Instrumental attitudes and spiritual contact with "the dead"

By "instrumental" I mean "making use of" - so that having an instrumental attitude to somebody means "making use of him".

By "the dead" I mean those who have mortally died, biologically died. 

By "spiritual contact" with the dead - I refer to the fact that we (naturally and spontaneously) have spiritual contact with some of those we love (or with whom we have some other love-rooted relationship such as ancestors), and who have died. 

The real possibility of spiritual contact with the dead is not something that requires proof or argument. It is spontaneous and regarded natural and inevitable for human beings in most places and through most of history. 

Indeed; spiritual contact with the dead only wholly-absent when a person has decided that it is impossible... Here-and-now, typically; because so many people have inculcated the weird, incoherent and self-destructive socialization of modern atheistic-materialism. 

But starting from this weird a-spiritual materialism we moderns inhabit; it is a valid question concerning just how we may attain, resume our natural birth right of loving interaction with some of the dead. 

How to attain contact with the dead turns-out to be very much affected by our attitudes and intentions for that relationship. 

The whole matter of contact with the dead is very badly muddied and distorted by instrumental attitudes. 

In other words; many people seek contact with the dead in order to gain something from the relationship. And we ought to recognize the wrongness of such a motivation. 

We do recognize this wrongness in the material life of our mortal waking state. We recognize that to seek "friendship" in order to get something from somebody, is not friendship at all; but is simply making-use-of somebody; exploiting, or at least making a convenience of, another person. 

Such "friendship" is not friendship at all - it is attempted deception and manipulation. 

Why, then, do people so often have exactly this motivation when it comes to seeking contact or maintaining relationships with the dead?

So often these spiritual relationships are sought in order for the living person to get something from a dead spirit - at the least to get instruction - "teaching" or "information" - knowledge of some kind useful to the living party; or even to get power (as when black magicians seek to enslave and use spirits). 

There are plenty of examples of people who claim relationship with some deceased person as a way of claiming personal prestige and authority; as a way of validating their work or teachings. 

For instance; to seek contact with the dead in a spirit of serving some supposed destiny... Maybe the living party seeks to serve (perhaps channel) the spirit of the dead person - to extend or to finish "their work" on earth? 

But this intent-to-serve is at root another species of instrumental motivation - and may well open the living person to manipulation by malign dead-spirits; dead spirits who seek to corrupt and exploit the living for their won purposes.   

My point is that none of this is a good basis for seeking a relationship with the dead. 

The proper basis is surely love? The same as our living ideals of family, spousal or friendship love? 

A loving relationship in this mortal life is the highest - perhaps the only genuinely high - form of relationship; and so it should be in relationships between mortally-living and dead. 

The proper initial aim in seeking relationships with one of the dead, ought to be rooted in a particular and personal affection; and ultimately aim to have a relationship of participation - of sharing. 

Therefore we should not aim at a "functional" relationship; not have an aim of achieving fulfilment of some plan, not doing some-thing.  

I think the reason that the claims for relationships with the dead are so incoherent, so riddled with self-deception and self-seeking - is this matter of the attitude with which they are sought and maintained. 

This is why so many attempts at relating to the dead fail. They are not rooted in love; or when they are rooted in love - because they are seeking some functional benefit for the living party. 

When the relationship with a particular post-mortal being is sought is a properly loving attitude, in order to participate not use; for itself rather than to achieve something -- then it is (surely?) much more likely genuinely to be be achieved; will very probably be wholesome; and may be relied upon as valid and real*. 

Note: This is why I think it better not to be too eager to "share" one's own specific experiences of contact, of friendship, with the dead. Such claims may easily become status-claims; or else their validity may be challenged leading to a defensive and argumentative assertion.