SPIRITUALISM - IS THERE NOBODY THERE?

From Beyond the Occult by Colin Wilson, "With the exception of Guy Playfair there is probably not a single respectable parapsychologist in the world who will publicly admit the existence of spirits."

"I never heard of anything being said by myself during the trance which might not have been latent in my own mind or in the mind of the sitters or in the mind of some absent person alive somewhere else in the world. The theory of telepathy strongly appeals to me as the most plausible solution of the problem". Medium Leonora Piper.

Spirit mediums have had spirit guides who could not have been real spirits. The spirit control for Leonora Piper was Dr Phinuit who knew nothing about French or medicine. Thus the evidence is that if her powers were paranormal they deceived her and could have fabricated spirits.
 
Spiritualism, is communication with the dead. You can do it yourself or you can get a medium to do it for you at a séance or what they prefer to call it nowadays, a sitting.
 
Spiritualism contains the same blunders that magic does and is condemned by them.
  
Christianity has taken the stance that spiritualism is communion with devils who masquerade as the departed. If it is then Christianity communicates with worse because when the demons are so eager to give sweetie messages that tell us to be happy and do good to earn a nice niche in the afterlife how can Christians be confident that their own religion is true? Spiritualism would be a better religion to believe in for it says revelation happens now while what all Christians can do is get it second-hand or third hand or whatever but not first-hand from men who died thousands of years ago and who taught doctrines that reason recoils from. It is better than Christianity in principle. The only problem is that the revelations may not be from spirits at all and could be fraudulent or based on self-deception.

Did the spirits say that they will not tell us who serial killers are or how to cure cancer because we are here to struggle and make sacrifices? But if that is true then they would have stopped the world from progressing for the worse it is the better. Some say we need to be punished. The spirits have not realised that there is no free will. The inability of Spiritualists to give any truly productive information betrays that they are not really psychic.

The Greater World Association was formed by Winifred Moyes who claimed that a spirit named Zodiac spoke through her. He revealed the principles of Christian Spiritualism. It believes nearly everything about Jesus that Orthodox Christians believe. But most spirits reject Christianity. Many believe that there are different religions in Heaven. But how could a departed spirit believe in the Catholic Church or the Bible when both of these tell it that men die once and after that are destined for Heaven to be with God forever or hell to be without him forever? Are these spirits hypocrites and liars?

If they are good then why don’t they get mediums to convert the world? The spirits preach tolerance that is really just indifference.

The spirits say we can keep in touch with them by purifying our hearts so that they are full of love and then by seeking messages either through some device like a swinging pendulum or in our dreams or in a state of light trance in which thoughts from them can be picked up. If we do not fill ourselves with love we risk communing with an evil spirit. But there is no use pretending that we are perfectly loving. No matter how much good we do it is true that we can have done better. Who needs mediums if the departed can talk to us in our dreams? And why do they keep bereaved people who are desperate for a message from their departed loved one in grief until they find a medium? These beings are not demons or spirits but in the imagination.

Physical mediumship is when mediumship produces physical miracles. For example, when you use a spirit to play a piano when nobody is touching or near the piano or when you issue a substance from your body that the spirit can use to take on visible form.

The Greater World has no time for physical mediumship. It only approves of mental mediumship in which the spirit puts its thoughts in your mind. It reckons that the physical type is just for show and will attract bad spirits for that reason. The other type is for comfort and edification and attracts good spirits. This is unacceptable because first of all you could get the comfort and edification in a more subtle way. You could simply open yourself to the power that gives you good feelings and wisdom without receiving messages or hearing voices. So you shouldn’t need mediums. So mental mediumship is as much showmanship as physical mediumship. The advantage in banning physical mediumship is that it ends the pressure to perform physical proofs of the afterlife which is a good thing when they are not possible. One would think that physical proofs should be as much comfort and edification as mental mediumship.

Rescue work is what is done by Spiritualists to persuade a bad spirit to stop disturbing people. They explain that such beings usually are unaware that they are dead. As if you wouldn’t know you were dead when you find yourself able to pass through walls and yourself talking to your wife who doesn’t even know you are there! These spirits need to be told that they are dead and that there are spirits waiting to take care of them and take them to the Other Side, the world of the departed. But if there are such great spirits then why can’t they deal with the spirit themselves? Why trouble the medium? We cannot believe that rescue work really does what it is supposed to do. Demons would not do something so silly for it is so unreasonable that nobody can genuinely believe in it. The demons would know that it could only lead to the ridicule of Spiritualism than anything else.

If the spirits were demons they would try to be more convincing in order to destroy good religion.

If the spirits were real spirits they could be more consistent and honest.

The spirits are just figments of the imagination.
 
Or the mediums know there is a market among stupid people for rescue work.

Spiritualists try to get around the Bible prohibitions of Spiritualism. There are a number of condemnations of it in the Law. They can’t say that its fraudulent or bad mediums who were banned for the Law never condones the activities of the good mediums. Moreover it never says that only evil mediums should be illegal. The Bible makes no distinction between good and bad mediums. Mediums are just mediums and all are condemned.

The Bible says that mediums are to be put to death which implies that there is no such thing as a good Spiritualist. If there is a Devil then a Spiritualist must be consciously aware that it is he who is working through her or him whether it be by doing miracles or guiding her or him in trickery.

The Church says that people seeing angels and spirits in the Bible is no indication that Spiritualism is permitted because these beings appeared without being summoned unlike spiritualism. Mediums may have spontaneous experiences but the other experiences are summoned at least indirectly. It is the mediums’ power that is causing the experiences and not God’s as it is in the Bible.” But all mediums say their power is a gift from God. They say they only open up their minds to hear any message any spirit wants to give and it is up to the spirits if they want to communicate. The religious version of the medium, eg, the Charismatic Christian who looks for messages from the Holy Spirit at meetings or the person who purifies his or her life in order to receive guidance from the Lord, are no different. We conclude that the Bible totally contradicts itself on spiritual communication. What the mediums ban is really about is just preserving Moses’ status quo at the expense of those who have as much or more right than him to be considered to be prophets.
 
Christians say, "The Bible does not say that the Witch of Endor called up Samuel from the dead to speak with Saul. It says she tried to call him up and he appeared which could mean that she had no power to do it but it was God who made Samuel appear to her. She was shocked when she saw the apparition probably meaning that she was not used to this happening and it had been the first time." But it does not say if it was her or God who was responsible. The story might endorse spiritism or it might not.
 
Some Christians and others who oppose Spiritualism say it is about forcing the dead to speak.
 
They base this argument on the fact that if the dead have the power to communicate they won't need spiritualism to do it. It can be done in a less extravagant and more mundane way.
 
They base the argument on the fact that the dead don't seem to want to communicate clearly and the medium may say she gets the interpretation wrong.
 
They argue that even if there is no proof they are forced, they might still be forced and that is not right.
 
It is sometimes claimed that mediums don't contact the dead but contact those who have shed their bodies. Their bodies have died but they are alive! We are all one being in many bodies so when someone who has "died" comes through a medium, the medium is merely experiencing her or his existence as this "other" person. Genuine mediumship may perhaps be rare - but it does not verify that the dead can communicate with the living. It verifies that at some level we are all the same being. To dismiss all mediums as frauds is unfair and would involve accepting some bizarre and unlikely conspiracy theories. Leonora Piper was the most honest known medium ever and her abilities proved that mediumship is at least sometimes real.
 
If the ones we call departed need to communicate with us, they will not need a medium to do it. Piper can be suspect for the simple reason that she was a medium and got money for it. Some claim that after a bereavement, it is possible to wake one morning and see the sun shining in and feel the loving presence of the person who has left their body forever. They feel that the healing we experience is a message. If so, then why go to a person who may be a fraud or deluded? Your dear ones wouldn't want you to take such a chance!

Jesus said that one rising from the dead to warn the living would do no good when they won’t be convinced by the Law and the Prophets. By implication he was rejecting Spiritualism for he was saying the Law and the Prophets were enough. He was a fine one to talk for he gave no proof that when he made “God” speak and Moses and Elijah appear to the three apostles that this was a divine and not mediumistic enterprise. When he allegedly rose from the dead he gave no evidence that it was really a deception carried out by mediumistic powers. He never even tried to refute this possibility. For example, he could have used a spirit to make the apostles imagine that Jesus was not in the tomb and was appearing to them. Perhaps the apostles never discovered an empty tomb or had visions at all. They didn't announce the resurrection according to the Luke gospel until about 40 days after Jesus had supposedly vanished from the tomb. Perhaps the memories they had of an empty tomb and Jesus appearing were planted by a spirit and no visions had happened at all! If you saw your dead grandfather when you had too much to drink, then it is rational to blame the drink for it and not to say it is real. Always assume the least unlikely explanation. The apostles should have assumed that something planted the false memories in them.
 
The Victorian medium, Florence Cook who raised Katie King from the dead has never been proven to have been a fraud. The resurrection of Katie King at séances is more convincing than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. At least we know more about the witnesses. At least we don't have gospels and letters written years after the alleged event by anonymous writers. One of the witnesses was the scientist Sir William Crookes. And it all comes down to testimony at the end of the day.
 
Believers in Spiritualism know of the case of Helen Duncan who was jailed in England for fraudulent mediumship. They agree she faked but not all the time. They say there are still things she did that haven't been explained and can't be accounted for except by miracle. They can name thousands of mediums of whom it might be said that they did miracles but sometimes failed and resorted to fakery. If so, then they have proven that miracle power exists but is unreliable and may not always work. The good thing about a belief like that is that when somebody reports a miracle appearance from God or Mary there is no reason to hold that the vision is entirely accurate. It would mean you only should believe whatever is said that sounds reasonable. It would mean that you can't take it for granted that it really is God or Mary you are seeing or if you do expect others or ask them to make the same assumption as you. Religion orders people to believe what God has revealed as infallible and that makes religion so dangerous for it wants us to accept the doctrine as true no matter what evidence says. Infallibility is a dangerous doctrine. To bolster it up, religion arrogantly and deceitfully refuses to admit that there is evidence that we should not take at least some miracles and revelations and what they suggest at face value. Those who go about saying they have an infallible revelation or perhaps infallible book from God or the pope or whatever are doing harm and showing their desire to control and not to guide. If we have to think by ourselves, then any revelation that gives us something disturbing, for example that there will be an eternal torment for sinners who die unrepentant, that God is going to punish the world, that Jesus had to die on a cross for our sins has no right to come out with such statements. It must be rejected. You ignore the local saint who tells you your wife is the Devil. Same principle. Christianity is an evil faith for disagreeing with the rejection of disturbing and dark revelations.
 
Helen Duncan offered to prove to the judge and jury during her trial that she was not a fraud. She offered to do a demonstration of her powers. Christianity forbade them to let her do this for that was letting her consort with the Devil in the view of the Church. If she had powers, then she went to jail over Christian dogmatism and this was unfair.
 
Conclusion
 
Spiritualism doesn’t prove life after death even if it can manage miracles or supernatural feats. Christianity is happy to say that. And yet it says its own miracles prove Christianity to be true.  I would add that no medium or spiritualist dies for their claims which shows how much they really believe in them!  They are not as convinced of their own claims as they want you to think.