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WHY WERE YOU BORN?(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:54:08 -0400

What is the reason for earthly life?
Are we freak effects of natural causes? Or has a Master Architect designed a plan for His creation?
Is there a blueprint for each one of us to seek out, unfold and build, be it falsely or truly?

The object of all earthly existence is that the human spirit is to be quickened.

Earthly life has a purpose for all who dwell on your planet. It is sad that there are millions who are unaware of the spiritual reality on which their lives are based. Like troglodytes they live in a spiritual gloom that is almost a vacuum.

Their perspective is wrong; their focus is wrong; their vision is wrong. They have no idea of the vast richness that life has to offer them. Once you are aware of spiritual truths you are transformed because you know what it is you must achieve.

We are all human beings. Thus we have the flaws of imperfection within us. If we were perfect, we would not be in your world or in ours. We would have joined the Great Spirit, the only perfect power in the universe.

We recognize the frailties of human nature. But you must regard every problem as a challenge not only to be met and accepted, but to be overcome so that the indwelling spirit, as a result, is more fortified, grows, develops, unfolds, and you emerge stronger.

It is not possible for you who dwell in earthly surroundings not to be confronted with heights and depths and the ups and downs of the varying circumstances which pertain to your world.

It is why you are placed there so that you can, because of the variety of circumstance, enable your spirit, the eternal you, to be able to express latent qualities that can be manifested only when confronted with difficulty and adversity.

It is not when the sun shines that the soul finds itself. It is not in a bed of roses that the soul comes into its own. It is in the hazards and challenges, the difficulties, the hurdles and the obstacles. These provide the only means by which the soul can realize its latent divinity.

This is the story of every pilgrim on the road to spiritual knowledge. There has to be heartbreak, sorrow and suffering to appreciate fully the compensations that will follow. The individuals who will give service must be tried and tested, sometimes to their uttermost strength.

There is a plan for every child of the Great Spirit. Everything operates according to natural law which knows nothing of miracles or necessity for intervention. The natural law is perfect because it is conceived by a perfect mind.

There are no exceptions to the natural law, which makes provisions for all that exists, not only in the universe but even in the immeasurable cosmos. Wherever you look, the natural law operates. Nothing is too small to be ignored, and nothing too large to be outside the framework of how the natural law operates. And it operates for you, as it does for me and for everybody.

So you know that action and reaction are equal and opposite. You know that you have to plumb the depths before you reach the heights. And you know that you have plumbed the depths, but have not reached the heights. That is why you have doubts about surviving.

But you will survive. I do not mean permanently in your world, because immortality is not part of earthly existence. Everything material has a period placed on it when it must finish its task. It must dissolve, disintegrate and be resolved into the original constituents that made its existence possible.

Your body will follow that pattern as part of a preordained course, but you will survive because you have no alternative, because surviving is part of the natural law.

In some religions they teach that there is survival for those who believe in certain doctrines and creeds. But survival has nothing to do with religion or with human beliefs, aspirations and hopes. Survival is an inflexible law, automatic in its operation.

You will survive because the spirit comes to earth to develop, to grow, to unfold and to prepare itself for its real home, not the transitory abode which earth provides. You will come home where you began, and continue to live after having left what earth has to offer, so that you can play your part in the great universal scheme.

Every child of the Great Spirit has a part to play in the infinite scheme. There will be difficulties, but these are the challenges that have to be met, accepted and triumphed over. Handicaps and obstacles are all part of the necessary preparation for an evolving, developing spiritual nature.

Yours is a very dense, material world where the vibrations are heavy, slow, sluggish, ponderous. The vibrations of the spirit are delicate, sensitive, subtle, and to be expressed there has to be a catalyst for the individual.

You will not find spiritual truths when the sun is shining, if you are surrounded by riches, and wealth and possessions. You will not find spiritual truths when you have no problems. The catalyst will work only when you are in trouble.

A storm can often do more to help you to unfold spiritually than the sun. It is in the fire that the steel is forged. It is in the crushing process that the gold is refined and purified to emerge in all its glistening colour. And it is similarly for the human spirit to be tried and tested again and again, before it can emerge with a greater divinity being expressed then had happened before.

The gold is there, but the ore has to be crushed before the purity of the metal can be made visible. The steel has to be forged in the crucible of fire. And so it is with all of you.

You would not be interested in the things of the spirit, which are your eternal possessions, the only enduring and abiding realities, until you are ready to receive them. So you have to be tried and tested, just as the steel has to be tried and tested.

You have to suffer. You have to endure privation, perhaps ill-health, some crisis that will touch your soul, that spark of the divine, and begin to fan it into a beauteous flame. There is no other way. It is only in the darkness that you will find the light, only in ignorance that you will gain knowledge. Life must be a polarity, or if you like a duality, in which it is said action and reaction are equal and opposite.

The soul cannot come into its own until it is touched. This usually means when it seems to the individual there is no hope in this world, no light, no guidance to be found. The abyss of despair has been reached, the fear that he or she will be plunged into the depths and not recover. It is at that moment that the soul can be awakened.

Thus we in our world have to wait patiently until your soul is ready. You say in your world that you may lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. You have to be ready.

I have had a longer experience than all of you. It gives me a greater appreciation of the perfection of the natural laws that encompass us all and ensure that provision is made for everyone.

I am puzzled sometimes when I visit my friends on earth who have knowledge, and I see them worried and anxious. The knowledge is their foundation which should assure them that no harm or injury can befall their eternal spirit. Those with knowledge should be living in the light and never fear what the morrow will bring.

There is nothing in your world that you need worry about. You have within you the armory of the spirit, the divine potential which you can utilize to help in any emergency or crisis that comes your way. There is no problem you cannot solve by calling on the power that is within you and by appealing to the power that is without you.

?WHY SPIRIT GUIDES RETURN?(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:52:37 -0400

Like many others, I was asked whether I would go back into the belt of matter to try to save those in your world who were trying to destroy themselves and the world in which they lived. We have tried to work amongst you, and we still try to work amongst you, seeking by your own standards to prove that those who leave your world still live in the fuller realms of the Great Spirit, so that you shall understand that you are part of the Great Spirit even as they are.

Although we strive in these things, there are many who seem to think it is more important to worry about the toys than the message. What does it matter whether the message comes from one whom the world calls white, or black, or yellow, or red? What does it matter if the laws of the Great Spirit are given you by one who has had much education or not, so long as it is the Law, so long as it is the truth?

Many years ago, you were taught that ?A little child shall lead them.? Until you learn to put away the foolish wisdom of the wise, and get back to the simplicity of the child, you will not advance much either in your world or in mine. Your world makes a difference between those whose skins have been coloured by the sun of the Great Spirit. They look at their skins and forget that their spirits are all one.

Why do you think you have wars? Why do you think you have misery? Why do you think you have great sorrow in your world? Because those who are blinded by matter and can only see through its limitations do not see that behind the things of matter there is a unifying spirit of the Great Spirit. Because they seek to make differences, they have chaos, they have disaster, they have bankruptcy.

You have sought to build your lives on the systems of your own material world. You have sought to become educated and cultured and have tried to build up a civilization away from the laws of the Great Spirit.

Because of that, your world has fallen. It is in ruins, just as much in ruins as is the civilization of the olden days. Because we love you, because that love which comes from the Great Spirit flows through all of us, we come back to you to try to help you to pick up the pieces and build them on the structure of eternal things, the laws of the Great Spirit.

Because when we lived on earth we had coloured skins, you say to us: ?No, we refuse to have the world put right because your skin is coloured. We would rather have disaster, unless we can be helped by people whose skins are white.?

But all the same, I want you to know that you help us. There is much in the things that you have discovered in your own civilization that helps us. It is a perfect law in its operation. We seek to teach you what we have learned in the realms of spirit, and we seek to imbibe whatever knowledge you can give us. It is through that law of co-operation that the new heaven will come into your world.

One day in your world all the colours will merge, for all the colours have their part to play. All peoples will merge, because each has something to give to the world. You can see the time coming, if you look with the eyes of the spirit, when all will live together in harmony, giving all peoples the advantage of their own race, their own culture and their own learning.

We are all servants of the Great Spirit - - you and I and those who work with us - - seeking to do His will. We are misunderstood; often our friends are our greatest enemies. But we do our work and, because we do that which is right in the sight of the Great Spirit, we call to our aid all those forces which belong to the spirit, which are stronger than your world of matter. And gradually good triumphs over evil, justice triumphs over injustice, and right triumphs over wrong. Sometimes the forces of your world push us back for a while, but not forever.

We must succeed, for we seek to save mankind from himself, to point to him those higher and better ways which will enable him to live his life in service, so that he may receive the richness of soul, spirit and mind, the peace and the happiness which do not belong to the world of matter but to the higher and greater things of the spirit.

It is a great task on which we are all engaged. It is a sacred tie that binds us all together and makes us one in spirit, one in purpose, one in desire. Let us resolve that together we will renew our opposition to all that which stands in the way of Truth?s advance, so that our combined efforts bring the power of the Great Spirit nearer to His children.

If the few words I say are of service to you, then they should enable each one of you to go out into the world and serve the children of matter as I try to serve you. It is your responsibility to pass on the knowledge you have. I know that to be the Law.

I only seek to interpret into your language the laws of the Great Spirit. Those who read my words will not always agree with my interpretation, but I am in a different world from them. I am sometimes limited by your language and by my instrument. If we fail to agree, then it is either because the souls in your world are not yet evolved to an understanding of greater truths, or because I cannot express all that is within my soul, which is greater than your earthly language allows me to interpret.

But I am always ready to serve and to teach the Law, for it is only through an understanding of the laws of the Great Spirit that the people of the world of matter can live as the Great Spirit intended they should live. It is better to see than to be blind, it is better to hear than to be deaf, it is better to be awake than to be asleep. Let them open their souls to the Great Spirit. Let them strive to attune themselves to the laws of the Great Spirit, so that they are at one with Him and He is at one with them.

Then their hearts and souls will be at peace, they will be in harmony with the great rhythm of the universe, and discord will disappear from their lives. They will begin to live as they have never lived before.

All knowledge matters. It is not wise to say you will only receive this amount of knowledge and will go no further.

I strive to transmit all I know so that you may drink in as much as I have to give you. I do this not because I am greater than you, not because I am proud of what I possess, but because only by giving can I serve.

All knowledge has its place. Do not strive to stop at any rung in the ladder of progress. It is only by imbibing, by striving to get the complete picture, that life will be understood by you.

That refers not only in life in its material aspects, but life in its spiritual aspects, too, for whilst your world of matter needs guidance in the things of matter it is also necessary for the knowledge of the spirit to be given at the same time. Our message always is that you are living now in the world of spirit, that the world of matter is but one reflection of an eternal life.

If only those who know would be faithful to the knowledge, how much more could we accomplish? If only those who have listened to the voice of the spirit and those who have witnessed the operation of spiritual laws in the phenomena that links together the two worlds of life would forget Self and rise to the highest heights that they could scale, we could achieve a great deal.

Knowledge and service are greater than individuals. What we have achieved is but little compared with what can be achieved. No limits can be set to the Great Infinite Spirit, to the wisdom, to the inspiration, to the truth that can be showered upon your world. There are no restrictions to the mighty power of spirit waiting to fill your world, when your instruments can provide the right channels for us to use.

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:49:15 -0400

Music plays a subtle part in the Divine Plan.
Silver Birch gave a leading musician a foretaste of the delights awaiting him in the Beyond.

What you can never appreciate is the service you render with the music you provide. Music, especially of the inspired kind which is natural for you to transmit to others, has a great healing, soothing, stimulating, uplifting quality. In its way that too can touch souls and make them realize there is a sublimity of life far greater than any of the things that the physical senses can perceive or comprehend.

Whenever you play in future remember you are an instrument of a great purpose, helping to bring harmony, sympathy, stimulation, happiness and health to many others who cannot convey their thanks to you.

You have the greatest treat due when you reach our world, because we have music of a quality and superiority you cannot now comprehend. We have octaves of sound that you have never heard in your world. We have symphonies, we have concertos, we have orchestras and we have the greatest music makers and masters in our world. You have only a few in yours.

We have access not only to the great music makers, but they have evolved since coming to our world. There is greater music performed for those who are ready to appreciate it. Our halls of music are among the treasures of our life. You will hear octaves of sound that are incapable of being registered by any of your instruments.

And of course the music that enriches your world has its source in our world. It is not created in your world. Musicians and composers are the mediums.

?It is a great privilege to be here. I very much want to tell you that your teachings are a wonderful inspiration in my life.?

Let us both thank the Great Spirit, I for the opportunity and privilege of service and you and your wife for being able to receive it.

I came to your world many years ago, a lone figure without a friend.

I was asked if I would return to your world under these difficult conditions, forfeiting whatever I had earned in higher reaches of life, because there was a great need for spiritual realities and powers to be established. I accepted the challenge.

Here you are tonight telling me that the teachings which I am privileged to transmit -- they do not originate from me -- have helped you. I am grateful for that knowledge. It shows that I have added some more friends at whose hearths I can feel the warmth of their love, and that means a great deal to me.

You will be given many opportunities to serve others as you have been served. Take them when you can. I am not asking you or anybody to become an evangelist, a missionary seeking to make converts whenever possible. We do not wish you, or any others associated with us, to play on the emotions of the masses, to arouse them with fervor to accept things which in the cold light of day for many of them will prove unreasonable.

What we do say is that you will be provided with opportunities to help those who come into your orbit. Then do the best you can for them. There is a great work to be done in your world.

Material possessions can only be your temporary belongings. You are merely their custodians. Those of a spiritual nature will not rust or tarnish; they will endure. There is no religion higher than service, which is the coin of the spirit. Those who serve others less fortunate than we are will find that the way will be shown. There will be brought to them people they can help in their time of crisis, just as you were guided when you needed it.

* * *

Referring to discordant and technical modern music, a visitor asked if inspiration had changed its form.

Inspiration does not change. Inspiration is constant, but it can be received only by those who are ready to do so, and they must be attuned to that wavelength on which it can operate. Inspiration is always at work. Like spirit power, it seeks to find avenues through which it can express itself.

It is a question of atunement. You must recognize that in your world there are pioneers in all forms of art, in music and in painting. Sometimes they are so much in advance that the people of their time are unable to appreciate it. But with the years that pass, understanding comes, and recognition is afforded to the pioneers.

That does not apply to the vulgarization of music that often takes place in your world. This is in line with the violence that is part of the cancerous growth infesting your world today.

?I wondered if the generation was affecting the music.?

You cannot divorce matter from spirit because each reacts and interacts so far as the other is concerned. Your body affects your spirit, and your spirit affects your body. They are not in watertight compartments.

?Jung says everything that happens on the inside must manifest itself on the outside. Is some of the modern, violent, tuneless music evidence of this? Is it not better out than in? Does it help to dissipate the violence??

No, it is a natural reaction, unfortunately. It is an expression of the material, part of the selfishness, the complete unconcern for the welfare of others. It is greed at work. That explains the violence afflicting itself on your world. And that violence is expressed not only in physical behavor, but in music, art, and in every other form of life.

OUR LESSER BRETHREN?(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:48:51 -0400

Silver Birch has always stressed man?s responsibility to every creature.

Alas, because of lack of spiritual development, there are millions of people on earth who do not realize that the spirit which animates them is the same one that animates all the creatures who share the planet with them. They do not see them as spirits with earthly bodies, just as they are.

They do not realize that because they believe they are superior to the animals, they have a responsibility towards them, because the higher should always help what it believes is the lower.

You have needless cruelty and terror inflicted on innocent creatures in the false belief that through this vicious means health will be attained by humans. This is not true.

The long-term problem is to spread the knowledge of spiritual realities so that these wicked and often diabolical experiments should altogether cease. You have to reach the stage where man has developed his conscience to know that what he is doing is wrong.

?Why should animals suffer at the hands of humans? Were they put here only to test our spiritual growth? Why were they not put on another physical plane whose inhabitants were highly-evolved beings who would love and help their spiritual evolution??

The same question could be asked as to why humans are put into your world to suffer at the hands of other humans. Why cannot they be put elsewhere where they cannot suffer?

What you have to realize is that the whole of earthly life is a prepatory school, a training ground where man is given the opportunity to manifest in the largest possible manner the divinity within him.

He has, to a limited degree, the free will to decide his actions. As a result he advances or holds back the progress that he has to achieve in your world or in mine, so that the spirit evolves and gradually sheds the imperfections on its eternal path of progress.

When you have free will then it is patent that some will exercise it wrongfully, vengefully, ignorantly, and others will suffer as a result.

If the Great Spirit intended that all animals and all humans should be perfect, then they would not be in your world, or even in mine. They would have achieved the summit of evolution, which is not possible because it is an eternal progression.

There is much to be done to end animal cruelty. There are wars constantly being fought between the forces of good and those of greed and selfishness, between the ones with knowledge and those who are ignorant. And there are the short-sighted people who do not realize the part animals play in your world and that they have as much right to be there as humans have. The battles will be fought, and gradually you will win.

?Will you say something about the next evolutionary stage for birds and fish which are evolving in line with human beings? Is this the deva evolution? What is the next stage for insects, so many of which seem so far advanced and have a complicated ?civilization? of their own??

I do not think the word ?civilization? is correct. Applied to any life, civilization is the means by which you adapt your societies and cultures.

If you ask will a bird ever become a human being, the answer is no.

The deva evolution is part of the elemental life that concerns fairies and similar aspects of being. They have their part to play in nature?s growth. Evolution is part of the natural law for all life and is evidence that the Great Spirit is imbued with love. Evolution consists in growing from the lower to the higher all the time.

The law of evolution embraces every facet of life, the insect, the birds, the fish, the human. They all have their parts to play and are related to one another. No aspect of life is isolated; every form of life is integrated so that the totality forms a composite whole. You are part of the same law of evolution that is responsible for how animals progress.

If you work with the natural laws, if you are in harmony with them, you not only fulfil yourself, but at the same time you help the evolution of all other aspects of nature. The whole scheme is divinely ordered so that you play your parts as co-operative elements in it. Those who violate nature instead of working with it are performing a disservice to what they violate, and to themselves. Those who co-operate with nature are helping its growth and also helping the unfoldment of their spiritual natures.

?Does this mean that as human beings we have no special place but are part of the process??

You are part of the eternal processes of life. Because you consider that man is a higher species than other forms of life, you have a responsibility to help what you regard as the lower, just as you desire that higher beings in our world should help you.

?Is there such a thing as a higher form of life in our world, so far as the animals are concerned??

No, each animal has its own evolution to outwork. Whatever lives does so because it is spirit. Spirit is life, life is spirit. Therefore every living thing, creature, bird, fish, flower, tree, fruit, is spirit.

When you talk of higher and lower it is only a question of the stage of evolution that is reached as compared with other stages in the variegated forms of life. To the fish you may be a higher stage of evolution, but to the hierarchy of our world you are at a lower stage.

?We are making such slow progress to help animals. It seems to get worse and worse in this world.?

This is the result of man being given a limited free will. If there were to be no problems, no struggles, no sacrifices, no difficulties, you could not evolve. Progress is achieved when you are confronted with difficulties, not when your life is easy. It is an inherent part of evolution that there has to be a ?crucible? from which each soul must emerge as part of a testing time to ensure that it can call on latent strength.

Progress is slow in some aspects and faster in others. It is man?s responsibility to ensure that he is at peace with all who share the earth with him. But whatever happens, there is compensation as part of the natural law.

You have the responsibility of ensuring that animals should evolve according to their path of evolution. If you abnegate your responsibility, then you must pay the price for it. Those who practice cruelty will have to pay the spiritual price for everything they do.

Alas, the innocent always suffer. We cannot thwart the operation of natural law. If a brutal man commits a murder he will have to pay the price, and there will be compensation for the victim. The law of compensation will always outwork itself. The Great Spirit has ensured that divine justice will be meted out to everybody through the laws of compensation and retribution.

?In nature it seems that the strongest survives. If that is right, how would this be applied to human and spiritual matters??

Have you heard of symbiosis? Isn?t that a law of nature? And isn?t it a fundamental law that the co-operation existing in nature enables nature to fulfil its purpose?

The tree absorbs the poisons in the atmosphere, purifies it, and enables you to be healthier. Is that strength, or is it not harmony and co-operation at work?

?I think of animals especially.?

Which animals have survived from prehistoric times? The elephant. Was that a brute? It was not. The animal was a vegetarian that did not prey on other animals. All the others have not survived. Which is the strongest?

You have a garden. If you work with nature you get results. If you abuse nature, you don?t get results. Show love not only to your fellow beings, but to animals. Do not exploit people, do not exploit animals and do not exploit nature. Then you are helping not only the people of your world, but everything that exists to have that peace, orderliness and harmony that is the ultimate purpose of evolution, the law devised by the greatest power in the universe.

THE ENIGMA OF RELIGION(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:46:33 -0400

Though teachers have brought spiritual enlightenment throughout the ages, man in his ignorance has misunderstood much.

All religions have a grain of truth; but when man makes bread to feed the multitude, often he throws away the wheatgerm with the chaff.

Silver Birch?s first comments will surprise many.

* * *

?People I have met state they are confirmed Spiritualists, yet they follow their orthodox religions. Should not they put behind these ideas when they accept Spiritualism??

I am not bothered with these labels. I am not sure whether I am a Spiritualist, because I have not been confirmed. What you call yourself does not matter. We are concerned with the way you live your life.

Religion, what is it? Is it going to church, synagogue, chapel or temple? Is it the acceptance of certain theological ideas devised by man? Is it calling yourself a Roman Catholic, a Protestant, a Buddhist, a Jew?

Religion is living in a way that brings you closer to the Great Spirit. Religion is when the Great Spirit is expressed in your actions. Religion is service.

If you find there are some people who have all the benefits of communication with our world, but still adhere to certain conventional theological beliefs, then be sorry for them. Say a silent prayer for them because they are still only on the first rungs on the ladder or are in the half-way stage.

Recognize that it is not always easy to abandon the teaching received in childhood, when the mind was plastic and impressionable and accepted without question what was given to it. Gradually these theological ideas become part of the warp and weft of the subconscious mind, are embedded in its depths, and an individual finds it almost impossible to rid himself of them.

Be patient. There was a time when all of us had ideas which we believed, but later wisdom made us abandon them. After all, none of us has attained the summit of perfection; to do so will require eternity. Be tolerant. Help them. Do not argue with them; that gets nowhere. In such discussion, as the poet said, ?they leave by the same door by which they came in.?

Be patient with those who cannot see further than their theological noses. Time will work its will with them, as it has with you.

* * *

?Many people are very depressed for no reason. What has come over the young people? Are they spiritually starved??

They have not found their way. They have come into a world where violence rules. They believe their elders have betrayed them. They feel also that they can obtain no guidance from conventional religion.

?Do you think too much blame has been put on the elders? Everyone has his own path to find.?

I am not agreeing with their outlook. I am only explaining it, because in time they will become elders.

?There is no substitute for experience.?

Your bad experiences are the best for you. Your good experiences are often the worst for you. My friends have heard me say many times that the virtue of falling down is that you can pick yourself up.

* * *

A visitor asked about the world?s creation, citing the description in Genesis. In some quarters it was believed that creatures from outer space came to earth for this purpose, he said.

Of course you are now addressing your question to an out-of-space creature! Do not be bothered by what it says in Genesis or in any other book. If it is unacceptable to your reason, dismiss it. How did your world begin is what you want to know.

?There are many theories; we really don?t know.?

Let me say that I have a little more than a theory. I have a little knowledge on this subject. Your world has always existed. It had no beginning, nor will it have an end. If you want to quote from the Bible, you have statements like the one attributed to the Nazarene, ?Before Abraham was I am.?

Spirit has always existed: it was not spontaneously created. It slumbered for millions of years until the rudemental beginnings of life gradually manifested in your world. Life is spirit and spirit is life. It always has had the potentials of infinity.

There were no creatures from outer space to create the beginnings of life in your world. Life was always there, and developed, unfolded and progressed according to the natural laws of evolution that infinite intelligence devised.

?I understand that now a good deal of Darwin?s theory is being disputed, though at the time he was accepted. There seem to be facts which he missed.?

There are always facts that are missed because all knowledge is not available at any stage of evolution. Only perfection contains all knowledge, and perfection has not yet been attained in your world or in mine. Let me say categorically that evolution, physical, mental and spiritual, is part of the operation of natural law.

?I am not very keen on the thought of being descended from monkeys.?

It may also be true that monkeys are not very keen on the idea! In the fight of the Great Spirit monkeys are as precious as humans.

* * *

Silver Birch has always expressed great love for Jesus, whom he calls ?The Nazarene.?

It has been my privilege many times with colleagues in my world to be present at conferences, congresses, meetings call them whatever you like. At these the Nazarene refers to many of the plans the hierarchy devised to ensure that the power of the spirit should remain in your world.

The Nazarene is one of the hierarchy behind all the directives we receive when we leave your world occasionally to fortify ourselves to cope with our missions and to glean more of what it is we have to achieve.

I have a great reverence for Jesus, the Nazarene, a wondrous example of what the power of the spirit could achieve when divinity assumes human form and gives to those available simple, but profound teaching, that love is a power that solves all problems when people allow themselves to be animated by it.

The Nazarene demonstrated the same spiritual phenomena that we make available today, because their operation is due to the same natural laws which always have been, which still are in existence, and will continue to be so.

Having attracted the multitudes by what were wrongly called miracles, he taught the great truths of the spirit: love thy neighbor as thyself, do good to those who hurt you; the essence of all religions.

But the difference is this, that with his passing into our world the mission of Jesus did not end. He is still at work, inspiring those who continue to see and meet him, to propound these truths, to demonstrate these phenomena so that those who are ready would play their part in helping the infinite, creative power of the Great Spirit to flow through an increasing number of channels everywhere.

We have nothing but respect and reverence for Jesus. But we do not have that respect and reverence for many of his followers who have worshipped and continue to worship Jesus, yet pay no heed to his teachings. Instead of the truth he taught unifying them, it divides them.

In your world today there are black areas where the same followers of the Nazarene persecute and kill one another. They do not understand his mission. If you believe in the Nazarene and realize that love is the greatest power in the universe, you should not kill or commit acts of violence against others who say they believe in those same principles.

?It must be very agonizing to the Nazarene to see, as indeed do so many of you in the spirit world, what has been done in his name on earth.?

Yes, and he has shed many tears. After all, he is not responsible for what others do. You who call yourselves Spiritualists proclaim one of our greatest principles, that every individual is personally responsible for his or her acts.

?What did Jesus look like??

The Nazarene has been described many times by people in our world. He is not as painted by artists living in varying countries and according to their cultures. He is very much like the kind of people among whom he moved during his ministry. Were he different, then he would not have fulfilled his mission.

?Some mediums speak of a Cosmic Christ. Others see Christ as an individual spirit. Are they two different aspects for the same existence??

You are allowing names to bother you. There is the man Jesus, whose surname was not Christ, and there is what is called the Christ power, the power of the spirit. If you differentiate between the man and the power that animated him, you have the clearest picture of all.

?Would it be possible by automatic writing or some other means to tell us exactly what Jesus said??

I don?t know. The difficulty is that no-one recorded the utterances of the Nazarene at the time and so memory would have to play its part. His main teaching was the gospel of love. ?Love thy neighbor as thyself. Do good to those who hurt you.? Love is the fulfilling of the law. What else is required to help mankind? Love is the highest expression of the spirit. Love is what the Great Spirit has to offer. Love is what we offer you.

The object of the Nazarene?s mission was to demonstrate spiritual reality. If the Nazarene were to reappear in your world today and to repeat what he said 2,000 years ago I doubt if anyone would listen.

?You said so many people arrive in the spirit world with false teaching. In St. John?s gospel it says believing is the important part.?

No. Everyone will live after what you call death, not because of believing in a creed, a doctrine or dogma, but because it is an unalterable natural law. It has nothing to do with religion. It is a law as equal to the law of cause and effect.

What you have quoted is one of the interpolations in the Bible which has caused great affliction and separated people. It is not paradoxical that a book, a religious book, a holy book, a sacred book, has caused more bloodshed than an ordinary volume could have done? Yet the purpose of religion should be to unite everybody in a common brotherhood and sisterhood because of their unbreakable fundamental spiritual relationship.

?Was the body of Jesus crucified??

It does not matter. What matters is what Jesus taught. You will go on arguing forever about what happened at the crucifixion.

I cannot prove what I say about that, and so I will not attempt to answer your question. I do not like to condemn others. That is not my mission.

My mission is to draw attention to the spiritual principles on which life is founded. It seems to be that you worry a great deal about things which do not matter. Whether the Nazarene was crucified or not will make no difference to the evolution of your soul.

Concentrate on the vital matters in your life. Here you are in a world with opportunities to play your part, to help others, to develop your spiritual nature and to fulfill yourselves. Don?t worry overmuch about whether there are people on Mars, whether you will resurrect in a thousand years.

What matters is how you comport yourselves in your daily lives. Do the best you can. By doing so, you will enjoy a greater harmony with the Great Spirit. And as a result you will feel that radiance, tranquility, repose and confidence that come to all those who seek to make the will of the Great Spirit their will.

Violence - The Way of Self-pity(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:45:10 -0400

Mankind?s history is dark with greed, aggression and oppression. Bitterness still festers and erupts in many parts of the globe, siring fear in millions who wish to live in peace.

Silver Birch offers these words to the despairing.

* * *

Your world is in a ferment. It is partly due to the upheavals caused by two world wars. In a ferment sometimes not always the best comes to the top.

What you are really seeing take place is the dim outline of a new world. Birth is not always a beautiful or painless process.

Violence is a form of mass-emotion, a kind of hysteria born of inferiority, a self-pity that desires to draw attention to itself as the only means of making others aware of their existence.

It is not an easy life that you live in your world today; it is a very difficult one. You have violence on an ever-increasing scale. You have greed, selfishness, rapacity and all the other cancerous happenings that are a sore on the world body.

Millions have lost their way; millions worship false gods; millions have no idea of what life is all about, and what they have to do to fulfil themselves. It is not only true in your country, but of many lands which are far worse than the one in which you dwell. Greed and avarice, by-products of materialism, have taken command of people who worship this false god. They all desire the golden calf which they regard as the acme of all attainment.

They have no understanding of eternal verities. Their allegiance is to materialism, the festering cancer of your world, but it does not affect the whole of its inhabitants.

Do not let it trouble you unduly. There is nothing you can do about it, except to show an example in your own lives of how those who are the ambassadors of the spirit should comport themselves. You will not be harmed, but protected as in the days that have gone. I have said it before, ?Lift of your hearts.?

Let others be fearful, and despair of what the morrow will bring. You have nothing to fear. No problem, no obstacle, no handicap will come your way that you will not be able to overcome. Call on the divine power within and the even greater divine power without, to which you have access.

It is difficult in the turmoil and turbulence, the strife, anxiety and trouble of your world to remember that these affect only the physical.

Your soul cannot be damaged. Your body may be, but the soul will always be ready to perform its task.

?Will man ever live a life of peace with his fellows instead of warring??

That is very difficult to answer. What you must appreciate is that the Great Spirit endowed man with an element of free will. Human beings could have been created as puppets. That free will provides man with the opportunity of helping what I call the infinite processes of creation.

Man has the chance to make the world in which he lives a garden of Eden, a paradise, a heaven, just as he can make it a dark, desolate and grim forbidding world. That is the measure of his choice.

You have war, violence, greed, cupidity, selfishness, because materialism predominates.

Materialism exists because the vast majority of people in your world do not realize there is a life beyond physical death, despite the teaching of the many religions.

Millions do not accept the fact of an inevitable afterlife which is really tangible, where there is compensation and retribution. They believe that earth is the only life they will ever have. So logically they argue that if the physical is all, let us have the best it has to offer. This is the cause of war. This leads people to hate, to subjugate, to imprison and even to kill one another.

That is not the whole of the picture. I have paid tribute to the infallibility of the natural law which also places a restriction on the havoc that man can wreak in your world.

We are engaged in the mighty task of helping to bring an understanding of spiritual realities wherever we can.

Mediums demonstrate that man is a spiritual being with a spiritual destiny. Man makes or mars his destiny according to the way he conducts himself. The law is unfailing in its sequence of cause and effect, of sowing and reaping.

Whatever good you do, you are the better for it. Whatever selfishness you practice, you are the worse for it. You cannot cheat the natural law. You cannot say on your deathbed that you are sorry for what you have done, and automatically obliterate all the effects of the causes you set in motion.

As this truth gradually is accepted by an increasing number of people, so wars will lessen and peace obtain a greater hold in larger areas of your world. That is the only answer I can give. It cannot be done overnight.

Play your part. Do the best you can. Help those who come to you. Be kind, tolerant, compassionate. Serve where the opportunities come. And that is how you will help.

* * *

?Does the anguish that we sometimes find around come not from without but from within??

It can be both. What you must appreciate is that earthly life provides a polarity which is not available in our world. In our world people of the same stage of evolution are in the same spiritual sphere or plane.

In your world you are mixing all the time with people of varying stages of evolution. You get opportunities for all the opposites to be encountered. Thus you can have light and dark, heat and cold. All this is the purpose of earthly life. It provides the means by which the soul comes into its own.

It is the school where you learn the lessons which fit you for that larger world which one day you will inhabit. If you have anguish, it is because by so doing you will be able to appreciate joy, its opposite.

There is a saying, which I have often quoted, that things can be equal and opposite, the two sides of the same coin. It is in the variety of experience that the soul finds itself. This is the equivalent to the process of the hardening of the steel, the emergence of the gold after being crushed from its ore.

?I perceive in many people what I believe to be a mental revolution. I believe this is a natural sequence which our spirit friends are organizing, and the timing is now.?

Your world is in a melting-pot. You are seeing the war between good and evil, similar to the story told in the Bible. You are also seeing the unfortunate results of the worship of mammon, the pursuit of greed and avarice, the desire for material power, the subjection of all that is noble, elevating, spiritual; the selfishness that I call the festering cancer of your world.

At the same time religion, in its conventional sense, has lost its potency, influence and validity to guide and direct. Allegiances to false doctrines that make no sense to those who have intelligence means that an increasing number continue to turn their backs on what the conventional religions have to offer.

In addition science has started on the wrong road, with massive appliances that pose the crucial question mark of whether they will be used to benefit humanity or wreak destruction in your world. That is the crucial time in which you live, and it is the reason why we make a supreme effort.

This is to influence, to guide, to direct and to point the only way by which peace, harmony, amity, concord and co-operation can be achieved.

We are trying to demonstrate that all who live on earth are part of a vast spiritual family, that what you call God, and I the Great Spirit, is the supreme father of them all.

We will win this fight. You and others are part of the vast army of the spirit engaged in this battle. So you will be to be tried and tested to ensure that you will not fail in the great task to which you have been assigned.

Spirit is stronger than matter. There is no power in the world of matter that is greater than the divine power, which will triumph, though it will take time.

There is no room for pessimism or despair among those who have knowledge. The Great Spirit constructed man with the head at the top so that he could look up. Were he intended to look down, his head would be where his feet are.

Every soul engaged in the task of liberating humanity must go through the tests and challenges. They are essential parts of the spiritual development. There is no other way. When you come to our world and look back, you will thank the Great Spirit for all the difficulties, and realize they were most important parts of your earthly life.

Your world has had prophecies of disasters for a long time. Often dates have been given when your world would be destroyed. There is no second coming. The Nazarene accomplished his earthly mission - two thousand years ago. He continues his mission in the larger life which I inhabit. His is the guiding influence that directs our activities.

Your world will not be destroyed overnight. The Great Spirit, with infinite love and wisdom, has devised natural laws which provide for every facet of being, mighty or minute, complex or simple. The natural laws operate by evolution, not revolution. They ensure that the power of man is restricted. There are things he cannot do. He has a measure of free will, but it is limited.

?Do you think that the world, when it comes to the New Age, will have a much increased consciousness compared with what it has had so far??

To me there is a constant process of evolution, development, unfoldment. It will not happen that overnight there will be a change and a new age will be ushered in. Gradually, as truth progresses, more and more people will become aware of it.

Once they realize that the whole of the universe is founded on spiritual realities that cannot fail, and as a result they begin to live these implications, so there will be higher states of consciousness and awareness functioning in your world, but it will all be a gradual process.

?Will the Age of Aquarius herald any real changes in our world??

Your world is always changing, not only physically but spiritually. You must accept the fact that, as there is a law of evolution, there must be changes as it occurs. Evolution means the gradual development from one condition to another that is higher than its predecessor.

?Can you tell us something about the future of our world??

Your world will continue to exist because there is no individual or combinations of individuals who have the power to destroy the whole of it. There is a limitation placed upon the harm that can be done and the means that you can use, or can be invented or discovered, to wreak damage on such a vast scale that the world would cease to be tenable.

Have no fear, the will of the Great Spirit must always prevail. Be positive, optimistic and constructive in your outlook, and play your part. Banish fear, worry, apprehension, anything that stops the rich power of the spirit from filling you and encouraging you to do the best you can. That is all we ask of you. Do the best you can. No-one can do better than his best.

Have no fear of what the morrow will bring. The morrow is the herald of glorious opportunities for you to unfold latent divinity, to enjoy life in all its fullness, physically, mentally and spiritually, becoming increasingly aware of that wondrous spiritual radiance that is always round and about you.

* * *

?Do you believe capital punishment will solve our problems like violence??

You will not solve your problems that way at all. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Whatever you do must be an attempt to help, not to exact revenge.

Another murder does not excuse the first one. Killing by the State does not solve any situation. If you meet force by force you are not encouraging the powers of goodness, compassion and kindness to be exercised.

All punishment must be remedial and redemptive. The object should always be to try and enable the soul to come into his own. To send into our world souls that are unready merely increases problems. It does not lessen them in your world or in ours. Besides, you can make mistakes.

?Two points occur to me. Suppose persons were precipitated into the next world swiftly, with all their sins heavy upon them, you might say. It is often argued that in this state they merely come back and influence other people with like tendencies. Therefore they do more damage after they had been transported to the next world than if they had been allowed to remain.

Why can your side of life not deal with these who are in essence sick souls, take care of them just as we might, and so prevent them influencing others in the same direction??>/b>

It is not easy. Every second there are coming into our world souls not ready for it. We don?t want an increase. All our efforts are directed to helping people to live on earth as they should, so that they are ready for life in our world.

The whole object of our coming back to your world is to teach love, which the Nazarene taught. You must love and not hate one another, or exact revenge.

A Nigerian chief asked Silver Birch for his assessment of justice.

?I ask because in human conditions we attempt to administer justice. We look at the two sides and say one will be guilty. Is there any divine limit to the human understanding of justice??

You cannot limit justice. Being divine it will operate, just like nature, irrespective of what you wish, think or desire. You cannot make comparisons between divine and human justice. Human justice is fallible, makes mistakes; the innocent is sometimes guilty and the guilty is sometimes innocent. Being human you must err, because you cannot be infallible.

Divine justice is infallible. It cannot make mistakes, because of the law of cause and effect which is unfailing in its operation. You cannot interpose anything between cause and effect; the sequence is unbreakable, inevitable, unalterable. Were it not so, justice would not be divine and the Great Spirit cease to be perfect.

Being human, you will make mistakes. Your judges will give wrong decisions. Your man-made laws cannot apprehend and apply to every condition in your human society. New factors arise for which your laws have not made provision, because they did not foresee them.

The natural laws have foreseen every circumstance, because the Great Spirit is perfect. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is overlooked. All must operate within the framework of natural law. One day perhaps, when wisdom rules your countries, you will choose judges not only for their knowledge of law, but also because their clairvoyance has been sufficiently developed to enable them to see who is innocent and who is guilty.

?Could we say divine justice, which is the natural law, is infallible, but human justice is not infallible? Does that paraphrase what we have been talking about? It is not fallible because we are ordinary, sinful human beings without the full knowledge of the natural law??

I call that a good paraphrase, but I do not like to call you sinful.

?The New Testament says, ?Sin is lawlessness; not in operation?.?

We love you because you are human. If you were perfect there would be no point in our coming to you. Probably you would be coming to us to help us on our way.

A detective making his first visit to the circle remarked:

?In my profession I have seen many people destroyed and taken away before their time because of some ferocious act. I have often wondered if it were possible for somebody to talk to them to ensure that this could not happen again.?

Unfortunately too many of them become earthbound, and it takes a long time for enlightenment to come to free them from this self-created prison. It is a difficult problem on which I could enlarge. The true object of their treatment should not be revenge, which is a wrong emotion, but remedial, an attempt at rehabilitation. Justice is not revenge.

?I thought justice was prevention.?

But too often revenge takes priority. In the Old Testament it was ?An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.? But in the New Testament the Nazarene taught not only loving one?s neighbour, but even loving those who hate you. The acid test is the motive all the time. If the motive is right, all things will work out.

* * *

A journalist sought the guide?s advice on her work.

?I have been asked to research and write about warnings that have come to mankind from the spirit world and from other worlds. One stated that nuclear power was evil and should stop, and also spoke about the selfishness of mankind. I would like your voice to be heard. If you have any particular warning, could you formulate it, please??

I do not regard your nuclear power as evil. The use made of it can be evil. On the other hand, the use that can be made of it could be of tremendous benefit to your world. The decision lies with those who are capable of directing or misdirecting this tremendous power.

As to warnings, do not assume for one moment that we have the equivalent spirit Cassandras who are saying, ?Woe, woe, woe,? because there are dreadful cataclysms coming to you.

The position is not simple. The Great Spirit has given His children a measure of free will within limits, so that they can either fill your world with radiance, beauty, glory and abundance or make it a hell on earth. It is man who has this choice.

The more that technology produces, and reveals tremendous powers which it can unleash, so the responsibility becomes heavier as to how these are to be used in your world. There is no other way, so far as I can understand, that the processes of evolution could be accomplished, except that man, a child of a divine parent, with all the divine potential, should be allowed to express that, and flood your world with all the beauty that it could have, and help nature to release its massive bounty for all to share.

That is the choice for man to have. But if he ignores it and worships the god of mammon, is greedy, selfish, avaricious, and cares not for his neighbour and nobody else but himself, then automatically he will fill his country and the world with all the darkness, difficulty, evils, pestilence and disease which are the fruits of a misused free will.

But having said that, we stress that no matter how much power man has at his disposal, it has no comparison with the infinite power which has set limits on all the destruction and havoc that man can wreak in your world. He cannot destroy the entire world or the universe in which he lives.

?So it is still God?s world.?

Yes, it is still the Great Spirit?s world and the Great Spirit must prevail. God is infinite, God is divine love and wisdom, and God provides all His children with the means of sharing in a heavenly kingdom on earth if they so desire.

If you were puppets, marionettes, robots, your life would be meaningless and purposeless. There would be no evolution, no gradual growth towards perfection. It would become a kind of eternal limbo of nothingness. That is not the object.

I who have lived much longer than any of you have learned to regard with awe, wonder, respect and admiration the universal framework that divine perfection has created. Nothing can destroy the operation of laws that infinite intelligence devised.

There is no need for those with knowledge, who are privileged to have a glimpse of the eternal principles upon which all life is governed, to have fear for the future. Despite your technological wonders, your scientific achievements, which can be used for good or ill, there is a limit to the havoc that man can wreak in your world. He has not unfettered, unlimited freedom to destroy the whole of your world and the physical bodies of those who dwell in it.

Love is greater than hate. Spirit is superior to matter. The mightiest power in the universe emanates from the Great Spirit of all life. The natural laws, created by infinite intelligence and governed by divine wisdom, will ensure that slowly and inevitably there will come a better world than the one in which you live.

What is Death?(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:42:50 -0400

Death is the sloughing off of the physical body as the spirit body gradually emerges.

There is nothing to fear in death. Death is the great liberator; death brings freedom.

You rejoice when babies come into your world. There are many who cry in our world when babies are about to be born into your world.

Similarly there is weeping when people die in your world, but there is rejoicing in ours. Death means that the life has served its purpose, or should have done, and the individual is ready to enjoy all the tremendous richness and beauty that the spirit life has to offer.

You have the spirit, which is the divine essence that enables you to live. You have a physical body that exists because it is animated by the spirit. When the spirit finally withdraws -- I stress finally because temporarily it does so when you sleep, but returns when you wake -- death comes to the physical body because the animation has gone.

Those who have clairvoyance will see that the parting is finally accomplished when the cord connecting the spirit body to the physical one, after being extended as the spirit body gradually moves away, is cut. When that severance takes place, death occurs. There is nothing and nobody in your world who can by any means enable the physical body to live again.

* * *

?A problem has arisen because of new techniques of removing organs. Now doctors wait for people to die to take a heart or kidneys. The question is: ?Is the person dead? Am I at liberty to take the organ???

I know about transplants, and am aware that the motive is often a very good one. But I must say that I am opposed to transplanting any part of the human body to other people.

?Some people believe it is necessary to leave the body in a state of peace for a given amount of time. This is because of the present-day tendency to whisk people into laboratories and open them up for experimental purposes. Do you think this is in any way harmful to the soul or the spirit??

It depends on whether the individual has any knowledge of spiritual matters. If there is ignorance, there can be temporary harm to the soul. Even when the cord connecting the physical and spirit bodies is cut, there is still a certain amount of interplay due to the long association of the two forms of being.

Generally it is considered advisable, where there is complete ignorance of spiritual truths, for an interval of three days to elapse before there is either burial or cremation.

What happens after that is unimportant. If people wish to give their bodies to help knowledge for purposes which can be of service to others that is a matter for them to decide. But let me also say this. There is a time to be born and there is a time to die. If that time to die is reached than transplants will not succeed in maintaining you in your world.

?But there is a problem on a plane which crashes and they die instantly. What is the effect on them??

Exactly the same as I have said. Those who have knowledge of spiritual realities will not be affected. Those who have not will be affected because of the shock. But in the process of time, awareness and realization will come.

?An accidental death predisposes one to accept reincarnation.?

I am not happy about the use of the word ?accident? because I know only of cause and effect in operation. Whatever you regard as accidental can be due only to the operation of the law of cause and effect. As to the question of reincarnation, that is a more complex matter.

* * *

?I have been watching on TV ?The Making of Mankind.? It set me thinking about the origin of the human soul. In the very early beginning does the human soul emerge from a group of an animal species??

No.

?Does that mean the animal kingdom is separated from us??

No.

?How does the human soul first emerge??

It does not emerge at all. It has no beginnings.

?I always thought that the human soul has gradually evolved.?

No, the body has evolved. The soul is part of the Great Spirit which always was and always will be.

The soul has always been. It is individuated when it becomes incarnated into the human frame. The soul has no beginning and no end. It says in your Bible, ?Before Abraham was I am.? The spirit has always existed; the spirit was not created out of nothing.

Spirit is life. Life is universal. Souls, like spirits, do not have beginnings and ends. Spirit individuals when it incarnates into human form but as spirit or soul it has always existed.

* * *

?I would like to know about the eternity of the soul. One speaks of old and younger souls. Is the soul always so, or is it created? From where do we come? Are all souls reincarnated ones, or are there some new from the Great Spirit??

Souls are not created; they have always existed.

I quoted the Bible: in the words of the Nazarene, ?Before Abraham was I am.? As spirit you have always existed. Spirit did not have to be created. There never was any stage when nothing became something.

Spirit, the dynamic, the essence, the vitality that is life, has always existed. Spirit is the energy out of which every manifestation of life is formed, whether it be a plant, a bird, a tree, an animal, a human. Spirit is the mainspring of existence.

When a child is conceived it is not a new soul or a new spirit. It is part of the eternal spirit that has always been in existence.

It becomes individualized and that individuality functions for a short time.

But the soul can have many facets. Some of these facets can reincarnate in your world and bring added lustre to the diamond of the soul. There are old and young souls. You do not manufacture new souls by conception. You provide them with a physical body to express themselves.

When birth is to be achieved and a physical body prepared for its existence, spirit becomes individualized and incarnates into your world. There is nothing new in that spirit. It is taking individual form. It is becoming a person. When he or she is developed and leaves your world, it is a facet of a larger diamond to which it adds its contributions.

?If there is a time for everybody to be born, equally there is a time for them to die. What happens when there is a Caesarian operation; somebody steps in and alters the time of birth??

It alters only the time of entry into your world. It does not alter the time when the spirit has started at the moment of conception to begin to express itself. There is also the free will where an individual can decide to end his physical life, but then automatically he or she is confronted with the law of retributions.

?When a child is to be born it often happens that the doctors accelerate the birth with artificial means. A baby is born earlier than it is due. Does this have any influence astrologically??

The things that worry you! The only vital fact about entry into your world is when life first begins to show itself. That is when conception takes place, not when a baby is born. I am not interested in the astrological arguments. With conception, earth life begins. Without conception there is no earthly life.

?The Pope in Brazil complained about the poorness of the people and stressed at the same time that family planning should never be allowed. How does this make sense??

The Pope is a very good man, but he is not the repository of all the knowledge that exists in the universe. Family planning will continue in your world because it is your responsibility. But if a child is to be born, it will be born despite all family planning.

* * *

?I know some people who genuinely do not wish to survive death. What would you say to them??

I know some people who genuinely do not wish to be born into your world. They can do nothing about it. You cannot opt out of the natural law. It will operate irrespective of what you think about it. You see in the unfolding processes of nature how this panorama presents itself unceasingly, irrespective of man?s desires, wishes, or even objections.

?Are we then forced to come into this world if we do not wish to do so? I always thought it is our choice.?

This is not always the case. There is a choice in our world as there is a choice in yours. When the soul knows it has work to do, it will incarnate into your world. There are some who have no desire to do so, but they come because they have work to do, or they have a karmic condition to fulfil.

?Could it ever be true it is sometimes planned that a person will commit suicide??

No! The planning is done by the soul before it incarnates.

?Are there no lessons one can learn by committing suicide??

No! The Great Spirit gives life. It is not your responsibility to shorten it.

?When a person passes, does he know he has died??

Not all. The majority do, but it takes some time for a complete answer to be realized.

?Do spirit people not help??

Yes, we always help, even if the one who is being transferred from your world may be unaware of the aid he is receiving.

All is known by the powers that be. There is a hierarchy of evolved beings, some of whom have never incarnated in your world. They are charged with fulfilling the divine plan. It is an overall one, and encompasses everything and everybody. There is nothing that can be outside the scope of universal natural law.

?When people die, relatives and loved ones meet them and help them over. Does it mean they are all at the same level??

No, because those who love you will in most cases have evolved spiritually since their passing. They will come down, as it were, so as to be able to communicate at the stage you are when you reach our world. You must try to realize that spiritual growth is always towards maturity. There is no equality with physical age.

Now I come back to the question about at what stage in our world is awareness attained. This is difficult because awareness is a growing condition, not fixed or finite. Awareness has infinite possibilities. You cannot reach the end of it. As you increase it, you realize there is more to be attained.

It is an eternal process at work. Awareness is a gradual realization. It is not a sudden transformation from ignorance to knowledge. It is graduated, and slowly comes as the soul is ready to reach higher stages.

?We obviously don?t live as long as we could physically under better conditions. Under perfect conditions probably we could live to be a hundred and fifty??

Do not confuse physical age with spiritual maturity. It is not the number of years that matters, but the growth, development and unfoldment of the soul that is temporarily manifested through the body.

It is not the plan of the Great Spirit to increase the number of physical years that your body should exist in your world.

What should happen is that when the spirit is ready the body will die, just as the apple drops from the tree when it is ripe. So forget the physical years. They do not matter.

The whole object and essence of earthly life is to enable the spirit to have the kind of exercise, education and experience that fit it to begin its life in our world.

If the spirit does not have the experience to equip it for our world, then it is like a child who has gone to school has not learnt the lessons, and is not ready for the adult life that follows.

* * *

To a widow whose husband had laboured long in the spiritual field the guide gave this encouragement:

I am very glad to welcome you and to reassure you of fundamental truths which have provided a help in your hour of difficulty and trial.

It is not easy for people in your world, even when they have knowledge that life is continuous after physical death, to adjust themselves when those who are closest to them are removed to another dimension of the universe.

It would be foolish to minimize the fact that inevitably there is sorrow when this physical separation takes place. But it is only a physical separation and not a spiritual one.

Death is inevitable for everyone in your world. There comes a time when you have to say farewell to earth, for it has no more to offer you and the soul is ready for the adventures that are an essential part of its evolution towards perfection.

How you comport yourself when the trial comes is a question you have to decide. I know it is not easy.

Death cannot separate those whom love has joined. Love, like life, is undying. And love, like life, is a mighty force that can work its will as conditions make it possible. Of course there are times in the silence when tears are shed. But hold your head high, and know that the power of the spirit will never desert you. Help will always be forthcoming.

Do not worry about anything. Worry blocks the channels by which help can come.

You may not always realize it, but you are very fortunate because when you plumbed the depths of sorrow you were ready to receive knowledge. It was not easy to come out of the depths, but the way was shown. Now you are completely certain that the one you love is as close to you as it is possible for any human being to be.

I always wish that people in your world, especially those who have this knowledge, could become aware of what is around and about them. If only they could see the ones they love who are close to them, shielding them, guarding them, guiding them, ensuring that no real harm will ever befall them.

If you could realize the extent of this radiance you would never have any doubts or fears as to what the morrow will bring. So you should, as I always tell you friends, greet each new day as the herald of wonderful spiritual adventures

Your life has been transformed by the evidence you have received. I know, because I have seen it, that you labour to help others as you were helped. Do not bother about what others say. That does not matter. What matters is the way you conduct your life; do the best you can and serve wherever you can.

Your man is freed from the thraldom of the flesh. He will never again suffer the aches and disabilities that proved such a nuisance to him in the last days of his earthly existence.

He will make you aware of his continued presence in what he still regards as home. So keep a stout heart, hold your head high and continue to be an exemplar of how to behave when death removes the one who is closest to you.

The separation is physical, not spiritual. There is nothing in your world or mine that can part those whom love has united. Love, like life, is stronger than death. Love, like life, is the spirit, and the spirit cannot be destroyed.

Guiding Lights(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:41:47 -0400

Questioned about spirit guides, whose voluntary mission is to aid their beloved earthly charge along the path to enlightenment, Silver Birch returned to the simile of the diamond.

?Can you tell me if spirit guides in general are an extension of one?s own personality on a higher scale, or whether they are separate entities??

It is a rather complex subject. I would prefer to use the word ?individuality? rather than ?personality.? I draw distinctions between the personality, which is physical, and the individuality which is the soul or spiritual make-up, the reality behind the mask, so to speak.

Persons are persons so far as your world is concerned, but you cannot separate spiritual individuality in the same way. There are, for example, affinities, two kindred halves of the one soul, and sometimes they incarnate at the same time.

There are also what I call facets of the one diamond. This is the over-soul, the greater individuality, and the facets are aspects of it which incarnate into your world for experiences that will add lustre to the diamond when they return to it.

Also there are people who, although separate persons, are aspects of the one individuality. For instance, my medium, his wife and myself are parts of one individual. So you can have facets of the one guide. You can call these extensions if you like, but it comes to the same thing. Only an infinitesimal part of the whole individuality can be manifested in physical form on earth.

?I receive guidance, I am aware of it and the level from which it is coming. I have not been able to know whether this is coming from a general source or a particular guide. Is there any way by which prayer or meditation can lead one to this knowledge??

Shall I repeat words that are very familiar? When the pupil is ready the master appears. Is that not the answer? Do not bother about it. All guidance streams from the Great Spirit. Ambassadors from the hierarchy and other enlightened beings, who are kindred souls as far as you are concerned, attach themselves to you sometimes before you are born into your world.

Sometimes they make themselves known to you before you incarnate into your world; sometimes you agree with them that you will volunteer to perform certain tasks. It does not matter what names you call them. They are there. They do not leave you. Their task is as it says in your Bible, ?He shall give his angels charge concerning thee.?

These are the angels of light who surround their charges, whose self-imposed task is to guard, to guide, to sustain them and always to point the way to the spiritual path that ultimately leads to mastery. It is not an easy path; it is strewn with rocks and boulders. It becomes increasingly difficult as familiar landmarks have to be left behind. But as correspondingly low as you sink, so you can rise, and the heights to which you can aspire are infinite. Perfection is not a process that you will attain. It is one which you will always be in the process of attaining.

If you wish to gain the prizes of the spirit you must prepare to make sacrifices, but once attained they can never be lost.

We are aware of all your difficulties, your problems and your desires. We know that you live in a material world. We have access to the sources of supply to ensure that those who serve will never go hungry or thirsty. All that is necessary will be provided.

What we say to you and to everyone we encounter is to do the best you can; no more is expected of you. When you fall down you can pick yourself up.

The visitor, a healer, explained that she was worried as to what would happen when the time came for Silver Birch?s medium to pass on.

Stop worrying - worry is a bad counsellor. Have no fear. The plan will fulfil itself. I look back at the beginning of my mission with just one instrument. Then I was unable to speak your language with any degree of efficiency. I realize how fortunate we are to have reached so many people.

Others will follow. They will have the means at their disposal of reaching far more people than we have done, because of technological devises that are to come.

You cannot measure what you are achieving. These are the imponderables. You heal physical bodies but, more important, you touch souls. You allow the patient?s tiny seed of divinity to be stirred into activity and begin to flower. It is a start that ultimately will enable the individual to achieve fulfilment. Rejoice at the opportunities for service you enjoy. You were born to heal.

?Just occasionally it gets a little discouraging.?

I know. I have not worked in your world for all this time without being aware of human frailties. You have the divine potential, the divine armoury on which you can call. If that is not sufficient, call on us. We will not fail you.

When you feel tired, frustrated or pessimistic, withdraw from the noisy, strident clangour of your world into the silence of your soul. Gradually attune yourself to all the rich radiance that is around you. Drink in all the beauty. Experience the calm, tranquillity, repose and steadfastness that this attunement has to offer. Then, refreshed, take up the cudgels and start again.

You must continue; you cannot draw back. Give service whenever you can. Deny none who come to seek your aid. Do not look for them. They will come to you. There is no need to go out like a town crier and say, ?Who wants to be healed?? They will beat a path to your door.

Those on whom the Great Spirit with infinite wisdom has conferred the gifts of the spirit should go where they are led, to reach wherever they can, and drop seeds in the hope that they will fall in fertile ground and souls will become enriched as a result. You cannot measure or estimate the work that instruments of the spirit are doing.

The Healing Mission(Silver Birch Teachings)

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:38:30 -0400

A healer?s life, though spiritually rewarding, is never easy. Silver Birch always encourages those who use their gifts to help others:

* * *
I love all those who try to serve, whether it be with healing or in any other form of mediumship. I love them all, for I know the difficulties they will encounter because that is an integral part of their mission. In the case of a healer, you have to suffer in order to have the essential compassion for sufferers to come to you. It is only when you have plumbed the depths yourself that you have the rightful feeling for others who turn to you when there is nowhere else to go.

You are richly blessed. I cannot say to instruments of the spirit that their lives will be beds of roses. That is not the way spiritual mastery is obtained. The higher you seek to rise, the more difficult it must become. In that road you tread it becomes lonelier as gradually the familiar landmarks must be left behind.

If the prizes of the spirit were easily gained, they would not be worth the having. Achievement, attainment, these mean sacrifices. But there is a law of compensation. Whatever you have lost materially will be restored and replenished with far more than has been lost. We will always ensure that your material necessities will be forthcoming. We cannot promise you so called luxuries of earth-life; many of them are far from luxurious in the effect that they have. What we can promise is that as you serve, so will you be served.

It is not the curing of the physical body that is the most important. It is touching the soul of the sufferer to increase the divine spark, thus ensuring, as far as you can, that the result of the healing will bring awareness and understanding of eternal spiritual realities for the one who has had the illness, so that it becomes a catalyst. That is what matters.

If you heal a body and do not touch the soul, then from our viewpoint the healing is a failure. If you touch the soul, you help to fan the divine spark. You help to achieve a closer unity between the individual and the great sublime supreme power that endowed that person with life. That is important.

No others in your world can perform that task except those endowed with the gifts of the spirit. It cannot be easy, it must be difficult; but you will not be presented with any obstacle or hurdle for which the power will not be provided so that you will overcome it. Once you consent to serve, the way is shown. There is nothing to fear for what the morrow will bring forth.

You cannot help all who come to you, but your availability is a means by which they can find their true self. If you succeed, then express your gratitude to the Great Spirit. If you fail, the failure is not yours. The patient has had an opportunity and has not taken it. You are the recipient of a divine power. Expressing it brings a great responsibility to do the best you can.

The laying on of hands is merely playing with the toys. What is important is to bring awareness, realization, to touch the soul, I cannot put it clearer than that. Every individual in your world is a combination of physical body, mind and spirit. These are the three aspects of the one total self. They are not divisible, but essential parts of the one whole.

If you touch the soul, then you help the other components of body and mind to achieve the wholeness that brings health. So let them play their respective parts and bring health, certainty, confidence, inner well-being, awareness, so that they are at peace with themselves and with everybody else they encounter.

We are concerned with touching souls so that the spark of the divine spirit which is embedded within every human being can be fanned and become a beauteous flame. Thus the divinity within finds a fuller, richer, more majestic expression.

Your world is full of millions of people who do not know what they are there for, who they are, what it is that they must achieve whilst they are incarnate on earth. You can help them to realize that they are spirits with bodies, that the real individual is the deathless spirit, that the spirit is there to gain the experience to equip it for its larger life in our world. That is the most important thing that you can do.

You demonstrate that the Great Spirit, the apex of love and wisdom and compassion, provides everyone with the opportunity to find himself or herself and begin to live, as all people in your world should live, not in superstition, ignorance or darkness, but in the full light of knowledge, with serenity and confidence as their constant companions.

You are not responsible for what others do or say. You are responsible only for what you do or say. Do not concern yourself with the opinions or actions of others.

If you are hurt, it seems that there is still some room for development. Do not allow any thoughts of any kind from any source to hinder, mar or delay the service that you can render. You have been endowed with a gift. Use it wherever you can.

You have heard about the angels weeping? They weep often when they see those who are not behaving in a fashion that is consistent with their knowledge and understanding. But we realize they are not perfect because they are human. You will all make mistakes. There is a divine purpose and plan for all of us.

You feel lonely. Every soul treading the path of attainment must experience loneliness. But you have the companionship of evolved beings who will never desert you. Your strength comes not from your world but from ours. The source of all your inspirations is in our realm.

We will not forget you. We will not leave you. We will not let you down. We will always encourage you to do the best you can.

Help wherever opportunity arises, and know that you are fulfilling yourself, which is the purpose of your being on earth.

It is only human to have doubts. Do not worry. Worry disturbs the conditions and makes it even more difficult. Have faith, founded on the priceless knowledge which is yours. That knowledge is incontrovertible. It provides the solid, enduring foundation on which to build the whole of your life.

If doubt enters your mind, as it will do, then think back to the past, to the days of darkness and difficulty when there seemed no road to tread, where none was able to offer help, when it seemed that you had come to the end of everything that life could offer.

Then in the darkness and gloom the little light of the spirit began to show its way to bring you where you are today.

You have many more pages of your earthly book to be turned. Thank the Great Spirit for the opportunities of service provided for you.

* * *

Silver Birch told an Australian healer and his wife:Not only have you travelled a long way physically, but similarly it has been a long journey spiritually to bring you where you now are.

Like all those who are instruments of the spirit it has not been an easy road for you.

In order to become ambassadors for the Great Spirit, the human channels have to be tried and tested so that their latent strength can rise to the surface. They are then ready to meet the challenges that their mission will inevitably make them encounter.

It is not possible to achieve even the first steps in spiritual mastery unless you are ready to do so by a process which means that you must suffer.

Suffering is the crucible. Those on whom the Great Spirit with infinite wisdom has bestowed the gift of healing must experience difficulty, sorrow, crisis and trial so that they can have compassion for the ones who will come to them in their suffering and ask for healing.

But there is a law of compensation. As low as you sink materially, so correspondingly can you rise spiritually.

The story of every potential healer and medium follows a similar pattern. They reach that stage when they feel that nothing materially offers any hope. It is then that the soul becomes ready to receive the influx of power and inspiration which will enable the owner to begin to fulfil himself or herself.

Spiritual growth is not achieved when the sun is shining and the sky is cloudless. It is when the storm is blowing, the wind raging and all looks dark, gloomy and depressing, that the soul begins to come into its own and the way is shown for what lies ahead.

The law of compensation is automatic in its operation. No matter how much your soul has cried out for help and guidance when none seemed possible, you get the richness of the reward in being able to serve others as you were served and the way was shown to you. That is what I tell all healers and mediums.

You two are giving a unique service in your part of the world. You should rejoice at the opportunities to fulfil yourselves and also show that the Great Spirit provides every one of His children with a second chance. When doctors, despite their skills, learning and experience, say they can do no more, the power of the spirit can often produce results which bring health where it was absent.

You will not be able to do this for everybody who comes to you. It is not possible to cure every sufferer who knocks on your door. Some are not ready; others have to endure their illness because it is a karmic condition which has its part to play in their lives.

Silver Birch then asked the healer:

What made you decide to practice healing?

?A need within to see if I could be an instrument for the spirit world to bring about improvement in people?s physical and spiritual condition.?

Did you find that it worked?

?Yes?

It says in your Bible, ?Add to your faith knowledge.? I have to tell you, as I have said to others, that to your knowledge you must add faith. The difference is quite simple. It is not a play on words. When you have no knowledge it is good to have faith; not blind, credulous, unreasonable faith.

Because you are human beings in an imperfect world, it is impossible for you to have all the knowledge that there is, because knowledge, like the Great Spirit, is infinite. As you become more receptive you are able to receive greater knowledge. As you develop, more spirit power can flow through you.

So, because of the knowledge you have, treat that as the foundation on which to order your lives, and have faith that the way will be shown what it is you have to do. To this I will add something else.

Before you came into your world this is what you chose to do. It took some time before awareness came. The whole plan was revealed to you before you incarnated. That plan, if you co-operate and are patient, will fulfil itself.

Do not be in a hurry. The things of the spirit cannot be accelerated beyond their natural growth. You can have instant coffee, but you cannot have instant spiritual attainment. It is a slow, steady, but sure process that is achieved only one step at a time. I marvel at the perfection of the natural laws and the way in which they operate.

I have asked you one question and will ask you another. Why did you want to come to this gathering tonight?

?Because we have read of your teachings. When newcomers are brought into our environment we suggest that to the many questions they have they will find the answers if they read the books that contain your teaching. Because we were coming over from Australia we thought it would be a privilege to meet you.?

Turning to the stenographer the guide calls his scribe, Silver Birch said: Do you hear that? Without her you would not have these books containing the teaching given to me so that I can transmit to you.

It is always a great joy to welcome here any channel of the spirit. If there is anything I can do to help them in their ministry, it is a privilege. It is one of the reasons why I have returned to your world to help wherever I can.

Here the healer?s wife said: ?At the present time I am trying to spread spirit teachings. I seem to have been going through a schooling process, but not specializing in any particular aspect. Is it possible for the spirit world to inform me into which channel I will be directed??

Do not worry, the way will be shown. Just follow your intuition and the inspiration that comes. If there are any doubts at any time, withdraw into the silence, meditate, and you will find the answers come to you.

You are doing very, very well. You are making your mark in a vast continent where these truths are sorely needed.

People are coming to you. Do not go looking for them. Just be available. They will continue to come to you because they will have heard what the power of the spirit has done for others. If you help them, rejoice. If you cannot help them, shed a silent tear that they had their chance and could not take it.

?If a person is in poor health should he or she stop healing for the moment??

No. Only unless they are in such a pitiable condition it makes it impossible for the power of the spirit to operate.

There are many excellent healers who suffer from poor health because they are transmitters; as long as they have the ability to transmit they will have the power flow through them.

* * *

Welcoming a healer and his wife, Silver Birch said to the husband:

The last time we met you had many grounds for criticism about the problems, difficulties, hindrances and frustrations which seemed to be troubling you. I hope that position has been changed.

?There is an improvement. I am learning to live with it.?

The whole of earthly life consists of learning to live with it, facing up to the problems that come your way, overcoming them as best you can, and awaiting the next one. They are challenges you have to meet so that the real you, the spirit, can evolve, develop and unfold as a result, and emerge better and stronger because of what you have achieved.

It would be folly to tell any disciple who seeks greater truth and understanding that the path will be an easy one. Spiritual mastery is slowly attained. The prizes of the spirit are not quickly earned. But once they are in your possession they are there for all time. They will never be lost, which is something that can never be said for your material possessions.

You both are the recipients of more guidance than you can appreciate. If you were clairvoyant you would be aware of the great love that surrounds you and ensures that no real harm can ever befall you. So every morning await with eager anticipation the spiritual adventures that will unfold for you. And, as I often tell my friends, look back and see how the signposts of the spirit pointed the way for you, and guidance came even when it appeared you were in the blackness of despair. Is that right??
The answer was, ?Yes. It has given me strength.?

To endure the suffering?

?Yes.?

There is no suffering so strong that you do not possess the inner strength and can call upon an outer power to enable you to overcome it. The burden is never heavier than can be borne. If you strive to live in harmony with the natural laws you will find an inner peace, tranquillity and resolve which will ensure that you always come through.

* * *

To a healer who survived the horrors of a concentration camp, the guide said: It is not possible while you are in your world to have the answers to all the questions that arise in your minds. It is impossible for you to have the fullness of knowledge because you are circumstanced in a world of three dimensions, and occasionally the problems that beset you can be appreciated only when you are able to manifest outside these limited dimensions.

These problems involve considerations of a spiritual nature that you cannot solve, because perforce you can look at them only from the viewpoint of earthly life. You cannot measure them in relationship to the infinity of living which is compulsory for every human being.

So this is where the element of faith arises.

You begin by adding knowledge to faith. Then you arrive at the stage when you must add faith to knowledge. You are in the realm of what is speculation, because you cannot get the answers that would appeal to your reason.

When I say faith, I do not mean credulous, irrational faith. I mean the faith that is founded on knowledge, a faith founded on that sure base of incontrovertible evidence that cannot be gainsaid, and leaves you in no doubt about the spiritual realities which are the basis of all being.

I cannot promise even those I love that they will be exempt from problems. By the very nature of earthly life you must endure these problems. You must grapple with them. You must call on latent, divine power within yourself to help you. If that is insufficient, go one step higher and call on the greater wisdom that streams from the infinite storehouse.

If you have had no problems, you would be akin to spineless automatons, puppets, marionettes. You have infinite possibilities that have to be developed to their fullest extent whilst you are on earth.

The only way this can happen is not when the sun is shining, not if you are living in a bed of roses, not when all is quiet and peaceful and tranquil, but when the storm is raging. It is then that the challenge calls forth this latent power, and you develop. You unfold the spiritual nature within.

In reality your troubles are your greatest friends. They are the means by which you find yourself. Therefore, paradoxically though it may seem, you must welcome troubles when they arise, and realize that in reality they wear the mask of friendship for you.

I always say, ?Look back when crisis comes, and see how the signposts of the spirit have always pointed the way, even in the darkest hours when it seemed that no answer could be forthcoming.? Look back in your own life, the tragedies that embroiled you, the situations that seemed impossible of relief or even escape, the difficulties that posed their greatest challenges.

Even in the worst of your earthly experiences you were led unfailingly to where you are today, and that guidance will never desert you.

There is a pattern in all human life, and it repeats itself. Especially is this the case in the lives of those who have service to render. There are no chances, no coincidences, no miracles. The supreme fact about the whole of life in its infinite variations is that the law runs throughout the vast universe, and nothing and nobody is outside the operation of natural law.

The divine mission(silver birch teachings)2

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:37:31 -0400

Silver Birch?s teachings, available in print for decades, have reached millions all over the world.

After his customary invocation, Silver Birch explained his mission.

* * * *

I am very happy to come amongst you and to bring my love and greetings from the world of spirit.

I am aware of the special purpose of our gathering tonight. So I thought it might be helpful if I would try to explain to those who will hear these words the purpose behind my mission and those of my colleagues who are animated by the same desire.

To the uninitiated I would say I am a human being like yourselves. I have lived much longer than any of you who are listening to what I say. As a result of my experiences in realms far beyond your earth I have gained some knowledge of the Great Spirit you call God, and of the natural laws which have been devised to ensure that the will of the Great Spirit will and must ultimately prevail.

What I have learnt as a result of my experiences I am willing to share with those who are ready to receive them because I think they may be of helpfulness to them.

I am not in any way a deity. I am still very human, capable of error, weakness and imperfection. I have, like every one of you, a long, long way to go on the road to perfection. It is an infinite one.

But, like others in my world, I was asked to retrace my steps so that I could offer some of the truth, the wisdom and the knowledge that we have gained, and share it with you. At the same time we would be able, with the aid of those who co-operate with us, to make available the supreme power of the spirit, which is responsible for all life despite its multitudinous forms, so that this power can stream through gifted individuals and serve its benign purpose.

In olden days, when this power flowed, it performed certain remarkable phenomena which many today regard as miracles. I want to say that in the operation of natural law they cannot be suspended or abrogated, and must fulfil themselves in an ordered sequence as effect follows cause.

Whatever has happened, however remarkable, stupefying, extraordinary or wonderful in days gone by, it was due to the operation of natural laws.

These operate not only in the physical domain but also work ceaselessly in the spiritual realms. When conditions allow, the spiritual, psychic, astral and etheric laws can be brought into operation to perform what were regarded as miracles yesterday, but today are described as psychic phenomena produced through mediumship.

A medium is one on whom there has been bestowed the gifts of the spirit which are ably described by the apostle Paul in your Bible. These gifts are divinely bestowed. Their recipients, as they unfold them, are able to be used as channels for the divine beneficence to flow through them.

All the phenomena of mediumship are due to the operation of spirit power. Today you are witnessing exactly the same kind of manifestations that occurred in the lands which were called holy and regarded as sacred.

The Great Spirit does not change; the natural laws to not alter. They are in operation now. Thus I, who once inhabited your world, am able to speak to you through a medium by utilizing the same power of the spirit.

I want to explain also that we are part of a vast spirit organization. We are pursuing what I would like to describe as the overall master plan, which is designed to ensure that the power of the spirit will continue to express itself in your world and reach an ever increasing number of people. The object is to drive away their ignorance, error and superstition and to bring them into the radiant light of divine truth and knowledge so that they can begin to live and fulfil themselves as they should according to the purpose of their earthly incarnation.

The power of the spirit has constantly flowed into your world from time immemorial; its descent, however, was temporary and sporadic. The wonders that were worked, the signs that were given, the same truths that were pronounced were each time made available to the people of that day.

Then there was decay, tampering with the knowledge that had been revealed, for political, theological, and sometimes state purposes. Now, however, the power of the spirit, because of the overall plan to which I have referred, is here to stay in your world.

Why? Because it is vitally necessary to do so. So many systems have failed to provide the direction which will enable the people who dwell on earth to find themselves, and to live according to ideals that will enable the divinity which gave them life to express itself. The spirit has to be made prominent in the lives of all who dwell on earth.

It is a very dark world in which you live. It is full of turbulence, violence, greed, envy. Mammon is being worshipped instead of the Great Spirit. False idols are still the ones which are the subject of adoration.

The evidence that is available to you will, if you are reasonable, convince you that life, because it is spiritual in essence, cannot end when death comes to the physical body.

Matter is only the husk; the spirit is the reality. Matter exists only because spirit animates it. When spirit, the life force, withdraws, matter crumbles into dust. But the spirit, which is the individual, does not crumble into dust. The spirit is immortal; it cannot die. Death is its second birth.

It first came when it was born into your world and began to manifest through a physical body. The second birth comes when the spirit says farewell to the physical body and continues in unbroken sequence its eternal path on the road of infinite progress. You cannot die. Life is deathless.

So there is the evidence that you, an individual, immortal spirit, will continue after the death of your body. Everything that constitutes your individuality will persist. You will have consciousness, awareness, memory, the power to reason and to express love, for love is an aspect of the Great Sprit.

Love in its highest form is divine, and love, like life, is deathless.

Why do we come back to you? It would be easy to say farewell forever to earth with all its heartaches, its problems, its sufferings, its trials, its difficulties. But we love you, and there are others who are bound to you by ties of love just as strong.

The marriage service performed in your churches refers to the existence of the marriage until death parts the man and his wife. If spiritually they are not united they are parted before death comes. If there is love, there is nothing that will ever separate them.

Love is a mighty force in the universe. It is love that is expressed by all advanced beings in our world whose only desire is to serve you. We seek nothing for ourselves. We require no worship, no adoration, no gratitude. If we succeed in helping, all we ask is that you express your thanks to the Great Spirit and, because of what you have received, try to serve others.

The greed of your world must be replaced by love, because love is an expression of the spirit. Love has many aspects, compassion, service, friendship, co-operation. You are all parts of one another, whatever you are, whoever you are and wherever you may be.

Colour, class, nationality, language, these constitute only physical differences. Spiritually you are all members of one another. You make up the vast human spiritual family because the common link of the spirit binds you all to one another with a tie that cannot be broken, just as it binds you all to the Great Spirit.

The spirit that unites you is stronger than any of the physical differences that separate you from one another. You have to allow that spirit to express itself to its fullest capacity. You must learn self-regeneration. You must forget self, insofar as being materialistic in desire is concerned.

This is not to say that you should overlook your physical needs. You must sustain the body, which is the temple of the spirit. Equally, however, you must tend and care for all the attributes of the spirit, which is the eternal you.

You must allow the divinity within you to attain its fullest expression, so that you practice the brotherhood and sisterhood which is a natural fact of your being. The soul is not white, yellow, black or red. The soul has no colour or racial bar.

This is what you have to learn to practice. Superiority comes only when you unfold the divinity within you, and it expresses itself in love and compassion and consideration, not only for all the other humans in your world but for the animals who share this planet with you.

You must abolish needless cruelty and exploitations everywhere. Peace will come when you put into practice the facts that appertain to your spiritual origin and destiny.

In everything I say I am governed by the desire to be helpful, to bring some understanding, some knowledge, some truth and some wisdom into your lives.

It is possible that the principles that we enunciate may be contrary to certain theological ideas of doctrines, dogmas and creeds on which you have been nurtured from childhood days.

Our appeal is directed to your reason. If there is anything we say or do that insults your intelligence or makes your reason revolt, do not accept it. We desire to win your reason, your intelligence, so that you may co-operate with us and be instruments of the Great Spirit in ensuring that the divine will must prevail. You will help to speed the coming of peace in your world.

As you learn to fulfil yourselves you will obtain as a result a richness, radiance, steadfastness, resolution, awareness and inner peace. You will be in harmony with the laws that the Great Spirit devised, and even with the Great Spirit, a portion of whose divinity is within each one of you.

* * * *

Silver Birch was asked if there were any final words he would like to say to those who would hear the cassette made of this sitting.

I would like to give my love to all my friends, many of whom I have not met. I would like them to know that I appreciate the love and affection that come to me from them and make it possible for me to work in your worlds. It is not an easy task; it is a wonderful challenge which I have accepted.

Your world is cold, it is dreary, it is dismal, it is dark. But here and there throughout your earth we find places where there are the human hearths of love, affection and friendship where we can warm ourselves and enjoy the radiance that is offered by these lighthouses of the spirit in your world.

For others who are newcomers, I say: ?Pray for guidance, pray for knowledge, pray for truth, and it will come to you.? It has been said truly, ?Ask and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you.?

May the blessing of the Great Spirit be with you always.