Commencing our Eighth Year of Issue June 2010
Editor: The Rev. Michael Cocks Advisory Editors: The Rev. Victor MacGill, and Michael Tymn Assistant Ed.: Nate Cull

J.H. Stowell                                       The Rev. John Hilton Stowell MA DD

Pentecostal Fires

Events happen that compel us to see Spirit and the Physical as one. In a moment of deep love, the loved one takes on the appearance of an angel. Two or more life-changing events happen “by chance” yet take on a meaning that resembles Pentecostal Fire. A woman injured in a car accident is prayed over and her injuries do not disappear, yet through the following night feels changes in her body going on and on, and by the morning she is healed. We have read of the unmusical man in a telephone box talking with his wife, struck by lightning. Recovering from his injuries he suddenly has a passion for classical music, learns the piano, and within a few years is publicly performing his “Lightning Sonata”*. Not long ago, a man in another country phoned me about an OBE where he was taken to the next world and met his deceased father, where he had a long and reconciliatory conversation with him: of course life changed for ever for that man. “Noumenon” and “Phenomenon” are seen as one, we appreciate and acknowledge the unseen worlds and dimensions, knowing that without the existence of these unseen forces our physical universe would never be able to exist.

These things happen from time to time, we are nurtured by their memory, and we cannot create them ourselves to order. It is said that Lightning does strike in the same place twice.

And that is the problem for the churches, for the synagogues, for the temples and mosques. There, they hear about the life changing experiences of their spiritual ancestors, their forms of Pentecostal Fires, they remind themselves that such experiences can occur, may occur to the person who is open to them. But in our places of worship we seem to be raking through the embers of spiritual experiences long past, trying to blow flames from them. But these embers do not often seem to ignite.

It is indeed the task of churches, mosques and the rest to meditate on the experiences of their spiritual ancestors. In doing so they regularly draw our attention to the world of Spirit. These communities of faith also act as schools of Spirit, and make places of mutual support and love. But each of us privately and usually individually has to be open to our own Lightning. A good church would affirm us, and support us in these experiences, although, owing to the corporate nature of churches, this support is not often readily forthcoming.

For this reason, in this issue, we are focusing on the work of the Rev. John  Stowell, who was much concerned that the churches should support, encourage, and affirm those whom the Fires had struck. See below.

*Tony Cicoria, a practicing board-certified Orthopedic Surgeon, is Chief of the Medical Staff and Chief of Orthopedics at Chenango Memorial Hospital, Norwich, New York, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Orthopedics at SUNY Upstate Medical School, in Syracuse. He received his BS in Biology from The Citadel and is a graduate of the Medical University of South Carolina (MD, PhD) and the University of Virginia Orthopedic Surgery Residency.

The Revd John Hilton Stowell,

DD(London), MA(Glasgow), MA(Oxford) 1863-1934

John Stowell is of great interest to this journal, as a scholar, whose contacts with people in spirit compelled him to include these experiences into his thinking as a Christian.

Here is a review of his book Angels and Others (1932) that appeared in LIGHT, Sept. 16, 1932:-

AMONG THE PROPHETS

ANGLICAN VICAR'S TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH OF SPIRIT COMMUNICATION:

IF it cannot be claimed that there is as yet any certainty that the Churches will "absorb Spiritualism, lock, stock and barrel," as desired by Mrs. St. Clair Stobart, there are at least, indications that a process of absorption is going on, slowly it may be, but with definite results.

The latest of these indications is to be found in a book entitled Angels and Others (Stockwell, 3/6), in which the Rev. J. H. Stowell, D.D., Vicar of Northmoor, near Oxford tells how, in a quiet home circle in London, he has become convinced of the reality of spirit communication, and in which also he makes a strong plea that the Church should acknowledge what he now regards as the clearly proven facts. Read the review

Editor's note: Stowell was not alone in his views. Read The Majority Report of the 1937 Church of England Committee's investigation into Spiritualism Note who signed this report. Church people will find that it helps them clarify their thinking about the subject.

STOWELL'S CHAPTER ON ANGELS BEGINS LIKE THIS:

ANGELS

WHEN first the stories of the angels at Mons were attracting attention a well-known cleric wrote to the papers warning Christians against accepting these tales saying they would lead only to worse scepticism and unbelief than ever. He had in mind the first danger that besets our willingness to believe, namely insufficient evidence. For spiritual realities external evidence alone, however strong, is always insufficient. Without reasons arising within his own heart and life to confirm the vision a conscientious man will not believe even his own eyes at the appearance of an angel. Read the whole chapter.

EDITOR'S COMMENTS: (1) Stowell refers to many spiritual experiences recorded in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. In doing so, he shows that there is much in common between stories of appearances of angels, and his own experiences of his deceased relatives. In the Scriptural stories angels are not described as perfect, but rather as spiritual messengers and comforters. The same can be sometimes said in the case of appearances of the spirits of the departed....
We hope to reproduce further chapters of his book in future issues of this journal.

“Angels We Have Heard On High”

1. Wendy Francisco's Video with Classical painting

2. A modern jazz version

3. The Choir Boys: Pie Jesu   

4. Space in 3D: View
   

Just as I was writing my Editorial, I received this email from Brian Longhurst, which has a lot to do with the theme of this journal. “In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes.. Read on....

Hjalmar Gullberg's Tinget i Sig

Noumenon and Phenomenon: Das Ding an Sich: Kant's The Thing in Itself

One winter's evening Örstedt is reading Kant
And finds him yes, mighty interessant.
But the philosopher's German is heavy indeed
And our teacher sleeps with head on this screed.
Read the poem

How can Spirit become real for us who worship in church?

John Stowell begins his book Faith and Reality 1913, in this way:

“Religion is a universal experience, yet as a distinct element in consciousness it is liable to aberration and weakening, such as may amount virtually to its disappearance. Prominent among modern forms of this departure from normal movement is what may be described as inadequate objectivity, a lack of reality in spiritual things as compared with the objects of other parts of our experience. Religious faith, although essentially the same as other kinds of faith, has come in some quarters to be reckoned as an almost purely subjective phenomenon, and that is, as truth, almost nothing at all.” [What I found, as I continued reading, gave me the push to write the Editorial at the head of this issue.]

ASPSI An Interview with Dr. William J. Crawford Concerning the Mediumship of Kathleen Goligher

by Michael E. Tymn

Abstract: Between 1914 and 1917, William J. Crawford, D.Sc., studied the mediumship of Kathleen Goligher, a Belfast, Ireland medium. He reported on his findings in four separate books. This "interview" is based on Crawford's words from those books. The questions have been tailored to fit the comments.

ASPSI A Therapist's Spiritual Experience

by Rev. Karen E Herrick, PhD, LCSW LMSW CADC

Abstract: There is a scarcity of literature related to the spiritual experiences of mental health professionals. The book, Varieties of Anomalous Experience Examining the Scientific Evidence (2000), is one of the first formal acknowledgments of non-ordinary experiences published by the American Psychological Association (APA). This book discusses anomalous experiences one of which is a mystical, spiritual and/or psychic experience, which the psychologist theorists William James, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, Stanislaw Grof and Raymond Moody all believe is a central part of mental health.

Mediums of Art

View video Peinture Médiumnique avec le médium Florencio Anton (Renoir) View video View Video No commentary necessary  Anton's Website
Luis Gasparetto  View video

Subversive Thinking

“By Subversive Thinking, I'm referring to a critical approach to many controversial topics, including (but not limited to) paranormal phenomena, afterlife research, pseudoskepticism (debunking), reductionist materialism, dogmatic atheism, philosopher of consciousness and religion/spirituality. Ocassionally, you'll note some broken English expressions of mine.. I'm sorry, I'm Japanese and I'm learning the English Language.. Explore

Suppression, Censorship and Dogmatism in Science Suppressed Science

Scientific Evidence for Survival of Consciousness after Death: Index STUDY (38 pages)