When I was asked, many long years ago, whether I would return to the world of matter and find on earth a band who would work with me to deliver the message of the spirit, I said I would, as did many others, and my task was given me.

I was told that I would have to search and find an instrument and so attach myself to this instrument that I would be able to express through him the message that I was charged to deliver. So I searched our records and found my medium.

I watched from the time that he was conceived, and from the moment that the spirit began to express itself - albeit as a little flicker - I brought my influence to bear and started there and then this association which has lasted all these years.

I helped to mould the spirit and the tiny little mind and throughout every phase of that life I watched his every experience, learned how to get a close association and I accustomed myself throughout the days of boyhood to all the mental processes, to all the physical habits. I studied my instrument from every aspect - mind, spirit and physical body.

And then I had to guide his footsteps towards an understanding of these spirit truths. First, I guided him to make a study of the many religions in your world of matter, until his mind revolted and he began to be what your world calls an Atheist. And when that had played its part in the mental unfoldment, he was ready for me to begin my task of speaking through his lips.

I guided him to his first meeting. I helped to bring him to his first circle. And there, in the power provided, I made my first contact - so crude, so trivial, but from my point of view so important - and I uttered my first expression in the world of matter through another's

organism.

From that day I learned how to obtain better and better control, until now you see the result. We have achieved so much that I can register the totality of my ideas and eliminate for all purposes what is in the medium's own personality.

Now I would like to tell you something about my mission. They said to me: "You will have to go into the world of matter and, when you have found your instrument, you will have to bring to him sympathetic souls who will aid you to deliver your message." I searched and found you all and brought you together.

But the greatest difficulty I had to face was that I had to make the choice whether I would return to provide those proofs that your world must have to satisfy itself - material proofs, I mean, not spiritual ones, for your world does not understand those - or whether I would return as a teacher and teach truth. I chose the harder.

I said that, after all those long years, with all the manifold experiences I had had in the realms of spirit, I would return and try to appeal with love to those whom I would strive to teach. I would appeal to reason. I would appeal to the judgement of mature, evolved and what you call educated minds. I would reveal the message of the spirit in all its simplicity.

I would say nothing that offended reason. I would strive to manifest love, never to reproach with anger, but to appeal always with love, and prove by precept and example and by all I did that I was what I claimed to be - a messenger of the Great Spirit.

And I imposed upon myself the burden of anonymity, so that I would make no appeal of illustrious personage, title, rank, or fame, but would be judged on what I said and what I did. When I was in the spheres at the last festival they praised me and said I had accomplished much of my mission. And tears of joy fell down my face. But my mission is not yet over. There is still more to be done.

Because of the work that others have done - the same work that we do - there is more light in your world of matter, there is more happiness, there is less sorrow, less tears. We have won a partial victory over the grave.

We have inspired many to let their higher selves rise in their lives. We have driven out many of the falsehoods of the past that have blinded men's eyes to justice and truth. We have helped to free many from the prison-house of creed and dogma which has afflicted your world for so many years, shaming reason with its foolish stupidities.

We have sought - and succeeded in some measure - to teach of a Great Spirit of love and wisdom, not of partiality, not of wrath, not vindictive and angry, not a dealer of pestilence and disease. We have sought to reveal the Nazarene as a great exemplar. And many have seen the reason that lies in our teaching.

Great work has been done, but a greater work still has to be done. There is war in your world of matter, war that need not be, for if your world knew these truths and lived them, men would not kill. There is starvation, when there is plenty of the Great Spirit's bounty. There are mean hovels where the children of the Great Spirit are compelled to live, deprived of fresh air, unable to catch the health-giving rays of the sun, forced to live below the line of sustenance. There is want and distress and misery.

There are still superstitions to be killed. There are still aching hearts. There are still diseases to be vanquished. Our task is not yet complete. We rejoice at the work that has been done and pray that strength shall be given to us so that, with your co-operation, we may be enabled to render greater service still.

I am only the mouthpiece of those who sent me, and I seek no glory for myself and no reward. I have no desire to aggrandize myself or my personality. I rejoice to be a vehicle for expressing these truths, lost for many centuries and now restored to the world of matter, stamped with the seal of divine truth.

My part is that of the messenger who speaks the message and I have striven to be faithful and to convey that which was given to me according to the instrument that I have and the power which I have earned. I only want to be of service and, if the few teachings I express help one soul to find peace in a stormy life, to find the shelter of truth after having experienced the storms of doubt, if within the sanctuary of these simple spiritual truths one can find happiness and be inspired to serve, then perhaps we have accomplished something of the Father's work.

Mary Pickford At A Seance

Having recorded a few of the messages given by Silver Birch to various kinds of people, I think I must include Hannen Swaffer's story of the sitting given by the guide to Mary Pickford, the film star who became known as "the world's sweetheart."

The journalist wrote:

The Silver Birch sitting provided fresh confirmation of what is often stressed when actors and actresses, artists or composers sit - the great importance, from the point of view of the spirit world, of any film, play, composition or work of art that spreads knowledge or inspires large numbers of people.

Here, copied from a record of the sitting, are extracts that will be of general interest.

Silver Birch: "Now, to the lady who comes from across the water. You know you are much beloved by many who are here today and that for many years in your life you have been conscious of the love that streams towards you from those who have passed through the change which people call death. That is so, is it not?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "And this love and this guidance have been realities in your own life, time and time and time again, for whenever difficulties have raised their heads and you have not known where to turn, the guidance of the spirit has shown itself with indisputable clarity and you have gone forward without hesitation to perform the task in front of you. Do I speak clearly?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "However, you could become more conscious of the love of the many people who are bound to you by ties of affection. Did you but realize it, the whole pattern of your life is one of great guidance. You have been led step by step all the way. When, if you had known at first what was in front of you, it all would have seemed impossible of attainment, as you have put one foot forward, so the way has been cleared to enable you to put the other foot forward; and so progress has been consistent and has been maintained.

You have been of tremendous service because you have striven to radiate that love which has been given to you.

You may not know all this, though some of it is clear to you. But in our world, a world inhabited by all the souls who are translated here from your plane of activity, we soon learn that the only real religion is service. Service is the coin of the spirit.

He or she who strives to serve to the utmost is in turn served by other beings who return, inspired by the attracting force. And, as you have sought through your life to bring happiness and understand the knowledge into the lives of others, so you have attracted to yourself not only your own loved ones, but radiant beings who left the earth many long years ago, and who pour out their accumulated wisdom through your instrumentality. Do you understand all I am saying to you?"

Mary: "Yes, I think I do."

Silver Birch: "You are regarded here as an ambassador, one who sees in herself an instrument, a means of reaching large numbers of people, and you have striven to preach this simple gospel of the reality of the invisible, where all strength and power and majesty and might reside. And so it has been throughout the whole of your life that material obstacles have been removed again and again and you have been able to go forward.

Now I want to say to you that soon you are to set the seal on your labours; the crown will be placed upon them and you will reach the pinnacle of attainment. All that your heart desires will find fruition in the days that lie before you."

Northcliffe, who invariably discloses his presence at any sitting at which I am present, then gave Mary his greetings. I did not know, but when she and Fairbanks first came to London and they were mobbed everywhere by vast crowds, Northcliffe placed his Surrey home at their disposal as a retreat.

Then Fairbanks spoke of his regrets for what had happened at the end of his and Mary's marriage. I refrain from doing more than mention the fact briefly.

"I hold no bitterness against any human being, on earth or off the earth," said Mary, "only against my own wrong-doing."

"Do not magnify that," replied Silver Birch. "If the ledger of your life were to be drawn up now, the so-called wrong-doings would be very few compared with all the unselfishness and the service you have rendered. You will never know until you come here how much good you have done for so many people.

You have brought joy to millions of people. You have enabled them to forget for a while the little sorrows, their cares and aches, their troubles and stresses, and the storms that mean so much to them. In your own way, through your own desire, you have given service, and service is all that matters.

When everything else is forgotten and stripped away, when wealth has faded and power has dissolved, when rank and birth are forgotten, when creed lies in the dust, the character you have earned by your life of service will endure for all time. And it is that character shining through your body that I see, and I rejoice in meeting a soul who has done some good. That is what I think about your wrong-doings.

There is nothing for you to fear. You can go straight ahead. You wish me to speak frankly?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "You do not want to make lots of money. What you want to do is to do the greatest for good that you can. Isn't that so?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "That motive brings its own reward, and the other is automatic. It is given to you for the single purpose of giving you confidence and there is nothing to fear. Have no fear in your heart. Fear disturbs vibrations. You know about vibrations?"

Mary: "Yes, I know something about them."

Silver Birch: "Fear disturbs the atmosphere. If your heart is full of unbounded, unremitting confidence, if your soul is full of indomitable resolution because your mind has knowledge of spiritual verities, that cannot fail in a world where all values are changing.

Nothing in the world of matter can touch you, the real you, the indestructible, infinite, eternal you. You can go forward with the full knowledge that the power which is behind you, guiding you, upholding you and sustaining you, is the mightiest power in the universe, the power of love that seeks to use you as a greater instrument of service for the Great Spirit of all life, to make known His love and His wisdom, His truth and His knowledge, to those who still know nothing about these things.

Sometimes in the silence of your chamber you have shed tears because you think, or you have thought, you have failed. You have not. The road lies straight in front of you and the glorious promise of fulfillment will be attained. I hope I have helped you."

Mary: "Thank you very much."

Silver Birch: "No. I never accept thanks. Thanks should be rendered to the Great Spirit, whose servants we all are. I strive to perform this task and I do it with willingness and cheerfulness, and if anything I have said has been of help, then it is because I am going about my Father's business. Perhaps some time we will meet again and I can be of further service to you.

Till then, look up, not down. Remember that light and love stream in abundance from the infinite source, which possesses an infinite storehouse. Fill yourself from that rich, vast treasury. It is yours for the asking. And go on writing."

To the circle, the guide said:

"May the power of the spirit remain with you as an inspiring force and may you become increasingly conscious of the gifts with which you have been endowed and, developing them, render service to those less fortunate then yourselves, so that your lives are truly worth while the living."

Then, just before he gave up control of the medium, the guide gave Mary a final message. "Your Mother says I mustn't go away until she reassures you that her love is undying," he said, "that she never forgets that which you have done for her and that she is repaying what she considers to be that debt. She would not let me go."

Mary: "But I owe her so much. Not in ten lives could I repay it."

Silver Birch: "Well, you may have more then ten lives"

Mary: "More than a cat? I shall have eighteen lives! I shall come again one day to England to live."

Silver Birch: "Oh, it's not the first time you have come here in life. But that's another story."

Mary: "Just one little thing ... would you tell me one little thing about me - my English self?"

Silver Birch: "It goes back more than two centuries. We shall have to meet again. I am going now. I cannot hold the medium any more."

Mary, it seems, had long believed herself to be the reincarnation of a girl who lived in England over two centuries ago. I forget now her reason for accepting this as being true.

Anyway, having been born as Gladys Smith, in Toronto, she is proud of her British origin.

Science - Viewed From Beyond

NOT since the Victorian era when several noted scientists investigated and attested psychic phenomena, including full-form materializations under test conditions, have spirit gifts been so rigorously placed under the scientific microscope. It is fitting to begin this chapter with a question a scientist put to Silver Birch: "I have read and have always believed that service is very important. What is also important is the occupation of gathering knowledge, namely learning. In the spirit world how is this carried out? In scientific matters of this physical world we do experiments. Does one do experiments in the spirit world, or is it by purely mental processes?"

The guide replied:

"Knowledge, like the Great Spirit, is infinite; no period can be placed on it. As you progress so you fit yourself for more knowledge. You are forever climbing a mountain, ascending one peak, only to behold another to be scaled. Knowledge, progress, development, unfoldment, advancement, all these are eternal processes.

In your physical world you experiment to see what are the results when you try "a" with "b" and so on. We have experiments which are divorced from the physical world, because we are concerned with some of the many and varying expressions of the spirit. So we are always experimenting. Let me give a simple illustration. We have coming to our world doctors who are still concerned with helping afflicted ones on earth. They have knowledge of the mechanism, the workings of the human body and its many reactions.

In our world they have access to a different kind of power, some of the degrees of spirit, which is life, and how it can be applied, combined with earthly knowledge, to help the sick in your world. This is a constant experimentation involving the mixture of forces.

They must not be too strong, otherwise they will harm the instrument through whom they are to be poured. They can be increased in intensity as the human channel is more receptive and can bear the higher velocity, or power, whichever word you want to use. There is the difficulty again of finding words that can adequately express what is really beyond language. So we are constantly engaged in experiments, adding to our knowledge all the time. "At later circles came these answers to questions.

"The scientific picture of the universe a century ago is vastly different from the one today."

Does this mean that scientists will move away from this materialistic research to a higher level? "It will be forced on them by the logic of their own researches as they inevitably inquire into the world of the invisible and its vast untapped potential. As they develop spiritually they will realize how this tremendous force can be harnessed for good.

Then they will pay increasing attention to the development of these faculties within themselves. What is without is but an expression of what is within. The life force is indivisible. You cannot cut it up into watertight compartments. The life in the atom is in essence the same life as in the human, the animal, the flower or the tree. It is all the one life with its infinite manifestations."

Have scientists come to that level of understanding?

"No, but some have. Oliver Lodge is a good example of a spiritual scientist with an awareness of states of reality existing beyond the surface."

Do you think scientists will destroy too many people and too much before they come to an awareness?

"No there is a limitation to what scientists can do. They cannot destroy the whole of your world. The natural laws will ensure the damage that can be done in your world is not so fearful as some people think. Besides, the law of the Great Spirit in the ultimate must prevail. There are no men in your world who can thwart it. They can delay, they can hinder, but they cannot override the Great Spirit.

Those of us who have some insight into the mechanics and the operation of natural law remain confident that, come what may, however foolish people in your world may be, the Great Spirit will prevail. And the Great Spirit's laws will ensure that more and more love, compassion, charity and service will be exercised in your world.

Science is not infallible. Scientists are only human beings who can make mistakes. I do not worship the god of science. The world will not come to an end, as they say, it will continue. Are you familiar with scientists' pronouncements that have been wrong?"

I should explain that I have had to study this question very closely, though I am not a scientist.

Silver Birch repeated his question.

"Are you familiar with scientists' pronouncements that have been wrong?"

Very many.

"So there is no guarantee that any scientific pronouncement must automatically be right when it concerns the future."

In greeting a scientist from Rhodesia, the guide said:

"Your footsteps have been guided so that you have been brought out of the darkness into the light. This is part of the process by which all true human development is achieved because of the law of compensation, as low as you can fall so correspondingly high can you rise. It is in darkness that you find the light, it is in sorrow that you find joy. It is when it seems that earth has nothing to offer that the spirit can begin to find itself.

This is part of the polarity, the means by which the soul begins to come into its own. In the vast order of universal activity every facet of being has its ordered part to play. Storm is as essential as sunshine, darkness as light. It is in the crucible of suffering that strength is forged. It is only when extremes are reached that growth begins to be achieved.

I am not trying to talk in paradoxes, but this is how the Great Spirit, with infinite wisdom, has fashioned the laws of progress so far as humans are concerned. But it is just as true that whatever is needed is presented when the time is ripe. The difficulties, trials, tests, obstacles, these are all essential precursors to the soul being able to express its latent gifts. They provide the equivalent to the catalyst.

If you look back you can see how, in the time of what seemed the greatest difficulty, you were shown the way, your footsteps directed so that you could begin to learn how to fulfill yourself. There will be opportunities for you to help others as you have been helped by people who trod a similar path before you.

This is how the divine scheme comes into action, to bring people, one by one, into possession of eternal truths that will help them to express themselves to the fullest, to serve all who come within their orbit, to deny none who seek their aid and to be sorry for those who are given the chance to achieve self-regeneration and lose it because it would seem they are not ready. So rejoice at what has been revealed to you and realize that it is only an infinitesimal fraction of what awaits you. There are tremendous spiritual treasures still to be excavated. You will have many opportunities of service."

At another circle Silver Birch said:

"We are at work the whole time, experimenting with new forms and ideas, particularly in healing, clairvoyance and trance so as to improve the quality. But we are dependent on the material you offer us. This is the measure of your free will and personal responsibility.

We will always give more than we receive from you. That is our duty, to support, to sustain and to ensure that all your fundamental, essential needs will be supplied. The rest is up to you. We require instruments who will be dedicated to serve. I've said it before, and I will repeat, service is the coin of the spirit. To serve is noble because in service you are expressing the divinity within you.

What we ask you to do is to raise your standards as high as you can. We will always work to get you to advance slowly but surely towards the goal of achievement. What we say to you is very simple. Do the best you can, and together we will be able to help those who come to us."

To Inspire Ambassadors

For most of the delegates at this large meeting of the Commonwealth of churches connected with the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, held in its Belgrave Square headquarters, it was their first chance of hearing Silver Birch. He readily accepted the invitation to address them.

After a typical invocation he told them:

"I am very happy to come amongst you and to bring you my love and greetings from the world of spirit. I would like you to feel that we are not strangers to one another, but that we are comrades actuated by the same motive of helping wherever we can and playing our part to bring spiritual, mental and physical freedom to all who come within our orbit.

I would also like to say just a few words which perhaps may be of some encouragement to all of you who are channels, instruments, dispensers of the power of the spirit which produces in its train such vivifying effects.

Then I would like you to appreciate that none of you is ever alone, overlooked, neglected or forgotten. You have made yourselves accessible to the sublime power of the spirit, which is the mightiest force in the boundless universe. It is the power of life itself. That is why, for example, in your healings you are able to obtain results where other means have failed. You enable the life force to produce its rejuvenating effect on the life force of the sufferer you are helping.

You are all privileged to be ambassadors of the Great Spirit. You are representatives of the Great Spirit wherever you labour. It becomes your charge and responsibility to see that your gifts are used in such a fashion that they produce the maximum good wherever you can.

There will be brought to you those whom you can help. They will often be pitiful derelicts, sick, ill, worried, cheerless, full of problems, feeling that life on earth has nothing more to offer them. It becomes your privilege to help them to become aware of themselves, of their true nature, of their inner spirit, the gift of divinity conferred at birth, so that they begin to get a realization of how they should order their lives and derive from them the fullness, richness, beauty, splendour and radiance that should be theirs.

That is your function, to make the power of the spirit available to all who come to you. It is the reason why you have buildings, churches, temples and societies, so that you are accessible. And accessibility is the reason for the existence of all your organizations.

I want you to appreciate that so far as we are concerned, if you help one soul to find itself, to become aware of its latent divinity and to begin to express it, then the whole of your earth life is well worth while. But you will be able to help more than one. You will be able, as a result, to perform this unique service that no others in your world can possibly give because they have made themselves inaccessible to the power of the spirit which is the life-giving essence for the whole cosmos in which we all dwell.

Do not worry if any come to you and after you have done your best you are unable to help them. They have had their chance. You must be sorry because they have not taken it. What you must realize is that until their soul is touched, until they are spiritually ready, there is nothing you can do to help them.

What will produce this preparation is not always easy to understand. It may be an illness. It may be a crisis. It may be anything which brings them to the lowest depths of despair, when they feel there is nothing in the whole of the material world that can produce the answer. Then they should begin to come into their own and you should be able to kindle the divine spark so that it can begin to grow into a lambent flame. That is why you exist in your churches, societies and organizations.

I must also say this. Because of what you are, because this tremendous power, divine in origin flows through you, yours is the greater responsibility to see that you do nothing that in any way lessens the trust that is reposed in you. We are not dictators. We are not your masters. We do not regard you as marionettes who have to dance when the strings are pulled in our world. You are our co-operators. We want to work together. We will always provide whatever is spiritually necessary according to the conditions available at the time.

We will lead. We will guide. We will direct. We will help, but we will not order. We will not compel and we will not dictate. If you hear, supposedly emanating from our life, entities who command you to do this, that and the other, you can be sure that their spiritual status is not very evolved. Co-operation is the law of the spirit. We would win you with love, with common sense and with reason. We would offer you nothing that is an insult to your intelligence or would make your reason revolt. Together we can help the Great Spirit in the eternal processes of evolution and creation.

This is the task on which we are all engaged. This is the opportunity given to all of us to help the Great Spirit so that His children may live a richer, fuller life and not waste all the opportunities earth provides in obtaining the equipment that is necessary when people come to our side of being.

We get too many misfits, too many ill-equipped, too many derelicts who are unready. It is easier for their education to begin in your world than it is in ours. So be aware of the tremendous possibilities that lie within you. Be aware of the great opportunities that you have for service. Do the best you can and then you will be fulfilling the purpose for which you came into your world".

Two years later the guide addressed the Council of Spiritualists, which was then composed of the Greater World Association of Great Britain, Spiritualists' National Union and the Union of Spiritualist Mediums. Among his comments were:

"Wherever there are human beings there are difficulties and problems, because you are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world. If you were perfect you would not be on earth. You would have joined the apex of divinity which is the great spirit of life.

You must expect troubles, difficulties, problems, pitfalls and differences of opinion because you are very human. But if you have compassion, if you are prepared to co-operate, to be democratic, to sink self and let the good of the many prevail, then you will come through. And we will always help you. The trouble is that there are too many people - I am not referring to your council -- who are more concerned with themselves than with others. These are the stumbling blocks in the promulgation of any truth.

We are always on the look-out for means of ensuring that spirit truths and power should advance in increasing measure. We bring together, wherever we can, those who can help to ensure that the spirit plan goes forward. It is not an easy task because the manipulation of matter from our world is very difficult and involves many problems. We have to work with very delicate and subtle vibrations which can be easily nullified by foolish actions in your world.

If you will co-operate with us, and forgive my saying this because I mean it most kindly, not demand, but be prepared to receive, you will find that in this atmosphere we can accomplish much together. It is always desirable to have unity in diversity, but not to try to achieve uniformity. You can unite on the fundamentals on which you all agree. There must always be differences of opinion because all the individuals within the ranks of what you might loosely call the Spiritualist movement are at different stages of spiritual and mental growth and evolution. They cannot think alike.

Some of you are perhaps already familiar with the fact that you have discarded views, beliefs and opinions that you held dearly in years gone by because a greater understanding has brought you a different perspective. And so the great necessity is for toleration. Brotherhood does not mean that you will all agree. It means that you recognize brotherhood in spite of your diversities. That is the only way I can put it. You must try to achieve the ideal. You may not succeed in doing so 100 per cent.

Go on trying to enlist others, because co-operation is part of the law governing the universe. You should always strive to achieve it among yourselves. After all, basically you are agreed on the prime facts. There are differences of interpretation. Respect one another's viewpoints and combine on what you can agree. This is not easy. But I always say that generals must not expect to be given easy battles to fight".

Problems Of Communication

Seldom, if ever, is a communicator able to impart the totality of his communication. It is possible only in exceptional circumstances. It is not as if you are making a communication on one surface of being like a telephone. Even that goes wrong many times; when lines are crossed, the machinery gets out of order and sometimes will not work at all. If you have these difficulties in communication on one surface of being, realize how much more difficult it is when you have two entirely different states of being.

You have to make vocal what begins as an image, a thought or an idea in the mind of the communicator. With a trance medium control is never one hundred per cent effective. The instrument is a human being. Control varies according to the guide's success, partial success, or failure in blending with the medium's aura. The guide takes possession through the subconscious mind and all the bodily processes that are controlled by it. Whilst doing so, he must transmit, if possible, the original image, thought, picture or idea that comes from the communicator. The medium can be tired, ill, out of sorts, bad-tempered, hungry, had too much to eat, to drink, to smoke, a thousand and one things; all can effect the closeness with which guide and instrument should blend.

There may be subconscious ideas in the mind of the medium, strong, dominant, which keep on thrusting their tentacles because they are trying to find expression. Often the only way to get rid of them is to express them and make them null. That explains sometimes why you get the medium's subconscious ideas expressed by a guide. Sometimes the guide cannot help himself and is carried away by the onrush, the force of the subconscious promptings. Fog is bad, so is humidity. A cold, clear, crisp, electrical atmosphere is the best.

It is not easy. It requires much effort to return to your world. That is why the only ones prepared to make the efforts are those who love you. Love is the impelling motive for comforting, guiding, helping those to whom it is naturally and willingly bound. As long as people die, and they love those who are left on earth, they will willingly break through every barrier and overcome every obstacle to reach the one they love. That provides part of the impetus behind the whole of communication from our world.

Be tolerant. Do not blame the medium. Do not necessarily blame the guide. We do our best with the material at our disposal. To accomplish in trance, what is being accomplished now, requires a stepping-down process, the use of a transformer. That involves a sacrifice of the true individuality to a large extent, as you can appreciate. When you have to make it material you go one stage further. You have to materialize the spirit to have almost a complete reversal of vibration from the subtle, quick and delicate to the slow, heavy and ponderous. That, of course, also means another sacrifice of the whole individuality.

Then, again, there are subtle deviations of ectoplasm, according to the mental and spiritual qualities of the human instrument. Not all ectoplasm is the same because its basic foundation is extracted from the medium. The grosser the instrument, the less refined, the less mentally and spiritually evolved is the ectoplasm. Where you have a refined soul, mentally and spiritually, those qualities are reflected in the ectoplasm.

It does not follow that every person who desires to communicate in our world is able to do so, or, given an opportunity, is able to transmit the fullness of the message. It depends on the individual. A dominant, forceful individual will break through all the barriers. A shy, diffident, retiring individual will not want to make the effort.

Then there are all the processes involved in transmitting the thought, picture or symbol -- we do not speak words in our world -- through the medium's guides, or even direct to the medium. If it is done by means of clairvoyance, all this is a very intricate process. Do not think that because you hear me talk with facility through this instrument that it is easy. Even I have to use what I call a multitude of "threads" to maintain my hold on this instrument. At any given moment, any one of these "threads" may be severed and away goes some of my power.

We have many problems to elucidate in the understanding of communication. Do not ever let it be said that it is always easy. When you have the right conditions, it can be very easy. But there are so many factors that can interfere, and sometimes because of these factors we are blamed. It requires the operation of very delicate, subtle conditions, even for one who is experienced to act as a go-between. There are so many factors that can go awry.

You realize that in this process of transformation, this stepping down, much of the beauty, lustre and radiance must be lost. But when spirit communicates with spirit direct, when mind communicates with mind and soul with soul, when there is inspiration or imagination, it merely means that the mind is being enriched with impressions from beyond. The more you worry about it the worse it becomes, because to be successful in its transmission the essential condition is a quietude, a passivity, a confidence based on the certainty that attunement is taking place. Once you set up wavering doubts, these by their very nature clog the lines of communication.

I do not wish to suggest that every thought which reaches your mind has its origin in our world. Obviously that would not be true, but it is true to say that you must not be quick to dismiss as imagination so much that is the result of deliberate effort to enrich your mind and soul.

Always remember that it is not like a communication in your world where there is only one plane, one level of consciousness involved. You have to reduce spirit to matter, two entirely different forms of expression, and in that process of stepping down many things can go wrong. We have a long way to go in perfecting the means. In our world there is constant experimentation, research and investigation in every field of communication, in the mental, physical and in healing. Always there is activity in trying to achieve a better result.

That is why you see the improvement made as years continue. That is the purpose behind gatherings such as this, because it is only through the constant providing of conditions that we can develop your powers and bring to bear a large measure of the power at our command. They have to be harmonized, so that the results can become effective in your world. The important thing is that the lines have been laid, the channels are open, and we can transmit. There was a time when there were hardly any lines, and hardly any channels.

Why people in your world prefer the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth is something I do not understand. We are always concerned with those who can reach and help other people. Every new channel is one more means of spreading knowledge, of spreading spiritual power and working towards the amelioration and betterment of the whole human race. This is a great truth which is part of an infinite truth. There is a serious purpose which underlies the whole of our work. I am only one of many ambassadors, part of a vast plan created in a world beyond yours, directed to help those who are ready to be helped.

We must keep on touching souls, awakening slumbering souls, getting them to realize the greatness that could be theirs. We offer them gifts of the spirit that bring with them the full lustre of their own dignity and grandeur. If obstinate man refuses this, he is turning his back on the greatest gifts offered by the greatest power in the universe.

We have nothing to offer but the truth, and it is the truth that will set men free. Why this should incur enmity, displeasure, hostility, opposition and misrepresentation, I do not know. Maybe they are mistaken. Their judgment has become warped and they are incapable of realizing that there can be truth outside themselves. Sometimes I think they must think that it is very wrong of the Great Spirit to reveal His wisdom outside their organization. But as it is said, "The ways of God are not the ways of man." Perhaps it is good it is not so.

In the case of the churches you have a great difficulty. You have men who earnestly believe that theirs is the truth and they are defending what is to them something very dear. They do not realize that their system has been built on something which originally was divine in origin but has been overlaid through the centuries by what was devised from the mind of man. They cannot isolate the original from the wrapping. They worship the wrapping as being divine. If they have become fossilized mentally and spiritually, nothing can reach them. The Great Spirit has ordered it so that through some mental or spiritual upheaval you are given the opportunity of finding truth, but it does not always happen. If through trouble, sorrow, sickness or sadness their souls are touched, then the experience has been worth while.

The whole purpose of the return from our world to yours is to draw attention to spiritual realities. It is as simple as that. We could easily be unconcerned with your world and its activities. There is no compulsion to associate ourselves with you, and you have no means of forcing our attention. Our efforts are voluntary because we love you, with the whole of humanity, and desire to help you. It could even be argued that perhaps our love, like a good many forms of love, is a little selfish because we have seen so many come to our world unfitted human wreckages, not ready and poorly equipped. It becomes so much easier if they learned the lessons in the place where they were intended to learn them, the schoolhouse of earth.

The whole purpose is to draw attention to spiritual realities, to show that very being starts the physical course with a spiritual heritage conferred by the act of birth. The life force is the divine spark, spiritual in nature, which is intended to grow equally with the physical body. The majority of mankind concerns itself only with physical growth. Some of it is concerned with mental growth, and a few concerned with spiritual growth. The only enduring reality is spirit. If we succeed by a variety of means in making man aware of his spiritual nature which is his reality, it transforms the whole of his life. He sees its purpose, is conscious of his origin, becomes aware of his destiny and should live his life in the implications of the knowledge which he has received. That very simply is the plan behind all our activities.

When it is applied to daily life, then you will drive away all fear, worry, discord, hatred, disease, selfishness and pride, and there will truly be peace based upon a genuine spiritual brotherhood. Increasing awareness of these eternal truths makes your souls and your spiritual bodies receptive to the powers from our world. That is the magnetic link between earth and ourselves.

In order to reach your world, we must have the means of doing it. We must have the channels through which this power can flow. Part of your psychic and spiritual unfoldment consists in becoming more and more receptive to our influences. As your soul natures blend with your spirit co-operators, so they can transmit through you that power which can help in times of crisis, difficulty and danger. This power is hard to define because it is impalpable and intangible from the material standpoint, but it is none the less real. It is part of the force of life, it is part of the Great spirit, it is in essence the same as the power which gives consciousness and being to every facet of activity in the universe. It is the same power that enables the seed to grow and to blossom, and another seed to fruit, the tree to grow and a soul to unfold itself.

It has an infinite number of possible manifestations. It can revive, resuscitate, reinvigorate, recharge and revitalize. It can inspire, it can heal, and when the conditions are suitable, it can produce physical results in your world. When you retire into your own sanctuary for the purpose of giving healing to others, as a corollary you are also unfolding your own channel for receiving spirit power. The two go together. Often when people sit in circles for development and nothing apparently is happening, a great work is being done in strengthening and unifying the links between matter and spirit, for the transmission of spirit power is a highly intricate and delicate process.

If people were highly developed and their lives were more spiritual than material, instead of, as at present, more material and less spiritual, then the task would be easier because the common nexus between us is spirit. Alas, with the vast majority of individuals, the spirit is so deeply embedded, so embryonic, so latent, that it is with the utmost difficulty that it can be reached at all. Some are so engrossed in matter that the spirit within them is but a tiny flicker, so small that it produces practically no light. But it is there. When they are ready, after they have been in the crucible of suffering, then they too can be awakened, then they too can be aware, then they too can understand spiritual realities, themselves and the Great Spirit, the link between them and everyone else and all creatures, and realize the fundamental bond of unity that is part of the natural law.

When you open the door of your soul to one form of knowledge, you must not close it, but must allow the processes of unfoldment to continue. You will not attain perfection in your world, but you can strive to improve your mental and your spiritual outlook.

There lies always the larger task of teaching the many whose lot is not so rich as ours in mind or spirit, to bind up broken hearts to show how the sick can be healed, to emphasize those eternal spiritual truths which are the only foundations for societies to endure, to drive out and banish all the fog and mist, the error and superstition, the vested interests that are the obstacles to the full flowing of spirit power that can illumine and beautify and dignify the world in which you live.

It is not an easy task for people who are invisible, so far as you are concerned, and who are impalpable, so far as worldly sense is concerned, to make their impact on a world of matter. As long as you maintain a good heart, a willing spirit, a receptive mind and undimmed faith, then this channel is open and you automatically are the better for it in all respects, spiritually, mentally and materially. What so many people do not realize is that when they do not get the answers to the things that they want, it is because they themselves do not provide the channel by which the help can come. We have no hands apart from yours. In order for spirit to make its mark upon matter, it must have some nexus that is responsive to spirit and can express itself in matter. It is so simple when you realize it. All I would urge is to go on and know that the power which is sustaining and supporting you is the divine power and it will not fail in its task.

If you succeed in enabling one soul in darkness to find the light, one troubled, wearied individual to gain strength, if you comfort one mourner, if you heal one sick person, if you prevent exploitation of and cruelty even to one animal, then indeed your earthly life has been well worth living. Never weary in the fight for the things that matter. This is the greatest of all fights, the eternal war against materialism, selfishness, these cancers that are festering in your world today and lead so many on to foolish paths where they perish in the darkness without a realization of the purpose for which they were born into the world.

No effort for good is lost, no attempt to help is futile. Never be weary in your well-doing, never be disappointed if you do not see the results. Just go on and I know that every attempt to serve automatically calls to your aid beings from our world who will lend their aid to your labour. You never work alone. Always you are surrounded by the host of the shining ones whose arms will support you no matter what circumstances arise. Place your complete faith iProblems Of Communication

Seldom, if ever, is a communicator able to impart the totality of his communication. It is possible only in exceptional circumstances. It is not as if you are making a communication on one surface of being like a telephone. Even that goes wrong many times; when lines are crossed, the machinery gets out of order and sometimes will not work at all. If you have these difficulties in communication on one surface of being, realize how much more difficult it is when you have two entirely different states of being.

You have to make vocal what begins as an image, a thought or an idea in the mind of the communicator. With a trance medium control is never one hundred per cent effective. The instrument is a human being. Control varies according to the guide's success, partial success, or failure in blending with the medium's aura. The guide takes possession through the subconscious mind and all the bodily processes that are controlled by it. Whilst doing so, he must transmit, if possible, the original image, thought, picture or idea that comes from the communicator. The medium can be tired, ill, out of sorts, bad-tempered, hungry, had too much to eat, to drink, to smoke, a thousand and one things; all can effect the closeness with which guide and instrument should blend.

There may be subconscious ideas in the mind of the medium, strong, dominant, which keep on thrusting their tentacles because they are trying to find expression. Often the only way to get rid of them is to express them and make them null. That explains sometimes why you get the medium's subconscious ideas expressed by a guide. Sometimes the guide cannot help himself and is carried away by the onrush, the force of the subconscious promptings. Fog is bad, so is humidity. A cold, clear, crisp, electrical atmosphere is the best.

It is not easy. It requires much effort to return to your world. That is why the only ones prepared to make the efforts are those who love you. Love is the impelling motive for comforting, guiding, helping those to whom it is naturally and willingly bound. As long as people die, and they love those who are left on earth, they will willingly break through every barrier and overcome every obstacle to reach the one they love. That provides part of the impetus behind the whole of communication from our world.

Be tolerant. Do not blame the medium. Do not necessarily blame the guide. We do our best with the material at our disposal. To accomplish in trance, what is being accomplished now, requires a stepping-down process, the use of a transformer. That involves a sacrifice of the true individuality to a large extent, as you can appreciate. When you have to make it material you go one stage further. You have to materialize the spirit to have almost a complete reversal of vibration from the subtle, quick and delicate to the slow, heavy and ponderous. That, of course, also means another sacrifice of the whole individuality.

Then, again, there are subtle deviations of ectoplasm, according to the mental and spiritual qualities of the human instrument. Not all ectoplasm is the same because its basic foundation is extracted from the medium. The grosser the instrument, the less refined, the less mentally and spiritually evolved is the ectoplasm. Where you have a refined soul, mentally and spiritually, those qualities are reflected in the ectoplasm.

It does not follow that every person who desires to communicate in our world is able to do so, or, given an opportunity, is able to transmit the fullness of the message. It depends on the individual. A dominant, forceful individual will break through all the barriers. A shy, diffident, retiring individual will not want to make the effort.

Then there are all the processes involved in transmitting the thought, picture or symbol -- we do not speak words in our world -- through the medium's guides, or even direct to the medium. If it is done by means of clairvoyance, all this is a very intricate process. Do not think that because you hear me talk with facility through this instrument that it is easy. Even I have to use what I call a multitude of "threads" to maintain my hold on this instrument. At any given moment, any one of these "threads" may be severed and away goes some of my power.

We have many problems to elucidate in the understanding of communication. Do not ever let it be said that it is always easy. When you have the right conditions, it can be very easy. But there are so many factors that can interfere, and sometimes because of these factors we are blamed. It requires the operation of very delicate, subtle conditions, even for one who is experienced to act as a go-between. There are so many factors that can go awry.

You realize that in this process of transformation, this stepping down, much of the beauty, lustre and radiance must be lost. But when spirit communicates with spirit direct, when mind communicates with mind and soul with soul, when there is inspiration or imagination, it merely means that the mind is being enriched with impressions from beyond. The more you worry about it the worse it becomes, because to be successful in its transmission the essential condition is a quietude, a passivity, a confidence based on the certainty that attunement is taking place. Once you set up wavering doubts, these by their very nature clog the lines of communication.

I do not wish to suggest that every thought which reaches your mind has its origin in our world. Obviously that would not be true, but it is true to say that you must not be quick to dismiss as imagination so much that is the result of deliberate effort to enrich your mind and soul.

Always remember that it is not like a communication in your world where there is only one plane, one level of consciousness involved. You have to reduce spirit to matter, two entirely different forms of expression, and in that process of stepping down many things can go wrong. We have a long way to go in perfecting the means. In our world there is constant experimentation, research and investigation in every field of communication, in the mental, physical and in healing. Always there is activity in trying to achieve a better result.

That is why you see the improvement made as years continue. That is the purpose behind gatherings such as this, because it is only through the constant providing of conditions that we can develop your powers and bring to bear a large measure of the power at our command. They have to be harmonized, so that the results can become effective in your world. The important thing is that the lines have been laid, the channels are open, and we can transmit. There was a time when there were hardly any lines, and hardly any channels.

Why people in your world prefer the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth is something I do not understand. We are always concerned with those who can reach and help other people. Every new channel is one more means of spreading knowledge, of spreading spiritual power and working towards the amelioration and betterment of the whole human race. This is a great truth which is part of an infinite truth. There is a serious purpose which underlies the whole of our work. I am only one of many ambassadors, part of a vast plan created in a world beyond yours, directed to help those who are ready to be helped.

We must keep on touching souls, awakening slumbering souls, getting them to realize the greatness that could be theirs. We offer them gifts of the spirit that bring with them the full lustre of their own dignity and grandeur. If obstinate man refuses this, he is turning his back on the greatest gifts offered by the greatest power in the universe.

We have nothing to offer but the truth, and it is the truth that will set men free. Why this should incur enmity, displeasure, hostility, opposition and misrepresentation, I do not know. Maybe they are mistaken. Their judgment has become warped and they are incapable of realizing that there can be truth outside themselves. Sometimes I think they must think that it is very wrong of the Great Spirit to reveal His wisdom outside their organization. But as it is said, "The ways of God are not the ways of man." Perhaps it is good it is not so.

In the case of the churches you have a great difficulty. You have men who earnestly believe that theirs is the truth and they are defending what is to them something very dear. They do not realize that their system has been built on something which originally was divine in origin but has been overlaid through the centuries by what was devised from the mind of man. They cannot isolate the original from the wrapping. They worship the wrapping as being divine. If they have become fossilized mentally and spiritually, nothing can reach them. The Great Spirit has ordered it so that through some mental or spiritual upheaval you are given the opportunity of finding truth, but it does not always happen. If through trouble, sorrow, sickness or sadness their souls are touched, then the experience has been worth while.

The whole purpose of the return from our world to yours is to draw attention to spiritual realities. It is as simple as that. We could easily be unconcerned with your world and its activities. There is no compulsion to associate ourselves with you, and you have no means of forcing our attention. Our efforts are voluntary because we love you, with the whole of humanity, and desire to help you. It could even be argued that perhaps our love, like a good many forms of love, is a little selfish because we have seen so many come to our world unfitted human wreckages, not ready and poorly equipped. It becomes so much easier if they learned the lessons in the place where they were intended to learn them, the schoolhouse of earth.

The whole purpose is to draw attention to spiritual realities, to show that very being starts the physical course with a spiritual heritage conferred by the act of birth. The life force is the divine spark, spiritual in nature, which is intended to grow equally with the physical body. The majority of mankind concerns itself only with physical growth. Some of it is concerned with mental growth, and a few concerned with spiritual growth. The only enduring reality is spirit. If we succeed by a variety of means in making man aware of his spiritual nature which is his reality, it transforms the whole of his life. He sees its purpose, is conscious of his origin, becomes aware of his destiny and should live his life in the implications of the knowledge which he has received. That very simply is the plan behind all our activities.

When it is applied to daily life, then you will drive away all fear, worry, discord, hatred, disease, selfishness and pride, and there will truly be peace based upon a genuine spiritual brotherhood. Increasing awareness of these eternal truths makes your souls and your spiritual bodies receptive to the powers from our world. That is the magnetic link between earth and ourselves.

In order to reach your world, we must have the means of doing it. We must have the channels through which this power can flow. Part of your psychic and spiritual unfoldment consists in becoming more and more receptive to our influences. As your soul natures blend with your spirit co-operators, so they can transmit through you that power which can help in times of crisis, difficulty and danger. This power is hard to define because it is impalpable and intangible from the material standpoint, but it is none the less real. It is part of the force of life, it is part of the Great spirit, it is in essence the same as the power which gives consciousness and being to every facet of activity in the universe. It is the same power that enables the seed to grow and to blossom, and another seed to fruit, the tree to grow and a soul to unfold itself.

It has an infinite number of possible manifestations. It can revive, resuscitate, reinvigorate, recharge and revitalize. It can inspire, it can heal, and when the conditions are suitable, it can produce physical results in your world. When you retire into your own sanctuary for the purpose of giving healing to others, as a corollary you are also unfolding your own channel for receiving spirit power. The two go together. Often when people sit in circles for development and nothing apparently is happening, a great work is being done in strengthening and unifying the links between matter and spirit, for the transmission of spirit power is a highly intricate and delicate process.

If people were highly developed and their lives were more spiritual than material, instead of, as at present, more material and less spiritual, then the task would be easier because the common nexus between us is spirit. Alas, with the vast majority of individuals, the spirit is so deeply embedded, so embryonic, so latent, that it is with the utmost difficulty that it can be reached at all. Some are so engrossed in matter that the spirit within them is but a tiny flicker, so small that it produces practically no light. But it is there. When they are ready, after they have been in the crucible of suffering, then they too can be awakened, then they too can be aware, then they too can understand spiritual realities, themselves and the Great Spirit, the link between them and everyone else and all creatures, and realize the fundamental bond of unity that is part of the natural law.

When you open the door of your soul to one form of knowledge, you must not close it, but must allow the processes of unfoldment to continue. You will not attain perfection in your world, but you can strive to improve your mental and your spiritual outlook.

There lies always the larger task of teaching the many whose lot is not so rich as ours in mind or spirit, to bind up broken hearts to show how the sick can be healed, to emphasize those eternal spiritual truths which are the only foundations for societies to endure, to drive out and banish all the fog and mist, the error and superstition, the vested interests that are the obstacles to the full flowing of spirit power that can illumine and beautify and dignify the world in which you live.

It is not an easy task for people who are invisible, so far as you are concerned, and who are impalpable, so far as worldly sense is concerned, to make their impact on a world of matter. As long as you maintain a good heart, a willing spirit, a receptive mind and undimmed faith, then this channel is open and you automatically are the better for it in all respects, spiritually, mentally and materially. What so many people do not realize is that when they do not get the answers to the things that they want, it is because they themselves do not provide the channel by which the help can come. We have no hands apart from yours. In order for spirit to make its mark upon matter, it must have some nexus that is responsive to spirit and can express itself in matter. It is so simple when you realize it. All I would urge is to go on and know that the power which is sustaining and supporting you is the divine power and it will not fail in its task.

If you succeed in enabling one soul in darkness to find the light, one troubled, wearied individual to gain strength, if you comfort one mourner, if you heal one sick person, if you prevent exploitation of and cruelty even to one animal, then indeed your earthly life has been well worth living. Never weary in the fight for the things that matter. This is the greatest of all fights, the eternal war against materialism, selfishness, these cancers that are festering in your world today and lead so many on to foolish paths where they perish in the darkness without a realization of the purpose for which they were born into the world.

No effort for good is lost, no attempt to help is futile. Never be weary in your well-doing, never be disappointed if you do not see the results. Just go on and I know that every attempt to serve automatically calls to your aid beings from our world who will lend their aid to your labour. You never work alone. Always you are surrounded by the host of the shining ones whose arms will support you no matter what circumstances arise. Place your complete faith in and rely on the power which cannot fail you. There is no security in your world at all. The only security is in the unseen, the invisible, in the eternal realities which cannot be measured by any apparatus in your world.

Your security is the strength of the spirit, the majestic power which is the means by which the Great Spirit expresses itself everywhere. When all else has changed its form, either by being reduced to ashes or by crumbling into dust, the realities of the spirit will still stand, unchanging, immutable, as the unshakable base on which to build. I know it is very hard for you, living in a world of matter in which all is measured by your physical senses, to appreciate the nature of reality. It escapes you all the time. But if I can convey, in however adequate a form, the fact that spirit is the enduring substance of all eternity, and that nothing else matters, and if I can encourage you to build on truth and not on shifting sands, then at least I am helping to fulfill my mission. and rely on the power which cannot fail you. There is no security in your world at all. The only security is in the unseen, the invisible, in the eternal realities which cannot be measured by any apparatus in your world.

Your security is the strength of the spirit, the majestic power which is the means by which the Great Spirit expresses itself everywhere. When all else has changed its form, either by being reduced to ashes or by crumbling into dust, the realities of the spirit will still stand, unchanging, immutable, as the unshakable base on which to build. I know it is very hard for you, living in a world of matter in which all is measured by your physical senses, to appreciate the nature of reality. It escapes you all the time. But if I can convey, in however adequate a form, the fact that spirit is the enduring substance of all eternity, and that nothing else matters, and if I can encourage you to build on truth and not on shifting sands, then at least I am helping to fulfill my mission.

Creation Is Infinite

A PRAISEWORTHY characteristic of Silver Birch was that no matter how difficult or obscure a subject put to him he always had at his command a superb and instant answer. Indeed, the beloved guide welcomed the points which some lesser beings might have dodged.

Journalist A.W. Austen, a circle member for some years told of a remarkable question-and-answer session between this world and the next.

"What do you consider to be the most urgent reform that is necessary in the world?" Austen asked.

"That is a very hard question," Silver Birch admitted, "for all over your world there are injustices that cry out to be remedied. There are wrongs that shriek to be righted; there are so many pestilential blots on your civilization that it is hard to know where to make a start. But the most urgent reform, as I see it, is to get rid of the needless poverty, desolation and misery which is the fate of countless thousands. When there is so much, that any should be denied the very fundamentals of material existence is very wrong."

"The greatest reform that cries out for accomplishment is to redress the disparity between those who have too much and those who have not enough. How can you reach souls to find themselves when their poor, pitiable, emaciated physical bodies are not a fitting temple for the spirit of God to dwell therein? We are not blind to the prime necessities of your physical selves and our mission is to bring to your world those conditions of living which enable body, soul and mind to find the realities necessary for their existence in a state of happiness and well-being."

Next Austen asked the wise spirit teacher, "If you were a dictator what would be your first reform?" But Silver Birch would not even consider the possibility of his being a dictator.

"I cannot put myself in a position where I would have a world of puppets at my disposal," he said, "for that is contrary to the Law as I know it. It is not through dictatorships, through enforced commands which must be obeyed in fear and trembling lest dire punishment awaits, so that peace, harmony and happiness can come to your world. You cannot set the world right by a series of ordinances that must be immediately obeyed. The chaos caused by years and years of confusion can only gradually become clarified and even then only through goodwill, the desire to be of real helpfulness imbuing all those who are the leaders of mankind."

"Neither I, nor any other who claims to be a spiritual teacher, could ever act as a dictator, for our whole mission is to awaken the slumbering conscience, to teach the dormant spirit to arise and claim the inherent gift of the Great Spirit that is on its own. Only thus will true happiness and peace and concord come to your world. No one person on earth can reach that stage of perfection where he is entitled to rule over others and his words to be obeyed as implicit commands decreed by infallible authority."

Here Austen asked Silver Birch what he considered to be the most necessary step in Britain's relations with other countries.

"This country of yours has a great mission to perform, for it is destined to give a lead in bringing peace and also in staving off many of the disasters that threaten so many countries," answered the guide. "But it will have to remember that before there can be peace in your world there will have to be a spirit of self-sacrifice and service. Unless those who see with the eyes of discernment are prepared to make concessions, are prepared to give that which is not necessary for their own happiness and well-being but would enable other countries to find solutions to their problems - unless a lead is given in that direction, your country will fail in its mission."

"Some countries have too much; some have too little. You are rich in many things and where other countries are poor in those same things you could arrange a means of exchange that would enable problems to be solved without the shedding determination based upon obstinacy to say, 'What we have we hold.' Unless you are prepared to give, you cannot receive."

"Are you thinking of colonies?" Austen interposed.

"Yes, everything," he said. "The land, the sea, the air - those do not belong to countries; they belong to the Great Spirit of all life. His spirit is expressed in His children, and they should receive, as part of their natural heritage, all that is necessary for their well-being, their development, their unfoldment and their experience on earth, so that when they lay down their burdens when death comes they are ready to die, equipped, prepared for the greater life in the world of spirit."

Often Silver Birch spoke of a New World, one without war where a spirit of brotherhood would be expressed.

To Austen, this seemed "an optimistic view." His point was that the world would always contain those at varying stages of evolution. With the hope of clarifying the position, he asked Silver Birch if he agreed that "creation is continuous and that 'new' souls - as opposed to reincarnated souls - are constantly being born."

"The Great Spirit is infinite, and so the process of creation is infinite," he replied, "progressing always in its multitudinous expressions from imperfection to perfection, from immaturity to maturity, through all the countless grades of evolution. That process is timeless. It had no beginning, it has no end, for it belongs to infinity. It is part of the infinite Great Spirit, and that self-same spirit finds its expression in human life at varying stages of unfoldment. But when you speak of 'new' souls, do you mean that something begins which had no existence before?"

"Yes," Austen confirmed.

"That is impossible," said Silver Birch, "for all life is based on preceding life. Life gives birth to life, constantly expressing itself in many forms. Spirit, unevolved because it has no earthly contact, finds expression in your world through suitable instruments fashioned by you, as you provide physical bodies commensurate with the spirit which has to use it so that it can possess that earthly education necessary for its evolution. It is new insofar as its earthly experience is concerned, but it is not new in the sense that it had no existence as spirit before it expressed itself on earth. Spirit is the stuff out of which all life is made; spirit is the primary substance of creation; spirit, as spirit, has always existed and will always exist."

"That excludes, of course, those who return to earth for further experience. But, omitting those who reincarnate and dealing only with those who incarnate for the first time, they had no individuality, no human consciousness before their physical expression. Human consciousness only begins with earthly expression. It is the body of matter that supplies the vital link which enables the spirit to become aware of itself as individual consciousness."

Austen asked the guide whether he would hazard an opinion on the proportion of "new" to "old" souls among those who are being born.

"It is impossible to give any answer to your question that would be even approximately correct," he replied. "But I would say the proportion is fairly equal."

"In that case," said Austen, "there will always be on earth those who are more evolved and those who are less evolved."

"Yes," agreed the guide, "otherwise evolution would not be taking place. Try to understand that life, because it is life, cannot ever be static, for that way lies stagnation. Life is rhythm, motion, progress, unfoldment, development, the reaching out towards perfection all the time. Unless there were constant gradations of life, unless there was a constant pilgrimage on the rungs of the ladder of progress, life would not be life. It is in the variety of evolution, with its multitudinous stages of development, that life becomes life."

"If all were at the same stage, if perfection were attained, if there were no necessity for further striving, no need for new attainments, no need for still greater expression, then the incentive to live, to achieve, would gradually become extinct. The motivation of life is always onward, striving to reach out to clasp that which is at present beyond its grasp. And it is always in the striving, in the attempt to conquer, seeking to triumph over difficulty, that the spirit finds itself and God is at work amongst you."

Arising from the spirit answers, Austen wanted to know whether less evolved souls would always cause trouble in the world and retard progress

"Yes, but always remember this, that what you call unevolved souls are really unevolved by comparison with those who are more evolved." said the guide. "As your standard becomes higher, so you recognize that those you considered were evolved are not so evolved as you thought they were. All the difficulties of your world, and indeed those belonging to the lower strata of my life, are caused wholly and solely by selfishness, greed, avarice, self-interest in all its expressions."

"There will be always some less evolved than others. How else would you have it? Would you have all humanity reaching the same stage of evolution at the same time? Would you have every human being moulded to the same pattern at the same point of progress at the same time? Would you reduce all life to a state of monotonous equality in regard to its development? Would you have only light and no shade? Would you have only sunshine and no storm? Would you have only virtue and no wickedness? Would you have laughter and no tears? How would you regulate your world unless it be through an infinite variety of expression?"

Austen suggested to Silver Birch that, in view of the many differences in evolution that must always be present, his description of the New World seemed to be too optimistic.

"No, the New World is born," the guide declared, "born in agony of birth, with a baptism of tears and misery and sadness. But the New World is here. Its rays are beginning to pierce the fog of your world. But even in this New World all will not have been achieved. There will be plenty to remedy, to improve, to strengthen. There will still be weakness to be overcome, there will still be troubles to be eradicated. But there will be a new basis for life. Much of the needless misery, much of the needless deprivation, much of the needless starvation and sadness will have gone. The basis of life will be changed, for gradually selfishness will be overthrown and service will reign in its place."

"But is it not true that we shall only get what we deserve?" Austen queried.

"Yes, the New World will come more quickly or more slowly, as more of you help us or hinder us in our efforts to co-operate with you," said Silver Birch. "You will not get more than you deserve or less than you deserve, for so perfect is natural law in its expression that its scales are always evenly balanced. They are weighted down neither on one side nor the other. I tell you of conditions that are operating and, as they continue to operate, what will be changed. Do not forget that you will reap in your world the harvest of countless generations of labour wrought by many pioneers, idealists and reformers, who made sacrifices to advance the lot of mankind."

To Austen it seemed unfair that some "new" souls should be born into conditions that were far better than those into which other "new" souls had similarly been born. Could Silver Birch explain the apparent injustice?

"They will be born into a better world, but more will be expected of them in consequence," he said, "for they will not have to fight the fights that others have had to win in days gone by. It is purely a matter of comparison. Remember this always, no man cheats the laws of the Great Spirit. At no time can you alter in any way by one hair's breadth what you deserve. Reward and punishment are fixed and immutable, determined only by your conduct in your life. There is no favouritism, there is no evasion. Divine justice is perfect in its expression. You will find that you will receive just what you have earned - not one whit more, not one whit less."

"That is how we ought to want it," Austen commented.

"That is how men and women of courage should desire it," said Silver Birch, "not to have rewards they have not earned or punishments they have not deserved. You should be prepared to endure the punishments that you deserve and carry upon your shoulders the responsibilities that you have created. It was all said in the Bible -- 'Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for what a man sows that he will reap.' And I cannot say it any better than that."

"The laws that are made in your world may favour some unduly and punish others needlessly. There may be privileges that come because of rank or title or high position. But these will not obtain in the world of spirit. Every allowance will be made. The soul will register just that stage of attainment that it has reached by its life in your world - no higher, no lower. Just what you have made yourself to be, that you will be when death calls you to another life."

Next Austen asked Silver Birch what should be the attitude to spiritual or divine guidance received by individuals who sit alone in the silence.

"There is no spirit, however exalted, in my world who would desire you to accept his teachings without consideration, without pondering and without reflection," he replied. "We do not desire automatons who will mechanically perform all that is said. Our mission is to increase your own sense of responsibility, to stimulate the divine that is within you, to enable you to have even greater command over your reasoning faculties. God speaks to you through your mind. Whilst it is true that the kingdom of heaven is within, the mind is also God's kingdom - or should be."

"Never do anything which your reason rejects. Enthrone reason as your guide. We would never suggest to you that you perform tasks that are foreign to your common sense. Ours is a mission of co-operation. We strive to make you aware of the infinite qualities that you possess, many of them so dormant that they never find expression. We want you to find yourselves, your real selves, so that you may order your lives in such a fashion that the Great Spirit is expressed through you. If you receive promptings, if you receive what seem to be messages in the silence that urge tasks upon you, do not perform them if your common sense objects. Only those who have reached a certain standard of spiritual attainment can be sure of the prompting that comes to them in the silence."

"It is better that you work with us, once you have learned to trust us and are convinced that our mission is to serve you and through you to serve humanity. We have striven to demonstrate that we are experienced in the knowledge of spiritual laws, that ours is a divine mission that seeks always to bring the richness of spiritual truth within your grasp. Is it not better that you should co-operate with known intelligence of proved worth rather than that alone, unguided, you should seek to penetrate what is the unknown? What would your answer be?"

Austen told the guide he considered it always to be better to know with whom one is speaking.

"That is so," said Silver Birch. "When the teacher has proved his ability to teach, why not utilize his services that are freely offered you? When a soul has reached the stage of development when he is aware of all who seek to inspire him and to commune with him from the world of spirit, then there are no difficulties to be overcome. But all humanity is at different stages of evolution."

Still the two-world debate continued. Austen admitted that to him it seemed there was a limit to the sacredness of life. Taking it to an extreme, it seemed to him "foolish to suggest that the life of a germ is sacred if by sparing it we endanger the life of a human being." Would the spirit mentor enlighten him on this point?

"Where does consciousness begin?" asked Silver Birch. "Has the germ consciousness? Has a snake consciousness? Has a flea consciousness? Has a microbe consciousness? They have not in the sense that you understand consciousness, the awareness of oneself. Consciousness is the knowledge of what you are, who you are, what you could be. That consciousness is not resident in germs. Where there is conscious life you have creation at work, and it is wrong for you to interfere with that consciousness and to prevent it from having the fullness of expression in your world to which it is entitled."

This answer did not satisfy Austen who reminded the guide that animals did not possess consciousness as defined, but we were taught it was wrong to kill them.

"Below individual consciousness, in the animal life there is a group consciousness," he said. "Below animals, the group consciousness ceases to function. There is no consciousness in a germ."

"Is the germ capable of feeling pain?" asked Austen.

"No," said Silver Birch.

"Then are we to be guided by whether pain is involved in killing?" was the next question.

"The guide is consciousness," said Silver Birch. "Where there is consciousness, it is wrong to kill. You should allow the fullest freedom to all human beings to enjoy life in all its expressions, so that its richness may reach them and equip them for death, the liberator into the world of spirit. But because your world is a changing world, you are often compelled to interfere with the rights of others because you desire to help them. Your motive, sincerely, honestly and truthfully is to serve."

"I say that because of vivisection. To me, that is wrong. It is often cruel and it is needless and it fails also to achieve its object. But I know that there are many who perform vivisection, not because they wish to inflict cruelty on animals, but only because their desire is to help humanity. They think that they can gain knowledge which will help them in their conquering of disease. Their motive is sincere."

"But where there is needless killing, where there is slaughter of animals solely to satisfy human appetites, where beautiful birds are shot in the name of sport - then there can be no justification. Life is sacred, life is of the Great Spirit. When life becomes conscious and takes human - and even, in its lower stage, animal form - it should be entitled to be treated with sacredness. Life should not be held cheaply, for life is the Great Spirit in expression. You have no power to create life, therefore you should not seek to destroy its means of expression."

"Realize this, that when we are asked questions to which there can be no answer of 'Yes' or 'No', we do try honestly to give you a point of view that will help. I have no desire to be arbitrary, I only want to be of service. It may be that you could find apparent contradictions in answers given at different times, but then we are dealing with different phases of the subject."

"And remember also I make no claim to infallibility. I do not say that I have reached the limit of all knowledge and wisdom. I, like you, am human still. I, too, strive after perfection. I, too, have weaknesses to conquer. I, too, have progress to achieve. I do not say that what I tell you represents final truth. I only tell you what I know and, if I do not know, what I believe. If the views that I express cause disagreement, that is all to the good, for then we can reason with one another. You can add your stock of wisdom to mine and in considering these problems we can learn from one another and help one another to a greater understanding."

"Co-operation does not only mean that we should try to help you, but that you should also try to help us. I do not want it to be assumed that at any stage, when a problem arises, you say, 'Consult Silver Birch, consult Red Cloud, consult White Hawk, and what they say is final.' That is not so. We will give you the knowledge at our disposal, but remember we make no claim to infallibility. If we fail to stimulate you into thinking for yourselves, then we have failed in our mission."

At this juncture, Austen suggested to Silver Birch that to some the knowledge of life after death might tend to cheapen life on earth; they might consider that if life could not be destroyed there was less harm than they previously thought in killing.

"Have we not always taught that increasing knowledge brings increasing responsibilities?" asked the guide. "Because you have this knowledge, you have a greater responsibility in the way you use it. Your standard of life must be higher because of knowledge and, if it is not, then you yourself will pay the price. You cannot cheat. You cannot pretend once knowledge is vouchsafed to you. Once you understand the Plan, and the pattern of life has been made clear to you, it should give you an increasing responsibility of your duty to your neighbour, to your world and to yourself. Life should be richer, more sacred, and the desire to serve should burn brightly within you."

"If knowledge does not do that for you, then you do not possess it. It has passed you by, for if you fail to apply truth when you know truth, your spirit is impoverished and you are the sufferer. The laws of the Great Spirit cannot be cheated, not even by philosophical quibbles. What you call Spiritualism should make you aware of your place in the scheme of life. If it does not, you have not learned its lessons and must pay the price. Do not blame truth if you do not understand it. Blame yourself, for truth is still true even though it has not penetrated through to you. Truth is not altered by argument. Because it is truth, it is true."

When Austen similarly interviewed White Eagle, the guide of Bertha Hirst, he could not explain to Austen the tie between people and their guardians, as he confessed he had never considered the question. So Austen asked Silver Birch whether he could answer it.

"It is a tie of spiritual affinity," he said. "Sometimes that happens when there is a blood relationship at all. Wherever there is a mutual interest, based upon the tie of affinity between kindred spirits, then the guardian or guide - call it what name you like - is able to render service because the attraction is there. The greater the bond of spiritual affinity, the closer is the proximity between the guardian and its charge."

Remembering that Silver Birth had said earlier in the interview that individual consciousness does not exist before the soul is incarnated into matter, Austen wondered how it could have developed characteristics sufficient to create a spiritual affinity.

"That is something that is so hard to express in your earthly language," said the guide. "There is a bond that can be determined from the moment of conception. The tiny germ cells that, when they coalesce, provide the physical vehicle of life, possess within themselves all the qualities that later find expression in the mature earthly body. So, too, does the spirit possess in miniature the spiritual qualities that will also find expression."

"Did that mean that our evolution was determined insofar as we had to evolve along certain individual lines but could choose our own rate of evolution?" Austen asked.

"Certain things are fixed, by virtue of the body at your command and by the spirit that incarnates into that body," said Silver Birch. "Irrespective of rebirth, the law that determines the invasion of that body by spirit also to a large extent determines the expression. I do not want that to be construed into saying that everything is predestined, but in a world of law human life conforms to law. There are variations, but in the main much has to be fixed."

"The rate of evolution depends essentially on the free will of the individual, but obviously there are limits within that earthly incarnation. That depends upon the use he makes of opportunity, but he is limited, for example, to the extent that he could not achieve perfection. There is a quality in the spirit that is known to advanced souls in our world, and the appointment of a guardian is dependent upon the affinity of spiritual interest between them."

"Do you mean that guardians are appointed by somebody else, and it is not a choice of a charge by the guardian?" Austen queried, probing further.

"Yes, they are appointed always," said Silver Birch. "There is law in my world, much more rigidly than in yours. The harmony between them is determined because the qualities are known at the beginning. The headmaster of a school, if he knew the latent qualities of all the children entrusted to his charge, and knew the capabilities of the teachers he had, would know which children should be under the tutors of each teacher. Unfortunately, the factors are not always known in your world - but they are in ours."

Who are you?

"Who are you? do you know? You know just that facet that is expressed through your body, but that is only the pin point as distinct from the larger life which is beyond it."

"When you say you would like to find out which is you and which is not you, you have to begin by discovering which is you altogether. Do you think that you have in this earthly life expressed anything but a tiny segment of your whole self? And do you think that the consciousness that is registered now is anything but a tiny fraction of the greater, complete consciousness that is you?"

"How are you to decide then which is your thought, your imagination, and which is the impression, the guidance which comes from your larger self or from higher realms that are using you?"

"You must get the proper perspective. You must realize that you are spiritual beings expressing yourselves through physical bodies and that the spirit is the supreme part of you. The spirit is the higher, the body is the lower. The spirit is the master, the body is the servant. The spirit is king, the body is the subject. The spirit is that part of you which is divine."

"It is the self-same spirit which has created, devised and fashioned the whole universe. You have in embryo, in miniature, in microcosm, all the vast powers that belong to what you call God. If you would allow this innate divine strength to rise to the surface, to dominate your lives, you would banish every care, anxiety and worry, because you would know that there is nothing that could happen in your world over which you could not triumph. That is what you have to learn. It is not easy."

"Give attention to your body as the house in which you live. But it is only the house, it is not you. Being the house, it must be kept in good condition, in good repair, so that the tenant can be amply looked after. But always remember it is only the house; it is not the tenant."

"That same power which fashioned the universe is the power which is responsible for life. Life is not physical or material, life is spirit, and spirit is life. Wherever there is life there is spirit and where there is spirit there is life."

"The power, which is you, is the power which is life and you have a kinship with the Great Spirit that enables you to participate in all the infinite processes of creation. You can call it up any time you so desire from the well of your own being - the tremendous power of the spirit that is resident within you, that is capable of giving you a dynamic, a vitality, and of sustaining you."

"You have a task to perform. You will imbibe this knowledge and you will use it to help others. You will develop the gifts of the spirit yourself and when you have done so you will become a little lighthouse that sheds the beams of truth to weary souls still in the darkness. When you do that you will fulfill the purpose of your existence."

"There is a plan into which we all fit and that will operate with the consent of your free will. There is a saying in the East that when the pupil is ready the master appears. When you are spiritually ready the door will open. You will not have to ask. The door will open so wide that you will walk through it and the task will begin."

"We can never promise that your life will be free from problems, perplexity, or even pain. We can promise that within yourself you will find the means to overcome all handicaps and disabilities. As you strive to express the highest, the deepest, the greatest within yourself, so you will attract to your aid those beings from our world who love you, who desire to help you, and through you help others."

"Alas, there are too many who live encompassed by swirling mists of darkness, whose shoulders groan under the weight of their load and who know not where to turn, sick in body, mind and soul. These are the ones we must always try to help."

"We would be failing in our purpose if we were to declare that the task of spiritual attainment is easy and that those who, in any measure, would attempt to spread light where there is darkness will meet with an easy task. It could never be so. The whole of history is against it, for truth and error have been engaged in a dreadful warfare that will not cease until infinite perfection can be achieved and that, in the very nature of the case, is unattainable. It is a long and difficult and toilsome struggle in which we are engaged."

"You do not realize the prejudice, opposition, hostility, antagonism, misrepresentation, superstition and deliberate attack that will have to be faced, I do not say these things to daunt you, but to place any quest in its proper setting. I know how difficult it is."

"I have had to overcome, with all the power at my command, almost insuperable obstacles to reach your world, and I am not alone in this. I am one of those who elected to return because it was seen that the calamities which man would bring on himself were of so awesome a character that unless the power of the spirit could effect its bridgeheads everywhere, man would destroy himself physically and the world in which he lives."

"Wonderful though man measures his material achievements, spiritually he is still very puny. Oh that the achievements of the spirit could match the achievements of matter, that progress could be made in fields of the mind and spirit that are comparable with the advance that has been made in certain fields of material endeavour!"

"Because man is not spiritually led he is in danger of blowing himself up with forces that he is not entitled to have at his command. All our efforts are directed, wherever channels can be found, towards the single purpose of ensuring that the spiritual truths upon which the whole of life are founded should be the basis by which man everywhere builds his life."

"All jealousies and bickering, all strife and fratricide, all war and chaos, all envy, greed and malice can be driven from the earth. Compassion, kindness, gentleness, amity and co-operation can be the principles by which men rule everywhere because of the recognition of their common spiritual nature. There is a bright side. It is not a picture of unrelieved gloom, because amid such obstacles and difficulties any step forward is great progress. If you can help only one soul to be comforted when all seems drear, dark and dismal, then it has all been worth while. And you can help far more than one."

"The prizes of the spirit are not easy to be won, otherwise they would not be worth winning. If the victor makes no effort, what is his victory? If you can scale peaks without labour, what have you attained? It is the very essence of the case that spiritual attainment must be a lonely, solitary path that gets more and more isolated the farther you reach because you have to leave familiar landmarks behind."

Emphasizing that wherever an effort is made by any human being on earth, at least an equal, and usually a greater effort is put forth from the Other Side, Silver Birch stressed:

"It is always true that any sincere request for spiritual help can never fail. You open yourself to this aid the moment you make this magnetic link with the world of spirit. It is very hard sometimes to find language that will convey the actuality of spiritual happenings because language, which is material, is not equal to the spiritual, which is immaterial. Words, at the best, are poor symbols to interpret a much greater reality."

"When you accept this knowledge it means your soul is ready; it has come into its own. So many people are unconscious of their higher nature, which is the reality and the mainspring of their existence. They do not understand that the reason they exist is because they are spiritual beings expressing themselves through material bodies."

"Even though they believe they have a soul or a spirit, they think of themselves in terms of a body with a spirit, whereas they are spirits with bodies. The real you is the spirit - the soul, the divine, the eternal."

"The body is fashioned to serve its purpose. It has a temporary existence in this form. When it has done its task, it crumbles away. But the spirit that incarnates at birth, that is important. The fact that you can receive this knowledge means that the divine has awakened within you. You have burst the bonds. The seed has begun to flower. It has forced its way up from the darkness into the light. And it will grow in beauty and richness as you allow it to do so."

"Then you begin to exercise true harmony of being which is the fundamental purpose of life on earth. Those who go through your life without allowing the spiritual nature to have its complete and proper exercise are just as handicapped as the physically blind, deaf and mute."

"Your spiritual nature has come into its own. The divine has been awakened. It is an index that points to the fact that you have reached that stage in your development when you are ready to obtain from life, not that which exists only on the surface, but all the richness that belongs only to the spirit. The riches of the spirit are far greater, far more beautiful, far more lustrous than all the gems of your world. They will endure long after the others have tarnished and rusted and decayed."

"Once the soul comes into its own it realizes its powers. These are part of the mightiest forces in the universe. You begin to make a channel through which help, guidance, inspiration, sustenance and wisdom can reach you from our world. This not only enables the ones who love you and who are tied by blood to come close, but others, who are in no way physically related. They have a spiritual relationship which is even more important. These draw closer and seek to bring their power to bear and help you in your lives."

"As this power obtains lodgment and builds itself up, so you become the possessor of that which the world can never give or take away, a rock based on confidence, calmness, resolution. Then you know beyond all doubt that there is nothing in the whole world that can disturb the real you, and that you

SPIRIT IS SUPERIOR

While the Roman Catholic Church admits of only three kinds of baptism - baptism by water, baptism by blood and baptism by desire -- it leaves out the most essential form.

"You have all been baptised in the real meaning of the word -- baptised in the spirit," declared Silver Birch at one circle gathering. "You have been born again. The soul has begun to lead you to find itself."

"The power of the Spirit is in your midst, and with it there comes not only reality, but certainty. It illumines the whole of your minds, fills your souls with peace and your hearts with love. It is the greatest manifestation of the Great Spirit."

One of the sitters, rather puzzled by some of the phrases in Silver Birch's invocations, asked, "Is the Great Spirit really in everything - in every stone, for instance?"

"The Great Spirit is in everything," the guide replied, "for nothing exists apart from the Great Spirit."

"Then is the Great Spirit responsible for earthquakes?" the sitter asked.

"The Great Spirit is the Law - the Law that controls all things," was the reply. "The Law governs all things. There is nothing in the universe which is outside the Law."

"I have often been puzzled by earthquakes," said the sitter, not quite satisfied with the guide's answer.

"I know that earthquakes and storms and lightning puzzle the brains of those in your world," said Silver Birch, "but they are all part of the universe. The universe is evolving, even as those who dwell in it are evolving. The world of matter is far from perfect yet - and it will not reach perfection. It will evolve higher and higher."

"Does that mean that the Great Spirit is evolving?" queried the sitter.

"No, the Great Spirit is the Law and the Law is perfect," replied Silver Birch. "But that part of the Great Spirit that is expressed in your world is subject to the evolution of that world as far as its expression is concerned."

"Remember that your world is evolving, and these things are the signs of its evolution. Your world was born in fire and tempest and is gradually evolving towards perfection."

"You cannot say that the Great Spirit is responsible for the beauty of the sunset and the sunrise, for the myriads of glittering stars in the firmament, for all the delightful songs of birds, and then say that the Great Spirit is not responsible for the storm and the lightning, the thunder and the rain. They are all part of the great law of the Great Spirit."

"In that sense, you might argue that the Great Spirit is responsible for those who are depraved, for those who are so unenlightened that they render harm to their brothers in your world."

"But to each one of you there is given that amount of free will which, as you evolve, you learn to exercise. The higher you evolve in the spiritual scale, the greater can you exercise your free will. You are your own limitation, but, because you are part of the Great Spirit, you can conquer all the difficulties and obstacles in your world."

"Spirit is superior to matter. Spirit is the king and matter is the servant. Spirit reigns supreme. It is the essence out of which all life is made, for spirit is life and life is spirit."

Silver Birch was asked whether free will was limited in the sense that there are definite tendencies of events in relation to individuals.

"There are tendencies, vibrations," replied Silver Birch, "but these are not insuperable. You are surrounded by radiations and influences, much of which can affect your destiny, but the Great Spirit has provided you with part of Himself, a part of His spirit which, when your free will is properly used according to your evolution, can enable you to conquer all that stands in the way of the fullest expression of that part of the Great Spirit that is within you. For you are the Great Spirit and the Great Spirit is you."

When people say that communication with the "dead" retards them in their progress and drags them back unwillingly, they cannot know the facts.

"I love to hear the sound of your earthly voices," Silver Birch said. "It gives me much happiness. And I know that you like to hear from me, for we have much to learn from each other. I try very hard to learn from you, of the things that belong to your world, so that I can add to my knowledge of earthly things and be of greater service if I can."

"Out of our talks there will come much work, for there is a great work for all of us to do - a work to which many of us who live in the realms of spirit have dedicated the whole of our lives."

"Part of that work will be accomplished here. You have seen some of it already. You have seen how we have been enabled to touch those who live not only in your own little country, but in other countries in your world" - Silver Birch was referring to the fact that there had frequently been visitors to the circle from overseas, some of whom had gone back and started home circles in their own countries as a result of their experiences here.

"That work will grow," he went on, "as a power of the Spirit grows here."

"Just go on with your faithful service and know that not one moment which is dedicated to our service is in vain, for our coming together always brings a rich blessing upon you who are in the world of matter and we who are released from the world's limitations. That blessing comes because our aim is not for ourselves but only for the service of others."

Like baptism, the Church - and rightly - places great emphasis on the importance of marriage. But how does the spirit world view it? Silver Birch gave his opinion when addressing Vernon Moore, a circle member and his fiancee, Frances, who for many years took down the guide's words in shorthand so they could be recorded, printed and sent out all over the world

"I want you both to realize that you begin now the greatest adventure of all, for two lives that have pursued separate courses are now come together to begin a united life," the guide began. "Even as love has brought you to this place, even as love emanating from a world higher than yours guided your footsteps on paths of knowledge and truth, so has that same power brought you two together. Soon 'a man of God' will read a few words from a book and, according to your world of matter, you will be joined in the bonds of holy matrimony. But I say to you there are no bonds unless you bind one another with love and affection. There are no ties unless you wish to tie one another with love and affection."

"Do not think only in terms of two sharing one life from the physical aspect. Remember that you are two spiritual beings, both portions of the Great Spirit, now coming together with pledges to cherish, to love and to serve one another even as a great love from this world strives to serve you both. Remember that you are uniting two souls to adventure together and that we look not so much upon the material aspect by the spiritual, which to us is the enduring reality."

"Do not expect that you will escape occasional sadness and sorrow, difficulty, trial and test, for these are parts of your evolution. When they arise, as arise they inevitably must, face them with honesty and know that they help to quicken your character and to bring you closer together. There are many here who look forward with joy to a celebration which will duplicate the one you have in your church, but which will be sanctified in our world by ties we regard as more enduring, for the promises uttered audibly by word of mouth are as nothing compared with the unspoken pledges of the soul."

"You are richly blessed, for you have knowledge. I wish you, on behalf of many here who stand beside me, a safe journey through life's seas, happiness and joy abounding, but always ask you to remember that you continue to serve with the added fortification of love around you in the earthly world. Look up, not down, and realize that your strength cometh from above and from within your beings. Fortified by that knowledge, face the future knowing that all will be well and that where love dwells no harm can befall you. And I pray that the blessing of the Great Spirit rest with you and inspire you always in all aspects for your new life, and that you both shall forever be conscious of the love that is round and about you."

The couple were members of Silver Birch's circle until 1981 when his medium passed on. Frequently the guide spoke of the natural law. Once Vernon, a former Methodist missionary, asked, "How are we to learn from natural law?"

"You learn through the evolution of your own spirit," replied the guide. "You learn first of all to discard all that which is false, all that which makes your reason revolt, all that which is not in consonance with the love and the wisdom of the Great Spirit."

"Before you learn, you must unlearn. You must discard all that which hinders your minds from thinking as they should. Thus your soul and your spirit grow and you are ready for higher knowledge."

"When you meet here, your soul is developing and you are becoming more accessible to the infinite wisdom of the Great Spirit. You are learning about the operation of laws that control spiritual phenomena."

"You are being taught about the operation of natural laws in relationship to the life that you live. As you fit yourself by progress so greater knowledge comes to you."

"I, whom you call Silver Birch, represent only a small portion of the knowledge that belongs to the infinity of the spheres. As you grow, other teachers greater than I can use me to impart knowledge and wisdom to you.

"To save the world, must we broadcast this teaching to everybody? asked Vernon.

"To save the world?" questioned Silver Birch. "The world must learn to perform its own salvation. There is no ready made plan. There is no prepared, cut-and-dried system."

"Your world has to learn that, behind what it regards as the manifestation of life, there is the eternal reality of the spirit, that the children of matter are not only worldly beings but spiritual beings expressing themselves through bodies of matter."

"The bodies of matter must be as perfect as they can be made through having all the necessities of life freely at their disposal, as the Great Spirit would have them."

"Then their spirits must be freed from all dogmatic and credal trammels, so that they do not give allegiance to things that have no real or spiritual value, so that they work only for that which is true, so that the warring and the quarreling and the strife over creeds and dogmas, which have held your world in chains for thousands of years, can be abolished."

"We preach the gospel of the spiritual brotherhood of all peoples, with the Great White Spirit as the common Father."

"What stands in the way is the earthly conception, the churches built on error, the usurping of privilege, the pride and the power of tyrants, petty tyrants who hold the whip hand."

When someone said "Thank you," Silver Birch, as usual, reminded those gathered that he must not be thanked, but that it was the Great Spirit to Whom gratitude should be expressed.

"We use the earth phrase out of habit," someone explained.

"I know my son," replied the guide. "But if I did not always correct you and always draw attention to the laws of the Great Spirit, some would begin to pay us praise and to worship us, and then the same troubles would start once more."

Silver Birch then spoke, when asked which spirit friends were present, of the enormous number who regularly attended the sittings of the circle.

"There are as many as 5,000 people here tonight." he said.

"There are not only those you knew on earth, and those who are interested in the circle. There are those we bring to hear you talk, because they do not think that it is possible."

"Others are brought here so that they can learn how we come through to your world of matter, so that they can use other mediums in other parts of the world. There is a great missionary work, not only for your world but for our world too, for we do not sacrifice any time or power."

"The great lesson that those in my world have to learn is how to use spirit power in order to impress your minds. The great value of an understanding of these laws is that your minds become accessible."

"You do not realize how unknown to yourselves you are all the recipients of inspiration from the world of spirit."

"There are many in your world who are counted as great scientists, great inventors and great teachers. They are only the vehicles of intelligence from my world. It does not matter so long as the truth or the discovery is made known. Who receives the credit is of no account ......."

"Every experience has its advantage and disadvantage. The higher your soul evolves the greater is the progress it has made -- but the more it knows there is to be evolved. That is its disadvantage, it is more dissatisfied. The more sensitive you become to beauty, the more sensitive you are to ugliness. The higher you rise, the lower you can sink."

"Life is shadow and sunlight, calm and storm. An even monotone is not life; life is composed of happiness and joy with occasional sadness, for it is only by having these extreme divergences that character can grow and experience come to the soul."

"That is why there is a lesson to be learned from sorrow, from the storm, from the bitterness of life. Sometimes those who are in the shadows rail against the Great Spirit because they do not understand that that experience is necessary to their own unfoldment, but sunshine is only to be truly appreciated if you have been in the shadows."

"Through comparison, the soul begins truly to live. If your experiences were limited only to that which you thought was good, happy and beautiful, life would be very empty, for it would possess no depth."

"The wise individual is the one who faces each new day with eagerness and steady resolve, determined to learn from all the experiences that await him, the lessons that they all can teach to help him on the infinite road that leads to the Great Spirit."

Silver Birch devoted this particular sitting to answering the problems of the sitters. One wondered whether there was unlimited power at the disposal of spirit guides.

"The power we have is dependent on our own evolution and on the ability to receive and transmit," said the guide. "Our state of evolution determines the amount of power at our disposal. The instruments at our disposal determine the amount that can be poured through to your world. These are the factors which govern the receiving and the distributing of the power from our realms."

"Then there is unlimited power, if it can be used," commented the questioner.

"Yes," answered Silver Birch, "because power comes from the Infinite Spirit."

The circle member remarked that it seemed at seances that guides were always careful not to waste power, which would appear unnecessary if the supply were unlimited.

"When you are accustomed to manifestations," said the guide, "you know that if you go beyond a certain limit then the sitters will have to pay the price in depletion and loss of nervous energy and force. We do not wish to be placed in a position where we are accused of undermining the health of those who come to us seeking manifestations of the power of the spirit."

"In fact, the reverse is true and your health should improve, for power that is normally repressed is brought into circulation - and remember, too, that the power we bring from our world is the power of life-giving essence which invigorates."

It seemed that the sitting was hardly half over when Silver Birch announced that the time was almost exhausted. But the sitters were wrong and the guide was right, for when the medium came out of trance it was found that only five minutes were left.

Before he went, Silver Birch said: "I have tried to show myself as your friend, guardian and guide. I wanted you to feel that I was near you, that whatever qualities I might possess they did not prevent me from enjoying a close personal touch with you, that I was interested in your problems and your difficulties and ready to give you personal help and guidance if I could."

"Remember, I am not only a teacher, seeking to teach eternal truths, and reveal the powers of the spirit; I am also the friend of each one of you, for I love you dearly and strive always to help you with all the strength and power that I possess."

"Come to me always with your difficulties, no matter what they be. If I can help you, I will do so. If I cannot, I will strive to give you strength to help you through your challenges."

.DO NOT DESPAIR

Britain - indeed the whole Commonwealth - was plunged into a crisis in far-off 1936 when King Edward VIII announced his abdication so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Never before had modern day monarchy faced such a testing, turbulent time.

Not surprisingly this headline making event was raised at the Hannen Swaffer home circle where Silver Birch gave a spirit view of the abdication.

"The conditions of your world have been very difficult," he said, "but now they begin to clear away. I want to remind you all that there is a great lesson to be learned from it."

"In all moments of crisis, fix your minds upon the eternal things of the spirit. Do not dwell too much on the kingdom of empires and dominions, but on the Kingdom of Heaven, which has yet to descend on earth."

"Do not have excessive adoration for those who are only men. Remember that there is only one King in the universe, the King of all life, Whose kingdom embraces every child of the Great Spirit and Who wants all His plenteous bounty distributed freely."

"Do not let your attention be diverted, because of glamour, from the great eternal realities. Remember the conditions of those who dwell in misery and in darkness, those who lack food, those whom the sun seldom reaches, those who are prevented from breathing as they should the air which comes from the Great Spirit of life."

"Remember the greater tasks, the greater problems. Remember the masses who cry out, whose pain, bitterness and sorrow are far, far greater than the difficulties of only one. That is the great lesson for all in your world of matter to learn."

At this point Hannen Swaffer asked whether his view of the crisis - it was printed in "Psychic News" - was too harsh. The paper swiftly received several letters, one saying that Swaffer's stand was "The most heartless thing that has ever been written." Another declared that his comments were "ungentlemanly, unmanly, ungenerous and un-Christian."

"No," replied Silver Birch. "When you speak truth, truth finds its way into their hearts. Sometimes it meets with the resistance of superstition and prejudice. But those walls will crumble gradually. You could not have said it many years ago, but you say it today."

"A few complain, but they are nothing. They are those within whose minds traditional things die hard. They do not reason with logic and understanding. You told them of the natural laws. They are the only ones that matter."

"When the passions created in men's breasts die down, they will have to confront reality. That is your task in your world of matter - to tear away the veils of illusion and to reveal truth. Some cannot behold truth's blinding light, but it is of no account. They are not ready."

"The truth reigns supreme. Ignorance flees before its approach. It is because our message is true that we one day will reign supreme - not we who are the instruments, but that which we represent, the love of the Great Spirit, the infinity of His bounty, the love, the wisdom, the knowledge that watches over all mankind."

"Away must go every obstacle that prevents the fullness of the Great Spirit being revealed. Away must go all servitude. Away must go all barriers. That is the task upon which we are all engaged."

"I only try to tell you a few of the things that I have learned, because I know that they can help you even if they make you examine again the fundamental principles of life."

"Sometimes, when you are engrossed in your daily tasks and the problems of your world surround you, you are apt to forget the great eternal spiritual principles upon which all life is based. If I remind you of these things, they help you to focus your minds so that you can get the true balance and are able to render still greater service."

"Your world has yet to learn so much. The greater the responsibility, the greater the sacrifice. The greater the knowledge that you possess, the greater the responsibility. You can gain nothing without a price. There is a price always to be paid."

A month earlier Silver Birch gave his then customary Armistice Day message. He told those present:

"I want you all to remember when, in a few days' time, the thoughts of the whole of your nation are centered on the many who laid down their bodies of matter in service, that it is a great reminder to you all of the way in which millions of the children of the Great Spirit have been for years betrayed by those who lead in the affairs of men."

"The sacrifices have all been in vain, and the sacred reminder comes to each one of you to realize that there are only a few very simple ways by which peace, harmony and happiness can reign."

"You build up systems based on greed and selfishness and, as result, you reap war and poverty, starvation misery, distress and chaos. And then you ask us how we can help you, when all the time the message of the Spirit has been forgotten and neglected, even by those who should preach the word of the Great Spirit."

"Temporal power is as naught beside spiritual realities, and, although many sneer at the things of the Spirit, the solution of all the troubles of your world will only be found when all people, in the spirit of goodwill, apply spiritual truth to material problems."

"You are nearer disaster today than you were when it was announced that war had ceased. You are nearer to grave and terrible troubles. The world is heading straight for that which spells bloodshed, great bloodshed."

"I speak with gravity because of that which I know. It may be that the world will be saved from itself, but only if the efforts of all those who seek to serve, not to aggrandize self, triumph over the power of greed and selfishness. Peace will not come to your world from war. Happiness will not come from misery. Laughter cannot come from tears of sorrow."

"There is plenty for all. But greed stands in the way. Those who seek to rule by the sword must perish by the sword. That same truth prevails today."

"But, throughout all the darkness, there is a glimmer of hope. Do not despair. Hold fast to that which you know to be true."

A year later in another Armistice Day message the guide referred to the Spanish Civil War in which, incidentally, Maurice Barbanell and his wife were inadvertently caught up! Happily both escaped injury and were escorted to the French border by gun-toting soldiers. The ever-eloquent guide commented:

"Each succeeding year makes the futility of this human sacrifice more apparent. Your world will pay for just two minutes of its time and silent tribute in memory of the 'glorious dead,' and after that they will be forgotten for another year, until they are taken off the shelf and dusted once again."

"Their sacrifices were all in vain. They have been agonized for nineteen years. The Great War! Its greatness consisted in the amount of slaughter, wasted slaughter. The Great War, that was to end all war! How hollow, how full of mockery do those words sound!

"Do you not consider that those who made every sacrifice that they could make in the world of matter, even to laying down their physical lives, have not spent years in bitter disillusionment? They were cut off in the prime of earthly life. They were sent unprepared into the world of spirit. They passed on cheerfully for an ideal, that your civilization might be saved, and they have been betrayed ever since."

"War has not been driven from the face of the earth, for, even as you will pay tribute to the 'fallen dead,' as you call them, of your last war, there will be no armistice in the East or in Spain, where the killing will continue even without a cessation of two minutes."

"Does your world of matter realize that peace can only come from the application of spiritual laws to worldly matters?"

"It is selfishness that brings not only war, with its train of bloodshed, misery and weeping, but chaos, confusion, disaster and bankruptcy."

"They must learn that only by substituting service for selfishness can peace come, that the old ideas of materialism and power and desires to aggrandize nations must be swept away and in their place there must reign the desire to live for one another, the stronger to help the weaker, the richer to give to the poorer."

"Do not insult those who have been translated to spirit realms with tributes that come from the lips and not from the heart."

"All other methods have been tried and they have failed you. But not yet has the application of spiritual truths been tried. Unless your world does so, it will continue with war and bloodshed that will, in the end, destroy your much vaunted civilization."

Perhaps at this point it is pertinent to include the guide's words upon civilization. Asked to comment on it, Silver Birch replied that free will "is a gift of the Great Spirit, but if it is not used aright then the price must be paid."

"The laws must be obeyed," he went on. "If the world lives with the law, it reaps the benefits. If it lives against the law, it reaps the results. One way brings peace and happiness and plenty, the other way misery and war and bloodshed and chaos."

"We are despised in your world of matter by those who should be the leaders of the children of the Great Spirit. We are rejected by those who should welcome us because we come in the name of the Great Spirit and His love. Filled with the desire to serve, we seek to reveal those laws and that power which will show your world how to save itself."

"And those who are steeped in the ignorance of spiritual blindness, and who surround themselves with ceremony and ritual, and at the same time deny the power of the Great Spirit to descend today, must pay the price."

"We are the friends of all who seek to serve. We are the enemies only of those who seek to destroy. We come on wings of love and service ready to help wherever we can. That is the great task that we all have to perform."

"Your world pays too much attention to old fables because they are old. Truth and age do not always march together. I know it is difficult to surrender the dearly held beliefs learned in the days of childhood, but when the soul becomes free it must discard all that reason rejects. How many are prepared to do that?"

"It does not occur to many people to test their beliefs by reason," said a sitter."

"No, they prefer the shelter of that which they have known for so long rather than journey into the speculative unknown," the guide remarked. "And remember, also, your world does not acclaim its prisoners with much applause. It usually condemns them."

Another sitter wanted to know why so much was said about a spirit plan to help the world, "and yet we see such little apparent result of it?"

"You do not see the results of a plan," said the guide, "because you look at these things with the eyes of matter. You judge progress in relation to your own short span of life, but we see progress because we look at things from another plane."

"We see the spread of knowledge, a greater understanding of spiritual things, a rise of tolerance, an increase of good will, a breaking down of barriers of ignorance and superstition and fear and spiritual slavery."

"It is not as if there were to be a sudden revolution. That could never happen, because all spiritual growth must be slow and progressive."

"Do not think that there is need for despair. There is on one hand - when you see the growing masses of materialistic forces - but on the other hand there is growing hope as the light of spiritual truth penetrates the fog of materialistic selfishness. And, as long as knowledge spreads, truth will be victorious."

"That is why our message is so important. It is not for us - it is for you. It is we who strive to serve you, to make your world realize the price it must pay for its selfishness, for its wanton ignorance, its deliberate cruelty. We strive to serve you, to help you, because we love you."

"We are not evil spirits, seeking to lure you on to paths of destruction. We do not seek to make you debase yourselves, to practice cruelty or sin. Rather do we strive to make you realize the divinity that is yours, the powers of the Great Spirit that you possess, how you can practice the law of service and help the Plan of the Great Spirit."

At a different gathering the guide was asked if it would be a good thing "if our present civilization were destroyed."

"It is much better for your civilization to be saved, even in spite of itself," was the spirit sage's reply.

"Don't you think it has gone so far wrong that it would be better to start all over again?" the sitter persisted.

"No, because the light of spiritual truth is breaking in upon your world," said Silver Birch. "Where there are channels for the power of the spirit to penetrate, so there comes to you that energy that enables your world to exist."

"Your world must realize that it depends for its existence upon the reservoir of spirit."

Another sitter suggested that Silver Birch was rather harsh in his declaration that the sacrifices of those "killed" in the war were all in vain. He thought it would hurt many people to be told that.

"Sometimes stark truth is bitter and hurts," said the guide, "but, because it is true, it will do good."

"But did not any good at all come out of their sacrifices?" the sitter said.

"I can see none," answered Silver Birch. "Your world of matter is nearer chaos today, and is more filled with destruction, than it was when your 'Great War' began."

"Can so much heroism be spent in vain?" the sitter queried. "Is there no spiritual repercussion?"

"There is on the part of the individuals who made the sacrifice, because their motive was good," the spirit guide replied. "But do not forget that your world has betrayed them. It has made their sacrifice pointless, because it has continued in its materialism."

"Is it of any use that these Armistice services should go on, year after year?" asked another sitter.

"It is better to remember those you call dead for two minutes than not to think of them at all," added the guide. "But I do not see what good can come when you celebrate the Armistice with a display of military might, with rifles and bayonets, with soldiers, with the firing of maroons and with all that comes with war. Could you not have an Armistice that was a spiritual service"?

"Are you in favour of the continuance of Spiritualist services of remembrance on that date?" was another point put to him.

"Wherever truth is expressed good is done, if speeches are given as an incentive to service. Vain speeches that lead to nothing are valueless. It is not sufficient to have speeches, and for audiences to be smugly satisfied with the feeling that they are in favour of peace."

"I want them active. I want them serving. I want them uplifting the weak. I want them healing the sick. I want them comforting the mourner. I want them sheltering the homeless. I want them to put an end to all the abuses that are a blot on your world of matter. Only through service can peace come. It will not come until all are imbued with the ideals of service, until all practices service."

At the same circle gathering the guide was asked if he agreed with the Pacifist movement which today is probably stronger than ever before.

"I belong to no party," he replied. "I wear no label. I see service, motive. Do not be confused with titles. Ask what is the aim, what is the desire, because there are men of honesty and good intent even in opposing camps. The teaching that we have to give you is very simple, but it requires courage to put it into practice."

"Whenever a start is made, whenever there is the determination that comes with knowledge of the spirit and the truths of the spirit, whenever service and not selfishness is applied to all the affairs of everyday life in the world."

"It will not come through any party, but through the children of the Great Spirit, who, realizing these things are true, apply them in their lives, in their politics, in their factories, in their governments, in their international transactions."

"We can enunciate principles that we know are founded on truth, and tell you with certainty that their application will bring results. You are in the realm of matter. Yours is the responsibility. We can only strive to guide you, with all our love and helpfulness, and co-operate with you whenever your feet are on the right paths ...."

"So many in your world cannot get out of the groove in which they live. Sometimes the groove is religious, sometimes it is political, sometimes it is a self-made prison that has no reality beyond the imagination of its creator."

"Learn to be free. Do not imprison yourself. Do not hedge yourself around and refuse to allow new inspiration to come to you. Truth is a constant search. Its boundaries are ever widening, for as the soul evolves the mind responds."

"How can one become free?" asked a sitter.

"You are never completely free, because the measure of your freedom is related to the growth of your soul," said the guide. "You become free when you realize there is no limitation to knowledge, truth, wisdom, growth. You become free when you discard at once that which you know in your heart is false, that which reason rejects, because your intelligence cries out in revolt. You become free when you are not afraid to discard error in the face of new light. But how many are prepared to do that?"

One present suggested that sometimes economic conditions prevented people from becoming free.

"No, for they cannot imprison the mind though they can imprison the body," said Silver Birch. "You imprison your own minds. There is knowledge for all when you are ready to seek knowledge, but you must journey on the great adventure."

"You must be prepared to start on a search where even sometimes the boundaries are not known, sometimes be prepared for hazards and dangers, sometimes be prepared to walk in uncharted territory, yet always prepared to follow truth wherever she leads and to reject all that is false, no matter how old it may be."

When I was asked, many long years ago, whether I would return to the world of matter and find on earth a band who would work with me to deliver the message of the spirit, I said I would, as did many others, and my task was given me.

I was told that I would have to search and find an instrument and so attach myself to this instrument that I would be able to express through him the message that I was charged to deliver. So I searched our records and found my medium.

I watched from the time that he was conceived, and from the moment that the spirit began to express itself - albeit as a little flicker - I brought my influence to bear and started there and then this association which has lasted all these years.

I helped to mould the spirit and the tiny little mind and throughout every phase of that life I watched his every experience, learned how to get a close association and I accustomed myself throughout the days of boyhood to all the mental processes, to all the physical habits. I studied my instrument from every aspect - mind, spirit and physical body.

And then I had to guide his footsteps towards an understanding of these spirit truths. First, I guided him to make a study of the many religions in your world of matter, until his mind revolted and he began to be what your world calls an Atheist. And when that had played its part in the mental unfoldment, he was ready for me to begin my task of speaking through his lips.

I guided him to his first meeting. I helped to bring him to his first circle. And there, in the power provided, I made my first contact - so crude, so trivial, but from my point of view so important - and I uttered my first expression in the world of matter through another's

organism.

From that day I learned how to obtain better and better control, until now you see the result. We have achieved so much that I can register the totality of my ideas and eliminate for all purposes what is in the medium's own personality.

Now I would like to tell you something about my mission. They said to me: "You will have to go into the world of matter and, when you have found your instrument, you will have to bring to him sympathetic souls who will aid you to deliver your message." I searched and found you all and brought you together.

But the greatest difficulty I had to face was that I had to make the choice whether I would return to provide those proofs that your world must have to satisfy itself - material proofs, I mean, not spiritual ones, for your world does not understand those - or whether I would return as a teacher and teach truth. I chose the harder.

I said that, after all those long years, with all the manifold experiences I had had in the realms of spirit, I would return and try to appeal with love to those whom I would strive to teach. I would appeal to reason. I would appeal to the judgement of mature, evolved and what you call educated minds. I would reveal the message of the spirit in all its simplicity.

I would say nothing that offended reason. I would strive to manifest love, never to reproach with anger, but to appeal always with love, and prove by precept and example and by all I did that I was what I claimed to be - a messenger of the Great Spirit.

And I imposed upon myself the burden of anonymity, so that I would make no appeal of illustrious personage, title, rank, or fame, but would be judged on what I said and what I did. When I was in the spheres at the last festival they praised me and said I had accomplished much of my mission. And tears of joy fell down my face. But my mission is not yet over. There is still more to be done.

Because of the work that others have done - the same work that we do - there is more light in your world of matter, there is more happiness, there is less sorrow, less tears. We have won a partial victory over the grave.

We have inspired many to let their higher selves rise in their lives. We have driven out many of the falsehoods of the past that have blinded men's eyes to justice and truth. We have helped to free many from the prison-house of creed and dogma which has afflicted your world for so many years, shaming reason with its foolish stupidities.

We have sought - and succeeded in some measure - to teach of a Great Spirit of love and wisdom, not of partiality, not of wrath, not vindictive and angry, not a dealer of pestilence and disease. We have sought to reveal the Nazarene as a great exemplar. And many have seen the reason that lies in our teaching.

Great work has been done, but a greater work still has to be done. There is war in your world of matter, war that need not be, for if your world knew these truths and lived them, men would not kill. There is starvation, when there is plenty of the Great Spirit's bounty. There are mean hovels where the children of the Great Spirit are compelled to live, deprived of fresh air, unable to catch the health-giving rays of the sun, forced to live below the line of sustenance. There is want and distress and misery.

There are still superstitions to be killed. There are still aching hearts. There are still diseases to be vanquished. Our task is not yet complete. We rejoice at the work that has been done and pray that strength shall be given to us so that, with your co-operation, we may be enabled to render greater service still.

I am only the mouthpiece of those who sent me, and I seek no glory for myself and no reward. I have no desire to aggrandize myself or my personality. I rejoice to be a vehicle for expressing these truths, lost for many centuries and now restored to the world of matter, stamped with the seal of divine truth.

My part is that of the messenger who speaks the message and I have striven to be faithful and to convey that which was given to me according to the instrument that I have and the power which I have earned. I only want to be of service and, if the few teachings I express help one soul to find peace in a stormy life, to find the shelter of truth after having experienced the storms of doubt, if within the sanctuary of these simple spiritual truths one can find happiness and be inspired to serve, then perhaps we have accomplished something of the Father's work.

Mary Pickford At A Seance 

Having recorded a few of the messages given by Silver Birch to various kinds of people, I think I must include Hannen Swaffer's story of the sitting given by the guide to Mary Pickford, the film star who became known as "the world's sweetheart."

The journalist wrote:

The Silver Birch sitting provided fresh confirmation of what is often stressed when actors and actresses, artists or composers sit - the great importance, from the point of view of the spirit world, of any film, play, composition or work of art that spreads knowledge or inspires large numbers of people.

Here, copied from a record of the sitting, are extracts that will be of general interest.

Silver Birch: "Now, to the lady who comes from across the water. You know you are much beloved by many who are here today and that for many years in your life you have been conscious of the love that streams towards you from those who have passed through the change which people call death. That is so, is it not?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "And this love and this guidance have been realities in your own life, time and time and time again, for whenever difficulties have raised their heads and you have not known where to turn, the guidance of the spirit has shown itself with indisputable clarity and you have gone forward without hesitation to perform the task in front of you. Do I speak clearly?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "However, you could become more conscious of the love of the many people who are bound to you by ties of affection. Did you but realize it, the whole pattern of your life is one of great guidance. You have been led step by step all the way. When, if you had known at first what was in front of you, it all would have seemed impossible of attainment, as you have put one foot forward, so the way has been cleared to enable you to put the other foot forward; and so progress has been consistent and has been maintained.

You have been of tremendous service because you have striven to radiate that love which has been given to you.

You may not know all this, though some of it is clear to you. But in our world, a world inhabited by all the souls who are translated here from your plane of activity, we soon learn that the only real religion is service. Service is the coin of the spirit.

He or she who strives to serve to the utmost is in turn served by other beings who return, inspired by the attracting force. And, as you have sought through your life to bring happiness and understand the knowledge into the lives of others, so you have attracted to yourself not only your own loved ones, but radiant beings who left the earth many long years ago, and who pour out their accumulated wisdom through your instrumentality. Do you understand all I am saying to you?"

Mary: "Yes, I think I do."

Silver Birch: "You are regarded here as an ambassador, one who sees in herself an instrument, a means of reaching large numbers of people, and you have striven to preach this simple gospel of the reality of the invisible, where all strength and power and majesty and might reside. And so it has been throughout the whole of your life that material obstacles have been removed again and again and you have been able to go forward.

Now I want to say to you that soon you are to set the seal on your labours; the crown will be placed upon them and you will reach the pinnacle of attainment. All that your heart desires will find fruition in the days that lie before you."

Northcliffe, who invariably discloses his presence at any sitting at which I am present, then gave Mary his greetings. I did not know, but when she and Fairbanks first came to London and they were mobbed everywhere by vast crowds, Northcliffe placed his Surrey home at their disposal as a retreat.

Then Fairbanks spoke of his regrets for what had happened at the end of his and Mary's marriage. I refrain from doing more than mention the fact briefly.

"I hold no bitterness against any human being, on earth or off the earth," said Mary, "only against my own wrong-doing."

"Do not magnify that," replied Silver Birch. "If the ledger of your life were to be drawn up now, the so-called wrong-doings would be very few compared with all the unselfishness and the service you have rendered. You will never know until you come here how much good you have done for so many people.

You have brought joy to millions of people. You have enabled them to forget for a while the little sorrows, their cares and aches, their troubles and stresses, and the storms that mean so much to them. In your own way, through your own desire, you have given service, and service is all that matters.

When everything else is forgotten and stripped away, when wealth has faded and power has dissolved, when rank and birth are forgotten, when creed lies in the dust, the character you have earned by your life of service will endure for all time. And it is that character shining through your body that I see, and I rejoice in meeting a soul who has done some good. That is what I think about your wrong-doings.

There is nothing for you to fear. You can go straight ahead. You wish me to speak frankly?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "You do not want to make lots of money. What you want to do is to do the greatest for good that you can. Isn't that so?"

Mary: "Yes."

Silver Birch: "That motive brings its own reward, and the other is automatic. It is given to you for the single purpose of giving you confidence and there is nothing to fear. Have no fear in your heart. Fear disturbs vibrations. You know about vibrations?"

Mary: "Yes, I know something about them."

Silver Birch: "Fear disturbs the atmosphere. If your heart is full of unbounded, unremitting confidence, if your soul is full of indomitable resolution because your mind has knowledge of spiritual verities, that cannot fail in a world where all values are changing.

Nothing in the world of matter can touch you, the real you, the indestructible, infinite, eternal you. You can go forward with the full knowledge that the power which is behind you, guiding you, upholding you and sustaining you, is the mightiest power in the universe, the power of love that seeks to use you as a greater instrument of service for the Great Spirit of all life, to make known His love and His wisdom, His truth and His knowledge, to those who still know nothing about these things.

Sometimes in the silence of your chamber you have shed tears because you think, or you have thought, you have failed. You have not. The road lies straight in front of you and the glorious promise of fulfillment will be attained. I hope I have helped you."

Mary: "Thank you very much."

Silver Birch: "No. I never accept thanks. Thanks should be rendered to the Great Spirit, whose servants we all are. I strive to perform this task and I do it with willingness and cheerfulness, and if anything I have said has been of help, then it is because I am going about my Father's business. Perhaps some time we will meet again and I can be of further service to you.

Till then, look up, not down. Remember that light and love stream in abundance from the infinite source, which possesses an infinite storehouse. Fill yourself from that rich, vast treasury. It is yours for the asking. And go on writing."

To the circle, the guide said:

"May the power of the spirit remain with you as an inspiring force and may you become increasingly conscious of the gifts with which you have been endowed and, developing them, render service to those less fortunate then yourselves, so that your lives are truly worth while the living."

Then, just before he gave up control of the medium, the guide gave Mary a final message. "Your Mother says I mustn't go away until she reassures you that her love is undying," he said, "that she never forgets that which you have done for her and that she is repaying what she considers to be that debt. She would not let me go."

Mary: "But I owe her so much. Not in ten lives could I repay it."

Silver Birch: "Well, you may have more then ten lives"

Mary: "More than a cat? I shall have eighteen lives! I shall come again one day to England to live."

Silver Birch: "Oh, it's not the first time you have come here in life. But that's another story."

Mary: "Just one little thing ... would you tell me one little thing about me - my English self?"

Silver Birch: "It goes back more than two centuries. We shall have to meet again. I am going now. I cannot hold the medium any more."

Mary, it seems, had long believed herself to be the reincarnation of a girl who lived in England over two centuries ago. I forget now her reason for accepting this as being true.

Anyway, having been born as Gladys Smith, in Toronto, she is proud of her British origin.

 Science- Viewed From Beyond

NOT since the Victorian era when several noted scientists investigated and attested psychic phenomena, including full-form materializations under test conditions, have spirit gifts been so rigorously placed under the scientific microscope. It is fitting to begin this chapter with a question a scientist put to Silver Birch: "I have read and have always believed that service is very important. What is also important is the occupation of gathering knowledge, namely learning. In the spirit world how is this carried out? In scientific matters of this physical world we do experiments. Does one do experiments in the spirit world, or is it by purely mental processes?"

The guide replied:

"Knowledge, like the Great Spirit, is infinite; no period can be placed on it. As you progress so you fit yourself for more knowledge. You are forever climbing a mountain, ascending one peak, only to behold another to be scaled. Knowledge, progress, development, unfoldment, advancement, all these are eternal processes.

In your physical world you experiment to see what are the results when you try "a" with "b" and so on. We have experiments which are divorced from the physical world, because we are concerned with some of the many and varying expressions of the spirit. So we are always experimenting. Let me give a simple illustration. We have coming to our world doctors who are still concerned with helping afflicted ones on earth. They have knowledge of the mechanism, the workings of the human body and its many reactions.

In our world they have access to a different kind of power, some of the degrees of spirit, which is life, and how it can be applied, combined with earthly knowledge, to help the sick in your world. This is a constant experimentation involving the mixture of forces.

They must not be too strong, otherwise they will harm the instrument through whom they are to be poured. They can be increased in intensity as the human channel is more receptive and can bear the higher velocity, or power, whichever word you want to use. There is the difficulty again of finding words that can adequately express what is really beyond language. So we are constantly engaged in experiments, adding to our knowledge all the time. "At later circles came these answers to questions.

"The scientific picture of the universe a century ago is vastly different from the one today."

Does this mean that scientists will move away from this materialistic research to a higher level? "It will be forced on them by the logic of their own researches as they inevitably inquire into the world of the invisible and its vast untapped potential. As they develop spiritually they will realize how this tremendous force can be harnessed for good.

Then they will pay increasing attention to the development of these faculties within themselves. What is without is but an expression of what is within. The life force is indivisible. You cannot cut it up into watertight compartments. The life in the atom is in essence the same life as in the human, the animal, the flower or the tree. It is all the one life with its infinite manifestations."

Have scientists come to that level of understanding?

"No, but some have. Oliver Lodge is a good example of a spiritual scientist with an awareness of states of reality existing beyond the surface."

Do you think scientists will destroy too many people and too much before they come to an awareness?

"No there is a limitation to what scientists can do. They cannot destroy the whole of your world. The natural laws will ensure the damage that can be done in your world is not so fearful as some people think. Besides, the law of the Great Spirit in the ultimate must prevail. There are no men in your world who can thwart it. They can delay, they can hinder, but they cannot override the Great Spirit.

Those of us who have some insight into the mechanics and the operation of natural law remain confident that, come what may, however foolish people in your world may be, the Great Spirit will prevail. And the Great Spirit's laws will ensure that more and more love, compassion, charity and service will be exercised in your world.

Science is not infallible. Scientists are only human beings who can make mistakes. I do not worship the god of science. The world will not come to an end, as they say, it will continue. Are you familiar with scientists' pronouncements that have been wrong?"

I should explain that I have had to study this question very closely, though I am not a scientist.

Silver Birch repeated his question.

"Are you familiar with scientists' pronouncements that have been wrong?"

Very many.

"So there is no guarantee that any scientific pronouncement must automatically be right when it concerns the future."

In greeting a scientist from Rhodesia, the guide said:

"Your footsteps have been guided so that you have been brought out of the darkness into the light. This is part of the process by which all true human development is achieved because of the law of compensation, as low as you can fall so correspondingly high can you rise. It is in darkness that you find the light, it is in sorrow that you find joy. It is when it seems that earth has nothing to offer that the spirit can begin to find itself.

This is part of the polarity, the means by which the soul begins to come into its own. In the vast order of universal activity every facet of being has its ordered part to play. Storm is as essential as sunshine, darkness as light. It is in the crucible of suffering that strength is forged. It is only when extremes are reached that growth begins to be achieved.

I am not trying to talk in paradoxes, but this is how the Great Spirit, with infinite wisdom, has fashioned the laws of progress so far as humans are concerned. But it is just as true that whatever is needed is presented when the time is ripe. The difficulties, trials, tests, obstacles, these are all essential precursors to the soul being able to express its latent gifts. They provide the equivalent to the catalyst.

If you look back you can see how, in the time of what seemed the greatest difficulty, you were shown the way, your footsteps directed so that you could begin to learn how to fulfill yourself. There will be opportunities for you to help others as you have been helped by people who trod a similar path before you.

This is how the divine scheme comes into action, to bring people, one by one, into possession of eternal truths that will help them to express themselves to the fullest, to serve all who come within their orbit, to deny none who seek their aid and to be sorry for those who are given the chance to achieve self-regeneration and lose it because it would seem they are not ready. So rejoice at what has been revealed to you and realize that it is only an infinitesimal fraction of what awaits you. There are tremendous spiritual treasures still to be excavated. You will have many opportunities of service."

At another circle Silver Birch said:

"We are at work the whole time, experimenting with new forms and ideas, particularly in healing, clairvoyance and trance so as to improve the quality. But we are dependent on the material you offer us. This is the measure of your free will and personal responsibility.

We will always give more than we receive from you. That is our duty, to support, to sustain and to ensure that all your fundamental, essential needs will be supplied. The rest is up to you. We require instruments who will be dedicated to serve. I've said it before, and I will repeat, service is the coin of the spirit. To serve is noble because in service you are expressing the divinity within you.

What we ask you to do is to raise your standards as high as you can. We will always work to get you to advance slowly but surely towards the goal of achievement. What we say to you is very simple. Do the best you can, and together we will be able to help those who come to us."

To Inspire Ambassadors 

For most of the delegates at this large meeting of the Commonwealth of churches connected with the Spiritualist Association of Great Britain, held in its Belgrave Square headquarters, it was their first chance of hearing Silver Birch. He readily accepted the invitation to address them.

After a typical invocation he told them:

"I am very happy to come amongst you and to bring you my love and greetings from the world of spirit. I would like you to feel that we are not strangers to one another, but that we are comrades actuated by the same motive of helping wherever we can and playing our part to bring spiritual, mental and physical freedom to all who come within our orbit.

I would also like to say just a few words which perhaps may be of some encouragement to all of you who are channels, instruments, dispensers of the power of the spirit which produces in its train such vivifying effects.

Then I would like you to appreciate that none of you is ever alone, overlooked, neglected or forgotten. You have made yourselves accessible to the sublime power of the spirit, which is the mightiest force in the boundless universe. It is the power of life itself. That is why, for example, in your healings you are able to obtain results where other means have failed. You enable the life force to produce its rejuvenating effect on the life force of the sufferer you are helping.

You are all privileged to be ambassadors of the Great Spirit. You are representatives of the Great Spirit wherever you labour. It becomes your charge and responsibility to see that your gifts are used in such a fashion that they produce the maximum good wherever you can.

There will be brought to you those whom you can help. They will often be pitiful derelicts, sick, ill, worried, cheerless, full of problems, feeling that life on earth has nothing more to offer them. It becomes your privilege to help them to become aware of themselves, of their true nature, of their inner spirit, the gift of divinity conferred at birth, so that they begin to get a realization of how they should order their lives and derive from them the fullness, richness, beauty, splendour and radiance that should be theirs.

That is your function, to make the power of the spirit available to all who come to you. It is the reason why you have buildings, churches, temples and societies, so that you are accessible. And accessibility is the reason for the existence of all your organizations.

I want you to appreciate that so far as we are concerned, if you help one soul to find itself, to become aware of its latent divinity and to begin to express it, then the whole of your earth life is well worth while. But you will be able to help more than one. You will be able, as a result, to perform this unique service that no others in your world can possibly give because they have made themselves inaccessible to the power of the spirit which is the life-giving essence for the whole cosmos in which we all dwell.

Do not worry if any come to you and after you have done your best you are unable to help them. They have had their chance. You must be sorry because they have not taken it. What you must realize is that until their soul is touched, until they are spiritually ready, there is nothing you can do to help them.

What will produce this preparation is not always easy to understand. It may be an illness. It may be a crisis. It may be anything which brings them to the lowest depths of despair, when they feel there is nothing in the whole of the material world that can produce the answer. Then they should begin to come into their own and you should be able to kindle the divine spark so that it can begin to grow into a lambent flame. That is why you exist in your churches, societies and organizations.

I must also say this. Because of what you are, because this tremendous power, divine in origin flows through you, yours is the greater responsibility to see that you do nothing that in any way lessens the trust that is reposed in you. We are not dictators. We are not your masters. We do not regard you as marionettes who have to dance when the strings are pulled in our world. You are our co-operators. We want to work together. We will always provide whatever is spiritually necessary according to the conditions available at the time.

We will lead. We will guide. We will direct. We will help, but we will not order. We will not compel and we will not dictate. If you hear, supposedly emanating from our life, entities who command you to do this, that and the other, you can be sure that their spiritual status is not very evolved. Co-operation is the law of the spirit. We would win you with love, with common sense and with reason. We would offer you nothing that is an insult to your intelligence or would make your reason revolt. Together we can help the Great Spirit in the eternal processes of evolution and creation.

This is the task on which we are all engaged. This is the opportunity given to all of us to help the Great Spirit so that His children may live a richer, fuller life and not waste all the opportunities earth provides in obtaining the equipment that is necessary when people come to our side of being.

We get too many misfits, too many ill-equipped, too many derelicts who are unready. It is easier for their education to begin in your world than it is in ours. So be aware of the tremendous possibilities that lie within you. Be aware of the great opportunities that you have for service. Do the best you can and then you will be fulfilling the purpose for which you came into your world".

Two years later the guide addressed the Council of Spiritualists, which was then composed of the Greater World Association of Great Britain, Spiritualists' National Union and the Union of Spiritualist Mediums. Among his comments were:

"Wherever there are human beings there are difficulties and problems, because you are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world. If you were perfect you would not be on earth. You would have joined the apex of divinity which is the great spirit of life.

You must expect troubles, difficulties, problems, pitfalls and differences of opinion because you are very human. But if you have compassion, if you are prepared to co-operate, to be democratic, to sink self and let the good of the many prevail, then you will come through. And we will always help you. The trouble is that there are too many people - I am not referring to your council -- who are more concerned with themselves than with others. These are the stumbling blocks in the promulgation of any truth.

We are always on the look-out for means of ensuring that spirit truths and power should advance in increasing measure. We bring together, wherever we can, those who can help to ensure that the spirit plan goes forward. It is not an easy task because the manipulation of matter from our world is very difficult and involves many problems. We have to work with very delicate and subtle vibrations which can be easily nullified by foolish actions in your world.

If you will co-operate with us, and forgive my saying this because I mean it most kindly, not demand, but be prepared to receive, you will find that in this atmosphere we can accomplish much together. It is always desirable to have unity in diversity, but not to try to achieve uniformity. You can unite on the fundamentals on which you all agree. There must always be differences of opinion because all the individuals within the ranks of what you might loosely call the Spiritualist movement are at different stages of spiritual and mental growth and evolution. They cannot think alike.

Some of you are perhaps already familiar with the fact that you have discarded views, beliefs and opinions that you held dearly in years gone by because a greater understanding has brought you a different perspective. And so the great necessity is for toleration. Brotherhood does not mean that you will all agree. It means that you recognize brotherhood in spite of your diversities. That is the only way I can put it. You must try to achieve the ideal. You may not succeed in doing so 100 per cent.

Go on trying to enlist others, because co-operation is part of the law governing the universe. You should always strive to achieve it among yourselves. After all, basically you are agreed on the prime facts. There are differences of interpretation. Respect one another's viewpoints and combine on what you can agree. This is not easy. But I always say that generals must not expect to be given easy battles to fight".

Seldom, if ever, is a communicator able to impart the totality of his communication. It is possible only in exceptional circumstances. It is not as if you are making a communication on one surface of being like a telephone. Even that goes wrong many times; when lines are crossed, the machinery gets out of order and sometimes will not work at all. If you have these difficulties in communication on one surface of being, realize how much more difficult it is when you have two entirely different states of being.

You have to make vocal what begins as an image, a thought or an idea in the mind of the communicator. With a trance medium control is never one hundred per cent effective. The instrument is a human being. Control varies according to the guide's success, partial success, or failure in blending with the medium's aura. The guide takes possession through the subconscious mind and all the bodily processes that are controlled by it. Whilst doing so, he must transmit, if possible, the original image, thought, picture or idea that comes from the communicator. The medium can be tired, ill, out of sorts, bad-tempered, hungry, had too much to eat, to drink, to smoke, a thousand and one things; all can effect the closeness with which guide and instrument should blend.

There may be subconscious ideas in the mind of the medium, strong, dominant, which keep on thrusting their tentacles because they are trying to find expression. Often the only way to get rid of them is to express them and make them null. That explains sometimes why you get the medium's subconscious ideas expressed by a guide. Sometimes the guide cannot help himself and is carried away by the onrush, the force of the subconscious promptings. Fog is bad, so is humidity. A cold, clear, crisp, electrical atmosphere is the best.

It is not easy. It requires much effort to return to your world. That is why the only ones prepared to make the efforts are those who love you. Love is the impelling motive for comforting, guiding, helping those to whom it is naturally and willingly bound. As long as people die, and they love those who are left on earth, they will willingly break through every barrier and overcome every obstacle to reach the one they love. That provides part of the impetus behind the whole of communication from our world.

Be tolerant. Do not blame the medium. Do not necessarily blame the guide. We do our best with the material at our disposal. To accomplish in trance, what is being accomplished now, requires a stepping-down process, the use of a transformer. That involves a sacrifice of the true individuality to a large extent, as you can appreciate. When you have to make it material you go one stage further. You have to materialize the spirit to have almost a complete reversal of vibration from the subtle, quick and delicate to the slow, heavy and ponderous. That, of course, also means another sacrifice of the whole individuality.

Then, again, there are subtle deviations of ectoplasm, according to the mental and spiritual qualities of the human instrument. Not all ectoplasm is the same because its basic foundation is extracted from the medium. The grosser the instrument, the less refined, the less mentally and spiritually evolved is the ectoplasm. Where you have a refined soul, mentally and spiritually, those qualities are reflected in the ectoplasm.

It does not follow that every person who desires to communicate in our world is able to do so, or, given an opportunity, is able to transmit the fullness of the message. It depends on the individual. A dominant, forceful individual will break through all the barriers. A shy, diffident, retiring individual will not want to make the effort.

Then there are all the processes involved in transmitting the thought, picture or symbol -- we do not speak words in our world -- through the medium's guides, or even direct to the medium. If it is done by means of clairvoyance, all this is a very intricate process. Do not think that because you hear me talk with facility through this instrument that it is easy. Even I have to use what I call a multitude of "threads" to maintain my hold on this instrument. At any given moment, any one of these "threads" may be severed and away goes some of my power.

We have many problems to elucidate in the understanding of communication. Do not ever let it be said that it is always easy. When you have the right conditions, it can be very easy. But there are so many factors that can interfere, and sometimes because of these factors we are blamed. It requires the operation of very delicate, subtle conditions, even for one who is experienced to act as a go-between. There are so many factors that can go awry.

You realize that in this process of transformation, this stepping down, much of the beauty, lustre and radiance must be lost. But when spirit communicates with spirit direct, when mind communicates with mind and soul with soul, when there is inspiration or imagination, it merely means that the mind is being enriched with impressions from beyond. The more you worry about it the worse it becomes, because to be successful in its transmission the essential condition is a quietude, a passivity, a confidence based on the certainty that attunement is taking place. Once you set up wavering doubts, these by their very nature clog the lines of communication.

I do not wish to suggest that every thought which reaches your mind has its origin in our world. Obviously that would not be true, but it is true to say that you must not be quick to dismiss as imagination so much that is the result of deliberate effort to enrich your mind and soul.

Always remember that it is not like a communication in your world where there is only one plane, one level of consciousness involved. You have to reduce spirit to matter, two entirely different forms of expression, and in that process of stepping down many things can go wrong. We have a long way to go in perfecting the means. In our world there is constant experimentation, research and investigation in every field of communication, in the mental, physical and in healing. Always there is activity in trying to achieve a better result.

That is why you see the improvement made as years continue. That is the purpose behind gatherings such as this, because it is only through the constant providing of conditions that we can develop your powers and bring to bear a large measure of the power at our command. They have to be harmonized, so that the results can become effective in your world. The important thing is that the lines have been laid, the channels are open, and we can transmit. There was a time when there were hardly any lines, and hardly any channels.

Why people in your world prefer the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth is something I do not understand. We are always concerned with those who can reach and help other people. Every new channel is one more means of spreading knowledge, of spreading spiritual power and working towards the amelioration and betterment of the whole human race. This is a great truth which is part of an infinite truth. There is a serious purpose which underlies the whole of our work. I am only one of many ambassadors, part of a vast plan created in a world beyond yours, directed to help those who are ready to be helped.

We must keep on touching souls, awakening slumbering souls, getting them to realize the greatness that could be theirs. We offer them gifts of the spirit that bring with them the full lustre of their own dignity and grandeur. If obstinate man refuses this, he is turning his back on the greatest gifts offered by the greatest power in the universe.

We have nothing to offer but the truth, and it is the truth that will set men free. Why this should incur enmity, displeasure, hostility, opposition and misrepresentation, I do not know. Maybe they are mistaken. Their judgment has become warped and they are incapable of realizing that there can be truth outside themselves. Sometimes I think they must think that it is very wrong of the Great Spirit to reveal His wisdom outside their organization. But as it is said, "The ways of God are not the ways of man." Perhaps it is good it is not so.

In the case of the churches you have a great difficulty. You have men who earnestly believe that theirs is the truth and they are defending what is to them something very dear. They do not realize that their system has been built on something which originally was divine in origin but has been overlaid through the centuries by what was devised from the mind of man. They cannot isolate the original from the wrapping. They worship the wrapping as being divine. If they have become fossilized mentally and spiritually, nothing can reach them. The Great Spirit has ordered it so that through some mental or spiritual upheaval you are given the opportunity of finding truth, but it does not always happen. If through trouble, sorrow, sickness or sadness their souls are touched, then the experience has been worth while.

The whole purpose of the return from our world to yours is to draw attention to spiritual realities. It is as simple as that. We could easily be unconcerned with your world and its activities. There is no compulsion to associate ourselves with you, and you have no means of forcing our attention. Our efforts are voluntary because we love you, with the whole of humanity, and desire to help you. It could even be argued that perhaps our love, like a good many forms of love, is a little selfish because we have seen so many come to our world unfitted human wreckages, not ready and poorly equipped. It becomes so much easier if they learned the lessons in the place where they were intended to learn them, the schoolhouse of earth.

The whole purpose is to draw attention to spiritual realities, to show that very being starts the physical course with a spiritual heritage conferred by the act of birth. The life force is the divine spark, spiritual in nature, which is intended to grow equally with the physical body. The majority of mankind concerns itself only with physical growth. Some of it is concerned with mental growth, and a few concerned with spiritual growth. The only enduring reality is spirit. If we succeed by a variety of means in making man aware of his spiritual nature which is his reality, it transforms the whole of his life. He sees its purpose, is conscious of his origin, becomes aware of his destiny and should live his life in the implications of the knowledge which he has received. That very simply is the plan behind all our activities.

When it is applied to daily life, then you will drive away all fear, worry, discord, hatred, disease, selfishness and pride, and there will truly be peace based upon a genuine spiritual brotherhood. Increasing awareness of these eternal truths makes your souls and your spiritual bodies receptive to the powers from our world. That is the magnetic link between earth and ourselves.

In order to reach your world, we must have the means of doing it. We must have the channels through which this power can flow. Part of your psychic and spiritual unfoldment consists in becoming more and more receptive to our influences. As your soul natures blend with your spirit co-operators, so they can transmit through you that power which can help in times of crisis, difficulty and danger. This power is hard to define because it is impalpable and intangible from the material standpoint, but it is none the less real. It is part of the force of life, it is part of the Great spirit, it is in essence the same as the power which gives consciousness and being to every facet of activity in the universe. It is the same power that enables the seed to grow and to blossom, and another seed to fruit, the tree to grow and a soul to unfold itself.

It has an infinite number of possible manifestations. It can revive, resuscitate, reinvigorate, recharge and revitalize. It can inspire, it can heal, and when the conditions are suitable, it can produce physical results in your world. When you retire into your own sanctuary for the purpose of giving healing to others, as a corollary you are also unfolding your own channel for receiving spirit power. The two go together. Often when people sit in circles for development and nothing apparently is happening, a great work is being done in strengthening and unifying the links between matter and spirit, for the transmission of spirit power is a highly intricate and delicate process.

If people were highly developed and their lives were more spiritual than material, instead of, as at present, more material and less spiritual, then the task would be easier because the common nexus between us is spirit. Alas, with the vast majority of individuals, the spirit is so deeply embedded, so embryonic, so latent, that it is with the utmost difficulty that it can be reached at all. Some are so engrossed in matter that the spirit within them is but a tiny flicker, so small that it produces practically no light. But it is there. When they are ready, after they have been in the crucible of suffering, then they too can be awakened, then they too can be aware, then they too can understand spiritual realities, themselves and the Great Spirit, the link between them and everyone else and all creatures, and realize the fundamental bond of unity that is part of the natural law.

When you open the door of your soul to one form of knowledge, you must not close it, but must allow the processes of unfoldment to continue. You will not attain perfection in your world, but you can strive to improve your mental and your spiritual outlook.

There lies always the larger task of teaching the many whose lot is not so rich as ours in mind or spirit, to bind up broken hearts to show how the sick can be healed, to emphasize those eternal spiritual truths which are the only foundations for societies to endure, to drive out and banish all the fog and mist, the error and superstition, the vested interests that are the obstacles to the full flowing of spirit power that can illumine and beautify and dignify the world in which you live.

It is not an easy task for people who are invisible, so far as you are concerned, and who are impalpable, so far as worldly sense is concerned, to make their impact on a world of matter. As long as you maintain a good heart, a willing spirit, a receptive mind and undimmed faith, then this channel is open and you automatically are the better for it in all respects, spiritually, mentally and materially. What so many people do not realize is that when they do not get the answers to the things that they want, it is because they themselves do not provide the channel by which the help can come. We have no hands apart from yours. In order for spirit to make its mark upon matter, it must have some nexus that is responsive to spirit and can express itself in matter. It is so simple when you realize it. All I would urge is to go on and know that the power which is sustaining and supporting you is the divine power and it will not fail in its task.

If you succeed in enabling one soul in darkness to find the light, one troubled, wearied individual to gain strength, if you comfort one mourner, if you heal one sick person, if you prevent exploitation of and cruelty even to one animal, then indeed your earthly life has been well worth living. Never weary in the fight for the things that matter. This is the greatest of all fights, the eternal war against materialism, selfishness, these cancers that are festering in your world today and lead so many on to foolish paths where they perish in the darkness without a realization of the purpose for which they were born into the world.

No effort for good is lost, no attempt to help is futile. Never be weary in your well-doing, never be disappointed if you do not see the results. Just go on and I know that every attempt to serve automatically calls to your aid beings from our world who will lend their aid to your labour. You never work alone. Always you are surrounded by the host of the shining ones whose arms will support you no matter what circumstances arise. Place your complete faith iProblems Of Communication

Seldom, if ever, is a communicator able to impart the totality of his communication. It is possible only in exceptional circumstances. It is not as if you are making a communication on one surface of being like a telephone. Even that goes wrong many times; when lines are crossed, the machinery gets out of order and sometimes will not work at all. If you have these difficulties in communication on one surface of being, realize how much more difficult it is when you have two entirely different states of being.

You have to make vocal what begins as an image, a thought or an idea in the mind of the communicator. With a trance medium control is never one hundred per cent effective. The instrument is a human being. Control varies according to the guide's success, partial success, or failure in blending with the medium's aura. The guide takes possession through the subconscious mind and all the bodily processes that are controlled by it. Whilst doing so, he must transmit, if possible, the original image, thought, picture or idea that comes from the communicator. The medium can be tired, ill, out of sorts, bad-tempered, hungry, had too much to eat, to drink, to smoke, a thousand and one things; all can effect the closeness with which guide and instrument should blend.

There may be subconscious ideas in the mind of the medium, strong, dominant, which keep on thrusting their tentacles because they are trying to find expression. Often the only way to get rid of them is to express them and make them null. That explains sometimes why you get the medium's subconscious ideas expressed by a guide. Sometimes the guide cannot help himself and is carried away by the onrush, the force of the subconscious promptings. Fog is bad, so is humidity. A cold, clear, crisp, electrical atmosphere is the best.

It is not easy. It requires much effort to return to your world. That is why the only ones prepared to make the efforts are those who love you. Love is the impelling motive for comforting, guiding, helping those to whom it is naturally and willingly bound. As long as people die, and they love those who are left on earth, they will willingly break through every barrier and overcome every obstacle to reach the one they love. That provides part of the impetus behind the whole of communication from our world.

Be tolerant. Do not blame the medium. Do not necessarily blame the guide. We do our best with the material at our disposal. To accomplish in trance, what is being accomplished now, requires a stepping-down process, the use of a transformer. That involves a sacrifice of the true individuality to a large extent, as you can appreciate. When you have to make it material you go one stage further. You have to materialize the spirit to have almost a complete reversal of vibration from the subtle, quick and delicate to the slow, heavy and ponderous. That, of course, also means another sacrifice of the whole individuality.

Then, again, there are subtle deviations of ectoplasm, according to the mental and spiritual qualities of the human instrument. Not all ectoplasm is the same because its basic foundation is extracted from the medium. The grosser the instrument, the less refined, the less mentally and spiritually evolved is the ectoplasm. Where you have a refined soul, mentally and spiritually, those qualities are reflected in the ectoplasm.

It does not follow that every person who desires to communicate in our world is able to do so, or, given an opportunity, is able to transmit the fullness of the message. It depends on the individual. A dominant, forceful individual will break through all the barriers. A shy, diffident, retiring individual will not want to make the effort.

Then there are all the processes involved in transmitting the thought, picture or symbol -- we do not speak words in our world -- through the medium's guides, or even direct to the medium. If it is done by means of clairvoyance, all this is a very intricate process. Do not think that because you hear me talk with facility through this instrument that it is easy. Even I have to use what I call a multitude of "threads" to maintain my hold on this instrument. At any given moment, any one of these "threads" may be severed and away goes some of my power.

We have many problems to elucidate in the understanding of communication. Do not ever let it be said that it is always easy. When you have the right conditions, it can be very easy. But there are so many factors that can interfere, and sometimes because of these factors we are blamed. It requires the operation of very delicate, subtle conditions, even for one who is experienced to act as a go-between. There are so many factors that can go awry.

You realize that in this process of transformation, this stepping down, much of the beauty, lustre and radiance must be lost. But when spirit communicates with spirit direct, when mind communicates with mind and soul with soul, when there is inspiration or imagination, it merely means that the mind is being enriched with impressions from beyond. The more you worry about it the worse it becomes, because to be successful in its transmission the essential condition is a quietude, a passivity, a confidence based on the certainty that attunement is taking place. Once you set up wavering doubts, these by their very nature clog the lines of communication.

I do not wish to suggest that every thought which reaches your mind has its origin in our world. Obviously that would not be true, but it is true to say that you must not be quick to dismiss as imagination so much that is the result of deliberate effort to enrich your mind and soul.

Always remember that it is not like a communication in your world where there is only one plane, one level of consciousness involved. You have to reduce spirit to matter, two entirely different forms of expression, and in that process of stepping down many things can go wrong. We have a long way to go in perfecting the means. In our world there is constant experimentation, research and investigation in every field of communication, in the mental, physical and in healing. Always there is activity in trying to achieve a better result.

That is why you see the improvement made as years continue. That is the purpose behind gatherings such as this, because it is only through the constant providing of conditions that we can develop your powers and bring to bear a large measure of the power at our command. They have to be harmonized, so that the results can become effective in your world. The important thing is that the lines have been laid, the channels are open, and we can transmit. There was a time when there were hardly any lines, and hardly any channels.

Why people in your world prefer the darkness of ignorance to the light of truth is something I do not understand. We are always concerned with those who can reach and help other people. Every new channel is one more means of spreading knowledge, of spreading spiritual power and working towards the amelioration and betterment of the whole human race. This is a great truth which is part of an infinite truth. There is a serious purpose which underlies the whole of our work. I am only one of many ambassadors, part of a vast plan created in a world beyond yours, directed to help those who are ready to be helped.

We must keep on touching souls, awakening slumbering souls, getting them to realize the greatness that could be theirs. We offer them gifts of the spirit that bring with them the full lustre of their own dignity and grandeur. If obstinate man refuses this, he is turning his back on the greatest gifts offered by the greatest power in the universe.

We have nothing to offer but the truth, and it is the truth that will set men free. Why this should incur enmity, displeasure, hostility, opposition and misrepresentation, I do not know. Maybe they are mistaken. Their judgment has become warped and they are incapable of realizing that there can be truth outside themselves. Sometimes I think they must think that it is very wrong of the Great Spirit to reveal His wisdom outside their organization. But as it is said, "The ways of God are not the ways of man." Perhaps it is good it is not so.

In the case of the churches you have a great difficulty. You have men who earnestly believe that theirs is the truth and they are defending what is to them something very dear. They do not realize that their system has been built on something which originally was divine in origin but has been overlaid through the centuries by what was devised from the mind of man. They cannot isolate the original from the wrapping. They worship the wrapping as being divine. If they have become fossilized mentally and spiritually, nothing can reach them. The Great Spirit has ordered it so that through some mental or spiritual upheaval you are given the opportunity of finding truth, but it does not always happen. If through trouble, sorrow, sickness or sadness their souls are touched, then the experience has been worth while.

The whole purpose of the return from our world to yours is to draw attention to spiritual realities. It is as simple as that. We could easily be unconcerned with your world and its activities. There is no compulsion to associate ourselves with you, and you have no means of forcing our attention. Our efforts are voluntary because we love you, with the whole of humanity, and desire to help you. It could even be argued that perhaps our love, like a good many forms of love, is a little selfish because we have seen so many come to our world unfitted human wreckages, not ready and poorly equipped. It becomes so much easier if they learned the lessons in the place where they were intended to learn them, the schoolhouse of earth.

The whole purpose is to draw attention to spiritual realities, to show that very being starts the physical course with a spiritual heritage conferred by the act of birth. The life force is the divine spark, spiritual in nature, which is intended to grow equally with the physical body. The majority of mankind concerns itself only with physical growth. Some of it is concerned with mental growth, and a few concerned with spiritual growth. The only enduring reality is spirit. If we succeed by a variety of means in making man aware of his spiritual nature which is his reality, it transforms the whole of his life. He sees its purpose, is conscious of his origin, becomes aware of his destiny and should live his life in the implications of the knowledge which he has received. That very simply is the plan behind all our activities.

When it is applied to daily life, then you will drive away all fear, worry, discord, hatred, disease, selfishness and pride, and there will truly be peace based upon a genuine spiritual brotherhood. Increasing awareness of these eternal truths makes your souls and your spiritual bodies receptive to the powers from our world. That is the magnetic link between earth and ourselves.

In order to reach your world, we must have the means of doing it. We must have the channels through which this power can flow. Part of your psychic and spiritual unfoldment consists in becoming more and more receptive to our influences. As your soul natures blend with your spirit co-operators, so they can transmit through you that power which can help in times of crisis, difficulty and danger. This power is hard to define because it is impalpable and intangible from the material standpoint, but it is none the less real. It is part of the force of life, it is part of the Great spirit, it is in essence the same as the power which gives consciousness and being to every facet of activity in the universe. It is the same power that enables the seed to grow and to blossom, and another seed to fruit, the tree to grow and a soul to unfold itself.

It has an infinite number of possible manifestations. It can revive, resuscitate, reinvigorate, recharge and revitalize. It can inspire, it can heal, and when the conditions are suitable, it can produce physical results in your world. When you retire into your own sanctuary for the purpose of giving healing to others, as a corollary you are also unfolding your own channel for receiving spirit power. The two go together. Often when people sit in circles for development and nothing apparently is happening, a great work is being done in strengthening and unifying the links between matter and spirit, for the transmission of spirit power is a highly intricate and delicate process.

If people were highly developed and their lives were more spiritual than material, instead of, as at present, more material and less spiritual, then the task would be easier because the common nexus between us is spirit. Alas, with the vast majority of individuals, the spirit is so deeply embedded, so embryonic, so latent, that it is with the utmost difficulty that it can be reached at all. Some are so engrossed in matter that the spirit within them is but a tiny flicker, so small that it produces practically no light. But it is there. When they are ready, after they have been in the crucible of suffering, then they too can be awakened, then they too can be aware, then they too can understand spiritual realities, themselves and the Great Spirit, the link between them and everyone else and all creatures, and realize the fundamental bond of unity that is part of the natural law.

When you open the door of your soul to one form of knowledge, you must not close it, but must allow the processes of unfoldment to continue. You will not attain perfection in your world, but you can strive to improve your mental and your spiritual outlook.

There lies always the larger task of teaching the many whose lot is not so rich as ours in mind or spirit, to bind up broken hearts to show how the sick can be healed, to emphasize those eternal spiritual truths which are the only foundations for societies to endure, to drive out and banish all the fog and mist, the error and superstition, the vested interests that are the obstacles to the full flowing of spirit power that can illumine and beautify and dignify the world in which you live.

It is not an easy task for people who are invisible, so far as you are concerned, and who are impalpable, so far as worldly sense is concerned, to make their impact on a world of matter. As long as you maintain a good heart, a willing spirit, a receptive mind and undimmed faith, then this channel is open and you automatically are the better for it in all respects, spiritually, mentally and materially. What so many people do not realize is that when they do not get the answers to the things that they want, it is because they themselves do not provide the channel by which the help can come. We have no hands apart from yours. In order for spirit to make its mark upon matter, it must have some nexus that is responsive to spirit and can express itself in matter. It is so simple when you realize it. All I would urge is to go on and know that the power which is sustaining and supporting you is the divine power and it will not fail in its task.

If you succeed in enabling one soul in darkness to find the light, one troubled, wearied individual to gain strength, if you comfort one mourner, if you heal one sick person, if you prevent exploitation of and cruelty even to one animal, then indeed your earthly life has been well worth living. Never weary in the fight for the things that matter. This is the greatest of all fights, the eternal war against materialism, selfishness, these cancers that are festering in your world today and lead so many on to foolish paths where they perish in the darkness without a realization of the purpose for which they were born into the world.

No effort for good is lost, no attempt to help is futile. Never be weary in your well-doing, never be disappointed if you do not see the results. Just go on and I know that every attempt to serve automatically calls to your aid beings from our world who will lend their aid to your labour. You never work alone. Always you are surrounded by the host of the shining ones whose arms will support you no matter what circumstances arise. Place your complete faith in and rely on the power which cannot fail you. There is no security in your world at all. The only security is in the unseen, the invisible, in the eternal realities which cannot be measured by any apparatus in your world.

Your security is the strength of the spirit, the majestic power which is the means by which the Great Spirit expresses itself everywhere. When all else has changed its form, either by being reduced to ashes or by crumbling into dust, the realities of the spirit will still stand, unchanging, immutable, as the unshakable base on which to build. I know it is very hard for you, living in a world of matter in which all is measured by your physical senses, to appreciate the nature of reality. It escapes you all the time. But if I can convey, in however adequate a form, the fact that spirit is the enduring substance of all eternity, and that nothing else matters, and if I can encourage you to build on truth and not on shifting sands, then at least I am helping to fulfill my mission. and rely on the power which cannot fail you. There is no security in your world at all. The only security is in the unseen, the invisible, in the eternal realities which cannot be measured by any apparatus in your world.

Your security is the strength of the spirit, the majestic power which is the means by which the Great Spirit expresses itself everywhere. When all else has changed its form, either by being reduced to ashes or by crumbling into dust, the realities of the spirit will still stand, unchanging, immutable, as the unshakable base on which to build. I know it is very hard for you, living in a world of matter in which all is measured by your physical senses, to appreciate the nature of reality. It escapes you all the time. But if I can convey, in however adequate a form, the fact that spirit is the enduring substance of all eternity, and that nothing else matters, and if I can encourage you to build on truth and not on shifting sands, then at least I am helping to fulfill my mission.

A PRAISEWORTHY characteristic of Silver Birch was that no matter how difficult or obscure a subject put to him he always had at his command a superb and instant answer. Indeed, the beloved guide welcomed the points which some lesser beings might have dodged.

Journalist A.W. Austen, a circle member for some years told of a remarkable question-and-answer session between this world and the next.

"What do you consider to be the most urgent reform that is necessary in the world?" Austen asked.

"That is a very hard question," Silver Birch admitted, "for all over your world there are injustices that cry out to be remedied. There are wrongs that shriek to be righted; there are so many pestilential blots on your civilization that it is hard to know where to make a start. But the most urgent reform, as I see it, is to get rid of the needless poverty, desolation and misery which is the fate of countless thousands. When there is so much, that any should be denied the very fundamentals of material existence is very wrong."

"The greatest reform that cries out for accomplishment is to redress the disparity between those who have too much and those who have not enough. How can you reach souls to find themselves when their poor, pitiable, emaciated physical bodies are not a fitting temple for the spirit of God to dwell therein? We are not blind to the prime necessities of your physical selves and our mission is to bring to your world those conditions of living which enable body, soul and mind to find the realities necessary for their existence in a state of happiness and well-being."

Next Austen asked the wise spirit teacher, "If you were a dictator what would be your first reform?" But Silver Birch would not even consider the possibility of his being a dictator.

"I cannot put myself in a position where I would have a world of puppets at my disposal," he said, "for that is contrary to the Law as I know it. It is not through dictatorships, through enforced commands which must be obeyed in fear and trembling lest dire punishment awaits, so that peace, harmony and happiness can come to your world. You cannot set the world right by a series of ordinances that must be immediately obeyed. The chaos caused by years and years of confusion can only gradually become clarified and even then only through goodwill, the desire to be of real helpfulness imbuing all those who are the leaders of mankind."

"Neither I, nor any other who claims to be a spiritual teacher, could ever act as a dictator, for our whole mission is to awaken the slumbering conscience, to teach the dormant spirit to arise and claim the inherent gift of the Great Spirit that is on its own. Only thus will true happiness and peace and concord come to your world. No one person on earth can reach that stage of perfection where he is entitled to rule over others and his words to be obeyed as implicit commands decreed by infallible authority."

Here Austen asked Silver Birch what he considered to be the most necessary step in Britain's relations with other countries.

"This country of yours has a great mission to perform, for it is destined to give a lead in bringing peace and also in staving off many of the disasters that threaten so many countries," answered the guide. "But it will have to remember that before there can be peace in your world there will have to be a spirit of self-sacrifice and service. Unless those who see with the eyes of discernment are prepared to make concessions, are prepared to give that which is not necessary for their own happiness and well-being but would enable other countries to find solutions to their problems - unless a lead is given in that direction, your country will fail in its mission."

"Some countries have too much; some have too little. You are rich in many things and where other countries are poor in those same things you could arrange a means of exchange that would enable problems to be solved without the shedding determination based upon obstinacy to say, 'What we have we hold.' Unless you are prepared to give, you cannot receive."

"Are you thinking of colonies?" Austen interposed.

"Yes, everything," he said. "The land, the sea, the air - those do not belong to countries; they belong to the Great Spirit of all life. His spirit is expressed in His children, and they should receive, as part of their natural heritage, all that is necessary for their well-being, their development, their unfoldment and their experience on earth, so that when they lay down their burdens when death comes they are ready to die, equipped, prepared for the greater life in the world of spirit."

Often Silver Birch spoke of a New World, one without war where a spirit of brotherhood would be expressed.

To Austen, this seemed "an optimistic view." His point was that the world would always contain those at varying stages of evolution. With the hope of clarifying the position, he asked Silver Birch if he agreed that "creation is continuous and that 'new' souls - as opposed to reincarnated souls - are constantly being born."

"The Great Spirit is infinite, and so the process of creation is infinite," he replied, "progressing always in its multitudinous expressions from imperfection to perfection, from immaturity to maturity, through all the countless grades of evolution. That process is timeless. It had no beginning, it has no end, for it belongs to infinity. It is part of the infinite Great Spirit, and that self-same spirit finds its expression in human life at varying stages of unfoldment. But when you speak of 'new' souls, do you mean that something begins which had no existence before?"

"Yes," Austen confirmed.

"That is impossible," said Silver Birch, "for all life is based on preceding life. Life gives birth to life, constantly expressing itself in many forms. Spirit, unevolved because it has no earthly contact, finds expression in your world through suitable instruments fashioned by you, as you provide physical bodies commensurate with the spirit which has to use it so that it can possess that earthly education necessary for its evolution. It is new insofar as its earthly experience is concerned, but it is not new in the sense that it had no existence as spirit before it expressed itself on earth. Spirit is the stuff out of which all life is made; spirit is the primary substance of creation; spirit, as spirit, has always existed and will always exist."

"That excludes, of course, those who return to earth for further experience. But, omitting those who reincarnate and dealing only with those who incarnate for the first time, they had no individuality, no human consciousness before their physical expression. Human consciousness only begins with earthly expression. It is the body of matter that supplies the vital link which enables the spirit to become aware of itself as individual consciousness."

Austen asked the guide whether he would hazard an opinion on the proportion of "new" to "old" souls among those who are being born.

"It is impossible to give any answer to your question that would be even approximately correct," he replied. "But I would say the proportion is fairly equal."

"In that case," said Austen, "there will always be on earth those who are more evolved and those who are less evolved."

"Yes," agreed the guide, "otherwise evolution would not be taking place. Try to understand that life, because it is life, cannot ever be static, for that way lies stagnation. Life is rhythm, motion, progress, unfoldment, development, the reaching out towards perfection all the time. Unless there were constant gradations of life, unless there was a constant pilgrimage on the rungs of the ladder of progress, life would not be life. It is in the variety of evolution, with its multitudinous stages of development, that life becomes life."

"If all were at the same stage, if perfection were attained, if there were no necessity for further striving, no need for new attainments, no need for still greater expression, then the incentive to live, to achieve, would gradually become extinct. The motivation of life is always onward, striving to reach out to clasp that which is at present beyond its grasp. And it is always in the striving, in the attempt to conquer, seeking to triumph over difficulty, that the spirit finds itself and God is at work amongst you."

Arising from the spirit answers, Austen wanted to know whether less evolved souls would always cause trouble in the world and retard progress

"Yes, but always remember this, that what you call unevolved souls are really unevolved by comparison with those who are more evolved." said the guide. "As your standard becomes higher, so you recognize that those you considered were evolved are not so evolved as you thought they were. All the difficulties of your world, and indeed those belonging to the lower strata of my life, are caused wholly and solely by selfishness, greed, avarice, self-interest in all its expressions."

"There will be always some less evolved than others. How else would you have it? Would you have all humanity reaching the same stage of evolution at the same time? Would you have every human being moulded to the same pattern at the same point of progress at the same time? Would you reduce all life to a state of monotonous equality in regard to its development? Would you have only light and no shade? Would you have only sunshine and no storm? Would you have only virtue and no wickedness? Would you have laughter and no tears? How would you regulate your world unless it be through an infinite variety of expression?"

Austen suggested to Silver Birch that, in view of the many differences in evolution that must always be present, his description of the New World seemed to be too optimistic.

"No, the New World is born," the guide declared, "born in agony of birth, with a baptism of tears and misery and sadness. But the New World is here. Its rays are beginning to pierce the fog of your world. But even in this New World all will not have been achieved. There will be plenty to remedy, to improve, to strengthen. There will still be weakness to be overcome, there will still be troubles to be eradicated. But there will be a new basis for life. Much of the needless misery, much of the needless deprivation, much of the needless starvation and sadness will have gone. The basis of life will be changed, for gradually selfishness will be overthrown and service will reign in its place."

"But is it not true that we shall only get what we deserve?" Austen queried.

"Yes, the New World will come more quickly or more slowly, as more of you help us or hinder us in our efforts to co-operate with you," said Silver Birch. "You will not get more than you deserve or less than you deserve, for so perfect is natural law in its expression that its scales are always evenly balanced. They are weighted down neither on one side nor the other. I tell you of conditions that are operating and, as they continue to operate, what will be changed. Do not forget that you will reap in your world the harvest of countless generations of labour wrought by many pioneers, idealists and reformers, who made sacrifices to advance the lot of mankind."

To Austen it seemed unfair that some "new" souls should be born into conditions that were far better than those into which other "new" souls had similarly been born. Could Silver Birch explain the apparent injustice?

"They will be born into a better world, but more will be expected of them in consequence," he said, "for they will not have to fight the fights that others have had to win in days gone by. It is purely a matter of comparison. Remember this always, no man cheats the laws of the Great Spirit. At no time can you alter in any way by one hair's breadth what you deserve. Reward and punishment are fixed and immutable, determined only by your conduct in your life. There is no favouritism, there is no evasion. Divine justice is perfect in its expression. You will find that you will receive just what you have earned - not one whit more, not one whit less."

"That is how we ought to want it," Austen commented.

"That is how men and women of courage should desire it," said Silver Birch, "not to have rewards they have not earned or punishments they have not deserved. You should be prepared to endure the punishments that you deserve and carry upon your shoulders the responsibilities that you have created. It was all said in the Bible -- 'Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for what a man sows that he will reap.' And I cannot say it any better than that."

"The laws that are made in your world may favour some unduly and punish others needlessly. There may be privileges that come because of rank or title or high position. But these will not obtain in the world of spirit. Every allowance will be made. The soul will register just that stage of attainment that it has reached by its life in your world - no higher, no lower. Just what you have made yourself to be, that you will be when death calls you to another life."

Next Austen asked Silver Birch what should be the attitude to spiritual or divine guidance received by individuals who sit alone in the silence.

"There is no spirit, however exalted, in my world who would desire you to accept his teachings without consideration, without pondering and without reflection," he replied. "We do not desire automatons who will mechanically perform all that is said. Our mission is to increase your own sense of responsibility, to stimulate the divine that is within you, to enable you to have even greater command over your reasoning faculties. God speaks to you through your mind. Whilst it is true that the kingdom of heaven is within, the mind is also God's kingdom - or should be."

"Never do anything which your reason rejects. Enthrone reason as your guide. We would never suggest to you that you perform tasks that are foreign to your common sense. Ours is a mission of co-operation. We strive to make you aware of the infinite qualities that you possess, many of them so dormant that they never find expression. We want you to find yourselves, your real selves, so that you may order your lives in such a fashion that the Great Spirit is expressed through you. If you receive promptings, if you receive what seem to be messages in the silence that urge tasks upon you, do not perform them if your common sense objects. Only those who have reached a certain standard of spiritual attainment can be sure of the prompting that comes to them in the silence."

"It is better that you work with us, once you have learned to trust us and are convinced that our mission is to serve you and through you to serve humanity. We have striven to demonstrate that we are experienced in the knowledge of spiritual laws, that ours is a divine mission that seeks always to bring the richness of spiritual truth within your grasp. Is it not better that you should co-operate with known intelligence of proved worth rather than that alone, unguided, you should seek to penetrate what is the unknown? What would your answer be?"

Austen told the guide he considered it always to be better to know with whom one is speaking.

"That is so," said Silver Birch. "When the teacher has proved his ability to teach, why not utilize his services that are freely offered you? When a soul has reached the stage of development when he is aware of all who seek to inspire him and to commune with him from the world of spirit, then there are no difficulties to be overcome. But all humanity is at different stages of evolution."

Still the two-world debate continued. Austen admitted that to him it seemed there was a limit to the sacredness of life. Taking it to an extreme, it seemed to him "foolish to suggest that the life of a germ is sacred if by sparing it we endanger the life of a human being." Would the spirit mentor enlighten him on this point?

"Where does consciousness begin?" asked Silver Birch. "Has the germ consciousness? Has a snake consciousness? Has a flea consciousness? Has a microbe consciousness? They have not in the sense that you understand consciousness, the awareness of oneself. Consciousness is the knowledge of what you are, who you are, what you could be. That consciousness is not resident in germs. Where there is conscious life you have creation at work, and it is wrong for you to interfere with that consciousness and to prevent it from having the fullness of expression in your world to which it is entitled."

This answer did not satisfy Austen who reminded the guide that animals did not possess consciousness as defined, but we were taught it was wrong to kill them.

"Below individual consciousness, in the animal life there is a group consciousness," he said. "Below animals, the group consciousness ceases to function. There is no consciousness in a germ."

"Is the germ capable of feeling pain?" asked Austen.

"No," said Silver Birch.

"Then are we to be guided by whether pain is involved in killing?" was the next question.

"The guide is consciousness," said Silver Birch. "Where there is consciousness, it is wrong to kill. You should allow the fullest freedom to all human beings to enjoy life in all its expressions, so that its richness may reach them and equip them for death, the liberator into the world of spirit. But because your world is a changing world, you are often compelled to interfere with the rights of others because you desire to help them. Your motive, sincerely, honestly and truthfully is to serve."

"I say that because of vivisection. To me, that is wrong. It is often cruel and it is needless and it fails also to achieve its object. But I know that there are many who perform vivisection, not because they wish to inflict cruelty on animals, but only because their desire is to help humanity. They think that they can gain knowledge which will help them in their conquering of disease. Their motive is sincere."

"But where there is needless killing, where there is slaughter of animals solely to satisfy human appetites, where beautiful birds are shot in the name of sport - then there can be no justification. Life is sacred, life is of the Great Spirit. When life becomes conscious and takes human - and even, in its lower stage, animal form - it should be entitled to be treated with sacredness. Life should not be held cheaply, for life is the Great Spirit in expression. You have no power to create life, therefore you should not seek to destroy its means of expression."

"Realize this, that when we are asked questions to which there can be no answer of 'Yes' or 'No', we do try honestly to give you a point of view that will help. I have no desire to be arbitrary, I only want to be of service. It may be that you could find apparent contradictions in answers given at different times, but then we are dealing with different phases of the subject."

"And remember also I make no claim to infallibility. I do not say that I have reached the limit of all knowledge and wisdom. I, like you, am human still. I, too, strive after perfection. I, too, have weaknesses to conquer. I, too, have progress to achieve. I do not say that what I tell you represents final truth. I only tell you what I know and, if I do not know, what I believe. If the views that I express cause disagreement, that is all to the good, for then we can reason with one another. You can add your stock of wisdom to mine and in considering these problems we can learn from one another and help one another to a greater understanding."

"Co-operation does not only mean that we should try to help you, but that you should also try to help us. I do not want it to be assumed that at any stage, when a problem arises, you say, 'Consult Silver Birch, consult Red Cloud, consult White Hawk, and what they say is final.' That is not so. We will give you the knowledge at our disposal, but remember we make no claim to infallibility. If we fail to stimulate you into thinking for yourselves, then we have failed in our mission."

At this juncture, Austen suggested to Silver Birch that to some the knowledge of life after death might tend to cheapen life on earth; they might consider that if life could not be destroyed there was less harm than they previously thought in killing.

"Have we not always taught that increasing knowledge brings increasing responsibilities?" asked the guide. "Because you have this knowledge, you have a greater responsibility in the way you use it. Your standard of life must be higher because of knowledge and, if it is not, then you yourself will pay the price. You cannot cheat. You cannot pretend once knowledge is vouchsafed to you. Once you understand the Plan, and the pattern of life has been made clear to you, it should give you an increasing responsibility of your duty to your neighbour, to your world and to yourself. Life should be richer, more sacred, and the desire to serve should burn brightly within you."

"If knowledge does not do that for you, then you do not possess it. It has passed you by, for if you fail to apply truth when you know truth, your spirit is impoverished and you are the sufferer. The laws of the Great Spirit cannot be cheated, not even by philosophical quibbles. What you call Spiritualism should make you aware of your place in the scheme of life. If it does not, you have not learned its lessons and must pay the price. Do not blame truth if you do not understand it. Blame yourself, for truth is still true even though it has not penetrated through to you. Truth is not altered by argument. Because it is truth, it is true."

When Austen similarly interviewed White Eagle, the guide of Bertha Hirst, he could not explain to Austen the tie between people and their guardians, as he confessed he had never considered the question. So Austen asked Silver Birch whether he could answer it.

"It is a tie of spiritual affinity," he said. "Sometimes that happens when there is a blood relationship at all. Wherever there is a mutual interest, based upon the tie of affinity between kindred spirits, then the guardian or guide - call it what name you like - is able to render service because the attraction is there. The greater the bond of spiritual affinity, the closer is the proximity between the guardian and its charge."

Remembering that Silver Birth had said earlier in the interview that individual consciousness does not exist before the soul is incarnated into matter, Austen wondered how it could have developed characteristics sufficient to create a spiritual affinity.

"That is something that is so hard to express in your earthly language," said the guide. "There is a bond that can be determined from the moment of conception. The tiny germ cells that, when they coalesce, provide the physical vehicle of life, possess within themselves all the qualities that later find expression in the mature earthly body. So, too, does the spirit possess in miniature the spiritual qualities that will also find expression."

"Did that mean that our evolution was determined insofar as we had to evolve along certain individual lines but could choose our own rate of evolution?" Austen asked.

"Certain things are fixed, by virtue of the body at your command and by the spirit that incarnates into that body," said Silver Birch. "Irrespective of rebirth, the law that determines the invasion of that body by spirit also to a large extent determines the expression. I do not want that to be construed into saying that everything is predestined, but in a world of law human life conforms to law. There are variations, but in the main much has to be fixed."

"The rate of evolution depends essentially on the free will of the individual, but obviously there are limits within that earthly incarnation. That depends upon the use he makes of opportunity, but he is limited, for example, to the extent that he could not achieve perfection. There is a quality in the spirit that is known to advanced souls in our world, and the appointment of a guardian is dependent upon the affinity of spiritual interest between them."

"Do you mean that guardians are appointed by somebody else, and it is not a choice of a charge by the guardian?" Austen queried, probing further.

"Yes, they are appointed always," said Silver Birch. "There is law in my world, much more rigidly than in yours. The harmony between them is determined because the qualities are known at the beginning. The headmaster of a school, if he knew the latent qualities of all the children entrusted to his charge, and knew the capabilities of the teachers he had, would know which children should be under the tutors of each teacher. Unfortunately, the factors are not always known in your world - but they are in ours."

"Who are you? do you know? You know just that facet that is expressed through your body, but that is only the pin point as distinct from the larger life which is beyond it."

"When you say you would like to find out which is you and which is not you, you have to begin by discovering which is you altogether. Do you think that you have in this earthly life expressed anything but a tiny segment of your whole self? And do you think that the consciousness that is registered now is anything but a tiny fraction of the greater, complete consciousness that is you?"

"How are you to decide then which is your thought, your imagination, and which is the impression, the guidance which comes from your larger self or from higher realms that are using you?"

"You must get the proper perspective. You must realize that you are spiritual beings expressing yourselves through physical bodies and that the spirit is the supreme part of you. The spirit is the higher, the body is the lower. The spirit is the master, the body is the servant. The spirit is king, the body is the subject. The spirit is that part of you which is divine."

"It is the self-same spirit which has created, devised and fashioned the whole universe. You have in embryo, in miniature, in microcosm, all the vast powers that belong to what you call God. If you would allow this innate divine strength to rise to the surface, to dominate your lives, you would banish every care, anxiety and worry, because you would know that there is nothing that could happen in your world over which you could not triumph. That is what you have to learn. It is not easy."

"Give attention to your body as the house in which you live. But it is only the house, it is not you. Being the house, it must be kept in good condition, in good repair, so that the tenant can be amply looked after. But always remember it is only the house; it is not the tenant."

"That same power which fashioned the universe is the power which is responsible for life. Life is not physical or material, life is spirit, and spirit is life. Wherever there is life there is spirit and where there is spirit there is life."

"The power, which is you, is the power which is life and you have a kinship with the Great Spirit that enables you to participate in all the infinite processes of creation. You can call it up any time you so desire from the well of your own being - the tremendous power of the spirit that is resident within you, that is capable of giving you a dynamic, a vitality, and of sustaining you."

"You have a task to perform. You will imbibe this knowledge and you will use it to help others. You will develop the gifts of the spirit yourself and when you have done so you will become a little lighthouse that sheds the beams of truth to weary souls still in the darkness. When you do that you will fulfill the purpose of your existence."

"There is a plan into which we all fit and that will operate with the consent of your free will. There is a saying in the East that when the pupil is ready the master appears. When you are spiritually ready the door will open. You will not have to ask. The door will open so wide that you will walk through it and the task will begin."

"We can never promise that your life will be free from problems, perplexity, or even pain. We can promise that within yourself you will find the means to overcome all handicaps and disabilities. As you strive to express the highest, the deepest, the greatest within yourself, so you will attract to your aid those beings from our world who love you, who desire to help you, and through you help others."

"Alas, there are too many who live encompassed by swirling mists of darkness, whose shoulders groan under the weight of their load and who know not where to turn, sick in body, mind and soul. These are the ones we must always try to help."

"We would be failing in our purpose if we were to declare that the task of spiritual attainment is easy and that those who, in any measure, would attempt to spread light where there is darkness will meet with an easy task. It could never be so. The whole of history is against it, for truth and error have been engaged in a dreadful warfare that will not cease until infinite perfection can be achieved and that, in the very nature of the case, is unattainable. It is a long and difficult and toilsome struggle in which we are engaged."

"You do not realize the prejudice, opposition, hostility, antagonism, misrepresentation, superstition and deliberate attack that will have to be faced, I do not say these things to daunt you, but to place any quest in its proper setting. I know how difficult it is."

"I have had to overcome, with all the power at my command, almost insuperable obstacles to reach your world, and I am not alone in this. I am one of those who elected to return because it was seen that the calamities which man would bring on himself were of so awesome a character that unless the power of the spirit could effect its bridgeheads everywhere, man would destroy himself physically and the world in which he lives."

"Wonderful though man measures his material achievements, spiritually he is still very puny. Oh that the achievements of the spirit could match the achievements of matter, that progress could be made in fields of the mind and spirit that are comparable with the advance that has been made in certain fields of material endeavour!"

"Because man is not spiritually led he is in danger of blowing himself up with forces that he is not entitled to have at his command. All our efforts are directed, wherever channels can be found, towards the single purpose of ensuring that the spiritual truths upon which the whole of life are founded should be the basis by which man everywhere builds his life."

"All jealousies and bickering, all strife and fratricide, all war and chaos, all envy, greed and malice can be driven from the earth. Compassion, kindness, gentleness, amity and co-operation can be the principles by which men rule everywhere because of the recognition of their common spiritual nature. There is a bright side. It is not a picture of unrelieved gloom, because amid such obstacles and difficulties any step forward is great progress. If you can help only one soul to be comforted when all seems drear, dark and dismal, then it has all been worth while. And you can help far more than one."

"The prizes of the spirit are not easy to be won, otherwise they would not be worth winning. If the victor makes no effort, what is his victory? If you can scale peaks without labour, what have you attained? It is the very essence of the case that spiritual attainment must be a lonely, solitary path that gets more and more isolated the farther you reach because you have to leave familiar landmarks behind."

Emphasizing that wherever an effort is made by any human being on earth, at least an equal, and usually a greater effort is put forth from the Other Side, Silver Birch stressed:

"It is always true that any sincere request for spiritual help can never fail. You open yourself to this aid the moment you make this magnetic link with the world of spirit. It is very hard sometimes to find language that will convey the actuality of spiritual happenings because language, which is material, is not equal to the spiritual, which is immaterial. Words, at the best, are poor symbols to interpret a much greater reality."

"When you accept this knowledge it means your soul is ready; it has come into its own. So many people are unconscious of their higher nature, which is the reality and the mainspring of their existence. They do not understand that the reason they exist is because they are spiritual beings expressing themselves through material bodies."

"Even though they believe they have a soul or a spirit, they think of themselves in terms of a body with a spirit, whereas they are spirits with bodies. The real you is the spirit - the soul, the divine, the eternal."

"The body is fashioned to serve its purpose. It has a temporary existence in this form. When it has done its task, it crumbles away. But the spirit that incarnates at birth, that is important. The fact that you can receive this knowledge means that the divine has awakened within you. You have burst the bonds. The seed has begun to flower. It has forced its way up from the darkness into the light. And it will grow in beauty and richness as you allow it to do so."

"Then you begin to exercise true harmony of being which is the fundamental purpose of life on earth. Those who go through your life without allowing the spiritual nature to have its complete and proper exercise are just as handicapped as the physically blind, deaf and mute."

"Your spiritual nature has come into its own. The divine has been awakened. It is an index that points to the fact that you have reached that stage in your development when you are ready to obtain from life, not that which exists only on the surface, but all the richness that belongs only to the spirit. The riches of the spirit are far greater, far more beautiful, far more lustrous than all the gems of your world. They will endure long after the others have tarnished and rusted and decayed."

"Once the soul comes into its own it realizes its powers. These are part of the mightiest forces in the universe. You begin to make a channel through which help, guidance, inspiration, sustenance and wisdom can reach you from our world. This not only enables the ones who love you and who are tied by blood to come close, but others, who are in no way physically related. They have a spiritual relationship which is even more important. These draw closer and seek to bring their power to bear and help you in your lives."

"As this power obtains lodgment and builds itself up, so you become the possessor of that which the world can never give or take away, a rock based on confidence, calmness, resolution. Then you know beyond all doubt that there is nothing in the whole world that can disturb the real you, and that you

Spirit Is Superior

While the Roman Catholic Church admits of only three kinds of baptism - baptism by water, baptism by blood and baptism by desire -- it leaves out the most essential form.

"You have all been baptised in the real meaning of the word -- baptised in the spirit," declared Silver Birch at one circle gathering. "You have been born again. The soul has begun to lead you to find itself."

"The power of the Spirit is in your midst, and with it there comes not only reality, but certainty. It illumines the whole of your minds, fills your souls with peace and your hearts with love. It is the greatest manifestation of the Great Spirit."

One of the sitters, rather puzzled by some of the phrases in Silver Birch's invocations, asked, "Is the Great Spirit really in everything - in every stone, for instance?"

"The Great Spirit is in everything," the guide replied, "for nothing exists apart from the Great Spirit."

"Then is the Great Spirit responsible for earthquakes?" the sitter asked.

"The Great Spirit is the Law - the Law that controls all things," was the reply. "The Law governs all things. There is nothing in the universe which is outside the Law."

"I have often been puzzled by earthquakes," said the sitter, not quite satisfied with the guide's answer.

"I know that earthquakes and storms and lightning puzzle the brains of those in your world," said Silver Birch, "but they are all part of the universe. The universe is evolving, even as those who dwell in it are evolving. The world of matter is far from perfect yet - and it will not reach perfection. It will evolve higher and higher."

"Does that mean that the Great Spirit is evolving?" queried the sitter.

"No, the Great Spirit is the Law and the Law is perfect," replied Silver Birch. "But that part of the Great Spirit that is expressed in your world is subject to the evolution of that world as far as its expression is concerned."

"Remember that your world is evolving, and these things are the signs of its evolution. Your world was born in fire and tempest and is gradually evolving towards perfection."

"You cannot say that the Great Spirit is responsible for the beauty of the sunset and the sunrise, for the myriads of glittering stars in the firmament, for all the delightful songs of birds, and then say that the Great Spirit is not responsible for the storm and the lightning, the thunder and the rain. They are all part of the great law of the Great Spirit."

"In that sense, you might argue that the Great Spirit is responsible for those who are depraved, for those who are so unenlightened that they render harm to their brothers in your world."

"But to each one of you there is given that amount of free will which, as you evolve, you learn to exercise. The higher you evolve in the spiritual scale, the greater can you exercise your free will. You are your own limitation, but, because you are part of the Great Spirit, you can conquer all the difficulties and obstacles in your world."

"Spirit is superior to matter. Spirit is the king and matter is the servant. Spirit reigns supreme. It is the essence out of which all life is made, for spirit is life and life is spirit."

Silver Birch was asked whether free will was limited in the sense that there are definite tendencies of events in relation to individuals.

"There are tendencies, vibrations," replied Silver Birch, "but these are not insuperable. You are surrounded by radiations and influences, much of which can affect your destiny, but the Great Spirit has provided you with part of Himself, a part of His spirit which, when your free will is properly used according to your evolution, can enable you to conquer all that stands in the way of the fullest expression of that part of the Great Spirit that is within you. For you are the Great Spirit and the Great Spirit is you."

When people say that communication with the "dead" retards them in their progress and drags them back unwillingly, they cannot know the facts.

"I love to hear the sound of your earthly voices," Silver Birch said. "It gives me much happiness. And I know that you like to hear from me, for we have much to learn from each other. I try very hard to learn from you, of the things that belong to your world, so that I can add to my knowledge of earthly things and be of greater service if I can."

"Out of our talks there will come much work, for there is a great work for all of us to do - a work to which many of us who live in the realms of spirit have dedicated the whole of our lives."

"Part of that work will be accomplished here. You have seen some of it already. You have seen how we have been enabled to touch those who live not only in your own little country, but in other countries in your world" - Silver Birch was referring to the fact that there had frequently been visitors to the circle from overseas, some of whom had gone back and started home circles in their own countries as a result of their experiences here.

"That work will grow," he went on, "as a power of the Spirit grows here."

"Just go on with your faithful service and know that not one moment which is dedicated to our service is in vain, for our coming together always brings a rich blessing upon you who are in the world of matter and we who are released from the world's limitations. That blessing comes because our aim is not for ourselves but only for the service of others."

Like baptism, the Church - and rightly - places great emphasis on the importance of marriage. But how does the spirit world view it? Silver Birch gave his opinion when addressing Vernon Moore, a circle member and his fiancee, Frances, who for many years took down the guide's words in shorthand so they could be recorded, printed and sent out all over the world

"I want you both to realize that you begin now the greatest adventure of all, for two lives that have pursued separate courses are now come together to begin a united life," the guide began. "Even as love has brought you to this place, even as love emanating from a world higher than yours guided your footsteps on paths of knowledge and truth, so has that same power brought you two together. Soon 'a man of God' will read a few words from a book and, according to your world of matter, you will be joined in the bonds of holy matrimony. But I say to you there are no bonds unless you bind one another with love and affection. There are no ties unless you wish to tie one another with love and affection."

"Do not think only in terms of two sharing one life from the physical aspect. Remember that you are two spiritual beings, both portions of the Great Spirit, now coming together with pledges to cherish, to love and to serve one another even as a great love from this world strives to serve you both. Remember that you are uniting two souls to adventure together and that we look not so much upon the material aspect by the spiritual, which to us is the enduring reality."

"Do not expect that you will escape occasional sadness and sorrow, difficulty, trial and test, for these are parts of your evolution. When they arise, as arise they inevitably must, face them with honesty and know that they help to quicken your character and to bring you closer together. There are many here who look forward with joy to a celebration which will duplicate the one you have in your church, but which will be sanctified in our world by ties we regard as more enduring, for the promises uttered audibly by word of mouth are as nothing compared with the unspoken pledges of the soul."

"You are richly blessed, for you have knowledge. I wish you, on behalf of many here who stand beside me, a safe journey through life's seas, happiness and joy abounding, but always ask you to remember that you continue to serve with the added fortification of love around you in the earthly world. Look up, not down, and realize that your strength cometh from above and from within your beings. Fortified by that knowledge, face the future knowing that all will be well and that where love dwells no harm can befall you. And I pray that the blessing of the Great Spirit rest with you and inspire you always in all aspects for your new life, and that you both shall forever be conscious of the love that is round and about you."

The couple were members of Silver Birch's circle until 1981 when his medium passed on. Frequently the guide spoke of the natural law. Once Vernon, a former Methodist missionary, asked, "How are we to learn from natural law?"

"You learn through the evolution of your own spirit," replied the guide. "You learn first of all to discard all that which is false, all that which makes your reason revolt, all that which is not in consonance with the love and the wisdom of the Great Spirit."

"Before you learn, you must unlearn. You must discard all that which hinders your minds from thinking as they should. Thus your soul and your spirit grow and you are ready for higher knowledge."

"When you meet here, your soul is developing and you are becoming more accessible to the infinite wisdom of the Great Spirit. You are learning about the operation of laws that control spiritual phenomena."

"You are being taught about the operation of natural laws in relationship to the life that you live. As you fit yourself by progress so greater knowledge comes to you."

"I, whom you call Silver Birch, represent only a small portion of the knowledge that belongs to the infinity of the spheres. As you grow, other teachers greater than I can use me to impart knowledge and wisdom to you.

"To save the world, must we broadcast this teaching to everybody? asked Vernon.

"To save the world?" questioned Silver Birch. "The world must learn to perform its own salvation. There is no ready made plan. There is no prepared, cut-and-dried system."

"Your world has to learn that, behind what it regards as the manifestation of life, there is the eternal reality of the spirit, that the children of matter are not only worldly beings but spiritual beings expressing themselves through bodies of matter."

"The bodies of matter must be as perfect as they can be made through having all the necessities of life freely at their disposal, as the Great Spirit would have them."

"Then their spirits must be freed from all dogmatic and credal trammels, so that they do not give allegiance to things that have no real or spiritual value, so that they work only for that which is true, so that the warring and the quarreling and the strife over creeds and dogmas, which have held your world in chains for thousands of years, can be abolished."

"We preach the gospel of the spiritual brotherhood of all peoples, with the Great White Spirit as the common Father."

"What stands in the way is the earthly conception, the churches built on error, the usurping of privilege, the pride and the power of tyrants, petty tyrants who hold the whip hand."

When someone said "Thank you," Silver Birch, as usual, reminded those gathered that he must not be thanked, but that it was the Great Spirit to Whom gratitude should be expressed.

"We use the earth phrase out of habit," someone explained.

"I know my son," replied the guide. "But if I did not always correct you and always draw attention to the laws of the Great Spirit, some would begin to pay us praise and to worship us, and then the same troubles would start once more."

Silver Birch then spoke, when asked which spirit friends were present, of the enormous number who regularly attended the sittings of the circle.

"There are as many as 5,000 people here tonight." he said.

"There are not only those you knew on earth, and those who are interested in the circle. There are those we bring to hear you talk, because they do not think that it is possible."

"Others are brought here so that they can learn how we come through to your world of matter, so that they can use other mediums in other parts of the world. There is a great missionary work, not only for your world but for our world too, for we do not sacrifice any time or power."

"The great lesson that those in my world have to learn is how to use spirit power in order to impress your minds. The great value of an understanding of these laws is that your minds become accessible."

"You do not realize how unknown to yourselves you are all the recipients of inspiration from the world of spirit."

"There are many in your world who are counted as great scientists, great inventors and great teachers. They are only the vehicles of intelligence from my world. It does not matter so long as the truth or the discovery is made known. Who receives the credit is of no account ......."

"Every experience has its advantage and disadvantage. The higher your soul evolves the greater is the progress it has made -- but the more it knows there is to be evolved. That is its disadvantage, it is more dissatisfied. The more sensitive you become to beauty, the more sensitive you are to ugliness. The higher you rise, the lower you can sink."

"Life is shadow and sunlight, calm and storm. An even monotone is not life; life is composed of happiness and joy with occasional sadness, for it is only by having these extreme divergences that character can grow and experience come to the soul."

"That is why there is a lesson to be learned from sorrow, from the storm, from the bitterness of life. Sometimes those who are in the shadows rail against the Great Spirit because they do not understand that that experience is necessary to their own unfoldment, but sunshine is only to be truly appreciated if you have been in the shadows."

"Through comparison, the soul begins truly to live. If your experiences were limited only to that which you thought was good, happy and beautiful, life would be very empty, for it would possess no depth."

"The wise individual is the one who faces each new day with eagerness and steady resolve, determined to learn from all the experiences that await him, the lessons that they all can teach to help him on the infinite road that leads to the Great Spirit."

Silver Birch devoted this particular sitting to answering the problems of the sitters. One wondered whether there was unlimited power at the disposal of spirit guides.

"The power we have is dependent on our own evolution and on the ability to receive and transmit," said the guide. "Our state of evolution determines the amount of power at our disposal. The instruments at our disposal determine the amount that can be poured through to your world. These are the factors which govern the receiving and the distributing of the power from our realms."

"Then there is unlimited power, if it can be used," commented the questioner.

"Yes," answered Silver Birch, "because power comes from the Infinite Spirit."

The circle member remarked that it seemed at seances that guides were always careful not to waste power, which would appear unnecessary if the supply were unlimited.

"When you are accustomed to manifestations," said the guide, "you know that if you go beyond a certain limit then the sitters will have to pay the price in depletion and loss of nervous energy and force. We do not wish to be placed in a position where we are accused of undermining the health of those who come to us seeking manifestations of the power of the spirit."

"In fact, the reverse is true and your health should improve, for power that is normally repressed is brought into circulation - and remember, too, that the power we bring from our world is the power of life-giving essence which invigorates."

It seemed that the sitting was hardly half over when Silver Birch announced that the time was almost exhausted. But the sitters were wrong and the guide was right, for when the medium came out of trance it was found that only five minutes were left.

Before he went, Silver Birch said: "I have tried to show myself as your friend, guardian and guide. I wanted you to feel that I was near you, that whatever qualities I might possess they did not prevent me from enjoying a close personal touch with you, that I was interested in your problems and your difficulties and ready to give you personal help and guidance if I could."

"Remember, I am not only a teacher, seeking to teach eternal truths, and reveal the powers of the spirit; I am also the friend of each one of you, for I love you dearly and strive always to help you with all the strength and power that I possess."

"Come to me always with your difficulties, no matter what they be. If I can help you, I will do so. If I cannot, I will strive to give you strength to help you through your challenges."

Britain - indeed the whole Commonwealth - was plunged into a crisis in far-off 1936 when King Edward VIII announced his abdication so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Never before had modern day monarchy faced such a testing, turbulent time.

Not surprisingly this headline making event was raised at the Hannen Swaffer home circle where Silver Birch gave a spirit view of the abdication.

"The conditions of your world have been very difficult," he said, "but now they begin to clear away. I want to remind you all that there is a great lesson to be learned from it."

"In all moments of crisis, fix your minds upon the eternal things of the spirit. Do not dwell too much on the kingdom of empires and dominions, but on the Kingdom of Heaven, which has yet to descend on earth."

"Do not have excessive adoration for those who are only men. Remember that there is only one King in the universe, the King of all life, Whose kingdom embraces every child of the Great Spirit and Who wants all His plenteous bounty distributed freely."

"Do not let your attention be diverted, because of glamour, from the great eternal realities. Remember the conditions of those who dwell in misery and in darkness, those who lack food, those whom the sun seldom reaches, those who are prevented from breathing as they should the air which comes from the Great Spirit of life."

"Remember the greater tasks, the greater problems. Remember the masses who cry out, whose pain, bitterness and sorrow are far, far greater than the difficulties of only one. That is the great lesson for all in your world of matter to learn."

At this point Hannen Swaffer asked whether his view of the crisis - it was printed in "Psychic News" - was too harsh. The paper swiftly received several letters, one saying that Swaffer's stand was "The most heartless thing that has ever been written." Another declared that his comments were "ungentlemanly, unmanly, ungenerous and un-Christian."

"No," replied Silver Birch. "When you speak truth, truth finds its way into their hearts. Sometimes it meets with the resistance of superstition and prejudice. But those walls will crumble gradually. You could not have said it many years ago, but you say it today."

"A few complain, but they are nothing. They are those within whose minds traditional things die hard. They do not reason with logic and understanding. You told them of the natural laws. They are the only ones that matter."

"When the passions created in men's breasts die down, they will have to confront reality. That is your task in your world of matter - to tear away the veils of illusion and to reveal truth. Some cannot behold truth's blinding light, but it is of no account. They are not ready."

"The truth reigns supreme. Ignorance flees before its approach. It is because our message is true that we one day will reign supreme - not we who are the instruments, but that which we represent, the love of the Great Spirit, the infinity of His bounty, the love, the wisdom, the knowledge that watches over all mankind."

"Away must go every obstacle that prevents the fullness of the Great Spirit being revealed. Away must go all servitude. Away must go all barriers. That is the task upon which we are all engaged."

"I only try to tell you a few of the things that I have learned, because I know that they can help you even if they make you examine again the fundamental principles of life."

"Sometimes, when you are engrossed in your daily tasks and the problems of your world surround you, you are apt to forget the great eternal spiritual principles upon which all life is based. If I remind you of these things, they help you to focus your minds so that you can get the true balance and are able to render still greater service."

"Your world has yet to learn so much. The greater the responsibility, the greater the sacrifice. The greater the knowledge that you possess, the greater the responsibility. You can gain nothing without a price. There is a price always to be paid."

A month earlier Silver Birch gave his then customary Armistice Day message. He told those present:

"I want you all to remember when, in a few days' time, the thoughts of the whole of your nation are centered on the many who laid down their bodies of matter in service, that it is a great reminder to you all of the way in which millions of the children of the Great Spirit have been for years betrayed by those who lead in the affairs of men."

"The sacrifices have all been in vain, and the sacred reminder comes to each one of you to realize that there are only a few very simple ways by which peace, harmony and happiness can reign."

"You build up systems based on greed and selfishness and, as result, you reap war and poverty, starvation misery, distress and chaos. And then you ask us how we can help you, when all the time the message of the Spirit has been forgotten and neglected, even by those who should preach the word of the Great Spirit."

"Temporal power is as naught beside spiritual realities, and, although many sneer at the things of the Spirit, the solution of all the troubles of your world will only be found when all people, in the spirit of goodwill, apply spiritual truth to material problems."

"You are nearer disaster today than you were when it was announced that war had ceased. You are nearer to grave and terrible troubles. The world is heading straight for that which spells bloodshed, great bloodshed."

"I speak with gravity because of that which I know. It may be that the world will be saved from itself, but only if the efforts of all those who seek to serve, not to aggrandize self, triumph over the power of greed and selfishness. Peace will not come to your world from war. Happiness will not come from misery. Laughter cannot come from tears of sorrow."

"There is plenty for all. But greed stands in the way. Those who seek to rule by the sword must perish by the sword. That same truth prevails today."

"But, throughout all the darkness, there is a glimmer of hope. Do not despair. Hold fast to that which you know to be true."

A year later in another Armistice Day message the guide referred to the Spanish Civil War in which, incidentally, Maurice Barbanell and his wife were inadvertently caught up! Happily both escaped injury and were escorted to the French border by gun-toting soldiers. The ever-eloquent guide commented:

"Each succeeding year makes the futility of this human sacrifice more apparent. Your world will pay for just two minutes of its time and silent tribute in memory of the 'glorious dead,' and after that they will be forgotten for another year, until they are taken off the shelf and dusted once again."

"Their sacrifices were all in vain. They have been agonized for nineteen years. The Great War! Its greatness consisted in the amount of slaughter, wasted slaughter. The Great War, that was to end all war! How hollow, how full of mockery do those words sound!

"Do you not consider that those who made every sacrifice that they could make in the world of matter, even to laying down their physical lives, have not spent years in bitter disillusionment? They were cut off in the prime of earthly life. They were sent unprepared into the world of spirit. They passed on cheerfully for an ideal, that your civilization might be saved, and they have been betrayed ever since."

"War has not been driven from the face of the earth, for, even as you will pay tribute to the 'fallen dead,' as you call them, of your last war, there will be no armistice in the East or in Spain, where the killing will continue even without a cessation of two minutes."

"Does your world of matter realize that peace can only come from the application of spiritual laws to worldly matters?"

"It is selfishness that brings not only war, with its train of bloodshed, misery and weeping, but chaos, confusion, disaster and bankruptcy."

"They must learn that only by substituting service for selfishness can peace come, that the old ideas of materialism and power and desires to aggrandize nations must be swept away and in their place there must reign the desire to live for one another, the stronger to help the weaker, the richer to give to the poorer."

"Do not insult those who have been translated to spirit realms with tributes that come from the lips and not from the heart."

"All other methods have been tried and they have failed you. But not yet has the application of spiritual truths been tried. Unless your world does so, it will continue with war and bloodshed that will, in the end, destroy your much vaunted civilization."

Perhaps at this point it is pertinent to include the guide's words upon civilization. Asked to comment on it, Silver Birch replied that free will "is a gift of the Great Spirit, but if it is not used aright then the price must be paid."

"The laws must be obeyed," he went on. "If the world lives with the law, it reaps the benefits. If it lives against the law, it reaps the results. One way brings peace and happiness and plenty, the other way misery and war and bloodshed and chaos."

"We are despised in your world of matter by those who should be the leaders of the children of the Great Spirit. We are rejected by those who should welcome us because we come in the name of the Great Spirit and His love. Filled with the desire to serve, we seek to reveal those laws and that power which will show your world how to save itself."

"And those who are steeped in the ignorance of spiritual blindness, and who surround themselves with ceremony and ritual, and at the same time deny the power of the Great Spirit to descend today, must pay the price."

"We are the friends of all who seek to serve. We are the enemies only of those who seek to destroy. We come on wings of love and service ready to help wherever we can. That is the great task that we all have to perform."

"Your world pays too much attention to old fables because they are old. Truth and age do not always march together. I know it is difficult to surrender the dearly held beliefs learned in the days of childhood, but when the soul becomes free it must discard all that reason rejects. How many are prepared to do that?"

"It does not occur to many people to test their beliefs by reason," said a sitter."

"No, they prefer the shelter of that which they have known for so long rather than journey into the speculative unknown," the guide remarked. "And remember, also, your world does not acclaim its prisoners with much applause. It usually condemns them."

Another sitter wanted to know why so much was said about a spirit plan to help the world, "and yet we see such little apparent result of it?"

"You do not see the results of a plan," said the guide, "because you look at these things with the eyes of matter. You judge progress in relation to your own short span of life, but we see progress because we look at things from another plane."

"We see the spread of knowledge, a greater understanding of spiritual things, a rise of tolerance, an increase of good will, a breaking down of barriers of ignorance and superstition and fear and spiritual slavery."

"It is not as if there were to be a sudden revolution. That could never happen, because all spiritual growth must be slow and progressive."

"Do not think that there is need for despair. There is on one hand - when you see the growing masses of materialistic forces - but on the other hand there is growing hope as the light of spiritual truth penetrates the fog of materialistic selfishness. And, as long as knowledge spreads, truth will be victorious."

"That is why our message is so important. It is not for us - it is for you. It is we who strive to serve you, to make your world realize the price it must pay for its selfishness, for its wanton ignorance, its deliberate cruelty. We strive to serve you, to help you, because we love you."

"We are not evil spirits, seeking to lure you on to paths of destruction. We do not seek to make you debase yourselves, to practice cruelty or sin. Rather do we strive to make you realize the divinity that is yours, the powers of the Great Spirit that you possess, how you can practice the law of service and help the Plan of the Great Spirit."

At a different gathering the guide was asked if it would be a good thing "if our present civilization were destroyed."

"It is much better for your civilization to be saved, even in spite of itself," was the spirit sage's reply.

"Don't you think it has gone so far wrong that it would be better to start all over again?" the sitter persisted.

"No, because the light of spiritual truth is breaking in upon your world," said Silver Birch. "Where there are channels for the power of the spirit to penetrate, so there comes to you that energy that enables your world to exist."

"Your world must realize that it depends for its existence upon the reservoir of spirit."

Another sitter suggested that Silver Birch was rather harsh in his declaration that the sacrifices of those "killed" in the war were all in vain. He thought it would hurt many people to be told that.

"Sometimes stark truth is bitter and hurts," said the guide, "but, because it is true, it will do good."

"But did not any good at all come out of their sacrifices?" the sitter said.

"I can see none," answered Silver Birch. "Your world of matter is nearer chaos today, and is more filled with destruction, than it was when your 'Great War' began."

"Can so much heroism be spent in vain?" the sitter queried. "Is there no spiritual repercussion?"

"There is on the part of the individuals who made the sacrifice, because their motive was good," the spirit guide replied. "But do not forget that your world has betrayed them. It has made their sacrifice pointless, because it has continued in its materialism."

"Is it of any use that these Armistice services should go on, year after year?" asked another sitter.

"It is better to remember those you call dead for two minutes than not to think of them at all," added the guide. "But I do not see what good can come when you celebrate the Armistice with a display of military might, with rifles and bayonets, with soldiers, with the firing of maroons and with all that comes with war. Could you not have an Armistice that was a spiritual service"?

"Are you in favour of the continuance of Spiritualist services of remembrance on that date?" was another point put to him.

"Wherever truth is expressed good is done, if speeches are given as an incentive to service. Vain speeches that lead to nothing are valueless. It is not sufficient to have speeches, and for audiences to be smugly satisfied with the feeling that they are in favour of peace."

"I want them active. I want them serving. I want them uplifting the weak. I want them healing the sick. I want them comforting the mourner. I want them sheltering the homeless. I want them to put an end to all the abuses that are a blot on your world of matter. Only through service can peace come. It will not come until all are imbued with the ideals of service, until all practices service."

At the same circle gathering the guide was asked if he agreed with the Pacifist movement which today is probably stronger than ever before.

"I belong to no party," he replied. "I wear no label. I see service, motive. Do not be confused with titles. Ask what is the aim, what is the desire, because there are men of honesty and good intent even in opposing camps. The teaching that we have to give you is very simple, but it requires courage to put it into practice."

"Whenever a start is made, whenever there is the determination that comes with knowledge of the spirit and the truths of the spirit, whenever service and not selfishness is applied to all the affairs of everyday life in the world."

"It will not come through any party, but through the children of the Great Spirit, who, realizing these things are true, apply them in their lives, in their politics, in their factories, in their governments, in their international transactions."

"We can enunciate principles that we know are founded on truth, and tell you with certainty that their application will bring results. You are in the realm of matter. Yours is the responsibility. We can only strive to guide you, with all our love and helpfulness, and co-operate with you whenever your feet are on the right paths ...."

"So many in your world cannot get out of the groove in which they live. Sometimes the groove is religious, sometimes it is political, sometimes it is a self-made prison that has no reality beyond the imagination of its creator."

"Learn to be free. Do not imprison yourself. Do not hedge yourself around and refuse to allow new inspiration to come to you. Truth is a constant search. Its boundaries are ever widening, for as the soul evolves the mind responds."

"How can one become free?" asked a sitter.

"You are never completely free, because the measure of your freedom is related to the growth of your soul," said the guide. "You become free when you realize there is no limitation to knowledge, truth, wisdom, growth. You become free when you discard at once that which you know in your heart is false, that which reason rejects, because your intelligence cries out in revolt. You become free when you are not afraid to discard error in the face of new light. But how many are prepared to do that?"

One present suggested that sometimes economic conditions prevented people from becoming free.

"No, for they cannot imprison the mind though they can imprison the body," said Silver Birch. "You imprison your own minds. There is knowledge for all when you are ready to seek knowledge, but you must journey on the great adventure."

"You must be prepared to start on a search where even sometimes the boundaries are not known, sometimes be prepared for hazards and dangers, sometimes be prepared to walk in uncharted territory, yet always prepared to follow truth wherever she leads and to reject all that is false, no matter how old it may be."