Spirituality for your everyday life.
Spiritualism is a known to be a belief system or a religion which postulates belief in god but not in an anthropomorphic manner. The most distinguishing feature is that the spirits of the dead who reside in the spirit world have the ability to communicate with the creatures in the living world. Anyone in the world can receive the messages from spirits but these messages come from some medium, which can provide information about afterlife. Spiritualism gained popularity and reached its peak in the 1840s to the 1920s especially in the English speaking countries. It is said that by 1897 spiritualism had around eight million followers around Europe and United States. The members were mainly from the upper and the middle class whereas the corresponding movement in the Continental Europe and Latin America was known as Spiritism.
The religion flourished for half a century without formal organization, attaining cohesion through periodicals, tours by trance lecturers and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Most of the prominent Spiritualists were women. By the late 1880s the credibility of the informal movement had weakened due to accusations of fraud being perpetrated by mediums, and formal Spiritualist organizations began to appear. Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational Spiritualist Churches in the United States and United Kingdom.
The spiritualists strongly believe in communicating with the spirits of the dead humans. There is a belief among them that the spirits are a medium which are gifted to humans through séances. It is believed that spirits have a capacity to become perfect and grow properly through higher spheres or planes. The after life is believed to be a place where spirits evolve and it’s not a static place. There are two common beliefs, one is that contact with spirits is possible and the other is that spirits lie on a higher plane. One third belief has evolved that says spirits can provide knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about afterlife and God. Thus many members speak of spirit guides who contain things about specific spirit, contacting spirits, spiritual guidance, and many other things about spiritual world.
Some Christians related spiritualism with witchcraft. But later it was clearly explained by some spiritualists that how and why spiritualism is used. Spiritualism mainly evolved in the Christian environment and has many features of Christianity. The features range from Christian moral systems like Sunday practises to singing hymns. But on many significant points Christianity is different from spiritualism.
Spiritualists do not believe that the works or faith of a mortal during a brief lifetime can serve as a basis for assigning a soul to an eternity of Heaven or Hell; they view the afterlife as containing hierarchical spheres, through which each spirit can progress. Spiritualists differ from Protestant Christians in that the Judeo-Christian Bible is not the primary source from which they derive knowledge of God and the afterlife: for them, their personal contacts with spirits provide that.
Christians believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross as he had to pay for the sins of humanity that started from the dawn of humanity and ended till eternity. But spiritualists have some other views and don’t believe that Jesus was laid on the cross to pay for the human sins, instead they believe that each person is liable for their own thoughts, deeds, words, etc. And they believe that after death people return to their spirit realms. Christians have Ten Commandments and spiritualists follow different number of principles, which differ form tradition to tradition. There are many spiritual churches which have similar Christian theology, forms of worship, praise, and liturgical orientation. Among these Christian Spiritualist groups are the historically African American denominations collectively known as the Spiritual Church Movement, a group which includes multi-church organizations such as the Metropolitan Spiritual Churches of Christ and Pentecostal Spiritual Assemblies of Christ International.
Some Jewish adherents believe that spiritualism is strictly forbidden by the Bible. The Jewish that inclined towards Spiritualism it is common to refer to trance medium ship as prophecy, a vision.
In Hinduism spiritualism is believed to be the existence of soul after death and also the existence of spirits or ghosts after death. Hinduism teaches both reincarnation and spiritism. In Hinduism people believe that if a person dies at an early age then their spirit roams around the world until it reaches the perfect date of their death.
Spiritualism differs from tradition to tradition and from religion to religion. But most of the spiritualists say that spirits are not contacted to obtain magical powers but to make a proper contact with them in the real world. Theosophists viewed Spiritualism as unsophisticated.
