Contact and communication with discarnates - 'spirits' - may have always taken place but 'Spiritualism' was founded only in recent times.

Please do remember that Spiritualism does not have a monopoly on spirit contact/communication and/or on mediumship. There are likely to be many mediums (and even more psychics/sensitives!) who have nothing at all to do with Spiritualism.

And although it's easy for me to define the essence of being a Spiritualist it doesn't mean anyone matching such a definition would necessarily see herself/himself as a Spiritualist or want others to refer to her/him that way. :wink:

bobjob, you're talking in riddles again. Call it what you will, it's just another label. It has been around since the beginning of life on earth (and before).It's not just about medium ship and other labels. It's Spiritual life(consciousness) that created us and everything around us!
Now I'm off to work take care.:smile:

Sorry, but I thought bobjob was clear.

Yes. The understanding that the "non physical essence survives physical death in some way" would indeed be a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for reincarnation.

Ancillary Note: Buddhists use the term "rebirth" which has a nuance subtly different from "reincarnation".

Hi,I'm back briefly....it's just all those labels(names),it's like compartmenting things(separating).Spirituality is supposed to flow, it's all around us. How or if you are able to communicate with it is your own affair.
Not all the folk who have the gift are able to communicate in one set way.:smile:
Right,off again.

"....a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite...." :confused: I do not understand what that undelined phrase is intended to mean. :confused:

subtly different? It's a distinction without a difference in my eyes but I anyway prefer 'further incarnation' because it avoids the huge amount of baggage associated with 'reincarnation'.

Nevertheless the word reincarnation is what others use so I mostly do the same when responding.

I don't "talk in riddles" and I'm very careful about what I write. :mad:

What you were referring to is not Spirtualism. It's simply spirit communication which may well have been around from the time humankind emerged in its present form and maybe even longer than that. It would have been happening long before Spiritualism emerged as a movement, a philosophy and a religion.

Spiritualism is of course founded on spirit communication through mediumship but spirit communication through mediumship is also found OUTSIDE of Spiritualism.

Spiritualism has no monopoly on transdimensional communication.

And nobody had suggested they do..... The mode of communication is largely irrelevant in TDC.

What's communicated - the message of whatever kind - is what matters. NOT the manner in which it's communicated.

Yes - that's spirit communication! Isn't it what I've said repeatedly????? :confused:

As a side note, Emmanuel Swedenborg is generally know as the "Father of Spiritualism".

Swedenborg wrote something we might relate to. It reads: "In the middle of the day at dinner an Angel spoke to me, and told me not to eat too much at table. Whilst he was with me, there plainly appeared to me a kind of vapour steaming from the pores of my body."

It appears that Emmanuel Swedenborg recorded his 'notes' in a Spiritual Diary.