FUNDAMENTAL REALITIES

　SILVER BIRCH always gives a warm welcome to mediums. This is particularly noticeable when mediums who have been associated with him in the past visit the circle. On this occasion the medium and her husband were original members of Hannen Swaffer's home circle, and for a long time its seances were held in their house.

　The circle was opened by Silver Birch, after his invocation, with the same words he always uses: "I am very happy to come amongst you and to bring my love and greetings from the world of spirit." This sitting was the first after a summer break. Referring to this the guide said: "It is always a source of great joy to mingle, however short a time, with those we love and who we know love us. So let us, with uplifted hearts and thank-ful voices, rejoice at this opportunity that we can commune with one another according to the natural law, and learn from one another whatever is necessary to help us on our paths in life. Let us take advantage of this meeting of old friends and see how we can help one another.

　"I know the value attached to these magnetic contacts with your earthly world and I, for my part, desire to retain all the links that I have made rather than to relinquish any of them. But this much I would like to say because it has both general and individual application. I do not regard it as part of my lot to preach down to you. I do not desire to deliver long homilies filled with spiritual content that are somewhat platitudinous in their nature.

　"No purpose is served by such a performance. But what I do desire, and here I think I can be of service, is to remind you all without exception of the fundamental, eternal realities which sometimes are not clear to you because you are enmeshed in your workaday, material cares. When the ordinary problems of your physical life beat upon you and demand a solution, when difficulties loom up and clamour for a means of disposing of them, when your whole energy has to be directed towards the task of making provision for the material necessities of life, then

it is hard to remember what you are, and who you are, and why you are there.

　“And so let me, an old, old teacher who has experienced your life and is familiar with all its many vicissitudes, and who is familiar with an aspect that lies ahead of each one of you, remind you primarily of your spiritual natures which will outlast all your physical selves. Let us emphasise, if emphasis be necessary, that you are spiritual beings placed on earth for a spiritual pur-pose and that the problems which beset you and loom so largely in your mind, the difficulties that seem so important, are but transient events.

　"There is no call on you to neglect your duties, or even neglect the requirements of your physical natures, but there is a call on you to obtain a true balance, a true focus, and not to allow the worries and cares and anxieties of the material world to engulf you so that you forget that you forget that you are part of the Great Spirit and possess in miniature all the attributes of the Great Spirit. If you remember that, if you allow that thought to dominate your daily life, then the things which seem to worry will assume their right-ful place and you will know how to derive from your existence what is necessary for your physical, mental and spiritual well-being and you will not concentrate on one to the neglect of the other.

　"I expect that some might say: It is all

very well for you. You are in a world of spirit; you do not have to pay rent, or buy food, or purchase clothing, or deal with these matters.' That is true, but I also know what you will feel like when you come bere, if you have neglected the opportunities to equip and fortify your spirit, to take every means of ensuring that you derive from your lives.the fullness and richness that could be yours. Have I said enough?"

　"No," he was assured, "it is all perfectly true."

　"That it is true I know," Silver Birch continued, "but if I could compel everybody to feel that, cares would fall away and they would be better citizens in the world in which they live because their vision would be larger and they would have found what few possess, that within themselves is strength to meet all difficulty. The richness of the spirit is contained within the consciousness of every child of the Great Spirit. Yet how few are aware of those precious treasures. What do you think?" The last question was addressed to one of the visitors, the medium's husband, who said: "I agree with you entirely. I wish I could always realise it."

　"I know how difficult it is," said the guide, "but unless there is an ideal, the urge, the incentive, unless there is a peak to be scaled, unless you have in front of you that which will encourage you to put forth your best, unless you have all these things, life does not matter. Without them, people are like earthworms, just wriggling about in particles of dust."

　Before the circle, a member had given his impressions of a demonstration of hypnotism that he witnessed. Silver Birch referred to this discussion and said: "It seems as if we should change places, because often when I hear what you say.I feel that you have imbibed so much that I have nothing to add. When I listened just now to the explanation of all the technicali-ties of hypnotism, it seemed so much like words that I had used in the past that I was tempted to say, 'Come over here, my son. Well, your lessons have been very good," the guide was told.'"

　"Well, your lessons have been very good," the guide was told.

　"Have they? There is much that I would like to do that I can-not. I cannot order the events in vour lives. I cannot control the sequence of cause and effect. I do not even agree with the stress that I hear laid on certain matters which you in your world regard as important, and I see as trivial because I know that what often is trivial is in reality important.

　"What I can do is to remind you of the eternal, unfailing principles. When all else in the world of matter has been under-stood, explored and explained, there still remains the natural laws of the Great Spirit which no man has ever completely explored or explained. They are infinite in their conception and in their application. If all of you, confronted as you are daily by events which call on you to make decisions, could remember that you are spiritual beings and what is important is not what happens materially, although it has its place, but what happens to you spiritually, to your nature, your eternal naturu.

　"All the things of matter will fade away and will become absorbed in the dust of which the earthly world is made. Am-bitions, desires, the acquisition of wealth, all these are of no account, but you will always remain as spiritual beings, and your richness will be just what is contained within your own nature, no more or no less. That is the lesson to be learned in all earthly life, and if you learn it you are wise because you have found yourself and, having found yourself, you will have found the Great Spirit.

　"I see so many in your world, frantic, despairing, not knowing where to turn, rushing hither and thither with no time to spare because so many important things have to be done, and yet the most important of all is neglected and overlooked. Isn't this the lesson of all our teaching? Isn't this the purpose behind the return of every being from our world, so that you should derive from your lives the joy, the satisfaction that should be yours as children of the Great Spirit?

　"That is more important than what is called religion, or churches, or creeds, or doctrines, more important than all the things which have divided mankind and caused war and chaos and confusion. It is just the simple truth about their own natures. And yet it is possessed by the few and not by the many."

　Here the medium asked a question. Several times friends had asked her guide, White Shadow, to help in healing certain people and she had gladly lent herself as the instrument. There had been many remarkable cases of absent healing, even without the patients being told of the spirit help. "I feel they ought to know what is healing them," she said. "They ought to have the opportunity of knowing that they are children of the Great Spirit. Am I right, or am I just presuming too much?"

　"You are right in theory," said Silver Birch. "Let us be con-tent that the healing has been accomplished and express our satis-faction for that fact, and let us express our regret that the soul has not been touched as a result. What is important is to heal. It is also more important that the soul should be touched. But if you can accomplish one and not the other, then do one and leave time to work out its own difficult purpose. You can not accomplish more than can be accomplished when souls are not ready.

　"The body is healed; if the soul is not yet ready, that is a matter of evolution. Better to render service, even if it is not received in its entirety, than to render no service at all. That is what we all must do, give service; whether it is accepted or not, give it just the same. Not all our efforts will be crowned with success.

　"It is best that the healing should be done and the soul come into its own, that is, to recognise the meaning of its healing. The next stage is, it is better that the healing should be done even If the soul does not come into its own. The third stage is, it is better that the healing is done at all.

　"Service must be rendered if it is requested. Service should be rendered even if it is not reguested. It is more blessed to give than to receive. Your responsibility ends when you have given; the responsibility of the one who has accepted just begins."

　A member of the circle said: "Two of us were talking just before the sitting and one said rather than eat horseflesh he would be happy to pass on, and the other did not agree. Who was right. or are they both right?"

　Silver Birch answered: "These are very hypothetical questions. In any case, the time when you pass on will not be decided by what you say."

　Then the guide reverted to hypnotism, saying: "Here is a power still much misunderstood by the people of your world. It is a power, which like all powers, can be used for good, and not for good. When used for good purposes it is a blessing; when used for purposes which are not good it is not a blessing.

　"It is like the power of the spirit. When used rightly, it will inspire and elevate and uphold man. Used wrongly it is a power which will work against you. Not only angels return; those who are not angels come back through some channels of com-munication, using the same powerーthe same in essence but different in degree.

　"In hypnotism the evolution of the individual will determine how the power is used. Your world is concerned with the problem of the energy that is released. It is a natural power which can be used for purposes are good and purposes which are not. It is not the power which is at fault but the misapplication of that power." 

　"In other words, hypnotism, like everything else, falls into line the same way," said one sitter.

　"Yes, you, by virtue of the fact that you are part of the Great Spirit, can attain heights of great beauty and great wisdom, and by virtue of the fact of your ancestry, you can descend to the depths of degradation. The power is there, it is for you to decide what you will do with it."

　"When the hypnotist operates, does he touch what is called the oversoul, or the larger consciousness?"

　"It is all a question of releasing the

powers locked up within the subconscious being and allowing them to take control. And these are much stronger than the powers which you nor-mally use. But all these, such as the power involved in hyp-notism and mesmerism, which are not quite the same thing, work within the framework of natural law. There are laws which can safeguard individuals and there are limits devised by natural law to the extent that this power can be used."

　"Could a man remember and declare previous incarnations?"

　“Yes, if you could probe deep enough into the man's con-sciousness. But I very much doubt whether there is in your world any being capable of unlocking those recesses, because they are so far removed in degree from the normal conscious-ness that they would require a tremendous power to fathom them."

　"I seem to remember you saying that such powers were put on one side during this present lifetime."

　"If you knew the means you could touch every facet of your individuality, but whether you could do it on earth, here and now in your present stage of evolution, is very doubtful. It could be done, but I do not think you could do it at the stage that you have reached now."

　A member of the circle expressed concern about her father, who was very ill. Silver Birch said: "A great deal of help has been given. But remember this, and I do not say it now because I think it will happen, in the fullness of time he will have to say farewell to the world of matter. That is something for which you must always be ready, because the laws of nature will out-work themselves in world. But as far as it is possible for one faithful being to receive the power of the spirit to help in time of difficulty and pain, such help has been given, both visibly and invisibly.

　"Moreover, help has also been given to your mother to support her in what is, of necessity, a time of anxiety. So please reassure them that the love of the spirit is unfailing and that the wisdom of the spirit is always there. And rest assured that whatever can be done is being done and will be done. But we cannot give him a new body like a new boy, that is not possible. All must be done within the orbit of natural law.".

　Another member of the circle, whose mother had passed on, said: "It is one of the saddest things that we have to learn, this physical illness and passing, whatever one's knowledge. I realised that with my mother. There is nothing to console you for the time being. We know that they are there, but it is a very very sad moment in life."

　Said another member, "How much more tragic if you haven't got any hope."

　Here Silver Birch said, "But even with

your little knowledge, for all our knowledge is small, you still see through earthly eyes and not with the eyes of the spirit. You see the body, not the soul, and we see the soul, not the body."

　The sitter whose mother had died then said, "Yet, if I may say so, you do somehow in that moment touch God. Although it is so distressing and moving, you are aware of greater things."

　"Because you are confronted with the eternal reality of life," declared the guide, "and thus you are bound to remember if you have any knowledge that life and death are equal servants of the Great Spirit, each serving a purpose in the divine order of crea-tion."

　"Does the Great Spirit put at people's disposal special power for special occasions?" asked the ex-Methodist minister.

　"Sometimes, it depends on the individual. There is no inter-vention by the Great Spirit."

　"The Methodists had a doctrine of prevenient grace."

　"Yes, believing that you temper the wind to the shorn lamb. Sometimes it is true, but the Great Spirit cannot give you what you are incapable of receiving. It is a matter of the soul's in-dividual evolution. I did not make the law. I know how it works. You will all have to die, you will have to die to be re-born into the world of spirit. To some in your world that will be an act that will cause sorrow; to many in our world it will cause rejoicing. It depends on the point of view. Ours is the eternal point of view, yours is the temporary one. You mourned for your mother, but your mother is better off"

　One sitter said that he found he missed the companionship, while another declared, "What I find the worst is, you loved them and suddenly they are like pieces of wood."

　"If all the faculties of the spirit had reached the fullness of their growth, then you would not have these feelings," said the guide. "It is part of the evolution of the race and the individual. I can-not explain all. I do not know all. I know a little more than you doーI am content to say a little. It is relative when compared with the sum of all knowledge. I have seen the application of natural law in other spheres than yours. I have seen these laws in operation in many and varying circumstances. The more I have studied them in the years which I have lived, the more I marvel at their perfection and the more I realise that perfect love conceived them, directs them and upholds them.

　"I cannot go all the way with knowledge, because I am not sufficiently evolved to grasp the whole. I can grasp only part. But the part which has been revealed to me satisfies me that it is conceived and operated by perfect love. Thus I say to myself, the part that I do not yet comprehend must equally be con-trolled by perfect love, otherwise the universe becomes meaning-less and illogical. If what I have seen is evidence of perfect love, if what I have understood is evidence of perfect love, that which I have not yet seen or understood must also be evidence of per-fect love. If you can find any fault with my reasoning I shall be glad to hear it because that is how it appears to me. I cannot ex-plain an infinite universe when I have only seen a few aspects of It. Neither could I explain some of the aspects which transcend physical language. These are difficulties which cannot be over-come. So, starting with the foundation of knowledge, I say let knowledge be the base, and where knowledge cannot take us, let us have the faith founded upon the sure knowledge which is received."

　At the end, Silver Birch said: "Hold on to essentials. Do not allow yourself to be diverted. Hold fast to that which you know to be true and when all seems to be full of riddles, relax, retire within where the peace and power of the Great Spirit dwell. And within, in the silence and hush of the spirit, you will find all that is necessary. Look up, not down. There is no need to be downcast. All that comes your way is part of the warp and woof of your existence. Make sure that that which is being woven into the fabric of your being is according to the divine pattern.

　"My love I leave with you. My love I strive always to reveal to you, and if I can be of any service, you know I am always at your disposal. But however much we may laugh and joke, let us never forget the purpose which brings us together. Let us remember why we were created by the Great Spirit. And let us strive to do nothing which will bring a blemish to that divine association, so that always we qualify for the benediction, the divine benediction, that comes to all who are linked in unity of purpose with the Great Spirit of all life."