Is a greater level of regulation needed within Spiritualism?

Is a greater level of regulation needed within Spiritualism?

It is true to say that ‘Wisdom’ comes from knowing the Soul, whereas ‘Life’ is given from the Spirit. If we fail to recognise this truth then we will always remain ignorant of our own true nature. We will continue to search for our own wisdom, truth, identity and power outside of ourselves. We will live, as we project the qualities of our own Soul outward, in the form of a parental projection, onto an externalised source that we call Spirit. As soon as this dynamic begins, the development of the individual in us is blocked. That is until the projected qualities are reclaimed into their rightful place. Unfortunately when the holder of our projected qualities happens to be something, that is imbued with a ‘Godlike’ status, ie., Spirit, then we will forever remain as infants ‘in the arms of the Divine Father/Mother’.

This type of relationship is maintained and indeed, created, through a lack of basic knowledge, an inaccurate guidance, and a complete disregard for the person’s developmental process. It is in effect a reversal of the process of ‘Spiritual Emergence’ rather than a support for it. It encourages people into a dependency with something that is external or in essence, quite different from themselves, rather than helping them to become God empowered individuals in their own right.
The various different types of Mediumship being practised and taught today, do not necessarily add anything to our vitality or to our level of wisdom. In a lot of cases, the student who attends, who wants to learn about mediumship is met by a tutor who has little or no real knowledge of the emotional or psychological dynamics of an individual. And who also has very little actual knowledge of Spiritual Emergence themselves. What they are doing is essence, is teaching people to perform the ‘trick’ or the ‘method of performance’ as was shown to them. As a result of this unprofessional and unregulated situation, real emotional damage can be caused to the participant. In many cases, those who seek out spiritualism may be the young, or the less emotionally strong, but susceptible to becoming over-spiritualised. This abuse is common place within Spiritualism both within this country (Ireland) and also within England. It seems to be less prevelent in other European countries. Stories of children being pushed into ‘performing’, in order to satisfy the over-spiritualised parent’s need to be ‘SPECIAL’, or ‘Special by default’ by having a ‘Special’ child, are unfortunately becoming more common.
Real wisdom happens as we get to know who and what we are. This can be as a result of our mediumistic nature in certain cases, where our mind is associating with a higher or wiser aspect of mind. eg., in real Trance Mediumship or through Spiritual Healing, It also happens as a result from having worked on our ‘issues’. But more often than not, it comes as a result of living life and developing an emotional maturity. Either way, the process of becoming ‘wise’ takes many years and has very few short cuts.

The type of mediumship that is most common today, might more accurately be called ‘Esoteric entertainment’, and does not necessarily lead to the development of any type of wisdom. Generally it just leads to the misguided establishing clever ways to feed off the more misguided. Giving an opinion to people under the title of being a spokesperson for ‘Spirit’ does not necessarily help them, unless it comes from a place of wisdom and is delivered in a wise way. Only them does the real value of mediumship get seen. Similarly, being ‘dead’ does not necessarily make somebody wise. In some cases, the ‘dead’ are more struck in their thinking, than the living are! That is why the responsibility lies with ‘US’ to educate ourselves as fully as possible into knowing what both mediumship and the esoteric actually are, and also what they are not. This being , before we collectively jump onto the great ‘spiritual bandwagon’ and add to the ‘spiritual craziness’ that is already out there in people.
I am aware that there are many good and well respected mediums and people who know the truth, but choose to remain silent out of fear or apathy, that they will be ridiculed and ostracized by the less well informed spiritually minded idiots that are commonplace in this area of human consciousness. I am also aware of many respected and competent mediums and people who are not informed and quite ‘aggressively closed’ to any form of new teaching being introduced into ‘their’ movement. FI guess that they might feel that this might threaten their position of notoriety. In some ways, it is quite akin to the ‘flat earth’ society! Either way, the ‘wise’ realise that they are not finished learning…
That is not to take from the good and charitable work that is carried out by the many good and charitable, honest people who are involved in this area as well… I suppose with respect, it is quite similar to most religions in that regard!
CAVEAT EMPTOR…

Who should regulate it in your view?

Hi obiwan,
that is a really good question.... and even though I write with a tongue in cheek attitude, I do realise the difficulty in changing an entire organisation..... also, as a lot of these posts are purely academic in that they will make no actual difference to how things are, then I would simply say that those in front must lead..... But, in order to be able to lead they must first remove the blindness from their own eye.... This involving them in a act of humility, which is for them to be able to acknowledge their own wounded-ness, which is to have presupposed that all that they professed was correct... when in fact they simply erred..... Oh, and of course all of this to happen within their own ongoing process of re-educating themselves with more up to date and accurate information than they previously took to be the truth... There are many sources of good up-to-date information which could add and improve what is already there within spiritualism today... Hope this clarifies....

An Observer wrote:Hi obiwan,
that is a really good question.... and even though I write with a tongue in cheek attitude, I do realise the difficulty in changing an entire organisation..... also, as a lot of these posts are purely academic in that they will make no actual difference to how things are, then I would simply say that those in front must lead..... But, in order to be able to lead they must first remove the blindness from their own eye.... This involving them in a act of humility, which is for them to be able to acknowledge their own wounded-ness, which is to have presupposed that all that they professed was correct... when in fact they simply erred..... Oh, and of course all of this to happen within their own ongoing process of re-educating themselves with more up to date and accurate information than they previously took to be the truth... There are many sources of good up-to-date information which could add and improve what is already there within spiritualism today... Hope this clarifies....

AO, What experience do you have of Spiritualism? How long have you been involved with Spiritualism? Have you sat for Spiritualistic phenomena?

Hi Mark,
yes I have had a lifetime of experience with Spirit, from an early age. I have worked within the world of Mediumship and Spiritual Healing for 30years, alongside counselling and psychotherapy work. I have facilitated many types of spiritual development groups in different countries over those years and continue to do so. I have witnessed my own development through both easy and difficult times, predominantly as a deep trance medium, and have experienced all the more usual forms of spirit phenomena. I relation to sitting, yes, I have been fortunate to have sat consistently over long numbers of years on a weekly basis within closed development circles, and continue to sit now within a smaller more open group...

Mark74 wrote:

An Observer wrote:Hi obiwan,
that is a really good question.... and even though I write with a tongue in cheek attitude, I do realise the difficulty in changing an entire organisation..... also, as a lot of these posts are purely academic in that they will make no actual difference to how things are, then I would simply say that those in front must lead..... But, in order to be able to lead they must first remove the blindness from their own eye.... This involving them in a act of humility, which is for them to be able to acknowledge their own wounded-ness, which is to have presupposed that all that they professed was correct... when in fact they simply erred..... Oh, and of course all of this to happen within their own ongoing process of re-educating themselves with more up to date and accurate information than they previously took to be the truth... There are many sources of good up-to-date information which could add and improve what is already there within spiritualism today... Hope this clarifies....

AO, What experience do you have of Spiritualism? How long have you been involved with Spiritualism? Have you sat for Spiritualistic phenomena?

I suspect this applies to just about every religion don't you?

I was speaking of spiritualism, as in the spiritualist movement, its phenomena—platform clairvoyance, trance, physical phenomenology and so on. That was my question.

An Observer wrote:Hi Mark,
yes I have had a lifetime of experience with Spirit, from an early age. I have worked within the world of Mediumship and Spiritual Healing for 30years, alongside counselling and psychotherapy work. I have facilitated many types of spiritual development groups in different countries over those years and continue to do so. I have witnessed my own development through both easy and difficult times, predominantly as a deep trance medium, and have experienced all the more usual forms of spirit phenomena. I relation to sitting, yes, I have been fortunate to have sat consistently over long numbers of years on a weekly basis within closed development circles, and continue to sit now within a smaller more open group...

Thanks for the response.

Hi Mark,
yes I appreciate what you are saying.... I would tend to say that the real issue is not what clothes the messenger might be wearing or have worn but rather is the message a valid message or not.... I am just a person who has put forward an opinion based on a want to protect what I see as being important. People's tendency to experience a call for greater personal responsibility as a personal attack on their character, results in a culture of denial being born, and that is exactly the problem that needs to be addressed... in my opinion..

Interesting thing a hunt of this topic via the internet brought out this web site which I take it to be that of An Observer http://holisticdialogues.com/trends/spiritualism/
Some interesting thoughts on it and also a reason for differences in opinion between Spiritualism/Spirituality generic and Modern Spiritualism the philosophy which this forum represents. Even so it could create some interesting discussions although when Spirituality as an approach to life meets Spiritualism the results can at times create dissonance.

It may help to answer Obi's question

Jim

Admin wrote:Interesting thing a hunt of this topic via the internet brought out this web site which I take it to be that of An Observer http://holisticdialogues.com/trends/spiritualism/
Some interesting thoughts on it and also a reason for differences in opinion between Spiritualism/Spirituality generic and Modern Spiritualism the philosophy which this forum represents. Even so it could create some interesting discussions although when Spirituality as an approach to life meets Spiritualism the results can at times create dissonance.

It may help to answer Obi's question

Jim

It would seem that the first post in this thread is an unattributed "copy and paste" from the linked Website, from April 2011:

http://holisticdialogues.com/the-spirit/is-a-greater-level-of-regulation-needed-within-spiritualism/

No Wes look up Stuart Green on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/stuart.greene.1
and you will discover this is An Observer who is writing here, yes this is a copy and paste but from his own site.

Just to clarify, yes to both 'admin' and also to 'wes'... I took the post from my own site.. It is a short piece that I wrote some time ago... The website has not been updated for some time now as I don't use it, but it may have some interesting stuff on it for those who have the will to search through it ( not just from myself). I will try to post some new stuff here when I have time, and also get to read some of the many articles that have already been posted. In all of my writing, I have no wish to offend anyone but I do want to challenge old beliefs and to try to get people to think more deeply about whatever the topic may be.... also to develop discernment about such matters... and thank you all for your replies...

An Observer wrote:Just to clarify, yes to both 'admin' and also to 'wes'... I took the post from my own site.. It is a short piece that I wrote some time ago... The website has not been updated for some time now as I don't use it, but it may have some interesting stuff on it for those who have the will to search through it ( not just from myself). I will try to post some new stuff here when I have time, and also get to read some of the many articles that have already been posted. In all of my writing, I have no wish to offend anyone but I do want to challenge old beliefs and to try to get people to think more deeply about whatever the topic may be.... also to develop discernment about such matters... and thank you all for your replies...

Thanks for the clarification

Never has so much been written about man and culture as in recent years. The problem is so relevant to the present day that it comes up constantly for discussion at national, regional and international levels. In the West some people predict a tragic future for both man and culture; others are inclined to optimism, though their optimism is often tempered with anxiety. The backcloth for these speculations is an outward well being and even an unprecedented flow of material goods. Nevertheless the gloomy predictions prevail.

HemantM wrote:Never has so much been written about man and culture as in recent years. The problem is so relevant to the present day that it comes up constantly for discussion at national, regional and international levels. In the West some people predict a tragic future for both man and culture; others are inclined to optimism, though their optimism is often tempered with anxiety. The backcloth for these speculations is an outward well being and even an unprecedented flow of material goods. Nevertheless the gloomy predictions prevail.

Now you're quoting Pushkin.

Is there a point to this?

Not a lot I think Wes, it is especially irrelevant to this particular thread.

Jim