What is Spiritualism?

Assuming you have no knowledge of Spiritualism I will proceed from the simpliest concepts and go forward. Spiritualism is a form of religion. For long periods of time folks have been tormented, some simply and others with life and/or limb because of their belief that someone or something was talking to them, or that they were seeing someone or something. The story of spiritualism goes back throughout the annuals of mankinds history. There have been groups of people who have been very 'spiritualy' gifted for eons, sometimes as individuals, sometimes almost a whole tribe of men and women have had the "seeing" gift. Because of these mistreatments, we have had to adopt 'order' that comforms to governmental requirements. To adopt forms of worship so we can be recognized as a religion to have the protection of the government afforded to all religious groups. BUT, I want it to be known that I do not believe that spiritualism alone is our religion. Like many words it can be used as a noun or an adverb or a verb or an adjective, and so it is! It is a belief, it is a concept but it also has to be our way of life. More about that later.
    A Spiritualist is someone who recognizes there are beings from other dimensions, planes, levels or whatever you wish to call it, of existence. We have been told the spirit world is relative to ours, some parts close to the earth plane and other parts away from the earth plane. Did you read the information on the home page? The writer there expains that there are many things outside the scopes of our senses, but just because they are, it does not mean that they do not exist. We have instruments to measure things we have no knowledge of without such instruments. We have telescopes and microscopes and measuring devices to record things we cannot see or hear. Remember the old indian trick of laying on the ground with your ear on the ground and being able to pick up the sounds of the game they were hunting or the enemy they were tracking? Well, all these things should make us able to understand that just because we can't do something doesn't mean it can't be done (or seen or heard). Mediums are the instruments through which these outside elements are seen or heard. Spirit guides are spirits who have been progressed to higher planes of their spiritual existence and who have made a difficult effort to come to this physical plane of existence to give us teachings and understandings of life here and life over there. We have beliefs that are closely parallel to a lot of religious teachings, except, we do not put hope and trust in creeds or dogmas that force us to condemn others for being religiously or ethicnally different than we are. We recognize that there are truths in all the different religions of the world. We contend that these truths were given by spirit teachers to mediumistic individuals who proclaimed them to the world. We also contend that there are no pure teachings left from these men, because others have taken the words designed to aid mankind and twisted them for their own selfish means. Therefore, we are able to recognize only those parts of all religions that build up mankind, provide formulas for love and goodness and reject all forms of religious teachings that promote hate and condemnation of our fellow man. An old term for that is "separating the wheat from the chaff". We believe you should not accept anything that doesn't make sense to you. We believe in the evolution of the soul. We believe in the evolution of man. We believe in the evolution of the spirit. We believe in god. We do not believe he has to be called 'god'. Some would refer to him as the great spirit, some the great essense, some the life force, what he is is not important as long as he is recognized as the source from which are all things. We believe this god is the god of all mankind. He is not a christian god, he is not a hindu god, he is not a muslim god, he is the creator of all mankind and the giver of life and law to all religions and races. We believe there are spiritual laws. One of these laws is the law of compensation. Christians call it 'reaping what you have sown'. Buddhists call it 'Kharma'. Whatever you want to call it, it is compensation for every good or every evil thing you have done. We believe that every spirit goes to the place they have earned by their behavior while on this earth. We do not believe in Heaven or Hell as prescribed by religionists. Because there are a variety of good/bad people, there are a variety of good/bad levels. But these places are gradiated, not, either-or places. We believe that each person is only in that place until they are ready to advance. When they are ready to "evolve" they are given help and the ability to advance locally as they advance spiritually. We believe that service to a fellow human being is the most important thing any individual can do. Not slavery, but thinking a kind thought, saying a kind word, lending someone a hand, all little things that can mean so much to any person at any given time. Spirit guides have told us "service is the coin of spirit". We believe 'Jesus' was a gifted psychic individual who promoted the spiritual well being of mankind. But he was not the "son of god" any more or any less than each and every other individual is. We believe "Buddha", and many others who have presented the world with peaceful and wonderful teachings, was the same as Jesus in this respect, a good man, a good medium and a good spiritualist, thus, a good servant. We have what we call the 7 principles which to us inbody all these... "we believes". Kind of a summary of these things that we believe.., they are: 1.) The Fatherhood of God 2.) The brotherhood of man 3.) The communion of spirits and the ministry of angels 4.) The continuous existence of the human soul 5.) Personal responsibility 6.) Compensation and retribution for all good and evil deeds done on earth 7.) Eternal progress open to every human soul.