Articles

<< Return to Articles

Spiritualist Religion Must Be Respected
'… a negative mind will inevitably excrete negativity…'

For the religion of Spiritualism - who needs enemies when you have Basil Thomas around? Throughout his two articles on Spiritualism (published in the March/April issues of Psychic World) there is a defeatist, deadly destructive, extreme negativism. Gross misrepresentations pervade his insidious and nihilistic anti-Spiritualist writing. To me and others I know it was a wilful, vicious, intentionally cruel cowardly stab in the back.

When Basil deals with Mons Benson of the Anthony Borgia international fame, he fraudulently misrepresents Mons Benson - see below.

There is an entrenched historical tradition in Spiritualism of Spirit teaching. Spiritualists have sought the guidance of Spirit teaching because Spiritualists understand that the evidence for the afterlife and the teachings of higher spirits are most critical as to how we should conduct ourselves on earth. This is because the Spiritualists have found these teachings to be MORE functional, MORE immediately relevant to the obtaining of accurate information about life and the afterlife than ANY other source in human history. This would include the Bible and all other philosophy from around the world. Spiritualists showed they do have the discrimination to distinguish between the spiritual teachings of Silver Birch and White Eagle and those of Ramtha.

Spiritualists and every one who belongs to any religion have a fundamental legal right to hold and pursue their religious beliefs in peace in Britain, the US and in many other countries where the due process is constitutionally observed. We must respect people's rights to follow the religion of their choice as articulated in the United Nations Covenants which Europe, the US and other countries ratified.

Basil has unconscionably unfairly attacked the religion of Spiritualism through a series of overgeneralizations. He comes across as a defeatist closed minded skeptic who was given license in Psychic World to ridicule, denigrate and belittle anything connected with the Spiritualists. By any professional criteria, his sarcastic scurrilous articles do not constitute 'legitimate criticism' and in substance he comes across like an anti-spiritual materialist , notwithstanding that he calls himself a 'spiritualist' to try to retain some credibility. But close content analysis of his two articles clearly shows he is a vicious debunker of the religion of Spiritualism.

Basil has knowingly and wilfully tried to insult the correspondents in Psychic World, The Psychic News and other psychic papers, spiritual writers, Spiritualists and anything connected with Spiritualism. With absolute certainty, there would have been many readers who would have more than raised their eyebrows at such unfair and insulting language used against them.

More heinous and despicable and below-the-belt dirty writing was his attempt to destroy the beliefs of many decent people; yet he miserably fails to produce one piece of evidence that credible afterlife entities are misleading people. Not even the educated materialists I came across these last 30 years have articulated so much vulgarity against the legitimate religion of Spiritualism.

My view is that his destructive, negative misrepresentations writing has caused much harm to Spirituality - and perhaps even to subscribers and readers of PW.

I found his writings unspiritual, absolutely disgusting, even dirty, uninformed and certainly not fit to be published in any spiritual newspapers. Why?

Rebuttals - March article
Basil says (in bold print), "there is nothing remotely spiritual, wise or philosophical" (prefacing his own article). I totally agree! Basil has not shown one iota of wisdom or philosophy or spirituality. But notice, then he goes on to tell us at length about HIS negative philosophy, his defeatism, his 'negative wisdom' and his depressive perception of Spiritualism.

"Philosophy comes ready gift-wrapped from the spirit world." This is another unnecessary sarcastic remark. Basil's cynical non-analytical, but descriptive writing is offensive and insulting. He does not SHOW, does not EXPLAIN WHY the philosophy of Silver Birch or White Eagle for example are irrelevant. There is more immediacy and relevance to the people in the world to-day in the philosophy of Silver Birch, White Eagle and Mons Hugh Benson than in all the accumulated philosophy of those mentioned by Basil: Socrates, Aristotle, Leibniz and Kant who say nothing useful about the afterlife. This spirit communication relates information about the conditions in the afterlife- information which is most critical to our living on earth now. We have to know what is immediately relevant from those who are afterlife eyewitnesses and who are highly credible. And as Silver Birch stated a number of times, if anything he stated offends you - go elsewhere! The materialist philosophers may appeal to Basil, but they have NO place in a Spiritualist newspaper.

"… even wisdom is ours for the asking …forever on tap like draught Guinness." It is so easy to see the cynicism of associating spiritual wisdom with draught Guinness. There are spiritualists who want to be given guidance about living, about conduct, about relationships. Why try to destroy something beautiful which is giving many Spiritualists much needed comfort? Why the negativity? Why the cynicism? Why the darkness?

"Ramtha, JZ Knight, Shirley MacLaine, White Eagle, Abu." An attempt was made by Basil to make ALL these look stupid and ridiculous. He shows how ignorant he is when he does not discriminate between the writings of White Eagle and Ramtha. What is offensive in ANY of White Eagle's writings? Those who read White Eagle will know that the writings are highly inspired and coming from a highly credible, serious, very enlightening source. Many obtain enormous benefits from living the White Eagle teachings. Basil's lack of spiritual discrimination shows he lacks the depth of understanding to discriminate what is spiritually relevant from that which is materialistic.
There have been many thousands, including myself, who significantly benefited from White Eagle healing. Now what evidence does this Basil have to show that White Eagle is not being fundamentally beneficial to Spiritualists? Absolutely NOTHING! In a cowardly way he just regurgitates his own unsubstantiated personal negativity.

"I find it more worthwhile to seek it (information, guidance) among the living …than have recourse … to the post mortem ruminations of an Imperator …" and "teachings are no more helpful … than what is offered by people whose identity I can verify …" If Basil feels he does not have the spiritual discrimination to carefully select critical information transmitted from the otherside to his benefit, then no wonder he comes across as a confused, lost soul. I am just stunned by Basil's blindly faithful acceptance of the information from those who are (unnamed) 'living'- but note very carefully, Basil miserably and cowardly fails by NOT stating the names of the living to whom he looks for authority, guidance and relevant information. Where is the ultimate authority for spiritual living? Where is Basil's 'authority'? Who are these ultimates in sagacity, truth, wisdom and philosophy 'among the living' - the Vatican? The Queen? Mao Tse Tung? Or that defeatist and morally bankrupt existentialist Jean Paul Sartre?

Basil does not identify even ONE 'living' authority who can match these said spiritual teachers! Even if he could so what? If the teachings are inspirational what does it matter about the source? Basil projects so much gratuitous negativity and reveals a peculiar state of mind which does not appear - to use a euphemism - to be reasonably balanced.

It was a most egregious failure by Basil and in extremely bad taste to rubbish those highly credible spiritual sources Silver Birch and White Eagle who have come across with high inspiration and credibility and who passed the test of time. I find Basil's attack on these highly regarded Spirit teachers as one of the dirtiest, most vindictive attacks on record. He reminds me of a junior materialist journalist who wants to shock everyone irrespective of cost to gain some attention.

"…the 'teachings' of this or that spirit entity, when looked at critically, may well fall miserably short of the hype" (Basil Thomas). Perception is in the eye of the beholder - a negative mind will inevitably excrete negativity. A positive mind will inevitably elicit confidence, peace, light and love. If Basil cannot find a high level of insightful teachings in the highly credible Spiritualist sources which had a major positive influence around the world - Silver Birch, White Eagle, Monsigneur Benson of the Anthony Borgia books- then one is led to believe that Basil is some kind of an infiltrator causing haemorrhaging from inside the citadel of Spiritualism. Shame, Basil, shame.

If Basil lost faith in Spiritualism - IF he was a Spiritualist in the first place (which I very seriously doubt) then he should join the skeptics - because he shows he does not belong to traditional Spiritualism.

"Poor Mons Benson! To be deprived upon death not only of his faith … not to mention his sense of the ridiculous." That was a most unfair, distorted and unreasonable way of intentionally misrepresenting Mons Benson. Basil pushed negativity, ridicule and malice to their extreme - why? Mediumship has been empirically established - see the latest experiments of Prof Gary Schwartz and many others. Information transmitted from the otherside by Benson gives a most sober understanding of what to expect - fundamentally different from what we have been taught by orthodoxy. The consequences are enormous to say the least! A reasonable imputaion of Basil's rejection of Mons Benson is that we should accept traditional religious teachings about the afterlife. That would be the most ridiculous recommendation - because there is NO authority from anywhere as to what happens when we die except from Spiritualists and from psychic phenomena pertaining to afterlife evidence. The workable principle is that nothing subjective (as in the Bible) can ever give us testable authority. The Bible says nothing as to what happens when we die except there is heaven and hell. The Catholics added purgatory. Mons Benson's afterlife descriptions are fundamentally consistent with other credible said sources of what happens when we pass on.

Further, Basil picks on one most minor observation of an awkwardness in style in alleging that this is grounds to ridicule the communicator's 'sense of style, punctuation and grammar, not to mention his sense of the ridiculous.' Anyone familiar with the writings of Mons Benson through Anthony Borgia in his seven (not two as Basil says) books will attest to their superior style, highly spiritually oratorical, punctuation and grammar as well as their primary substance..

A most fundamental message from the highly credible 'eye-witness' afterlife teachers such as Silver Birch and White Eagle and others who come from races much older than ours is SELF RESPONSIBILITY - that we are solely responsible for our actions and omissions. Ironic in the extreme, this is what Basil stated - a pure STEAL from the spirits - Silver Birch, White Eagle.

Basil appears to be ignorant of the most important aspect of the decision making process - that we must have access to ALL relevant information. The Judeo/Christian environment does NOT give us the most critical information which has come from the abovementioned credible afterlife teachers who often repeated that it is 'selfless service' which will be the most critical criterion as to what will happen to us when we pass on NOT how often we went to Church, NOT how often we received holy communion, NOT how often we received the 'sacraments,' NOT how often we prayed.

There is also the universal law of cause and effect (karma) which some major churches ignore - especially the Catholics who still believe in death-bed salvation, hell for eternity and instant forgiveness for the most brutal crimes. If Basil wants to accept Churchian creedalism and dogmas as he imputes, he is free to do just that - but he shouldn't shove them down our throat.

To me and to those I discussed the matter with, Basil's expressly stated and imputed extreme negativism and defeatism show he is clearly one of the bitter losers and defeatists of this world. In retrospect, instead of continuously refining with maturity over time, Basil shows retrogression, aggression, violence, despair, defeatism and delusion. Insults, unfair attacks, violations of ethics are not the qualities of a spiritually happy person.

Sadly, Basil's dissemination of darkness does nothing to positively stimulate the readers of Psychic World. In contrast, throughout the world there has been a huge increase in the acceptance of the evidence for the afterlife and the core beliefs of Spiritualism- this can be objectively measured by the Gallup surveys taken in 2001, by the plethora of internet websites on psi penetrating some 150 countries, by the dramatic results in psi experiments done by some of the most brilliant empiricists of this world and by the success of popular afterlife television shows disseminating Light such as John Edward, James Van Praagh, Colin Fry and by the number of articles on spiritualist topics penetrating the popular media.

-- Victor Zammit (May 2003)