She Spoke to the Dead. They Told Her to Free the Slaves.

She Spoke to the Dead. They Told Her to Free the Slaves.

Story by Madeline Bodin  ·  Illustrations by Fan Pu  ·  Edited by Julia Métraux  

Angels and spirits were credited with acting through mediums who painted, sang, recited poetry, wrote, lectured and took daguerreotype photographs under their influence. Freedom and the shedding of chains were popular Spiritualist themes, particularly of Sprague’s.

Sprague herself was a “trance medium.” While standing in front of audiences of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people, she willed spirits to possess her — and she spoke as they bid her to.

Shall any say, ‘Let the captive go free, burst the gyves [shackles] from the slaves, take poverty away from the world, let every one be blest with enough and to spare, let ignorance be enlightened, in this world, before we raise the question of the immortality of the human soul?’

When man thinks God is a vengeful and wrathful deity, how can he help wishing to be revenged upon his enemies?”

Thinking about this one more...I'd be curious if there were similar messages. This seems like one of the few clearly moral commandments through a paranormal exchange?

Plato describes an NDE, the first historical record of one, but he doesn't seem to receive any messages to free the slaves of Greece. I don't recall any Hindu/Vedic mystic experiences of seeming Absolute Idealism making a change to the caste system either.

There are some NDEs telling people to spread the faith of Pure Land Buddhism but again I don't recall a clear moral message beyond that about challenging some long held cultural evil like, say, foot binding of women.

Thinking about this one more...I'd be curious if there were similar messages. This seems like one of the few clearly moral commandments through a paranormal exchange?

Plato describes an NDE, the first historical record of one, but he doesn't seem to receive any messages to free the slaves of Greece. I don't recall any Hindu/Vedic mystic experiences of seeming Absolute Idealism making a change to the caste system either.

There are some NDEs telling people to spread the faith of Pure Land Buddhism but again I don't recall a clear moral message beyond that about challenging some long held cultural evil like, say, foot binding of women.

I’m not sure many NDE experiencers bring back specific messages do they? I can’t think of any off hand but Tim might know. 

As for other purported moral messages from the afterlife there seem to be a lot. For example, Silver Birch. Or did I miss the point?

I’m not sure many NDE experiencers bring back specific messages do they? I can’t think of any off hand but Tim might know. 

As for other purported moral messages from the afterlife there seem to be a lot. For example, Silver Birch. Or did I miss the point?

No point, I was just trying to remember if there was anything. I'd forgotten some the channeled stuff gives moral messages, though do you recall if any of it related directly to a particular evil of a time period?

[Ninshub]

I would suppose it sometimes happens but pretty rarely - maybe in those NDEs that seem more strongly culturally-bound.

What has often been reported in published NDEs is prophecies/warnings about the future and sometimes within those an urging for the individual or the collective humans to address the problems.
https://near-death.com/future/

That page mostly describes the same 4 or 5 NDErs though. Ned Dougherty had a pretty "morally conservative" NDE, you could say. He says he got the message that China should convert to "God".

While of course no one could argue with the self evident moral correctness of freeing slaves, I'm now wondering if mediumship doesn't simply mirror the social and moral fashions of the time and milieu in which it takes place? Spiritualism was, after all, for many years a progressivist, even socialist, movement.

Of course, this influence would probably usually be implicit, rather than explicit as in the above example.

Do any oracular messages on the global evolution of souls or the world predate the popularizing of Darwin and his theory?

While of course no one could argue with the self evident moral correctness of freeing slaves, I'm now wondering if mediumship doesn't simply mirror the social and moral fashions of the time and milieu in which it takes place? Spiritualism was, after all, for many years a progressivist, even socialist, movement.

Of course, this influence would probably usually be implicit, rather than explicit as in the above example.

Do any oracular messages on the global evolution of souls or the world predate the popularizing of Darwin and his theory?

I think there are some teleological aspects in different faiths. Both ancient Greece and India seem to have ideas relating to consciousness actively creating/entering the world and then ascending again. [Also Gnosticism/Hermeticism and Kabbalah could be said to express this to some degree I think?]

They "fit" with evolution but I don't think any of them necessarily can be said to predict it.

Regarding morals - yeah I wonder about this as well. Did anyone's life review make them feel that slavery was wrong? The founder of Mormonism seems to shift into a view of abolition & equality over the years, though I don't think he had any kind of NDE. [Though looking into it, NDEs do seem to be something Mormons are interested in.]

Regarding morals - yeah I wonder about this as well. Did anyone's life review make them feel that slavery was wrong? The founder of Mormonism seems to shift into a view of abolition & equality over the years, though I don't think he had any kind of NDE. [Though looking into it, NDEs do seem to be something Mormons are interested in.]

NDEs commonly tend to be at an individual, personal level, so that someone may see and feel, experience, live the world through the eyes of other people whose lives they have impacted. I think it's important to consider that this includes the good, positive impacts as well, but the ones which caused pain or altered the course of someone's life for the worse, those tend to stand out sometimes. When it comes to overall principles, well some NDEs cause the person to rearrange their own life, maybe dropping an existing career and beginning some other path.

Other NDEs can lean towards a feeling of being here to do something, having a definite purpose. Exactly what that 'something' is, well quite often it is left unstated, unspecified, something a person has to discover as they go along. In those cases it isn't a matter of following some specific instruction or guidance.

Do any oracular messages on the global evolution of souls or the world predate the popularizing of Darwin and his theory?

“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.”
Rumi

Did anyone's life review make them feel that slavery was wrong?

Of course slavery was abolished (well, supposedly in most parts of the world) long before NDE's were brought to our attention in huge numbers, but of course the experience has always been there. We don't have any reliable sources? to know if slavery was frowned upon during old or ancient "life reviews" (shall we say) as more or less everyone stayed dead (when they died).  

Of course I cannot see how it could ever be justified under any circumstances but that leads us into all kinds of problems with the term 'all knowing' and 'all loving' deity etc and the problem of evil and it's logical origin or not.