| Year 16 | Number 90 | 2007 | December 15th, 2007 |
| "Unshakable
faith is only that which can face reason face to
face in every Humankind epoch." Allan Kardec |
| "I was
sufficiently interested to continue to read such literature as
came in my way. I was amazed to find what a number of great men - men
whose names were to the fore in science - thoroughly believed that
spirit was independent of matter and could survive it. When I regarded
Spiritualism as a vulgar delusion of the uneducated, I could afford to
look down upon it; but when it was endorsed by men like Crookes, whom I
knew to be the most rising British chemist, by Wallace, who was the
rival of Darwin, and by Flammarion, the best known of astronomers, I
could not afford to dismiss it. It was all very well to throw down the
books of these men which contained their mature conclusions and careful
investigations, and to say "Well, he has one weak spot in his brain,"
but a man has to be very self-satisfied if the day does not come when
he wonders if the weak spot is not in his own brain. For some time I
was sustained in my skepticism by the consideration that many famous
men, such as Darwin himself, Huxley, Tyndall and Herbert Spencer,
derided this new branch of knowledge; but when I learned that their
derision had reached
such a point that they would not even examine it, and that Spencer had
declared in so many words that he had decided against it on a priori
grounds, while Huxley had said that it did not interest him, I was
bound to admit that, however great, they were in science, their action
in this respect was most unscientific and dogmatic, while the action of
those who studied the phenomena and tried to find out the laws that
governed them, was following the true path which has given us all human
advance and knowledge. So far I had got in my reasoning, so my
skeptical position was not so solid as before." Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle
[Excerpt from The New Revelation - Psychic Press Limited, London, 1918, pp. 13-14]
"All affirm the existence of
a supreme cause. 'There
is no
effect without a cause,'
says Kardec, 'and
all intelligent
effect must necessarily have an
intelligent cause.'
It is on
this axiom that the whole of spiritualism
reposes. When we apply it to the manifestations from beyond the tomb,
this axiom reveals the existence of the spirits. Thus, if we apply it
to the study of the world and the universal laws, it shows the
necessity of an intelligent cause. That is why the existence of God
constitutes one of the essential points of spiritualistic teaching."
Leon Denis In Christianity and
Spiritualism
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| °EDITORIAL
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| THE CALENDAR OF THE REAL LIFE |
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| ° THE CODIFICATION
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| GENESIS:
The
Miracles and the Predictions According to
Spiritism |
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| CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITUALISM by Leon Denis | |||
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| SPIRIT TEACHINGS Through the Mediumship
of William Stainton Moses |
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| THE LIGHT OF GOD'S LOVE |
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| TREND OR TRENDY? THE DEVELOPMENT AND
ACCEPTANCE OF THE PARANORMAL BY THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY - by James E. Beichler, PhD
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THE SPIRITIST SOCIETY OF FLORIDA
CELEBRATES ITS 25th ANNIVERSARY
|
| ° EDITORIAL |
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest.
But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred
origin, if anything belonging to it call be apart from that, -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the
only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up
hearts freely, and to thank of people below them as if they really were fellow-travelers to the grave, and not another
race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver
in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
[Excerpt from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens]
Another year has come to an end as most of us are naturally inclined to celebrate the seasons' festivities of the human calendar. At this time of the year it is quiet understandable that many of us seem to be more open towards our fellow human beings, willing to reach out to them in certain ways. Why is this so?
The latent bond which ties us in great brotherhood, seems to come out more openly at these times of celebration. At these festive occasions, there are so many things going on around us, which affect our physical senses in such a powerful way that at a certain point we may be touched in a more profound manner. When this happens, we then start to think more seriously about life and its consequences.
It is undeniable that most of us, at these joyous times, still go around seeking for the frivolities and the luxurious pleasures that material life can afford to provide, forgetting that life in the flesh is nothing but a great opportunity for learning and spiritual improvement.
These thoughtful inquiries intend to serve as an wake-up call to envision more wisely the real meaning of these festive times of the human calendar in comparison to the calendar of our lives as immortal spirits.
It is a natural characteristic of our condition as incarnated spirits on the Planet Earth, that people all over the world create their special dates to celebrate their own achievements or to venerate the ones that helped them in their journey, at different epochs of their history. In this sense we ought not only to acknowledge these dates but also even to participate in these celebrations if we are eventually invited to, with all the due respect and circumspection. If we take the time to study and analyze the real meaning behind these especial dates of the human calendar, as well as the idea of those who created them, we will find a common bond among them, that is, the willing to promote the human spirit and to unify them towards a fair cause.
The teachings imparted from the superior spirits and comprised in the Spiritist Doctrine, as well as in the doctrine of the Modern Spiritualism - The New Revelation - enable us to have a more rational comprehension of the meaning of these festive times. These teachings primarily tell us that there is solely one life, that is, the immortal life of the spirit, which in essence we all are whether we accept it or not. Life here in the Earth or elsewhere (for "In my Father's house are many mansions"), is simply a very short chapter of our real spiritual life. We have come here many times and will continue to do so in order to learn and tighten the bonds which tie us all in a great family under the Creator.
The lessons that we all should absorb from the teachings of the superior spirits in regard to the real meaning of these festive dates of the human calendar, is that which will move us towards a permanent state of awareness about the ties which unite all of us in a strong and solid brotherhood. Let us not be mislead by a false idea of privilege and separation. Let us rather bear these thoughtful teachings in our minds, so we may be able to open our hearts not solely at these festive times, but throughout the whole year. After all, let us not look at others as if they are simply fellow-travelers to the grave or another race of creatures, but as real brothers in a journey towards a common destiny: perfection and happiness.
We the members of the Editorial Council of GEAE, wish you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year. Antonio Leite
Editor GEAE
Back to Content
| ° THE CODIFICATION |
GENESIS: The Miracles and the Predictions According to Spiritism
BY Allan Kardec
Translated By The Spirit-Guides of W. J. Colville
[Colby & Rich, Publishers - 1883 - Boston - USA]
CHAPTER XVIII
THE TIMES HAS ARRIVED
The earth, according to the intelligence gained from the spirits, must not be transformed by an inundation which would suddenly annihilate a generation. The present generation will gradually disappear, and the new one succeed in the same manner without any thing having been changed in the natural order of things. All externally will pass along as is usual, with this difference alone, which is an important one, that a part of the spirits which are incarnated here now will no more be incarnated here.
The children who will then be born, instead of being undeveloped and inclined to evil, will be more advanced spirits inclined towards good. It acts then much less upon a new corporeal generation than upon the new generation of minds; whilst those who will expect to see the transformation brought about by supernatural or miraculous will be disappointed.
27. The present epoch is a transition one; the elements of the two generations are mingling together. Placed at the intermediary point, we assist at the departure of one and at the arrival of the other. Each one signalizes itself by its own proper character. The two generations which follow each other have views and ideas totally opposed to one another. By the nature of the moral disposition, but more particularly by the intuitive and innate disposition, it is easy to distinguish to which of the two each individual belongs. The new generation, being the founder of the era of moral progress, is distinguished generally by a precocious intelligence and reasoning powers, joined to the innate sentiment of goodness and of spiritualistic beliefs, which is the unmistakable sign of a certain degree of anterior advancement. It will not be composed exclusively of superior minds, but of those who, having progressed already, are predisposed to embrace all the progressive ideas, and apt to second the regenerative movement.
That which distinguishes, on the contrary, undeveloped minds is, firstly, the revolt against God by refusing to recognize any power superior to humanity; then the instinctive propensity to the degrading passions, to the anti-fraternal sentiments of egotism, of pride, of the attachment for all that which is material. These are the vices of which the earth must be purged by the removal of those who refuse to amend, because they are incompatible with the reign of fraternity, and as good men will suffer always by contact with them. When the earth shall have been delivered from them, men will march without hindrance towards that better future which has been reserved for them here below as the recompense for their efforts and perseverance, looking forward to a purification still more complete, which will open to them the entrée to superior worlds.
28. By this emigration of spirits it is not necessary to understand that all undeveloped spirits will be expelled from the earth, and condemned to live in inferior worlds. Many, on the contrary, will return here, - those who have yielded to temptation by the force of circumstances and example; those who appeared to be much worse than they really were.
Once delivered from the influence of matter, and the prejudices of the corporeal world, the greater part of them will see things in an entirely different light than when living, as we have numerous examples of it. In this they are aided by benevolent spirits who are interested in them, and who try to enlighten them by showing them the wrong in the way they have pursued. By our prayers and exhortations we can ourselves contribute to their amelioration, because there is a perpetual connection, an unbroken chain, between the dead and living. The transformation is very simple, entirely a moral one, which is according to the laws of nature.
29. Allowing that the spirits of the new generation are new ones, but better, more advanced than the preceding ones, or ancient developed spirits, the result is the same. From the instant that they become inspired by better desires, the renovation takes place. There are then two categories of incarnated spirits, which are formed according to their natural dispositions, - on one side those tardy in progression who depart, and on the other the progressive ones who arrive. The condition of society in a nation or in the entire world will be according to the preponderance which one of these two categories has over the other. Let us suppose a nation, whatever may be their degree of advancement, composed of twenty millions of souls, the renovation being accomplished according to the measure of destruction among them in isolated cases or en masse, there necessarily comes a time when the production of progressive spirits is less than those of the opposite character, whom they count as rare representatives, without influence, whose efforts for good and for the predominance of progressive ideas are paralyzed. After a time, as some take their departure and others arrive, the two forces become equalized, and their influence becomes counterbalanced. Later the newcomers are the majority, and their influence becomes the stronger one, although still impeded by the opposite influence. The latter, however, continuing to diminish whilst the others multiply, at last disappear. Then will come a time when the influence of the new generation will be exclusive; but this cannot be comprehended if one does not admit that there is a spiritual life independent of the material one.
30. We are assisting at this transformation in the conflict which is the result of the battle between contrary ideas, which are seeking to implant themselves. One marches with the flag of the past, the other with that of the future. If one examines the present state of the world, one will recognize that, taken as a whole, terrestrial humanity is still far from the intermediary point where the forces are balanced; that nations considered separately are at a great distance from one another upon this ladder of progress; that some have reached it, but that no one of them has passed beyond it. Moreover, the distance which separates them from the extreme points is far from being equal in duration; and, once the limit reached, the new route will be passed over with so much the more rapidity, as a multitude of circumstances will come to smooth the way.
Thus is accomplished the transformation of humanity. Without emigration, - that is to say, without the departure of spirits, who are not disposed to progress, who must not return, or who must not return until their moral condition is ameliorated, - terrestrial humanity would not remain indefinitely stationary, because the most undeveloped spirits advance in their turn; but centuries, and perhaps thousands of years, would pass away before attaining the same result that a half century could produce by the first-named manner.
31. A common comparison will make this better comprehended. Let us suppose a regiment composed of a great majority of undisciplined and unruly men, those who in constant disorder are brought to feel the severity of the penal laws. These men are the stronger, because they are the more numerous; they are sustained, encouraged, and stimulated by example. The few good ones among them are without influence; their counsels are despised; they are scoffed at, badly treated by others, and suffer from this contact. Is this not an emblem of society at present? Let us suppose that these men are withdrawn from this regiment one by one, ten by ten, hundred by hundred, and that they are replaced by en equal number of good soldiers, even by those who have once been expelled from it, but who have become seriously amended. At the end of some greater or less period of time, there will be the same regiment, but a transformed one; good order will have succeeded to disorder. Thus will it be with regenerated humanity.
32. The great collective departures have not alone for object the acceleration of the different departures, but they also transform more rapidly the minds of the masses by removing the bad influences from the way, and by giving a greater ascendancy to new ideas, because many are ripe for this transformation, notwithstanding their imperfections, while many depart to strengthen themselves at a purer source. Should they have remained in the same midst and under the same influences, they would have persisted in their opinions, and in their manner of seeing things. A sojourn in the spirit-land suffices to open their eyes to the truth, because they see there that which they could not see on earth. The infidel, the fanatic, the absolutist, will then be enabled to return with innate ideas of faith, of tolerance, and of liberty. On their return they will find things changed, and will submit to the ascendancy of the new midst in which they will be born. Instead of making opposition to new ideas, they will be helpers towards them.
33. The regeneration of humanity does not absolutely require the complete renewal of the spirits. A modification in their moral dispositions suffices. This modification takes place with all those who are predisposed to it when they shall have freed themselves from the pernicious influence of the world. Those who return, then, are not always other spirits, but often the same ones, thinking and feeling otherwise.
When this amelioration is isolated ad individual, it passes unperceived, and is without ostensible influence upon the world. Entirely different is the effect when it operates simultaneously over great masses of people; for then, according to the proportions of it in one generation, the ideas of a nation or a race can be profoundly modified by it. This is observed after great accidents which decimate a population. The destructive scourges do not destroy the spirit, but only the body; they accelerate the coming-and-going movement between the corporeal and spiritual world, and consequently the progressive movement of embodied and disembodied spirits. It has been observed, at all historical epochs great social crises have been followed by an era of progress.
34. It is one of these general movements which is operating at this time, and which must lead to the repairing of humanity. The multiplicity of the means of destruction is a characteristic sign of the times; for they must hasten the expansion of the new germs. They are the leaves of autumn which must fall, but to which will succeed new leaves full of life; for humanity has its seasons, as individuals have their ages. The dead leaves of humanity fall, carried away by the tempestuous blasts of life, only to be reborn with still greater strength, with the same breath of life which is not annihilated, but purified.
35. To the materialist destructive scourges are calamities without compensation, without useful results, since, according to him, "They go to that bourne from whence no traveler returns." But for him who knows that death destroys only the envelope, they have not the same consequences, and cause not the least affright. He comprehends the object of it, and knows that men lose no more by dying together than separately, since, in one way or another, it is necessary to arrive there. Infidels will laugh at these things, and treat them as chimerical dreams; but, whatever they may say, they cannot escape the common law. They will fall in their turn like the others; and then what will occur? They say nothing; but they will live in spite of themselves, and be forced some day to open their eyes to the truth.
| ° ELECTRONIC BOOKS |
CHRISTIANITY AND SPIRITUALISM
The History of the Gospels
The Secret Doctrine of Christianity
Intercourse with the Spirits of the Dead
The New Revelation
Vitam Impendere Vero
By
LÉON DENIS
Author of
"Après La Mort, "Dans L'Invisible," ETC.
Translated from the French by
HELEN DRAPER SPEAKMAN
LONDON
PHILIP WELLBY
6 Henrietta Street Covent Garden
1904
This book is out of print indefinitely
1st Electronic Edition by
the
Advanced
Study Group of Spiritism
(GEAE)
2006
THE NEW REVELATION - THE DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRITS
= Second Part =
Human life is a school and a field of work; the life of space which follows it is the result. The spirit reaps in the light that which he has sown in the shadows, and often in sorrow.
For souls drawn towards matter, life in space is a life of privation and of misery; it is the absence of all that could give them pleasure, for all pleasures are those of the intelligence and of the heart. Spirits who have freed themselves from their material habits, and learned to live in the exercise of the lofty faculties of the soul, find, on the contrary, surroundings to suit their taste and a vast field open to their activity. This is only a wide application of the law of attraction and of affinity; only the natural consequences of our own actions.
After a time of rest in space, the soul is reborn to humanity, bringing with it the results and products of its former lives. This explains the intellectual and moral inequalities which we see among the inhabitants of our earth. The inborn superiority of some men is the fruit of their past efforts. We are younger or older spirits, we have worked more or less, acquired more or less virtue and knowledge. Thus, the infinite variety of characters, of aptitudes and of tastes, ceases to be an enigma.
Nevertheless, the reincarnated soul cannot always utilize, in their entirety, the powers and faculties acquired. It has at its disposal here below only a very imperfect organism which has retained no recollection of other times. But the past remains in it, its intuitions and tendencies are proofs thereof.
The innate faculties of some children, infant phenomena, artists, musicians, painters, scientists, bear glaring testimony to the existence of this law. Sometimes also, proud and selfish souls are reborn in sickly and infirm bodies, to humble themselves, and acquire the virtues in which they are lacking; patience, submission, and resignation.
All lives of suffering, all existences of struggle, are explained in the same way. They are transitory but necessary phases of the immortal life; every soul will know them in its turn. Trial and suffering are so many means of reparation, of education, and elevation, it is by them that soul effaces a guilty past and regains lost time. By them characters are formed; experience is acquired, man is prepared for further ascensions. The soul which suffers seeks after God, remembers to pray to Him and thus draws near to Him.
Each human being, on returning to this world, loses the memory of his past, which is registered in the perispirit, but disappears for the time under the envelope of flesh. This is a physical necessity. This temporary forgetfulness of our previous existences, these alternations of light and darkness, strange as they may seem at first sight, are easily explained. If our present memory does not suffice to recall to us our first years of childhood, it is not astonishing that we should have forgotten the lives which were separated one from the other by a long sojourn in space. The states of sleep and of waking through which we pass each day, as well as the experiences of hypnotism and somnambulism, prove to us that we can temporarily forget our normal existence, without thereby losing our personality. Eclipses of like nature, concerning our past existences, have therefore nothing astonishing about them. Our memory loses and finds itself throughout the succession of our lives, as during the succession of days and of nights which form our present existence.
From a moral point of view, the remembrance of our previous lives would cause, here below, very great perturbations. All criminals, reborn to reinstate themselves, would be recognized, rejected, despised; and they themselves would be terrified and, as it were, hypnotized by their own recollections. The reparation of the past would become impossible, the present unbearable. It would be the same, in different degrees, with all those whose past is stained. Recollections of the past would introduce into social life hatred and elements of discord, which would aggravate the situation and check amelioration. The heavy burden of errors and of faults, the sight of shameful actions inscribed on its history, would weigh down the soul and paralyze its initiative. In those around, it would recognize enemies, persecutors, rivals, it would feel reawakened and rekindled in itself the evil passions which it was the object of its new existence to destroy or at least to attenuate.
The knowledge of past existences would perpetuate in us, not only the succession of facts of which they were composed, but the habits of routine, the narrow views, the foolish obstinate tendencies which were inherent in each. We still find traces of these in many people.
When we consider everything carefully, we see that the temporary effacement of the past is indispensable to the work of reparation, and that Providence, in depriving us of our far-off memories, has acted with great wisdom.
Souls are drawn together by reason of their affinity to each other. They form groups or families the members of which follow and help each other during their successive incarnations. Powerful bonds unite them; numerous lives passed together create in them that similarity of views and of character so often seen in families. There are, however, exceptions. Certain spirits change their surroundings so as to progress more rapidly. In this, as in all the important acts of life, there is a part reserved to the freewill of each being, who may thus, in a certain measure, and according to his degree of elevation, choose the condition into which he is to be reborn. But there is also the part of destiny, or divine law, which, from on high, fixes the order of rebirths.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The plurality of lives of the soul and its ascension in the scale of the world constitutes the essential point in the teaching of modern spiritualism. We have lived before birth and we shall live after death. Our lives are the successive stages in our great journey towards eternal truth, good, and beauty.
By the doctrine of preexistence and of reincarnation, all becomes connected, illuminated, and comprehensible; divine justice appears, and harmony reigns in the universe and in our destinies.
The soul is no longer supposed to be created by a capricious God who distributes, at haphazard and according to His own pleasure, vice and virtue, genius and imbecility. Created simple and ignorant, the soul rises by its own efforts, enriches itself by reaping in the present that which it has sown in the past, and sows now for the future.
The soul constructs its own destiny, rising degree by degree from the inferior and rudimentary state to that of the highest personality; from the unconsciousness of the savage to the state of those sublime beings who illuminate the highway of history and pass like a ray of divine light over this earth.
Thus considered, reincarnation becomes a comforting and strengthening truth, a symbol of peace among men. It points out to all the way of progress, the great justice of a God who does not punish eternally, but permits the sinner to redeem himself by suffering.
Although inflexible, this law proportions the reparation to the fault, and, after the redemption, shows us regeneration. It draws the bonds of human brotherhood closer by teaching those who are shocked by the social inequalities and differences among men, that in reality all have the same origin and the same future. There are no favored ones and none disinherited, since the final result is the same for all, if all will work for it.
The law of reincarnation puts a check on our passions by showing us the consequences of our actions, words and thoughts, consequences not confined to this life, but sowing the seeds of future happiness or misfortune. We thereby learn to watch over ourselves, to be on our guard, to prepare our future.
The man who has understood the grandeur of this doctrine, can no longer accuse God of injustice and of partiality. He will know that each one occupies his proper place in this world, that every soul is subjected to the trials it has merited or desired. He will thank the Eternal for having thus given him the means of repairing his faults and requiring, by constant effort, an atom of His power, a reflection of His wisdom, a spark of His love.
This is the role of man and his grand work; to be a collaborator with God, by spreading around him order, truth, justice and harmony, by drawing to him his humbler brethren, and helping them to attain the divine heights which he himself is scaling towards God, the Perfect Being, the living and conscious law of the Universe, the eternal source of love and of life.
Thus is resolved the problem of evil. Evil is but and effect of contrast, it has no separate existence. Evil is to good what shadow is to light. We only appreciate the latter after being deprived of it; thus, without sorrow, we would not know joy; without privation, we could not feel the happiness of possession.
All is explained and becomes clear in the divine plan when it is looked at from a lofty point of view. The law of progress rules infinite life and makes the splendor of the universe. Thus seen, the problem of destiny is but the logical application and consecration of that law of evolution of which so many thinkers of our day have had, according to their state of mind, a vague intuition or a clear vision. It is the great law which governs all.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The general plan of the universe has appeared to us from the preceding exposition. It only remains for us to point out the essential features.
The teaching of the spirits shows us everywhere the unity of law and of substance. By this unity, order and harmony reign throughout all.
The invisible world differs only from the visible in regard to our senses. The invisible is but the continuation, the natural prolongation, of the visible. When combined they form an inseparable whole; but it is in the invisible that we must seek for the causes, the center of all activity and all the subtle forces of the Cosmos.
Force and energy, science tells us, moves matter and directs the worlds through space. What is force? According to the new revelation, it is but the agent, the mode of action of a superior will. It is God's thought which gives movement and life to the universe!
The existence of God is affirmed by all exalted spirits. Those who have tasted of the cup of modern spiritualism know that the great spirits of space are unanimous in proclaiming, in recognizing, the supreme Intelligence which governs the worlds. They add that this Intelligence is revealed the more clearly as progress is made in the spiritual life.
It is the same with all the writers and philosophers of spiritualism, from Allan Kardec down to the present day. All affirm the existence of a supreme cause. "There is no effect without a cause," says Kardec, "and all intelligent effect must necessarily have an intelligent cause."
It is on this axiom that the whole of spiritualism reposes. When we apply it to the manifestations from beyond the tomb, this axiom reveals the existence of the spirits. Thus, if we apply it to the study of the world and the universal laws, it shows the necessity of an intelligent cause. That is why the existence of God constitutes one of the essential points of spiritualistic teaching.
Spirits, like men, are unequally developed, and cannot all see after the same fashion, for which reason we get from them more or less varying conceptions of the divine Being. But it suffices that there should be intelligence and consciousness in created beings for us to know that they exist in the creating source; in that supreme Unity which is not, as some say, the first cause, or, as others think, the final cause, but the Eternal cause, forever acting, from which all life emanates.
The solidarity which unites all created being has no other center than this universal and divine Unity. Through it alone we can know the object of life and its laws, since it is itself the living reason and law of the universe as well as the basis of morality.
When we study the problem of the Beyond, of the position of the soul after death, we find ourselves in the presence of a state of things regulated by a law of justice, which executes itself, without tribunal and without judgment, but from which none of our actions or thoughts can escape.
This idea of law is inseparable from the idea of intelligence. Otherwise the universal laws would not be distinguishable from the blind and mechanical laws of materialism.
We often hear of the blind laws of nature. What is meant by this expression? Blind laws can only act at random. Hazard would be the absence of plan, of intelligent direction; it would be the negation of all law. Chance cannot create unity and harmony, but only incoherence and confusion. That is why a law can only be the manifestation of a sovereign intelligence, of a noble thought. It is thought alone which can dispose and combine all things in the universe. And thought cannot be produced without the being who generates it.
Universal laws cannot repose upon such a changeable foundation as chance, but must necessarily have an immutable basis, else they would drift aimlessly, they would cease to be laws. All things, forces as well as beings, worlds and races, are governed by intelligence.
Many misunderstandings have divide the world on these questions; modern spiritualism has come to dissipate them. Until now, materialists have sought for the secret of universal life where it is not, namely, in effects; Christians, on the other hand have sought for it outside nature. We understand today that the eternal cause of the world is not exterior to the world, but interior, it is the very soul, life and essence of it; as our soul is the life or center in us.
Ignorance of these things is the principle cause of our errors, it is ignorance which leads man to actions the consequences of which accumulate and crush him.
The divine creation cannot be measured in time or in space. It shines forth in the skies in multitudes of suns, and is revealed on earth in the humblest floweret as in in the giants of the forest. God is infinite, His creation is eternal. One cannot conceive of creation coming out of nothing, for nothing has no existence. Creation is incessant, and the universe, immutable as a whole, is under constant transformation as to its parts.
With all its worlds, visible and invisible, its celestial spaces, its planetary and sidereal populations, the universe appears to us as an immense factory, in which everything which moves and breathes, works for the production, the keeping up and the development of life. Every globe, rolling through space, is the abode of a human society. The earth is but one of the most insignificant of the great hierarchy of worlds, the earthly society, one of the most inferior. But it will constantly improve, and our sphere will one day become an abode of bliss.
All is transformed and renewed by the incessant rhythm of life and of death. While some stars are extinguished, others are lighted up. That is why the poet tells us that there are cradles and tombs in the sky. Like man, worlds are born, live and die, constellations are dissolved, all forms pass and fade away, but infinite life survives in its eternal splendor.
An admirable plan is being carried out; God alone knows the whole. We see only a few lines of it, and even that fragment dazzles us. But our comprehension of divine things increase with our development; our faculties and senses, as they expand, open to us new horizon on the higher worlds.
In the same way, the chain of our lives unrolls, through the ages, its brilliant or tarnished links. Events follow events, without apparent connection, but Infallible Justice fixes the course thereof according to unchangeable laws. All is connected, in the moral as well as the material realms.
Consider for a moment the beliefs of the past: the earth, the center of the universe and the only inhabited planet; one short and only life for man out of the infinity of time, life after which he is judged and disposed of for eternity; compare with these the revelations of space, that universe without boundaries, peopled by suns, with their accompanying secondary worlds, the cities, the innumerable peoples which inhabit them, with their varied civilizations, and the marvelous works done therein. Think of this future for the soul, destined to be reborn from life to life in these worlds, to ascend from one to another, like the steps of a gigantic ladder, participating in social states so superior to ours, that nothing, in our feeble earthly conceptions, can give us any idea of them. And the soul, in its endless progress, acquires ever new qualities, greater powers which render it fit to play a higher and higher part in the universe.
There are therefore, no elect, an no damned. Mankind is not divided into two parts, those who are saved and those who are lost. The way of salvation by progress is open to all. All travel over it, stage by stage, life by life, all raise themselves towards peace and happiness, by work and by trials. All souls are capable of perfection and can acquire education. They are not equally advanced, but all will scale, sooner or later, the arduous heights which lead to the summit which is flooded with eternal light.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Many men close their minds to the idea of God; they refuse to see, to admit the eternal power which permeates the whole of nature.
The sun shines on the water, its quivering rays caress the sleeping waves. From on high it illumines the tranquil sea, and lights up millions of sparks on the crests of its waters. All beings moving in its depths can perceive the light, and, by a simple effort, rise from the gloomy abyss and bask in its rays. But if they refuse to quit their sombre abodes, if they rejoice in their darkness, that does not effect the light, which shines on nevertheless.
Thus it is with the great divine light. Without the thought of God, which illumines the depths of the Cosmos, without this imperishable light, all would remain in utter darkness. But this light appears in all its glory to those only who have rendered themselves worthy to understand it, whose senses have responded to the great voice of the infinite, to that breath which passes over the worlds, reviving all on its way.
God, in His pure essence, we are told by the spirits, is as an ocean of flame. God has no form, but He can make Himself visible to the higher spirits. That is the recompense accorded to great devotions, lives of sacrifice and of renouncement. There is then a kind of materialization, which is different from all that we can realize. But even under this aspect, the majesty of God is such that the purest spirits can scarcely bear the glory of it. Spirits arrived at perfection have the privilege of looking upon God unveiled; they declare that human language is too poor to give even the very faintest idea thereof.
God sees all, knows all, even the most secret thoughts. As the spirit is everywhere in the body, so God is everywhere in the universe, and in touch with all the elements of creation.
His love envelopes and connects all His creatures, calling them to life and to be the artisans of His eternal work. His solicitude extends to the humblest and most obscure, for all have come from Him. And all, even without a high intelligence and rained reasoning powers, can know and feel God by the powers of the heart.
God is the great universal soul, of which each soul is a ray, a spark. Each of us possesses, in a latent state, forces emanating from the divine forces; we must develop them by uniting ourselves closely with the Cause of which they are the effect. By the elevation of our thoughts towards God and by prayer, coming from the very depths of our being and binding the creature to the Creator, there is produced a constant penetration, a moral fecundation, a reviving of the riches hidden in us. But the human soul is ignorant of itself, and for want of knowledge and of will, it permits its inner powers to lie idle. Instead of dominating matter, it allows itself to be dominated by it; that is the reason of its trials, its ills and its weaknesses. That is why modern spiritualism comes to say to all: "Men, raise yourselves by thought above earthly things, raise yourselves high enough to understand that you are the children of God, high enough to feel that you are bound to Him, to His immense work, destined for a great object to which all others are secondary; and this object is the entrance into the great communion, the blessed harmony of beings and of worlds, which is only realized in God and through God."
Next: CHAPTER XI - RENOVATION - First Part
| ° SPIRIT
MESSAGES |
SPIRIT TEACHINGS
Through the Mediumship of William Stainton Moses
[Spiritualist Press - 23 Great Queen, Streat London, WC2B5BB]
Section VIII
In order to follow the argument which I was now entering upon, it is necessary for the reader to remember that I was trained in strict accordance with Protestant Church principles: that I had spent much time in reading the theologies of the Greek and Roman Churches, and that I had accepted, as most nearly according with the views at which I had arrived, the tenets of that portion of the Church of England called Anglican. I had seen cause to revise some of my strong beliefs, but substantially I was what would be called a sound High Churchman.
From this time commences that state, to which I shall have often to refer, of great spiritual exaltation, during which I was profoundly conscious of the presence and influence of one commanding Intelligence, and of an action on my mind which eventuated in a development of thought amounting to nothing short of spiritual regeneration.]
You have objected to our teachings that they are not consistent with the received creed of orthodoxy. We have more to say on this subject.
Religion, the spirit’s healthful life, has two aspects—the one pointing to God, the other to man. What says the spirit-creed of God?
In place of an angry, jealous tyrant it reveals a loving Father who is not loving in name alone, but in very deed and truth; into whose dealings naught but love can enter; who is just and good and full of affection to the lowest of His creatures.
It does not recognize any need of propitiation towards this God. It rejects as false any notion of this Divine Being vindictively punishing a transgressor, or requiring a vicarious sacrifice for sin. Still less does it teach that this omnipotent Being is enthroned in a heaven where His pleasure consists in the homage of the elect, and in the view of the tortures of the lost, who are for ever excluded in quenchless misery from light and hope.
No such anthropomorphism finds any place in our creed. God, as we know Him in the operation of His laws, is perfect, pure, loving, and holy, incapable of cruelty, tyranny, and other such human vices: viewing error with sorrow as knowing that sin contains its own sting, but eager to alleviate the smart by any means consistent with the immutable moral laws to which all alike are subject. God, the center of light and love! God, operating in strict accordance with those laws which are a necessity of orderly existence! God, the grand object of our adoration, never of our dread!
We know of Him as you cannot know, as you cannot even picture in imagination: yet none has seen Him: nor are we content with the metaphysical sophistries with which prying curiosity and over-subtle speculation have obscured the primary conception of God amongst men. We pry not. The first conception with you even is grander, nobler, more sublime. We wait for higher knowledge. You must wait too.
On relations between God and His creatures we speak at large. Yet here, too, we clear off many of the minute points of human invention which have been from age to age accumulated round and over the central truths. We know nothing of election of a favored few. The elect are they who work out for themselves a salvation according to the laws which regulate their being.
We know nothing of the potency of blind faith or credulity. We know, indeed, the value of a trustful, receptive spirit, free from the littleness of perpetual suspicion. Such is God-like, and draws down angel guidance. But we abjure and denounce that most destructive doctrine that faith, belief, assent to dogmatic statements, have power to erase the traces of transgression; that an earth lifetime of vice and sloth and sin can we wiped away, and the spirit stand purified by a blind acceptance of a belief, of an idea, of a fancy, of a creed. Such teaching has debased more souls than anything else to which we can point.
Nor do we teach that there is a special and potent efficacy in any one belief to the exclusion of others. We do not believe that truth is the perquisite of any creed. In all there is a germ of truth; in all an accretion of error. We know, as you know not, the circumstances which decide to what special form of faith a mortal shall give his adherence, and we value it accordingly. We know exalted intelligences who stand high in spirit life, who were enabled to progress in spite of the creed which they professed on earth. We value only the earnest seeking after truth which may distinguish the professors of creeds the most widely dissimilar. We care not for the minute discussions which men delight in. We shrink from those curious prying into mysteries transcending knowledge which characterize your theologies. The theology of the spirit is simple and confined to knowledge. We value at nothing mere speculation. We care not for sectarianism, save that we know it to be a mischievous provoker of rancour, and spite, and malice, and ill-will.
We deal with religion as it affects us and you in simpler sort. Man—an immortal spirit, so we believe,— placed in earth-life as a school of training, has simple duties to perform, and in performing them is prepared for more advanced and progressive work. He is governed by immutable laws, which, if he transgresses them, work for him misery and loss; which, also, if respected, secure for him advancement and satisfaction.
He is the recipient of guidance from spirits who have trod the path before him, and who are commissioned to guide him if he will avail himself of their guidance. He has within him a standard of right which will direct him to the truth, if he will allow himself to be guided to keep it and protect it from injury. If he refuse these helps, he falls into transgression and deterioration. He is thrown back and finds misery in place of joy. His sins punish themselves. Of his duties he knows by the instinct of his spirit as well as by the teaching of his guardians. The performance of those duties brings progress and happiness. The spirit grows and gains newer and fuller views of that which makes for perfect, satisfying joy and peace.
This mortal existence is but a fragment of life. Its deeds and their results remain when the body is dead. The ramifications of wilful sin have to be followed out, and its results remedied in sorrow and shame. The consequences of deeds of good are similarly permanent, and precede the pure soul and draw around it influences which welcome and aid it in the spheres.
Life, we teach you, is one and indivisible. One in its progressive development; and one in the effect on all alike of the eternal and immutable laws by which it is regulated. None are excused as favorites; none are punished mercilessly for error which they were unable to avoid. Eternal justice is the correlative of eternal love. Mercy is no divine attribute. It is needless; for mercy involves remission of a penalty inflicted, and no such remission can be made save where the results have been purged away. Pity is Godlike. Mercy is human.
We know naught of that sensational piety which is wholly wrapped up in contemplation, to neglect duty. We know that God is not so glorified. We preach the religion of work, of prayer, of adoration. We tell you of your duty to God, to your brother, and to yourself—soul and body alike. We leave to foolish men, groping blindly in the dark, their curious quibbles about theological figments. We deal with the practical life; and our creed may be briefly written:—
Help your brother onward in the path of progress (Brotherly Love)...................................... Duty to Neighbor
Tend and guard your own body (Bodily culture)............................................................... Duty to Self
Cultivate every means of extending knowledge (Mental progress)........................................ Duty to Self
Seek for fuller views of progressive truths (Spiritual growth)............................................... Duty to Self
Do ever the right and good in accordance with your knowledge (Integrity)............................ Duty to Self
Cultivate communion with the spirit-land by prayer and frequent intercourse (Spirit nurture)..... Duty to Self
Within these rules is roughly indicated most that concerns you here. Yield no obedience to any sectarian dogmas. Give no blind adherence to any teaching that is not commended by reason. Put no unquestioning faith in communications which were made at a special time, and which are of private application. You will learn hereafter that the revelation of God is progressive, bounded by no time, confined to no people. It has never ceased. God reveals Himself as truly now as of old He was revealed on Sinai. God does not shut off the progressive revealing of Himself in measure as man can bear it.
You will learn also that all revelation is made through a human channel: and consequently cannot but be tinctured in some measure with human error. No revelation is of plenary inspiration. None can demand credence on any other than rational grounds. Therefore to say of a statement that it is not in accord with what was given through a human medium at any stated time is no derogation necessarily from the truth of that statement. Both may in their kind be true; yet each of different application. Set up no human standard of judgment other than that of right reason. Weigh what is said. If it be commended by reason, receive it; if not, reject it. If what is put before you be prematurely said, and you are unable to accept it, then in the name of God put it aside, and cling to aught that satisfies your soul and helps its onward progress. The time will come when what we lay before you of divine truth will be valued amongst men. We are content to wait, and our prayers shall join with yours to the Supreme and All-wise God that He will guide the seekers after truth, wherever they may be, to higher and more progressive knowledge, to richer and fuller insight into truth. May His blessing rest on you!
Note from the Editor: Here is a link to those who are interested in knowing more about the great medium William Stainton Moses and his works.
The Light of God’s Love is all about you, yet you do not see it and you do not feel it. Why? Because you let your sorrows, your trials, your doubts, your worries, your impatience, your fears, your pride, and your anger blind you. You go around earth as if in a dense fog.
Material life is full of difficulties, disappointments, trials, and tests but serve a Divine Purpose. Little by little as your soul progresses and purifies itself through these, your soul will be able to see more clearly that Divine Light that shines forever brightly all around you. Only when you are cleansed of your impurities can you truly see it in all its Magnificent Glory.
Nevertheless, even in your current imperfect state, if you would but open your heart and soul more, and contemplate truthfully upon that Light full of Divine Love, you could catch glimpses of it. You would then feel fortified by its brilliant rays. You would find a certain inner peace in its gentle warmth. You would feel emotionally uplifted from that radiating Perfect Love that constantly surrounds you.
God is All Love. Look Upward to the Light towards that Grand Immensity when you are feeling so downcast! If you have done your very best, your soul will feel less burdened if you then sincerely surrender all the rest in your life…to that Infinite Love and Perfect Wisdom of the Creator.
Spirit Communication received by
Yvonne Limoges
[for our October 28th
Meeting at The Spiritist Society of
Florida]
| ° ARTICLES |
OF THE PARANORMAL BY THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY
by James E. Beichler, PhD
= Second Part =
Between Revolutions
During the eighteenth century, Newtonian physics became extremely successful in explaining the known natural phenomena. The greater the successes, the more the natural realm expanded to incorporate both new and older well-known phenomena. But life was not part of Newtonian physics. Scientific reduction and Newtonian science came their closest to studying the concepts of life and mind through the philosophical practice of metaphysics, at least until life entered the realm of Matter and science through chemistry. Early in history, natural philosophers identified some of the specific chemical substances that were products of living processes and thus developed organic chemistry. Organic chemistry was originally the chemistry of life, at least until 1828. In that year, Benjamin Wohler synthesized urea using normal chemical techniques that were not associated with life or living organisms, once again changing the scientific interpretation of life. Any hopes of incorporating life into Natural Philosophy were thus dashed and life was once again considered ‘something’ unidentified, beyond physical interpretation and reduction, falling ever more firmly within the realm of Mind.
The ultimate meaning and origin of life had also been associated with the occult forces of electricity or magnetism, but as they both came under the Newtonian influence life went over to chemistry. Electricity and magnetism were incorporated into Newtonian science and understood to some degree in scientific terms in the latter decades of the eighteenth century, after which life could only be associated with some form of unknown or unspecified occult force. Chemistry and geology also began to develop during the same period of time. Newtonian science had become a historical force to be reckoned with by the time that these changes occurred. Its influence also extended to culture, society, religion and the growing movement toward the industrialization of society.
The first book to explain Newtonian physics on the European continent was written by the French philosopher Voltaire early in the 1700s. Within a few decades, Newtonian science had become successful enough that social philosophers like Voltaire concluded that society itself must follow similar Natural Laws. Philosophers then sought and discovered the first social laws. Under these circumstances, Newtonian science directly influenced the American and French Revolutions. These same philosophers, known as the ‘Philosophes’, were also associated with a religious movement called Deism, which was based upon the mechanistic ‘clockwork’ universe’ implied by Newtonian physics. Newtonian science and philosophy touched literally every aspect of human existence. Newtonian science progressed by application to an ever-expanding realm of phenomena as the older occult phenomena slowly became scientific and relevant to Natural Philosophy.
By the 1840s, Newtonian science had become so successful and specialized that the various sciences that together constituted Natural Philosophy evolved into independent academic disciplines. John Dalton established the fundamental theory of chemistry, the atomic theory, in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Charles Lyell established uniformitarianism, the fundamental theory of geology, in the 1830s. The chemical concept of heat had been under attack since the beginning of the century. By the early 1840s, the scientific model of heat as a chemical element called caloric gave way to a model of heat as a form of kinetic energy, precipitating the split of Natural Philosophy into the various sciences, as we know them today. In 1840, William Whewell, the first ‘philosopher of science’, heralded that split when he announced that science had become so specialized that those scholars working in science should be called ‘scientists’.
By that time, a shift in the boundaries set by the Cartesian Paradox between science (Matter and the Relative) and religion (Mind and the Absolute) had become apparent. The new science of geology required an older age of the earth than religion could account for. Fundamental Christian doctrine thought the earth slightly more than six millennia old, but the geological features of the earth’s surface would have taken several tens of millions of years to form given uniformitarianism. This conclusion, supported by physics and the other sciences, placed the religious establishment under a great deal of stress. But the real difference became far more untenable with the next development in geology.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin first proposed thories of human evolution at the end of the 1700s, but they were not generally accepted within science. Yet the basic notion of human evolution was certainly in the air during the 1830s when Charles Darwin served as the Naturalist and traveled the world on Her Majesty’s Ship, the Beagle. This Darwin, the grandson of Erasmus, had already formed the rudimentary principles of evolution before he returned to England and spent the coming decades searching for a mechanism to explain evolution. Darwin’s book explaining the theory of evolution and the mechanism of ‘natural selection’, The Origin of Species, was published in 1859, but its influence on the scientific community predated the publication. Darwin’s theory was not strictly a theory of biology, but an extension of geology. In either case, it had a strong influence on society and culture while it placed severe stresses on established religion. Religion reacted immediately and strongly objected to the theory of evolution because it opened the world of Mind, which had been reserved for religious explanation and exploration for the previous two centuries, to scientific analysis. More importantly for science as a whole, evolution indicated that life and mind are results of purely arbitrary mechanical processes, rather than religious design. This belief caused major fluctuations in the Cartesian boundaries between Mind and Matter.
James Clerk Maxwell was also able to unify the older occult forces of electricity and magnetism into a single coherent electromagnetic theory in the 1850s. Maxwell developed his theory by considering light waves traveling through a Newtonian mechanical substance called the ‘luminiferous aether’, but his work was based more completely upon the previously developed field theories of Michael Faraday and other scientists. At nearly the same time, the initial development of the new science of thermodynamics was completed when heat and the kinetic theory of matter were explained by a statistical analysis of bouncing molecules that moved according to the Newtonian laws of motion. The success of these two new sciences capped the development of Newtonian physics. It seemed as if no new frontiers in the natural world were left for Newtonian science to conquer, so science began to expand elsewhere. In particular, science looked into the realm of Mind more forcefully than ever before.
Newtonian science had earlier turned to the concept of the human mind as a new frontier, but only as a philosophical pursuit rather than a direct scientific study. Science thereby maintained the older Cartesian boundaries between Mind and Matter. But the successes of Newtonian science, in the form of both Evolution theory and the new physical theories, forced science to take a more serious look at the concept of mind. As the philosophy of science developed, so did the philosophical interpretations of mind and life and the Cartesian boundaries eroded dramatically. No longer accepting just the observation of nature as the source of their scientific theories, philosophers began to question the ultimate origin and meaning of physical laws. Philosophers, scholars and scientists began to ask: What is reality? And what is the relationship between physical reality and human existence? These questions implied others: Are physical laws just the result of human perceptions of reality? And are the laws themselves part of nature (inherent in nature) or a product of the human mind? Science had come full circle. It had returned to some of the same fundamental questions that Descartes had first considered, but now science approached them at a much higher level of understanding nature and the natural world.
Ernst Mach gave the best answers to such questions, or perhaps the best-known and most influential answers, in the 1880s. Mach proposed a middle-of-the-road compromise to answer this new form of the Cartesian Dilemma. He reasoned that the human mind could not know physical and material reality directly. All that science could know of reality came through the filter of the human senses. So the physical laws developed by science could not be part of either Matter or Mind. The laws of science are not inherent in the natural world, nor are they products of the human mind’s perception of nature. The fact that the laws of nature did not come directly from GOD had been settled much earlier, so the only possibility was that the known laws of nature were just uniform and efficient ways of describing human sensations of reality. This view led to the development of logical (or empirical) positivism in the last decades of the century. According to the positivistic doctrine, only natural or empirical philosophy can be the true source of knowledge. Positivism rejects the cognitive value of a purely philosophical study of nature, which would be tainted by feelings and emotions. Thus, the positivistic philosophy that developed was very nearly the opposite of Descartes’ original concept of Mind and Matter whereby true knowledge came directly from GOD via the human mind.
While many scientists and scholars of the period held similar views, the same historical forces and trends that led Mach to his conclusions affected others in different ways. The Cartesian concept of Mind itself came under scrutiny independent of the shifting boundaries between Mind and Matter. On one hand, the mixture of the same factors combined with other historical events leading to the development of Modern Spiritualism. Modern Spiritualism was actually a popular reaction to the same historical forces that influenced the new scientific attitudes and interpretations of the human mind. The Spiritualists certainly thought that Modern Spiritualism was scientific even though the majority of scientists and scholars did not. On the other hand, all of these factors also contributed to the birth of a new science of mind, called psychology.
According to its practitioners, Modern
Spiritualism was ‘caused’ by occult events in the Hydesville, New
York, home of the Fox sisters in 1848. These three sisters were
haunted by a rapping sound that they and their family eventually
interpreted as messages from the ghost of a traveling salesman who
had been killed in their cabin before they bought it. But the origins
of the Modern Spiritualism movement are actually far more complex and
the rapping was not the single ‘cause’ of the movement. That
would be a ‘bum rap’. Direct precursors to Modern Spiritualism
can be found in the earlier practices of Mesmerism, phrenology,
popular witchcraft, alchemy and mysticism, Swedenborgianism and other
forms of early spiritualism, although even this list is not complete.
The successes of Newtonian science were also a primary factor in the
rapid spread of the movement because they created an atmosphere for
rapping and similar phenomena to spread throughout culture. The
shifting boundary between Cartesian Mind and Matter that had been
caused by Newtonian successes opened a window for Modern Spiritualism
to sneak into the public consciousness. Within just two or three
years, the Modern Spiritualism movement had covered the whole world
by taking advantage of this window of opportunity.
Although it dealt directly with the Cartesian world of Mind and the supernatural, Modern Spiritualism was not a part of any established religion or related movement. It was more of a popular personal religion with no central doctrine other than a belief that the rapping and similar phenomena were caused by the spirits of dead people. Earlier forms of spiritualism (before the 1840s) were about heavenly spirits, not spirits of the dead. ‘Communication with spirits of the dead’ formed the fundamental ‘theory’ upon which Modern Spiritualism was based. So Modern Spiritualists fully and completely accepted the reality of the afterlife. In a strict sense, Modern Spiritualism could be interpreted as a popular, although feeble and misguided, attempt by non-scientists to render the afterlife scientific because it was based upon a central ‘theory’. Evolution lowered the threshold of what could be considered religion by throwing established religion into turmoil, causing a major shift in the Cartesian boundaries between science and religion. The growth of Modern Spiritualism was as much a consequence of Darwinian evolution as anything else.
Most scientists and scholars who still accepted the older and stricter Newtonian modification of the Cartesian boundaries as well as those who subscribed to the newly popular logical positivism of Mach rejected the movement outright, without question and without any investigation of the phenomena performed by the spiritualists, but some scientists still investigated the phenomena. So the study of the paranormal, within the strictures of Modern Spiritualism, was actually an integral albeit strained part of science in the latter decades of the nineteenth century even though the majority of the scientific and scholarly communities would not admit this fact. After all, the victors always write and believe their own biased histories.
Otherwise, the birth of the new
science of psychology was more directly a consequence of the same
historical trends. Earlier questions about consciousness and mind
were part of either religion or metaphysics, but they now became
scientific under the guise of the philosophy of science. Psychology
emerged out of the philosophy of science at the end of the nineteenth
century. The birth of psychology came from a combination of sources
when the scientific and scholarly communities finally came to realize
that a science of mind had become necessary. This realization was so
strong and general within the scientific community that no one
scientist can claim to have fathered the new science. Instead, many
scientists contributed to the founding of psychology as a new science
of the mind. Wilhelm Wundt contributed his work in experimental
psychology. Gustav Fechner worked on the psychophysics of the brain.
William James dealt directly with the concept of consciousness and
developed the philosophical basis of psychology, while Sigmund Freud
added psychiatry and medical aspects to the new science.
All of these men are considered founders of the science of psychology according to the accepted version of history. Yet an alternative interpretation of history would include Modern Spiritualism as a contributor to the birth of psychology. It added a sense of the occult that included the direct action of mind on mind and mind on matter. For example, the fundamental psychological concept of ‘subliminal perception’ was first introduced to explain mental telepathy rather than normal psychological phenomena. The successes of Newtonian physics and science must also be considered a major factor in the development of psychology. And finally, Ernst Mach and his philosophical interpretations of the relationship between the human mind and natural reality must also be included. Many of the ideas of the period in pure philosophy of science were also factors, including the rise of positivism in science.
With these new developments, especially its expansion into the Cartesian realm of Mind with the development of psychology, Newtonian science had become so successful by the 1890s that scientists began to believe that science was complete. The decade of the 90s marked the height of success of Newtonianism. Science mistakenly thought it was on the verge of explaining everything, all known phenomena as well as any newly discovered phenomena. Most scientists never realized that science had any problems, let alone serious problems, but even if such problems were recognized the general feeling was that they would soon be explained by the Newtonian theories and Natural Laws at hand. No one even suspected that major changes in science and human thought were about to occur because they did not realize that the emerging problems posed a direct challenge to the most fundamental aspects of Newtonian physics and science.
The same historical factors that forced
the emergence of psychology and Modern Spiritualism also led directly
to a major shift in the scientific perspective and interpretation of
the natural world that has become known as the Second Scientific
Revolution. Science has never realized that the changing Cartesian
boundaries are its greatest problem and the boundaries were shifting
quite rapidly and radically. Both Modern Spiritualism and psychology
were products of the shifting boundaries between Mind and Matter, but
neither really addressed the problem for physics presented by the
shifting boundaries. In any case, Modern Spiritualism was an integral
part of science. Its existence and development paralleled the more
obvious scientific successes of the period. The direct problems for
physics were more abstract than thought at the time and had nothing
to do with either Modern Spiritualism or psychology. They resulted
from a fundamental clash between electromagnetic theory and Newtonian
mechanics, both clearly within the Cartesian realm of Matter and
having nothing to do with Mind. Yet the boundaries between Mind and
Matter did not stabilize again until after the Second Scientific
Revolution because they were still part of the revolution.
Author's
Biography
Dr. Beichler received
his PhD. in 1999 from the Union Institute and University. He combined
previous work in science and Master Degrees in Physics and the History
of Science with hew research in Parapsychology to design his own
program in Paraphysics. He presently holds the only advanced degree in
Paraphysics in the world from an accredited school. He is an Associate
Professor of Physics at West Virginia University at Parkersburg. His
areas of expertise include the historical and philosophical foundations
of Non-Euclidean geometries, late nineteenth-century science and Modern
Physics. Dr. Beichler also conducts theoretical research in the Physics
of Consciousness and has developed a unified field theory based on a
five-dimensional Einstein-Kaluza model of space-time that can explain
life,mind and consciousness. Dr. Beichler has published articles
through and given presentations before the Society of Scientific
Exploration, the U.S. Psychotronics Association, the Academy of Spirituality and
Paranormal Studies, Inc. and the Tucson conferences "Toward a
Science of Consciousness" and Quantum Consciousness. He is presently
completing a book, "To Die
For: The Physical Reality of Conscious Survival", which
offers the first ever scientific theory of death and the afterlife. The
book is expected to be published in about three months.
Note from the Editor: Mr. James E. Beichler is also a member of the Publications Committee of the Academy of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies.
Back to ContentWritten by Julie L. Harper
On a couple different occasions, I heard mention of the phrase “the workers of the last hour” but its meaning alluded me. Since then, I’ve learned that the last hour is not sixty minutes before the demise of earthly time, but instead it’s a glorious space in time of God-like progression.
I learned that those who do good works contribute toward the building of a higher level of consciousness upon an existing foundation of ancient wisdom. The building of each elevated conscious level raises human evolution yet once again because we’re all universally connected.
I soon recognized that we, as Spiritists, have the teachings from the wisdom of master prophets at our fingertips which make it our moral duty to lovingly exercise good works according to our understanding. Again, it is our moral duty to be dedicated altruistic servants of God toward the furtherance of good progression to benefit humanity. All current good workers are amongst “the Workers of the Last Hour.”
| ° NEWS,
EVENTS AND MISCELLANEOUS |
The Spiritist
Society of Florida is
honored to
announce our 25th
Anniversary!!! Our group first started meeting in 1978 but as a
Society it has been twenty-five years now. We have always passed out
Spiritist material at our meeting…and later as a newsletter. We
then started sending it out through the internet all around the
world. Our readers have let us know how it has consoled, inspired,
and sustained them. We are so pleased to be able to do this, with
God’s Help.
We thank God and
His Messengers that have guided, inspired, and watched over all of us
- our mediums, writers, website creators, and our group! Our members
form a wonderful spiritual family, with some having been with us
since the beginning. We pray that we may continue to merit the
spiritual assistance that we feel we know we have received…in many
years to come!
PROJECT
SPONSERED BY AKES-ALLAN KARDEC EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY
TO HONOR THE BRAZILIAN MEDIUM CHICO
XAVIER
The Messenger: Triumph of the Spirit
Online Video Series
The struggles of Lisa become an intriguing backdrop to show Chico's early introduction to mediumship. The loss of his mother when he was five lifted the little boy unconsciously into a new realm of reality. The immense pain that burned in his heart had the force to expand his perceptions, and he was able to reach and talk to his mother in the hereafter. Was it a miracle brought by pain and loneliness? This was a question that Chico referred to as the wisdom of life. Soothing and comforting, these frequent conversations with his departed mother sustained Chico during his childhood and set the path and purpose of his life.
Fabio Mendes delivers one of those special "triumph-of-the-human-spirit" film series, and it is more than just a typical life story. He portrays the rough and intense experience of a man who had to win over prejudices and religious persecution in order to speak about a new vision of life and a free relationship with Christ. The film is packed with clips and photos, many of them rare segments unearthed from the personal archives of Chico's early companions and co-workers.
The video series was underwritten by the Allan Kardec Educational Society and 60 percent of the $20,000 budget was financed by public contributions. The Messenger is a three-year effort to create the first movie produced in the English language about this great medium and humanitarian. Two elements have distinguished this project. First, the unique focus on online distribution via viral marketing, online social communities, and broadly defined spiritual and religious websites. Second, the goal of creating a fresh dialogue with the Web generation. The Messenger is a project that will have a long life and travel to distant locations in the online community.
Chico Xavier will live long in the collective memory of Brazil as a symbol of charity and pure spirituality. He was, of course, more than a symbol. He served as medium for over 75 years. His humble beginnings and elementary school education became a frame in which an infinite human wisdom was born. Whether comforting a mother who had lost a child, receiving a message from a departed parent, or raising funds for the poor, Chico had a penetrating sensitivity to the struggles of the human soul.
Claire represents the millions of Brazilians who love Chico Xavier, and admire his spirituality. She wants to follow in his footsteps. Claire admires Chico's profound love of Christ and the beautiful poetry that the spirits conveyed through him. Her online video conversations with Lisa are driven by a desire to share a better way to handle life's many problems. But Lisa has a secret that will change their lives forever.
Chico's unique spirit shines through the story, including the moments when he stoically won over the religious persecution and social intolerance of the early 1950s. Chico was meek as a person, but powerful and focused as a spirit. He became a personal hero of every Christian believer in Brazil, regardless of denomination.
Please click on the attached link and enjoy what author Theresa Welsh calls an "... amazing and prolific [video] of this revered messenger, so loved in his own country ...". More important, though, share this link with your friends, talk about it at your place of worship, make it available in your online community. Tell everyone! Chico's life and example of Christian living carry a message of comfort and transformation that will touch everyone's lives.
To watch the video on the website click here.
To watch the video on You Tube, please click on http://www.youtube.com/user/AKESonline
To learn more about Chico Xavier's life and work, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Xavier.
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