Thank you for commenting on this church which I am very familiar with, and allowing me to answer some of the implied questions.

I agree the sign is new agey, but the church was established 37 years ago quite before the new age movement and "centers" existed. Also, the building was constructed in 1887 and is an Encinitas native.

While Spirtualists practice similar things to new agers, it is a religion dating back maybe 100 years. Typical Spiritualists are devoutly Christian, believing only that one may communicate with people after they go to heaven, so the choice of the term "church' is a natural one. Perhaps you were thinking of Spiritism which is much more occult.

Lastly, the founder was a paleantologist and astronomer, and loved science. As a result he wanted those who ran the organization to have a solid grasp of the basic scientific concepts such as evolution. Recal the NSF survey of Americans that revealed that more than half did not know the Earth goes around the sun, or that the dinosaurs predated humans by millions of years. These concepts form a well-rounded worldview in this philosophy, and are thus taught there.

Advertising the teaching of evolution at a church *does* sounds funny, and I appreciated your commentary.

kind regards,

Eric

Did you know that L. Ron Hubbard spoke with a lisp? Think about that when you next hear Tom or John talking about Operating Thetans.

"Through all time, the great spiritual leaders have been saying the same teaching; but as time had slipped by, these truths have been almost destroyed by the dogma added by mankind. Almost all the additions and deletions have diluted or destroyed what the original teacher was trying to say. In many cases these changes were made by the priesthood to gain control over the populace."

I did not copy and paste all, but stopped at this last statement to contrast it with what I found on another page, which was this…

"No requests for information from Spirit will be answered by us without an appointment with one of our Ministers."

Thank "Something" that they are doing their part to reduce control over the populace.

Yeah, John, what's up with all the anti-new ageist posts? They're just people walking a path just like the rest of us. Lighten up!

Hope I'm wrong….