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SPCDC Spiritual Warfare BBS - "Church and Spiritualism" by Fr. Herbert Thruston

by Catherine Frakas 04 Sep 2007

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Author Topic Therese Squire USA 161 Posts
Posted - 05/20/2007 : 10:31:20 AM
Here is a book that I thought interesting. Have you read it Brother?Church and Spiritualism (RCB)by Herbert Thurston. S.J. Photo Price: $24.95 Hardcover Order Here Is it possible to communicate with the souls of the dead? Is it permissible? Solid answers, some unexpected, from 20th century Catholicism's foremost authority on the paranormal. When Father Herbert Thurston undertook this groundbreaking study in the early 1930s, the elderly priest's researches in paranormal phenomena already stretched back half a century. This book was the capstone of his extraordinary output - and it remains unsurpassed as the DEFINITIVE treatment of spiritualism (a.k.a. necromancy, or communication with departed souls) from a Catholic perspective. At last, Fr. Thurston's masterpiece is back in print - just in time to help ordinary Catholics meet challenges raised by renewed interest (and dabbling) in spiritualism, especially among New Age devotees. Highlights: * Five specific reasons for the Church's warning against involvement with spiritualism * Why Catholicism allows more latitude concerning spiritualist phenomena than Protestantism or non-Christian religions * Three guiding principles with regard to spiritualist phenomena and practices * Are departed souls aware of what goes on on earth? Answers from Aquinas * The basic reason for rejecting spiritualism as a source of divine communication * Famous cases of ghostly manifestations: some are fakes - while others survive the strictest scrutiny * Examined searchingly: various individual claims of spiritual contact by a variety of mediums * Convincing examples of clairvoyance, telekinesis, and others * Famous Catholic mystic's vision of souls neither in heaven, purgatory, nor hell, but wandering the earth in trouble and anguish, aiming at something they are bound to perform * Scripture on the occult: uncompromising in its condemnation of those who dabble in it. The Old Testament on magic * The meaning of biblical King Saul's consultation with a woman that hath a divining spirit - much like a modern medium * Reasons for spiritualism's allure, especially to non-Christians * Why the religious beliefs assumed or expounded by spirits are nearly always subversive of Catholic teaching * The amazing case of the medium who was converted to Catholicism, and granted an audience with the Pope * How mischievous spirits may distort the content of a message * Re: the claim that an unfinished Dickens novel was finished by his spirit * The other intelligences in the great beyond about whom we know very little - e.g., the souls of the unbaptized * Contradictory testimony about what the Afterlife is like from purported spirits. Why the discrepancies? * Why nothing truly useful or beneficial can be learned from spiritualist communications * Strong evidence for such phenomena as levitation of heavy objects, ghostly rapping, and other forms of haunting * Why St. Paul would not tolerate a spirit in a little girl even if spoke the truth * Why the early Church Fathers looked on magic and the occult as almost the deadliest enemy with which the Church had to contend * Mental and moral dangers of attempting to communicate with the spirits of the dead. As in Thurston's day, challenges also come from those who wrongly dismiss all alleged spiritual manifestations as fraudulent, or of the Devil. While Fr. Thurston makes clear that the Church ban on spiritualist practices is wise and prudent, he shows it is a mistake to dismiss the topic entirely: findings by trained scholars in the field can even be used for apologetical purposes, especially against dogmatic materialists who deny the reality of spiritual manifestations reported in Revelation, and of the soul's survival after death. Catholic reviewers in 1933 praised Fr. Thurston's achievement without reserve: Invaluable ... the author's genius for the soundly critical presentation of difficult material is put to excellent use ... intensely interesting. Thurston has put us all in his debt by a study which not only makes absorbing reading, but it is important as an analysis and justification of the Church's attitude toward the modern revival of an ancient and sinister cult. - Commonweal The book which many of us have wished that Father Thurston would undertake. His position, his mentality, his method fit him to discuss this question, one of the most interesting and most puzzling of the present day. In contact with his subject for nearly three-quarters of a century, the author has deliberately considered its many aspects and his conclusions deserve the attention of every thinking man. - Catholic World Father Thurston's highly developed power of criticism is brought to an acute point in this book [which] simply covered the field of available material.... Thurston as a critic is marvellously true to his own principles, and measures his conclusions exactly by his evidence. The result is a long but far from tedious study of the most striking 'phenomena' of Spiritualism and some illuminating portraits of the Spiritualists.... A very healthy contribution to a question quite ragged from maltreatment.- America Appendix: extraordinary 1892 case of a conversion to the Faith through spiritualism, complete with catechetical instruction from a spirit the medium believed to be St. Catherine of Siena

TheresePrayer doesn't stop work and work doesn't stop prayer Bl. Teresa of Calcutta
Bro. Ignatius Mary SPCDC Forum Facilitator USA 883 Posts

Posted - 05/20/2007 : 3:35:41 PM
No, I have not read this one, but it looks like I should. I will definitely put it on my TO BUY list to buy when I can raise the money for it.Thanks

God Bless,Bro. Ignatius MaryTo Email, Click here
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