OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE

　　( シルバーバーチの霊訓　九

　　十一章　三つの出張公演から )

　　　　　　　　　　　　SILVER BIRCH

　After many years' devoted restriction to his home circle, Silver Birch has recently accepted invitations from Spiritualist organisations, meeting them on their own ground for question-and-answer sessions. Here are reports of his sittingsーthey were all tape-recordedーwith council members of the International Spiritualist Federation during a congress at Copenhagen, the National Federation of Spiritual Healers and the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain. I start with the session for the International Spiritual-ist Federation.

 ❝From our point of view this is a very good opportunity to put yourselves in proper focus and perspective. All of you who are engaged in this great labour so often get caught up in the day-to-day details and problems that it is not surprising that occasionally you lose the pristine beauty of the grand vision that inspires the whole purpose of our coming together. It is very difficult for you, who are encased in matter and have your obligations to your physical body, to remember that always, primarily, you are spiritual beings. The divine power flows through your nature. Many of you have been endowed with divine gifts, the gifts of the spirit, that can be used in the service of those who are less fortunate than yourselves.

　It is not an easy path that you tread because are of the calibre that wants the chance to bring out the latent qualities within you. For the servants of the spirit there are no beds of roses. For those who wish to evolve and to advance, to attain and to attune themselves to the highest reaches of our life, there is no easy way, no short cut. It requires arduous discipline, constant meeting with crises and the determina-tion to fulfil the task on which you are engaged and on whichーand here I become controversialーyou all decided to engage before you came into the world of matter. This is the path that you have chosen to tread.

　The spiritual race cannot be easily won. Spiritual suprem-is a long and arduous process. The prizes once gained are eternalーthey are never lost. The prizes of the spirit will never be stained, they will never rust, they will never be corrupted. They will be yours for all time. These are the eternal possessions which you, each one of you, must acquire for yourselves.

　Much as we, who are associated with you, love you and would seek to guard you and guide you and show you the way in every predicament, it is your path. You must pursue it, emerging from each difficulty stronger in spirit as the result and more qualified to fulfil the tasks on which you are engaged. So, welcome the challenge of difficulty. Those who do not want difficulty are of no use in the service of the Great Spirit. When war is being waged, and we are engaged in the greatest war of all, the war against materialism, it must be certain that the generals and the officers will not run away in the heat of battle. They must be tried and tested, and tried and tested again, so that they will endure and continue to fulfil themselves in this divine but self-appointed task.

　The forces that are arrayed against us in your world and in mine are very powerful. But they are not so powerful that they can prevail against the will of the Great Spirit. I tell you with all the authority that I can command, and I have worked in your world for many, many years and have been privileged to see a little part of the divine plan, the power of the spirit is here to stay in your world. There is no power vested in matter, or in those with influence in the churches, in newspapers, with doctors, or in any combination of these forces, that will be able to vanquish the power of the spirit which is in your midst. 

　In each land, where there are instruments of the spirit, bridgeheads have been established and are being consolidated, so that everywhere the children of the Great Spirit can find out for themselves who they are, what they are, why they are in your world and what they must do to fulfil the pur-pose of their being.

　You have come from many lands, separated by vast distances, seas and oceans, but the power that has brought you together is the same one that inspires us all to give service. For ourselves we want nothing, no glory. We only desire to serve, to teach the children of the Great Spirit how to live so that they may realise the fulness, the richness, the beauty, the exhilaration which comes when spirit, mind and body function in harmony. You have the priceless oppor-tunity of service and there is no religion greater than giving service to others.

　This is the love of the Great Spirit in action. It is this love, this wisdom, this power, that has brought us all together in this land at this time, so that we may help to fulfil the divine plan of which each of us is a part. 

　So do not be dismayed if sometimes it seems that the battle is a strong and long one and that you get weary. When that happens, withdraw. Pause, reflect, let yourself be recharged by the inner divine battery. Let new life and vigour and purpose fill your being. Then, strengthened, go out and continue to serve.

　I am very grateful to you for giving me this opportunity to voice these ideas which are not mine, but are the words of those who have sent me, as they have sent others who co-operate with you, to enable you to realise how we are all united in the divine plan.❝

　You will not achieve this very easily. Unity cannot be ordered. It can be achieved only by gradual growth as understanding comes. One of the great difficulties is that the whole of mankind is at different levels of intellectual, moral and spiritual attainment. There is no one common standard. Even in your own movement you have many clashes based upon the simple fact that each is at a different stage of evo-lution. Spiritual realisation can come only with advancing spiritual attainment. What is so clearly patent, when you have established that unity with higher beings, is not some-thing you can share with others who have not reached that stage. Therefore you must attempt to accomplish the greatest good with the means at your disposal.

　This is not a problem unfamiliar to us, because we are confronted with it all the time. We have to work with earthly beings some of whom do not measure up to the standard that we would like. And so we have to do the best we can. You will find gradually the light does spread. The important factor is that you organise gatherings, like you have had here, where people of different ideas and langu-ages, from differing lands with different traditions and environments can meet and learn from one another. They see, for example, what others have achieved, so that where they are backward they receive the stimulus to advance. Do not worry. Do the best you can. When you can do no more, relax and let us take over. You are only asked to do the best you can, no more.

　　　

　　　　　.          .          .

Could you perhaps point out a better way?

　There is no better way than the truth. The problem of reincarnation, for example, is one of the difficulties that you will not resolve. Here, again, it is not a question so much of trying to obtain conviction by what is called evidenceーthese are only words. Conviction comes only from within. When the soul is ready it knowsーthat is the only conviction that matters. Science is constantly changing and enlarging its boundaries. Knowledge is not fixed, but conviction is the inner realisation that you at last have come face to face with truth.

simple and so easy. And to those who do not, it seems so difficult. You must be patient and wait. It will not destroy your organisation. It is good that they will argue and that they should disagree. Nature abhors a vacuum. Inertia is contrary to the law of nature. Action and reaction are both opposite and equal but part of the same power. You cannot stand still, you must argue and discuss. Out of the melting pot, out of the cauldron, when the seething and the bubbling subside, truth will gradually emerge. 

　　　　　.          .          . 

　I have the same difficulty as many of you experience. While I accept it, my instrument does not. If I have not succeeded in convincing him, I will not succeed in convinc-ing others.

              ．           .             .

　For those who know, it is a truth; for those who do not know it is not a truth.

             

            .             .             .

　These are words that you use, like Spiritualism, but we are concerned not with words. Words are an attempt to clothe ideas and realities. We are concerned that the power of the spirit, of Godーuse your own words but I call it the Great Spiritーshall make a lodgment in your world wherever it can. That is the purpose behind everything that we do. Why do we want the power of the spirit to effect a lodgment? So that it can touch souls and bring them into life. It does not matter where this is done, in a church, outside a church, or in the home. It is the individual soul that should be touched, wherever you can reach it.

　Those who are ready to be awakened out of their materialistic sleep will come into your orbit, or you can go to them and try to plant the seed of the spirit. If fail, shed a silent tearーnot for yourself, but for them. They have had the opportunity and alas they have not taken it. But here and there the seed will fall into ground that is receptive. And it will begin to grow, to flower and to burgeon into beauty and grace because it is the seed of divinity. Then the soul is beginning to come into its own.

　The whole purpose of earthly life is that man should live on all aspects of being, physically, mentally and spiritually, and until these three are functioning he is not fulfilling himself. If he is living only with his body and mind, he is chasing illusion and shadow and missing reality. But when the soul begins to come into its own, it opens the door to tremendous spiritual possibilities and adventures for him. That is why he incarnates into your world of matter so that the soul should come into its own.

　So it is not important that it should happen in this or that place, but only that it should happen. This is the reason for suffering and pain in your world, so that the individual should reach that crisis when matter can offer him no more and he is ready to turn to the spirit. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," as it says in your Bible. Let the wind blow where it will. Where you meet with receptivity, help as much as you can.

                 .            .             .

　There are new aspects emerging all the time. The physical aspects of mediumship are gradually receding and the higher aspects of healing and teaching are gradually emergin  because of a differing cycle of evolution in your world. Just go as you are inspired. There are no cut-and-dried formulas for spiritual attainment. You must allow yourself to be led by the same power which has brought you where you are now. It has not failed you. It has brought you here where you are in possession of priceless knowledge which is more important than all the material possessions of your world. Just go forward, do the best you can wherever you can, and you will be guided and sustained.

             .            .             .

　If you never made mistakes, you would not be on earth. That is why you are there, to make mistakes and to learn from them. If you were perfect, there would be no need to incarnate. You are there so that you can learn, and that is part of the law of evolution. But evolution is not a finite process, it is an infinite one. The object of evolution is growth towards perfection. But perfection is infinite and cannot be achieved. It has been achieved only by the Great Spirit, who is infinite love and infinite wisdom.

　The more perfect you become the more you will realise there is further perfection to be attained. It is not a static process. The law of evolution is working itself out through all its manifold stages and these are happening concurrently. Man's physical evolution, despite what scientists say, is not yet over. It has many forms yet to be expressed. Similarly the mental and spiritual evolutions have a long way to go, even on earth, before they attain the stage which they should reach as part of the threefold purpose of man's incarnation.

　You must recognise that this is an endless process in your world and in the whole universe, in itself evidence of the infinite intelligence which has devised the whole scheme, with wondrous laws that never fail and which provide for every facet of being everywhere to be guided, sustained and regulated. All of us are within this scheme of infinite love, law and wisdom. So go on making mistakes, learning from them and getting better spiritually all the time.

　　　　★         ★          ★

　Here is the session for the National Federation of Spiritual Healers:

　This is the whole object behind every phase of what is called mediumship. So you must never be distressed if you find that a sufferer does not get physically better. But what you must be distressed about is, when you have given the healing, if it has not brought an awareness of spiritual reality to your patient. This is the supreme purpose behind all healing.

　We have banded together in our world to ensure that the power of the spirit, which has bridgeheads in many coun-tries, should be consolidated so that divine power is available to those who are ready to receive it. Always our directives are to the essential, to create the awareness within indi-viduals of who they really are and what they must do to fulfil their purpose. To put it very simply, we want them to know their spiritual origin so that they can achieve their spiritual destiny.

　The gift of healing is part of one of the faculties that lie within the spirit body. It is like clairvoyance, which is seeing with the spirit eye, and clairaudience, hearing with the spirit ear. To be a healer you have to be accessible to the power of the spirit.

　All you can do, if you have the gift of receptivity, is to develop it, to achieve a greater attainment and attunement. The power is infinite. The amount that you can receive depends upon your stage of evolution and development. Your receptivity determines the limit of spirit power that flows through you. It is as simple as that. You increase your capacity to receive and greater spirit power will flow through you, and greater results will be obtained. The whole process is fluidic, it is not fixed; but we do not understand all the conditions required to achieve success. There is constant experiment in our world, the mixture of varying forces, the compounding so as to achieve the greatest possible results with the material at our disposal.

　You cannot put a period to the amount of spirit power that can flow. The only obstacle is the stage of development that you have reached, and that determines what you can receive. Now this divine power, the power of God, the Great Spirit, life, whatever you like to call it, is able to flow through you, the human channel, because you have the power of receptivity. Then it has to go to the patient.

　Perhaps I am being elementary if I say to you that the cause of all sickness, illness and disease is disharmony. Health is wholeness; health is when there is the right rhythm and balance between body, mind and spirit. If they are not in proper alignment, if the focus is wrong somewhere, there is an interference with the natural vitality and so you get illness. The spirit power cannot flow through and perform its task.

　Man's diseases are psychosomatic, which means they begin in the mind and the spirit. I don't have to tell you, who have experience of this, that a patient who is always worrying will get ulcers and that cutting out the ulcers won't stop him from worrying. You have to teach him to teach himself how not to worry.

　You will find that nearly all illnesses begin in the mind and the spirit, and even many physical so-called accidents can also have a mental and spiritual origin, a premise which will plunge us all into very deep waters indeed. What do you do? You, the healers, receive spirit power which flows to the spirit, the consciousness of the patient. You are the battery, the stimulator, you recharge the vitality that has been depleted. You clear the blockage; you get rid of the impedi-ment; you restore the balance. The rhythm is now in concert and harmony again.

　Then the healing succeeds because you touched the spiritーand this is the vital point. It is not putting your hand on the body that does anything. That is only a means of contact, which may or may not be necessary depending on the stage of attunement that you have reached. But you have to touch the spirit, you have to quicken it, you have to awaken the slumbering, dormant spirit so that it begins to have the expression which was intended for it by the natural law. And if you do that, then all the natural, self-recuperating processes of the body get to work and health begins to result. You have performed your function because you have opened the channel for God, the Great Spirit, to flow through you and touch the God, the Great Spirit, within the sufferer and brought him or her to an awareness for the first time.

　This is what is involved in spiritual healing. I say to you, and here I am very serious indeed, you have a great re-sponsibility. You cannot have knowledge without the responsibility that knowledge brings. You cannot have a divine gift without the responsibility of seeing that you use it in the way that is intended. There is a difference between psychic faculties and spiritual gifts. You can be a psychic healer or you can be a spiritual healer. In the latter case you have to order your lives to achieve the highest ideal that is possible. You have the gift, but its unfoldment is your responsibility. The way you use it is your responsibility too because the possession of the gift makes you one of the ambassadors of the Great Spirit.

　You are more a minister of the Great Spirit than any minister of any church or chapel. You are representing the Great Spirit because the divine power is flowing through you. And that is a great responsibility. You must not sully it; you must not tarnish it; you must not dishonour it; you must not corrupt it; you must not attempt to use it for the wrong motives. You must only have the desire to serve and to reach out to the highest that is possible for you. ❝

　This is very difficult because it is hard to find words to describe non-material forces. What you have to try to realise is that spirit power is the life force, the stuff of life itself. It is animation. It is infinite. It is malleable. It can take a myriad different shapes. It is capable of an infinite number of permutations and combinations.

　We have people in our world of varying degrees of knowledge, experience and understanding. We have the equivalent of what you would call chemists and scientists, who are forever blending aspects of this life force, this power of the spirit, to characterise it, to use your word, which is a very good one. They are always experimenting so that it can be conditioned to the greatest possible extent through the instrument, who is the channel, and bearing in mind the nature of the complaint or ailment which is to receive the healing.

　I do not think I can put it any other way. It is an individual process for every sufferer who comes to the healer. The aura of the patient helps a great deal, because this gives a perfect picture of the spiritual and mental conditions which are responsible for the ailment in the first place, and this determines the blending that has to be done.

　　　　　.            .           .

　Mental is not the right word, because it is very real; it is an actual blending. We use the spiritual equivalents of what you would call chemicals. The mind has to be used because in our world the mind is the reality for building everything.

　　　　.            .            .

　But you are used in absent healing too.

            .             .              .

　Your spirit body has to be used for the absent healing.

             .              .              .

　You are like a television set. The spirit vibration comes to you and you transform it into the semi-physical healing ray to the patient. You are the transformer.

               .             .             .

Yes.

             .             .          .

　Because the patient has made a request to you. Thought has created the vibration to you. There is the link, and through you it goes back on the same wavelength. 

　　　　　.           .            .

　Somebody must know otherwise you would not be giving absent healing.

                 .           .           .

　Then you have got the link there.

　　　　　.            .           .

　Yes you have, you have created it. You must remember that thought is real on our plane of being. If I look at you, I don't see a physical body. I might if I could open the medium's eyes. It is your thought that is real to us, your body that is shadowy. The moment you send out any thought, that is a reality, that creates a vibration, a wave-length, and this is used in all the absent healing.

　　　　.              .            .

　I don't object to faith, as long as it is founded on reason and is not blind faith. You who have this knowledge realise that what you have received is only an infinitesimal fraction of the totality of truth. It is not possible whilst you are encased in mortal bodies to receive all knowledge. You will not get it even when you come here. So you must have faith founded on what has been revealed to you. Now a reasoned faith, founded on knowledge, is admirable. I have no quarrel with that, because it creates the right atmosphere of optimism in which results can be obtained. The power of the spirit works best when you are bright and happy, cheer-ful and receptive, not when you are miserable, doubting, wavering and disturbing the atmosphere around you.

             

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　It does not matter whether the healer can see the aura. It does not matter whether the healer is able to diagnose. The object of the healer is to heal. He should not concern himself with these other matters. He has to make himself accessible. He has to be as perfect an instrument as he possibly can. He has to outlaw from his nature all the weaknesses that prevent him from being the perfect instrument. And the more he does that, the greater will be the power that flows through him. It is the life you live that qualifies the attunement you can have.

　　　　　.          .          .

　To answer the second half, a clear emphatic "No." The gift of the spirit is the gift of the spirit. You are born with it and it is your responsibility to develop it, just as the child born with the gift of playing the piano has to develop it by practice and training. How to develop this gift? It is not the answer to sit in circles. That may help. It is developed by your motives. It is developed by the way you live your life. It is developed by the attempt to reach the highest standard of purity and perfection that is possible. It is helped by increasing your desire to heal as much as you possibly can.

　The only way to develop self is to forget self. The more you think of others, the better self you will become. There is no book that will tell you how to become a better healer. What you have to do is to desire to serve, and order your life in this fashion: "The Great Spirit has endowed me with a gift for healing. May I be worthy of it." If you live your life according to that principle, the gift will automatically increase in its strength and stature.

    

　　　　.           .           .

　The same thing that makes one person a better speaker than another, a better pianist than another, a better writer than another. The gift is nearer the surface.

           .            .            .

　You need not depend on another healer, but you have to learn how to attune yourself to the power so that it can produce the result on you direct. Just as you do not have to go to church to pray to the Great Spirit, so you do not have to go to a healer to get healing, if you can enable the power of the spirit to come direct to you. You must open your heart, your mind, your soul.

　　　　　.           .          ．

　You are saying the same thing as I said in different words. You are calling it a business worry, but that is a disharmony.

If your mind, body and spirit are in the right relationship, you do not have worries of business or anything else. The soul that worries is out of harmony already. Anyone who has knowledge of spiritual realities should not worry. Worry and fear are the negative forces. They do not belong to the enlightened soul. You call it a business worry, I call it disharmony. There is nothing to worry about once you know you are an eternal being and nothing in the physical world can touch your soul.

              .             .              .

　Because they have not spiritually earned the right to be healed.

             .             .               .

　Not once the link is made. Every link with our world is a magnetic one. Once made it cannot be broken.

　　　.              .               .

　The world of the spirit has no geographical location. It is round and about you all the time. You are no nearer the Great Spirit in a church, or in a pit, or in an aeroplane.

                .             .            .

　It helps tremendously because your thought is a reality. The more you think of perfect health, the closer you come towards attaining it. You should always strive your utmost for the ideal. You should always visualise the best. You should never abandon hope. Always radiate cheer and optimism. These are the conditions in which spirit power produces its best results.

　　　　.             .              .

　It is not as simple as that. This is too facile because you have to remember you are not necessarily looking at the problem with the eyes of the spirit. To you, suffering is terrible. To us, it can be divine. To you, disaster is the end. To us, it is sometimes the beginning of a new life. You must not bandy these terms of good and bad as if they are fixed objectives based upon a material evaluation. Our standards of appraisal are not always the same as yours. I say that a person must have spiritually earned the right to be healed. I did not say that he was good or bad. Once the spirit has come into its own, it has earned the right to be healed. The healing will be effective.

              .               .               .

We are not talking about miracles.

              .            .             .

                 .            .             .

　Because the healing cannot produce results in both cases. The healing is never equal, it is always conditioned. It is characterised. It is very difficult because I want to keep this on the simplest possible plane. There are other qualifications, because there are laws within laws within laws that involve other and more profound issues.

　These are matters you cannot measure with your material yardstick, but they are all involved in healing because you are handling the life force itself for the time being. You are partaking in the process of infinite creation. That is why I stress your great responsibility.

　　　　.            .           .

　There is a disturbance in the brain which makes it im-possible for it to register and to have the correct stimuli from the mind of the individual.

                 .          .           .

　Of course, every disease can be cured. There is no such thing as an incurable disease. There are only people who could be incurable.

              .             .            .

　This be the greatest success that you

have achieved. If you have helped a soul in its passing, that is a successful healing. The object of healing is not to prolong physical life. It is to touch the spirit. That is what matters. Get your first things first. It is the spirit that matters. If the spirit is right, the body will be right.

　　　　.           .           .

　By their fruits ye shall know them! It is the results that matter. The healer should so live his life that he attains the greatest pitch of attunement. Then the results will come. You put your own house in order first. We will do the rest. No call for help is ever refused. No power is ever withheld. We always strive to serve. We refuse none. We welcome all. The power of the spirit is there for all to receive its beni-ficence. All we want are willing instruments to help its divine flow.

            .               .              .

　Why is passing to our world a tragedy? In our world, when people are born into yours, we cry. When they come to our world, we rejoice. Why is it a tragedy to leave your earth?  

                .             .             .

　You can help the mentally sick. If you allow yourself to be used, that is all that is asked of you. Let the power flow through you. Those you cannot help by contact, send them absent healing. Spirit healing is here to stay. It will not be dislodged. You can contribute your quota, a very important quota it is too. Always remember that you are a divine channel helping the Great Spirit in the infinite plan of evolution. It is a wonderful work that you have to do, but it is a great responsibility.

　　　★           ★            ★

　And here is the session for the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain:

❝You all have knowledge of spiritual realities and so there is no need for me to impress upon you their vital impor-tance, especially in the world today. I will help you as much as I can. You may not agree with everything that I say, but true brotherhood means that we love one another even when we cannot see eye to eye with one another. Even though you are all familiar with the manifestationof the power of the spirit in diverse forms, one of your great difficulties, because you are encased in physical bodies, is to get the correct focus, to know how real is the power of the spirit when it has the appropriate channels through which to flow.

　We would be failing in everything that we seek to teach if, for a single moment, we encourage any to be deflected from their duty as citizens of the world in which they live, their duty to their families or to others who are dependent on them. But this is only a part of the storyーit is not the whole story. My criticism would be, if you would forgive me speaking very frankly to you, because it is only with candour that we can help one another, that you concentrate your attention far too much on your material problems and do not have enough reliance on the power of the spirit which can solve them all.

　This is the criticism that I would direct in all sincerity and humility to those of you who are, not servants of the spirit, because we are not masters, but co-operators with the spirit and who would desire to become, to the fullest possible

extent, its earthly ambassadors. It is wrong for people like yourselves with knowledge to have any worry, or to allow fear to invade your being and to effect a lodgment. With the knowledge you have you should never permit any fear, any worry, any anxiety to enter into your mental, physical or spiritual surroundings. Fear, worry and anxietyーthese block the channels which can help you.

　Just as grief from mourners creates a wall around them which makes it difficult for the ones they are wanting to penetrate it, so when you allow yourselves to be surrounded with vibrations of worry you disturb the mental and spiritual atmosphere and make it even more difficult for help to come to you. You are being guided by those who love you, not only because they are associated with you by ties of blood, of affection, of friendship, but by others who are very interested in the work that you are doing because they trod this path before you. And behind them there is an even greater army of liberated souls whose only desire is to help you to serve those who come to you.

　There is no limit to the power of the spirit, with all its beauty, its richness, its grandeur, its dignity, its lustre, its nobility, its radianceーexcept the limits you impose by the conditions that you create. Give us free channels with faithー