　　　　CHAPTER XIII

　　HEALING BALM OF THE SPIRIT

　WHEN Harry Edwards, the famous healer, visited Hannen Swaffer's home circle, he said, with typical modesty, to Silver Birch:

　"I am not concerned so much with what we can do but rather with the things we have been unable to do. How can we give greater service and become more in tune with those on your side?"

　The spirit guide, with the simple eloquence which has won for him friends all over the world, replied:

　"We are all co-operating in a great and mighty purpose whose object is to render the greatest possible service to the unfortunate ones, the weak, the suffering, the drifters, those whose heads are bowed with sorrow and whose hearts are filled with grief.

　"The power of the spirit seeks to flood through instruments to bring its healing touch where it can find the opportunity, knowing that as instruments offer themselves for the fullest measure of co-operation, so there will come through them that force, that radiance, that will enable your world to realise what can be done when there is harmony.

　"The power of the spirit is the power of life. The reason why there is life is because spirit is there. Spirit is life and life is spirit. The power that fashioned the whole universe, majestic though it is and stupendously vast, is the same power which enables you to exist here and hereafter for all time. The power that enables you to love, to think, to care, to judge, to reflect, to decide, to weigh, to ponder, to be inspired, to reach the heights and depths of the whole gamut of human feelings, that power is the power of the spirit.

　“You are the Great Spirit, the Great Spirit is you. There are differences of degree, not of kind or substance. You are the microcosm of what the Great Spirit is. This power of the spirit is what enables the sick to be healed. I cannot analyse it for you; I cannot dissect it; I cannot tell you what are its con-stituent parts. All I can say is that it is infinite in its variety of expression because life is infinite.

　"The whole problem associated with every phase of mediumship is to regulate that flow of spirit power through instruments. As to how much and what kind of power can express itself depends entirely on the conditions that are avail-able. It depends upon the qualities possessed by the human instrument and his willingness to develop along those lines which will make his co-operation greater and more effective. Always there is experimentation at work as new forces, new rays, new potencies are gradually introduced.

　"All these are conditioned by the fitness, physical, mental and spiritual, of the instrument. If he provides a greater vehicle, then a greater part is manifest, through him; if he provides a poorer vehicle, then a smaller amount of power is manifest through him.

　"There is no limit to the amount of spirit power except the limit imposed by natural law. It is impossible for the power of the spirit to operate outside the framework or orbit of the natural laws of the universe. Subject to that overriding limitation, which is tremendous in its scope, there is still a tremendous, larger spirit power to be expressed than has ever been expressed through earthly instruments.

　"The point I wish to make is this, that many good people, religious people, think that the acme of spirit power was reached in days gone by, in the times described by the Bible, but that is not true. There has been progress made, and the spirit power that streams through some instruments today is far greater than has ever been known before on earth.

　"Now you are richly blessed. I wish that had the vision to behold that which is around and about you. Con-fident as you are in those who work with you, resting as you do your complete faith in that power of the spirit which has guided you, you would be even still more confident if you could see what they are and who they are.

　"My son, the best, the most that an old soul like myself can say is this: that for many years your earthly life has been guided to bring you to this culminating point. You are now achieving what was seen many years ago. This is the height of your attainment and you should rejoice in the fact that you are able to give the service that is available through your co-operation.

　"Does that help?"

　Harry Edwards answered:

　"Yes, that helps very much indeed, though it raises two points in my mind. The first is whether you can help us to make ourselves more fitting instruments. For example, here is a child with two deformed feet. One foot responds but not the other. Where lies the weakness? It must be the weak-ness with the instrument, because if one foot can be healed so can the other."

　"It is not always possible to achieve the results that you would like to achieve or those who are working through you would like to achieve at the time," was Silver Birch's reply. "The greatest amount of good has to be done with the mini-mum amount of power. If the whole of the power is to be utilised for one case, then you would get spontaneous healing, but you would be exhausted for a long time to come.

　"It is as I tried to explain experimental. Not even those who work with you can guarantee beforehand what will take place. They do not know the extent to which the results will be beneficial except to know that they will be beneficial. There are factors which are not known beforehand. There are conditions which impose restrictions on what can be done. It is a matter of great rejoicing that so much can be done where before it was not possible.

　"That is the contribution that you have made through your willingness to go the whole way and say to those who use you: 'Here I am, take me. I trust you and I will follow. Nothing would be more pleasurable than that every sufferer who presented himself for treatment should be instantaneously cured, and that all disease and deformity and sickness should fall away as if by magic. But that is not possible.

　"There are problems. This is, comparatively, pioneering work. Those who are associated with you are busily engaged in knowing the reactions of each manifestation and bringing other elements to bear so as to improve the technique and the efficiency of what is done. I think I can say that you have observed the improvement that takes place almost on every occasion."

　"Yes, that is so," agreed Edwards.

　"The closer the co-operation, the more spirit power can be transmitted. There is also another great question involved and that concerns one of the limits. Here I realise that I tread on very controversial ground, but honesty compels me to express this viewpoint. One limit imposed, and always im-posed, is what I would call the karmic debt of the patient, the relationship between mind and body determined by that individual's spiritual growth and attainment. Do I make myself clear?"

　"I would like you to go further than that," Edwards quickly responded.

　"I know you would," said Silver Birch. "This is very important and I want to say something that may surprise you. The important part of your work is not healing bodies but touching souls. Where you succeed in awakening the soul, in enabling it to have a greater mastery over the body, in enabling it to realise its true purpose and to begin to express itself in the fashion that it should, that is the greatest contribu-tion that you can make.

　"That is more important than healing the body, that is the eternal part of your labours. Every individual is a combina–tion of mind, body and soul. There are interrelated factors; you cannot dismiss the influence of any one from the other.

　"Disease is, in a large number of cases, primarily due to wrongful alignment of mind, body and spiritーthat you know. And where you have perfect attunement between these triune aspects of man, and there is complete unity, there you have perfect health, stability, poise and awareness. But you do not meet that in your world except on very rare occasions.

　"Every individual whom you see, who comes for treat-ment, is at a certain stage of growth. He has reached one particular rung in the ladder of his life, and that determines the amount of healing that can be transmitted to the individual. That is what I mean by the karmic debt.

　"There are some whom you will be powerless to touch. The debt that has been incurred can be repaid only by dis-carding the physical body. There are others who have earned a second chance. You can bring them complete cures. And there are others whose minds you are powerless to reach. You may improve their bodies for a time, but the condition will return in some other form."

　Here the healer asked, "By that I assume that the karmic debt is superior to the healing forces that can be exercised?"

　"Yes, I must insist on that," the guide told him, "because that is the individual's own contribution, his own life story, and there is no power to alter the natural law. You remember that I began by saying that all exists within the orbit or framework of natural law. Everything must operate with that provision. There are no miracles, as you know. There is no suspension or alteration or abrogation of natural law. It is all cause and effect. There is the limitation. It would be contrary to divine justice if any individual had the power to cancel the operation of cause and effect. What you can do is to free the soul, liberate the mind and then the body reaps the result."

　"Is not that the way to help people to pay their karmic debts?" Edwards asked.

　"That is so. That is why I say, if you succeed in touching the soul, and awakening it so that the individual is conscious of what he has to do, it is the important aspect of the work."

　"We invariably find," commented Edwards, "there is a sense of inner joy, upliftment, higher expression, higher idealism, and that I take it is what you are saying."

　"In the supreme moment of earth and heaven mingling and when, for a few fleeting moments, all barriers are gone, your own spirit finds itself," the guide told him. "It bursts its bonds and reaches that state of ecstasy which is the normal expression of the spirit."

　Edwards returned to the question of karmic debt by asking, "I would like to make it quite clear that through healing it is possible so to touch the soul of individuals that you can help them to pay their karmic debts."

　This brought from Silver Birch a declaration on the purpose of Spiritualism:

　"The whole aim of this mission, of which your work and mine and all who are engaged in it are parts, is to awaken man-kind, so that the largest possible number of individuals may be aware of themselves, to realise what they are, who they are, so that they can bring into being, as part of their normal, daily activity, all the qualities and attributes of the spirit.

　"By so doing they will transform the whole of earthly life, changing it from a wilderness choked with the weeds of selfishness into a paradise filled with the flowers of idealism. That is what we are doing, or trying to do, with occasional

successes. Each soul who sees the light, who finds himself, who wakens out of the sleep, the materialistic sleep, is a soul who finds the road and begins to tread it with certainty and with knowledge."

　Harry Edwards was moved by this passage to say: “I think have given enough to help us. The actual healing is not of importance."

　The wise old guide added: "I do not mean that we are indif-ferent to human suffering, that we do not care about the misery, pain and joylessness of those who are afflicted by the many diseases that are the result of wrongful living. But if we reach the causes of all these troubles, then we can end all this maladjustment between mind, body and spirit. Then we can fill the world with a radiance that it so much needs. Then the children of the Great Spirit will derive from earth that which they were intended to derive, the nobility, the gran-deur, the richness, the dignity, the lustre and the beauty.

　"And then, when death comes, they would pass through that door with ease, without pain, shedding the old body which had served its purpose for the next stage in their glorious existence."

　Turning to the healer's wife Silver Birch said: "I would like you to rejoice at what has been achieved. I am asked to express a large amount of gratitude by those who are here who say that they know the sacrifices you have made to enable all this to take place."

　She replied that she felt rather inadequate at times. The guide insisted: "I am only repeating what I am told to say from those here who know you far better than I do. They know your heart, your mind and your soul, the strength of your loyalty and your love.

　"They say they would like me to pass on their appreciation for all you have done to have made this mission of your hus-band possible. One has to be in the limelight; the other has to stay in the background. Without the one in the back-ground there would be no limelight at all. We appreciate all service that is rendered to the world of spirit, whether it be the service silently offered, nevertheless real, or the service that is performed among the multitudes."

　Finally, Silver Birch said to Edwards: "It is a joy to me to welcome any instrument. Those who labour to serve humanity are those I love. It is not always easy. No pathway of service can be easy, for if it was easy to serve the soul would not grow. That which is worth attaining is difficult. The prize to be earned is a prize that can be given not to the many but to the few.

　"Strive to achieve your highest idealsーthe secret dreams and prayers which are your great hopes and aspirations. Con-tinue to be loyal to that light which you follow. Do not in any measure betray the trust that is reposed in you by those

who love you. Hold aloft that torch of truth and let its radiance bring light to many who are in darkness.

　"Continue so to order your own life that the power of the spirit may flow through you in increasing measure and magni-tude, so that you may be the means of bringing blessings to those who are sorely afflicted and who know not where to turn.

　"And rejoice that the Great Spirit has raised you up. It is still true, many are called, few are chosen. Continue to serve and know that as you serve so you will be served and love, divine and human, for it is the same thing, will continue to guide you and enable you to fulfil the purpose of your own earthly being."

　Another psychic healer, who works in the background, had for years cherished the ambition to sit with Silver Birch. With his wife he was invited to attend our circle. After greeting them, the guide said:

　"We are all workers with a common purpose. In one way or another, you, like myself and others from my world, are banded together to destroy the materialism which, alas, is far too rampant in your world. We are doing it quite success-fully by showing how the application of the gifts of the spirit reveal a truer understanding of life's meanings, its purpose, of human destiny, of the relationship between you and the Great Spirit and between all the children of the Great Spirit wherever they may dwell.

　"Whatever form the gifts of the spirit take, when they are exercised, they are a revelation that materialism is founded on a falsity, for you, like I, are helping to demonstrate the funda-mental, eternal truth that man is a spiritual being, that he is like the Great Spirit in tiny miniature, but possessing, albeit in latent form, all that pertains to divinity. If by laying hands on one who is sick, one who has despair because no relief has been obtainable elsewhere, you show that the power of the spirit brings healing in its train, then not only do you heal the body but you touch a soul. That is part of my mis-sion, to touch souls, to awaken them from their long sleep so that they may have a realisation of what they really are.

　"I used to tell Parish that, important as was the task of heal-ing bodies, it was more important to touch souls. I used to tell him that very often it was only in affliction, in pain, in sorrow, that the soul found itself. Having been brought down

to the depths of despair, and having learnt that there was no solace and hope and comfort in all the material things of life, the soul came into its own. It realised that its sustenance and its strength came not from the body of flesh, or the world of matter in which that body resided temporarily, but from the world invisible, the unseen, the home of all reality and indeed of all life.

　"You have come to me because you are drawn to me, because you are filled with the same love for humanity that knows not where to turn in its perplexity and in its weariness for comfort and hope and guidance. We can show the way, all of us. We can point the that leads to that truth which will bless their lives and teach them how to obtain that joy and dignity, that nobility and grandeur and lustre which should be part of the divine heritage of every soul."

　Then the guide dealt with a problem raised by the healer. who described his reactions while giving treatment.

　"We are always pleased to learn what happens when the power of the spirit streams through instruments," said Silver Birch. "The flood of spirit power is very largely a matter of experiment. It is not all planned beforehand, except in the broad outlines. The amount of any power, force, ray, or vibration that can be transmitted through any medium, is dependent upon the circumstances that prevail at the time. The medium's health, for instance, is one factor. The medium's mood is another factor, whether it is equable or anxious. The whole question of the receptivity of the medium is also naturally involved.

　"In addition to that there are the other circumstances con-cerned with the people around the medium. If it is a circle, then the individual members of it all contribute something. Much has to be taken into account. Then there is the patient the sufferer, the one who is to be healed, his or her circum-stances, spiritual, mental and physical. All of these will affect the amount of spirit power that can be transmitted.

　"Now it is idle to pretend, for a single moment, that trans-mitting spirit power through a medium and its return has no effect on the instrument through whom it comes. You are not using a conduit, you are using a human organism with a spirit, with a mind, with a most complex arrangement of bodily functions and you cannot send through that a stream of life-giving, dynamic power without some reaction.

　"All depends on how well developed the instrument is. That is why, so often, it is urged, again and again, that the would-be medium, the potential healer, should nurture his gift under the wise guardianship of an experienced person

plus, and this of course is the most important, the co-operation of the spirit guide who is to work through that individual. It is only after a long, long process of training that the gift can be so unfolded that the right amount of spirit power can be transmitted in the best form where it can produce the most successful results. Parish, through his instrumentality, achieved much success because he was prepared to do what few are prepared to do, and that is make the necessary sacrifices.

　"That is the whole secret of healing. You have to have the desire to develop the gift. You have to regulate your own life so that cleanliness and right thinking will be the dominant motives. You have to be sure that the physical body, the temple of the spirit, is as pure as you can make it. You have do to keep a watchful eye on your own exertions so that you do not jeopardise your own health. You have to rest occasionally so that in these periods of recuperation the necessary adjust-ments can be made. Now where there are instruments who are prepared to give the necessary co-operation, there you will find the best results.

　"You must be affected by the healing that you do because you are a spiritual being, and whatever comes through you leaves its mark on you, particularly mentally and physically. And if it is a very drastic case, one in which an added call is made upon your resources, which means that additional power has to come through, you must expect a reaction, temporary though it will be, until adjustment is made."

　When the healer tried to express his thanks Silver Birch said: "Thank the Great Spirit, for it is the Great Spirit we are trying to serve. We are only ministers and we do not re-quire that any praise, or glory, or prayers, or appreciation should be given to us. Let us always recognise that we are all the instruments of a great purpose, each of us striving to do our part so as to make it easier, better and happier for others."

　Then the visitor said that he had heard many people talk of healing "miracles" but he had never seen these cases. His Own healing worked on different lines. "Do you think that different people are gifted with a different kind of healing?" he asked.

　"There are many diversities, but it is the same spirit," answered the guide. "The power of the spirit is infinite and, being infinite, it has an infinite number of variations. No individuals are exactly alike, not even twins, though they may bear the closest possible resemblance. Thus it is that because of infinite variations the of the spirit is unable to express itself in a similar way through different mediums. It is all governed by the circumstances that rule, for every-thing in the whole universe, whether it be large or small, is regulated by a natural law.

　"Those who attend here regularly and who have listened for many years know that this is a theme on which I harp constantly. It is the theme of the constancy of the natural law. I know nothing of a jealous, vengeful deity, a capricious or partisan God. I have seen the operation of natural laws in every aspect of universal life, not only in your world of matter, but in the world of spirit which is my natural habitat, and wherever I have gone I find that natural law rules.

　"There is no chance, no caprice, no miracle, no accident. All is due to cause and effect which follow one another in a sequence that is methodically exact and inviolable. Natural law rules throughout the whole universe and all that takes place, no matter where you look, whether it be in the realm of insect life, in human life, or in planetary life, always you will see that law is in operation.

　"These laws take no cognisance of human desire or will. Your ideas, your views, your wishes will not change the natural law. The law has always been in operation, it is in operation now, it will continue to operate, for time is eternal and the law is eternal, too. I know nothing of miracles. I do know that the power of the spirit, working according to natural law, though it may be a law not yet revealed or under-stood by those on earth, is capable of working seeming miracles.

　"The power of the spirit is life. Life is spirit, spirit is life. Where there is life there is spirit; where there is spirit there is life. Where the power of the spirit can be transmitted in a sufficiently full measure it can bring in its train all the pro-perties of life and thus you have what many regard as miracles.

　"They take place because another law is brought into opera-tion. You see the effect of some cause, the cripple is made whole, the deaf begin to hear, the blind to see. The same power which enabled that person in the first place to live and move and walk and breathe and think and see and hear, the same power is in operation again and producing similar results. You, because you are a spirit, animate a physical frame which

apart from your spirit has no life of its own. Withdraw the spirit and you have what is called death, inertia, the instrument has no vitalising power streaming through it. Now if you can bring the power of the spirit to work in parts of that body which are diseased you can make the life-giving force reproduce what has been lost."

　Finally, the guide urged the visitor and his wife: "Go forward, both of you. Your feet are planted firmly on the pathway of certainty and you are being led by love that seeks to use you all the time in the service of those who are less fortunate than yourselves. Continue to help others, as you are striving to do, and you will attract to yourselves more and more of that rich power of the spirit which is the greatest benediction for humanity."

　Silver Birch ended with these words: "Let us strive to develop whatever gifts we possess to the fullest that we can attain. Let us strive to be worthy of our divine heritage. Let us strive to order our lives in the light of the knowledge which has been vouchsafed to us and with the full consciousness of the responsibility that this knowledge brings. May we be worthy of those who seek to use us, so that they shall not be disappointed in our efforts. Thus shall we be in tune with the Great Spirit of all life because His will has become our will and we are at one with the purpose that directs the whole of humanity."

2021.08