THE NATURE OF SPIRITUALISTIC PHENOMENA
Much confusion is caused by the ignorant association of the word "spiritualistic"
with the word "spiritual". What are commonly called spiritualistic
phenomena are in fact psychic phenomena, that is, phenomena explicable
in terms of the lower levels of the next plane, little removed from the
physical world perceived by the ordinary senses. For the most part, this
physical world is the only one of which we are aware, because we do not
possess faculties responsive to stimuli on higher planes. In some people
mediums and sensitives psychic faculties are more or less developed, enabling
them to hear and see things of which others are not aware. However, there
is nothing spiritual in the possession of such faculties, unless they
have been brought under the control of the will of the individual; such
conscious control alone can properly be termed spiritual, for it is a
manifestation of the awakened power of the essential man, the Spirit.
