Spiritualism! Fact or Fiction?

Originally Posted by Skye

Thanks for your comments mac.

Knowing our religion is so often confused and misunderstood, I agree forum stickies could prove beneficial as a basic guide on a spiritual forum. Although, like you, I won't be holding my breath.

I suspect there's some antipathy here towards Modern Spiritualism...

I think for me, I started believing after my sister had her first child, Natalie. Both her and my brother-in-law in two sperate instances saw a vision of my father standing over my Natalie's crib looking down upon her. What really got me though was what my Natalie actually said a couple years later. My mom wears a necklace around her neck that is actually a little urn with some of my fathers ashes in it. My mom asked, " Natalie, do you know what this is?" (Referring to the necklace) And Natalie replied, " It's Papi Loukas." Loukas was my father's name and she had never met her grandfather. He passed away before my sister had even conceived her. Now THAT is what made me believe!

- Georgina

Isnt this a bit like the God question - if he/she exsists or not.

You dont get Christians asked this question so why should Spiritualist be asked for proof of their religion.

Originally Posted by Serenity Bear

Isnt this a bit like the God question - if he/she exsists or not.

You dont get Christians asked this question so why should Spiritualist be asked for proof of their religion.

Playing Devil's Advocate here but not really equivalent....

Spiritualism - Modern Spiritualism - is a legally recognised religion. It doesn't need to be proved in any way because it's easy enough for genuine seekers to take a look at its official status.

Easy enough, too, to understand its fundamentals and if one is so minded, to take a look at its formal constitution as seen in the SNU and its churches or that of the NSAC in the US.

But none of the above is necessary to either understand what Spiritualism symbolises or to become an adherent to its basic message of survival and communication.

[Left Behind]

Religious beliefs can't be proven. There is evidence out there for anyone to examine. Having done so, one either accepts, rejects, or remains in doubt.

Evidence exists in objective reality. Proof is something internal, subjective, and individual. Why does one jury member vote Guilty, another Not Guilty, and a third can't make up his mind one way or another? They all sat in the same courtroom at the same trial and heard the same people presenting the same evidence.

Very well said,LB. It only takes one instance of small proof to convince us that spirit is around us.


Deepsea

For me, proof of spiritualism is like an oxymoron. One may try to understand spiritualism as non-fiction rather than show me proof.

Originally Posted by n2mec

For me, proof of spiritualism is like an oxymoron. One may try to understand spiritualism as non-fiction rather than show me proof.

What you're perhaps meaning is survival?

Spiritualism is a registered religion - how can that be anything other than a fact? It's fundamentals are the notion of survival and communication through evidential mediumship which provides evidence of it.

Of course you can claim there isn't any evidence etc. in much the same way that folk still claim that the moon landing was a hoax.

None so blind as those who choose not to see....

[phoenix101]

As a scientist I maintained a high degree of skepticism when it came to communication with the "spirit world", despite "lucid dreams" and "thought messages" I had received throughout my life from friends and family who has recently passed on. After a woman whom I had never met "spoke to me" about what was to happen with her family and asked me to help (which I did) I decided to perform a "thought experiment" by stopping meditation and prayer. The dreams and messages also stopped, leading me to the notion that I was the one who was creating them.
Shortly after my mother passed on four years ago I "asked her" to show me that her spirit exists after death. One week later I picked up a feather in the chair outside where I sit during my morning coffee. The same thing the next day, and the next.. for 14 consecutive days.. and on the fourteenth day a bright turquoise blue feather (my mothers favorite color). The rather high improbability that I could create such as series of events (try flipping a coin heads 14 times in a row) would occur became my proof that there exists some force with the ability to manifest itself in the physical realm. I'll leave the formal proof to the theoretical physicists :)

I guess what most of us can agree with is that there is "something" beyond the physical realm. Now, since in the world that we live in, intelligent beings have two legs, feet, arms, hands, eyes, ears, a mouth, a nose, a head, a neck, etc, we try our very best to "define" these non-physical beings, we try to imagine what they might be like, best on how we see "reality".

So the spirits we see, they are sometimes in the form of beasts, animals in OUR world, just modified a little bit, or "human-like" in appearance, modified a bit again.

I am not saying that Spiritualism is not real. I am saying that it is, but there's a good chance it has no form, and follows no logic such as ours. BUT, since the human mind is extremely powerful, it can bring into reality pretty much anything it wants to.

People CAN see whatever they want to see, it's not any more or less real than this monitor in front of me right now...

Wait... This spiritualism, is this spirituality in general or is this strictly about spirits?... Hehehe... :P