LECTURE - SUNDAY 21st APRIL 2024
PRESENTED BY ERICA AIMINO
Now we have a special guest since the babysitter fell through. Spirit works in remarkable ways because Val your words fit in so well with what I am going to talk about today which is about where Spirit fits in with our modern age.
And is it relevant? Does any of it continue to be relevant?
I came across this quote as I was preparing for my address today and it talks about Spirituality must be lived. Not just studied. And all the books of the world will not help if we do not learn to live with what we actually learn.
So, I guess that embodies what Spiritualism is about. It is about a living breathing, aggressive, philosophy. And it is not enough that we need to consider the principles. We need to live the principles. The principles are fundamental to our philosophy, to our religion. So, whatever it is that brings you here today, you are here for a reason. You might be a long-time spiritualist; you might be a seeker. You might just have wanted to pop your head in to have a bit of a sticky beck about what we do. Whatever your reason for being here today you are welcome.
I must admit that when I first began this journey, I guess you could say that I was a reluctant Medium because, to be honest with you, I never set out to be a Medium. I think it fell into my lap coincidently so I will just share something about my beginnings of understanding and awareness of spiritualism for me.
So, I remember a friend of mine said, “Oh, I’ve been for a reading and maybe you should go and see this lady.” Now at that stage a few personal things were going on and as soon as I sat down the lady said, “Oh, you have a young man with you.” I did not know anything about what was going on and she said, “He passed recently. He is quite young. He would only be about 21.” And I said, ‘Yes, that is correct. A friend of mine just passed at 21.” And she said that there is a suspicion about his passing and thoughts about him taking his own life. I had all kinds of things happening before I had this reading and I thought to myself, “Um, this is very curious.” And then she went on to unpack the things that had been happening.
Now the young man was a musician, and it was very interesting about how he made his presence known to me. I had a music box in my bedroom, and it had a little pin that you had to pull out, for it to play and this music box started playing by itself. I thought that maybe the pin has fallen out, so I inspected the music box and sure enough the pin was pushed in, but I dismissed that and parked in the back of my mind. A short time later there was a birthday card from him in the middle of the room and it was the only birthday card I have ever received from him. And that was right back in the days when we were in Year 7. We were only like 12, 13 years of age. I had it in an envelope tucked right away literally in the bottom drawer with lots of stuff on top of it and I thought to myself, ‘I cannot rationalise in any way what-so-ever how that birthday card came to be on the floor.’
So, when the Medium started unpacking this information, I guess it made me curious, but it also made me fascinated about the Spirit world. And his message to me was, “You are going to be doing this.” And I said to the Medium, “I think you are very mistaken with that. I have no intention of communicating with the Spirit world.” At the time I was in my twenties, and I had no desire other than to finish my degree and qualify as a teacher. So, fast forward to my thirties and again Spirit kept knocking on the door until I eventually paid attention.
Now you may have similar stories as to why you are sitting here today. Maybe you have been in heavy grief. Maybe you have had some experiences with Spirit that you cannot rationalise. But I think that what is important is that we are all here today and that is what Spiritualism is about. It is about community and if there is anything I know about this modern age it is as Val just expressed, that we have become disconnected from each other and that there is no longer that sense of community and, perhaps after COVID, well I do not know about you, but for me I wanted that physical connection again. I craved not seeing people behind a small screen. I wanted to see the smile and share the energy of another person and, when we came out of that lockdown, I remember thinking, ‘oh thank goodness we are at least starting to make connections again.’
So, I guess what I am sharing with you today is that it is relevant to spiritualism in this age that we are seeking. We are seeking a community of likeminded people that we can share those instances of spirit communication or spirit contact without thinking that they are looking to see where the scar of the second head went! But I say to you that I do not always share in many circles that this is what I do because there is still a lot of stigmata attached to spiritualism and the philosophy of spiritualism. It seems that they think all we do is speak to the dead and I think, and I know that that is far from all that we do.
We do not just speak to those who are in the Spirit world. What we want to achieve is this, communication and dialogue, and the philosophy. What we need is to get us to think outside of the square. Mediumship and Spiritualist churches should not become what I call, message shops because spiritualism is not just about getting messages from Spirit. It is not just about thinking, “I have my fix now from the message” and off you go thinking that that is all there is about spiritualism but that is just a part of spiritualism. That is not all there is.
The whole point of why we do spiritualism is A, not everybody in the congregation may get a message or B, that they may not even desire to communicate with the spirit world. They may just want to sit in the energy and be part of the community. So, I impress that upon you that we are not just a message shop, and this is the idea that the S.N.U. (Spiritualist National Union) S.N.U.I. (Spiritualist National Union International) U.K. are very much pushing. We need to teach our Mediums to recognise and talk about the philosophy of our religion and I think that if we take God out of our religion, we are losing the substance of what we do. Because the core of spiritualism is to identify with that Divine Spark, that Power that we work with and, as Val said, we all work with that power.
Whether you recognise that is true for yourself, whether you call yourself a Medium, we are all by default Light Workers. And that is why you sit before me today because, in some capacity, you are shining your light onto others. You are sharing that, and it becomes contagious. And I just impress on you that, perhaps as spiritualists, that is all we are seeking. We want to be around that contagious type of feeling of kindness, and if we are just looking for the message for Spirit and nothing else then I think that we can lose that sense of community and understanding, life is more than that.
Recently I was having a discussion with someone, and you know as the discussion unfolded it became very much one-sided. And I just thought have we really lost that ability to hold the space for one another. Do we really listen? Or do we listen to respond. So, perhaps as we grow in our awareness, we recognise that sometimes words are not necessary. Maybe the power of our presence is necessary but if we do not allow ourselves the chance to sit with Spirit and be silent, we can struggle to find that power as life becomes too busy in our modern age as Val alluded to.
Spiritualism is not about blind faith. It is about proof of survival and that is at the crux of what we do. It is a fundamental premise. And I believe that it must be done well to honour our philosophy and that is why I am doing my study through the S.N.U.I and the U.K. and through my studies I continue to grow. However, at no stage do I ever claim to be an Oracle, nor do I ever claim to know it all. I always want to keep growing and learning. I say to people that I still have my learners on, still got my L plates, and that is the way that I come to my work. I never think that I have got to that pinnacle, and I will never be finished with my studies.
I think that as Spiritualists that is what we should all strive for, perhaps not to be on Platform, that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that we strive to be better than we were yesterday in our everyday lives. What does that look like? How do we show up for people? How do we show up for ourselves? How do we give ourselves compassion and care, for we are very good at giving that to others but, when it comes to us guess what?
Sometimes we run a little low on that tank and we feel exhausted and overwhelmed but remember that where many of us sit amongst each other we share in the journey. Maybe there is someone going through what you are going through or maybe they are feeling disconnected and alone and they want to see some happy faces or, maybe they just want to hear some laughter. Perhaps that is just enough to get us out of our own minds and open us to the miracle in the small things because, I think that sometimes we can become bogged down in the big things of life, how expensive petrol is and how the grocery prices continue to rise and we can complain and that is not to say that things are not difficult but, at some point perhaps we just need to consider that maybe it is the small things we need to embrace and see them as the small miracles in life.
As hard as it is sometimes to be born into this world it is probably one of the biggest challenges, isn’t it? I do not know about you, but I have often felt on the outer even as a small child, and so being part of that humanity, being part of that network is important too. And it is easy sometimes to shy away and think, “hey, this is giving me anxiety and I don’t feel great about going to events or trying this,” but I impress on you the fact that, we do not grow if we do not sometimes have discomfort. So perhaps we need that moment of discomfort to get ourselves moving, to ignite that little spark of something that will help us grow as individuals.
Spiritualism is about personal experience. It is not only about reading copious numbers of books. We do not have a dogma or a creed in spiritualism. We do not subscribe to those things and our principles are called guidelines, you can take them or leave them as much as they resonate with you. And I think that is what I love about spiritualism. I was brought up a Catholic, so everything is hard to buck sometimes, and spiritualism just speaks to my truth. Maybe that is another reason that you sit before me today. It is that ability to interpret based on how we feel and our own experiences. I think too, that we need to also remember that we are all equal in the eyes of God. This is why it is essential to showcase the positive impacts of spiritualism, through our actions, by setting an example, by being the person we were meant to be. Spiritualism can be transformative for each one of us. It has the power to uplift to enlighten and I think most importantly, to inspire. Because that is what keeps us going in life and, as Val alluded to, perhaps social media or technology, whatever it is, can be a bit scary but maybe we need to come to it from a slightly different perspective, from a spiritualist perspective. Perhaps it is integral to the web that we have connections to one another and to use that connection in a powerful way, to use it in a responsible way. So, yes it can be challenging to embrace what you may see as foreign, but it does have an upside. Perhaps all it takes is to find that upside. And I think is we are unable to treat others with kindness what is the point.
As I finish up this afternoon, I want to impress on you that we can all make a meaningful impact, that we can express empathy and most importantly, we can all hold a space for others. Spiritualism invites us to find the joy in our own suffering, which is a very difficult thing to do for, when we are amongst it, we forget that there can be growth in the suffering.
I hope that my address today has helped you to consider your part as a spiritualist or perhaps to recognise yourself as a person who is kind. If maybe you spend the next week doing small things where you can be kind to yourself and perhaps being kind to others, then our time here today has not been worthwhile.
