Tag Archives: spirits

HOW TO START A RELIGION FOR FUN AND PROFIT IN 10 EASY STEPS

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  1. Report that you have been visited or inspired by a “Divine Being(s)” or an extraterrestrial philosopher who revealed to you, personally and privately, an Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omnivorous, Omni-Nom-Nom-Nom Big Spirit or Spirits who claim responsibility for having created the god-awful mess we call The Universe.
  2. Swear under pain of death that the Big Spirit or Spirits is/are THE ONLY source of Eternal Life, Mystery, Power, Creation, Love, Beauty, Equality, Joy, Peace, Benevolence, Bliss, etc., etc..
  3. Give your Big Spirit(s) and/or philosophy an impressive sounding name and add the suffix “-anity” or “-ism” or “-ology”.  Examples: The Big Bubba, Omnomnomnom, Zoultron, etc..  Examples: Prescient Eschatology, Powerism, Blissanity, etc..
  4. Write one or more “sacred” books espousing the mythology that you allege has been revealed to you about the origin and/or characteristics of the ONLY Big Spirit(s) and an esoteric philosophy about your personal feelings and opinions about life, universes and sex.  And, don’t forget to have a graphic design artist draw up some complex and esoteric symbols to add a sense of authentic antiquity to reinforce your mythos.
  5. Recruit a bunch of soulless human begins who lead pathetic, hopeless, confused lives and who are gullible enough to think that spiritual qualities exist in the physical universe.  Explain that your Big Spirit will not point out to them that they are the cause of their own misery due to stupidity, irresponsibility, greed, duplicity, lust, etc..  Now you are armed with the necessary propaganda needed to indoctrinate, frighten or coerce  them into becoming “Con-verts”.  (Human beings will believe almost anything if they think it will give them a way to escape responsibility for their own thoughts and actions!)
  6. Designate the most perverted, pathetic, duplicitous, holier-than-thou “Con-verts” to become  priests or “Pre-verts”.  The job of the “Pre-verts” is to create more “Con-verts” by frightening and brow-beating innocent by-standers into buying and reading your “sacred” book(s).
  7. Have your “Pre-verts” promise the most gullible “Con-verts”, who are not aware that there is absolutely no hope of anything except pain, misery, agony, death and betrayal on Earth, that when they fanatically agree with the tenants of your philosophy they will be transported to a “Paradisiacal Afterlife”, provided that they PAY a lot MORE money to the “Pre-verts” who will “intercede” on their behalf with the Big Spirit(s) to guarantee that they will receive permission to continue living forever as a Ghost in the Paradisiacal Afterlife when they die.
  8. Have the Pre-verts tell the Con-verts that they are the ONLY people who really know “The Truth” because the Big Spirit(s) have “chosen” them to be one of the very few members of “The Secret Society of The Only Ones Who Really Know The Truth and Everyone Else Is Evil”.  And, tell them that if they ever stop “believing” they will suddenly become “Evil” and be barred from the  Paradisiacal Afterlife forever, and ever!  Do NOT explain what and where the Paradisiacal Afterlife will be.  Let them use their own imaginations and keep them guessing.
  9. Take some of your profits and use it to pay the “Pre-verts” to build massive and beautifully extravagant temples, gold statues, shrines, monuments, etc., in tribute to the philosopher who thought up the Big Spirit. And, make it the job of the “Pre-verts” to write beautiful rhetoric, music, chants, rituals, incantations, sacrificial ceremonies, etc., to get the gullible “Con-verts” to come and give them MORE money.  (People always pay for glitz and glamour.)
  10. Open one or more off-shore bank accounts and pay the government officials to give you exemption from paying taxes as a “non-profit”, benevolent, do-gooder, organization.  Use some of the money to hire the best attorneys money can buy and pay off government officials to defend yourself from legal actions brought against you by former “Con-verts” for all the fraud, theft, sexual molestation, etc., perpetrated by your “Pre-verts”. Take the rest of your profits and live a life of ease and luxury until you die, get another body, and start all over again as a “believer” in a Big Spirit(s) that someone else invented.

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 Text Copyrighted by Lawrence R. Spencer 2011

Image Copyrighted by Joe Fenton.  All Rights Reserved.

Arthur Conan Doyle Spirit Photographs

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ARD Spirit photosSpiritualism: In Search of Proof of Spirits
During the rise of spiritualism in the mid-1800s and into the early twentieth century, there were mediums who claimed they could speak to the dead and bring forth oddities from the other side of the grave. There were also photographers who produced intriguing psychic photographs of the deceased who were appearing beside loved ones. Arguments ensued about whether or not these paranormal claims were true. Arthur Conan Doyle found that a group of mediums called the “Crew Circle” and one of its members in particular, psychic-medium Billy Hope, had come under strong attack by now legendary ghost investigator, Harry Price, of the Society for Psychical Research. Price was claiming Mr. Hope had switched photographic plates during Price’s investigation of him. Doyle elected to defend Mr. Hope and “maligned members of the Crewe Circle” by publishing evidence in support of the ghost photographs being produced by the group.

Doyle the Spiritualist
Arthur Conan Doyle was a spiritualist who believed that ghosts and spirits could be contacted by use of a psychic-medium. To prove this idea to others, he elected to personally investigate the production of ghost pictures from mediums who were adept at creating this phenomena. His findings were published in 1923 in a book entitled, The Case for Spirit Photography. As of this writing, copies of his book can fetch between $150-300, depending upon condition.

In The Case for Spirit Photography, Arthur Conan Doyle explains his intentions to defend the Crewe Circle, Medium Billy Hope and spirit photography:

Arthur Conan Doyle & Mrs with spirit 1920“I hope to make it clear to any unprejudiced mind that there is overwhelming evidence that we have in Mr. Hope, a man endowed with most singular powers, and that, instead of persecuting and misrepresenting him, it would be wiser if we took a sympathetic view of his remarkable work, which has brought consolation to the afflicted, and conviction to many who had lost all belief in the independent life of the spirit.”

Mr. Hope, following on the heels of famed spirit photographer, William Mumler, at the time of Doyle’s investigation, had been producing ghosts in photos for 17 years. He had been tested by the experts of his day who were proficient in photography, science, and investigative journalism. Arthur Conan Doyle tested Mr. Hope and his ghost picture process by purchasing, opening, marking, and inserting his own photographic plates into Hope’s camera. After medium Hope took a picture with the plates, Doyle removed them, developed, and fixed them himself. The pictures would reveal a smoky presence Arthur Conan Doyle called “ectoplasm” – evidence of spirit presence.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle continues detailing other experiments involving Mr. Hope and the Crewe Circle, including the examination of their character. By the end of the book, we read numerous personal testimonies corroborating Doyle’s conclusions. The testimony of George H. Lethem, at the time serving as Justice of the Peace for the City of Glasgow, was highly credible. Lethem also examined the entire process of the Crewe Circle members and came to the following conclusions about their photographs:

  • The plates were not faked before exposure.
  • There was no substitution of plates.
  • There was no double exposure.
  • There was no double printing.
  • The plate was not faked after development.

Mr. Hope was never proven a fraud. His process went with him when he left this earth in 1933. Doyle’s book survives today as a positive testimony of Hope’s legacy. The debate about the validity of ghost and spirit photographs still continues to be waged, today, by both skeptics and believers.

After viewing the ghost pictures and evidence that Arthur Conan Doyle puts forth in his book, do you believe he has proven the case for spirit photography? Were the photos just hoaxes or were they real evidence produced by members of the Crewe Circle? You decide…

SEE MORE “SPIRIT PHOTOS” HERE:  http://www.angelsghosts.com/arthur_conan_doyle_ghost_spirit_photographs

PROOF OF SPIRITS

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PROOF WITHIN

In spite of vast numbers of “ghost sightings”, innumerable reports of “out-of-body experiences”, and “divine encounters” with gods or spirits, that pervades nearly all of prehistoric and recorded human history, I found only one underlying, unifying, indisputable, axiomatic common denominator that permeates all of this data:

Assuming that subjective reality, or beliefs, of individuals is acceptable evidence, there has been no universally agreed upon “proof” that “spirits” or gods or life-after-death based on physical evidence, circumstantial or subjective data.  There are several deductions I can infer from the lack of physical evidence that such things are real, and, if verified, may lead to a workable solution to many of the “mysteries” of Life, Universes and Other Stuff“:

deduction:
In spite of an enormous collection of subjective, circumstantial “evidence” of spiritual activity on and around Earth, the existence, intentions and the activities of spirits remain hidden and mysterious.

deduction:
Universally agreed upon proof of the existence of spirituality, based on subjective data, physical and circumstantial evidence are subject to conflicting vested interests, which has made such proof unattainable.

Collectively, these deductions beg the obvious question:
If spirits exist, why is there no “proof”?   The answer seems to be fairly obvious, at least to me:  Perceptions of spirituality are a subjective reality, unique and different for every individual.  Subjective reality does not require evidence or “proof”.  The proof is within you.

~ Lawrence R. Spencer. 2014 ~

STEAM PUNK FAERIE

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STEAMPUNK

Steampunk is a genre which came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s and incorporates elements of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, horror, and speculative fiction. It involves a setting where steam power is widely used—whether in an alternate history such as Victorian era Britain or “Wild West”-era United States, or in a post-apocalyptic time —that incorporates elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology, or futuristic innovations as Victorians might have envisioned them, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art. This technology includes such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or the contemporary authors Philip Pullman, Scott Westerfeld and China Mieville.

Other examples of steampunk contain alternative history-style presentations of such technology as lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace’sAnalytical Engine.

Steampunk also refers to art, fashion, and design that are informed by the aesthetics of Steampunk literature. Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by individual artisans into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical “steampunk” style, and a number of visual and musical artists have been described as steampunk.  Steampunk is most directly influenced by, and often adopts the style of, the 19th century scientific romances of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Mary Shelley.

FAERIE

The word fairy derives from Middle English faierie (also fayeryefeiriefairie), a direct borrowing from Old French faerie (Modern French féerie) meaning the land, realm, or characteristic activity (i.e. enchantment) of the legendary people of folklore and romance called (in Old French) faie or fee (Modern French fée). This derived ultimately from Late Latin fata (one of the personified Fates, hence a guardian or tutelary spirit, hence a spirit in general); cf. Italian fata, Portuguese fada, Spanish hada of the same origin.

Fata, although it became a feminine noun in the Romance languages, was originally the neuter plural (“the Fates”) of fatum, past participle of the verb fari to speak, hence “thing spoken, decision, decree” or “prophetic declaration, prediction”, hence “destiny, fate”. It was used as the equivalent of the Greek Μοῖραι Moirai, the personified Fates who determined the course and ending of human life.

To the word faie was added the suffix -erie (Modern English -(e)ry), used to express either a place where something is found (fishery, heronry, nunnery) or a trade or typical activity engaged in by a person (cookery, midwifery, thievery). In later usage it generally applied to any kind of quality or activity associated with a particular sort of person, as in English knavery, roguery, witchery, wizardry.

Faie became Modern English fay “a fairy”; the word is, however, rarely used, although it is well known as part of the name of the legendary sorceress Morgan le Fay of Arthurian legend. Faierie became fairy, but with that spelling now almost exclusively referring to one of the legendary people, with the same meaning as fay. In the sense “land where fairies dwell”, the distinctive and archaic spellings Faery and Faerie are often used. Faery is also used in the sense of “a fairy”, and the back-formation fae, as an equivalent or substitute for fay is now sometimes seen.

The word fey, originally meaning “fated to die” or “having forebodings of death” (hence “visionary”, “mad”, and various other derived meanings) is completely unrelated, being from Old English fæge, Proto-Germanic *faigja- and Proto-Indo-European *poikyo-, whereas Latin fata comes from the Indo-European root *bhã- “speak”. Due to the identical pronunciation of the two words, “fay” is sometimes misspelled “fey”.

Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and having magical powers. Their origins are less clear in the folklore, being variously dead, or some form of demon, or a species completely independent of humans or angels.[3] Folklorists have suggested that their actual origin lies in a conquered race living in hiding,[4] or in religious beliefs that lost currency with the advent of Christianity. These explanations are not necessarily incompatible, and they may be traceable to multiple sources.

Much of the folklore about fairies revolves around protection from their malice, by such means as cold iron (iron is like poison to fairies, and they will not go near it) or charms of rowan and herbs, or avoiding offense by shunning locations known to be theirs.[6] In particular, folklore describes how to prevent the fairies from stealing babies and substituting changelings, and abducting older people as well. Many folktales are told of fairies, and they appear as characters in stories from medieval tales of chivalry, to Victorian fairy tales, and up to the present day in modern literature.  ( Reference:  Wikipedia.org)