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The World Beyond (14) Another former researcher communicates about the afterlife.
A few personal comments, and then another researcher gives his first impressions after passing.
My mind is numb from replaying in my dreams, and on awakening, all the spooky music and sound effects used in movies like Jaws, the Exorcist and the Amityville Horror and all these radio and TV programs depicting the paranormal, hauntings, horror stories, even the work of rescue mediums and the supernatural. This underscore tends to sensationalize and overdramatize the subject matter.
Even back before the beginning of Modern Spiritualism 160 years ago Andrew Jackson Davis followed shortly afterwards by the Fox Sisters soon tried to avoid providing the sensational phenomena which the general public craved for, but they had to earn a living in the midst of all the chaos of new thought in science and religion.
All along the public taste for the novel and unusual, rather than the truth, couldn't be satisfied. But amidst all the fuss and fury, societies for psychical research and independent investigators emerged and within the past century have amassed a huge amount of information to refer to about the Spirit World and the eternal nature of the soul and the Life Beyond. This series, and the rescue series and others like it, which are based on all this published data, rather than discussing, in the abstract, whether there COULD BE an afterlife, or the life in spirit, could go on forever giving instances of survival in much detail, without any twilight-zone music. Readers, also, have probably received messages from beyond, or are able to do so in the future, and can see for themselves. The spirit world is quite normal and natural, and doesn’t need souping up with musical chords of terror and alarm, or other-worldly choirs of angels. Whatever contact with the other world I have had seems like an everyday event with no background underscore at all, unless a melody or specific piece of orchestral music comes to mind, to remind me of a particular person or event, by it’s title or particular lyrics, or the picture it paints – just like a symbol or personal item to identify the communicator or the place they are from. Sometimes a fragrance, or a touch, or a sight or picture, rather than a sound, will be most evidential of a certain person.
Anyway, since I'm sensitive to sound, I find silence golden, and that is an ideal place for prayer and meditation, healing and reflection. No Ipods, cell phones or lap-tops, either.
The spirit world is aware of the problem of the skeptics. When a spirit wants to contact a person it knows to be afraid or skeptical of anything religious or connected with Spiritualism and who would run a mile to avoid anything like a seance or public evening of clairvoyance, it will nonetheless persist in its intention of getting a message through to that person. The spirit world is aware of all our activities so can pick out a friend or relative of that skeptic, who they know is about to attend a seance or spiritualist church, and so get a message through by proxy, and so giving evidence both of their knowledge of our lives on earth and of their continued existence. They offer enough evidence to silence the most obstinate denials.
Today I'm presenting spirit communications from one who in his lifetime was a most persistent investigator of the truth and an ardent advocate of Spiritualism.
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"When I left my body I found that I could not free myself from the entanglements of earth for a considerable period, yet it is impossible to describe the exact geography of my position. I felt strangely linked with the place of my birth and early years, so that I could not escape either to return nor yet to advance to that heavenly plane which I knew existed, and must be quite near. Truly I was tied, and all my hopes of communicating with my friends were frustrated. I tried and tried again, and yet again, and found any contact most difficult. I was at a loss to understand the cause. I found myself able to give thought-projections, and sketchy bits seemed to filter through the denseness around me. Slight messages such as these gave assurance to my family that I was conscious, at all events. And then I seemed to be picked up, as it were, by a ray of light. A power unknown came to my aid, giving me understanding of my true state, and I subsequently learned that this ray of light was a projection of love and power from [an advanced group of souls]. It proved of inestimable value to me and brought a clear vision of the actual state of life which exists immediately after death.
The difficulty is to find adequate words with which to describe the conditions of life after death. There are many conditions closely attuned to the desires of those dwelling on the lower planes. Much as on earth you get the many grades of society living in their own environment. You will therefore obtain a variety of descriptions, each appertaining to its own particular plane of experience.
As a soul journeys upwards, he is ever shedding the vestiges of that stratum of himself which is of the earth, earthy; but absorbing the lessons he learns on his journey, lessons which are retained by his ego and become a part of himself. When the man attains the condition of quiescence, peace and tranquillity on the intuitional plane (which is not mere lethargy), his spirit remains perfectly conscious, although mentally in a state of soliloquy, able at last to see himself as he really is; to gauge the complete effect of his life, not only as it has affected the lives of his fellows on earth, but in relation to the whole creative principle; to estimate the magnitude or otherwise of his personal contribution towards God's evolving Plan of Creation.
I find myself in an unspeakably beautiful heaven world. I desire above all things to be able to bring such a reality as this home to my friends; but I also realise only too well that it can be shared only if they can understand the nature of the heaven to which I have gone. All this has made me feel a deeper urge to spread the truth concerning the after-life. I believe that during my earth life I have already won something of a reputation as a missionary. I carry on this work still for the people of earth, but by different ways and means from those which I used to follow. How difficult it is to make a true contact with the earth and its people. All is so different from what I once anticipated. A true conception of the real life of the spirit has yet to dawn upon man. Thank God the mists begin to thin, so that I can see with a clearer vision than once seemed possible. Can it be that my friends still expect me to talk with them about the trivialities of the personal earth life? I have now done with trivialties having found the realities of man's being and existence. Yet, shall I ever find it possible to paint, with the language which I find at my disposal [in the mind of the medium] any adequate picture of the glory, wonder and beauty of heaven? Yes, it can, it must be attempted; it must be done.......
Psychic communications as they are accepted today must some day give place to the truer communion of spirit between incarnate and arisen souls [the so-called living and the dead]. At present the personal aspect of communications is over-stressed; personal memories are mostly sought after, and if forthcoming are regarded as evidence of identity and proof of an afterlife. Yet while these personal traits and mannerisms can endear a soul to its former friends on earth, it is well to remember that these may prove to be a pitfall indicating that there exists too much surface relationship and insufficient recognition or understanding of the needs of man's spirit.
Here, then lies a basis from which much of the Spiritualism of the future will evolve. It must change from that present free-and-easy, happy-go-lucky contact of the man of earth with the personal selves of those people who have passed on, therby stimulating personal memories of earthly pleasures, desires and happenings; and grow into a deeper understanding between souls, and through that a deeper recognition of the spiritual needs of each soul. When such a reality of reunion becomes a part and parcel of the soul life of the man still incarnate and of the man discarnate, then mortal man's fear of transient things such as sickness, povery and death will be swept away.
Sometimes we see those people who can act as mediums as a light radiating through the fog which envelops the earth, and we must make contact with that light as best we can. Picture yourself in a London street on a foggy winter's night, and you will see how the earth looks to us, and perhaps grasp some of our difficulties. Yet it need not always be so. Sometimes when we return and find things clear-cut and true, the mind of the medium happy and bright and no ripple of depression or worry to disturb reception, we are able to sail in and make a clear impression on his or her brain. It is comparatively rare, however, to get a perfectly clear and definite message through, since there is always a residue of the medium's mentality through which we have to press. Mediumship is a fine art as well as a calling; and as mankind in generral is only just awakening to the value of the spiritual life, mediums themselves remain strangely ignorant of the increased powers which might be theirs. It is necessary for a medium to be well balanced, sane, sound and true.
[to be continued] Richard R.
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