In Spiritualism we don’t often talk about our social conscious, but I’m sure if you watch the presentation at Miniature Earth Project site, it will certainly give you plenty to think about.
As Gandhi said : “You must be the change you want to see in this world.“
Spiritualism
by Kenneth Meynell DSNU
An EXTRACT of an explanation of Spiritualism by Kenneth Meynell DSNU as detailed on the SNU (UK) web site.
Spiritualism is a rational religion based on the proven knowledge that man’s spirit survives physical death. This has led to a philosophical and scientific approach new to traditional religious faith.
Spiritualist philosophy contains neither dogma nor creed and it is discussed rather than preached. There is an increasing tendency in these times to think and act collectively and Spiritualism is a religion matching this trend.
It is a Religion of Reason for all those who see this as an Age of Reason.
At some time in their lives all men ask themselves the question “What happens to me when I die?”
Spiritualism claims to give the definite answer to this question.
It affirms that man’s spirit survives physical death and enters a Spirit world which surrounds and interpenetrates our material life. It asserts that the truth of this statement can be demonstrated under the right conditions when communication can and does take place between the worlds of spirit and earthly beings. This communication is only possible through individuals who have what are known as mediumistic abilities and who are known as mediums .
Spiritualists stress that the right conditions must prevail for communication to take place and that the prime condition is that there is a spirit person there willing to communicate. It is not generally understood that communication cannot take place unless the spirit are willing to do so. One of the greatest misapprehensions about Spiritualists is that they call up the dead. Nothing could be further from the truth; if anything, it is the other way round; ample evidence exists throughout history that if and when they are willing the spirit people call us.
Spiritualist mediumship takes two forms and is used depending upon which type of phenomena is being manifested, either physical or mental.
Physical phenomena is of such a nature that it is usually demonstrated only at private seances. Any person sitting with the medium can hear or see what is happening. By means of raps, audible voices or materialised figures the spirit people convey intimate information about themselves, their recollection of their earthly lives and details of their lives in the spirit world.
Mental phenomena is demonstrated through the mind of a medium and can be by clairvoyance (the medium sees the spirit); Clairaudience (the medium hears the spirit) or Clairsentience (the medium senses the presence and the thoughts of the spirit). Mental phenomena is the type most often demonstrated in public.
Teaching and philosophy have been communicated from time to time by advanced spirit beings. These have dealt with the purpose of life and the destiny of man based on the revelation that he survives earthly death and leads an active life in spirit dimensions. The realisation that man actively lives beyond the grave so profoundly alters the conception of life that it has given rise to an entirely new religious outlook which is diametrically opposed to many of the fundamental ideas of traditional religion, and is known as Spiritualism.
What is known as Modern Spiritualism began in 1848 when sensational happenings in Hydesville led to rapid developments throughout America, eventually reaching Europe including Britain.
…..
….Influenced by these Principles as well as its scientific and philosophical ramifications, for many people Spiritualism has become more than just a religion; it has become a Way of Life.
Kenneth Meynell DSNU
July 1998
The Church of the Seven Principles is holding a workshop afternoon Saturday 18 July 2009 from 2:20pm to 5:30pm
Venue: Villara Community Centre, 357 Stud road, Wantirna South vic.
Lecture: Michael Withington on Karma
Plus a talk by naturopath Titian Tiziano M Fabrizio
Tickets are $15-00 and this includes a DVD
Booking and more information; Rev George Dolezal (03) 9859-4066 george10@iprimus.com.au
Please mention you heard about it on this site.
Hi everyone,
This is a video of Rev Valerie Pearson giving a talk on reincarnation.
If it doesn’t play for you, then you can click to visit the link Reincarnation video on YouTube.
This article explains the two main types of healing used by Spiritualists.
Contact Healing
Contact healing is where the patient and the healer are together. Usually this involves the patient sitting on a chair and the healer standing behind or beside the patient.
Typically, once the healer has attuned to the healing energy the healer will place his/her hands on the patient’s body. The patient may experience a sense of localised warmth near where the healer has placed his/her hands (well in excess of that normally associated with the natural warmth radiated by the hands). No added discomfort should be experienced by the patient at any time when healing is being provided.
It is not necessary for the healer to actually touch the patient because the healing energy can permeate any physical boundary. However, many people get a sense of reassurance through the tactile sensation so it is common for many healers to lightly place their hands on the patient - such as on the shoulders, arms, head etc but not in a manner that could in any way be considered provocative, intimidating or cause the patient any concern.
During and after the healing session, it is not uncommon for the patient to experience a sense of relaxation. This is because the healing energy is quite soothing. If you experience this, enjoy it!
Absent Healing
Absent healing is where the healer and the patient are not in the same room. The patient could be many miles away, in their home, a hospital or even another country.
With absent healing, the healer attunes to the healing energy and then makes a “mental contact” with the patient(s). This could be by reading names from a list, speaking names out aloud (quietly), thinking about person etc.
With absent healing, it is not necessary for the patient to know the healing is being provided for it to be of benefit.
We often hear reports from healers (based on feedback they receive) saying they find absent healing to be more effective than contact healing!
As Spiritualists, we believe in the power of Spiritual Healing; comfortable in our understanding it is more than a simple act of faith.
We say this because spiritual healing can be effective not only with people who are actually unaware the healing is being sent to them but also with babies and infants. This eliminates the “faith healing” aspect some people may attribute to it.
Whilst we make no claim to be able to cure any disease or ailment (never have, never will), time and time again our healers have observed improvements that defy all reasonable expectations of our western medical science and modern medicine.
Spiritual healing does not involve any drug therapy, herbal remedy or intrusive surgical procedures therefore it is a totally painless and unobtrusive process.
Spiritual healing is provided unconditionally to any person, regardless of who or what they are, what they are suffering from - be it from disease, grief, physical impairment, mental anguish or anything else that may be causing them distress or discomfort.
We also believe everybody has some degree of inherent ability to be a spiritual healer. This latent power can be developed and come to the fore as you develop spiritually and your desire to help your fellow man.
Monash Spiritual Society Inc. provides spiritual healing free of charge for anyone who asks for it.
Dream Basics
Do dreams really have any meaning or are they just a purging of the subconscious?
The answer is actually a mixture of both. Some dreams can be quite significant whilst others relate to the subconscious handling the day to day issues and dross that we faced. Being able to tell the difference can open you up to a whole new level of awareness most people fail to recognise or understand.
So how can you tell the difference?
Well, there is no hard and fast rule, however once you understand a little about how to interpret your own dreams, you will begin to recognise the significant elements of both types of dreams and the differences will become more obvious.
Your dreams come from your “higher self” and use the language of symbolism. To do this, the dream is presented to you using symbols that specifically to you, the author of the dream.
By recognising what each of these symbols mean, you can begin to interpret and understand what the dream is really conveying to you.
It is very important to note that you are the author of the dream and therefore the meaning behind each each symbol is something quite unique to you personally.
Many people refer to books to try to find the meaning of the symbols however this can only be used as a simple guide because the meaning a symbol can have to different people. For example, an image of a policeman might mean “protection” to one person, yet to another, it might mean a threat.
Interpreting your dream
Immediately after waking from a dream, we suggest you write down a few of the key elements of your dream. This will help you recall your dream in greater details when you wake in the morning.
What you will find is that you can usually summarise a dream by referring to only the significant, most memorable parts of it. Write these down and as you do, make a notation as to what you felt about that part of the dream. For example, “I was crossing a river - (I felt scared I would fall in) Then I saw a bridge (I knew this was a safer way to cross the river)” etc.
In the example above, a river MIGHT mean an event in life, something you have to face or “cross”. The feeling might suggest you have reservations about facing this, hence you felt scared to cross it or lack confidence to cross it. The bridge might represent an alternative way to “cross” so you don’t have to get too closely involved in it - the bridge allowing you get across your own pace, taking you safely over the event. Then when you look at this and relate it back to you day to day life, you may relate this to something like a situation at work, in the family etc.
Learning how to interpret your dreams is not something that can be done quickly. You must first gain an understanding of the language of symbolism and then learn more about yourself and what other symbols mean to you personally.
Dreams and their meanings are often discussed in our workshops and you are most welcome to contact us via email for help with your dreams.
What is psychism?
For the uninitiated, it can be very hard to know the difference between a psychic and a medium. In fact, many psychics don’t even know the difference between psychism and mediumship.
To help you understand the differences between the two, here’s a quick guide;
Please note we are not making any type of value judgement on psychism or psychics, just providing you with information so you can better understand psychism.
Let’s first look at the process of getting a “reading” where a person will receive messages from the psychic or medium.
Psychic Reading
A psychic reading is about you, your life and your emotions. This relates to your day to day life, the things going on around you and your desires.
The psychic works on a thought level and picks up on the physical and emotional energy that surrounds each and every one of us and is built up within our aura. Therefore they can only tune into that with which we surround our self
So why then do they appear to know so much about us?
The answer is that people attending a psychic often go with a question in mind such as “Will I get the job?”, “Will I marry this person?”, “When will my lost dog come home?”. And when we have a question in our mind, we always create our own answer to that question. Even when we think we haven’t, our hidden desire or fear is lurking in the form of the answer we either do or don’t want.
Using the example of the lost dog, then you would most likely have a strong hidden desire that it was safe and would return soon. Similarly, if applying for a job, your desire would be to get it.
So what happens is you attend the psychic and they pick up on your thoughts and emotions that you have built up around yourself (in your aura) and then respond to that by giving you the answer you have already created (desire) or that which is most powerful within your mind.
The psychic’s “reading” would tell you something like “Your dog is safe and will return very soon”, or “I see you getting this job.”
The same happens when they tell you about past events in your life, and the key is it is historical information stored in your subconscious
As you can now see, you are projecting your thoughts onto the psychic who can tune into that which is strongest on this level.
The confusion that often arises is where the psychic purports to give a reading about a person who has passed over. Although the message may sound credible because they can give a lot of detail about the person, all this information is coming from the “sitter” (the person getting the reading) as it is all stored in their thoughts / memory.
But what is happening when the psychic tells you things you don’t know or predicts future events that come true?
Some psychics are able to move on from the psychic level to the mediumistic level. So although they have started on the psychic level, as they attune more during the sitting, their mind is able to tap into a higher level of consciousness.
Mediumistic Readings
A mediumistic or spiritual reading is about somebody else who has passed over. It is NOT about you, your life and your emotions.
The spiritual medium aims to provide evidence that there is life after death and therefore when they claim to have made contact with a person who has passed over, they must build their case to support their claim.
One of the first things the medium must do is describe the person (contact) in a manner that leaves the sitter with no doubt about who that contact is - otherwise there is no point to the reading. In doing so, they should aim to provide a name (at the very least the first name), description of their appearance, relationship to the sitter, type of work they did, how they passed, where they lived etc etc. The more detailed this information, the better.
As much of this information will be known by the sitter, they must then give something the sitter did not know that can be verified through other means, otherwise it can easily be claimed to be a psychic reading.
Here is a good example of how this might work - this is a real life example;
The medium told the sitter the address of where the contact had lived as a child. The sitter confirmed it to be correct except the street number was wrong. The medium said the contact was adamant the number was correct. Some time later, the sitter looked up some old records and was astounded to find the street numbers had been changed a short while after the contact had moved out of the house and the number as given through the medium was actually correct.
As the medium had been able to give an accurate and detailed description of the contact and then provide other supporting evidence that the sitter did not know, it does build a strong case that contact was made.
One thing a true spiritual medium will not do is give “life advice” to the sitter. This is not their purpose.
Check List
This is a quick check list you can use to help determine what type of reading it is. For the sake of this, we will use the term “medium” to describe the person giving the reading, however you must decide of they are a medium or psychic.
1. How does the medium describe the contact?
Do they give an accurate description of the contact or are they vague? “This person is in a military uniform.” Vs “I have a man by the name of Stan. He was about 5′ 9″ in height, passed at the age of 47 and served as a Sergeant Major in the British Army during WW2 in the Transport Corps and I’m getting Egypt”
2. Does the medium “fish” - ask questions instead of giving information? ie “I think this is your auntie, is she sill alive?” Vs “I have your auntie here, her name was Mable and she was your father’s younger sister.”
3. Does the medium give a worthwhile reason for the contact wanting to communicate? ie “They have come just to say they love you”. Vs “This person wants you to know that he did see you drop $2-00 in the fountain outside the church after the funeral and had a laugh when your daughter fell in trying to retrieve it”.(evidence of continuity of life)
4. Does the medium make sweeping statements /questions instead of being specific? “Are you thinking about changing your job?” Vs “This person tells me you have been wanting to change jobs for about 4 months and have submitted three applications in the last 2 weeks.”
5. Does the medium give you advice? (they shouldn’t) ie “I’m being told you should get your car serviced and the brakes checked”.
6. Was the reading about you or about giving evidence of life after death?
“You thinking about going on a holiday this summer.” Vs “This person enjoyed going away on holidays to the beach with you and the family.”
This check list is fairly broad and not meant to be a definitive method of determining the differences.
In the end, use your own common sense and do not act on anything a psychic or medium tells you without proper consideration. In the end, you have free will and you should use your own common sense.
Understanding Mediumship
One of the foundation stones of Spiritualism is the use of mediums. In fact, modern Spiritualism is the result of the mediumship of the Fox sisters.
As the name suggests, a medium is a person who acts as a “go-between” - one who goes between the spirit world and the material/physical world. Mediums are ordinary people who have the ability to do this.
This section looks mainly at mental mediumship - that which is demonstrated through the mind of the medium. (a detailed section on physical phenomena - physical mediumship - is coming soon)
There are many types of mediumship. The more common ones used in Spiritualism include;
Clairvoyance
This is the ability to see spirit people. This can be objectively or subjectively. Objectively meaning the medium actually sees them with their own eyes as if they were in the room with them whereas subjectively means they see them “mentally” as you would if you were trying to recall the details of a house you saw a few days ago.
Clairaudience
This is the ability to hear spirit people. This can be objectively or subjectively. Objectively meaning the medium actually hears them with their own ears as if they were in the room and speaking with them whereas subjectively means they hear them “mentally” as you would if you were trying to recall a song in your mind.
Healing
This is the ability to bring the healing energy from spirit to a patient or recipient. The medium does not actually provide any healing him/herself.
Trance
This is the ability to allow spirit entities to speak through the medium. The level of trance can vary and ranges from impingement of the mediums thoughts through to deep trance where a spirit entity will speak through the medium and communicate on an intelligent level.
Physical Phenomena
This is where the medium can harness physical energy and use this energy to levitate objects, produce ectoplasm to make temporary objects etc
NOTE: Psychism is NOT mediumship, therefore the psychic is not a medium. As you learn more about your spiritual self and mediumship in general, you will begin to appreciate the distinct differences between the two.
Spiritualism - A Collection of Thoughts by Harold Mayze Part 2
Other Aspects of Spiritualism
Spiritualism is both a religion and a science.
As a religion it brings reality to the rationally minded. Many of the points that in other religions are cloaked in mystery are explained in a clear and lucid fashion. No great claims are made as to infallibility, the burden of proof lies on the individual and by placing the person in that position, the acceptance of the religion becomes a rational choice. In addition, because of the demonstrations of the fundamental truths, Spiritualism has managed to demonstrate a certain amount of unity between all religions.
Psychic research is welcomed and is practised. Many explanations of the so called supernational have been given by the researchers into Spirit phenomena. The Religion welcomes these investigations into the knowledge that further proof will be forthcoming of the teachings of Spiritualism.
SOME THOUGHTS BY FAMOUS PEOPLE
* ~Belaire
The discovery of what is true and the practice of what is good.
On the Seven Principles of Spiritualism:
(i) Fatherhood of God
* ~Minnie L. Haskins.
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me light that I may tread safely into the unknown’ and he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God. That will be to you better and safer than the known way.’
(ii) Brotherhood of Man
* ~ Ernest Crosby
None would tell me where my soul might be
I searched for God, but God eluded me
I searched for my brother and found all three
(iii) Communion of Spirits and the Ministry of Angels
* ~John Oldham
Music. The comfort of the troubled breast
The softest remedy that grief can find
The gentle spell that charms our cares to rest
And calms the ruffled passions of the mind
(iv) The continued existence of the human soul
* ~ R. L. Stevenson
To believe in Immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in Life.
(v) Personal Responsibility
* ~ Ptah Hotep Instruction BC 3550
~ Confucius 500BC.
It is man’s kindly acts that are remembered of him in the years after life.
Do not use your eyes, your ears, your power of speech or your faculty of movement without obeying the law of inner control.
(vi) Compensation and Retribution for all good and evil deeds done on earth
* ~ E. Herbert
~ Seneca AD 50
If I fail to do a just and charitable thing, another many do it for me, but no man can forgive my enemy but myself.
He who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first instalment of his debt.
(vii) Eternal Progress open to every human soul
* ~ Olive Schreiner.
Where I lie down, other men will stand, young and fresh.
By the steps that I have cut they will climb
By the stairs that I have built they will mount.
But by the steps they will mount and on my work
They will climb and by my stairway.
For no man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself.
To the Spiritual Church
* ~ Gwenn Crabbe
O give me the home that I love best
Where the heart is warm and the words are free
Where I sit at my ease and converse with a friend
Who sits at his ease and converses with me.
To the Spiritualist
* ~ Buddha
~ Socrates BC 400
One should seek for others, the happiness one desires for oneself.
I pray thee O God that I may be beautiful within.
A prayer for today
* ~ A. J. Davis
In the morning rise resolved to do nothing against, but everything for, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.
Happiness being the object, let every action during the day be preceded by such well conceived and well developed thoughts as tend to its attainment.
At night retire at peace with yourself, at peace with the universe.
To the Beginner
* ~ Plato
Reason is the supreme faculty. It is not the sole avenue to the truth, but to the test to which all facts should be put before they are accepted as the truth.