Whether you are a skeptic or a firm believer in the afterlife, you have to admit that there have been some documented weird happenings in the area of spiritualism.Unfortunately, most of them were.
I take you back to one of the earliest recordings of American spiritualism, 1848, Hydesville, New York. Two little girls, the Fox sisters, heard rapping noises coming from their closet. They told their parents and long story short, flocks of visitors began to come see or hear the noises for themselves. No one was ever able to validate whether or not these noises were spirits, (the girls confessed to the trickery 40 years later) but in less than five years over 25,000 peoples claimed to have psychic ability, and so was born the spiritualist movement in America.
These spiritualist mediums set up elaborate hoaxes to prey on the lovelorn and desperate, agreeing to contact deceased relatives and allow that spirit to temporarily posses their body in order to communicate with the living. This was a lucrative business, so much so that for a price one could order all the tricks of the trade, from fake hands-to be placed on the shoulders of unsuspecting séance guests-to machines that emitted spooky sounds.
In order to prove their validity as mediums, some of these so called psychics allowed themselves to be tested- including locked in water tight containers and left to escape, supposedly using their spirit guides for help. This caught the attention of several stage magicians, who set out to prove that the mediums escapes were parlor tricks and slight of hand-the most famous of these skeptics was Harry Houdini.
During the years of Harry Houdini, spiritualism was at its height in America; we were at war, and desperate families of loved ones missing or killed in action were seeking out mediums for answers to life beyond death. Harry became a crusader to prove that anyone who practiced could achieve the same miraculous escapes, noises, and trickery- and ousted hundreds of fakes during his lifetime.
We want to believe that our deceased loved ones are happy wherever they are, we need to believe it, and it gives us hope. And some of today's psychics truly want to use their gift to help people; I believe many of them are real and sincere.
Today we are besieged once again by people claiming to be able to contact the dead. TV psychics and modern day phone clairvoyants again can on the desperate-at $2.99 a minute, continuing the tradition started by early spiritualists. Believe, seek comfort, but keep your hand on your pocket book unless your intuitive consultant comes from the heart and has great credentials.
Everyone has the capability to tap into their intuition, such as many of the early spiritualists. Some people are much better than others. Why not invest in yourself, and learn how to develop your own intuitive abilities, this way you will know through your own senses what is truth for you.
