Mediumship
For the keyword »Spiritism« comprehensive literature about communication with the hereafter is available. Spiritism is understood as research of the hereafter. Its main objective is to prove that life after death exists. The knowledge gained in Spiritism forms the basis for Spiritualism, which takes up results of Spiritism and turns them into worldviews.
While the belief in the existence and manifestation of ghosts is a very ancient one and existed in all religions, cultures and eras, Spiritism only developed in the 19th century. The 1st April 1848 is considered as the »date of birth« of Spiritism (Source: »Handbook of Religious Communities«). Two little girls, Leah (10) and Kate (12) heard knocking sounds in the house of their father John Fox, a Methodist farmer at Hydesvill near Rochester (USA). In a playful way the girls established contact with the »knocking ghost«. A fact-finding committee consisting of the »most learned inhabitants« of Rochester, among them Fenimore Cooper, the author of the famous novel »Leatherstocking«, was not able to explain the knocking sounds in a natural way. After Isaak Port had invented a knocking alphabet, it was possible to talk to the ghost. He said that he had been a salesman who had lived in Fox's house. He had been murdered and buried in the cellar. People dug in the cellar and found a skeleton.
This incident was widely discussed and triggered numerous other phenomena. Houses were haunted, tables turned, direct voices heard and automatically written down. Andrew Jackson Davis (1826–1910), who had medial gifts, wrote the book »The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse«, which describes ways and means of spiritual communication with the hereafter. In 1855 the number of Spiritists in America was estimated at about 2 million. By 1848 the movement had already gripped France and subsequently Germany and England. Highly esteemed personalities joined the movement, and even atheists were convinced.
In the following decades Spiritism spread throughout the world. Among its supporters there were not only ordinary people but also highly renowned scholars such as Hans Driesch, philosopher and former student of Häckel; Gustav Theodor Fechner, philosopher; Friedrich Zöllner, astrophysicist; Charles Richet, physiologist and Nobel Prize winner; Alf Russel Wallace, who along with Darwin was a founder of the theory of natural selection; Marie and Pierre Curie, physicists and Nobel Prize winners; William James, leading American psychologist; Oliver Lodge and William Crookes, highly esteemed English physicists. Even today numerous academics are among the supporters of Spiritism.
The Spiritist movement led to the foundation of innumerable circles, research societies, communities and associations, indeed even numerous churches.
Spiritism as research of the hereafter describes the spiritual world as a subtle body world. According to the understanding of the Spiritists the subtle body world surrounds and penetrates the material world. Its radiating substance is characterized by different frequencies that determine the quality of the subtle body world. The spiritual world is supposed to be composed of a number of levels or dimensions of existence. The lower the radiation frequency of such a level is, the nearer it is – not in a spatial, but in a qualitative sense – to the dense body world.
According to the »Handbook of Religious Communities« experience has shown that in séances (sessions) preferentially »spiritual beings from a low level« speak to the members of the sessions and fob them off with banalities and fibs. The work also describes that Spiritists are very much interested in establishing contacts with »spiritual beings« from higher or the highest spheres, because their information concerns all levels and dimensions of the universe, reveals the internal laws which govern it, describes the individual spheres and answers the question about what God is like and why and for what purpose he created the world. The higher the rank of the spiritual being is, the more importance is attached to the information it provides. Therefore the so-called »father media« are particularly important – media through whom angels or other members of the heavenly hierarchies, or »Christ«, or even »God the Father« himself express themselves. Their »revelations«, however, are usually full of commonplaces and pious but meaningless phrases. That is why critical Spiritists are highly sceptical about revelations emanating from this particular source.
The Spiritist view of the world is - according to the »Handbook of Religious Communities« - characterized by the following basic principles:
a) The »dense material« world, i.e. the material world itself, is only a relatively small section of total reality. It is embedded into the »subtle material« world which is as real as the material world but cannot be perceived by physical sense organs and thus evades scientific research. The »subtle material« was called »Od«. According to its discoverer Karl Freiherr von Reichenbach (1788–1869) it is a concealed force that is comparable to magnetism. Nowadays Spiritists make use of the terminology and knowledge of nuclear physics and describe subtle bodies as substances consisting of radiation. The whole universe is made of these substances. The »dense material« is only condensed radiation, and in its smallest atomic constituents a continuous interchange between the corpuscle and the state of radiation takes place. The subtle body world – which is also referred to as the astral or etheric world – surrounds and penetrates the material world.
b) Man consists of three parts: the physical body, the astral body and the spirit. The astral body is a true counterpart to the physical body. It has limbs, sentiments and sense organs just like the physical body. But as it consists of subtle body substances, it is, unlike the physical body, not subject to the fate of sickening, aging and dying. It forms the actual housing for the spirit, which consists of indestructible substance. This means that it is endowed with eternal life.
c) Life on Earth is one stage on the spirit's way to completion. It is a kind of school, and the spirit incarnates in order to learn, to pass exams and thus mature for its further ascent. The incarnated spirit has to tackle the task to liberate itself from all bonds tying it to the material world and thus obstructing its advancement. Such ties are for example selfishness, instinctive sensuality, envy, pride, jealousy, bossiness, but also hypocritical piety and fanatic belief in dogmas. The most important task it has to fulfil is charity. Charity is the »only true religion«. For selfless love is the basic law underlying the universe. The true value of religions and denominations is therefore not measured by its doctrines, but by the love they extend and practice.
d) Death is neither the ending nor is it destruction, but it is a transition from the earthly stage to another stage of existence, i.e. a change of scene. Vested in the astral body the spiritual being enters the world of the hereafter. To guarantee that this transition takes place without crises, it is of utmost importance that the being has already believed in a life after death when still living an earthly life. For if a person dies in the frenzy that everything is over after death, this person will inevitably be confused after his physical death, because he does not believe that he has actually died as he is still alive; so he tries to continue his earthly activities and habits and realizes that something is wrong, and therefore goes astray restlessly and helplessly.
e) Similar to Earth the astral world has a landscape with mountains, valleys, lakes, animals, trees, flowers, cities etc. The lowest spheres of this world are described in most horrifying pictures. But good spirits care for the tortured ones, as soon as they are called. They help the poor ones to gain insight and lead them, if they repent, to purer worlds. Already slightly higher spheres are filled with peace and beauty and offer much more pleasure than the earthly world. The deceased comes into his appropriate environment, and his wishes and visions about home, garden, lifestyle etc. are immediately translated into reality. Furthermore he finds a vivid mental, cultural and social life.
f) The ways and tasks of the spiritual being in the hereafter are a direct continuation of his ways in earthly life. He is transplanted to the level of existence that would correspond to his stage of development on Earth. There are physical reasons for this phenomenon: The spiritual progress or regress during one’s life on Earth has direct impacts on the astral body, and assigns the astral body a higher or lower frequency. After physical death the spirit is sent into the sphere that has the same frequency. This is a kind of automatic judgment, the spiritualistic counterpart to the biblical Last Judgment. The entire way of the spirits is influenced by a kind of pedagogical evolutionism which has the following characteristics:
The books written by the former priest Johannes Greber (1876–1944) were particularly important for Christian Spiritualism. I, too, was recommended his book »Communication with the Spirit World of God - Its Laws and Purpose«, and I was fascinated when reading how the priest became familiar with mediumship, and what extraordinary processes take place around mediumship. The ideas of Spiritism were further disseminated through the books of the Frenchman L.H.D. Rivail, alias Allen Kardec (1804–1869). I subscribed to »Botschaften aus dem Jenseits« (»Messages from the Hereafter«), published by the Geistige Loge Zürich, and I consulted the books »Das persönliche Überleben des Todes« (»The Personal Survival Of Death«) by Emil Mattiesen and »Diesseits und jenseits der Scheidewand« (»On Both Sides of the Partition Wall«) by Friedrich Härdle. I attended a Viennese Circle which practiced mediumship. As I asked too many direct questions, I soon lost my chance to verify whether really deceased people were speaking to the people present in the sessions. But when looking back I really doubt whether I would ever have got this chance. The head of the group considered the processes as too natural as to feel any necessity to have these processes verified scientifically. He, who was firmly convinced about everything that was going on, wanted to convey to the members of the group the understanding that life after death actually existed. He certainly had good intentions and tried to help in his own way.
In Vienna Raimund Kubasek founded the »Cosmological Club«. He experimented eagerly and tried to bring some light into the darkness of the secret sciences. He was a remarkably critical man and published a series of treatises that impressed through their noble intentions, truthfulness and charity. In the final conclusion of his work »Lichtstrahl in das Dunkel der Geheimwissenschaften« (»Light into the Darkness of Secret Sciences«) he said that the most noble work of Man is to be an earnest advisor and to serve as an example in truthfulness to one’s neighbours. I think that he actually felt and thought like this.
In my opinion there are good reasons why Spiritism has repeatedly been doubted and questioned. For making tables turn or producing strange knocking sounds and light effects in dark, candle-lit rooms no spirits from other worlds are necessary. Some trivial tricks are sufficient to stun people who – looking for distraction – hope to see some signs of supposed ghosts. It is no use discussing such things seriously.
Spiritists who consider communication with the spirit world not only as mere amusement but really as a way to better understand life, of course reject vehemently these trivial activities and any kind of obfuscation and secretiveness. These Spiritists try to work out honestly and earnestly the truth about the meaning of our life and survival after death.
But can Spiritists who eagerly strive for truth not err? Is it not possible that even the most honest searcher of truth may be trapped in a pitfall of mental deceptions?
Looking back unto the many years in which I studied Spiritism and similar movements, I have to admit that I was repeatedly subject to deceptions, although I have always tried to find truth and nothing else but truth. Concealed deep inside of us there are dormant wishes and hopes, and our expectations draw us in one direction while disappointments drag us in another one. Only slowly and gradually does our personality grow and mature, our desires and hopes disappear, and our eyes are sharpened so that we can see clearer.
After having published the first edition of my work I made further considerations and compared the messages received from the hereafter again. My better understanding of the human nature and my experience helped me realise above all that currently our world is obscured so much by the spirit of faith that knowledge in the sense of truth cannot penetrate to us. Spiritual communication with the hereafter has always existed. Even Yahweh refers to fortune-telling spirits that had to be killed immediately because they did not confirm the desert god’s religious lies but warned the humans of this mischievous being. For peoples that believed in good and bad gods it was common to consult the gods, so people have always turned to individuals with medial gifts to ask them for advice before taking important decisions.
The problem, however, is that only very few people are really interested in truth and searchers of truth are often faced with nearly insurmountable problems. Those who want to find out more about it, should read works by Johannes Greber and Raimund Kubasek, two people who were truthful and made hard efforts to realise truth. The priest Johannes Greber established contact to beings that knew that many assertions of the Roman Catholic Church were wrong. These beings tried to explain what seemed wrong to them. Raimund Kubasek was obviously the first searcher of truth who realised that true knowledge can only be found through cognition rather than in faith.
I once read a statement in a psychic report that made me think a lot. I do not remember the title of the work nor the exact wording, but the passage in question claimed that even in the hereafter there are worlds whose inhabitants do not believe in God. Obviously Raimund Kubasek was able to establish contact to beings that had realised faith to be bad and that considered Christ to be the true God. Through automatic writing he was able to write a report about the life of Christ, which he published under the title »Lebenserkenntnis II« (»Life Cognition II«). This report, though slightly changed, was later published by Franz Woller under the title »Tatsachenbericht aus der Ewigen Welt für alle Völker der Erde« (»Factual Report from an Eternal World for all Peoples of the Earth«).
The publisher of Raimund Kubasek’s work »Life Cognition II« describes the enormous efforts that Raimund Kubasek had taken on his way to life cognition. I would like to quote an excerpt from the preface because it shows how difficult it is to penetrate to truth. Even if we manage to reach truthful beings this does not necessarily mean that they are actually free of error. In the same way as we can believe whatever we want, we can also »realise« whatever we want. Both humans and beings in the hereafter can err, can propose any kind of theories and can still be convinced that they have realised »truth«. This may happen if beings are not entirely truthful, accept excuses and turn a blind eye to certain things.
As a result we might think that everywhere there is nothing but confusion, both here in this world and »over there« in the hereafter. We think so because we live in an earthly reality and do not have deep insight into things. But this Earth and the spheres near to our Earth only represent a small part of the entire Creation. If we were somewhere else, we would be more than surprised about the ideologies that are propagated on our Earth.
Our error is that we expect a central entity to exist where truth is stored in a huge archive where it can be retrieved whenever necessary. But there is no such archive where information from world systems and galaxies is stored and which is supervised and administered by God, and in fact we can easily do without it when it really comes to recognising truth. As a result there is no retrievable information about Christ’s life either. If people such as Raimund Kubasek start asking questions about it, beings from other worlds try to answer these questions as precisely as possible. Such people consult different beings that they expect to know; these beings in turn may ask other beings etc., and it is obvious what the outcome of this type of communication is.
In fact 2000 years have passed since the time at which Christ lived. Many of the facts were faked, distorted or obscured. An enormous number of people have adopted this spiritual cocktail, have taken it with them to the other world and disseminated it. Therefore it is comprehensible that both on the Earth and in the hereafter nobody seems to know any longer what actually happened. When asking questions about it, the questioned beings try to communicate »the truth« to the humans, but even though they try hard to be truthful, the result is just another belief, even if this belief is now worded in the spirit of cognition.
And this is the excerpt from the preface of Kubasek’s work:
"From about the year 1910, Mr. Raimund Kubasek also dealt with occult powers. As a guest he started to attend numerous Spiritist meetings, though at the beginning he was highly sceptical and did not know much about Spiritism. Later he used various mediums to verify numerous experiments, and he finally became convinced of the existence of unknown powers. He eventually became certain that spiritual beings from the hereafter are able to express themselves through mediums. By means of mediumship the researcher tried to penetrate deep into the mental-spiritual field of knowledge. The beings from other worlds that communicated themselves hardly ever gave any clear or logical answers to his questions. But as he was used to reject empty phrases, theories, assumptions and suppositions, as well as dogmas and the mere belief in a mysterious highest being, he was not satisfied with the few useful answers he obtained. Determined to explore the erring and ignorance of the beings in the hereafter, he continued his in-depth research in this field. In his striving the scholar soon met fanatic resistance and often even malice because the circle participants did not want to accept any criticism on the spirit that had manifested itself. What practically all circles had in common was that their participants obviously had no interest in profound questions but were gathering above all out of curiosity and sensationalism. Furthermore it was striking that beings from the hereafter that manifested themselves always said and just gave the answers that the circle leader and the session participants expected. The researcher soon realised that it was above all the circle leader who was decisive for the medium’s spiritual attitude and that due to the participants’ similar thoughts and feelings only beings from the hereafter that had an equal state of mind and similar character traits were able to respond accordingly. Moreover he found that many beings that had already lived in the hereafter for decades or even centuries had the same ignorance in the spiritual-mental field, the same faith and also the same immoral character traits as they had had as humans.
To be able to continue his research independently and without meeting resistance, Raimund Kubasek trained one of his office colleagues, who was highly interested in these endeavours and furthermore possessed outstanding medial abilities, in automatic listening, writing and speaking. Over the years other mediums, too, offered their services for various experiments, and as a result the researcher was able to penetrate deep into the field of knowledge in question. He realised the power of suggestion, hypnosis and telepathy, the huge responsibility of the experimenter and eventually also the dangers of Spiritist communication for laymen and people who are easy to influence. Furthermore he found that it was above all the medium’s leader and guide who was responsible for the medium’s proper spiritual adjustment. He must by all means meet certain spiritual and character requirements and possess the necessary experience in this field to guarantee that the communicated spirit can be judged objectively and without being influenced.
Mr. Kubasek tried hard to make his colleague, who had proven to be the most reliable of all the mediums who he had worked with so far, spiritually adapt in such a way that eventually beings from the hereafter that possessed a higher way of thinking and good character traits were able to communicate themselves. With their clear and logical answers these beings were able to fill many of the gaps in the researcher’s knowledge. Now his aim was to use a suitable medium to establish contact with the former Disciples of Christ and thus obtain a factual report about the great events that took place at that time. He did not want to keep this report and his research results only to himself or make it available only to a small circle of people, but he wanted to offer it to everyone without exception and thus make everybody benefit from it.
During this time the researcher gave several public lectures, published a book titled »Lichtstrahl in das Dunkel der Geheimwissenschaften« (»Light into the Darkness of Secret Sciences«), wrote various relevant articles for newspapers, discussed with several renowned psychiatrists and important church representatives and started to work on several topics for his philosophical scientific work »Lebenserkenntnis Band I« (»Life Cognition Volume I«). In the year 1923 he founded an association which was intended as an educational institution for free cognition that was exclusively based on the knowledge on Creation, God and the nature of life. Everyone who was interested in cognitive knowledge could join this association. In regular lectures followed by discussions and by means of practical examples Mr. Kubasek tried to introduce his audience to the mental-spiritual field of knowledge.
Over the years the number of members increased steadily. Even some fanatic supporters of faith joined the association. They had come above all out of curiosity and soon rejected the basic principle established by the association’s founder, namely »Free and truthful in thinking and helpful to your neighbour«. This small group of people managed to influence the researcher’s colleague and medium and manipulate him spiritually in such a way that eventually only spiritual beings of a corresponding way of thought were able to respond to him. First in hiding, and then more and more obviously also the beings in the hereafter started to take a stand against the researcher. He bore fierce threats, malice and libel with calmness and patience and still kept trying to re-establish harmony in order not to lose his medium. But all of the scholar’s efforts failed. The medium’s right spiritual attitude was no longer guaranteed, and as a result it was no longer possible to continue positive cooperation.
But Mr. Kubasek was not discouraged by the troubles, disappointments and hostilities. He did not lose heart and went on searching, researching and teaching and continued his work on the first volume of »Life Cognition«.
One day, in the year 1931, a member of the association and personal friend of his called on Mr. Kubasek and asked him to check his medial abilities. He said that he was available as a medium for further research activities. And in fact he proved to possess medial abilities. The researcher, however, took some time of consideration because the training and the correct spiritual adaptation of a medium requires a lot of time and effort. Furthermore the basic mental attitude of the medium is important and it is absolutely necessary for all parties involved to meet certain requirements. Only after careful consideration and another comprehensive discussion with his friend, a calm and modest person, and his friend’s wife, the researcher decided to provide the training.
To be able to fully dedicate himself to his new task, Mr. Kubasek took an early retirement. For the training and the spiritual adaptation of the medium he required a bit more than a year. Then the researcher had reached his aim. Through his new medium he managed to establish a direct spiritual contact to Christ’s former Disciples. They were able to communicate themselves freely and without restrictions, as the will of the medium had been totally switched out and his mental and physical vital substances had been adjusted accordingly and met the necessary conditions.
The training had taken place without making any fuss about it, and without making any fuss about it the factual report was written within three years by means of mediumship. The researcher worked mainly with the Disciple John the Younger. He spoke with him about every detail and all the events that took place at the time in question; again and again he asked him questions to get a clear impression of what had actually happened at the times of Christ. As far as possible the scholar, through his medium, tried to talk personally to the people concerned. Together with John he then choosed the events that he considered appropriate for his work. Usually late at night, when the medium was undisturbed, he fell into trance, and using a foreign body John wrote down facts about selected events that had previously been reported orally. On the next day these written reports were handed over to Mr. Kubasek, who then worked on them and used them as a basis for his factual report. While working on this report the medium strictly followed the researcher’s instructions. He showed neither interest in nor curiosity about what was said or written.”
The existing information suggests that a close connection with the hereafter can exist and actually has existed, though such a connection can probably just exist with »worlds of spheres« that are close to the earthly world. I, as an open-minded researcher who has been working in the spiritual field for many years, however, have never managed to obtain any useful information by means of a medium. After having read my article on the Internet one medium wrote to me that he was able to establish contact to Jesus or even to God. When I asked him a simple scientific question, however, he did not contact me again.
I have got the impression that in the foreseeable future it will not be possible to establish contact to worlds in which spirits live according to the spirit of truth and charity, in which harmony prevails rather than lies, and where hypocrisy and malice are unknown. In the course of hundreds or even thousands of years humans on Earth have created so many misleading and malicious powers through their thoughts and have thus distanced the Earth so much from worlds or world systems which are characterised by a peaceful and harmonious attitude that it will take a long time for truthful and loving thoughts to reach a breakthrough.
Actually the factual report has often brought me to the brink of despair. On the one hand it communicates noble thoughts and ideas that in this way may be true one hundred per cent. On the other hand it can easily be seen how certain texts were obviously changed after the reports had proven wrong. I understand that there must have been difficulties in communication and I also understand that humans tend to include their own interpretation. But at a certain point this understanding reaches its limits, namely when it becomes clear that those who claim to teach truth do not always take truth seriously or do not fully understand the concept of truth (truthfulness) either. If this happens, it must not be tolerated by any means. Any noble and attractive doctrine must prove as true in daily life. For example if beings in the hereafter claim that they are always eager to help when it comes to recognising truth, they should also live up to this promise. So if they say that they can testify this or that it is not enough to just write it down by means of a medium (unfortunately everyone can write whatever he or she wants), but they also have to use comprehensible methods. If for example the Disciples of Christ knew that Christ’s doctrines would be distorted, they would have had to write them down and keep them safely at some place where they could have been found even two thousand years later. So if now, two thousand years later, some scripts are found in some cave or at any other place, which correspond to the information obtained by means of medial communication, this is evidence that is scientifically significant.
Probably reality is simpler than we think, but in the vast amount of information we often fail to see the basic facts. We live in one of the many, many worlds that exist in this universe, in a world full of contrasts, in a world in which terrible laws of nature exist. Why we are here cannot be determined even though we keep searching on and on. In this our world we can learn a lot if we want to, and we can learn to tell the true and good from the untrue and bad. But life takes only a comparatively short time. Then we get into another world of this universe or maybe even into another universe which we call the hereafter. Maybe we will live in the world to which we get after our death only for a certain period of time, too, but it is useless or maybe even harmful to get lost in such speculations. So let us try to learn in this world rather than escape to worlds of our imagination; let us try to grow mentally and spiritually and to develop sympathy and love for other living beings. For would we really benefit from information from a supposed hereafter if this information, even though it may sound wonderful, eventually just leads to distraction and erring rather than to finding truth?
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