Embracing Spiritualism-Seers of the Ages, Dr. James Martin Peebles- Kindle Book

I believe Dr. James Martin Peebles smiled at me when I uploaded his classic book on Spiritualism and Seers of the Ages to Amazon Kindle this weekend.

Dr. Peebles wrote this book in 1869...nearly 150 years ago! I had the book for a number of years but had not actually read all of the book until I decided to edit it and write a new Introduction. I had often read portions of it, quoted from it, and had found it to be fascinating and very informative—historically, philosophically, religiously. As I have often done, in reading any of the books that James Martin Peebles wrote, I see such a connection with the spiritual psychology that he shares with us today—over these last 25 years through the mediumship of those who have worked closely with him: Thomas Jacobson, Athena Demetrios, Summer Bacon, and even myself.

The book is exclusive at Kindle. I always want to remind readers that there is a free Kindle App that can be download to your computer, phones, and other devices. A lot of people do not realize that.

“Spirits are but men and women divested of their mortal bodies. They have taken with them consciousness, memory, reason, sympathy, character. They walk by our side often, and yet unseen...There is but one world, and that one world embraces the yesterdays, the todays, and the innumerable tomorrows of eternity.” –Dr. James M. Peebles, 1910

~Linda

Judge J.W. Edmonds, Famous Mediums, Part 4

“Surely God would not have created a being as man ...
to exist only for a day!
No, no, man was made for immortality.”
~Abraham Lincoln

Famous Mediums, Part 4

Judge John Worth Edmonds (1816-1874), a well-known lawyer, New York State Senator, Judge of the New York Supreme Court Judge and Court of Appeals, was a Spiritualist and a medium. His daughter, Laura, also had the gift of mediumship and spirit contact.

Apparently Judge Edmonds stood firm in his Spiritualist beliefs and research he did into the credibility of several other mediums, even while being attacked often in the press and in political and social circles for his beliefs . The chief communicators were alleged to be Emanuel Swedenborg and Francis Bacon. Judge Edmonds wrote the following: Letters and Tracts on Spiritualism; Spiritualism, Volume I (1853); Spiritualism, Volume II (1855); and Uncertainty of Spiritual Intercourse (1856).

Those of you who have read my blog for awhile and know of my books, will know that Dr. James Martin Peebles is my spirit guide and is the subject of two of my books, To Dance With Angels, written with my husband, Don Pendleton, and my later book, Three Principles of Angelic Wisdom.

This is an excerpt from my ebook: How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism, in which I quote Dr. Peebles in his earthly writings in regards to Abraham Lincoln and then Judge Edmonds.

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Abraham Lincoln was regarded as a spiritualist by many and was said to have held séances in the White House and "frequently attended séances at the residence of the Lauries in Washington. The daughter was a medium." In his 1903 book, What is Spiritualism?, Dr. James Martin Peebles, M.D., recounts some of that history. "It was in this same family that Miss Nettie Colburn was entranced by spirits purporting to be Jefferson, and the fathers of our country, and who plead of President Lincoln to free those four million slaves in bondage. (See Mrs. Nettie Colburn-Maynard's work, entitled 'Abraham Lincoln, a Spiritualist.') Lincoln's emancipation message was an inspiration from the spirit world. Judge Edmonds, delivering an oration in Hope Chapel, N.Y., upon the life of Lincoln, gave the proofs of this. It is undeniable."

Though Dr. Peebles did not give us details of any of those proofs, he did give some background on Judge J. W. Edmonds. He served as an attorney in the law office of ex-President Martin Van Buren, became a New York State Senator in 1831, was appointed a Circuit Judge in 1845, was elected Judge of the (New York) Supreme Court and later, in 1851, took his seat upon the bench of the Court of Appeals. Peebles explained that Edmonds considered himself an agnostic until his wife's death in 1850 when he began experiencing her presence and on-going contact from the Other Side, until by 1851, he "became quite fully developed himself as a medium for visions, allegorical pictures, and direct communications from the spirit world written through his own hand. His daughter Laura also became a writing medium, and a trance medium with the gift of tongues. The Judge now openly avowed his Spiritualism, lectured upon it in public, wrote articles in the American and foreign press."

Peebles quotes the Judge as saying, "Spiritualism has deepened my faith in God, and the spiritual life and teachings of Christ. It has also inspired me with the most kindly Christian feelings toward all conscientious religionists of whatever name or party."

Continuing further, Dr. Peebles explains, "The pride, as he was of the New York bar for years, a jurist of unimpeachable integrity and keen discernment, as well as an authority on international law, Judge Edmonds was not only a Spiritualist, but a spiritual medium with fine clairvoyant gifts."

Judge Edmunds wrote of his daughter Laura’s mediumship and xenoglossy. On occasion, while in trance and contact with a spirit, she would bring messages forth in other languages, Greek, Spanish, and American Indian: Chippewa and Menomonie tongues.


To Read
Famous Mediums, Part One, Betty
Famous Mediums, Part Two, Lenore E. Piper
Famous Mediums, Part Three, Eileen J. Garrett



~Linda

Inspiration

“Inspiration is universal. It over-swept with grandeur all the past ages, and is just as fresh now as in time’s earliest morning. Poets, as much as prophets, are illuminated with a divine radiance. They think, they write and sing from the very depths of their being.”
~ James Martin Peebles (1822-1922), author, spiritualist, physician, healer

Abraham Lincoln, a Spiritualist...ebooks

I could hardly let Abraham Lincoln’s birthday go by without mention of my ebooks about him that I published for the 200th anniversary of his birth last year. I always found him to be so fascinating and in many ways one of my heroes from childhood. So I am delighted to have written about him.

Many people do not know that Lincoln was a spiritualist and did take part in séances and meetings with mediums. One medium in particular was a young woman named Nettie Colburn (Maynard). Not long before her death she wrote a book about her life and that included her time with Lincoln during the Civil War. Thankfully, Mrs. Maynard left us with this profound treasure, a spiritual profile of an intelligent man, a deep thinker, and a man dedicated to preserving our Union and with a goal toward humane treatment of all citizens of our country.

I wrote an Introduction to Nettie Colburn Maynard’s book, Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist?. Her book profiles the less discussed side of Abraham Lincoln - his spiritual side. His interest in Spiritualism apparently separated him from many, but not all, as you will see in reading this book. Medium Nettie Colburn was born in 1841 and in 1891 she published this book. It charts her experiences with President Lincoln during a period of great upheaval in the United States. This book is a profound treasure, a spiritual profile of an intelligent man, a deep thinker, and a man dedicated to preserving the Union and inspiring greater humane treatment of all citizens. Illustrations included. We include a second book, Writings of and about Abraham Lincoln, Our Sixteenth President, compiled by me. These two books are offered as Free Gifts with the purchase of my ebook, How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism, along with three more free ebooks. They are Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Through the Mist: Light at the End of the Tunnel By Linda Pendleton; and Charting Your Intuitive Experiences: To Heal, Solve Problems, Make Spiritual Contact and More! By Linda Pendleton.

This week I received a beautiful review on How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism, and she previously had mentioned she was enjoying the ebook gifts, too.

Her review of How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism: “This ebook was fantastic.... Our family recently buried yet another member of the family (three in two years) and I was so overcome with grief when I started reading this book. I'm much better now and will absolutely recommend this book to anyone that has experienced a loss!” ~ Namaste', Susan S., Arizona

Read more about the books and free gifts here at healingebooks.com

Note: The bookcovers shown only for display. The books are ebooks, PDF Files for Download.

~Linda

History of Alternative Spirituality in America

“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I read an interesting interview in the September 28 edition of Publishers Weekly Magazine with Mitch Horowitz, editor-in-chief at Penguin/Tarcher Publishing, and an author, and scholar. Tarcher’s list has always had a significant number of New Age, New Thought books. Horwitz has published some of the leading titles in world religion, metaphysics, philosophy, and spirituality. As a writer and speaker on metaphysical topics, he has appeared on television shows such as The History Channel, Montel Williams, and various radio shows such as Coast to Coast AM. His articles have appeared in various magazines.

He is author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation.
In the interview with PW, Horowitz was asked what political and religious values characterize today’s New Age movement. He spoke of the very diverse nature of New Agers, geographically and demographically but that they do seem to hold in common belief systems such as “liberal politics, the equality of all religions, body-mind-healing and the principle that our thoughts to some extent can influence outer circumstances.”

He went on to say: “they also believe that you can obtain spiritual understanding without belonging to a specific faith or religion, and there is a lack of emphasis on membership in a particular congregation or an allegiance to a particular doctrine. They move freely among religious movements and ideas, and believe that humans have some kind of intuitive faculty, and that it is possible for the mind to evolve to some kind of higher level. It is a theology, an ethics, a psychology and an outlook. In terms of politics, they tend to associate with various progressive political movements. And this is not a recent thing. Politics and esoteric spirituality grew up together in America. When Spiritualism began to sweep this country (in the 19th century), it created the first opening in the modern world for women to serve as religious leaders, in that case as trance mediums. So you had a tremendous crossover between the Spiritualist movement and the Suffragettes and voting rights activism. This was a civic, spiritual movement that provided an opening for women both politically and religiously. New Age has always been reformist.”

I discovered that to be so true while doing research on Spiritualism in the 19th century that I’ve done over the years and recently for my latest ebook, How Thin The Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism. There was a merging of the Spiritualist movement with women’s rights but also with the abolitionist movement. Many of those leading Spiritualist, men and women, were interested in equality, religious and otherwise, were progressive and visionary and I believe a big part of the forward movement of America.

Although we often use the term New Age, there is really nothing new about it. Our country was founded on progressive and visionary ideals.

Mitch Horowitz had an interesting answer to this question by PW: “You also write about the positive-thinking approach that characterizes much of the esoteric, or New Age, philosophy. Do you see a vein of that in the mood that brought President Obama into office?”

His answer: “Yes. The positive-thinking approach is in the groundwater of our country. People who would never think of themselves as New Agers embrace the idea of positive or motivational thinking. This viewpoint arose partly out of transcendentalism. In 1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay called Success in which he discussed the power of enthusiasm. That aspect of the American character is so basic it travels across all our religious or political lines. Barack Obama identified Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance as an influence on him. This tone of positivism is a key part of American spirituality.”

Horowitz’s book sounds like a good look at the founding of America around the mystical elements that have moved us forward through the years to today.

I believe you can read more of his interview here, and more about him at his website.

~Linda

Mediumship and the Betty Books

The Betty Books

Stewart Edward White, Author, (1873-1946)

Mediumship, or channeling, as it is now most commonly referred to, takes on many forms and may be expressed in many ways. It has common bonds with various other psychic expressions which run the full range from deep hypnotic trance to inspiration and other subtle nuances. One must consider automatic writing, Ouija boards, clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience, physical "possession" by an otherworldly entity during trance states, dreams, physical manifestations, teleportation and levitation, mental telepathy and hypnosis, dowsing and pendulumology, meditation and visualization, visions and precognition, spirit guides and high teachers, psychic healing and other spiritual encounters.

In my latest e-book, How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism, I wrote about the New Mystics, those mediums of the 20th century such as Edgar Cayce, Eileen J. Garrett, Jane Roberts, and several others, including the medium known as Betty.

Some of the most widely read channeled books of the 20th century were written by Stewart Edward White, a very successful novelist of adventure and Western tales, relating material channeled from the other side by his wife, Elizabeth Calvert Grant White, who was initially identified only as "Betty".

The White’s experiences with the spiritual world began casually in 1919 when some friends visited their home with the Ouija board, considering it a mere toy and hoping only to entertain them with it. One thing led to another, though, and the board began taking on a mind of its own, repeatedly spelling "Betty" even though Betty had become bored with the game and had gone to sit beside the fireplace. At the repeated insistence of the board, she finally rejoined the others. At this point, the board became highly active and repeatedly spelled out, "Get a pencil–Get a pencil." But it was not until some days later that Betty did privately pick up a pencil at home and this launched her first experience with automatic writing which was to last for several months before experimenting with hypnotic trance. This produced the best results and Betty was soon a fully functioning trance medium.

The Betty Book (1) was published in 1937, the third of a series that began in 1925, followed in 1938 by Across the Unknown. Betty died in 1939 and that launched a whole new chapter in this amazing story; Betty began communicating with her husband from the Other Side, through a family friend, psychic Joan Darby (a pseudonym for Ruth Finley, who later, after her death came through Arthur Ford). The Unobstructed Universe (2) is Stewart Edward White's report of the messages from Betty as channeled through Joan.

(1.) Stewart Edward White, 1937, E.P. Dutton & Co.; Ariel Press, Columbus, Ohio, 1988.
(2.) Stewart Edward White, 1940, E.P. Dutton & Co.; Dell Publishing Co., 1970.

I quoted Steward Edward White in my book A Walk Through Grief, which I wrote shortly after my husband Don Pendleton's death, because I identified with what White had written following his wife’s death in regards to the connection and what he called a Presence of his wife after she passed. I also experienced that with Don, and am still aware of him years later.

~Linda

Expanded Spiritual Awareness

Walt Whitman, among the greatest poets of our times, obviously was highly sensitive to inspiration from the spiritual realm. His epic work, Leaves of Grass, serves as the title piece of an extraordinary collection of his inspired works which emerge, finally as a self-portrait of the poet and his universal images of reality. The work presents numerous references to the immortality of the soul and, in particular, to reincarnationist thought.

In Song of Myself, written in 1855, Whitman begins the opening verse with this striking understanding:

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

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Below is an Excerpt from my book, Whispers From the Soul: The Divine Dance of Consciousness by Don and Linda Pendleton.


ENGINES OF AWARENESS

Until modern science captured the human imagination on this planet, the engine of understanding was fueled by poets and philosophers, musicians and magicians, and other forces which unbridled human creativity. From the earliest recorded histories of mankind, the finer essences of human growth have been set free by the common assumption that our world is the abode of powerful spiritual forces with which we become intimate and join with them in the divine dance.

However, since every force within the natural world also seems bent into a common need for survival, the greatest fear of all is that death lurks behind every bush, and pain behind every joy. Since also it seems that the instinctive drive for procreation places us in an ever widening pool of activities which relate us all to one another inseparably, the common dilemma for every form of animate life is that every contact with every other life is undertaken at great risk. If love is woven into the very fabric of human consciousness, then the entire life experience continually intermingles us all into common bonds of joy and peril. It is that dance which has created and sustains the human experience on Planet Earth. Perhaps this is why there is no joy without some sorrow, no exaltation without some frustration, no growth without some pain.

It is clearly remarkable, then, that the human family has made such incredible strides forward instead of being engulfed by fears and competitions. If it is true that this universe was created some twenty billion years ago, as recognized by earth time, then the human presence on Planet Earth has been brief, indeed, and our species mere babes of the universe. The wonder is not, as some have said, that we have not blown our planet asunder by now but that we have developed the ability to do so and the wisdom, so far, not to. Obviously something more important than mere survival and more enthralling than mere power is moving the creative imaginations of humanity. Could it be true, then, that love is the magical ingredient? If not for love, then why do we put up with any of it and continue to believe that something more important than our own selfish needs and desires is at the root of this constant striving?

For all of us it seems that the need to understand and the willingness to seek our own destinies are the most powerful and moving forces behind existence itself. That drive did not begin in this century or any other but is that which drives the universe and empowers all sentient life. There were shamans and priests long before scientists, seers and soothsayers eons before physicians, oracles before preachers. All of the ancients spoke of a knowledge and wisdom beyond time and gifts beyond anything a materialistic awareness may envisage.

Our Twentieth Century equivalent of an expanded awareness will be found among the psychics, healers, mediums, astrologers, psychometrics and various others who tap into the spiritual dimensions of consciousness. But these special gifts of spiritual awareness need not be theirs alone. It may be possible for each of us, in our own way, to benefit from and enjoy the divine threads of the spiritual connection that links us all, through this dimension or another. Perhaps we need only to reach for and accept what has been ours from the beginning.

© Copyright 2003, 2009 by Linda Pendleton. All Rights Reserved.

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~Linda

New Ebook, How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism by Linda Pendleton

Linda Pendleton's new  E-book,
How Thin the Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism NDEe, Coincidences, Lincoln, Past Lives, Mediums, Spirit

Many of us are still searching for answers about life: Who are we? Why are we here? What happens when we leave here? Will we see our loved ones again? And for some, the questions may be broader such as: Have I been here before? Will I return at some future point? Why did I come back?

In about 1850, Spiritualism reached a high interest and continued for a number of years, not only in America, but world-wide. The poets, philosophers, artists, politicians of the time, along with the ordinary man and woman, in surprising numbers came to accept spirit communication as a comforting and fulfilling life experience.
Within my new ebook, How Thin The Veil! 150 Years of Spiritualism, you will read about the early days of Spiritualism and how it became a new era that brought with it a profound understanding of human destiny after death, and of the relationship between heaven and earth.

Many historical figures considered themselves Spiritualist, some more openly than others. One of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln communicated with spirit on the Other Side through mediums and referred to spirit as “our friends from the upper country.” It has often been said his writings and speeches were inspired by spirit, especially his Emancipation Proclamation.

The veil between worlds continues to grow thinner, communication is increasing, and part of the increase in communication may be a result of fear being released, and openness prevailing. Curiosity, yes, but probably more than that when intuition is allowed to have a role in everyday life.

Read about Abraham Lincoln in celebration of his February Bicentennial Birthday!
“I’ve always had a fascination with Abraham Lincoln and I very much enjoyed doing more research on him, discovering more about who he was, enjoying his wit and humor, learning more about what he believed, along with all he gave this country during his leadership, and the legacy he left.” ~Linda Pendleton 

 Was Abraham Lincoln a Spiritualist? by Nettie Colburn Maynard, 1891. A Mediums' Memories of President Lincoln, Introduction by Linda Pendleton;

 

Writings Of and About Abraham Lincoln, Our Sixteenth President by Linda Pendleton; 







 








"Linda writes with a pure intent to inspire others through sharing what spirit inspires through her. That is the best kind of writing because it is so authentic." ~Athena Demetrios, Medium and Trance-Channel

“Linda’s really done her research. How Thin the Veil! is a very interesting study on the history of Spiritualism, and I feel I learned a great deal. This research shows the acceptance and growth, the intolerance and fear, of the many facets of Spiritualism throughout history and today. This book shows how some people time and time again will not be stopped on their search for Spirituality, and how this has affected all aspects of societies, including our American politics. The Spiritual journey is as unique and diverse as each and every one of us, and no matter how different, when all is said and done, we are truly all connected. A fascinating read.” ~Anne Boss, California

"The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it." ~Kahlil Gibran