Editor@medium2000.org	2005
SPIRITUALISM the coming world religion                        by Arthur Findlay

The reason is that because it gives you facts in place of philosophical, mystical and religious speculation on what happens after death.

We know for certain what is our destiny as far as the next step on the ladder is concerned, and we need not base our religion on faith.

Spiritualism is not a speculative religion as are all other world religions, because it is a religion based on fact, on reason and experience.

When people become educated enough to understand the basis on which spiritualism is based, their mental development will increase, and with it will also advance the feeling of at-one-ment with the guiding mind of the universe.

We now know that death is just the entrance gate to a much larger outlook on the universe, and our friends in Etheria tell us that we pass on from stage to stage, developing progressively, until we attain powers of understanding that are beyond our present capacity to imagine.

To achieve this development in an orderly and satisfactory way, our etheric friends make it clear that our lives should be governed by certain guiding principles, which can be summarised by the one word love.

Thus we must try to develop unselfishness, and live for others more than for ourselves.

This giving out, instead of taking in, has the effect of refining our minds, with the result that those that give the most freely receive most.

This, then, is the religion of Spiritualism, born of the knowledge that we do not die but are for ever destined to progress and develop, just as the divine mind of the universe, of which we are part, is progressing and developing.

This religion requires no churches, priests, creeds, dogmas or doctrines.

It has no exclusiveness, as it embraces the whole human race.

It is not in conflict with science, as it is science.

It is not conflicting with philosophy, because it is philosophy.

It is not contrary to mysticism₉ because it is mysticism.

Science and natural religion are one, and always have been one, as both stand for truth based on evidence and experience.

Philosophy, mysticism and natural religion are one, and always have been one, as they likewise stand for truth and always have stood for truth based on experience.

Supernatural religion is based on an underlying truth, namely survival after death, and has for its object the reaching of at-one-went with God.

This has been bound up with the belief in Christs, in crucified saviours, in the eating of their bodies and the drinking of their blood, in forms and ceremonials, ritual, holy books, holy churches and holy men who claim that they only can interpret God's message to pan,

Spiritualists are therefore trying to educate the people so that they may outgrow the superstitions of the past, and this Christians resent as they cannot yet see that what they worship is untrue, and that these false drapings are hiding them from the greatest truth nature has ever revealed to mankind.

Few as yet realise that one of the great events in world history occurred last century.

Not that what happened was new any more than steam was new, because engineers only applied the expanding force in steam to the needs of industry.

Likewise, since 1848,messages from the world to which we are all travelling have been systematically recorded, and used for the needs of natural religion, they are now being misinterpreted or kept hidden by the priesthood as happened in the past.

The reason this is such a great event in world history is because some were intelligent enough to understand its meaning, and were no longer dependent on an organisation whose policy has always been to keep the problems of life and death a mystery.

Education and freedom of thought has advanced sufficiently by 1848 for some people to think out for themselves the meaning of life after death, which hitherto been considered a question too sacred and profound for any to ponder over except those divinely appointed for the purpose.

Another factor, which made it possible for some people to form their own views on this matter of life and death, was because a century previously public opinion had stopped the church from burning mediums.

As mediumship is a heredity gift this obliterating of mediums had almost extinguished the psychic power latent in mankind, but in 1848 it had redeveloped sufficiently to enable Etherians to demonstrate their presence on earth.

Slowly we began to grasp the great significance of their visits, and progress commenced in understanding the mystery death.

That is why what happened in 1848 is one of the great events in the history of man.

Looking back over the great discoveries in the history, there are few others of greater importance than the fact that we have discovered our dead, and where they live.

Why did our ancestors worship one or more gods?

Why did they write books which they considered 'holy' and containing God's message to men?

Why did they offer sacrifices to appease the gods?

Why did they turn their wealth over to an organisation for the purpose of maintaining churches, priests and monasteries?

Why, since man became a thinking being, has he devoted a great part of his energy, thought and labour, to making supplication to the gods, and to supporting those he believed to be their representatives on earth?

There is only one answer to these questions, and it is found to account for all the practices we have enumerated.

All were due 'to one thing - man's fear of the unknown.

Ignorance relating to this great event in nature, death, has been the cause of unimaginable misery and cruelty.

It has sapped man's vital energy, and added to his labour through the feeling that it was necessary to employ others to act as intermediaries between him and the unknown.

The fear of the unknown has been the cause of all this waste, misery

Eradicate that fear, open the door of death, point out the land beyond, and you have once end for all removed the source of so many miseries and errors.

You have once and for all lifted from man's shoulders the burden be has been carrying since he first began to realise that he had a soul.

The inventors, the thinkers, the mechanics, the artists and all who have added to the worlds happiness and well-being, have not been able to remove this aching dread.

Taking all that these great ones have done for the good of humanity, the result of their labours will not give mankind such happiness as the definite knowledge that there is nothing to fear at death and that all who live right have a greet future in store.

Up to last century the doctors, the scientists, the inventors and the constructors have been condemned whenever they produced something new for the good of humanity.

Much that has been produced for the good of the people has been, condemned, and in many cases those who have produced it have been ill-treated, and often murdered.

The Spiritualists now come forward and tell humanity that they can give definite, reliable evidence that life continues after death, that communication has been opened up between this order of existence and the order we shall enter at death.

They tell mankind that there is nothing to fear, that there is no God of vengeance awaiting to punish his creatures when they enter the door of death, but that we punish ourselves by remorse because there, more than here, our faults, failings and mistakes become clear, to be in consequence more regretted.

Spiritualists show the reasonableness of nature's plan, and

They tell the world that every individual can prove their assertions for himself or herself, just as conclusively as everyone can determine the fact that boiling water produces steam.

What we know of death and the after-life is as scientifically proved as any other fact in science, but the great majority of people in the world are still ignorant of this.

Consequently the Spiritualist today is treated with contempt by many people, because of the fact that his knowledge of what takes place at death is considered by the ignorant to be the result of his wandering imaginations, and contrary to the will of God.

The spiritualists nevertheless have brought to the world the one great thing humanity wanted.

They can prove to the satisfaction of any intelligent individual, who cares to take the trouble to investigate, that the claims they make are true.

Most people however, do not believe that such is possible and many continue to live their lives in fear of the unknown.

The passage of time, accompanied by increased knowledge on the one hand and the waning of intolerance, prejudice and superstition on the other, will some day replace falsehood with truth.

It has done so in the past and it will do so in the future.

Spiritualism,