The modern Lion’s Gate phenomena can be traced to material from the late 1990s, surrounding the astronomical events of 1998. This material brought together astrology, numerology, Sirius, the Sphinx, the pyramids, galactic alignments, spiritual frequencies, and ideas about humanity’s cosmic evolution. Over time, these ideas were repeated and expanded across the internet until a relatively modern construction began to look like ancient spiritual wisdom. There is nothing wrong with finding August 8 meaningful, meditating on Sirius, or creating a personal ritual around the date. The problem begins when speculation is presented as history, symbolism is presented as fact, and repetition becomes a substitute for evidence. A beautiful graphic of Sirius over the pyramids is not evidence. The fact that an idea sounds ancient does not make it ancient, and the fact that thousands of people repeat it does not make it true.
This is exactly why reason matters in Spiritualism. Spiritualism deals with extraordinary questions: survival of consciousness, mediumship, healing, intuition, inspiration, and experiences that challenge ordinary assumptions about reality. Because these are extraordinary subjects, they deserve careful investigation. The Spiritualist should be willing to ask not only, “What do I believe?” but the more important question, “How do I know?”
This does not mean Spiritualism has no place for intuition or spiritual experience. Quite the opposite. Intuition is an important part of spiritual life, and mediumship itself involves impressions, feelings, images, and perceptions that cannot always be explained immediately. A spiritual experience can be profound and transformative. But there is a difference between having an experience and knowing what that experience means. One of the core teachings of Spiritualism is particularly important here: “Under all circumstances keep an even mind.” The even mind is a balanced mind. It allows us to remain open to spiritual possibilities without becoming gullible, and skeptical without becoming closed. It prevents excitement, fear, desire, or personal conviction from taking complete control of our judgment.
Sir Oliver Lodge, the famed scientist and Spiritualist, expressed a similar principle in his book Reason and Belief, “Truth has many channels for entering the mind.” Spiritual experience can be one of those channels, but experience is not automatically an explanation. Lodge also wrote, “A bundle of disconnected facts is only the raw material for an investigation.” Experience gives us something to examine; it does not relieve us of the responsibility to examine it. This is where Spiritualism can differ from some expressions of contemporary New Age spirituality. The problem is not meditation, astrology, ritual, energy work, or personal spirituality themselves. The problem occurs when personal intuition becomes the ultimate authority and there is no longer any way to discover that we might be mistaken.
If every feeling is a message, every coincidence is a sign, every desire is a manifestation, and every personal conviction is treated as spiritual insight, then the individual creates a system in which they can almost never be wrong. And a spirituality in which you can never be wrong is ultimately a spirituality organized around your ego. The ego does not necessarily disappear when we become spiritual. Sometimes it simply learns new vocabulary. Instead of saying, “I am important,” it says, “I am highly evolved.” Instead of saying, “I know best,” it says, “My intuition knows best.” Spiritual practice can then become a way of continually confirming what we already want to believe rather than a means of discovering what is true. This is where spirituality can descend into ego affirming blind faith.
Lodge warned against becoming so attached to one explanation that we refuse to consider anything else, writing, “To try one clue obstinately, to be blind to every other, to listen to no reason, is akin to lunacy.” A Spiritualist should never become so invested in an explanation that the explanation becomes more important than the truth itself. Reason protects us from that. Investigation protects intuition from becoming assumption. Evidence protects belief from becoming dogma. Humility protects spiritual experience from becoming personal authority.
This brings us back to Lion’s Gate. A person can find August 8 meaningful without believing that ancient Egyptians celebrated a modern “Lion’s Gate Portal.” Someone can meditate on Sirius without claiming that Sirius sends a special spiritual frequency to Earth on that date. Someone can create a ritual because its symbolism speaks to them without claiming that the metaphysical explanation attached to it has been historically established. There is a difference between symbolism and fact, and Spiritualism should be comfortable with that difference.
We can remain open to mystery without turning mystery into certainty. We can value intuition without making it infallible. We can honor personal experience without treating it as proof of every conclusion we draw from it. The Spiritualist approach is not “I believe everything,” nor is it “I believe nothing.” It is a willingness to investigate. That willingness is essential to a progressive spiritual philosophy. If our understanding can grow, then we must also be willing to discover that some of our present beliefs are incomplete or mistaken. Progress requires correction, investigation requires humility, and spiritual development requires an openness to changing our minds.
Spiritualism does not ask us to choose between the heart and the mind. It asks us to bring them into balance. We can experience deeply, trust our intuition, and remain open to the unseen while still asking questions, examining evidence, and distinguishing what we know from what we merely believe. Spiritualism does not become less spiritual when it asks for reason and evidence. It becomes more honest. The purpose of Spiritualism should never be to make us feel that we already possess all the answers, but to make us more committed to the search for truth.
