Some Spiritualist truths
Over the centuries people have been ill served by the Christian churches on this matter, and also in more recent times by the disciples of Dawkinism, who promote the delusional but supposedly rational doctrine of materialism, a subject briefly dismissed in the previous post. So the question to be asked is whether it is possible to uncover the mysteries of death in a way that is credible. What follows is a personal account of one individual who embraced the truth of spiritualism.
‘I was born and brought up in a small northern town. My father came from a strict Irish Catholic background, and my mother was local Church of England who converted to Catholicism on marriage. My earliest memories include attending the services at the local Roman Catholic church. During my childhood I regularly attended instruction in the catechism, and later preparation for my confirmation which occurred when I was about nine years old. One thing that stuck in my mind from these teachings was the concept that God had no beginning and would have no end, which at that age was an idea rather difficult to fully comprehend.
Later both my parents stopped attending services, making an exception whenever my father’s brothers or sister came to visit, when the whole family went to Sunday Mass. I could sense this was hypocritical but it was understandable as my parents were anxious that my grandmother living in Ireland should not get to hear that my father may have lost his faith. She was a staunch Roman Catholic who attended church daily, and her faith, along with her family and socialising with neighbours, was the centre of her life. She reduced me to tears on one occasion when I forgot some of the words to the Hail Mary which she had asked me to recite during a family visit. Later my mother turned completely atheist denying that there could be an afterlife, and my father gave the impression of still believing in God but nevertheless fearing death.
One night after going to bed, during the six week period between when I left school and starting work, I experienced some mild chest sensations. I feared that these might be the first signs of heart problems, although I subsequently realised they were nothing more than indigestion. So I became rather worried, and realised for the first time that one day I would face death, and I stayed awake for some time contemplating this matter. It seemed very unfair that I, like everybody else, was facing complete extinction.
During this period, as now, there was virtually no talk or discussion about death. The Christian churches as a matter of faith believed in an afterlife, but their ideas seemed very hazy, and it was unclear whether eternal life would be granted merely for being a Christian or for living a good life. The flip side of this was that non-Christians and those not meeting the standards for entry into Heaven faced eternal damnation in Hell. Although this was the theory I noticed that many adults who professed to be Christians seemed to be far from confident that they would really continue to exist after death.
The reason for this was that despite their religious faith they would have absorbed the prevailing ethos of secular society that all of us were comprised of nothing more than matter, and that once the body had ceased to function, and the brain stopped working, our minds and consciousness would be extinguished and that would be the end of it all. Both the medical profession and scientists appeared to be unanimous in their belief in this materialistic concept whereby, through a process never properly explained, our brains generated our minds and consciousness. As a result the vast majority of people subscribed to this viewpoint, and it was one which at the time I instinctively absorbed and accepted without too much thought or examination.
However, during the next couple of years it was a subject I started to give some thought to. By then I had started work in a junior clerical position in a large London office building, and so most of my attention was given to adjusting to the world of work and attempting to engage in a wider social life. But from time to time my mind would turn to the subject of death, my main problem being that I just could not work out how it was possible to survive death. It seemed completely impossible as there was just no mechanism or means whereby it could happen, since the body was all there was, and once this ceased to function that was it.
During this time I read in a newspaper that some mediums had contacted the board games manufacturer Waddingtons asking that an ouija board game that had recently been introduced, be withdrawn. My response was one of anger that Waddingtons did not completely dismiss this request out of hand, since it was common knowledge that all mediums were fraudsters, exploiting the gullible and credulous for money with their fake pretence to be contacting the dead. Of course, I had carried out no research or investigation into this matter. I blindly accepted the overwhelming viewpoint about mediums and séances which I believed just about every rational person appeared to share.
Also during this period I very occasionally began to experience a rather disturbing phenomenon. In bed, when I was trying to get to sleep on a few occasions, I suddenly found my self completely weightless, as if I was falling down a well or lift shaft in the dark. It only lasted a second but it was a little scary. But it did plant the thought in my mind that there might be more to the human body than what the doctors were letting on about. I was glad I experienced this phenomenon at that time rather than a year or so later, as I shall shortly explain. I later discovered that the medical term for this is a hypnagogic jerk, and it should be noted that medical websites admit that ‘there is little understanding what causes it.”
After I had been working for about two years a new manager joined the team called Robin. At that time I was in my late teens and he was about seven or eight years older than me. His appearance was very different to most managers who during this period dressed conservatively in dark suit, white shirt and short hair. But Robin had long hair and a short pointed beard, and usually dressed in a brown sports jacket, brown shirt and trousers and even brown shoes. Facially, he looked a bit like Roy Wood of The Move.
I felt at the time that I was beginning to mature mentally, which had the unfortunate side effect that a lot of people I knew now began to appear rather predictable, superficial and conformist. I became dissatisfied, feeling an unfulfilled desire to become acquainted with people more mature, informed and educated than myself. I soon became aware that Robin fitted this ideal perfectly.
I discovered that Robin was a thoughtful and interesting person with his own point of view on many subjects. After other colleagues left work we began to talk to one another at first on general subjects, but quite soon the conversation turned to deeper matters, such as the meaning of existence, is there a God, and what is the purpose of life. It was a bit one sided, me asking the questions and Robin giving the answers, but he seemed to enjoy this role. So as part of this ongoing conversation I naturally asked him if he believed in an afterlife. To my amazement not only did he believe in it, but he claimed that he knew it to be an absolute fact. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. How could he be so sure about this when I had reached the conclusion that surviving death was impossible.
Instead of explaining why he was so sure, Robin suggested I read some books to help me gain an understanding of the subject. The first two were fairly slim volumes, In Tune With The Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine, and Thought Forces by Prentice Mulford. They both deal with the power of thought and positive thinking, which if I am honest I found at the time to be fairly abstract and something of a difficult read, although in later life I returned to them again with better understanding.
However, the next books he provided were much more practical and became my spiritual guide for the rest of my life. They were Fourteen Lessons In Yogi Philosophy and Advanced Course In Yogi Philosophy, both by Yogi Ramacharaka. They revealed many important aspects of spiritual reality ignored by both orthodox religion and materialistic science.
The first and most important was the existence of Spirit, which is the underling reality behind the visible universe, and the divine spark in all living things, the essence which gives them life. Also revealed was that all living things possess two bodies, the temporary physical body which science recognises and about which we are all familiar, and the permanent spirit body, which is the physical body’s counterpart and which survives the death of the physical body. Also covered was the subject of reincarnation, where after a time spent in the spirit world, we are again born into a material world such as the Earth.
The physical body, of course, operates only on the physical plane, which for us is the Earth. When our earth life ends we pass into the spirit world, which becomes our new home where we meet up again with friends and relatives who predeceased us. The spirit realms have many planes and sub planes and initially we go to the one most in tune with our state of spiritual development. In time, as we spiritually advance, we may move onto to a higher plane. It is possible for inhabitants of a higher plane to visit a lower plane whenever they choose. But people on a lower plane cannot gain access to a higher plane except in special circumstances and then only for a short period of time.
The two Yogi Philosophy books and their sequels Raja Yoga and Gnani Yoga deal with many other topics relating to spiritual development, but I have confined this account to the subject of what happens after death. This series can be fully recommended to anyone seeking an understanding of spiritual truths. The vast majority of the chapters are written in a clearly understandable and easy to read style, although a few are somewhat obscure or repetitive, and some speculation about the origins of life forms and the role of crystals has been disproved by scientific evidence.
So these books gave me the answer to how we survive death. We all have a non material soul which is our real self into which has been breathed the divine spark of Spirit. The soul gives life to the physical body whilst we are on the earth plane. When the physical body dies we then migrate to the spirit world, living and functioning in our spirit body. This spirit body exists throughout our earth life, and it is what we inhabit when we are asleep. Although it cannot be seen it can be felt occasionally. I previously referred to the medical term hypnagogic jerk. A milder form of this phenomenon is occasionally experienced by many people when they are drifting into sleep but suddenly awake with a jerk. This is the spirit body returning to the physical body, although of course on the vast majority of occasions this occurs naturally when we awake without any physical sensation. The spirit body is linked to the physical body by a cord invisible to us, but nevertheless real, which when it breaks results in the death of the physical body.
I have always been profoundly grateful to Robin for providing me with these books which fully confirmed his conviction that the afterlife is an established fact. During our talks Robin revealed that he was a Spiritualist and he advised me to attend a demonstration of mediumship at the headquarters of the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain (SAGB) located in Belgrave Square, London. As a result of Robin’s knowledge and persuasive arguments I was very quickly converted to Spiritualism, a belief which I had previously derided. Both of Robin’s parents were Spiritualists, and had I been a bit older this might have sounded some alarm bells, as people who inherit their religious belief from their parents as part of their upbringing, tend not to be very questioning, and are likely to blindly accept what they have been told from a young age. But in Robin’s case I remain satisfied that he carried out his own thorough investigations to verify the truth about Spiritualism.
So I started to attend demonstrations of mediumship, although always very infrequently as I did not want to become hooked on the habit, as I suspected some others were. During my life all the demonstrations of mediumship where I have received a message (with only a couple of exceptions) have been at the SAGB headquarters. To begin with, as I was relatively young and all my close relatives were alive (ie still on earth), the messages I received related to either evidence of survival from grandparents, advice on how to address some of my personal shortcomings, and encouragement to improve my understanding of Spiritualism.
On one occasion I was told from spirit to go to my local library and ask for a book by Arthur Findlay. I had never heard of this individual before, which perhaps explains why those in spirit thought it necessary that I should try and improve my knowledge of Spiritualism a bit more. I had been a member of this library for a few years but I had not noticed any books there about Spiritualism. So I went to the card index to look up the name Arthur Findlay and discovered a single book Autobiography of A Spiritualist. I took the card to the librarian and she had to go into the store room to retrieve it.
This incident proved the accuracy of messages from spirit, and although I was not too surprised that the book was there, it was nevertheless reassuring since had it not been this would have been a big disappointment. It should be remembered that mediums are put to the test every time they give a demonstration. From my own experience, and listening to the messages given to other people at demonstrations, SAGB mediums are usually about 80% accurate, and this also accords with my own messages. The real figure could be somewhat higher as it is not always possible to fully understand a message at the time it is being given, only later after more reflection can you fully appreciate what you have been told.
The book by Arthur Findlay was very interesting. He was mostly known for his best selling first book On the Edge of the Etheric which at that time I’m afraid I had not heard about also. He encountered Spiritualism purely by a chance attendance in Scotland of a demonstration by the direct voice medium John Sloan. At the time Findlay was a confirmed sceptic and considered that those who believed in contact with the dead to be either credulous or delusional. However, he soon became convinced that such communications were real, due to the accuracy of Sloan’s messages on matters he could not possibly have any knowledge about. Findlay spent the rest of his life promoting Spiritualism and writing books on the subject. I purchased his later book The Way of Life which I will refer to again later.
Another interesting book, which I purchased at Belgrave Square, was Life In The World Unseen credited to Anthony Borgia. But it was not written by him as the real author, Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, had been living in spirit for over thirty years when it was published, using Borgia as his earthly amanuensis. Benson was the son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury and became an Anglican clergyman, later converting amid much publicity to the Church of Rome. He was also a well known author and one of his novels, The Necromancers, had as its main theme a denunciation of Spiritualism and a warning about its dangers. Benson’s earth life ended in 1914 when he was in his early forties, and was believed to have been caused in part by severe overwork.
This book needs to be approached with a modicum of caution as automatic writing, the means of communication used here, is by definition the easiest to fake. Also little appears to be known about Anthony Borgia other than what he chooses to tell us in his introduction. He claimed to have become close friends with Monsignor Benson when in his mid teens, a few years before Benson died. It cannot be entirely ruled out that Borgia, as an enthusiastic Spiritualist, might have been motivated to discredit Benson for the stand he took against Spiritualism during his earth life. In addition to his novel Benson wrote a widely circulated pamphlet for the Roman Catholic Church denouncing the evils of Spiritualism. However, having read and re-read this book and its sequels several times I am convinced that it is a genuine communication from Benson, due to the elevated tone which permeates the narrative, and that all the many strands about life in the spirit world he covers, appear to hang together perfectly. Nevertheless, wherever possible I have cross referenced his claims with those in Arthur Findlay’s Way of Life, which were received by means of direct voice, which is the most difficult method of communication to fake, and checked them also with the more ancient teachings contained in the Yogi Philosophy books.
Benson claims to have had a fairly easy passage into the spirit realms, as he suffered relatively little pain, and was greeted at his death bed by a clergyman friend who had predeceased him and who led him to his new home in the spirit world. His new house was a replica of his earth home but surrounded by more extensive gardens, continually bathed in a diffused light, with a temperature that is consistently warm. Spiritualists have given the name of Summerland to this spirit plane.
Very soon after arrival Benson abandoned his former religious beliefs, clearly seeing that such doctrines had no relevance to the conditions in his new surroundings. In particular he began to feel deep remorse for his anti-Spiritualist novel. In his words ‘it was a distorted narrative, where the facts, as I had really known them, were given unfair treatment, and where the truth was suppressed’. He added ‘I knew that so long as my name lived, that is, so long as it had any commercial value, that book would continue to be reproduced and circulated and read, and regarded as the absolute truth’. He wanted to put matters right, but it was pointed out that there would be practical difficulties. However, in time his wish would be granted which resulted in his series of books on ‘life in the world unseen’. I would recommend that these be read in full as I have done, as they provide a compelling and detailed account of life in the spirit realms. They can all be found on the internet.
In some of his later accounts dealing specifically with religious dogma, Benson is scathing about the doctrines and beliefs expounded by the Christian churches. He denounces them as being almost completely wrong in just about every detail. As a result the vast majority of people entering the spirit world are in a state of near ignorance about the new realms they have entered. Benson informs us that the question that is soon on the lips of all new arrivals is why they were never told the truth about their new home, and why did the churches get everything so wrong. Benson reveals that entry into the spirit world is open to all regardless of religious belief, and includes atheists, agnostics and non-Christians. In contrast what is important is the kind of life you have led on earth, which will determine which plane you will inhabit in the spirit world on arrival there.
Before ending, it is worth asking what are the possible alternatives to Spiritualism. There are in fact only two contenders. The first is that of organised religion, the second is that of supposedly scientific, secular materialism. Religion believes in an afterlife, but one that is confined to those who subscribe to the doctrines of each religion. Anyone falling outside the parameters of the doctrine will be denied the promised eternal life in the presence of God. This can only be described as a gross superstition, since it would consign to eternal damnation billions of people who through no fault of their own made the wrong choice of religion. It also amounts to a grotesque insult to God by ascribing to Him such arbitrary and unreasonable punishment.
The alternative, secular materialism, as preached by the disciples of Professor Dawkins, is also nonsensical. Its fundamental premise is that everything has been created out of nothing, and evolved by chance with no designer, and that a belief in God is calling in aid a supernatural cause, which is in conflict with the supposed rational and objective ‘findings’ of science. The problem with science is that it refuses to accept what all the evidence shows, that the universe, including all living things, must have had a designer. One only has to look at the lowest form of life, a simple bacteria cell which can only function when all of its hundreds of components are present together. It is completely impossible for it to have evolved from the workings of molecular chemistry. Science might also like to explain how the immensely complicated DNA code arose spontaneously, which has determined the wide diversity of life, both within and between species.
So how do critics explain away the claims of Spiritualism. Religion believes that it is all the work of the Devil and demons. Materialists argue that mediums use a technique known as ‘cold reading’. A detailed account of this supposed technique can be found on Wikipedia. It is clear that whoever wrote this ignorant rubbish has never been to a demonstration given by an accredited SAGB medium. From my extensive experience of attending demonstrations no medium has ever used any kind of technique that came anywhere near the definition of a cold reading, and if they had they would quickly be told to desist by the organiser, as they would clearly have exposed themselves as fraudulent. On innumerable occasions, both for myself and countless thousands of others, mediums have imparted accurate information which they could not possibly have known, without any need to resort to leading questions, as required by the cold reading technique.
It should also be remembered that SAGB mediums who give up their spare time to provide demonstrations only receive expenses. Some of them may also provide a sitting to a single individual for a relatively modest fee, but few of them are likely to make much of a living from this. In the past twenty years or so there have been some high profile mediums such as Sally Morgan and the late Doris Stokes who have made a professional living out of their mediumship, but they could only do this because of their consistent phenomenal accuracy. In my judgement the best medium operating today is Gordon Smith, often referred to as the psychic barber.
This account explains how I came to believe in Spiritualism, and I now rest my case’.
Comments
Post a Comment