Love: The Spirit World — Robert Bayer (Editor) — (97 pages) — [2019]

Robert Bayer (Editor) (2019)

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Table of Contents

What Love and Light Are — Emanuel Swedenborg [p. 4 ] Hellish Love vs. Heavenly Love — Emanuel Swedenborg [p. 7 ] Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love — Emanuel Swedenborg [p. 12 ] Divine Truths — Emanuel Swedenborg [p. 16 ] Love, Will, and Wisdom — Andrew Jackson Davis [p. 18 ] Divine Love — Andrew Jackson Davis [p. 27] Undiminishable Love — Andrew Jackson Davis [p. 30 ] Love is All in All — Andrew Jackson Davis [p. 31 ] Our Spirit Guides — Flashes of Light

[p. 35 ]

Think thoughts of Love — Ralph Waldo Trine [p. 37 ] Exegetical Spiritualism: Inspiration — J. M. Peebles [p. 39 ] Genuine Love — William W. Aber [p. 42 ] Heavenly Joy — J.M. Peebles [p. 44 ] The Seventh Sphere — J.M. Peebles [p. 46 ] Love — Mary Ann Evans

[p. 49 ]

Love — B.F. Austin [p. 52 ] The Cleansed Temple — Mary Bruce Wallace [p. 54 ] Love Will Reign Supreme — W. Maslin Frysinger

[p. 56 ]

God's Love is for All — Gail Williams [p. 59 ] With Love in Our Eyes — Gail Williams [p. 62 ] The Celestial Realm — Walter DeVoe [p. 64 ] Love is the Strongest — Margery Lawrence [p. 68 ] 2

Questions and Answers — Frank L. Hammer

[p. 70 ]

The Last Enemy — Lord Dowding [p. 71 ] Daily Life — Neville Randall [p. 75 ] Behold an Angel — The Eloists [p. 77 ] A Nurse from The Plateau — The Eloists [p. 79 ] Our Blessings Together — Robert Bayer [p. 81 ] God is Love — Walter and Betty Shepherd [p. 83 ] The Process of Spirit Sensations — Walter / -Betty Shepherd [p. 95 ]

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What Love and Light Are Emanuel Swedenborg Divine Love and Wisdom (1758)

Each of us is a spirit. That is the source of our thinking and intending.

This means that the spiritual world is right where we are, not distanced from us in the least. In short, as far as the deeper levels of our minds are concerned we are all in that world, surrounded by angels and spirits there.

We think because of the light of that world and love because of its warmth.

That sun is not God. Rather, it is an emanation from the divine love and wisdom of the Divine-Human One. The same is true of warmth and light from that sun. “The sun that angels see� (the sun that gives them warmth and light) does not mean the Lord himself. It means that first emanation from him that is the highest form of spiritual warmth. The highest form of spiritual warmth is spiritual fire, which is divine love and wisdom in its first correspondential form. This is why that sun looks fiery and also is fiery for angels, though it is not for us.

What we experience as fire is not spiritual but physical, and the difference between these two is like the difference between life and 4

death. The spiritual sun, then, brings spiritual people to life with its warmth and maintains spiritual things, while the physical sun does the same for physical people and things. It does not do this with its own power, though, but by an inflow of spiritual warmth that provides it with effective resources.

The spiritual fire where light dwells in its origin becomes a spiritual warmth and light that decrease as they emanate, with the decrease occurring by levels that will be discussed later. The ancients pictured this as brightly gleaming circles of reddish fire around the head of God, a form of representation that is still common today when God is portrayed as

human in paintings.

It is obvious from actual experience that love generates warmth and wisdom generates light. When we feel love, we become warmer, and when we think from wisdom, it is like seeing things in the light. We can see from this that the first thing that emanates from love is warmth and that the first thing that emanates from wisdom is light

We can also see that these are correspondences, since the warmth does not occur within the love itself but as a result of it, in our volition and therefore in our bodies. The light does not occur within the wisdom, but in the thinking of our discernment and therefore in our speaking.

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That is, love and wisdom are the essence and life of warmth and light; and warmth and light are emanations from love and wisdom.

Because they are emanations from them, they are also responsive to them.

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Hellish Love vs. Heavenly Love Emanuel Swedenborg Divine Love and Wisdom (1763)

Immediately after death we come into a world of spirits that is halfway between heaven and hell. There we work through our stretches of time, or our states, and are prepared either for heaven or for hell, depending on the way we have lived. As long as we stay in this world, we are called “spirits.” Anyone who has been brought up from this world into heaven is called an angel, and anyone who has been cast into hell is called a satan or a devil. As long as we are in the world of spirits, people who are being readied for heaven are called angelic spirits, and people who are being readied for hell are called hellish spirits. All the while, angelic spirits are united to heaven and hellish spirits to hell.

All the spirits who are in the world of spirits are together with us because we are similarly between heaven and hell as to the deeper levels of our minds. Through these spirits we are in touch with either heaven or hell, depending on the way we are living.

It should be clear that “the world of spirits” is not the same thing as “the spiritual world.” The world of spirits is the one I have just been 7

talking about, while the spiritual world includes that world, heaven, and hell.

Something also needs to be said about loves, since we are talking about how angels and spirits turn toward their loves because of their loves.

Heaven as a whole is laid out in communities depending on all the differences in loves. So is hell, and so is the world of spirits. Heaven, though, is laid out in communities according to differences in heavenly loves, while hell is laid out in communities according to differences in hellish loves, and the world of spirits is laid out in communities according to differences in both heavenly and hellish loves.

There are two loves that are at the head of all the rest, and two loves that lie behind all the rest. The head of all heavenly loves, the love basic to them all, is love for the Lord. The head of all hellish loves, or the love that underlies them all, is a love of controlling prompted by self-love.

These two loves are absolute opposites.

Since these two loves—love for the Lord and love of controlling 8

prompted by self-love—are absolute opposites, and since everyone who is caught up in love for the Lord turns toward the Lord as the sun, as explained in the preceding section, it stands to reason that everyone who is caught up in a love of controlling prompted by self-love turns away from the Lord. The reason people turn in opposite directions is that those who are caught up in love for the Lord love being led by the Lord more than anything else, and want the Lord alone to be in control. In contrast, if people are caught up in a love of controlling prompted by self-love, there is nothing they love more than leading themselves. They want to be the only ones who are in control.

The reason we refer to “a love of controlling prompted by self-love” is that there is a love of controlling out of a love of service. Since this love acts in unison with love for our neighbor, it is a spiritual love. In fact, it cannot truly be called a love of being in control: it should be called a love of service.

The reason spirits of all kinds turn toward their ruling loves is that for all of us, love is life, and life turns its vessels, called members, organs, and viscera—the whole person, therefore — toward the particular community that is engaged in a similar love, the community where our own love is.

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Since a love of controlling prompted by self-love is the absolute opposite of love for the Lord, spirits caught up in this love of controlling turn away from the Lord. So their eyes are looking toward that world’s west; and since their bodies are turned around, the east is behind them, the north is on their right, and the south is on their left.

The east is behind them because they harbor a hatred of the Lord; the north is on their right because they love illusions and the consequent distortions; and the south is on their left because they have no use for the light of wisdom.

They can turn this way and that, but still everything they see around themselves looks like their love.

They all are oriented toward outward nature and their senses. They are the kind of people who think they are the only ones who are really alive and who see others as unreal. They think they themselves are wiser than anyone else, even though they are insane.

In the spiritual world, you can see roads laid out like roads in our physical world. Some of them lead to heaven and some to hell. The roads that lead to hell are not visible to people who are going to heaven, and the roads that lead to heaven are not visible to people who are going to hell. There are more such roads than you can count, roads leading to each heavenly community and to each hellish 10

community. Each individual spirit sets out on the road that leads to the community of his or her own love and does not even see the roads that lead in other directions. As a result, when spirits turn toward their ruling love, they also travel.

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Angelic Wisdom about Divine Love Emanuel Swedenborg Divine Love and Wisdom (1763)

In the spiritual world, divine love and wisdom look like a sun. There are two worlds, one spiritual and one physical; and the spiritual world does not derive anything from the physical one, nor does the physical one derive anything from the spiritual one. They are completely distinct from each other, communicating only by means of correspondence, whose nature has been amply explained elsewhere.

The following example may be enlightening. Warmth in the physical world is the equivalent of the good that thoughtfulness does in the spiritual world, and light in the physical world is the equivalent of the truth that faith perceives in the spiritual world. No one can fail to see that warmth and the goodness of being thoughtful, and light and the truth of faith, are completely distinct from each other.

At first glance, they seem as distinct as two quite different things.

That is what comes to the fore when we start thinking about what the goodness of being thoughtful has in common with warmth and what the truth of faith has in common with light. Yet spiritual warmth is that very “goodness,” and spiritual light is that very “truth.” In spite of the 12

fact that they are so distinct from each other, though, they still make a single whole by means of their correspondence. They are so united that when we read about warmth and light in the Word, the spirits and angels who are with us see thoughtfulness in the place of warmth and faith in the place of light.

I include this example to make it clear that the two worlds, the spiritual one and the physical one, are so distinct from each other that they have nothing in common, and that still they have been created in such a way that they communicate with each other and are actually united through their correspondences.

Because these two worlds are so distinct from each other, it is quite obvious that the spiritual world is under a different sun than is the physical world. There is just as much warmth and light in the spiritual world as there is in the physical world, but the warmth there is spiritual and so is the light. Spiritual warmth is the good that thoughtfulness does and spiritual light is the truth that faith perceives.

Now, since the only possible source of warmth and light is a sun, it stands to reason that there is a different sun in the spiritual world than there is in the physical world. It also stands to reason that because of the essential nature of the spiritual world’s sun, spiritual warmth and light can come forth from it, while because of the 13

essential nature of the physical world’s sun, physical warmth [and light] can come forth from it. The only possible source of anything spiritual—that is, anything that has to do with what is good and true—is divine love and wisdom. Everything good is a result of love and everything true is a result of wisdom. Any wise individual can see that this is their only possible source.

People have not realized before that there is another sun besides the sun of our physical world. This is because our spiritual nature has become so deeply involved in our physical nature that people do not know what the word “spiritual” means. So they do not realize that there is a spiritual world other than and different from this physical one, a world where angels and spirits live.

Because that spiritual world has become so completely hidden from people in this physical world, the Lord has graciously opened the sight of my spirit so that I can see things in that world just the way I see things in this physical world, and then provide descriptions of that spiritual world. This I have done in the book Heaven and Hell, which has a chapter on the sun of the spiritual world. I have in fact seen it, and it seemed about the same size as the sun of this physical world. It had a similar fiery look, but was more reddish. I was given to understand that the whole angelic heaven lies beneath this sun and that angels of the third heaven see it constantly, angels of the second 14

heaven often, and angels of the first or most remote heaven occasionally.

It will be made clear in what follows that all their warmth and all their light—everything people see in that world—comes from that sun.

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Divine Truths Emanuel Swedenborg Divine Providence (1764)

1. The universe as a whole and in every detail was created out of divine love, by means of divine wisdom.

2. Divine love and wisdom radiate from the Lord as a single whole.

3. There is some image of this whole in everything that has been created.

4. It is the intent of divine providence that everything created, collectively and in every detail, should be this kind of whole, and that if it is not, it should become one.

5. The good that love does is actually good only to the extent that it is united to the truth that wisdom perceives, and the truth that wisdom perceives is actually true only to the extent that it is united to the good that love does.

6. If the good that love does is not united to the truth that wisdom perceives, it is not really good, but it may seem to be; and if the 16

truth that wisdom perceives is not united to the good that love does, it is not really true, but it may seem to be.

7. The Lord does not let anything remain divided. This means that things must be focused either on what is both good and true or on what is both evil and false.

8. If something is focused on what is both good and true, then it is something; but if it is focused on what is both evil and false, it is not anything at all.

9. The Lord’s divine providence works things out so that what is both evil and false promotes balance, evaluation, and purification, which means that it promotes the union of what is good and true in others.

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Love,

Will,

and Wisdom

Andrew Jackson Davis Principles of Nature (1847)

I discover, then, that the soul is composed of three distinct parts; and these are LOVE, WILL, and WISDOM.

LOVE is the first or rudimental element of the human soul. It is that liquid, mingling, delicate, inexpressible element which is felt in the depths of every human spirit, because it is its germinal essence.

WILL is a living force which serves as the connecting medium between Love and Wisdom, being subject to the influence and suggestions of each. It is the innate consciousness of energy, or force; and it has been supposed to be an absolutely-independent element of the mind, beyond the possibility of being influenced by external captivations.

WISDOM is the perfection of Love. It is the sealing element of the human soul; it is the establishment of the soul's perfect constitution.

Wisdom flows from love, is directed by experience, modified by will, and rendered perfect by knowledge. Wisdom is the thinking principle, the faculty that cogitates, investigates, searches, and explores, the 18

fields of terrestrial and celestial existence. It is the faculty that analyzes, calculates, and imperatively commands obedience from all the subordinate possessions of Will and Love.

These three parts of the human soul, then, being designated, I will descend into some considerations relative to their mode of rnanifestation through the body in the outer world, in order that the great question respecting the powers and actuating principles of the human soul may become settled, and equally comprehended by all.

LOVE being the first element, or the essence of the soul, is accordingly imperfect, unguided, and, like the lower forms in Nature, is developed angularly. It is the parent of eccentricity, impulse, fantasy, imagination, and inflated conceptions of all things invisible, intangible, and unreal. Also Love is the element of tenderness, kindness, affection, attachment, and of all kinds of pure and unsophisticated sentiments, such as gush spontaneously from the depths of the soul, and are expressed in music, in language, in paintings, in foliage, in embroidery, and in all the indescribable beauties that line the vaulted chambers of the expanded heavens.

Love is the element that conceives of all loveliness, of gentleness, of sweetness, of fragrance, and of beauty, in all their various modes of exterior manifestation.

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From the faculty of Love, as the basis of the soul, flows the faculty of WILL. This then becomes the mediatorial faculty of the human mind, and is the means employed by Love to accomplish whatever end it desires. Herein are made plain the three moving principles engaged in accomplishing any end conceived of and' desired. Love perceives and conceives that which is congenial to, its affections. The end to be attained is the cause of Love's prompting the Will to act upon the body in order to accomplish it. In other words, Will is employed as a means by Love to attain this end: for which it has an affection.

Will in all cases is subject to the promptings of the element of Love, and its acts in all cases originate in the suggestions thence derived.

Will is the faculty employed to move the body in the performance of any external work for the accomplishment: of which the Love has conceived an affection. Love conceives of the end or object which would be suited to its affection, and gratifying to its! desires; and the perception of this is the primary cause of the Love's prompting the Will to act for its accomplishment. The Will, however, is a living force, a perfect faculty, and a decided portion of the soul. By its inherent possessions and influence, the body is made to move; and all the changing attitudes of the latter are the exteriors forms and projections of the faculty of Will. In other words, Will evolves thoughts, as they are suggested by the workings of Love and Love's affections; and these thoughts of the Will are expressed in manifest forms to the 20

outer world — that is, in the assumed appearances and movements of the body, and in all external actions that are put forth by it. All these are the exterior forms of the thoughts evolved by Will. The latter being a means employed by Love to institute, construct, or create, any form for which the Love has conceived an affection, it is therefore a mediator and means by which all motion, all construction, and all exterior manifestations, are produced.

Will has no independent action, and cannot institute a movement of itself: but it moves only as it is excited and prompted by the Love.

Love, therefore, is the primary cause of external action; and Will is the effect produced: and the effects of this, again, are the exterior things which it accomplishes. In other words, Will is employed by Love to develop externally the expression of its own thoughts.

The third faculty of the soul is evolved from Will and Love, and is the highest and most perfect one; and this joins and pervades the others, so that the three form a perfect Whole. This faculty is WISDOM.

The office of Wisdom is to listen silently to the suggestions of Love and Will, and to modify these according to reason, form, order, and perfect harmony. Love without Will would be eccentric, impulsive, disorderly, and confused, even to such an extent that the whole system of Nature would be nothing more than a vast congregation of 21

disorganized forms. Everything would be misplaced, misformed, misconstructed, and rendered useless to the requirements of man.

But Love being modified by Will, becomes at once limited as to its circle of movement, and confined in its conceptions to a definite sphere. Yet Love and Will would both be eccentric and ungoverned in their movements among material things, were it not for the presence of Wisdom, which presides over and directs them both.

Wisdom is contained in the germ of the soul, which is Love — is developed in the body, which is Will — and perfected in the flower, which is itself. Wisdom, then, pervades, directs, modifies, and governs them all, because it is the crowning faculty of the soul, and the most perfect of all its attributes.

Will, then, is the perfection of Love, and hence receives, contains, and continually manifests, all the qualities, thoughts, affections, and desires of Love. And Wisdom is the perfect form of them both, because Wisdom is an ultimate progression of them; and it is a representation of all their latent qualities and unexpressed affections.

Wisdom — is that faculty of the soul which gives order and form to all things in the outer world; and Love gives to order and form light, life, taste, grace, and elegance. And Will is the executive faculty between Wisdom and Love, and obeys perpetually the suggestions of Love as these are sanctioned by Wisdom.

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The eccentricity of Love and Will is very much modified by the pervading and controlling influence of Wisdom, which becomes their director, governor, and lord. Were it not for Wisdom, order, form, and adaptation, would not be known, either in the natural or artificial world. So, then, the outward form of' Wisdom is the perfect order and uniformity displayed in the outer world. The perfect form of Love is the use for which all external things are designed and adapted. Love is also expressed in the life, grace, and elegance, which render every exterior form lovely and admirable.

Thus it is seen that Wisdom is the great head and flower of the human soul, and that it is perpetually engaged in the evolution of thoughts which clothe themselves in material things in the outer world. The more Wisdom is permitted to act, the more its sphere of action is extended, and the more will the natural and artificial world display beauty, order, and harmony. But the more it is restricted in its action, and the less its teachings are heeded, the more will Nature and the artificial creations of man become a disorganized and useless system, instead of displaying peace, order, beauty, and universal reciprocation. Love is only the life of things; Will is the means employed to obtain a desired end; but Wisdom is the order, beauty, harmony, and perfection of them all.

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The Great Divine Mind, in essence, is Love: this is the light and life of the Universe. The Universe itself is the Body of Love, and its perfect Form. But Wisdom is the highest attribute, and the great ultimate of eternal Design. And Wisdom gives to Light and Life a Body — and to this Body, Order and Form. The whole is rendered thereby a harmonious

System,

each

outward

form

being

a

perfect

representative of its creative cause.

The following, then, are the three Parts of the great and universal System: The Divine Mind, or Love, which is the Soul; the Universe, which is the Form, Means, Mediator, and Body; and Spirit, which is the Order, the Form, the Wisdom, and the GRAND DESIGN of the whole System of the Univercoelum. The End primarily designed to be accomplished was the individualization of the human spirit; and for the attainment of this, Cause and Effect were brought into requisition.

The Divine Mind is the Cause, the Universe is the Effect, and Spirit is the ultimate Design. The truth of this is demonstrated in every department of this terrestrial sphere, and is particularly exemplified in the nature and developments of the human soul, which are in exact correspondence with the great System of the Universe. Everything is perpetually displaying, in its inward and outward movements, End, Cause, and Effect; and Light and Life are Love, and Order and Form are Wisdom.

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And the first and most comprehensive attribute that is manifested in these forms is divine Wisdom. And their unity and harmonious reciprocation prove that Wisdom is the higher attribute flowing from the Fountain of divine Love. Love, therefore, determines the universal relationship, and Wisdom the universal adaptation. So these attributes are the highest laws of Nature, comprehending within themselves various modifications of the same principles as all flowing from the same exhaustless Fountain wherein exists infinite Intelligence.

This is the Vortex from which are unfolded successively the receding waves of a united Universe. And one of these is an index to the expanding sublimities of another; and so their ceaseless flowings comprehend the whole Univercoelum. And as these are the flowings of the general materials in space, so the earth constitutes a similar vortex of power, which rolls forth succeeding waves from the mineral to the vegetable, to the animal, and to man: and the breathings of inherent qualities transcend Motion, Life, and Sensation, and form a pure and exalted Spirit. The wave of development is not arrested here, but it goes on throughout the unimaginable spheres in the interior world, until it approximates and is responded to by the Great Positive Mind. Thus are the concentric circles of material creation unfolded — which correspond to, and absolutely prove, the

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concentric circles of spiritual creation and spiritual, endless progression!

Thus the great Vortex is a living, exhaustless Fountain, wherein dwell infinite Love and Wisdom, and from which flow the undefinable worlds which pervade the whole Univercoelum. And these are formed by succeeding and expanding waves, the same principle being distinctly manifested in every department of animated Nature.

The Universe, therefore, is an ocean of activity, even as the Univercoelum is a boundless ocean of infinite Love and Wisdom.

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Divine Love Andrew Jackson Davis The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse (1851)

The various sects and systems of faith existing, all evince the conception and impression of Unity sometime in the future.

Each

sect, however, entertains but partial and in many respects incorrect conceptions of that period, as each does also of God, of Immortality, and of that future Happiness to which mankind individually aspire; yet the very existence of such a conception of heavenly happiness or millennial harmony among all sects and nations, and in all periods of human history, proves that the elements and causes of that conception are eternal in Man and in Nature, and, therefore, homogeneous with the constitution and design of the Divine Mind.

Unity, in Man and in Society, includes the full growth and harmonious action of every Passion, Desire, or Love.

This is the ultimate of

God’s design and of human desire; and when it is accomplished, Man will be in harmony with Himself, with his Neighbor, with the Universe, and with THE UNIVERSAL FATHER.

He who prays, who, in the very center of his heart, earnestly and honestly and continually DESIRES to acquire temperance, and patience, and truth, and love to the neighbor, and love to God; and 27

he prays who feels a perpetual gratitude for all the blessings he enjoys, for the sun’s light and heat, for the summer and winter, for seed-time and harvest, for the love he is enabled to bear to his enemies, and the forgiveness with which he can forgive them; for the love which others consecrate to him; for the unchangeable manifestations of DIVINE LOVE—that love greater than all: and DIVINE WILL— that will which is without shadow of turning; and DIVINE WISDOM— that wisdom which is universal, — these attributes of the FATHER spreading throughout nature’s boundless territories; if he be thus deserving and thus thankful, then that man prays “without ceasing” — he prays that holy and glowing prayer which the angels love to gaze upon — that living prayer which sanctifies his own soul! Such prayers seldom express themselves in words; they incarnate and embody themselves in righteous deeds!

But they who have already attained to celestial heights, as well as those who have not yet advanced far in the spiritual country, they can behold us from where they are, and in our evening meditations; in our profoundest slumbers; in our daily occupations; in our “circles” of fraternal love; the spirit-friends, whom our souls most attract, come to us and breathe their pure and beautiful sentiments into our souls.

And when, by reading our thoughts, they see us in trouble or in danger, it is reasonable to anticipate the reception (that is, if the vessels of our minds will admit the influx) of some spiritual 28

assistance and direction from the angel’s home.

There has never before existed upon this earth so much mental, and moral, and religious freedom, — never so much actual goodness and universal love, — we have grown almost to the spiritual world; and the period even now appears brief when humanity will realize its nearness to, and friendship for, the spirit-land; and man shall aspire to be like unto the angels!

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Undiminishable Love Andrew Jackson Davis The Teacher (1854)

The human Soul is capable of inconceivable expansion; its sensibilities are pure and almost immeasurable. The female Spirit feels a boundless, undiminishable love; the male is conscious of a high and insurmountable wisdom; and these embodied principles irresistibly seek and implore the presence of one another. To every individual, its counterpart — the one most loved — is the purest, the greatest, and the most beautiful, of all human beings; others may be beautiful and attractive, and may possess in reality many more accomplishments; but to the lover, the one beloved is the most beautiful; because there is felt an inwrought adaptation of desire to desire, impulse to impulse, organization to organization, Soul to Soul! This philosophy of marriage is that which angels know — the only true marriage, which originated with the Divine Mind; which is sometimes prophetically or incipiently indicated on the earth; which is enjoyed in all spheres of angelic and seraphic life; and which is spontaneously established by the sublime Law of Association that conjugally unites Atom to Atom, Spirit to Spirit, Angel to Seraph, and God to the Universe!

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Love is All in All Andrew Jackson Davis The Reformer (1855)

True marriage, remember, is of the spirit. Without this, all happiness is fleeting. Spiritual enjoyment has a sun-like power over the world, reflecting light and warmth, and beautifully fertilizing all the earth, whereon the streams of life flow onward. Therefore, you should not bring to your mate merely that which is corruptible. High-born natures, the spiritually tempered and harmonially exalted, cannot easily bear to think that the spirit should yearn through the flesh. “Yet,” says such a soul, “do I respect the body as the ‘temple’ wherein my love now dwelleth to perfect the soul; as the ‘garden’ wherein the spirit buds to blossom; as a ‘cradle’ where the infant-life is rocked; as a ‘cottage’ where I wait for a moment; as a ‘palace’ where the spirit is crowned; as an ‘altar’ from which I aspire unto the infinite, till prepared I shall rise and dissolved it shall fall.”

True lovers are each other’s translators. Feeling the same gratification, and receiving the same benefits, the twain can quote to each other the same expressions: “O best Beloved, thou hast unlocked the love-treasures of my soul; thou hast descended to the hidden mine and brought the jewels forth — jewels which before I 31

had no knowledge of possessing; thou hast shown me they were God’s, and of unsullied purity; thou hast bade me deck my soul therewith, for they are mine and thine for evermore; thou hast opened all the pent-up streams of undying love in my soul, that they might rush into the ocean of thy spirit, mingling my whole life unreservedly with thine! My soul was to itself a stranger till thou introduced me to myself. Thou camest to my imprisoned nature, brought with thee the lamp of truth, unclasped the prisoners’ chain, set the captive free, and led my spirit forth from darkness; and now, Beloved, our dual natures mingle into one essence, and I yearn from all earth’s trammels and pageants to escape and be with thee and only thine through all the embowered spheres and rose-crowned periods of never-ending existence! Thou art the Home of my soul; my heart’s resting-place; and the imperishable seeks thee, because its life thou art. The immortal in me woos thee, for thou art its Heaven.

My eternal essence would mingle with its undying whole! I sit with thee beneath the shadow of the ‘tree of righteousness,’ and all around us bright fadeless flowers are springing, and I gather them, and thou dost form of them a beauteous wreath to crown and bespangle me like an angel; or, leaning lovingly and confidingly on thee, I ascend the mountain of life, and from its glorious heights, gaze far and wide into the Universe, beholding beauties and deific sublimities unutterable; yea, like a child I rest in boundless confidence upon thy bosom, and thou art ever near — forever mine 32

and mine only: this, this, my own best Beloved, maketh earth a heaven; and the templed aphorisms of my soul’s deepest heart, blending their voices with those of my understanding, assure me that this happiness shall continue without alloy — changeless and eternal as the universal God. Yea more, my own true Heart — while with thee, all earth-life is divine! I love to hear the murmuring stream, and listen to its rippling lay: I love to gaze on some bright star, and feel the beauty of its silent joy; but better do I love thy sweet loving tones whispering in mine willing ear; my inmost heart stands still when thy lips doth part to speak to me; and brighter than the brightest star is thine eye — it beams more dear on mine; I love the sun as it lays the beams of beauty over the earth, and upbuilds the palace bf the day; I love yet more the flowery Spring, with its glorious array of virgin beauties; but all these bring me no joy, if thou, Best Beloved, art away; my heart has love for all that’s fair and beautiful upon the earth; but nought is fair where thou art not, and in thy absence joys are dearth; I love to think of worlds afar, and of a pure life beyond the tomb; and oh, the thought to meet thee there robs the grave-passage of its gloom. Yea, I love to think of that blight virgin world, Beloved, where joys eternal reign; and I pray to meet thee, on yon love-lit shore, never to part again! The soul hath its aphorisms; and I feel that I shall surely see thee there, Beloved, and wander childlike by thy side — as thy spirit’s mate; we will voyage from world to world, on wings of thought, acquiring Love and Wisdom denied to us by earth: 33

O, glorious thought! That when truly enfranchised from the ills of life — our spirits liberated from Passion’s thrall — we become the blest inheritors of eternal worlds, where LOVE is ALL IN ALL!”

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Our Spirit Guides Flashes of Light Mrs. J. H. Conant (1872)

Question: We are told every person has a spirit-guide. If this is so, by whom or by what law are they appointed?

Answer:

It is to be supposed that every person dwelling here in physical life has some one spirit, if not more, who, in obedience to the law of want and supply, will be attracted to him or her. These spirits take a deep interest in them, and exercise a watchful care over the frailties of human life. Such would be considered guardian spirits. They are so by virtue of spiritual law; they come to you, if at all, by spiritual attraction. All souls, as well as the atoms of life, are repelled from or attracted to each other, as the case may be, by fixed law. If a soul is drawn to you, it is drawn by law, fixed law, and becomes your guardian spirit by law.

Love is an attribute of law, divine, perfect, and holy, and it is the avenue by and through which your guardian spirits work. They love you, hence they seek to do you good; they come to you and watch 35

over you. Because you are told that each has a guardian spirit, you are not to suppose that they are always present, and never absent.

They come when the law of their being and yours demands that they shall come. Are you sick? You desire to be well, and your interior life instinctively and naturally extends out for something higher, beyond you, to make you better. It matters not whether it be the great God, or some kind spirit; and this desire reaches out to these spirits, and they come to you because they love you. Then the need is supplied, they leave you, and wait till the next occasion brings them to your side.

36

Think Thoughts of Love Ralph Waldo Trine What All the World’s A Seeking (1896)

We are all living, so to speak, in a vast ocean of thought. The very atmosphere about us is charged with the thought-forces that are being continually sent out. When the thought-forces leave the brain, they go out upon the atmosphere, the subtle conducting ether, much the same as sound-waves go out. It is by virtue of this law that thought transference is possible, and has become an established scientific fact, by virtue of which a person can so direct his thought-forces that a person at a distance, and in a receptive attitude, can get the thought much the same as sound, for example, is conducted through the agency of a connecting medium.

Even though the thoughts as they leave a particular person, are not consciously directed, they go out; and all may be influenced by them in a greater or less degree, each one in proportion as he or she is more or less sensitively organized, or in proportion as he or she is negative, and so open to forces and influences from without. The law operating here is one with that great law of the universe, -- that like attracts like, so that one continually attracts to himself forces and influences most akin to those of his own life. And his own life is 37

determined by the thoughts and emotions he habitually entertains, for each is building his world from within. As within, so without; cause, effect.

Thought is the great builder in human life: it is the determining factor.

Continually think thoughts that are good, and your life will show forth in goodness, and your body in health and beauty. Continually think evil and your life will show forth in evil, and your body in weakness and repulsiveness. Think thoughts of love, and you will love and will be loved. Think thoughts of hatred, and you will hate and will be hated. Each follows its kind.

38

Exegetical Spiritualism — Inspiration Seers of The Ages: Embracing Spiritualism Past and Present J. M. Peebles (1898)

Inspiration comes obedient to the law of attraction; it is as natural to the mental affections as air to the lungs. It is ever ratioed to the plane of our moral status of character. Only the active, thinking, loving, aspiring mind is truly inspired. We get here what we seek. There are spiritual strata of inspiration as there are natural strata in our material atmospheres for each grade of sentient being.

We may, therefore, be inspired in the department of passion, of reflection, of invention, of music, of poetry, of patriotism, of philanthropy, of the loves of childhood, of moral justice, of divine recognition, just as we adjust and habituate these functional organs and faculties. The lower the plane the inspiration; the higher the plane the

grosser is the qualitative

purer is the inspiration. Our

status of love-life determines the degree of our heaven or spiritual sphere of use. If we would be ushered into holy light, the holiest purpose must animate the will to corresponding activities. Thus, and thus only, do we drink of the immortal fountains of undimmed and celestial goodness. Under such an inspiration, we are able to discover defects in our forces of character, creating a keen, sharp 39

pain in a tender conscience that rouses up to dormant faculties to higher points of mind and up in visions as an attainable glory. deepest pain when any taint is

focalize those

heart, that then loom

The holiest spirits have the

found upon their inner life. When

admitted to inspirations and consociations of such spirits, our unstrung or untouched chords of love are attuned to heavenly order, when our whole being is at length spiritually musicalized, heard and felt in raptured gratitude to the "white-vestured" come to lead us into their Edens of Innocence and Beauty.

Believing in inspiration, then, we would go up day by day

on to

the Mount of Transfiguration; would open the windows of our souls to the constant reception of higher truths ; would be charitable to all fresh thoughts, from whatever source, to all newly conceived ideas, for they may have traveled as blessings down from sunnier zones.

Behind even the faintest corruscation of some weird, half-expressed truth, there may gleam a star silver-shrouded, or a celestial sun awaiting earthly recognition.

God is in the present. The books of inspiration are not closed and sealed. Ideas, principles, the laws of pure intelligence, require no crutches. Americans can stand erect without spinal stiffenings from Asian monuments. Prayer need not float to heaven on the breath of ancient memories; nor assume oriental attitudes to secure a hearing.

40

"Where'er there's a life to be kindled by love, "Wherever a soul to inspire, Strike this key-note of God that trembles above, Night's silver-tongued voices of fire."

Our granite-hills and highlands, are sacred as Israel's mountains; our rivers holy as the Jordan’s of Asia, and our forests beautiful as the olives and cedars that shaded Lebanon. God did not speak his first word to Moses in the Old Testament; nor pronounce his last to John on Patmos. The aspirations of true men cannot be held in subjection to the letter of past revelations. Souls

slavish

must have living

bread. They must bathe in living streams, branching from the “River of Life." They must be free as God's winds — free as the loves of the angels.

Inspirations can never know a finality, being manifest in all forms of life ; in the progressive movements of the ages; in religion, art and science; in the moral heroism of reformers; in the tender affections of woman; in the ministry of spirits; in the sincere devotions of the prayerful, and in the sweet trust of a pure and holy life.

41

Genuine Love William W. Aber The Guiding Star (1905)

Could mortals appreciate their returning spirit friends with the same affection, the same fondness, as before they passed to spirit life, it would be a source of much added pleasure to us, but most mortals regard that, when the body dies, all affection dies with it, and when spirits do return to their friends left on earth, they are scarcely ever welcomed back with the old time reciprocal heartfelt affection, the love of other years does seem to be dead on the mortal's side of life, and the spirit perceiving this cold hearted reception is repelled with a feeling of sadness and sorrow. For the spirit, on the other hand has been quickened in all the powers of genuine love, not some of the evanescent loves of earth, but love, genuine and abiding, glowing even more fervently as we pass on to the higher spheres. We may say that, such love is as enduring as the spirit and ever glowing more intensely all beyond the comprehension of mortals.

Many in the marriage relation raise up families in which there is not the love that should be; often, only, because the wife did not understand the husband or the husband did not understand the wife, or neither understood the other. Often in such case, the husband for 42

instance, seeks another; when, in fact, his wife on earth is his true affinity, but he does not know it, until later, because he did not understand her while on earth.

43

Heavenly Joy Immortality and Our Employments Hereafter JM Peebles (1907)

“It often occurs that parents pass to the spirit world not long before their children, or perhaps at the same time. Being uninstructed in spiritual things, being ignorant of many, very many of the spiritual laws, they are ill fitted to develop the spiritual life of the child.

Therefore, never mourn that you cannot go when your child goes. It has wiser nurses than you — nobler teachers; if it has not more love, yet it has a higher love — the love developed by wisdom.”

“The

spirits

of

little

children

are

always

magnetized

into

unconsciousness before death. They are never left to pass away and know the change. Sweetly sleeping, they are borne by the loved ones heavenward, laid upon downy couches, fanned by gentle breezes. Sometimes they sleep for days, for their spirits are tired with the unnatural pains of earth. They awake refreshed, and open their eyes upon the beautiful objects that childhood loves, — the most beautiful flowers, bright colors, and sweetly singing birds. And when the little one becomes accustomed to its celestial life, and feels the exultation of freedom from pain and weariness, then it is prepared to visit often those who call for it by continual longing. The wishing and 44

longings of the hearts of earth are the spirit voices of earth. You speak your desire when you long earnestly, for your spirit speaks.

With loving hands the ministering angel bears these little children back to the homes of earth, that they may feel the warmth of parental love and know the joy of earthly affections. If around the earthly parents or friends there is a healthful spiritual atmosphere, they oft-times remain days, and with their little voices send to the spirit car of the desolate parents’ heavenly joy. It is the spirit that must behold them, and without the aid of the external vision the spirit recognizes them. But even when not borne thus, by their life they keep still the link to earth. Is there anything imperfect in the universe of God?

45

The Seventh Sphere J.M. Peebles Immortality and Our Employments Hereafter (1907)

“Light now dawns with celestial brilliancy! The scenery is grand; the teachers are from the celestial spheres. Unity of feeling and love universally pervades this divine realm. They have vast universities.

In one of these were surgeons from various parts of the world — America, England, France, Russia, Prussia, China, Japan, and other countries of the globe.

“The studies here were anatomical, psychological, and spiritual; also great attention was given to the laws of mesmerism, magnetism, impressional and inspirational influences, that they might by influx become better understood upon earth. . . .

“In this circle they do not seem to have fixed habitations, but when they need a covering, it is immediately improvised from the elements; they talk with each other by looks — being transparent, they see each other’s thoughts; when they wish for refreshment they compound it out of the elements, and from etherealized fluids; they telegraph by thought of the spirit. The air is melodious with warbling notes of gaily plumaged birds. These spirits visit by thought and will.

46

They descend to the other circles and to the earth to teach. Here are children descending in groups from the celestial heavens, covered with flowers, and bearing baskets of fruit on their arms, to be taught in wisdom and music, and the composition of flowers, to be prepared to visit other spheres and earth, and gather knowledge. They are very noble in stature, symmetrical in form, and pure in spirit, constantly joining together in singing, praise, and worship, and they manifest great joy and congeniality of mind. . , .

“Each acts up to his ideal — and labor is a work of love. I see in this celestial sphere no insects or lower forms of animal life. I see multitudes of spirits coursing their way through the elements, visiting and commingling with each other in different parts of the circle, and visiting the earth and spheres and then returning. . . .

“The joy here is ecstatic. Thousands of happy children assemble to greet with music and messages of love those who arrive from other spheres as visitors or explorers in the realm of thought. Their very motions are musical, and they converse by looks and facial expressions. Oh, could you connect with this vital cord and ascend up here and behold the glory and joy that reigns, you would not wish to return. I shall soon be with you again, but do not desire to stay, but must, so they say, return and take up the body. I want you to prepare while living to ascend to the celestial spheres, and live with these 47

joyous and happy spirits.� . . .

48

Love Mary Ann Evans The Dawn of Another Life (1910)

We have, since coming to this side of life, seen and heard mortals of earth

express

their

pride

in

attaining

for

themselves

an

understanding of all languages of men; airing their selfish pride of having the noted distinction of being linguists; but all this amounted really to nothing better than dribble; for in entering the spirit world they will all find that we converse in precisely the same language, and any other language but English is obliterated over here, and so you see they have lost the best part after all in not learning or trying to learn the language of all nature, so that they might communicate with the flowers, birds and trees, and dwell in the heart of earth-pulsing life; and when the time comes for the great disrobing and donning the bright raiment of spirit life, they would have so gained by their understanding and life close to Nature that on entering the Spirit Realms, they would actually be at once caught up in the Realms of the Blest! Ah, that mortals could comprehend once and for all, that all life is dependent upon some other life and that this is the reason that love must exist in everything! Otherwise, what a different world you of the earth, would be living in today! We are laboring, and expect to continue to labor with the world until this ideal 49

and sublime condition is reached.

The soul that forgets all wrong, that looks over all error and only realizes undeveloped good in the whole, is the soul in which love exist in large and overflowing measure. Such souls are the ones who become instruments in the hands of the spirits to enlighten and save the world. In the early springtime as we walk abroad in the fields, filled with delight at the peeping violets which are just beginning to show their faces, we know as we gaze at them that naught but love painted the tender pale purple of their petals, and that this divine power of love gives them their precious life from day to day.

We witness the kingly majesty of the great seagull as he soars aloft seemingly into the very blue vaults of Heaven and speeds over all his vast domain like a prince of strength and power! Ah! With him also goes ever that ecstasy, that all-powerful fullness of life which is love, and which is like unto God! How can you doubt, oh mortals of earth, that love rules your universe, when you see each day of your life all around you the wonders of Nature's own making, that utter dependence of one life on another, and from such dependence springs the divine principle, Love! This same searching power shall at last, penetrate the darkest corners of your world, shall at last enter all hearts with its sweet strength and set them every one aright! Even as the sun envelops and warms your earth, giving it light and heat 50

always, so shall this love-power be known of men and respected of humanity! Think what this will mean; when money will not have to be under the lock, when mortals will cease to bear false witness against each other and joy shall reign King.

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Love BF Austin Self-Unfoldment (1917)

That love which casteth out all fear and by which alone the whole law is fulfilled. When your whole soul is filled with love, when you feel that every atom of your whole being is love itself and is pouring out love to every creature just as the sun pours out its light and heat, yes and its very many other influences, also, upon all alike, then you will have nothing to fear for such love needs no other protection.

No Devil, demon or other influences of darkness can then trouble you, for when the light has come, the darkness is gone. Then you can become a true medium and influenced by your own higher nature, the nature which is of God—which is God, you can give out messages of truth and power and be a medium in the highest sense of the word. The love of which I speak brings peace, the peace that passeth understanding.

I wonder if any of you know what it is to get perfectly still, so still that you can see your own mentality, as it were, without one ripple of thought, yet intensely conscious. Did any of you ever come into touch with the Great Cosmic Consciousness when you knew that you 52

had no separate life yourself, but were just living in the One Life One with every being in the universe? Were any of you ever away out on the Great Ocean in a little boat when it was perfectly calm—when not one ripple disturbed the whole surface of the water but it lay like one vast mirror reflecting all above it?

Now let your own consciousness become perfectly still, let no ripple of self—no thought from the intellect—not one vibration disturb your own mirror of consciousness, that consciousness which is so much more conscious than ever before that it cannot be expressed in words and call perfectly mirror forth or reflect the Super-Conscious mind, can become a true medium by which may be shown the truth, from on high, from the Super-Conscious regions of the universe.

There is a Super-Conscious region or part of the mind, just as there is a sub-conscious. But in order to give a true reflection the consciousness has to get still. "Be still and know that I am God." It has to be still and then be lighted by the Great Universal Love—love for all—just as the surface of the ocean has to be illumined by the Great Sun.

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The Cleansed Temple Mary Bruce Wallace Spiritual Reconstruction (1918)

By one’s self is evil done, and by one’s self one suffers. By one’s self evil is left undone, and by one’s self is purified. Purity and impurity belong to one’s self, no one can purify together.

Buddhist Scriptures

The mind which is pure is open at all times to the purest. As you begin to cleanse the mind, you realize what a great work this is. To turn out the storehouse of memory you will have to strike at the roots of the old race consciousness. Every day this will be necessary in thought, act and speech. The best and highest way to begin is to recognise the eternal present, the I AM. You have no past records; all your knowledge of life and being is in the divine intelligence.

Remember this all day long, and you create unconsciously an atmosphere of love and purity. Whenever your thoughts turn to the nations at war with us, send out love. Every thought kills a thought of hate; for love is the weapon that wins. You will love your enemies.

These words may seem very simple to you, but let them be in your lives as positive truths. God grant it. There is so much waiting to be 54

done, real work of the spirit, but you cannot do such work without preparation. You are in the world for the purpose of manifesting the works of God. Think of this and you will see the need for a pure heart and mind.

You will need all your courage and faith for the coming days. The vibrations of those tremendous forces in the spiritual realm will cause great disruption on the material plane, because there will be a complete change in all old-world schemes. Fresh methods, finer resources will be brought to bear on material conditions, and much that has seemed of considerable importance will be entirely subordinated to the more necessary and vital concerns of life.

Men and women will be more ready for comradeship and co-operation. Children will have the education most helpful for their future and for the good of the whole. The day is dawning, and those who dwell in the innermost must keep watch before the sanctuary of the heart.

55

Love Will Reign Supreme W. Maslin Frysinger Some Psychic Problems (1919)

In that future state (of the next world), as in the present, there will be demands made upon the spirit-being higher than those imposed by natural law. There, as here, there will of necessity be a social order.

This world is a scene of social disorder. Whatever may be the cause of this, one of two things must happen — social harmony must be brought about by moral improvement, or the race must perish. The one thing which is tending to produce a condition of harmony is not knowledge, not invention, not the development of material resources, not the multiplication of means of alleviating the sufferings and adding to the comforts of an earthly life, but the growth of the feeling of brotherhood, promoted by the exercise of the elemental emotions of the spirit. “An emotion is but a frame of mind,” says Olston, “a series of mental processes.” Making the mind the total of personality leads to this error. “Neither our aesthetic emotions nor our moral sentiments are the product of ratiocination,” says Arthur J. Balfour.

The emotions are deeper than the mind. Feeling is not a mental quality. “I have feelings,” says Lyman Abbott, “but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.” The elemental emotions of the spirit may be 56

summed up in one word, love. Love is the life of harmony. It unites the sexes, it is the bond of the family, it cements friendship, it makes friends of enemies, it forgives the erring, it seeks the common good, it knows no barriers of prejudice, of caste, of tribal, national or racial divisions. It is the one and only force which can master all the other forces of the human spirit and finally reduce to order the confused and conflicting social conditions existing in this world. It is evident that the spirit is here undergoing a moral discipline which may not only qualify it to contribute to the improvement of these present conditions, but also to adapt itself to the changed conditions of the higher sphere it is destined to occupy.

As we have already said, the particular conditions of a future state are unknown to us, but reason combines with consciousness to assure us that its normal condition in general is one of order, making the spirit’s environment one of uninterrupted peace and harmony. As the one law of gravitation will preserve the harmony of the material system in which it will find itself, so the one law of love will preserve social harmony. No written decrees will be needed to regulate the intercourse or pursuits of the inhabitants of those celestial regions any more than they are needed to control the movements of the spheres. Love will reign supreme. Knowledge may be increased to an immeasurable extent, the imagination may take flights of inconceivable length and breadth and height and depth, memory 57

may accumulate a store of incalculable treasures, art may find exalted expression in heavenly sights and sounds, but love will out-measure them all, love will appropriate them all, love will use them all, love will transfigure them all. And even the will, now the regnant power in man, will submit to love and own its sway, for love can never go wrong. And so, all the powers which give nobility to man’s nature will be crowned by this resplendent attribute of the spirit

“While life and thought and being last, Or immortality endures.�

58

God's Love is for All Gail Williams Fear Not the Crossing (1920)

There is nothing that can half express the life on this side of what mortals call death, that change that has been given by them particular emphasis. All life is change. The transition wrought by succeeding years, making the wonderful personality of the adult from the animated human mechanism called a baby, is really a more complete annihilation of the original nucleus, than is the change wrought by passing from your state to ours.

And is that state so perfect that altering its condition can rationally be feared? Surely not. Rather, from a detached analysis it ought to be clear to all sincere thinkers that certain conditions in your so called life are not met adequately. Not until love is understood will life on your side attain beauty; whereas, on this side, the entire emphasis of life is placed differently.

Here there is a wonder of generosity abounding. We are working to give, not to get, and in service we find all that once we used always to be seeking, always, alas, in vain.

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God is much closer than you know. You have been told, but do not realize, what His presence effects. All that is required of you is the mere thinking of Him — that alone brings about direct harmony, a state of such beauty, such perfect peace and love that it seems astounding that this greatest blessing is rarely used. I myself considered prayer a childish superstition. But to think of God is prayer, and that gives strength for every possible call, and comfort in every sorrow and perplexity, and peace sublime and boundless. That I never knew, nor do most people.

But the war is changing religion. It will be more perfectly comprehended; from now on great spiritual development will occur.

And love will prevail for all the race, together with a greater sense of personal responsibility. In the place of lost ones there will be all mankind to care for. The old days cannot return, nor will love again be so limited and misunderstood.

God's love is for all who hunger for it, and our power for love, our greatest gift from Him, must not be of a different quality, narrow in essence, to be jetted here and there in cruel niggardliness; but rather our love must be so great that the warmth of it will fairly radiate in joyous boundlessness. There will be still unworthy ones, but love has the gift of generation.

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Do not cease to have as fine ideals for others as for yourself.

Discrimination is essential, but turn not away from those whose faults are grave, and exasperating even; reflect on causes and find ways for overcoming their results. Create opportunities for development.

Be, as it were, doctors in love. You cannot love too much.

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With Love in Our Eyes Gail Williams Fear Not the Crossing (1920)

Life is, in its essence, an unfolding of the powers that lie undeveloped until called into fruition by necessities that arise, whereupon they spring into being in answer to the demand.

Happiness is not, therefore, the state most desirable, because it too often means stagnation. Rather, experiences, varied and manifold, are the gifts to be sought for from fortune. It is through them that the most golden path way of life is found; the way over obstacles, no matter how severe, leads always beyond, and ultimately means the highest progress.

The approach to God lies not over level stretches, but directly up towering

heights,

which

must

be

traversed,

though

with

heart-breaking pain and long continued suffering. The price of achievement is slight, however, in comparison to the abounding joy of attainment.

And always there is love, kindled by love extended. With love in our eyes, we are met with love wherever we look until its beauty is as constant as the overflowing beauty of the skies.

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Let us then meet each day with a new sense of proportion. Let us not think of death as an ending of our lives, but as an incident in them, and as of something not too significant. What is significant is love, the giving of it generously and the perceiving of it generously; the complete, scrupulous performing of all work offered for our doing each day; the realizing of our unity as a whole, rather than too keen an awareness of our separate entities.

Let go the idea of personal individuality. Live for God rather than self.

Try to find Him in service for others. To be responsive to His will, to feel His impulses govern yours, as yours in turn govern your different members, that is indeed to know perfect Joy, the Peace of God.

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The Celestial Realm Walter DeVoe Inspiration (1932) A great and glorious sphere of soul-light shines unceasingly above our sphere of mental darkness. Within that Celestial Sphere dwell those mighty Immortals who have mastered the heaviness of earth's mentality, and have risen into the exaltation of heavenly freedom.

There are congregated in the unity of Love all souls who have outgrown mortal weaknesses and become victorious over their limitations by the exercise of their immortal strength. We think of these glorified human beings as we affirm:

Angels Powerful, Angels Radiant, Fill our lives with Healing Love.

We have discovered that the Creator has placed a fountain of living, healing love within our souls, and we are beginning to experience this love most vividly as we cultivate our spiritual imagination by thinking of the Victorious Immortals, and expressing our soul love in blessing them. As we quietly affirm and meditate upon this statement we imagine that Celestial Sphere of perfected human beings, shining like a sun in the spiritual heavens. Dwelling for a while on this thought we become attuned to our innermost soul-self, and rise 64

superior in thought to the disturbances of our outer minds.

We affirm this thought for all of our friends:

Angels Powerful, Angels Radiant, Fill your lives with Healing Love.

Now that we are blended in spirit and purpose with the most radiant Immortals in Heaven and with the most positive Doers of the Creator's Will on earth we can express the power of this blending of loving spirits by blessing our friends. Let us think first of all of our friends collectively and affirm for all of them:

Angels Powerful, Angels Radiant, Fill your lives with Healing Love.

Let us now use our spiritual imagination and try to conceive of the great spiritual truth that we have a multitude of friends who dwell with us in the Mind of the Creator, and that they are every one of them more sensitive to our thoughts of blessing than those whom we have been blessing in the physical world. The spirits of those in the physical world are so affected by material conditions, such as the slow vibrations of the physical brain, that they are not always sensitive to our blessings. But the spirits of those who have risen 65

above the physical body, and who dwell in the spiritual atmosphere of earth, are not so obtuse. They can sense our thoughts and feelings which we direct to them, and can be greatly benefited by our blessings. So let us use this affirmation to bless all our friends in the spiritual world who are still linked with us by ties of love and friendship:

Angels Powerful, Angels Radiant, Fill your lives with Healing Love.

Now let us each think of some particular friend who has recently passed from the physical body. As she (or he) had but little understanding of the reality of the spiritual world, and little knowledge of her own soul power to overcome the attractions of earth and to attain wisdom and freedom, she needs all the light and power we can give her. Let us bless and strengthen her risen spirit, and help her onward in her spiritual progression.

We think of our friend as now present with us, listening to the positive thoughts that we are radiating and feeling the healing, harmonizing radiance which we are generating. We imagine her surrounded by the Angels who are concentrating the rays of their soul love into her soul and dissolving from her mind all thoughts of fear, care, worry, and earthly concern for those left behind. We visualize the Angels 66

enfolding her in the white radiance of their love, soothing and harmonizing her spirit, and then gently carrying her away from all earthly vibrations and sorrows into a state of peace where, under the care of angelic nurses, her spirit will be further purified and her soul restored to strength and power. We think of her then learning what the Masters of the Schools of Heaven can teach her, and progressing in wisdom and love as under their direction she exercises her latent soul powers to bless and benefit others. Let us affirm for her:

Angels Powerful, Angels Radiant, Fill your life with Healing Love.

May the Peace and Love of the Creator fill your whole being at all times. Let it guide you into a higher state of mind and inspire you in all your thoughts, feelings and actions. His Presence is with you all and there is no need to have any doubts or fear about the present or future. Don't get mental about your life! Let all your thoughts come from the inner soul, wherein dwells the Divine light of Jehovih.

Practice enfolding all your family and friends in love and tune out any criticism that may try to enter your thoughts at this time.

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Love is the Strongest Margery Lawrence Ferry Over Jordan (1944)

The three great Forces that sway the Worlds are Love, Wisdom and Power — and Love is the strongest of the three. Hence on the Other Side the Law of Love operates instantly, bringing together those who truly love whether they were mated on earth or not, and gently showing those who thought they knew love, that their love was not the real flaming torch of heaven, but either the high blaze of passion, which fades with earth, or else the pleasant home fire of affection that had lighted the hearthstone of their earth-life and then, its duty done, faded out with that life.

Many happy marriages are those lighted by this hearth-fire of affection, of friendship, mutual liking and respect, shared tastes and sympathies — and I would be the last person to decry the value of these marriages. For so many of us, this is marriage at its best — because we know no better. These are marriages of earth rather than of heaven — yet they often play an important part in the training of two souls, who come together for the mutual learning of lessons, for mutual help and companionship, and for the breeding of children to whom the surroundings and influence of that particular couple 68

prove especially helpful. But their earth-life together once over, the partners in this type of marriage, when they meet on the Other Side, meet, not as husband and wife, but as two pleasant friends who have shared a worthwhile experience, as friends on earth share a flat together for a time. But on the Other Side they come to know that their earthly marriage-link, while beautiful and even satisfying for a time, was not an eternal one — and sooner or later each of the two partners will find their own mate at their side.

Make no mistake! Those that truly love will drift together, after the death of their physical bodies, as naturally as the magnet drifts towards the needle, as inevitably as night follows day! The difficulties, the pain and anger and misunderstandings that belong to the body and so often cloud the vision of true love, will clear away as morning mists clear from the hillside when the sun begins to rise — and when we meet our lovers, our husbands and wives and sweethearts on the Other Side we shall begin to understand the true inwardness of the Nazarene's words: “There shall be neither marrying nor giving in marriage, but all shall be as the angels of God in Heaven.”

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Questions and Answers Frank L. Hammer Life and its Mysteries (1945)

"What Is the Perfect Religion?"

There is only one religion and that is perfect. Love. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself."

"Which Is the Most Important Law?"

Love is the law that rules the universe and is the most important one.

He who observes this law is in harmony with all the others.

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The Last Enemy Lord Dowding God’s Magic: An Aspect of Spiritualism (1960)

The last enemy —

death?

Many people think of death thus, but

death is not the last enemy to be fought and conquered. Death is in reality a friend who bursts the bonds of physical matter and opens the LAST enemy which, subtle and strong, hides in every crevice – FEAR.

Fear distorts and destroys. Fear is with man from the beginning, twisting and discoloring, misrepresenting and distorting, until the real is lost in a fog of doubt and bewilderment. Man fears fire and water and air; he fears the tempest; he fears nature; he fears poverty; he fears disease; he fears his fellows; he fears himself. Fear is the destroyer – the greatest enemy.

How is he to be vanquished?

Knowledge is the weapon.

To understand is to cast out fear. You cannot be afraid of that which you truly understand; for understanding leads to love, and love is the strongest thing in the universe.

Love conquers fear. To

understand the laws of nature brings awe and wonder to man.

When he understands his fellows he has tolerance and sympathy.

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Knowledge of self brings liberation and love. To conquer fear then man must seek diligently. He must not only learn of the laws of nature, he must learn to bring his own life into harmony with these laws.

He must learn the laws governing the life of man himself; the

various forms the life-energy uses to experience life in the material world. Man is made of more than physical atoms.

A study of his composition will bring wonders undreamed of to his ken.

A fascinating adventure opens out before him when he

embarks on the study of the being who was created by the Creator of all things, in His own image. Do you think of this Creator as a being of flesh and blood only?

Can you conceive Him thus? If not, then

must you meditate upon His nature, and to understand Him you must first understand yourself. In the world today men are weary and seek some alleviation from the burden of birth.

The task is easier than

they know, the way open and clear before them, yet they hesitate, blind and doubting, seeing only the distortion of fear. The remedy for the ills of the world lies with man himself and this truth cannot be spoken too often, or too loudly.

Man, ever seeks to find a

scapegoat – the same in himself for his failure makes him turn outwards in censorious mood.

As it is with nations, so with the individual – when you blame, are you 72

certain there is no blame in yourself? When you condemn are you faultless? Yet you must not condone that which IS evil.

How then

must you act? In your individual and personal relations cultivate understanding and tolerance, search your own heart before you pass judgment.

Here is a very simple and easily understood injunction, familiar to you all; take it from its dusty shelf, burnish it up and hold it continuously before your eyes that you may not forget it: Do unto others as ye would be done by. Succinct? Clear? Yes. Capable of misrepresentation: No.

You cannot evade truth, turn and twist as you will. Truth confronts you still. Take this injunction and live by it and it will bring to you knowledge from the fountain of the Most High, for in living the law of harmony you will attract that law to yourself. No longer will you fear nature or poverty or hunger; no longer will you fear death, for you yourself will be ALIVE.

BLESSING: And now call on the love ray and send it out over this sad dark planet, and let the love of the Most High drench and purify every darkest corner of the earth plane. Let the light from the Holy of Holies shine forth in brilliance. Let fear stumble and die. Let hope rise triumphant. Let hatred fade away in the blinding glory of His 73

everlasting day, and in His keeping may we walk in peace. Amen.�

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Daily Life Neville Randall Life After Death (1975)

'Money! You can't buy nothing here with money, mate. The only thing you can get here is by character, and the way you've lived your life, and the way you think and act.'

'But I was wondering,' asked Woods, 'how they — you know — you say you've got architects to do your work?'

'Well, you don't pay him. He does it because he loves to do it. He loves to design houses. He loves to do that kind of work, and he does it. The same as the musician loves to play the violin. He's happy to entertain his friends and people, and people who like music they form orchestras and choirs.'

'They do everything for love?'

'Everything is done for love, and anyone, for instance, on your side who never had a chance in life, perhaps they wanted to be a musician or an artist, they can study over here, you see.'

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'They are doing all the things they wanted to do?'

'That's right. I mean, after all, you think of the millions of people that go through life and who have to do a hard slaving day's work, and never have a chance to do anything they would really like to do — never get the time, or never had the background, or the money or education — over here they can take up something that really appeals to them, and can go right into it. It's a joy to them. It's work but it's a joy.'

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Behold an Angel The Eloists Radiance (1983)

Behold an angel stands before you. He is all radiant with the glory of the Creator’s presence. His face shines forth his realizations of love, which is the beauty of holiness. Every feature of his countenance expresses the purity, tenderness and nobility of divine Love personified.

His personality vibrates with the music of love, which is the harmony of heaven. His whole form shines with the light of his creative thought.

Even his garments are luminous with the joyous radiance which proceeds from his inmost soul.

As you conceive of this image of Jehovih’s love, your soul is enraptured by the thought of divine loveliness and feels the benediction of love streaming from this angelic character.

This angel of beauty and power reveals how Jehovih expresses through an exalted human being as Love. And this angel shows you what are the possibilities of your real Self. He once lived in the dark and limited conditions of this world and had weaknesses similar to 77

yours to overcome. Sane day you will live in and express the Light which he now represents. Your soul now contains the wisdom and power which will flower forth into a strong radiant personality. You shall shine as a sun in the kingdom of the Ever-Present.

Let your soul express the love it is capable of feeling, and you will soon realize that you are an angel of Jehovih’s presence radiating light and peace to everyone in your world.

An angel of the Almighty stands with you now, impressing you with thoughts divine, and with beautiful feelings that make you glad to be alive. The angel is a being of light and love, but also strong in will to serve the Creator. She is helping you to be strong in purpose, but at the same time to be cheerful and loving, not overly serious. She represents the hosts of light who are working with mortals all over the world. She is powerful in protecting you against any and all psychic forces which might try to influence your thoughts and behavior in negative or destructive ways. Think of the angel, not as an isolated individual, but as one with many, and one with the All Highest; and think of yourself in the same way. Identify yourself with the Hosts of Light. You are strong to do Jehovih’s will, and radiant with His love.

You can never be defeated if you hold to this awareness. Many souls are seeking truth. You have found it. Make the most of it.

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A Nurse from The Plateau The Eloists Radiance (1985)

Let us ponder for a moment on the awesome burden placed on our spiritual realms by the untimely death of so many innocent babes through the thoughtless act of abortion. The number of undeveloped souls thrust into the care of our doctors and nurses who labor on the plateaus close to the earth is far greater than your darkest imaginings. The fact that these babes are thrown upon us in greater and greater numbers each year makes the scene that much more pathetic. Could we only make these selfish women realize that each soul is complete and immortal at conception, perhaps they would more carefully ponder their decision. Their basic misconception that their body is theirs to do with as they please is their first error. They had as little to do with the growth and development of their own bodies as that of the infant they carry. Both belong to the Creator that made them and He is the one to whom they must ultimately answer.

If they could only realize that the soul of that poor infant is brought back to them in many cases and fetaled upon them until full term (and therefore only the earthly body may be aborted while the spirit remains), perhaps they would think again before making the fateful decision. If they could only realize that the day will come when they 79

will pass over into our realms of spirit and there meet their rejected child face to face, though then fully grown, and be forced to justify their decisions and rectify their actions once and for all. Perhaps this is the image they need placed before them. Perhaps if they could see their child's pained expression as he or she asks, "Why did you do this to me, mother? Why did you deprive me of my life and your love?

What did I do to you to be treated so?" "Why?" is our question as well.

We, here on the Plateau in the hospitals and nurseries labor hard and long to maintain and revive these innocent souls, fetaling them sometimes to the natural mother and sometimes to a more appropriate soul, until they are strong enough to be transferred to the nurseries where primary education can begin. This is, of course, more difficult without the corporeal body and corporeal experiences to guide them. But we will work harder and longer still, until those on earth awaken to the Light of the Creator within their souls and awaken to the love that dwells within their hearts. Until then we remain,

Your loving friends.

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Our Blessings Together Robert Bayer Visions of a New Age (2008)

Amidst the darkness of the earthbound, I see a large white crystal, perhaps the size of a person, ringed by fire.

Both the fire and the

crystal give off a pretty radiance. I walk towards it and without much thought or worry, I step through the fire and touch the crystal. I find myself pulled through the crystal and swirl in a vortex rising upward.

In an instant, I find myself seated upon soft green grass that is part of the <The School of Unfolding Splendors> that I had visited before.

The angelic, regal, yet very kind woman who is the master teacher here, welcomes me again. She explains they are today blessing the lives of everyone in their lives. One by one the participants think of someone they would like to help, to heal, to bless, or inspire with grace of the higher heavens. At the moment, I see an image of a young girl, presently on earth, who is crippled in some way. She cannot walk I think. With hands joined together in our seated ring upon the garden grass, waves of energy that are the real love and real light that constitutes the essence of the angels, flows from all the members and joins together in a vortex round the image and round also the girl on earth. A smile forms on the girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face, she looks upward, and is quite radiant with jubilation. I feel the same and feel 81

very happy for her. Our teacher speaks:

Together the impossible can be made possible, the ideal into the real, even a hell can be transformed into a heaven. What is it, this power and immortal life that we possess? That is the very essence of our spirit? Naught but the Great Spirit of Universal Light and Love, to whom we pray and hold in oneness in our hearts.

From our

communal sharing of our hearts, we pour forth in Living Spirit the Essence of whom we are, The All One Creatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Very Light and Love, that is Eternal and Invincible. Our blessings to you all. join with us all and be delighted in the labors of the angels.

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May you

God is Love Walter and Betty Shepherd Conversations with Walter (2010)

God is Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.’

“We all know that,” I said.

Yes, some people do know it. But do they believe it in their hearts?

That is the question.

Yet, although they don’t know it, most people love God more than they love themselves. They know their life and their world to be imperfect, and they long for perfection in all things. In fact, they are longing for God himself! Though they may not realise it. Only God is perfection. That we love and admire the best we can imagine is our unconscious tribute to God’s real nature.

In the world, people experience God’s love as radiance, reflected from creation. They feel this as goodness, beauty and truth in things around, and in other people and creatures.

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They give and receive love. They recognise these good things, and love them. This is because they resonate with the Spirit of God, deep within each individual, which recognises its own nature. Did you realise that you cannot recognise something you have never known?

— you need something to compare it with. If you did not have love within you, how would you know love when you met it’? Or beauty?

Or truth?

But what you see, experience, and love are only a pale shadow of the life-giving reality, the ultimate source of perfect love. God is goodness, beauty and truth, he doesn’t just have these qualities.

This simple concept can be quite difficult for people to grasp because they think of beauty and truth as being attributes of something else — a good man, the good earth, a beautiful landscape, a true story.

They are attributes

—

but only because the man, the earth, the

landscape, and the story each reflect a part of God’s nature. You might call the landscape ‘sunny’, but that doesn’t mean it is the sun, it means that it reflects the light of the sun. Do you follow this?”

“Yes. It’s very clear.”

“Good. But just to confuse you, the attributes are also powers in their own right because they carry the energy of God’s love. When you 84

think of the effect they have on people, this is less surprising.

What is completely good is real in an absolute sense. Evil is not real except in the limited conditions of the world; where, God knows, it is only too real. But in eternity it will not be. It is not

Just as pure water is water, whether it is in a lake, a river, or a cup, so the nature of good remains unchanged wherever it is found. Spirit is love. Love is. If you feel completely unselfish love now, it is of God’s nature and eternal, whatever may happen tomorrow. God is pure goodness — and goodness, unmixed with any other thing, goodness for its own sake, is love. Most religions tell you that God is love. God is also said to be beauty and truth. God’s beauty is everything in the universe which affects us as being beautiful, and his truth (to us) is our experience of reality — what exists and is real, as opposed to what is unreal.

But do not imagine that the goodness, beauty and truth which we experience as human beings are God himself we are a long way from that. They are the radiance of his nature reflected to us from his creation.”

‘The radiance of God reflected from his creation’ sounded to me like the light of the sun reflected from solid objects. “Is it true that the eye 85

sees only the light from the sun, and not actually the object it thinks it is seeing?

“Absolutely true. Anyone who knows about optics will tell you so.”

“And the warmth which enables our life is provided by the sun — we love sunshine — yet we couldn’t live in the sun itself. We would die at once because we couldn’t stand the extreme temperature!”

“True.”

“This sounds to me like a good analogy for the radiance of God’s love.”

“So it is. The perfect analogy. Others have known it intuitively. Don’t forget that the Sun has been worshipped as a god, and as a symbol of a god. In material life, sunshine gives us life, but the sun itself we could not stand. We live in, and by, its radiance. In spiritual life, God is our life, but we could not stand his immediate presence. We live in his radiance.

God, we are told, is a personal god, to whom we can pray saying ‘Our Father...’ This is difficult enough, when we have never seen him.

Still less do we like the idea that he is something so amorphous as 86

goodness or love, which are diffused all over the world and seem to belong to other things. People are used to an entity which is all together in one place and has a recognisable form; to concepts like human being, dog, bird and so on, which are general, and to other concepts like John, Mary, Rover, and the garden robin, who are individual people.

Walter will tell you how it is. The idea of God which you have is probably not quite right. He is a person to us, in the sense that his Spirit is the personal life of each individual creature. God is not individual as John and Mary are — or if he is, we cannot know him in this way. And he is not general, like the idea of water. He is abstract goodness and love — that is, goodness and love existing and independent on any contingency because he is the source of all the goodness and love in the universe, which would not exist if he were not there to originate them. His relation to his qualities is the same as that of the sun to its heat, and as we have said, the analogy is a good one, for the sun’s rays have to strike matter and be absorbed or reflected before we are aware of their warmth, and God’s qualities are also reflected to us, and we then recognise them.

We call God’s love the Holy Spirit, and it is all we can ever know of him. It is not his self, it is his ‘sunshine’, the love that shines from him.

Even so, it is greater and more wonderful than anything else in the 87

universe, and it gives us all of our experience of love and goodness.

As to God himself; we can never know the first thing of his true nature, and if we did we would not be able to bear it. His undiluted love would annihilate us with its unendurable glory. His goodness would disintegrate our minds. His beauty and truth are beautiful and terrible far, far past human imagination. We could not bear his presence any more than, materially, we would be able to bear being inside the sun. All we, as incarnate people, are designed to know is the very outer ray of the glory of God. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget, he is the designer, the originator and life-force of the entire universe! And even his creation, the universe itself, fills the discerning with a terrible awe.

And yet . . . Think well about this because it is amazing, true, and very, very important. . . and yet each of us has in the very centre of our spiritual being, in the core of self, a spark of the very nature of God Almighty, a piece of the wonderful and terrifying glory of God which in our present condition we could not bear to experience. To Christians, Jesus Christ is the prototype of this spirit. He said: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Before Abraham was, I amâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, because the Spirit has eternal life; it was, is, and always will be.

No wonder God has arranged things so that we do not know our Spirit directly during life, and will not know it fully until we have passed through many heavenly conditions, The Holy Spirit radiates, 88

not only from God, but also from the individual Spirit within each person, forming a mediator. It is the Spirit within each creature which thinks, feels, suffers and loves. The material body, without spirit, feels and knows nothing. What you know as your deepest self is in fact your Spirit.

Because people don’t believe in Spirit, they can’t believe in God.

“I think they also don’t believe in God because they feel that if He existed as a supreme and all-powerful force of good. He would put an end to all the suffering in the world. I don’t know the answer to this, but I’m sure there must be one.”

“Let us talk about one thing at a time. Later Walter will try to answer your question.

Love exists, and is the basis of all things in the universe; it is also the basis of the universe itself. Love is a sentient and powerful being, not an abstract idea. It would be easier, perhaps, for people to think that the great being who created the universe feels love — and this is true as far as it goes —

but the real truth is that he is love.”

“It’s impossible!” I said with despair. “How is anyone to understand that statement? Can you make it any easier?”

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“You think people cannot accept the idea that a concept like love can be a sentient, thinking being? Well, look at it like this. God is love; God feels love. Since he is the origin of all things, including love itself, the two statements mean the same thing.

If you feel goodness, you become good. If you feel resentment, it can enter into your being and become part of your nature. If you behave in a subservient way, this enters into your being and you become subservient. If you feel nothing but pure love, your nature is love.

Conversely, if your nature is full of goodness, beauty and truth, you will be good, beautiful and true; this is then what you are, and you will express these things. This is how spirits learn, though life on earth and then in the different stages of heaven, to be fit to know God — they gradually lose all the gross aspects of their nature until it becomes pure love.

One of the great truths is that knowledge becomes being, and being encompasses knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge with love.”

I began to see that in order to understand what Walter was telling me, I really would have to shift my mental sights. How one views life is partly unconscious; that’s why it’s so difficult to change. The idea that 90

knowledge and being are the same thing was new to me. I’d thought of knowledge as something you acquire, and being as something you are.

In fact, I could have arrived at Walter’s conclusion by myself. I knew well enough that what we are is determined not only by our genes, but also by pre-natal and life experiences these are the basis of the mind-set, which depends on the ideas held in that mind. Which are, in turn, determined by the knowledge acquired during life. Accepted knowledge settles in the mind as ideas; ideas form the mind, and the fact of acceptance indicates that the heart agrees. So it is, that what we learn is the basis of our whole psyche — of what we are. But I hadn’t made this connection.

“Then that is what mind is for? To learn the truth, so that we can change and develop? That it teaches us better and more convenient ways of living on the planet is just incidental?”

“Not altogether. If the human race didn’t learn better ways of living, it would not survive! But it is true that the mind is the sum total of its ideas. That’s what a mind is. If knowledge is fully accepted, it becomes being. Acceptance is the key. Experience must enter the heart, that is, it must be felt if it is to change anything,”

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“Yes. I see that now. And I’ve long ago discovered the value of acceptance. Tell me, is acceptance always a matter for the heart?”

“That’s not easy to answer. The mind can accept things too, and be certain that it knows them. But if the heart does not agree, that knowledge never becomes being, Knowledge held only in the mind can suddenly fall to pieces, as it were. That’s what happens to people who lose their belief

— in a faith, or anything else.”

“I can understand that!

So God feels so much love that he is love. But that doesn’t make love a sentient and thinking being.”

“The feeling and thinking belong to the mind of God, who is the origin of Mind, and who is sole origin of the three aspects of love tenderness, energy and light

—

—

which combine only in God

himself, and in creation are seen separately; because, by the nature of things, the entity which carries one aspect will not, in that moment, carry another. Love has no other origin. When we creatures feel love, we are experiencing a part of the Creator’s own nature. God not only thinks and feels as we do, we can have no possible idea of the magnificence of his thought which can hold all creation in its imagination, or the depth of his feeling which encompasses all 92

mankind and all beings in caring love. What we on earth experience is the radiance of God’s nature reflected from the individual entities of his creation; goodness, beauty and truth are the pure spirits through which we see the love of God in the world we know.

We recognise the reflection of his love in ourselves (in the individual Spirit) and in other living creatures.

All pure love is good; perfect love and perfect thought are Gods own.

Intellect without love is far from God’s nature, and is not good. In fact, it’s very dangerous, for if you do what you think is good, and act without love, you can be cruel, or tyrannical.

Goodness is God, our creator. The two words in English are nearly the same, and there are similarities in other languages, for unconsciously mankind knows this. Those people who love good in the abstract for its own sake, and who unselfishly love the good of others, are giving their allegiance to God, whether they know it or not, whether or not they even acknowledge the existence of God, and whether or not they follow any religion.

Imagine a world in which all people treated each other with gentle and loving goodness. It would be a paradise! This is what the world will be like when we all do the will of God. It is a promise; the world 93

will be paradise one day. If it is not always a good place now we have only ourselves to blame, because we do not always do good. Adam is mankind. His sin is that people choose to value their own wants (not even their needs, but the things they want) above the welfare of other people, of animals, and of the planet Earth. They choose self before goodness, and in this way introduce evil into the world. Great evil can have very small beginnings, and they are always a failure of love towards the good.â&#x20AC;?

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The Process of Spirit Sensations Walter and Betty Shepherd Conversations with Walter (2010)

“Now, would you like Walter to tell you about how discarnate spirits see, and hear, and experience other sensations?”

“Yes please.”

“Walter will tell you first about the mind’s consciousness of reality, as opposed to the reality of the material body. This holds true whether the person is living on earth or in the afterlife. After all, you’ll have the same mind after death as you have now.

The mind knows reality through non-material senses which during life on earth we experience as intuition and empathy. Both are forms of love, and give immediate awareness of the nature of other things and people. Empathy has wide implications; for instance on earth it gives craftsman knowledge of the nature of the material he is working with. It is not until, as discarnate spirits, they are entirely dependent on these senses that people realize they have always used them, and that they can serve perfectly well without the help of the material senses.

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The material body knows the reality of the world around it through the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and two others less well understood — the senses of time and location. (Location is sensed magnetically — you know that birds use it when they migrate — while time is known through the rate of impressions taken in; the quicker impressions are received the more time is stretched to accommodate them, so it seems to pass more slowly). Clocks are man-made, and measure time as it is for mankind as a whole, and as indicated by the movement of heavenly bodies

—

like the

twenty-four hours it takes the earth to revolve on its axis, or the year it takes to go round the sun. Clocks don’t tell the time, but record rates of change. They don’t have validity outside human experience — the earth doesn’t need clocks to tell it how to spin! For the individual, time can seem to vary speeding up when you are happy and slowing tediously when you are bored. It also slows dramatically in moments of crisis like a car crash, when impressions come in at a much faster rate. (This is for survival, to give you time to get away from danger).

That’s how the material body senses its world. As Walter has told you, things are different for the mind.

The discarnate spirit sees through the power of love 96

—

yes love.

This allows it to know the nature of things at first hand. From the new spirit’s point of view, it just finds it is able to see, even though it has no material eyes! The seeing is less uniform than it used to be, and you could say we only see something if we look at it

— rather as

on earth you only notice the first raindrops on the windscreen of a car if you look at them, instead of through them, as you do when you are driving with your eyes focused on the road.

But do not imagine that spirits see the world less well than you do; we see it as immeasurably more beautiful, for not only do we see all the same form and colour, we also see the marvellously subtle colours and changing shapes of the magnetic shells or auras the Etheric body

—

—

which surround and envelop every living

thing.

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