The Great Debate
This refers to the current debate among Spiritualists, prominent in their publications, about Christian trappings and terminology which, it is felt by many, are inappropriate in this day and age. Quite apart from being incompatible with Spiritualism, Christianity is on the decline as evidenced by the dwindling congretations in churches, and this has spilled over to Spiritualist centers calling themselves ‘Christian Spiritualist churches’, some complete with ministers, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, singing hymns, and celebrating Christian festivals like Christmas and Easter. All this is very off-putting to people of other religions, to humanists, atheists and agnostics. In fact it is off-putting to all genuine Spiritualists and Survivalists who seek empirical evidence of an afterlife and are not interested in ancient creeds and dogmas or in religious texts written by goodness knows who, tampered with through the ages, and designed basically to control a subservient population.
Of course Christianity adopted pagan festivals as its own, the virgin birth of a deity on December 25th being but one of these pagan myths, and the Spring renewal of Easter and the resurrection being also borrowed from pagan myths. In the past century or so Spiritualism has done the same thing – adopted Christian myths, terminology and festivals in order to try to win converts from that religion.
First of all, Spiritualism is not a religion. It is a scientific movement which is based not on faith or ancient religious texts, but on empirical evidence and experimentation. We seek proof of an afterlife, not vague promises of ‘pie-in-the-sky when we die’.
While all religions may well have a basis of truth, none have the whole truth, and there are many distortions. For instance, taking Christianity as an example, Spiritualists and Survivalists do not believe there is any evidence of a Heaven or a Hell, of a Devil/Satan nor do we believe Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, physically resurrected from the dead, was the Son of God and died to redeem our ‘sins’. How, then, can Spiritualist centers call themselves ‘Christian Spiritualist’?
Spiritualists know that we are all responsible for our own actions, will have to face a life review on transition to Spirit, feel all the consequences of our actions (good and bad) on others, and that the law of cause and effect or karma applies. ‘No saviors from on high deliver’ says the atheistic Socialist anthem ‘The Internationale’, and this line could well be incorporated into songs sung at Spiritualist/Survivalist meetings and seances.
There are no short-cuts to Spiritual progression. We all have to take personal responsibility for our actions, learn from our mistakes, and through the karmic process gradually evolve to higher levels.
As to the various religions and their leaders, many have good points, but also many bad ones. The Bible, for instance, is full of intolerance and murders, genocides and mass rapes, all apparently sanctioned by ‘God’. Many Spiritualists and Survivalists don’t even believe in ‘God’ as such. We talk of the Great Spirit or Source, and there are many other terms, but the idea of an all-wise deity handing out justice and taking vengeance on ‘sinners’ is not backed up by the evidence of Spiritualism/Survivalism.
On the contrary, all the evidence suggests we are all part of the creative energy and universal consciousness which is necessary for the material universes to exist. The evidence suggests that everything is evolving, and we are all part of this process.
Religious figures like Jesus, the Buddha, Hare Krishna and also more contemporary people like Mahatma Gandhi, the atheist and humanist Sir Bertrand Russell and even Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels can all be regarded as either setting an example of how to live a good life, or giving directions and advice as to how to create a better world. That some of their writings, particularly Marxism, has been distorted does not invalidate it. Much of Christ’s teaching has been distorted over the centuries, and it is certain he would never have endorsed the Crusades, the Inquisition, the notion of the ‘just war’ or the possession, let alone the use, of weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons.
Spiritualists and Survivalists (the latter being basically humanists/agnostics/atheists adopting a very scientific, empirical approach to the evidence for the afterlife) can take inspiration from atheists like Sir Bertrand Russell who said ‘remember your humanity and forget the rest’. Or from Karl Marx who showed how humanity could be freed from exploitation and progress through Socialism to the ultimate utopia of Communism proper, or something akin to heaven on Earth.
The Spiritualist movement is also suffering dwindling congregations in its churches. This is hardly surprising since Christianity and religion is having less and less relevance in countries like Britain. I rarely go to Spiritualist churches as I don’t want Christian hymns, prayers, etc. shoved down my throat. More people attend demonstrations of clairvoyance in huge theaters, or watch it on TV. They seek proof of survival, not pseudo-religious services in churches.
In this modern age science is actually backing up and confirming the evidence coming from the afterlife. Quantum physics suggests strongly that consciousness is non-material, and is the primary force which actually creates and organizes matter. Without consciousness, in fact, nothing can exist. Spiritualists and Survivalists welcome this scientific backing for the theory that our conscious beings are eternal and non-material, rather than a biological and chemical product of our brains which ceases on death. This is now far more than a theory, it is being proven by all the evidence that consciousness is filtered by our brains, but originates outside the worlds of matter altogether. In fact reality is pure consciousness, everything else, all matter, is an elaborate illusion or virtual reality created by consciousness. A vast and complex thought, if you like, or a creation of thought.
There are, it is true, texts which Spiritualists and Survivalists often quote, but these are passed on from Spirit guides like White Feather and Silver Birch. They do not claim to be infallible, or to be the word of ‘God’. Spirits communicate from various levels according to how much they have evolved, and they therefore have different areas and different levels of knowledge. Certainly guides like the above come from high Spiritual levels, but even they do not know everything and interpret things differently.
For instance, the question of reincarnation. This causes much debate in Spiritualist/Survivalist circles since even high Spirit guides appear to disagree. It seems the subject is extremely complex since our Higher Selves on the Spiritual planes have many different facets, and we also belong to soul groups. These different facets and also the soul groups all share experiences and evolve together. It seems it is extremely doubtful that individuals ever reincarnate but their personality continues to exist indefinitely, at least until such time as they are ready to merge into a greater entity as they evolve to higher levels. Indeed spirits on the Other Side have actually met past ‘incarnations’ of themselves so that would indicate these incarnations are indeed different facets. We have been told by high Spirit guides that the conscious being we are aware of here on Earth is but a tip of the iceberg, our Higher Spiritual self is much, much bigger and more complicated, but to enable our mission here on Earth knowledge of this greater self and our life-plan is blocked or filtered out. A computer is programmed to do a particular task or set of tasks, and we are similar during our time on Earth. Only when we transit to Spirit and are reunited with our Higher selves do we see the full picture.
So you can call Spirtualism a religion if you like, but it is one based on scientific experimentation and gathering empirical evidence using many different methods including clairvoyance, other forms of mental mediumship, physical mediumship including Direct Voice, Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC), automatic writing, analyzing out-of-the-body and near-death experiences, studying ghosts and apparitions, etc. It is the sum total of all this evidence from various sources and the lessons learnt from Spiritual guides and teachers communicating through mediums that has resulted in the evolving science of Spiritualism and Survivalism. All backed up by scientific string-theory, Quantum Physics and new scientific ideas like the Pearsonian Big Breed Theory.
Some would turn Spiritualism into a religion, and rather than Christianity, many are creating a sort of New Age religion including all sorts of mystical things like crystals, angels, astrology, Tarot cards, etc. I and many others take the much more scientific approach. The evidence for survival endorsed by scientists, inventors and medical people like Dr Peter Fenwick, Ron Pearson, Edison, Marconi, John Logie-Baird, Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Alfred Russell Wallace and many, many others.
Christian Spiritualist churches are on their way out. In their place will be universal knowledge of survival and the afterlife, and eventually ITC will be perfected so we can communicate regularly with the Spirit realms via inter-dimensional videophones, thus eliminating the need for the human medium which is always prone to suspicion of fraud, and liable to misinterpret the messages from Spirit.
I give here one example. A man died falling off a ladder. With his wife in the audience at a Spiritualist meeting he managed to convey the image of a ladder to the medium. She told the man’s wife that she saw a ladder indicating success or good fortune. She added that last bit, completely distorting the true message. Had she just passed on what she received, the image of a ladder, the wife would have immediately known why – because her late husband fell to his death off of one. The man did eventually find another way of proving to his wife it was him contacting her through the medium, with reference to a ring she was wearing, but it would all have been so much easier thru a videophone where the man’s messages were not distorted by the interpretations and ideas of a human medium.
