In philosophy, a way of thinking that believes in immaterial reality, that is, knowledge perceived to be extrasensory, that is by some means other than through the normal five senses. Spiritualism, as opposed to materialism, is a very broad category and could apply to any acceptance of an infinite personal God, the immortality of the soul, or the immateriality of the intellect and will. Thus Plato\u2019s and Rene Descartes\u2019s dualistic views of the soul as distinct from but operating from within the body, would mark them both as spiritualists.<\/p>\n
There is however a more specific meaning attached to the word, and that is to designate a belief that there is a continuity of life after death and that the dead can communicate with the living through the use of mediums. There have always been holy men and shamans who have claimed to be able to contact the spirit world, and in the middle ages, necromancy predicting events by allegedly consulting the dead was practiced. It was however considered a black art and was frowned upon by the church of Rome, and even today spiritualism\u2019s more modern form has still not been accepted by mainstream churches. There are two aspects to the phenomena of spiritualism the physical side and the mental side. The physical includes levitation, psychokinesis, table rapping, and in fact any unusual physical manifestation or supernatural happenings indicating that spirits, ghosts, or poltergeists are present. The mental side of spiritualism is the conveying of information from one world to another and includes clairvoyance, clairaudience, and telepathy.<\/p>\n
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In philosophy, a way of thinking that believes in immaterial reality, that is, knowledge perceived to be extrasensory, that is by some means other than through the normal five senses. Spiritualism, as opposed to materialism, is a very broad category and could apply to any acceptance of an infinite personal God, the immortality of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s"],"yoast_head":"\n