Posted on 28 September 2016, 11:38

Many, both within the churches, and outside, heartily wish that the churches would take to themselves the findings of scientific psychical research, and the testimony of mystics of all religions, and from the varying pictures of reality presented in the Scriptures, highlight those parts most in harmony with those findings and testimonies. In short we should concentrate on the many dimensions of love of God and neighbour, and sideline contentious dogmas.

The Anglican Church in the UK does have its “Church’s Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies”, with its publication, The Christian Parapsychologist. In the issue I have just received, former editor, the late Canon Michael Perry, explores Scriptural readings that seem to countenance such studies, and those that seem to forbid it. Canon Perry was very open-minded and that is why he edited the journal.  But if, like some conservative Christians, we want to give equal authority to all portions of Scripture, we will become very conflicted.  It is therefore best to put our energies into actual love of God and neighbour and all that that difficult goal entails.

In the year 1937 the Church of England almost got around to countenancing psychical research, but lack of unanimity prevented it. This lack of unanimity usually stymies proclamations in the name of the Church – any church, actually.  Outsiders often imagine that members of what used to be called mainline churches, including the Roman Catholic, all marched lock-step in tune with the formularies by which a church defines itself. But from a life time as a priest, I think that it is very likely that members of all such churches will be at all stages of spiritual growth, and vary widely in their beliefs and indeed unbeliefs. As a liberal and open-minded priest I recently attended a jubilee function at a church where I had been vicar in the 1960s. I had served there for seven years. My successor was a more straight laced conservative, who also served there for seven years. After him came an Anglo-Catholic vicar, whose beliefs were closer to the Roman Catholic. After him there came a Charismatic clergyman.  What had exposure to contradictory teachings from a series of unlike clergy done to the congregation?  There I was forty years later, and many of the congregation of the sixties were still there, only a good deal older. The church had carried on in spite of us clergy. A little deflating for me, but a reminder that congregations are there to have communion with each other and with the universal spirit of God, and serve the community, and love their neighbour.  I am sure that each member of the congregation had their private beliefs, and I might have been horrified to find out what some of them were.  But they were all good at communion with God and neighbour, and that was what mattered.

But yes, it would probably have been wonderful for each member if they had all the insights that science and psychic research could provide. But as I have indicated, congregations and churches are composed of people with a mixture of beliefs.  We have to be content to attempt to influence individuals in this direction, especially those who have been aware of an otherworldly experience.

This brings me to talk about a person I would like to call a friend, Luis Sergio Marotta, adhering to the Spiritist philosophy in Brazil. [Upwards of 40 million adherents in that country, 3 million in the Cao Dai in Vietnam, and further adherents in many other countries.] White Crow has published a book by the founder of that church Allan Kardec, The Spirits’ Book. Luis Sergio shares with me the desire that psychic and other scientific research should go hand in hand with fostering the kind of dogma-free religion that the historical Jesus bore witness to, as well as the founders of other world religions. Love God and neighbour, in a more advanced understanding of what it means to participate in a God who is in all, through all and above all.

Luis Sérgio records a segment called The Gospel and Spiritism in Kardec Radio. The radio has a weekly webcast listened to in over 100 countries, and it is located in the US but has cooperators in many countries. Vanessa Anseloni, Kardec Radio main host, interviews scientists and other people of interest for these webcasts. Luis also does wonderful work producing and editing numbers of videos that listeners to Kardec Radio may have access to.  In August this year he reissued an impressive new video on reincarnation by Keith Parsons: This Life, Past Life - Lembranças de Vidas Passadas - Legendado em Português , This   is a sequel to Parson’s film of 2009, This Life, Next Life.  As introductions to psychic research, and to the phenomenon of reincarnation, I think they are unmatched. They are straightforward, clear, and convincing. Luis has also reissued the last named video with Portuguese subtitles.

Other examples of his work: The Kingdom of God is at Hand - Emmanuel - Chico Xavier

Chico Xavier: Mediumship serving the Good PART 1/3

Deadline According to Chico Xavier

In Brazil, the movement has become widely accepted, largely due to Chico Xavier’s works.

Luis reminds us that in our psychic research, in our thinking and feeling about religion, we should explore what is happening in Brazil, a country with all its political and social difficulties, is open to Spirit in a wonderful way. 

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.
His latest book, Into the Wider Dream: Synchronicity in the Witness Box is published by White Crow Books.

Posted on 13 September 2016, 8:30

Psychic research asks questions like: Is there a spiritual world? Is there an afterlife for each person that lives? What is the afterlife like?  More and more wonderful and trustworthy books give us an ever clearer picture what to expect when we pass to the spiritual world.

Basic religion, seen amongst the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and   Islamic mystics, does need to be aware of what psychic research has revealed. But basic religion looks more toward communion in the Whole, mutual love and service within such a Whole. Even when certain Christians and Buddhists have no belief in the afterlife, they still participate in worship and meditation in order that they may feel this oneness in this whole. Basic religion is much the same everywhere.  This fact may explain the surprising lack of interest in psychic research by some Christians… not necessarily due to belief systems, just this other focus.

St Stephen expressed this focus in his prayer, “Lord, let me forget that I am me; Let me know that I am with Thee. Let me not separate myself from thee, Because I am me.”

Many of the most popular hymns follow the same theme:

Christ be with me,
Christ within me,
Christ behind me,
Christ before me,
Christ beside me,
Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me, 
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me,  Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

The spiritual wisdom of divine union is first beautifully expressed in writing in the Vedas (the oldest source of Hinduism, at least three thousand years old). One of its “grand pronouncements” is Tat Tvam Asi in Sanskrit.

This condensed wisdom might be translated in any of these ways:
YOU are That!
You ARE what you seek!
THOU art That!
THAT you are!
You are IT!

In the old Anglican catechism, baptised people are reminded that they are children of God, members of Christ, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.

John 14.10:  I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.

The perception that the wellspring of the main religious traditions is this sense of union in the One, has been called the Perennial Philosophy.

Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) coined the term “philosophia perennis” “perennial philosophy”; He held that philosophy works in harmony with religion and should lead to knowledge of God, and that truth flows from a single source, more ancient than the Greeks.

It was central to the thinking of the philosopher Leibnitz. (1646-1716)

Aldous Huxley’s 1945 book The Perennial Philosophy, has been very influential. Huxley was profoundly influenced by Vivekananda’s Neo-Vedanta and Universalism. He defined the perennial philosophy as:

[...]” the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical to, divine Reality; the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being;”

Huxley maintained that, “Rudiments of the perennial philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions. Here are a few of his quotes:

“He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.“1 John iv

“By love may He be gotten and holden, but by thought never.“The Cloud of Unknowing

“The astrolabe of the mysteries of God is love.“Jalal-uddin Rumi”[4]

Huxley then explains: “We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of knowledge.

According to Aldous Huxley, in order to apprehend the divine reality, one must choose to fulfil certain conditions: “making themselves loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit.”[30] Huxley argues that very few people can achieve this state. Those who have fulfilled these conditions, grasped the universal truth and interpreted it have generally been given the name of saint, prophet, sage or enlightened one.

Huxley’s words will be true of the great religious leaders over the centuries.  But it is very likely that there will have been countless ordinary human beings over the millennia, not necessarily highly intelligent, in humble circumstances in loving selfless relationships filled with the wonder and joy of life. Jesus addressed himself to those of lowly status in society, the outcast and the foreigner, and saw them as candidates for the Kingdom of Heaven. The poor are often more generous with the little they have, than those comfortably off. The holistic view leads us to know that all living beings inextricably belong to each other in this spiritual whole.  It does not require us to be clever and highly educated.. it requires simplicity, openness, and love.

In writing thus, I am not of course downplaying the importance of psychic research and afterlife studies which tend to see things from the point of view of the sensory-physical . But the other side to things needs to be presented. That is the fact that all that is, is a psychophysical whole, where all is connected, and this is what religion at its best celebrates. This type of awareness is the holistic.  Both sensory-physical and holistic ways of seeing things are equally valid.. they are different modes of focus.

The holistic mode has been called “clairvoyant” , knowledge and events of all times and places are potentially available to all those who constitute it. It has been said that we live in a holographic universe, where each part has information belonging to the whole.

We see this in the US Military Stargate Project , especially the work of Ingo Swann in the field of remote viewing.  For successful viewing of distant locations, the remote viewer must operate with the minimum information, to prevent the fabrication of data by his conscious mind.  Coordinate Remote Viewing is a method by which coordinates are employed to identify the target to be viewed. The coordinates used, however, needn’t be geographical in nature. They can be, and usually are, completely random numbers. Once a particular target has already been ‘visited’ by a remote viewer, and this target has been assigned a set of random coordinates, it is possible for another remote viewer to ‘visit’ the same location – which could be any point in time and space – simply by focusing on the same set of coordinates. In spite of such minimal information, correct information about the usually military target was often provided.

Very many will be familiar with the phenomenon called the “Library Angel”. Someone consulting this “angel” writes or types a question and listens for a referral to a book, a page and a line. For some it can be a reference to a passage of Scripture. Or the questioner will wait a sense of being drawn to a particular book amongst many others, then drawn blindly to touch a page or line… and be astonished at the accuracy and wisdom of the answer.  In my Into the Wider Dream I describe how my daughter was offered the loan of a supposed Stradivarius violin. When I asked the generous person who made the offer whether he knew it was genuine or a copy he said he didn’t know… why didn’t I ask God?

I duly typed my question, and voice sounding not other than that of my own thoughts, said “Percutio”. Looking up at Latin English dictionary I found it meant “forgery.” I typed the question, “What would you have said if it was genuine?”  And then I heard “my” voice say “Hypostasis”’ I did recognise this word as standing for each of the three “persons” of the Holy Trinity. But consultation of a Greek lexicon revealed that it also meant “the real thing”!  On requesting my inner voice for proof that these answers did not come from my personal memory, “my” voice referred me to a book of poems by Robert Browning, the second volume, a certain page and a certain line, and the information that it was an anagram. I discovered that the line yielded a meaningful sentence containing the name Antonius Stradivarius.

So was it “my” personal voice that answered?  Or was it “my” voice at a higher level of consciousness? Or was it the voice of a universal I AM?  Who can know?  Can we distinguish?  Or shall we agree with the Hindu YOU are That! You ARE what you seek! THOU art That! THAT you are! You are IT! ?  “Lord let me know that I am with Thee. Let me not separate myself from thee because I am me.”

In psychical research, to avoid contamination by mental processes, a medium or psychic will ask to be given no information, before focusing on what information may come from this…hologram… this quantum entanglement… of energy.. of mind…timeless.. spaceless…this I AM.

In actual fact, for there to be an “afterlife” at all, for communication between the physical and spiritual realms to occur, they must all the parts of this Oneness.  For prayer to be possible, for synchronicity to occur, for there to be answers to prayer, for there to be spiritual healing… it must all take place within this Oneness.

When David Bohm describes in the language of physics, the implicate and explicate universe, when we talk of a spiritual world and a physical world, when we say God is love, when Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of Heaven, it may well be that the varying languages describe the same ultimate reality.

Here is a prayer provided by Richard Rohr:

God for us, we call you “Father.”
  God alongside us, we call you “Jesus.”
  God within us, we call you “Holy Spirit.”
  Together, you are the Eternal Mystery
  That enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things,
  Even us and even me.

  Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness.
  We can only see who you are in what is.
  We ask for such perfect seeing—
  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.

Amen.

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.
His latest book, Into the Wider Dream: Synchronicity in the Witness Box is published by White Crow Books.