the beginning of time.  The sad fact is however that wars have been fought by the followers of the various religions over who was the most important person that gave the world this fact, rather than the living out of its dramatic implications.  It is also the reason behind every single spirit message that has ever been given in the world.  Those dead communicating the fact that they live on and have somehow survived physical death ultimately communicate the same message “I am not dead, I live on and you will too.  Recognise that fact and live out its implications, it is not too late and one day we will be united once more and be able to embrace, until then live each and every second of each and every day with this great truth in the forefront of your mind”.

This fact is the reason why mediumship should be the unifying principle that unites all mankind, people of any religious faith and none, because whatever a person’s belief are, death does not discriminate, everyone survives physical death in some shape or form.  This fact in and of itself gives more meaning to life, pointing us to the fact that the only thing that dies is the present moment which unfolds an ever greater reality.  It is this present moment which is forever dying and being renewed and being able to live in this moment, with as much awareness of who and what we are as possible is the key to spiritual growth and being able to do this is what sets us free from any fear or anxiety. .Mediumship here opens us up to an even great awareness of that moment as it unites us with and communicates to another realm which is beyond normal consciousness.

Compensation and retribution hereafter for all the good and evil deeds done on Earth

The sixth principle of spiritualism is basically pointing to the law of cause and effect.  The law of cause and effect is a universal law which specifically states that every single action in the universe produces a reaction no matter what.  Our lives are a product of all that has happened before and it is for this reason that we are asked to live in the present moment as an awareness of the present moment helps us become more mindful of what we are building for ourselves in the future.  That future is eternal, mediumship proving that life continues after physical death and shows us that how we lived our lives shapes what sort of existence we will experience once we die, the law of cause and effect operating in the spirit world too.

In each and every action we should be asking ourselves who will I be if I do this?  Is what I am intending to do for my own highest good and for the highest good of other people? There are no second chances in life, every single moment matters and who and what we are is displayed not just in the big things in our lives but in the small things.  Those things which we all so often take for granted and think don’t really matter, matter enormously.  As the saying goes, from small acorns mighty oaks grow, each action, even each thought is a seed that we are sowing in our lives which one day will sprout and most certainly will grow, it is what they will grow into we can determine through our mindfulness.  If we are mindful of our actions that we begin to sow the right seeds on the pathway of our lives and start to build the life that we want.  If we fail to be mindful of those actions then we are simply adrift upon a sea of circumstances and are prey to all the storms that life can bring.  This fact surely starts to give us control of our lives and helps us see that our destiny is in our hands.

This is in stark contrast to other religions where we are told we are judged by God and either sent to heaven or to hell, these same religions also tell us that God is a God of love, surely this judgemental God is a contradiction to that?

Spiritualism on the other hand, through the sixth principle, shows us that God has set the world in motion and it is a world of order.  Through the law of cause and effect we see God’s love displayed as we know that our futures are in our hands.  If we decide to steal then of course it is us that suffers the consequences of that action, we become a thief, someone others do not want to be around as they do not feel safe and we become constantly tormented by an inner voice which will not let us rest.  Our actions do not help the world go forward but show a selfish attitude which displays a belief that we believe that the world owes us a living.

On the other hand if we decide that we should live by the golden rule, treat others as you would want them to treat you, we start to surround ourselves with people of like mind and we start to live in a community.  In a community we realise that we are all connected and that we all matter but have different talents which must be used for the good of all.  When we realise that we begin to build the kingdom of heaven, which purely and simply is a state of being where everyone realises that all lives matter and that we must be there to care for each other but especially for the weakest and most vulnerable in our society.

The sixth principle of Spiritualism points us to the fact that this law of cause and effect continues after we die, as it is built upon the first five principles, none of the principles stand alone.  We have been told by those who have returned and who have communicated through mediumship that we naturally gravitate to that place which we are spiritually fit for once we die.  There is not someone waiting to judge us or banish us for all the silly mistakes we have made to everlasting torment.  On the contrary the God of love gives us the opportunity to grow continually, even in the spirit world, so that one day we will get to the point where we suffer no more and are able to reflect the love of God we hold through our expressions and actions to and with other people and then our lives become a living prayer, the prayer of who and what we are, beloved children of God.  We can only do this if we realise that each of us is a piece of God and then we become at peace, each of us working towards the common good of all.  I believe that the law of cause and effect is one of the greatest gifts of God as it enable us to shape and mould not just our future but the common future of all mankind and in doing so surely we are doing God’s work and becoming co-creators of the world.

Added to this the sixth principle banishes forever the fear of hell which has held mankind in chains for thousands of years.  All of us are capable of the most intense evil, to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves.  The holocaust set about by Nazi Germany was not done by one man but by many ordinary people who may not have verbally given their consent but did so through neglect or indifference, by silence and through self-interest.  As Ghandi famously said “for evil to flourish in the world all it takes is for good people to sit ideally by and do nothing”.  How often have we hurt other people through our inaction or neglect?

It is precisely through realising that we are capable of both good and evil which puts our lives back in our hands.  The all good God does not exist, after all it is God in whom we live and move and have our very being.  When we realise this fact we actually have more control of our lives as we can realise that our choices make a difference and that we can choose good and reject evil.  This choice is actually very easy, most of us will not be confronted with horrendous evil but we are confronted with little choices each and every day.  It is easy to choose to do the right thing.  The problem however is that it is also easy not to choose to do the right thing and to allow ourselves to fall.  How often do each of us ask ourselves well what does it matter anyone? Who will see? No one will know? Or give ourselves permission for behaviour because of what someone else has done?  And yet because the law of cause and effect cannot be avoided we suffer the consequences of our actions.  How someone has acted towards us does not diminish the law of cause and effect, we are personally responsible for our actions.  This being the case every situation with others becomes an opportunity for spiritual growth and expression, especially the most challenging situations.

We cannot just be mindfulness when we are mediating or when we are communicating with spirit but each and every second of each and every day.  To bring our spiritual awareness to bear on everything that we do can be hard at first but will echo into eternity.  This is why I believe the sixth principle to be so important, after all the following of it and its implications can build the kingdom of heaven.  Choose good reject evil and allow the actions of your life to bring you towards a greater richer tomorrow.

Eternal Progress open to every Human Soul

The seventh principle, eternal progress open to every human soul, points us to eternal life or to put it in human terms, the best is yet to come.  Eternity is a hard concept to grasp.  It is one of those ideas which we cannot contemplate as it is steeped in mystery.  An example of the minds inability to grasp eternity is glimpsed somewhat when we try to contemplate the universe.  We are told by science that the universe is infinite and that it is still growing.  How can something that is infinite still grow? What does it grow into?

This idea of mystery is at the heart of eternity and this idea of growing points us to this eternal progress.  God, who loves all of his creation, answers all our questions and is constantly moving us forward.  However one answer invariably leads to two more questions and therefore our search ever keeps pace with our longing for the infinite God who made us for him and our hearts cannot find rest until they rest in him.

This continual search is part of the human condition, Carl Jung called it the individuation process, the soul continually driving us on to experience more and more who and what we are and to experience our relationship to God.  This individuation process explains why we constantly put ourselves in situations which we would not get ourselves into if our only concern was a quiet easy life.  For any of us to set out on the road of spiritual development and agreed to serve the spirit world with our mediumship understand this only too well.  Working as a medium is not easy.  I remember driving for hours and hours in my younger years to serve churches all over the country.  I would regular make a two hour journey each way to get to some of the churches that I served.  Sometimes the demonstration would be very hard work, especially in the early days when the mediumship was striving to establish itself and I would make the journey home wondering why I was putting myself through all this and yet I would constantly take bookings for these churches because something in me disturbed my heart and compelled me to serve and I am sure many of you have done the same.

I remember the first time I went to work at a soup kitchen for the homeless.  I mistakenly believed that those who we help would be grateful instead I would often find the opposite and again this leads us to question what we are doing.  We should not be setting out to help people for want of recognition, in whatever shape that may come but should do these things because it is part of who and what we are.  That is the thing with spiritual growth it sometimes takes the knocks and buffeting of the world to make us aware of these things.

There is an added example of this eternal progress which always loom’s large in my mind.  We often call the spirit world heaven as we imagine it as a place where as well as there being no death, there is no sickness, no poverty, no wars, no conflict, and no violence, nothing that could possibly rock our inner state of well-being.  Yet how could it be heaven if when I get there one person who I love is absent, my heart would start longing for them and for all that love of them means.  So it would not be heaven until all of God’s creatures are present, could God be God if he was not able to save all his creatures.  So we continue to progress in the spirit world then experiencing more and more of that states of bliss which we can imagine through the ideal that we call heaven.

Heaven we imagine is where there is no time and we are able to remain in a state of being where our only experience is one of happiness, we get a glimpse of that happiness here and now but it is only a glimpse, a moment of grace where our whole lives make sense and we can see the reasons for all our suffering and pain.  Yet moments of grace vanish as quickly as they appear and we are left with our struggles, challenges and suffering.

That is of course how it is meant to be, the world after all is a school where we develop and strengthen our spiritual awareness so that it can be our only experience.  And yet our conscious minds seem to fight this, throw us off course even.  Maybe that is as it should be, if we had all the answers now then there would be no need for us to be here would there.  Even the spirit world talk of how they do not have all the answers though they can see a little further than we can.  Silver Birch, the entity who worked through the trance medium Maurice Barbanell, constantly talked of how he, and those who he worked with in the spirit world were still progressing.  He also talked of how they too would communicate with those further on then them, onwards and upwards this great chain of communication, or communion, would go until it reached those spheres of existence inhabited by spiritually evolved souls who strive to bring this understanding to humanity   Souls who appear as a bright light so enlightened are they.  This takes us back to the point that it cannot be heaven until all souls are united in this one great see of life, united in common purpose, for the good of all.

These facts should bring us comfort, especially at times when we experience difficulty and progress seems to be so slow that it appears non-existent.  Truly all things will be well as everything works out for our highest and greatest good.  That being the case we can also rest assured that no matter how good things may get, the best is still yet to come.  What a source of comfort that is and it puts all our suffering into perspective.  One of the things that I would always mention when conducting funeral services is this, our sorrow in losing someone that we love is in direct proportion to the love that we bear for them and in turn to the joy which we will experience when we are reunited with them and what a reunion that will be.  Eternal progress is open to us here and now but it continues throughout eternity until all colours beat as one.

Mysticism and the spiritual journey

Mysticism is defined as ‘the art of union with reality’.  To understand this statement we would have to investigate reality, but to do this we are first struck with the question ‘What is reality?’ which actually isn’t an easy question to answer.  Every person’s reality being shaped to a certain extent by their inner reality, as well as by what they experience in the world of phenomena, the world of objects, things and people.  We can only know a thing by uniting ourselves with it, by assimilating it, or taking it into our consciousness somehow, but when we do this we end up interpreting both the object and ourselves.  Reality gives itself to us, but only in so far as we give ourselves to it.  Wisdom then is the fruit of this communion with reality and of course, this wisdom will differ according to how someone has found union with reality.

A mystic then is someone who has attained this union with reality to a greater or lesser degree, or someone who aims at, and believes in, such attainment.  All religions have a long and varied history of mysticism, and point to certain people within their tradition who have attained this union to a certain extent.  Often someone is called a mystics once they begin to display abilities which point to this union with ultimate reality.  These abilities seem to go beyond what is conceived as normal or observable within everyday normal expectations of what the human condition is capable of experiencing or knowing.  These abilities are phenomena which we are very familiar with in Spiritualism and include the ability to materialise objects (apports), astral projection, bi-location, levitation, precognition, the ability to manipulate, or move, objects by the mind (psychokinesis), remote viewing, telepathy and many other phenomena besides.  The list of religious adherents displaying such abilities is too numerous to mention here and can be found in every religion, from Christianity to Islam and Hinduism and countless literature can be found about them and their experiences.

The mystic who dispalys these abilities, considered to be union with ultimate reality, then is often used by the religion that it belongs to as an indication that what it holds to be true as provenof what is held to be truths within that tradition.  This however can be highly problematic for a whole host of reasons but mainly because these abilities are used to justify beliefs and are often not investigated independently for what they are.

The question then arises how does someone unite themselves with ultimate reality and thereby grow to understand it and help others in the understanding of it? And this is not an easy question to answer.  Many techniques have been used in the endeavour to unite human beings with ultimate reality, such as ritual, magic, meditation, music, dance, drugs, or chemical substances, fasting and many others.

The results of these practices are many and varied-describe

Religions growing up out of these practices and the phenomena that can result.  These phenomena are then seen as proof of the truth.

Personal Responsibility

For many personal responsibility is one of the most important principles in Spiritualism, it is different to what other religions teach, especially Christianity, where the responsibility for actions are part of a cosmic battle between good and evil.  The principal of personal responsibility is part of the law of cause and effect, everything that we do creates an effect and we are responsible for the effects of our actions so we need to be mindful of how we act and the consequences of those actions.  Therefore personal responsibility calls for a greater mindfulness of how we live our lives.

Personal responsibility therefore calls for active engagement with the circumstances that we find ourselves in and also asks that we live out those lives knowing that we are eternal beings and that everything we do is done in the sight of God and of those in the unseen world.  One of the central teachings of Christianity is that God sent his own son, Jesus Christ, into the World to rescue humankind from sin, the concept of the vicarious atonement.  Sometimes this teaching is twisted and can then portray a vengeful and sadistic god whose son suffers for others and becomes the ultimate scapegoat, scapegoating having been the basis of the Jewish sacrificial system.  The religious leaders of the Jewish synagogue sacrificing him so that they could appease their conquerors, the Romans.  Scapegoating is something that still goes on, you will witness it again and again in politics, maybe we indulge in scapegoating ourselves, it is always easier to blame someone else, or something else as in the Christian concept of the devil.

I believe that not to be the true meaning of the life of Jesus whose life portrays someone living spiritually and willing to do everything and anything that spirituality demanded no matter what the cost, even if it meant his death.  Jesus refused to compromise his spirituality and put everything that he preached into action, if only we could all do the same we might be able to transform the world.  It is in the death of Jesus that we see personal responsibility in action, even when suffering the most intense provocation he does not react, instead he remains cool calm and collected knowing that if we live out our spiritual principles then we are aligning ourselves with our highest good and because of the law of cause and effect then we will be compensated for those good actions (the sixth principle of spiritualism).  There is only one power that we should align ourselves with, the power that created us, God as God will always have the final word, so we should not succumb to fear or intimidation.  When viewed that way the life of Jesus life becomes something that we can learn from and be inspired by as it sets an example of what can be achieved through living with personal responsibility at the forefront of your mind.

Personal responsibility too can be twisted in much the same way as individual rights have become in the modern world.  You often hear people claiming their rights and trying to exercise their freedoms.  However we don’t live in isolation in the world and everything that we do has consequences not just for us but for other people.  I cannot have my individual rights if they impinge or deny someone else their individual rights and freedoms as we live in a community, not in isolation.  We are mainland’s, connected to others and not islands.  Everything that we do effects other people and we need to be mindful of that when we are making a decision because we are not just responsible for the consequences of our actions but are responsible for how what we do affects others, which makes personal responsibility so much more difficult to live out as it requires levels of awareness which can be very demanding.

We have to ask ourselves how often are we consciously aware of how our actions will turn out, so often we take the pathway of least resistance and do nothing, afraid of the consequences of our actions.  However the worst thing that we can do is nothing, as Ghandi said, if we do nothing then evil runs rife in the world.  When faced with any difficulty or circumstance in our lives it is our ability to respond that will determine our spiritual growth, in other words our response-ability.  Not doing something when challenged by someone in need will affect us spiritually.  I am afraid that there are no easy answers here as the world is a diverse and complicated place.

When challenged by a complicated situation it is always good to get another opinion especially one that can view our situation from a different angle maybe one that can see the situation more completely then we can.  This is where communication with the spirit world comes into play as those in the other world are removed from the turmoil that the demands of this life can bring and can help us see a situation more clearly.  We must realise however that what we do cannot be determined by what the spirit world say, we are personally responsible for our actions and what the spirit world give us is an opinion and should be taken as such.  There are a multitude of opinions in the spirit world just like there are here but with the seeking of knowledge our wisdom grows and we begin to be able to see the bigger picture more clearly ourselves.  In turn seeing the bigger picture will allow us to make more informed actions and we begin to grow spiritually.  This is the difference between knowledge and wisdom, knowledge can be information held but wisdom puts knowledge into action.  Maybe the clue is in the word information, when we apply our knowledge we are in formation, being transformed by that action into more spiritually mature beings.  This process then is one of trial and error and makes our mistakes more worthwhile as we grow in wisdom through them that is as long as we do not continue to make the same mistakes.

Seeing that bigger picture must make us more responsible, knowledge of our eternal destiny must stir us to action in every area of our lives so that our lives become a living prayer of who and what we are, beloved children of God.  Here I believe that we see the true purpose of mediumship which is so much more then proving the continuation of life, as important as that is, because mediumship does so much more than that.  As well as proving that there is life after death, it teaches us to live life before death.  The living of that life must be carried out with this personal responsibility in mind, the realisation that we are here to make the world a better place.  To help shape this world so that it can be the place that it was meant to be, one where all peoples can live in peace and harmony and that the pain and suffering felt by anyone should be felt by everyone as we are all connected in one great web of life.

This connection, which continues beyond the grave, is a connection of love and our ability to respond to that love will determine how well our lives are lived out.  Again love is another word that can be twisted with all the skill that human beings have for deception and made into something that can cause a lot of pain and suffering.  Sometimes when confronted by the ugliness that is so common in the human condition we mirror it and become like the object of that which can or has destroyed us.  This is so easy to do and often we do this without consciously being aware of it and then we become part of the problem and not part of the solution.  Personal responsibility calls for a level of mindfulness which can be quite hard to attain, this is something that we have to work on all our lives.

When we realise that we are eternal beings and that nothing anyone can do to us can harm us as ultimately our physical lives are short and over before we know it, it is our eternal life in the spirit world that is our true home.  Our personal responsibility then is to allow as much of who and what we truly are, eternal spiritual beings, to be displayed in our lives.  To do this we have to be at peace with all peoples as well as every opinion and circumstance knowing that in the fullness of time all will be well and that all of us will meet in a greater tomorrow where our only experience will be of joy and happiness.  This should be our guiding principal every waking moment.  Personal responsibility then is our spirit in action, expressing itself in everything that we do.  One person living this out every second of every day can truly change the world.  Placing this principle in front of us is a call to action, a challenge, to live out our lives with this principle in mind can be very demanding but it is where true spirituality is found.

The Brotherhood of Man

In this article I want to look at the second principle of Spiritualism, The Brotherhood of Man.  When looking at this principle we have to remember the consciousness which was at large when the seven principles were written.  A consciousness which was very patriarchal and therefore male orientated.  We have come to understand the term brotherhood as a collective noun which is inclusive, in the same way as, when using the term mankind, we have come to understand that we really mean humankind, as a race not as a gender.  Any exclusion of any of God’s creatures would do harm to, not just the spirit of the principle, but to all of God’s creatures as our understanding of who and what we are dramatically affects the way that we live and interact with others.  The first thing that we must remember, as discussed when looking at the first principle, is, it is God in whom we live move and have our very being, so to ignore one of God’s creatures is to ignore God, the creator of that creature.  God is the source of all life and is behind every religion, gender, and race, therefore what we should do is try to understand that source not see the division, a division which is so often manmade.  God created all that is, so everything has its source and origin in God, which brings us to the understanding that there is no competition in God.

Sadly this fact has not been lived out by religion, most religions claiming to be the one and only way to God and this has led to many acting in ways that have often been less then spiritual, at times using violence as a persuasive tool on those of other opinions, or religions to them.  Violence of course in these circumstances shows the ignorance and mental development of those involved and of course we can be violent in our words as well as in our actions.  Sometimes this violence has also been carried out against others from within the same religion because of these differences of opinion.  If you believe, as so many religions do, that the most important thing is what you believe in, not how you act, then you would feel justified in this violence, often quoting passages in what are called Holy Books to justify this opinion.  This behaviour stems from what psychologists now call confirmation bias.  People begin with a belief and then set out to prove that belief and find something that confirms what they already believe.  When people do this they are making God into their own image and likeness, rather than discovering what God truly is.

The Muslims have a wonderful idea which states that God created many religions to see how we would all get along together.  The sad truth is, as history so clearly demonstrates, we have not been so good at it.  Our religion or belief systems being so often dependant on our family of origin and other circumstances that surround us, especially during the years of our development into adults.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta was asked by her biographer if she ever tried to convert people, she replied to him “yes, I convert people to be a better Hindu, a better Christian, a better Buddhist, a better Muslim, a better Sikh, once you have found God it is up to you what you do with him”.  It is hard to disagree with Mother Theresa and thankfully in our modern multi-cultural society we come across people of all sorts of religious beliefs and none each and every day and we have come to a stage in our cultural development where labels and clarifications of people’s beliefs are not the most important thing about them.  When meeting someone we first must recognise that we are meeting a child of God who deserves our respect and should be given all the dignity that comes from this fact.  In our culture our whole judicial system is built upon that principle.

We have come to realise that our beliefs should be the backdrop to our lives and they compel us to live those lives as best with can, with whatever those beliefs denote seen in our daily actions.  As an existentialist I rarely look at what someone says to get a measure of them, but look to their actions which are the real signs of where someone is, words are cheap but to really live out our beliefs is where true spirituality is found.  Thankfully this fact is promoted at every turn by our society now with its laws of equality and anti-discrimination being enforced with mindful energy of the consequences of not doing so.  Sadly we have seen those consequences all too vividly.  Now justice, respect, honesty and truthfulness are virtues seen as being inherent to the human condition which are lost to the detriment of everyone.

This fact helps us see God, who is the source of all good, so when we recognise good or see God, the word God of course being the root word of the term good, and whenever we see the opposite we confront something less then human.  We know this intuitively, for example, when we see violence we often describe it as being inhuman.  To gain more understanding of this we could look at the fact that the word evil, is the word live spelt backwards, so to live well we align ourselves with all that is good and become who and what we truly were created to be.  Created by a God who is love!

In the modern world, through scientific discoveries such as quantum physics, we are understanding more and more the fact that we are all connected in one great see of life.  Now more than ever before we have the ability to connect with people all over the world and news travels at immense speed.  We have immense access to all the knowledge and learning that has ever taken place.  Economically we are living in a global community where what happens in one part of the world affects all the other parts.  However the realisation of these facts still has to happen on an individual basis and have to be promoted with all urgency for our planet to truly live in peace, a peace which is threatened at every turn.  It begins with each one of recognising that when we meet other people we have an opportunity for learning and growth through encounter with another child of God who it is our privilege to have come across.  To encounter another with this in mind is of immense benefit as through that encounter we become better more complete people.

The Communion of Spirit’s and the Ministry of Angels

 The third principle points us to the fact that there is communication between individuals who had been thought of as dead, i.e. not inhabiting a physical body anymore.  This is a belief that has a long history, a history which has grown developed and changed over time.  In our modern world we seem to encounter the whole array of these thoughts and beliefs and it will help us to know where they have come from so that we can talk in an informed way about what happens when we communicate with the spirit world.

I am trying to be very careful here with the language that I use as so often much is said that leads to more confusion and the whole purpose of Spiritualism is for the development of humankind and the banishment of fear.  Too often it is said that communication happens beyond our earthly world but of course the spirit world is a world which occupies the same space as this one, so it is good to think of it as world’s existing within worlds.  Think of it this way, if I turn on my T.V set and tune in to a certain channel it appears solid and real, the other channels have not disappeared, they are still there, it is just that we have chosen not to tune into them.  If however I change channel my T.V set simply tunes into another frequency and psychics and mediums work in a similar way.  Arthur Findlay explains this brilliantly in his book, published in 1931, On the Edge of the Etheric.

That this communication happens is borne out by the fact that so many of the ancient religions of the world grew out of this communication, developing their religious rites and practices from it.  This phenomena came to be known as ancestor worship.  Those who had died being seen as some sort of god or goddess as they had survived physical death, having done so they were seen as having all sorts of spiritual powers and were thought of as being able to help the living, or maybe even control events and experiences, and so were worshipped.

The meaning of angels can be problematic as it is a word which has many meanings depending on the context in which you find it and the tradition in which it is being used.  To some religious traditions, especially Christian, an angel is a winged creature who is a messenger of God, but comes from a different mode of being to human life, having never inhabited a human body.  This tradition originated in Babylon, or Persia, what is modern day Iran and Iraq, at a time when the Jewish people were there being held in captivity as slaves after the southern kingdom had been conquered in 587B.C.E by an army led by the Babylon King Nebuchadnezzar.  In Spiritualism however when we use the term angel we are referring to those who have died, our friends and relatives, who are still able to communicate and prove that they have survived physical death.  The Oxford English Dictionary gives us another definition of the word angel which refers to someone who is good, kind or helpful.  Death is the greatest fear that preys on human consciousness so someone returning from beyond the grave to prove their existence is of great service to alleviate this fear.  This communication points us to the fact that we are eternal beings and therefore it is the work of God.  What sceptics often fail to realise is that for what Spiritualism says to be true it only takes one genuine communication from beyond the grave, and yet there has been thousands throughout the history of mankind.

One of the reasons for resistance to the idea of communication from beyond the grave stems from a difference of thinking in Greek Philosophy, an argument that has actually raged since the time of Plato and Aristotle  to do with our continued existence after physical death.  Plato (423–347 B.C.E) believed that the soul was a pre-existing entity. Therefore, its survival was not dependent on having a body.  Plato made a distinction between a soul and an apparition – believing that an apparition was a soul that was weighed down by bodily impurities, impurities taken on while the soul was in the body.  Now, he believed that apparitions were able to be seen by the living because of these impurities. Thus, he believed an “apparition” was a ghost.  There is of course a huge difference between a ghost and a spirit being, a ghost is not a spirit being but an apparition.  Those mediums skilled in investigating so called haunted houses recognize this. If there are those from the spirit world there the medium will be able to communicate with them in some way and learn about their earthly lives and their reason for being there.

Here it is good to understand what happens in an area where ghosts are said to haunt houses.  Human beings are electromagnetic in nature and when a highly charged emotional event occurs something like a recording is left in the area.  Those sensitive to the atmosphere in the room can somehow tune in to this recording and experience it.  These recordings are of course of a different nature to a spirit being communicating from beyond the grave.

Plato went onto say that those who have died inhabit a realm where God resides as well as angels and demons and that these beings have absolutely no material element whatsoever as they no longer have a physical body.  Plato believed that they are not “energy” since energy is a material phenomenon – in many cases, such as with electromagnetic radiation, we cannot see the energy with our bare eyes, yet it nevertheless remains a thing of the physical realm. Thus, beings of pure spirit cannot be called “energy;” however they do have existence and we are able to study and learn about this existence.  This shows us where the term spirit comes from though of course its meaning has morphed throughout history but often is taken to mean the animating principle that gives life.  In Hebrew the word for spirit is Ruah which actually means breath, the breath of life.  Plato believed the true aspect of an individual was the soul which was trapped in a physical body and which was released at death to inhabit once more this spirit realm.  However because of his belief in what he called ghosts, he did not believe that those who had died could or did return and communicate with the living.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E) on the other hand believed that the body was the form of the soul, that the two things were inseparable.  He did not believe in the preexistence of souls but believed that the soul was the cause of the body in other words that which gave it life and the soul began to create the body at conception.  Aristotle believed that it was in the soul that thinking took place.  No doubt there are links here with our modern concept of the mind which we know is more than just the brain.  In fact modern psychology recognizes the fact that we have many minds which make up our personality.  We know this as our stomachs can tell us we are hungry, our feet we are tired and our hearts inform us of all sorts of emotions especially love.

It was Aristotle’s philosophy of the body being the form of the soul which gave rise to the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body.  This belief changed the name of the place where the dead were buried from necropolis, the city of the dead, to cemetery, which basically means dormitory, where the dead sleep until God comes again.  The Christian teaching is that the body, which has had an intricate part to play in our spiritual journey, would be raised up on the last day, when God came into the world again and then, once more the soul and the body would be united.  Again this is a religious belief that was held in both Babylon and Egypt and led to the practice of mummification.  Until that great or terrible day, depending upon the quality of the life that an individual had led, the dead inhabited what is termed as an in between state, known to Catholics as purgatory.  In purgatory individuals continued to grow and develop spiritually until they were fit to be with God forever in eternal bliss having rid themselves of all their spiritual imperfections.

We will pick this up again next month when we will look at how beliefs developed after the time of Jesus.