Spiritualism verses Christianity

Often people ask me "can a Christian really be a Spiritualist"?  I say yes because I've been a Christian most of my life.

At one Time it was common practice for parents to take their children to church and Sunday School every Sunday.  Something that a lot of modern day parents don't do. I was raised in a Protestant church but I didn't always enjoy going.  Like most children at that time, I would rather be out side playing with my friends than sitting in a church service. I really didn't like Sunday school that well either. During church service's, after Sunday school, the pastor would talk on a subject that I didn't understand.  As I grew older, I accepted the fact that I was expected to attend church on my own even if my parents didn't go.

When I was in high school, I attended at Pilgrim Holiness Church.  While attending that church, the church sponsored their kids going to summer camp.  While at their summer camp in the mid 1950s, I became a born again Christian.  However, it wasn't until I started going to college that I started to enjoy attending church.

During my college years I was attending the fundamentalist church in California. The church had a college age group that I became a part of. While I was attending the college age group meetings I was asked to preside over their Wednesday evening Bible study. At our Wednesday night prayer meetings we had bible studies followed by prayers.

One Sunday morning the pastor of the fundamentalist church gave a sermon on the witch of Endor.  He made it very clear that all psychics and mediums where tools of the devil and Christians where never to associated with them.  Myself and many of the other college age kids at the church were quite upset with the pastor because all of us said that he was wrong because all of us had had many psychic experiences for years and we were all born again Christians.

  The Wednesday following the pastors sermon on the witch one of our two sponsors was given time to give a talk. After some singing and opening prayer, I turned the meeting over to our sponsor and he started to talk about the witch of Endor, we all stopped him and told him that he and the pastor were wrong and we told him why.  The subject was never brought up again in our group. Later on I left the fundamentalist church I joined a Conservative Baptist Church in West Covina, California.

Ok, why am I a Spiritualist today if I am a born again Christian and even a fully ordained Spiritualist minister? It is because from birth I talked to spirits and believed the principles that Spiritualist followed.

Let me tell you about when I was very young. One summer day when I was about five years old my mother took me and my grandmother, my mothers mother, to visit a medium.  At the medium's home my mother  lift me setting under a big tree near the medium's house while she and my grandmother went into the house for a reading.  After the reading, my mother the medium and my grandmother left the house to get me from under the tree.  The medium looked at me and said "when you grow up, you will meet a rich girl and get married".  That's all I remember her saying.  But, in my mind I said "no, your not talking about me, you're talking about my younger brother" who was only two years old at the time.  What I said in my own mind is exactly what happened to my brother. All my life I seemed to know what people were thinking and saying about me behind my back.  I was rarely wrong.  One day at work an engineer friend was walking by me on his way to his desk. I knew that he was going to have a heart attack. He died a couple of days later. I was even able to sense what was happening to other people I came in contact with whether I knew them or not.

A Spiritualist medium is not a tool of the devil or even associated with dark magic, the occult or witchcraft or any kind of activity that does harm to another person.  The medium always says a prayer of protection to God before he/she gives a message at a church service and before giving readings.  The medium without exception strongly believes in God and the teachings of Christ.  Of course, not all mediums are Christian but all mediums believe in the one God*.

The teachings of Spiritualist are considered to be from the devil by the majority of Christians. Christians just don't understand that their Bible prophets, Christ and his disciples and apostle Paul were all mediums* or the divine, and to speak for them, serving as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people". (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) The Bible describes a prophet as a person who stands between God and man.  "A medium uses his or her psychic or intuitive abilities to see the past, present and future events of a person by tuning into the spirit energy surrounding that person. This means mediums rely on the presence of non-physical energy outside of themselves for the information relevant to the person being read". (Rebecca Rosen)

It is the job of the medium to pass on the messages they receive from spirit to the person they are standing in front of in a church service or giving a reading to.  Mediums are NOT tools of the devils and Spiritualists don't even believe that the devil exist or even Satan.  With that being said, Spiritualists know that there are individuals in the earth bound spirit world who act like the devil in order to try and continue their own barbaric life vicariously through a living human being. Hence the need for a priest or trained minister to act as an exorcist to remove the earth bound spirit from a person, a home or building and send them to the spirit world where they belong.  Because earth bound spirits exist it is necessary for mediums to protect themselves by saying a prayer of protection before giving messages or readings (asking God for protection against earth bound spirits).

Many of earth bound spirits at one time lived in the physical world, they were often criminals, alcoholics, dope addicts or even people who died suddenly and haven't accepted the fact that they had died. Earth bound spirits have been known to produce poltergeist type of activities. However, not all earth bound spirits attempt to possess a human person or produce poltergeist activities, but have been known to move into a house and try to live there as if they were alive and it was there own home. We call these people "friendly spirits".

All individuals who want to be Spiritualists can be without giving up their denominational affiliation or religious beliefs.  Spiritualism is more of an interdenominational church than is understood by non-spiritualists.  All religions and people no matter what their race, creed or national origin, or religious affiliation are all considered as brothers and sisters who are welcome in Spiritualist churches.  How many Christians can accept an atheist, Buddhist, Sikh or Muslim in there churches without prejudice? It is, however true, that their are exceptions to the rule.

The only thing that non-Spiritualists can say about Spiritualism is that it's not Christian. Spiritualists are accused of being devil worshipers and tools of the devil. Many Spiritualist don't believe that Jesus died on the cross for the sins of humanity, but do accept and believe his teachings.

I have showed above that Spiritualists are NOT devil worshipers. Spiritualists mediums try the spirits who come to them to know where they come from as the Bible has instructed. Yes, Spiritualist believe that there are many spirit dimensions where only spirits from the spirit world of light are communed with by Spiritualist mediums.

Born again Christians believe that they are the only ones who will go to be with the Lord when they die.  This is a gross misnomer because God is a God of love.  God has provided for Christians and non-Christians alike through Jesus Christ to have an opportunity to be in His presents when they die.  I say this because Spiritualists mediums for more than 164 years have proven that all humans no matter who they are or what they've done on earth well go to the spirit world (heaven) when they die, without exception. Jesus said "In my fathers house are many room, John 14:2. The spirit world has many levels, dimensions, plains, rooms, etc.

In the Bible, Matthew 25:46, almost all Bible translation the Greek word "aionios" has been translated as "everlasting punishment" the true meaning of the word means "age-long" or "age-during", but this word has been mistranslated as "everlasting"**. Christians take the verse in Matthew as proof that non-born again people will abide/sleep in the grave until Christ returns.  God has provided for the individuals in "hell", the lower darker dimensions of the spirit world, an opportunity to make restitution for their sins and non-acceptance of God and/or Jesus Christ. Non believers can work their way to the higher spirit realms by making restitution for their sin and criminal acts with the help of more advanced spirits from the spirit world of light where God's essences dwells.  The individual then has the opportunity to continue working spiritually towards dwelling in the actual presents of God, the highest dimension of the spirit world, heaven. See Anthony Borgia's book "Life in the World Unseen"***.

Christ message to man was that God, his father, was a God of love not a God of vengeance. The Bible says that Jesus died for ALL, 2 Corinthians 5:15. Not just for Christians but for all humanity from the first to the last person born and dies on planet earth.  God has provided for all of His children through Jesus Christ.

*  "A prophet is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural (of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil)

I highly recommend the following web sites to all persons who would like a deeper understanding of just who Christ was and his relationship to God.

**http://www.christianspiritualism.org/articles/articlesmenu.htm
***http://www.spiritwritings.com

Think Before You Speak

I was just reading an article where the arthur said that we should stop and take a look at our thoughts and know what they are really saying.  As I thought about that I realized that it was next to impossible for me to do.  How does one look at something that is a part of him?  Can we see our thoughts passing by our minds eye as if they were scrolling by on a screen?  If this was possible, then I can stop my thoughts and analyze them as often as needed and see them for what they are? Thoughts that were just something that the mind came up with in response to a stimulus of some kind.  It is only by looking at our thoughts in a different way than we normally do that which we are able to understand and their true meaning and intent.  Yes, we often think one thing and say or write something else.   Our minds thoughts streaming by without being stopped to analyze what they are.

However we might try checking our thoughts by writing them down.  Then we can see them as others might see them as we read what we have written.  We can even see if they are  coherent or are scattered without direction.

Far too many of us don't take the time to really think through our thoughts and ideas.  It seems that we have not written them down and sent on their way before making sure we have them right.  Most often it is only when other people talk to us about what we said or wrote that we take the time to look at our thoughts and try to figure them out.  Hopefully we are not too late to make things right.

It has been said that"thoughts are things" (Napoleon Hill).  Things that keep coming up in our lives to make us think and try to get things right.  No body wants to be around a person who always seems to be saying the wrong things at the wrong time.  The person who speaks before putting his mind in gear...

Now that you have an idea of how thoughts can affect your life; making life good for us or challenging, be careful what you say. Think  first, our spoken thoughts could come back on us  in a way that is definitely not good.

Did I learn anything?

As I think of all the things I've learned in my life that I am still as ignorant as the day I was born.  You would think that a high school diploma, the BA, the MR and the DD degrees I have would make me anything but ignorant, but what was it that prepared me for life itself.

Life on planet earth is filled with challenges and problems that require our utmost attention constantly. We use the things we learned from our parents, grandparents and friends to show us how to deal with life's challenges and problems. But, we cannot learn it all from those family members and friends.  We need the challenges and problems that are directed directly at us to prepare us for solving what ever it is that's thrown at us.

In school, we learned from our teachers and the books we've read and the test we've taken. And over the years we developed a degree of wisdom and knowledge that we've tried to apply to new challenges and problems.  We're proud of our accomplishments and strut around like there is nothing we can't solve.  Then life throws a curve at us that deflates are ego bring us back down to earth and we ask ourselves what happened?

 We soon learn that real life problems are constantly changing to challenge us and keep us thinking and working to be all that we can be.

We have learned that it was supposed to be the job of our parents, our grandparents our friends and teachers to teach us what we might need to know in life. But, did our parent and the others do their job? Did we learn anything from them?  Maybe, but exactly what did we learned?  We may have learned that if we cannot follow the orders and dictates of others, we will suffer for it.  Suffer by have the things that we really need in life keep from us.  What does that mean?  It means that we are expected to do a job and do it perfectly every time or we will loose the reward that we expected to get when we finished. The reward being a pat on the back that says well done, or a pay increase from the company we work for. We also learned that all the work we've done in our life was for others.  Our real reward is the knowledge that we did our best and we did overcome a great number of life's challenges and problems.  We learned that in the end, what we know in our hearts is more important than anything we learned in school.

Do I still believe that I'm ignorant? No, I'm far from being ignorant.  I've learned the lessons that life had for me and I'm proud that I did do my best and I am satisfied that the word ignorance is just a word that has no meaning for me at all.

Remember, we are the sum of what we encountered in life and our reactions to them whether positive or negative.  Being conditioned by life's experiences, we are prone to react to life impulsively and instinctively rather than to respond on the basis of considered judgment.  Man's word and manner of speech reveals his inner life, where his focus is, and who and what determines his peace and joy. (Dr. Herbert L. Fuchs)