A Spiritualist Church: Messages from the Dead?

         As an explorer of the paranormal, I’ve done some unusual things—everything from visiting haunted buildings to attending trance mediumship sessions and ritual magic circles. In November 1998, I had the opportunity to attend a service at a Spiritualist church, and the experience did make an impression.

         Spiritualists believe that a part of the human personality survives after death and is able to communicate with the living. Spiritualist churches can differ greatly in their practices, but they are all founded on this belief in spirit communication. I had a friend who was a member of a Spiritualist church, and she invited me to attend a service where she would be speaking. Of course I accepted.

         The service took place in an old, musty church that would have seemed haunted to me even if it hadn’t been Spiritualist. I just had a sense of old energies lingering in the dimness, like faint after-images imposed one on top of the other. It wasn’t the most unnerving place I’d ever been, but I definitely sensed something. The service, to my surprise, ended up containing some familiar elements: Christian hymns, Bible readings, and a belief in Jesus. This, it turns out, was a Christian Spiritualist Church. But the rest of the service was very unlike anything in a Christian church.

         My friend’s talk focused more on the metaphysical aspects of God—such as the idea of God’s presence in all things, everywhere. I enjoyed the talk, and it did give me some food for thought. But the “reading” I received from one of the ministers was the thing that really floored me. Everyone at the service got a reading, a message from the “spirit world”, and mine was so accurate that it really shook me up. Back then I was going through a difficult time, and was just beginning to climb out of some anxiety and loneliness. The minister, who had never met me before, looked me straight in the eye and told me exactly how I was feeling, and what I needed to do to feel better. One might argue that she had probably just observed all that in my demeanor; but she verbalized my feelings so precisely that I don’t think she could have done it just by looking at me. She told me that I felt like I “was dragging an enormous weight uphill,” and that I was having trouble trusting anyone to help me with it. Which was dead-on correct.

         Was this amazingly accurate message really a communication from the other side? It’s certainly possible. I know that spirits can communicate with us, and I believe there really are some who want to help us. And, fact is, I was helped by that reading. It helped motivate me to make some much-needed changes—resulting in a life that is so much fuller and happier now than it was then. So—if this really was a message from the spirit realm—thank you!

Taunting the Unknown

         As someone who’s experienced a haunting first-hand, I shudder when I see ghost hunters on TV taunting the unseen energies they’re trying to document. Even though, in my opinion, most of these shows are fabricated and staged, that doesn’t mean there aren’t invisible forces present. The locations ghost hunters visit are, for the most part, places with a history of strange occurrences. And it seems like such risky business to antagonize the unknown.

          I’ll never forget the time, years ago, when a friend and I were brazen enough to taunt the presence that had been causing disturbances in our other friend’s house. One night in late December, while we were on Christmas break from college, the three of us slept in the bedroom where the disruptions had been occurring: rapping, apparitions, objects moving by themselves, and more. A lot of thumping and banging would come from the closet in that room, and a tall bureau had been wedged in front of the closet door--to help our friend who lived there feel a little safer.
         On the night when the three of us stayed there, we spent a long time just lying in our places on the bed and floor, waiting nervously to see what would happen. Things didn’t get interesting until we finally turned out the lights and tried to go to sleep.

         We began to hear noises around us, as if something was moving around the room, disturbing things. One of the noises was near the vanity where my friend would put on her makeup, and I quipped, “Hey, it sounds like he’s putting on his makeup!” My other friend responded with a gibe about our unseen visitor’s sexual orientation--tasteless and insulting, to be sure. Immediately we heard a loud bang, and we screamed. When we finally had the courage to turn on the lights, we saw that a can had fallen--or been thrown--from the top of the bureau, which was about 6 feet tall. The can had landed a few feet out from the bureau, close to the place where two of us were lying on the floor.

         Just a few minutes later there was another loud bang, and another scream from one of my friends. She was sitting by the wall with her elbow touching it, and something had thumped soundly on the wall, close to her elbow. Needless to say, we ended up spending the rest of the night with the black light on. In retrospect, that seems like a strange choice of lighting--everything looks eerie under black light. But it seemed like a good idea at the time!

         I guess my point is that unseen, unexplained energies do exist--and they are sometimes able to respond to what we say and do. Since we truly don’t understand what we’re dealing with, why not approach with caution--and a degree of respect? At this point in my life, I would never treat any area of the mysterious in a flippant way. The paranormal is not a game. One might argue that I wasn’t really harmed as a result of my brash behavior--but who's to say that I wasn't just lucky? Who really knows the extent of what the invisible can do? And--how do I know that I didn't cause distress to an already disturbed spirit? I'd much prefer, at this point, to approach with respect.
         I’m not saying that we humans shouldn’t remain curious about the unseen, or continue to explore it; I’m just saying we should do it with caution and respect. What do you think?