Leviticus 19:31 “‘Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. [Spirituality & Religion]

[b]
Leviticus 20:6 6"'I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.

Isaiah 8:19 19When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

1 Chronicles 10:13-14 13Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, 14and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.[/b]

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

The Levites were a bunch who had their motives and have a reputation as a joyless bunch who loved ruling others' lives.

Sill, while I accept believing in God I regard condemning "mediums" and "spiritists" on religious grounds as saying that what they believe in, and the "defiling" they allegedly brought, are real.

You see traces of it even now, when the supermarket corruption of All Hallows Eve elicits po-faced moans from some priests about alleged dangers from supposed ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night. By doing so, rather than just saying how silly such things are, they unwittingly say they are real!

Perhaps the Levites's real motive was religious intolerance. Did they want theirs and theirs alone, to be the "official" faith in a time when many of the older religions had a very heavy emphasis on after-lives with ancestor-worship, grave-goods, [i]post-mortem[/i] "guidance" and the like?

"Professional" mediums were very popular in the late-19C, when far more people were church-goers than not, if by social pressure more than conviction; but one of the first to reveal those mediums as charlatans was the stage-magician and escape-artist Harry Houdini. He could see through their theatricals.

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I accept faiths like Wicca (a simple Nature-worship whose deity is female, to the patriarchal Abrahamists' disgust), too; but I certainly do not believe in the more way-out, rather fey concepts. Ones like ley-lines and their never-described "energy", crystals, model pyramids, whale-"song" magic, astrology, "psychics" and the like. Still, those keep the knick-knack shops in towns like Glastonbury busy (pandemics permitting) with a strange mish-mash of Christian and pre-Christian romanticism.* I do not call them "bad" or "evil" on religious grounds, and hope I never fall into that trap. I just think them as eccentric but mainly harmless.

*Glastonbury is a South-West English town with a very ancient, genuine Christian and probably pre-Christian religious history. It has also become a meeting-place for peculiar myths involving Joseph of Arithmea (sp?) who might have been a real evangelist but is highly unlikely to have visited England, and of a Saxon / early-Mediaeval King Arthur invented by a Mediaeval French novelist. The town and especially its local hill, Glastonbury Tor, topped by a ruined church, attracts all manner of hippy-ish types who believe in such tales.

TheWildEcho · 56-60, M

@ArishMell I've been up Glastonbury tor lol, and I'm not a hippy or believe in such tales, just an interesting walk !

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@TheWildEcho Yes, it is, though it's been many years since I did it. In fact I'm not even sure I have been up the tor!

There seem quite a number of ancient chapels etc. on high hills or headlands. Off-hand I can name two - St. Catherine's Chapel near Abbotsbury in W. Dorset (I have visited that one), and the Norman-age, blockhouse-like chapel on St. Aldhelm's Head, in E. Dorset. I think there is an annual service in each of these; but I don't know if there is one at Glastonbury.

Carazaa · F

@ArishMell Sorry but No! God warns against Satans deception and curses on us if we entertain horoscopes or mediums, or bring in objects for "luck" in our houses. They can bring curses on our entire families including our kids, for generations.

Carazaa · F

@ArishMell You "accept" Wicca? I worked at a school many years ago and they sent me about 30 students from a hospital for suicide attempts one year. They were all Wicca, and they all had the same teacher who they said was Wicca. I did not know any of these kids nor the teacher before they were sent to me. Wicca is Satanic!

Sharon · F

@Carazaa [quote]They were all Wicca, and they all had the same teacher who they said was Wicca.[/quote]
the fact that you obviously don't know what followers of Wicca call themselves strongly suggest you don't know what you're talking about and this story is just made up.

Anyone can do it. Let's see - [i]"I worked at a school many years ago and they sent me about 60 students from a hospital for suicide attempts one year. They were all Christian, and they all had the same teacher who they said was Christian. I did not know any of these kids nor the teacher before they were sent to me. Christianity is Evil!"[/i]

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@Carazaa I have know n a few Wiccans over the years, including one who was my girlfriend for a few years, and although I thought theirs a slightly fey religion and did not adopt it, I can assure you there was nothing remotely satanic about it or them. True Wiccans have nowt to do with "Satanism".

Those unfortunates you met might have said they were Wiccan, but I reckon whoever gave them their ideas was either totally ignorant or a malevolent liar to claim that was Wicca.

Why they had all developed suicidal tendencies though, is another matter. There was clearly something wrong, but it was not Wicca. I have never known anyone who even claimed to be a Satanist, but I doubt that was the real background to their mental problems either. Were they all being pushed beyond endurance by their school or parents?

It seems a common slur for the more fervent Christians / claimants to Christianity to call all non-Christians as at best somehow wrong and at worst, as somehow evil. That would be like me using the evils committed by church organisations against women and children, to say all Christians are evil.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@ArishMell [quote]they unwittingly say they are real! [/quote]
Are you sure about that? Most European priests in the major religions seem to be quite well educated, certainly those few who I have actually met and spoken with. It seems unlikely to me that they would be unaware of the logic of such utterances which leads me to believe that either they really do believe that such things exist or that they are lying. I suspect that some fall into one camp, some the other.

[quote] attracts all manner of hippy-ish types who believe in such tales.[/quote]
It also attracts people like me who don't believe a a word of any of it and haven't since I was seven years old and found that I would have to effectively declare a belief in god to join the Scouts. I didn't believe so I didn't join. I probably do count to some extent as [i]hippy-ish[/i] though :-)

Nonetheless one of my favourite books is T. H. White's Once and Future King and I visit Glastonbury and the Tor whenever I have the chance. I don't believe that Arthur ever existed either but the stories do and for me some of them are inspiring, rather more so than most religious works.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ninalanyon Oh, yes, the stories about King Arthur and similar, or the peculiar myth about a Middle Eastern mystic visiting Glastonbury to plant a bush, are fine as stories! Not to be taken seriously though, just as entertainment.

My concern about priests warning of the alleged dangers of "occult" things is that it may magnify the problem. I am sure they are sincere in their advice, but would better saying something like "There is only God, ghosts and ghouls don't exist; but you can frighten yourselves more than you'd want by playing with such things".

We have to careful. I am not a psychologist but believe we cannot simply dismiss those who claim disturbing results from playing at séances and the like. Rather, I suggest considering instead that what was thought supernatural is very much internal; but then transferring the blame to imaginary beings only re-inforces the self-generated fear.

Usually these are group games, which makes more likely the players experiencing more or less what they expected - not in detail but nevertheless disturbing. Not from something crawling out of the woodwork, but from losing control of the desire for the thrill of fear, and hence not thinking logically that they frightened themselves by their own and group imagination.

I would draw a parallel with that approach, a common theme in ghost stories - that of feeling as if being pinned down to the bed. A very frightening event but once researchers started to believe people reporting the [i]sensation[/i] rather than dismissing them as having read too many ghost stories, they could track it down. It's genuinely frightening but simply one of those curious, very short "brain-storms" many of us (including me) occasionally have when falling asleep, like sudden convulsions or a momentary sensation of falling.

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I don't say people ought not buy "healing crystals" and play with Ouija-boards while listening to recordings of whale-squawks; but I do think them gullible if they take such things seriously!

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@ArishMell [quote] but believe we cannot simply dismiss those who claim disturbing results from playing at séances and the like[/quote]

Absolutely! I remember a girl at school who reacted very badly when some of us had a session with a ouija board. Even those of us who didn't believe any of it felt it a little spooky. But it was all just suggestion, amplified by the atmosphere and history of the old manor house that we were staying in on a school trip.

Carazaa · F

@ArishMell @ninalanyon

This is Gods words

[b]Leviticus 20:6 "'I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.

Isaiah 8:19 When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?

1 Chronicles 10:13-14 Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.[/b]

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@Carazaa I generally prefer the wording of the Authorized Version:

Leviticus 20:6: And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.

But there are no spirits, not dead people talking. Mediums should be treated either as entertainers or prosecuted for fraud.

Anyway mediums did succeed in speaking to someone on the other side so to speak then by any sensible up to date 21st century definition someone who can talk to you surely doesn't qualify as dead. We might argue whether they are flatlines or not (see Ken McLeod's Cassini Division) but surely someone who communicates is the very opposite of dead.

Carazaa · F

@ninalanyon Demons can communicate with us. Satan is an angel of light, God says. Be careful!

Sharon · F

@Carazaa Stop being so abusive to Satan. It was He who set us free from the tyranny of your evil god.