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VICTOR J. ZAMMIT, LAWYER ON Empirical spirituality and religion.

As one can imagine, with my book about the empirical evidence for the afterlife on the net, I do get a few crackpots trying to take me on. I find that none of them has done his/her homework. They tend to defend their personal religious and other beliefs ‘programmed’ in their early formative years. As anticipated, they try to ridicule anything not consistent with their own beliefs. Of course attacking me does not give their own personal beliefs any validation.

As I stated before, people can believe what they like. Ultimately, it is what we DO in life that will be critical – not what beliefs we have nor how many times we read the Bible.

The need to openly attack those who hold a different belief to your own seems to be an indication of spiritual immaturity and uncertainty and from my experience it is a need shared by both closed minded skeptics and religious fundamentalists. Psychologists talk about the anxiety that is raised in some people through ‘cognitive dissonance’- which means that inconsistent and dissonant information (even empirical information), tends to destabilize them cognitively. The dissonance between the evidence and what they have been taught to believe makes their heart rate beat faster, raises their blood pressure and increases their hostility to that stimulus which has destabilized them.

All this then makes them attack the source of their hostility- sometimes using strong, dirty language and even ridicule. They are really motivated by an internal voice asking “How can I be wrong all my life? How could I have wasted all my life believing in the Bible? How can Biblical beliefs be wrong – they’ve been around for some 2,000 years! No, what I’m receiving cannot be true – even if it’s empirically based!”

Of course, anyone with a closed mind will oppose anything which tends to disrupt his/her entrenched beliefs. They may say “it’s all bull” etc BUT they do not apply the tests of validity to their own subjective, personal beliefs – all of which are technically subject to complete invalidation. All universities around the world accept this empirical principle – anything subjective is itself subject to complete invalidation.

For example this week a Christian fundamentalist raised the issue of why I don’t accept the Bible and asked why I state that the information from Silver Birch and White Eagle is ‘empirical’. It appears to be a very reasonable question so let’s very briefly investigate it.

I spent years investigating the Bible as to the validity of its contents and I find that even Christian biblical experts agree with my own findings. Whilst some parts of the Bible appear to be inspirational there are hundreds of inconsistencies (go to Google.com and write “biblical inconsistencies”). Many parts of the Bible are unacceptable because they are highly unreliable claiming among other things that God is a God of hatred or of war – or is a jealous God - who will massacre innocent people in a fit of anger etc..

Does anyone expect me to accept this rubbish from the alleged ‘Holy Bible’ about the nature of God when all of the empirical evidence gained from hundreds of thousands of near death experiences, from empirical mediumship, from thousands of out of body experiences empirically measured and from thousands of years of enlightened religious experimentation is that God is ineffable, incomprehensible unconditional love.

What religionists have are personal ‘beliefs’ which are based upon what they have been taught by others interpreting a Bible which has been changed so many times. Any informed person with an open mind who tries to do research as how the Bible came into being will seriously question the information contained in it! Some lost faith in the Bible altogether.

This is what happened to so many members of the clergy – one of these is former Professor Peter De La Rosa who wrote a magnificent book called The Vicars Of Christ. He has a couple of chapters showing how many times the Bible has been changed WITHOUT proper authority. He was NOT a hypocrite – he resigned from the priesthood. He could not stay in a world of colossal hypocrisy.

Mediumship has been empirically tested a number of times over the last century. One of the most recent empiricists is Professor Gary Schwartz from Arizona. Repeatedly these psi empiricists validated mediumship. They found it is empirically valid that some gifted mediums receive information from those who used to live on this planet earth and information from the afterlife dimension.

When dealing with channeled or transmitted information we need to use the gift of our own discrimination and all reputable teachers encourage us to question everything and subject it to the light of reason. Millions of people have found that there is a consistency and profundity in the teachings of Silver Birch which is irrebutable - there is a richness of spiritual teaching - there are laws which are observable universal laws and which guide us to profound spirituality – not to ‘dogmatic religion.’

There is a definitive and fundamental difference between what is ‘spiritual’ and what is ‘religious.’ With the Silver Birch lectures there is reliability and validity. So with the teachings of White Eagle.

I spent years investigating this transmitted information – and certainly, these are regarded as high masters – and they are eye witnesses to what is happening in the afterlife. We know who these entities and are and can be sure that their teaching have not been tampered with or changed by those who transcribed them. But we have no idea where the original and authentic Biblical texts are. We have only copies of changed copies of changed copies.

In the Bible, there is certain material which is offensive, insulting and highly unspiritual. But ultimately the empirical will become unavoidable and inevitable; whenever there is an inconsistency between the empirical and theology, inevitably the empirical will prevail – and will ALWAYS prevail. One clear example of this is the Galileo case. The Bible leaders of the world demanded all people to believe that the earth was in the center of the universe and that the sun revolves around the earth. Any one who did not BELIEVE this dogma was burnt at the stake.

This was something which was a religious dogma but was in conflict with observable fact. Galileo was the one who said ‘but science shows that the earth is not in the center of the universe.’ The Biblical fanatics stated that the Holy Spirit would not let anything into the Bible unless it was correct!

Further, if you think about it – your beliefs are linked with your environment. If you were born in communist China or in Hindu India or in atheistic Russia or in Africa – your beliefs would be fundamentally different to what they are to-day.

So what make personal Biblical beliefs superior to other religious beliefs? Absolutely NOTHING! The fundamentalists tell me ‘you must have faith’! But I quote Silver Birch who said among other inspirational things, “blind faith is stupid.” It is stupid because you are trying to justify your childhood or environmental personal beliefs which are UNSUPPORTED by any empirical evidence whatsoever.

Biblical beliefs are NOT superior to other religious writings of the past or the present. As a matter of fact, if you bother to do your research on the Bible, you will find that there is absolutely nothing original in Christianity – the cross, baptism, the ‘Holy Trinity’, communion, confession, religious ritual – all these and others where take from existing Pagan and otherreligious beliefs of the past. Ask the experts. Read Arthur Findlay’s magnificent books The Rock Of Truth and The Psychic Stream where you will get the details about all this.

We are fortunate to share in Spiritualism an empirical tradition where beliefs are founded on hard core objective evidence. Spiritualism does not deal with dogmas or enforced beliefs or try to make you accept the irrational, illogical, the unspiritual or something which is unintelligent or contrary to common sense.

Spiritualism is based on empirical evidence. Over a century many empiricists have cross-confirmed the legitimacy and validity of the information transmitted from the other side. Spiritualism gives us empirical certainty as to what will happen to us when we die. Nobody on this planet earth has shown that this empirical afterlife information is not correct and on the contrary more and more evidence is emerging from new fields of research to support it.