Surveying the landscape => A paranormal, religious future?

I was struck listening to the Julie Beischel interview with Mishlove when she mentions that the mediums she works with describe themselves, for the most part, as "secular". (Only one of them described herself as a Spiritualist.) So a secular spirituality, if you will.

Julie learned under Gary Schwarch. He studied a few Spiritualist mediums.

The majority of Spiritualists I know will give a reading if pushed, but that is not their purpose of mediumship. I am a Spiritualist and certified medium with the nsac.org. I do not give readings, but I do offer what we refer to as "spirit greetings" during the meetings. The purpose of it is to demonstrate continuous life.

My personal opinion is the particulars of mediumship have been established for over a century. The engineer in me thinks it is time to move on and find ways to develop and serve with the ability.

When I became ordained my preference would have been to be ordained as a metaphysician rather than a minister. The NSAC describes Spiritualism as the science, philosophy and religion of continuous life. Many of us in the NSAC do not consider it a religion. If asked, I would say that I am a secular Spiritualist.

Of the many paranormalists I have communicated with, the majority seem to be spiritualist-minded. It always fascinates me that organized Spiritualism is more like a 7-11 market compared to orthodox religion's supermarket. Yet, the supermarket goers seem so often unimpressed by their religion.

The % are interesting too in relation to belief in contact with spirits or with the dead - pre-boomers are a lot lower than boomers and above, and Gen X are the highest in those categories.

A curious set of statistics. A belief in hell is highest (46) among the 18-29 age group. I'm not sure whether that indicates such a belief is rising, or is always, across time, higher among the young, who often face struggling with life's uncertainties to a great extent, before they find a path giving some stability.

When I became ordained my preference would have been to be ordained as a metaphysician rather than a minister. The NSAC describes Spiritualism as the science, philosophy and religion of continuous life. Many of us in the NSAC do not consider it a religion. If asked, I would say that I am a secular Spiritualist.

Can I ask if that allows one a belief in God?

The New Age of Astrology

There have been enough debates on astrology, my favorite dinner conversation rebuttal of it coming from an Idealist who said it was too "scientific" as it it made machinery out of our life... that said I don't want to make this thread about future trends the place to debate astrology but in the interest of [balancing] the varied links debunking it in the article here is Braude giving a lightly suggestive argument that we shouldn't be too quick to rule it out:

 Postscript: Some Thoughts on Astrology

My 17 year old daughter has a deep interest in astrology, and is attending weekly night classes in London. Her Mum probably introduced her to the subject, but she has been introduced to many esoteric topics and astrology is the only one that she has shown any real interest in.
She intends going to University later this year after completing her A-levels to study Psychology. She is well aware that she must keep her astrology secret from her lecturers. Her pals already assume psychology is a second class topic and that astrology is laughable, despite knowing nothing about it.
It’s conditioning. It’s sad.

Can I ask if that allows one a belief in God?

There is something of a continuum of belief amongst different Spiritualist groups from mostly Christian to pure secular. It is correct to say that NSAC Spiritualists are not Christan. Jesus and other spiritual leaders are considered important wayshowers to be respected but not to be worshiped.

NSAC Spiritualists are pretty pragmatic with just a few tenets and no real "thou shalt believes." We do not accept the concept of an anthropomorphic god. As I do in the Implicit Cosmology with the Source concept, we bound our tenets with the idea of Infinite Intelligence. You could model that as the reality field and Natural Law as the expression of infinite intelligence. This is in the same way that naturally occurring physical principles such as the half-life concept or pi for circles are the expression of the Big Bang.

Spiritualists are expected to learn to recognize, understand and live in accordance with principles of Natural Law, but we are not very specific about what those are. A better way of putting it is what I have come to describe as the Mindful Way: by habitually stopping to consider the implication of our actions, and intending for them to be in accordance with the nature of reality, we tend to aline our personal reality with the actual reality. (I think we have so few rules because all of us are still learning to understand actual reality.)

Of course, we accept the evidence of survival. That point of view shapes all of our concepts. One understanding is that everyone is routinely aware of everyone else. We say specifically discarnate everyone else, but in practice, we are aware of the influence of empathy in our actions and moods.

Old-school Spiritualism holds that we are just channels for our transitioned friends, teachers and loved ones. That means that the spiritual healing we (seek to) demonstrate is us acting as a conduit for the healing influence of our discarnate friends. We do not heal others. We just provide the means. The same goes for mediumship. It is not us providing the information. We are just the conduit.

It is our intention that everyone learns to do this for themselves. Thus, core Spiritualists think of mediumship as a demonstration "As I do now, so can you."

Ancient Hermetic and Sanskrit-based teachings have always included the creative process and personal seeking. Probably the most important development in consciousness research for Spiritualists in modern time is the effect unconscious "preprocessing" has on our conscious perception. This is to have a profound effect on Spiritualism in the coming years as we redefine mediumship and healing.

I know this is more than you asked, but a simple yes or no about believing in God would seem to be meaningless to thinking people.

 
I know this is more than you asked, but a simple yes or no about believing in God would seem to be meaningless to thinking people.

Thanks for taking the time Tom. 

If I may, do you think Source is ‘about love’? Kind of like capitalism is about money! 

Does anyone know where (in which country) Malf lives ? I find Malf to be a pleasant but at times rather annoying character (particularly with his absurd "explanations" for various phenomena) and I'm curious to know if there is any influence from where he hales from. ( New Zealand ?). To be fair to Malf of course, he probably thinks the same about me.

Thanks for taking the time Tom. 

If I may, do you think Source is ‘about love’? Kind of like capitalism is about money! 

Listen, Woolley! "Source" is something you put on your chips in Wigan !

Listen, Woolley! "Source" is something you put on your chips in Wigan !

I was being respectful to Tom, as Source is the word he used. Actually, I quite like it too. 

I was being respectful to Tom, as Source is the word he used. Actually, I quite like it too. 

Thank source for that. Phew ! Just a minute...you quite like it