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Mediumship or Spirit Channeling


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14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

It doesn’t have one.

I don't agree.

Church Handbook 38.6.12

Quote

“That which is of God is light” (Doctrine and Covenants 50:24). The occult focuses on darkness and leads to deception. It destroys faith in Christ.

The occult includes Satan worship. It also includes mystical activities that are not in harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Such activities include (but are not limited to) fortune-telling, curses, and healing practices that are imitations of the priesthood power of God (see Moroni 7:11–17).

Church members should not engage in any form of Satan worship or participate in any way with the occult. They should not focus on such darkness in conversations or in Church meetings.

To the extent we consider scripture as a guide to Church policy, it is even more explicit. See Deuteronomy 18:10-12.

Quote

10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,

11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

 

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47 minutes ago, halconero said:

I don't agree.

Church Handbook 38.6.12

To the extent we consider scripture as a guide to Church policy, it is even more explicit. See Deuteronomy 18:10-12.

 

Always makes me smile when you turn up. :) 

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4 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

How many of you believe a Ouiji board actually contacts spirits, and how many of you believe it is bunk?

I believe it can be a conduit. Such as I believe a Medium can be one too. My niece is a Medium. She's had a gift since childhood. And just like you have child prodigy's I believe you can have a connection to spirits be similar. Or even build on it as well. Such as those that don't immediately know how to play the piano but learn. Everyone can work on being closer to spirit.

I don't understand a lot of the members of the church who poo poo things like this. My husband being one of them. Since we've been told that just a veil separates us from the other side. 

Also, my mother told me that while a young a adult she and some friends did some kind of seance or ? and put their hands on a table and she said it actually raised up. She isn't one to trick me or joke around like that. Don't know maybe they contacted a not so nice spirit. 

 

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14 hours ago, pogi said:

When they found that evil spirits apparently respond better to modern medicine and therapy than to exorcism, you are right - that started a new trend. 

What are the symptoms of true demonic possession (foaming at the mouth, lunatic behavior, etc?) and how can you decipher it from mental illness?  

If being a medium is a high risk factor for demonic possession, then why don't we see more full-on demonic possessed mediums foaming at the mouth and behaving like wild lunatics?

 

With regard to symptoms:

  1. Super strength
  2. Speaking languages that shouldn't be known to the person
  3. Aversion to the sacred (spaces, sacramentals, even Bibles)
  4. Knowledge that the person shouldn't have.

Differentiating possession and mental illness, and allowing for the possibility of co-occurrence:

Possessed or Mentally Ill? w/ Exorcist Fr. Vincent Lampert - YouTube

The only two choices aren't 1) witch burnings or 2) secular explanations. I suspect that the LDS Church probably allows for both demonic activity and for psychological malady.  

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20 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

How many of you believe a Ouiji board actually contacts spirits, and how many of you believe it is bunk?

Bunk… if by chance spirits who are evil were contacted (big, big if, but not completely ruling out the possibility), they would have been drawn by ill intent of some sort, not because someone used a ouija board, which essentially in my view at most is simply praying/meditating to contact a spirit.  Any contacted spirit would communicate spirit to spirit, not through a planchette.

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10 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Witchburning didn't really become a thing until the Protestant Reformation. I suspect it took off as a chest-beating exercise between rival faiths to show off their satan-smashing power. Where were all the witches in the rest of Catholic history? Did Martin Luther open the gates of hell and let them out?

There is truth in what you've written; this is another area where Catholics and Orthodox are smeared with 'dark ages' rhetoric that ignores pertinent facts. If memory serves, the Protestants are the ones who created all the 'execute the witch' laws in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the U.S., of course, it was the Puritans.

I enjoy the Monty Python scene about burning the witch as much as does the next person, though. 

Edited by Saint Bonaventure
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28 minutes ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

I suspect that the LDS Church probably allows for both demonic activity and for psychological malady.  

It does.  Exorcisms are performed, but are not elaborate and the Church does not make a big deal of them…which is a good thing, imo, as it could easily turn into the wrong kind of attention for any actual sufferer and could attract frauds wanting attention, etc.  The vast majority of stories I have heard have been missionary stories, as far as I know a request for an exorcism is more likely to come from an investigator or new convert, but I have never looked into it.

blog on some such experiences:

https://bycommonconsent.com/2013/04/18/missionaries-and-exorcisms/

Found this, no clue if worthwhile.  On exorcism from a Mormon viewpoint by a professor of religious studies:

https://mi.byu.edu/mip-71-taysom/

and

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religion-and-american-culture/article/abs/satan-mourns-naked-upon-the-earth-locating-mormon-possession-and-exorcism-rituals-in-the-american-religious-landscape-18301977/F6239202C070D319B6B97E5C01D8943D

Edited by Calm
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23 hours ago, Senator said:

... a family member is trying her hand at it.

Imo the intention to interact only with spirits which are of God should always be a clearly expressed and not deviated from in her practice.  This is done out of prudence, not out of fear, just as you wouldn't deviate from the traffic laws and drive into oncoming traffic.  Then she should be perfectly fine.

The more light and love and whatever terms she uses for positive energy she can bring into her practice, the better... going again with a driving analogy, the cleaner your windshield and the brighter your headlights and the more alert and focused you are, the better you can drive at night (this analogy of course breaks down when your headlights start to blind oncoming drivers). 

22 hours ago, Peacefully said:

What about Water Witches? 

"Dowsing" is something my wife sometimes does, and I think she prefers that term because it has fewer possibly negative connotations.  She's LDS but "fringe".

5 hours ago, Calm said:

Exorcisms are performed, but are not elaborate and the Church does not make a big deal of them…which is a good thing, imo, as it could easily turn into the wrong kind of attention for any actual sufferer and could attract frauds wanting attention, etc.  

Agreed.  Imo there are much better places to put one's focus. 

5 hours ago, Calm said:

The vast majority of stories I have heard have been missionary stories, as far as I know a request for an exorcism is more likely to come from an investigator or new convert, but I have never looked into it.

blog on some such experiences:

https://bycommonconsent.com/2013/04/18/missionaries-and-exorcisms/

Found this, no clue if worthwhile.  On exorcism from a Mormon viewpoint by a professor of religious studies:

https://mi.byu.edu/mip-71-taysom/

and

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religion-and-american-culture/article/abs/satan-mourns-naked-upon-the-earth-locating-mormon-possession-and-exorcism-rituals-in-the-american-religious-landscape-18301977/F6239202C070D319B6B97E5C01D8943D

Thank you for those links.  I didn't read the one behind a paywall but I read the other two.

In my opinion (and as the Taysom interview suggests) there does seem to be some correlation between what a person is (culturally?) "open to the possibility of" and what some people experience, and ime this seeming correlation extends both up and down the spectrum of experiences. 

One comment on the "by fasting and prayer" approach, which seems to be called for sometimes: In such cases, imo the fasting and prayer and anything else conducive to the Spirit of the Lord should especially be done by the person who is afflicted, as this effectively turns them into an environment in which darkness finds itself out of place.  So it's sort of like using "attrition".  A related benefit is, this approach shifts the energetic "radio station" that the person is "tuned in to", which may be a key element in such cases.  The person may benefit from re-setting their default "station" to one that's "further up the dial". 

(Imo our words [whether spoken aloud or silently] have more effect than we normally give them credit for.  So imo it makes sense to treat our self-talk as if it has power even if we don't normally attribute any power to it.  By way of another driving analogy, we should [deliberately if necessary] maintain hands on the steering wheel and devote at least some attention to keeping the car going in the direction we want, rather than letting the front wheels default into the path of least resistance.)

 

Edited by manol
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3 hours ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

With regard to symptoms:

  1. Super strength
  2. Speaking languages that shouldn't be known to the person
  3. Aversion to the sacred (spaces, sacramentals, even Bibles)
  4. Knowledge that the person shouldn't have.

Differentiating possession and mental illness, and allowing for the possibility of co-occurrence:

Possessed or Mentally Ill? w/ Exorcist Fr. Vincent Lampert - YouTube

The only two choices aren't 1) witch burnings or 2) secular explanations. I suspect that the LDS Church probably allows for both demonic activity and for psychological malady.  

With all due respect, I am skeptical of actual demonic possession - even as historically taught in my own church. 

I watched the video.  Something that I found interesting is that he stated that he "need to reach moral certitude - meaning beyond any doubt that the person in front of me is truly dealing with the demonic."   He stated that he relies on mental health experts and psychiatrists to weigh in before he forms his conclusion.   The host then asked him about instances where psychiatrists told him "I don't know what this is", or "it is inexplicable".  He responded that that doesn't happen, except with maybe a few Catholic counselors.  So I am left wondering that if professional psychiatrists are not seeing these manifestations as inexplicable or as feats of superhuman capabilities/knowledge, how is he able to be so certain, when they are not?   

Edited by pogi
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58 minutes ago, pogi said:

With all due respect, I am skeptical of actual demonic possession - even as historically taught in my own church. 

I watched the video.  Something that I found interesting is that he stated that he "need to reach moral certitude - meaning beyond any doubt that the person in front of me is truly dealing with the demonic."   He stated that he relies on mental health experts and psychiatrists to weigh in before he forms his conclusion.   The host then asked him about instances where psychiatrists told him "I don't know what this is", or "it is inexplicable".  He responded that that doesn't happen, except with maybe a few Catholic counselors.  So I am left wondering that if professional psychiatrists are not seeing these manifestations as inexplicable or as feats of superhuman capabilities/knowledge, how is he able to be so certain, when they are not?   

Thanks for responding, Pogi.

As far as I'm concerned, please do hold your skepticism as tightly as you desire. I didn't put forward the criteria or the link as some sort of proof, refutation of a worldview, or anything of the sort. I just put it forward for general interest, or as an example of how this topic is often discussed.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Calm said:

Always makes me smile when you turn up. :) 

Thanks Calm. I am somewhat more present than my replies would indicate. :) Usually just perusing. Life is busy with a recent move to England for my PhD and with the arrival of our newborn. Its both exhausting and exhilarating all at once.

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1 hour ago, halconero said:

Thanks Calm. I am somewhat more present than my replies would indicate. :) Usually just perusing. Life is busy with a recent move to England for my PhD and with the arrival of our newborn. Its both exhausting and exhilarating all at once.

I remember. Have fun. 

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10 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

How many of you believe a Ouiji board actually contacts spirits, and how many of you believe it is bunk?

Bunk. If satanism or divination or whatever really pulled in spirits from the other side there would be a lot more of them.

6 hours ago, pogi said:

With all due respect, I am skeptical of actual demonic possession - even as historically taught in my own church. 

I watched the video.  Something that I found interesting is that he stated that he "need to reach moral certitude - meaning beyond any doubt that the person in front of me is truly dealing with the demonic."   He stated that he relies on mental health experts and psychiatrists to weigh in before he forms his conclusion.   The host then asked him about instances where psychiatrists told him "I don't know what this is", or "it is inexplicable".  He responded that that doesn't happen, except with maybe a few Catholic counselors.  So I am left wondering that if professional psychiatrists are not seeing these manifestations as inexplicable or as feats of superhuman capabilities/knowledge, how is he able to be so certain, when they are not?   

I have had experiences that make me think it is real but not in the commonly accepted idea that an entity takes over a body completely. I could be wrong though. One experience was a weird attack on me where I went into a kind of convulsions. Another was when I walked into someone’s house and just felt it was filled with something malignant.

I have also had an experience where an exorcism was requested and I don’t believe it was needed.

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On 2/16/2023 at 3:00 PM, JLHPROF said:

Anytime you open yourself up to a spirit other than your own or the Lord's you are playing with fire.  Period.

While tracting in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, we knocked on the door of a very nice large house. As usual in those cases, the door was answered by the maid. Instead of turning us away like in almost all such encounters, she asked for to take a seat and said the owner would be out soon.

After a few minutes, a bald man wearing a red toga came out. I think he was barefooted. “Well this is strange,” we thought. He was odd but pleasant enough, so we presented our first-encounter discussion. Somehow the conversation turned to priesthood. We explained Joseph Smith’s experience. Then he said, “I will show you my priesthood.”

The feeling in the room changed  dark immediately. He came back and said, “This is my priesthood.” He held in his hand a disk about 3” in diameter with runes, symbols, creatures engraved and soldered on one side. “This is my priesthood power.”

There was a palpable feeling of evil in the room. We were inspired to leave immediately, which we did. An unusual experience.


 

 

Edited by Bernard Gui
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On 2/17/2023 at 8:55 AM, MiserereNobis said:

How many of you believe a Ouiji board actually contacts spirits, and how many of you believe it is bunk?

Three of my sister’s kids had a terrifying experience with teen-age friends while playing with a ouiji board. That was about 55 years ago. They have not been active for a long time, but they still talk about it.  

Edited by Bernard Gui
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13 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

How many of you believe a Ouiji board actually contacts spirits, and how many of you believe it is bunk?

Certainly a Ouija board is not a direct line to spirits.

I think there are spiritual beings out there with all sorts of motivations, and I think some do have power to affect the physical world. If they want to use a Oujia board to do so, they can.

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Regarding "spirit channeling" -

The metropolitan area where I lived in the mid 90's only had one LDS stake for an area of over 1.5 million people, so the church was not well known.

There was a new-age bookstore where I would sometimes hang out, and for a while they had a "channeling" class one night a week.  Typically a half-dozen or so people would show up and pay something like ten bucks each to attend, and the channeler would usually take one question from each person.  I attended once or twice but it didn't really grab me; I wasn't convinced, and was much more interested in the meditation class they held on a different night.

Anyway this one particular night ( I wasn't there but was told about it by friends who were) someone asked, "which religion is closest to the truth?"  The answer that was given was, "the Mormon religion".  This was quite a surprise, as nobody there knew anything about "the Mormon religion".

I'm not suggesting anyone draw any conclusions from this, just reporting something that I would not have expected.

Edited by manol
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On 2/16/2023 at 11:44 AM, pogi said:

Are you watching the Netflix series about Tyler Henry too?

I just started watching it last night and it definitely raises questions. I've never seen anything quite like it in how consistently spot on he is.  He seems to have a very genuine spirit about him.  I am always super cautious with buying into this stuff wholesale as there are so many frauds out there, but this kid seems legit.   I can't explain what I am seeing unless there is some big behind the scenes scam going on.   The comfort and healing that he provides is really touching.     

There is a behind the scenes scam going on.  So called Spiritualism has been debunked for well over 100 years. 🥴

Edited by mrmarklin
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