who's Randi?

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onlyme
who's Randi?

James Randi is a noted Skeptic who enjoys debunking claims of the paranormal.
[www.randi.org]

My family where heavily involved with spiritualism. It is a recognised church in the U.K. It had a very bad effect on my childhood and I believe damaged my family irrepairably. My family are all christians now which brought a lot of healing but all damage has not yet been healed,

I very briefly attended a spiritualist church in my search. I believe it can be a good thing, but a person has to be careful. I would say that the best thing you can do is to journal all messages you receive and see which ones over time pan out. I did this. I stopped going ten years ago, and time has proven to me that only one out of dozens of messages I received was correct. But, the one message I got came from a woman who was obviously so legitimate that she stood out heads above the rest from the moment I met her - and her predictions for my life came true down to the small details and many of them were things beyond my control. This, I believe there are true "psychics" out there, but when you meet one I think you can tell. It appears they are loving, compassionate, humble, and more focused on assisting their fellow man than money, praise or prestige. They seem to be made uncomfortable by praise and prestige. They seem to be burdened (in a good way but still burdened) enough by their gift that they don't want to draw any further attention to themselves. At least, this was the experience I had with this woman. And, this woman seemed to have a glow about her - almost like she floated a little above the rest of us. I can't explain it, but I think if you ever see it that you'll recognize it and not forget the experience. That is the only message that was correct. Another concern I had was that many of the incorrect messages I received came from people who gave me the impression that they had their own agenda. If sharing thoughts openly angered some people, they would express that anger in the next reading they gave you - but this can happen in any church. All you can do is be careful. The only other thing that began to bother me was a remark I heard a few times when people lost a loved one - others would say that they were jealous because that person now had someone on the other side to talk to. That remark really bothered me when I heard it. To me, it's always better to have that person here to talk to and we should talk to them as much as we can while we have them.

Spiritualism is a more open term, a specific church name makes it easier to identify group activities, they generally have one.

Although I'd agree that certain forms of spirituality are more easy for reinterpretation by people wanting to manipulate.

Considering this has been done with all the major religions though, none are invulnerable to such diversion.