NDE: FIVE LESSONS FOR LIVING

NDE: FIVE LESSONS FOR LIVING

by | Jan 13, 2022 | Consciousness Studies, Karma Wheel, Life After Death, Near-Death Experiences, Spiritist knowledge, Spiritual Evolution

The Near Death Experience (NDE) is not a new phenomenon or construct of the “New Age”.  Throughout human history people survived brushes with death, reporting entering another dimension of life, having feelings of unfading peace, passing through a tunnel towards a light, and reviewing one’s life events in rich detail.

In the Republic (350 BC), Plato tells the story of Er, a soldier who died in battle but came back to life 10 days later. Er tells of his experience in the afterlife recounting beautiful sights and wondrous feelings he experienced.

In the last thirty years, the field of NDE studies has advanced at a dramatic pace in parallel with technological advances in the field of resuscitation medicine, which have produced a voluminous amount of data tracking the conditions of patients while temporarily dead.

A great deal of information about NDEs has been collected by researchers and published in scientific papers, but the lessons from these experiences have not yet reached the greater masses. Those who undergo near-death experiences often find their worldview, their attitudes, and their beliefs changed. Here are five lessons learned from their encounters with the after-life that may help us navigate life more surely.

Don’t Be Stingy With Your Love

Howard Strom, a professor at Northern Kentucky University who had a riveting NDE, learned how insignificant his intellectual and professional accomplishments were in the eyes of the angels. The highlight of his life was not his degrees or academic achievements but the time he consoled his sister by holding her in his arms after a traumatic episode in her life.

One common thread of the NDErs experience is a new and profound realization of the necessity of love. We crave it because it sustains our emotional life, but more importantly, the NDErs discovered that there is infinite and transcendental joy in the love we offer others, incorporate into our own life, and even the way we regard nature. In the afterlife, they naturally intuited that love is a state of being.

When we are preparing for a long trip abroad, we spend time studying the culture of the place, language, history, how to get to places, and what we can do there. Even TripAdvisor has become indispensable in our day-to-day lives. The NDErs give us all that and more. They tell us that the currency of love is widely accepted, that it opens all doors, and that making friends is easy over there.

Love without measure, starting with your family. Play with your children in the sandbox, take your mother to the opera, have lunch with friends, attend birthday parties, and smile, hug, and kiss a lot. Be generous with your invisible treasure.

When you die, you will be happy with yourself, and will live in the certainty that those same people, and their friends, and their friends’ friends, will welcome you with smiles, hugs, and kisses. It’s that simple.

Trust That Your Life Has a Purpose

Life is a stage, we are actors, and Providence is the playwrighter.  Just as an actor performs the role that has been assigned to him by the author, so every human being performs the role they received from Providence. This is how Plotinus, one of the great Greek philosophers, explain the human journey. This allegory is clear:  Our lives have a purpose. We are not leaves floating in the wind nor we are puppets manipulated by fate.

But what is the purpose of Providence? It’s the growth of the spirit. This is how St. Augustine defined Providence, and remains timeless, even after sixteen centuries.  We are all on a long journey across time to improve ourselves, acquire new talents, form new habits, and refine our character.

Mary Helen Hensley had a clinical death after a tragic car accident. She recounts the marvelous energy that enveloped her journey, the awareness of the light, and the joyful encounter with loved ones, and that, while she observed the events around her, she was overwhelmed by the understanding that she needed to live. She was shown the future that was to unfold and the faces of thousands of people that she would touch.

Of course, our journey is not without storms. Like sailors, we know that storms will pass, waves will calm down, and a sunny morning will raise again. Seafarers never expect to travel straight to a destination. Out on the ocean, weather conditions and currents are always changing. Before we started this life, in spirit, we set an intent and destination for this journey, knowing fully well that course corrections will be a constant, but that we would have the resources to reach the destination. When we veer off course, Providence leads us to the resources to sail again on a new route another day.

Life is Worth Living

Never take life for granted. Remember that, first and foremost, we are spirits temporarily experiencing life on Earth. We are following a lesson plan conceived for us to accomplish goals we thought were important. 

It may be a challenge, but try to see your life from a detached perspective, from the beginning to the present, as if you were having your own NDE. From the millions who shared their NDEs, the majority emerged with a heightened sense of appreciation for their lives and a determination to live to their fullest. Many of them came from tough places or were dealing with tragic situations, but they all believe that their situations could be turned around, and that new dreams would be rewarding.  They came to value the extra time they were granted in the body.

In the Spiritist movement, we often hear concerns about karma and how it explains the difficult events of our lives. Karma, law of cause and effect, does exist, but as Allan Kardec pointed out, it accounts for less than ten percent of the factors that determine the quality of our existence. The remaining 90% of our challenges has to do with our choices, behaviors, and attitudes.  The past had a role in defining who we are today, but only we can decide what we’ll be tomorrow, and in a future life.

If you’re going through a hard time at the moment, trust that time heals, pain subsides, and there will be a new day for you. If you are enjoying love, good health, and positive aspirations, make an effort to remind yourself to be grateful to the people in your life and the universe.

You Are Spirit

NDEs are just another form of confirmation of what we are. This time however, the confirmation has the backing of science, and the careful research support of above-board investigators. Outside of the body, we are self-conscious, our memories are clear and sharper, we are able to think, our ability to feel emotions is not changed, and we reconnect with others who have gone before us.

When we truly accept this fact, our attitude toward every event of life changes completely. If you are a musician, a carpenter, or business person you still push yourself hard to excel at your craft, but you will not allow the fascination with money to dominate your priorities.  You will place greater value on the benefits you provide others, and on what you give back to life.

Your religious commitment become less about the tenets and expectations of a creed and more about spirituality, closeness to God, and openness to meditative practices. Life will not spare you the slings and arrows, the suffering and pain, but you bear them with serenity and courage, for you know who you truly are.

Be Mindful of Your Inner-Life

Many NDErs have reported a heightened perception of life’s brevity and a determination to live every moment intensely. As often happens, we live very busy lives, running from one chore to another, connected with digital friends, and continuously consuming social media stories. We may not notice, but our minds are continuously being shaped by the forces around us, and they in turn are shaping how our spirits connect with the greater life.

We must take control for what happens in our minds if we don’t want to lose sight of our purpose. Control starts with awareness of thoughts and emotions. Mindfulness is the act of being intensely aware of our inner-life, being conscious and alive in the moment, practicing techniques such as yoga, meditation, tai-chi, and Qigong.

In conclusion, technology and science have brought about expanding knowledge and remarkable commonality of stories of the Near-Death Experience.  There has never been a time when more people have access to such knowledge and insights, and the choice to use these lessons to live life with directed purpose, intention, and love.

Life in the flesh, though short, is part of our training for eternity!

Spiritist Philosophy Is Incomplete

Spiritist Philosophy Is Incomplete

by | Aug 20, 2021 | Allan Kardec, Consciousness Studies, Life After Death, Near-Death Experiences, Spiritist knowledge | 1 comment

The Spiritist philosophy is conspicuously missing a “life-time review” as a common documented element of the death process.  The omission begs the question: Is the Spiritist Philosophy incomplete?

Our previous article noted that none of the works by Allan Kardec (or the vast automatic writing literature by Chico Xavier) described a single case of a life-time review, which is especially alarming in view of the frequency it occurs in a majority of Near-Death experiences that have been reported in the last 40 years.

Curious minds may wonder why this important phenomenon is lacking.  Was it due to the limitations of the mediums, an unconscious cultural constraint, or yet a decision by the mentors to defer it to the future?

 

Of course, many of our readers will be horrified by the idea that the body of ideas that define the Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete.  Others, may not bother about such an anomaly because they are satisfied with what they have learned. A few, however, will hopefully look at this anomaly with a critical mind and be willing to put in action Allan Kardec’s precept ‘the only unshakeable faith is that which can withstand reason, face to face, in every stage of humankind’s development.’

 

Here is an example of a life-time review that speaks so credibly to our beliefs.

“All of a sudden, my entire life flashed before my eyes, complete in every detail. Every event and scenario that had occurred during my life was there for me to examine, and I had the opportunity to scrutinize all or any part of it. It is impossible for me to say how long the life review actually lasted. The entire review appeared to last for only a split-second, because all the events of my entire life were shown to me simultaneously. Yet I was free to examine each and every part of my life, piece by piece, to the finest detail. Time was subjective and distance was non-existent, because I was in every place at the same time. When my attention was drawn to a particular situation or set of circumstances, there I was already experiencing the moment. In other words, I literally saw every last detail of my entire life, compressed into a split second.”

“Not only did I review my life from my own personal viewpoint, but also from the perspective of others with whom I had connected at various times and places. Now I knew precisely what people were thinking and feeling about me. Every time I hurt someone’s feelings, I felt their pain. Now I felt the results of all my hurtful words and deeds; I could literally sense their every thought and feeling in response to me, which felt downright awful. On the other side of the fence, every time I was kind, or whenever I had helped people or brought them happiness, I felt their joy and appreciation.

“But there was no injustice whatsoever in my life review, for I could see that I was the architect of all my actions and the master of all my virtues and vices, as we all are.[1]”

 

 

The Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete in the same sense that we refer to Newton, Einstein, and quantum mechanics as examples of the modification of an existing theory. Newton wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t have enough information. His ideas still hold up when we apply them to a falling apple. Likewise, Einstein’s work wasn’t overturned by the discovery of quantum mechanics. Each of these new ideas simply added to what we had already learned. The theories of Newton and Einstein aren’t wrong, but they do not apply to all situations. This is because the scientists didn’t have enough information to expand on the theory at the time it was formed.

The Spiritist Philosophy doesn’t have a centralized structure in the Catholic or Anglican mode that establishes rituals and beliefs. Spiritism has no hierarchy or formal leadership. It evolves with the people, the practitioners’ experiences, and with the culture that surrounds its centers of practice. It accepts evolution as a norm and transformation as part of its natural growth. However, while all these represent aspirations, the Spiritist Philosophy does depend on the initiative and courage of people to openly debate new ideas and with a disposition to rely on objective evidence.

Mediumship has been documented for over 150 years the primary tool for communication between dimensions. While there have been a few very reliable mediums, e.g. Francisco Xavier, Edgar Cayce, Divaldo Franco, the majority of mediums are tools of spiritual comfort rather than providers of unassailable evidences. The goal of the Spiritist Philosophy from its beginning was to provide proof of the continuity of life, and to demonstrate that human beings have a soul that exists, transcending the life of the body.

We are now seeing the development of a new tool to demonstrate the existence of the consciousness (spirit or soul) through the extensive data collected by medical scientists studying Near-Death Experiences (NDE’s). The possibility of bringing back a person, clinically dead for more than thirty minutes, has stretched the boundaries between life and death, and has changed how we approach life on Earth.

When we acknowledge Near-Death Experiences as fact, it follows that Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete.  It is important that we accept this fact and not reject it.

Highly specific and detailed NDE’s and resuscitation medicine provide unquestionable evidence of consciousness survival, and by extension the continuity of life beyond death.

As science and technology evolve, other tools will become available, revealing even more about the death experience, and we must be open to the fact of them all. We cannot keep on relying on classic mediumship alone when other powerful instruments provide more and advancing evidence.

Spiritist Philosophy is incomplete, and that fact aligns perfectly with the design and workings of the Universe.  After all, isn’t this the whole purpose of the spiritual enterprise that has Jesus at the helm, to help us to awaken to our intrinsic reality as souls who happen to be temporarily inhabiting a body of flesh in our eternal journey of evolution toward God?

 

[1] Miller, Malcom, The Impossible Dream: An Extraordinary Brush With Death, IANDS

Life-Review: An Spiritist Omission?

Life-Review: An Spiritist Omission?

by | Jun 27, 2021 | Allan Kardec, Andre Luiz, Life After Death, Near-Death Experiences, Spiritist knowledge

“Somewhere in my unconscious is a non-judgmental Recorder that notices and understands with love, even when I (consciously) don’t.”

Charlotte Guest

Nowadays this is a puzzling observation. Neither Psychology nor Psychiatry nor Neurology ever referred to the existence of such a retrievable memory unit in the human subconscious. This quote appeared as a catchphrase in a published report of a non-near-death experience. It refers to the experience of a rapid life review of the memories and events of a person’s life. The review is sometimes chronological, but most often is a panoramic or 3-D unfolding of images archived in the subconscious. Reports of a life time review are a common element of the Near-Death Experiences reported by thousands of people all over the world.

Surprisingly, this phenomenon has not been reported in the fundamental works of the Spiritist thought, and this is especially confounding because of their intense focus on the life of the spirit both while in and without matter. That’s sure to beg the question why that happened.

One of the earliest persons to report such an experience, when he nearly drowned, was Admiral Francis Beaufort of the British Navy. He wrote, “The whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic view.”

Here is an example of a lifetime review reported by Dr. Jeffrey Long in a recent book: 

I went into a dark place with nothing around me, but I wasn’t scared. It was really peaceful there. I then began to see my whole life unfolding before me like a film projected on a screen, from babyhood to adult life. It was so real! I was looking at myself, but better than a 3-D movie as I was also capable of sensing the feelings of the persons I had interacted with through the years. I could feel the good and bad emotions I made them go through.”

A second interesting example was reported by Camille Flammarion (1922), the same man of science who delivered the eulogy at Allan Kardec’s memorial service in 1869:

 

During this fall, which could hardly have lasted two or three seconds, his entire life, from his childhood up to his career in the army, unrolled clearly and slowly in his mind, his game as a boy, his classes, his first communion, his vacations, his different studies, his examinations, his entry into Saint-Cyr [military academy] in 1848, his life with the dragoons [regiment], in the war in Italy [1857], with the lancers of the Imperial guards, with the Spahis [cavalry], with the riflemen at the Chateau of Fontainebleau, the balls of the Empress [Eugenie; wife of Napoleon III] at the Tuileries, etc. All this slow panorama was unrolled before his eyes in less than four seconds, for he recovered consciousness immediately

Of the five works by Allan Kardec, Heaven and Hell (1865) is the book that brings the more complete review of mediumistic messages related to the passing of a large number of individuals, from the highly spiritual to the more ignoble. In every case they were encouraged to describe the experience of dying and what they encountered in the hereafter. None of them reported anything close to a life-review.

Similarly, in the large collection of works authored by Andre Luiz over more than twenty years, most of them dealing with the experiences of the return to the spirit world, none reported a case of a life-review.

Chico Xavier, through whom Andre Luiz dictated his books, however, shared in a television interview in the mid-1960s, that he experienced a life-review when the airplane he was on had a mechanical problem and lost altitude quickly. Most of the viewers and the Spiritist community took it just an interesting event caused by panic, a physical event and nothing else.

What should we make from this striking omission? The NDE reports cannot be discounted, after all they are supported by strong evidences and a growing body of research? So, we are left to ponder the possible reasons.

  • Was the bringing life-reviews to light a decision by the spiritual mentors?
  • Or was it blocked by the subconscious of the mediums, all of them hailing from a heavy Catholic culture?
  • Or was it considered irrelevant at the time and therefore reserved for future times?
  • Or, if we look at those works from a different vantage, the information conveyed was just the core of an edifice that is to rise gradually as intellectual conditions of humankind allow? And, if that is the case, are we, those who appreciate its lights, willing to recognize the proposition that the Spiritist body of thought is incomplete?

After all the questions for such a complex subject, it may be our capability to ponder that is to be loved, even if it’s not the understanding. This is a tall order of ideas and we shall return to this issue in our next post.

The Life Review Experience

Dr. Kenneth Ring

Bibliography:

Holden J. M., Guest C, (1990). Life-Review in a non NDE Episode, The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1990, Vol. 22, No. 1

Stevenson I., William E. (1995) Involuntary Memories During Severe Physical Illness or Injury, The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, vol. 183, No. 7.

Long J. and Perry P. (2010) Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences, Harper & Collins, p 98

Flammarion, C. Death and Its Mystery, 1922

New Heights For The Human Consciousness

New Heights For The Human Consciousness

by | May 21, 2021 | Allan Kardec, Andre Luiz, Consciousness Studies, Life After Death, Near-Death Experiences, Spiritist knowledge

Ellen was in awe of the light, the intensity and beauty of the colors, and the lightness of the space where she found herself. Love was all pervading, and she felt that she had become the love that enveloped her. Almost simultaneously she felt a deep awareness that we are all perfect, and that everyone has a purpose for their lives on Earth. She was welcomed in that journey by a being of light, and felt from him the most serene reassurance that all was OK.

As far as clinical death goes, Ellen’s story is not unique. Similar stories have been part of our history, and have been observed in most cultures of the world. What makes it different now is the fact that Ellen’s story is one of many thousands that scientists have documented, and supported with extensive medical data, in the last 40 years.

This story is another example. It was published in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, in 1991, as part of a large study conducted in Holland. Having suffered a heart attack, a patient was brought to a hospital in Holland. He was clinically dead. During the resuscitation procedures a nurse removed his dentures and put them away. The resuscitation was successful, and after recovering the patient made an inquiry to the team on duty about his dentures.

Days later, in the hallway, he saw and recognized the nurse who assisted in his resuscitation. The patient told the nurse that he was the staff person who had taken his dentures and described the drawer where they had been placed. The nurse, who had forgotten all about it, went to the room and found the dentures, exactly where he was told by the patient.

In thousands of cases or cardiac resuscitation like this, the medical facts are consistent. The patient was connected to all the machinery of an Emergency Room, and was deemed to be clinically dead for several minutes, without a heartbeat or any indication of brain activity.  Still, many patients are resuscitated and recount similar stories about “what is on the other side”.  Such examples are abundant and comprehensive.

Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have been studied for more than 40 years by researchers from a variety of disciplines including neuroscience, psychiatry, medicine, physics, and nursing.

The body of knowledge has become highly respectable and the advancements have the potential to transform how human beings see themselves and their lives on Earth.

This is a new frontier for scientists to explore the duality of body and mind. The scientific community has chosen the word consciousness as an alternative to the words soul or spirit, given their heavy religious connotations. It is important to be aware that words such as psyche, soul, spirit, mind, or consciousness communicate very much the same idea, that is, the non-physical essence of a human being.

Allan Kardec was adamant about the importance of maintaining the evolution of Spiritist thought current with scientific knowledge. It is therefore with this reference that we want to take this space to share some personal observations about the currency of our conceptions on the transitioning of the soul to the spiritual sphere.

If we take a dispassionate stance it’s clear that there are solid parallels between the new findings and the ideas espoused by Allan Kardec in Heaven and Hell, and in the Andre Luiz’s series about the after-life. At the same time, we must evaluate some of the new ideas that expand what we know, or help refocus the discrepant ones. This will be a series of seven blogposts, starting with the feeling of elation reported by most NDE’s experiencers, in our next issue.

COVID19! OH, TELL ME MORE ABOUT KARMA

COVID19! OH, TELL ME MORE ABOUT KARMA

by | Feb 24, 2021 | Action and Reaction, Karma Wheel, Religion vs Spirituality, Spiritist knowledge, Spiritual Evolution

Lord, can’t hear you! Speak louder, please!

Covid19 has been awful. Except, I guess, for those who believe it’s a political fabrication. Why do we have to endure so many tragic deaths, watch a world helplessly paralyzed, and be at risk of losing our minds? For almost a whole year I have been asking these questions! Is it because of karma? So far, nothing, not even a hint, Oh, Lord.

Am I left to bow my head to the “wisdom” of those who claim to speak in Your name? If so, I confess, some of their ideas seem to bump hard against reality.  Anyway, here is a sample of what I have heard:

… the outbreak is God’s retribution for gay marriage and abortion.

… Covid is God’s death angel to purge a lot of sin.

… (Texas’ bishop) I encourage the rank-and-file to refuse a vaccine that uses cell lines from the tissue of aborted fetuses, they are immoral.

… (Pope) Covid19 could be nature’s response to climate change.

Estelle Ishigo, Japanese-American Internment Camp (1940-45)

While some of these religious positions seem hardly sensible for a person who appreciates the facts of science, we must accept them for what they are, an expression of religious faith. Again, they show once more why faith and science diverge so much, and so often.

What about us, Spiritists? Where do we stand on these questions? 

Since Covid19 has affected every country, is the virus a punishment for some evil done by humankind? Are those who have died, paying for crimes committed in previous lives?

In the U.S., why are the Black and Latino populations paying the heaviest price? Or in same vein, why is Covid19 killing more of those over 70 than younger populations? The pain has been immense, and the death toll in the US is expected to reach 500,000 people by the end of February.

In The Spirits’ Book there are only veiled references to the responsibility of a community for its actions, and in Action and Reaction, a book by Andre Luiz and Chico Xavier, there is a chapter on collective karma, but only in reference to the crash of a small airplane.  Oh Lord, there doesn’t seem to be enough substance about this in the Spiritist literature, either.

Gobardhan Ash, The Famine of Bengal

Poussin, The Plague Ashdod (1630)

Our spiritual nature is to seek comfort in our philosophical perspectives during times of such disconcerting tragedy.  It is frustrating that we seem to have nothing to serve as a reference here.

Frustrated with my not hearing from you, Lord, I decided to read about the history of cataclysmic natural and social events, and came across something that I consider spectacular.

El Nino, the climate pattern that is responsible for the warming of surface ocean waters, was a major force behind the French Revolution, and the downfall of Louis XVI, in 1789.  An incredible cold winter, and an incredible wet spring destroyed the harvests, causing scarcity of wheat, raising the price of bread, which ended up tipping the country against the royalty and the church. The famine killed over 1.5 million people, and hundreds of thousands died in the street conflicts. The revolution that changed the world order, and gave us the motto “Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité” was, in great part, driven by atmospheric currents from the Pacific Ocean!

Only now, 230 years later, are we beginning to understand how these forces interacted to trigger one of the greatest movements of social transformation in history. This realization is so humbling, I must confess. It’s just amazing to think how the invisible hands of progress manifest change.

What does it tell me? That our understanding of large-scale phenomena is very limited.

Those who seek comfort in the idea of a collective karma should take a deep breath and accept that long term consequences of some of these cataclysms are unknowable, and trust that there is a fundamental creative force driving our lives, our societies, the earth, and the works of the Universe.

Allan Kardec, certainly puzzled by the traumas of the French Revolution and the series of famines that plagued his own country, writes the following in The Spirits’ Book (Q. 741): Some of the hardships you face are of a collective nature and subject to the designs of Providence. To one degree or another, every person affected by these experiences has something to learn from them, and it’s impossible to avoid them. The best course is to find refuge in resignation and acceptance of a higher purpose.

Oh Lord, perhaps, I am beginning to hear You now. Your designs are unknowable to us. We should just trust Your wisdom. But let me pray this: I hope humanity won’t have to wait for 200 years to appreciate the growth and transformation triggered by Covid19.

Delusions About Spirits

Delusions About Spirits

by | Feb 1, 2021 | Chico Xavier, Religion vs Spirituality, Spiritist knowledge, Spiritual Evolution | 1 comment

“Since this morning I’ve been dizzy, it must be some bad spiritual energy.”

“We need spiritual healing; my family is beset by dark spirits.”

“Spirits don’t let me sleep.  I can’t get any rest.”

I can’t recall how many times I heard or read such common concerns like these. It always amazes me how much the supernatural is entangled in the lives of Spiritists, especially in Brazil.

When I questioned friends in Brazil, they usually became defensive. Aren’t they able to see that what they call ‘the intermingling with the hereafter’ rings as naiveté for an objective person?  Why do people who seem so well prepared, become so accepting of this parallel reality in their lives? In no way this is a criticism, it’s rather, for me, a statement of fact. I have been interested in the Spiritist ideas, and its conception of Christianity, but being from a different culture, that fact strikes me as mislaid. In some ways, these concerns resonate with me, thinking of worries with the devil and its troupe with which priests and pastors have brainwashed their flocks from time immemorial, even before the beginning of Christianity.

As an American, my personality is defined by a deep sense of independence, self-sufficiency, personal responsibility, and esteem for objective thinking. I was raised in a family of Unitarian Universalists, with a grandmother who loved Ralph Waldo Emerson, and from whom I learned that ‘the purpose of life is spiritual transformation and direct experience of divine power, here and now on Earth.’

In no way do I discredit the idea of a hateful, ignorant spirit being at the root of some complex psychiatric disorders, or an actor in some cases of drug addiction, but these are, in my view, abnormal syndromes. However, the idea that we are surrounded by spirits able to easily trample on our free will, and violate the energy barrier that separates the different realms at will, is simply an irrational proposition for me.

Here is my suggestion for those who have taken up the task of promoting the Spiritist thought in the Anglosphere. Focus less on the dark, diseased souls of the spiritual realm, and phase out words such as spiritual possession, obsession, controlling entities, and vengeful beings in lectures and healing treatments. Instead, focus more attention on what matters for a person’s eternity, that is, inner transformation, cultivation of positive thinking, being a good human being, and living with gratitude.

Spiritist leaders in their communities should not stray from the wisdom already revealed in seminal literature, but the times may ask for adoption of the new tools that are part of the modern repertoire for spiritual awareness: meditation, yoga, mindfulness, tai-chi, contemplative prayer, and any other form of meditative activity. 

 These are tools that, together with all other tools utilized in Spiritist activities, will help today’s practitioners to reeducate their minds, change negative behaviors and beliefs, and hear the inner voice that inspires true transformation.

While it may be easy blame the unknown for mishaps in our lives, such concern with occult matters all too often stifles our lives with fear.  For simplicity sake, consider “Love is stronger than fear.” (1 John 4:18)