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Split Thread Scorpion's Spiritualism

How do you know that these teachers know anything?

Do focus.

Over the years I came to believe in some of them. Because what they said made sense to me. However I have been disillusioned by some teachers.

For example there is a church called White Eagle lodge which I went to for several years, and they published a lot of uplifting books. But one day I read in one that the supposed spirit guide said there were people on Venus and Mars. This was written in the early 1960's before the NASA probes to these planets.

On reading this I promptly sold all my White Eagle books.
 
Over the years I came to believe in some of them. Because what they said made sense to me. However I have been disillusioned by some teachers.

For example there is a church called White Eagle lodge which I went to for several years, and they published a lot of uplifting books. But one day I read in one that the supposed spirit guide said there were people on Venus and Mars. This was written in the early 1960's before the NASA probes to these planets.

On reading this I promptly sold all my White Eagle books.

This should show you that it is you that is reading knowledge into what spiritualism says.

It is your mind that is deciding what it will henceforth declare to be so. Hence all your assertions from the pulpit.

Now, we all work this way, that's no slight. What skepticism tried to show is that we must look at this human nature and hit pause.

There is in fact no reason to accept there are spirits at all, let alone what they say.

You will insist that it's valid for you, but in this post you have delineated the problem:

When asked how you know: it's all about the teachings and who said what.
When asked how you know that they know: it's all about what makes sense to you.

Put short: Sometimes it's external knowledge that defines truth; other times it's internal knowledge that defines truth.

Heads you win. Tails we lose. You have fixed the deck.
 
By that logic, YOU can't contact the "spirit world" either. So where are to getting all of the crap from?


Making it up on the run I suspect.

It occurs to me, from Scorpion's revelations here, there may be a test to establish if a spirit has moved on to another incarnation. All one has to do is get one of these mediums to try and call the departed one up. If there is a no show then the spirit is now attached to a new body.

Hang on though, as Scorpion has said, there are some spirits that can leave their bodies of the day and flit about the place. If their body of the day is very small, like only a few cells, they may be difficult to see however.:(
 
Some of these posts should probably be merged into your spiritualism thread, and I suggest we continue this there.

But basically, because you're saying the spirits are not supposed to allow proof of their doings to even exist, there is no way to distinguish between the work of a spirit, a lie, a mistake, a delusion, or random chance...



If we open ourselves to the possibility of inspiration from higher worlds we may get guidance, but to determine if it is from the spirit world or not is a subtle game.

We may, but if these spirits are not meant to reveal themselves except in vague ways that can't be meaningfully distinguished from chance or cheating... then how do you know which psychic is a real psychic with a message from above, and which one is a clever charlatan who just tells everyone what he knows they want to hear?

Your answer seems to be that as long as it makes you feel good, you'll believe it. That simply isn't enough for most of us here...
 
Over the years I came to believe in some of them. Because what they said made sense to me. However I have been disillusioned by some teachers.

For example there is a church called White Eagle lodge which I went to for several years, and they published a lot of uplifting books. But one day I read in one that the supposed spirit guide said there were people on Venus and Mars. This was written in the early 1960's before the NASA probes to these planets.

On reading this I promptly sold all my White Eagle books.

Is this not a perfect illustration of why your approach to knowledge gathering is a bad one? You've just shared a story of being taken in - for years - by something you have later come to conclude was utterly wrong at best and completely fraudulent at worst, because it "made sense to [you]". Yet here you are trying to claim knowledge gained from other teachers, and the reason you know this knowledge is right is that it makes sense to you. Do you think, perhaps, that the lesson to be learnt there was that whether or not something makes sense to you is a poor criterion on which to determine whether or not it's true?

You've spoken many times about mediums and psychics telling you things about yourself or those you know or have known that the mediums couldn't possibly have known. Answer me this, if you will - did you ever have an experience like that when you attended White Eagle Lodge?
 
You've spoken many times about mediums and psychics telling you things about yourself or those you know or have known that the mediums couldn't possibly have known. Answer me this, if you will - did you ever have an experience like that when you attended White Eagle Lodge?

As far as I recall White Eagle lodge did not give personal messages. The whole thing revolved around the medium Grace Cook giving trance lectures.
They had a religious service, and the highlight was a trance lecture.

I certainly don't remember getting any personal message there.
 
We may, but if these spirits are not meant to reveal themselves except in vague ways that can't be meaningfully distinguished from chance or cheating... then how do you know which psychic is a real psychic with a message from above, and which one is a clever charlatan who just tells everyone what he knows they want to hear?


The real one is the one who hasn't been caught cheating..... Yet.
 
It seems to me that these Spirits you say exist have whatever characteristics they need to make your belief in them work.

Very convenient.
 
Loss leader, asked on another thread "What is your source? Because it isn't the Bible."

Yea! I have attended many trance lectures by mediums over the entire 1970's and I have a library of spiritualist books. Most of what I say is from the memory of the picture I built up in the 70's, now I have to refer to my books for conformation.
 
Questions by Jrhowell
How about people who were overweight their whole lives? Will they be carrying around the extra pounds in the afterfife?
Do you get your natural hair color or the one you chose from a bottle?
How about those with disfiguring birth defects? What if the defect was corrected surgically when the person was a child? Are those fixed at death or were they there because of karma and are carried into the afterlife?
What about gender reassignment?

I can't possibly know all those details. I assume the spirit body does not carry defects over from the earth body.
I know a spirit guide said sex is neutral in the spirit world, so everyone will be asexual.
 
At the risk of sounding sexist my observations over many years suggest that women go in for this spiritualism in a much bigger way than guys.

I have walked past many, many, mediums booths at different fairs and would estimate 90% of the time the medium, and client being served scammed is female also.

Please don't flay me alive girls I am sure there are other kinds of woo that men are more susceptible to than women.:boxedin:
 
Really? Then how can you be sure of any details at all?

How do you know that?

I only state things I remember from spiritualist lectures, or books.

They have said there is no sex in the spirit world. As for the spirit body not carrying over defects from the earth body I used the words " I assume"
I cannot actually state that as a fact because it never came up in a trance lecture/
 
I only state things I remember from spiritualist lectures, or books.

Exactly. You state them as facts. They are not facts.

You even recognize this, now and again. Randomly:
..I used the words " I assume" I cannot actually state that as a fact because it never came up in a trance lecture

If you can do that once, why can't you do it every time?
 
Prove I don't have an invisible dragon in my garage or admit that you accept it as true.
 
I only state things I remember from spiritualist lectures, or books.
Yet you are fully aware that memory is terribly fallible, right?

They have said there is no sex in the spirit world.
Who exactly said that? You? Your "gurus"? Who?

As for the spirit body not carrying over defects from the earth body I used the words " I assume"
I cannot actually state that as a fact because it never came up in a trance lecture/
You have no clue, then. You simply made it up.
 
Yet you are fully aware that memory is terribly fallible, right?

Who exactly said that? You? Your "gurus"? Who?

You have no clue, then. You simply made it up.

I sat in a developing circle and a medium went into trance, and the spirit of his Chinese guide said "sex is neutral in the spirit world"

I think I have also heard this from other sources.
 

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