Dangers of Spiritualism?

There is much documented experience from the early days of spiritualism and seances. I haven't read of any unpleasant experiences but maybe it's just that I haven't read enough. And I have not experienced anything untoward in circles myself.

I think we have to remember that people see and experience things through their own personal and cultural veils. If you expect trouble then you're more likely to experience something discordant. There is something in human nature that seeks this sort of stuff out as well, hence the popularity of horror stories. Some are symbolic, part of myth and literature; others are simply for escapism and gratuitous enjoyment. Harry Edwards used to love to read thrillers as a form of relaxation . In his day thrillers were probably not as pathologically explicit as they can be today.

Ignorance, fear and guilt are very powerful. We can project them on to all sorts of experiences and relationships.

I am interested in this from the point of view that thought is energy and that negative thoughts can rebound on us in the most frightening and powerful way. Silver Birch and Ramadahn speak of this phenomena in their own ways. It is the way karma works as well. I have personally experienced this in a most educative way but know how to prevent it from happening again .

Ursula Roberts speaks of people trapped in repetitive and dark cycles of desperation and suffering over various lifetimes until they actually learn to love, forgive and let go. This may also be an example of the effects of negative energy.

Sometimes these negative thoughts, energies and cycles can be seen as 'possession' and the influence of lost spirits. Eventually one comes to understand what living life according to the 'law' means for us personally and how this can lead to little but peace and happiness.

Probably there will always be speculation. We won't really know until we pass, and maybe not even then.

I've been a medium since 1977 and never come across any of these so called 'bad spirits'.
Back in the day though (1850s) there's record of someone 'giving a message' in a spiritualist camp meeting in America who claimed to have been 'overcome by an impersonating spirit' because he began to 'cuss and swear' so 'several burly gentlemen carried him from the stand'.
The poor chap could have been drunk or mentally unbalanced or both. Who is to say. The negative crits of spiritualism tend to stem from the more fundamentalist and/or evangelical Christian area. Many Catholics and most Orthodox (in the Eastern Orthodox sense) are more than open to spiritualism.