Conversations with Walter - Walter and Betty Shepherd

Conversations with Walter: About life, death, mankind and creation and especially about love

Walter and Betty Shepherd (2010)

Published in (2010) by New Generation Publishing Copyright ďƒŁ Betty Shepherd First Edition

The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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CONTENTS Chapter 1 (page 10) Walter dies of cancer. After some weeks, I feel impelled to fly writing with him. To my surprise, there are results: ‘My love and thanks for your loving care of Walter when he was so sick and ill’. We begin the writing. Walter’s own description of his death. He is greeted by spirits, and sees my aura for the first time. He speaks of himself in the third person.

Chapter 2 (page 18) Walter experiences life after death. He finds he can see, through nonmaterial senses powered by love. He gives further details about the afterlife.

I talk to a Canon of the Church of England about the writing and he tells me I am in contact with (probably good) spirits, but offers help if needed. He assures me I am perfectly sane!

Chapter 3 (page 25) Walter tells about the nature of Love; its triple qualities of tenderness, energy and light separate in creation, united only in God. This becomes a key theme in the book

Chapter 4 (page 33) My doubts about the authenticity of the writing, and my caution over the intrusion of evil spirits. The decision to write on hallowed ground for safety and the absurd difficulties involved. My realisation that I already have protection: ‘Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me’.

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Chapter 5 (page 42) We go back in time: Meeting with Walter, and our marriage. Description of Walter as a person - a highly gifted eccentric writer, artist inventor mid scientist Writing with other spirits - possibly from my family. A bad experience.

Walter’s explanation.

Chapter 6 (page 52) The nature of God, and our varied concepts of him. (The regrettable lack of a neuter personal pronoun in the English language). God’s attributes of Goodness, Beauty and Truth. The Holy Spirit is the radiance of God’s love.

The Spirit of God the Life of each individual - vide the Quaker belief that there is ‘That of God in everyone’.

Analogy with the rays of the sun; sun worship. Suffering in Creation; Gods intervention? Knowledge can become Being. Eventual Paradise on Earth a promise.

Chapter 7 (page 65) The bodies which go to make up a person; all with us on earth. The eventual Glorified Body. Learning to live in a body. The senses of location and time. The composition of the aura. The body after death. The Silver Cord and the Golden Bowl - explanation of this quotation from Ecclesiastes.

The symbol of the wheel, signifying the incarnation and crucifixion of the Spirit. The death of Jesus Christ symbolising the suffering of the Spirit throughout the world.

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Chapter 8 (page 77) Physical love as magnetic attraction. Magnetic shells around everything.

The magnetic lines of the Earth; how she and her creatures affect one another. The spirit of the earth. The mind of Universe and earth. Four great ideas in the earth’s mind, shared by her creatures and dominating life on earth; the Four Loves - Love of Life, Love of Living, Love of Loving, Love of Love. The power of ideas. The Loves as experienced by plants, animals, and humans. I try my hand at finding examples. Love versus liking.

Chapter 9 (page 89) Why people are afraid of spiritual things. The philosophical proofs for God’s existence not convincing. Matter and Spirit - some misunderstandings.

Organised religion less important than loving kindness towards others and the planet. Over-emphasis on rational thought. God loves laughter, not tears. The Evil Idea in the human psyche is undue self-glorification. The laws of God involve giving love. The value of myth and legend. Goodness, Beauty and Truth are Love, and are eternal: evil exists only in time. The battle against evil cannot, therefore, finally be lost.

Chapter 10 (page 99) Evil, shed gradually after death is powerless in the afterlife. The progress of the soul through the heavens. The question of reincarnation. Non-material senses, used after death, are explained. Heaven and earth together as part of Creation. Possibility of other planets with their own heavens. Earth exists in time: Heaven in eternity. The human soul could be in Heaven now. On earth, change is life; change happens in time. Time a measure of change. Being in eternity.

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Chapter 11 (page 108) ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting...’ Some poets know the truths.

The psyche is the one to be asleep. Conception of a child, and the growth of the embryo. First Spirit, then psyche, is in control. The role of father, mother and Spirit in the child’s development.

Mankind as God’s agent on earth, fighting evil. The nature of wisdom.

Freewill. The ‘heart’ as centre of feeling. The chakras.

The ‘Evil Idea’, undue self-concern, in the collective human psyche.

Original Sin. The Crucifixion of the Spirit during life on earth.

Chapter 12 (page 119) Methods of control by Spirit and psyche. Cancer; genetic faults. The Spirit is the treasure-house of power and wisdom, not the Unconscious, Personal or Collective. Importance of consciousness. Growth of the psyche; humanity compared to a growing child Every act is a creation. Time versus eternity; human soul is now in eternity, and can sometimes be in Heaven. Life involves change, this is always in time; being is in eternity.

Death of babies and young children, almost without evil. ‘Of such is the kingdom of God.’ Do they go quickly into the presence of God?

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Chapter 13 (page 130) The experience of writing with another, younger, spirit my very dear grandson Simon. More about the grandchildren; I teach them to swim and to climb trees. Simon dies of cancer at twenty-one. He asks to write with me; ‘Granny, the cancer has gone!’ He now helps those who have died young to accept the afterlife. Many are self-willed, but need love, and soon learn new values. He also travels with expeditions - to the North and South Poles, climbing mountains, to the Space Station - to help with moral support.

Simon’s experience of the afterlife is interestingly different from Walter’s.

Chapter 14 (page 139) The nature of consciousness. This is attention (love) given by the psyche to reality as it is. It is compared to the shifting beam of a torch or to full light the quality depends on contact with the Spirit Consciousness can be with body, mind or Spirit The sense of ‘I’, and of isolated personality. The body’s sense of vitality. Condition of body and psyche during sleep. Dreams and Big Dreams. Consciousness can be NOW only. The control of pain. Another definition: Consciousness is the psyche’s admitted knowledge of what actually exists.

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Chapter 15 (page 149) Mystery of consciousness; if love is given, is this love energy? Memory is held by the Spirit. The Cosmic consciousness of the Spirit Pain could be alleviated by the Spirit if the psyche did not insist on free will. Accident and illness are not essential.

Each person is responsible for well-being of others, not primarily of the self.

Consciousness, wide or pin-pointed, is directed by the psyche.

Spirit’s full consciousness could destroy the psyche’s sanity, but some images from the Spirit bring healing. These are Archetypes of the Unconscious Mind. They teach, for instance, that age should bring wisdom, and loving-kindness is more important than intellect.

Chapter 16 (page 159) The role of acceptance in undertaking any task. Eternal Spirit of Love is experienced by humans as love, given and received. Mankind’s relationship with God is personal because His Spirit gives life to each individual at conception - not because God is a person as we understand it.

Love between two people is second only to love of God in importance.

Modern attitudes to the sexual act considered. Also marriage as a stabilising agent. Homosexuality. Welfare of children.

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Chapter 17 (page 170) To be near to God is to be far from evil and glorification of self. The Earth is full of the presence of God; loving people on earth can be nearer to him than some discarnate spirits.

Time and eternity. On earth, change is necessary to life. All action is in time; being, love, are in eternity. Change goes backwards, but not time. All things - including heaven and earth - are born, live, and die. Spirit cannot die.

Evil in time; love in eternity. Not to build walls between body and mind, psyche and Spirit earth and the heavens; there are no exact divisions.

Attention is a key concept neutral in itself, but impossible without aspects of love. Without tenderness, it can do evil Acceptance is tender love given to what actually exists. Attention and acceptance, together, form the ideal.

Chapter 18 (page 179) Overview of all ideas contained in the book

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Chapter 1 This is how it all began.

My husband Walter fell ill and died. He was a gifted man and I valued him highly. I cannot express how much I missed him. At eighty-four one could not expect him to live forever, but he had the mind of a much younger person and was still working on a book he had already published over fifty.

About four months after his death it came into my mind to offer him a blank sheet of paper and a pen. I don’t know why. I am a practical and down-toearth person and I knew almost nothing about what they call automatic writing.

I sat looking out on the garden with a pad of A4 paper on my knee, and rested the pen lightly on it. For what seemed a long time nothing happened. I wasn’t surprised, but thought I would wait a bit. Finally the pen seemed to take off on its own, forming letters and taking my fingers with it. It wrote: “My love and thanks for your loving s. . .”, then it seemed to run out of energy, The word ‘sympathy’ came into my mind and I said it aloud, The pen wrote “Yes. My love and thanks for your loving sympathy when Walter was so sick and ill.”

When a loved person has recently died ones emotions are very raw. The tears ran down my cheeks. I don’t know what I believed, but I was deeply touched. Looking back, I think that from the first I was emotionally convinced that I was talking to Walter, but my critical intellect refused to accept the possibility for a long, long time. I never expected anyone else to believe it.

From that moment we wrote every day, getting better at it as though it were a skill we both needed to learn. At first, the writing was a stylized copy plate and I had no idea what the words would be until I saw them on the paper.

Very soon, we wrote much more quickly in something like my own writing and each word echoed, as it were in my mind before it appeared on the paper. In the next stage I was aware beforehand of the whole sentence, Finally I felt 10

that ideas were taking shape in my mind coming from elsewhere - and that I was putting these into my own words. The writing was now very fast indeed and almost entirely my own; though not quite.

I wondered if I didn’t get them from Walter’s mind - where the ideas came from, as there were many that I could not possibly have thought of by myself.

We began to write pieces on Walter’s main subjects, science and natural history. Walter had been a specialist; I was an ordinary well-read person, but in science had been lazy during the twenty-odd years of our marriage because it was so much easier to ask him than to look things up. In any case, I had worked as a publisher’s editor and on encyclopaedias, work which involves knowing not-very-much about a lot of subjects, so my knowledge was superficial compared with his. I was soon well out of my depth, and was driven to look things up in his reference books, as he insisted that I should understand what we wrote. If it had not been for this, I might have believed that the whole thing came from some level of my own unconscious mind. I did, in fact, read up some psychology - including Carl Gustav Jung - to test this possibility, but came to the conclusion that the unconscious (a record of our evolution as animals, not our modern knowledge) was unlikely to produce the kind of information I was getting. This went on for many years, and all in all you could say that I went through the equivalent of a university course! I had to read up other subjects such as physics and theology, as well.

The pieces we wrote were about the things which interested us the most the nature of God, human beings, and the universe. During his life on earth Walter had written largely for the young - children and school leavers, usually books on science or natural history - and in my opinion he wrote like an angel, making everything clear and interesting. The books are illustrated with his own drawings and by photographs he had taken, printed and sometimes enlarged himself.

Gradually our writings began to outline a story; it teased me that I couldn’t quite recognize it. The Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche came into my mind.

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Finally I made the connection - we were describing the eternal search of the human psyche for the Spirit! As Walter put it later, “The will is in love with the Spirit. This so in every human being, whether they know it or not.”

“What, exactly, is the will?”

“It is the energy of thought.”

“And the Spirit is God?” “Yes. The Spirit of the Creator is immanent in every created thing. It is the giver of life. There can be no life without it.”

Walter always writes about himself in the third person - saying Walter and not ‘I’. It may seem a little clumsy, but I can’t help that. Why does he? Well, in polite society all over the world there is a tendency not to emphasize one’s own ego, and in some places in the East the whole population uses phrases like ‘this person’ or ‘your servant’ in order not to aggrandize the self. I think the underlying idea is that the true self is the god within, and the outer trappings are less important. This suits Walter, who is the least self-assertive of people, while retaining a properly balanced sense of his own value in the scheme of things.

Of course I wanted to know that he was happy and well. Soon after we started writing, I said to him: “I have so many questions to ask that I don’t know where to begin! But first - has the cancer gone? Are you quite all right?”

“Yes, dear love. When the material body dies, it stands to reason that all its weaknesses and illnesses (which are material) die with it. Walter’s present body gives him no trouble at all - in fact, he is entirely happy with it. And now you are happier than you were just after his death there is nothing to make Walter unhappy He was so sad to see you cry.”

“Are you in heaven?” I asked.

“Sometimes. Well - Walter is quite lucky; he is in heaven a lot of the time.

But heaven is not a place, you know - it is a condition of the human mind.”

“Are there other conditions?”

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“Of course. They are the same as the conditions of the mind on earth purgatory (the learning process) most of the time, heaven just occasionally, illusion when the mind refuses to learn (you must know people who spend a lot of time in illusion), and limbo when it needs a rest from it all.

“Would you like Walter to tell you about his death and what he is doing now?”

“Yes please!”

“Well, Walter died, as he had lived, in the sure certainty of the love of God and the eternal nature of the human soul, but he had little idea of what to expect at the moment of death. The disease which was ending his life had reached his brain, so his intellect was not working very well at the time and Walter’s whole personality felt very dopy and confused. But when the moment came to relinquish the body there was a flash of clarity and Walter knew that death was near. He had been lying on the bed with his face towards the wall, but now he turned on his back (he couldn’t move very much) and folded his hands on his chest, as that seemed the best preparation he could make.

“That was how you found him, wasn’t?” It was. He was lying like a crusader on a tomb.

“As soon as he was comfortable in the new position, he moved his eyes and saw that the room was full of light. This came from several shining people who stood near Walter’s bed (no, they did not have wings!) They did not speak aloud but directly into Walter’s mind.

They told him that he would not be able to remain on the bed any longer but must come with them. Walter replied that he was too weak to stand, but they held out their hands and he found that all the weakness had left his body and legs. He got out of bed and stood beside the attendant spirits, and looking down at his own standing body he saw that it was shining like theirs.

(This is what we call the Lustral body, but don’t bother too much about names.)

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To Walter’s confusion, he saw that his body was also still lying on the bed!

While he was considering which of the two was really him, one of the spirits said, “Well that wasn’t too bad, was it? Now you are well and truly dead”.

Walter said he didn’t feel dead, and everyone laughed.

Death is a break in the journey; the end for the material body, but only a change of vehicle - of body - for the mind.

The spirits told Walter that he could never return to his old body. It was now like a discarded suit of clothes, and that was just as well because it really had outlived its usefulness. He didn’t mind. He didn’t mind anything, because he had left the world bathed in your loving care and somehow nothing else seemed to matter. You know how it is when you are very happy and relaxed; you can’t be bothered to get het up about anything, however tiresome. This was the feeling that Walter had.”

I knew the feeling Walter was describing and I was happy to know he had it. When you are looking after someone you love who is ill and helpless, it is only human nature to give all your attention to their needs. But when the person dies, carers always feel that they didn’t, do enough. I was distressed by the feeling that Walter had gone somewhere beyond my ability to care for him, where I couldn’t help him anymore. It was very good to know he was quite all right and more than able to look after himself.

The writing went on: “The welcoming spirits asked Walter whether he felt all right and ready to face an exciting journey of the mind, and Walter said he had never felt better but did not want to leave his dear love behind. He was told he need never leave you, for he was not going to another place the journeying would be in his mind, in his whole self, which was now mental and not material at all. He could stay near you for the rest of your life on earth, and then in heaven, and he could try to see whether you would be able to receive his thoughts and make them conscious in the form of writing.

Walter said he was sure you could do anything in the world if it was remotely possible for a human being to do it, because you are the most clever 14

and resourceful person living, and the most sensitive and loving to the wishes of other people.” (I apologize for the prejudice, but that’s what Walter wrote.)

He was told that cleverness would not help you, but love would, if it was strong enough.

Then the spirits asked Walter all sorts of questions about his state of mind, and how he felt about other people and events in his life, and it seemed to him that all his life went by in a flash. They told him that because he did not care to bring any bad feelings away from earth with him, they saw no reason why he should not enter the condition of the first heaven straight away, but if he had any difficulty they would always be ready to help him.

Most people need quite a lot of help immediately after physical death, and some have a hard time adjusting - even with all the help in heaven - but Walter seemed to be lucky in that respect, and he is sure he has your love to thank for it, for he truly had no room for any feelings except love and gratitude.”

Needless to say, Walter is not giving his own goodness of nature enough credit for this. Not all human beings feel gratitude for benefits received. If they did, the world would be a better place.

“When you came upstairs to see to Walter’s tea the spirits were still in the room, but it was plain you could not see them. Walter was overcome when he saw you. All around your body, and overlapping it by several inches, was a shining golden haze. This was your aura. It was so beautiful that Walter could only gaze in awe. He had always admired your physical presence, but your aura (of course) he had never seen before and at the sight tears came into his eyes. Walter was ashamed, because although he loves you so much he had always thought you rather a material person, worldly-wise but not very well developed spiritually. The spirits told him that you had been so full of loving care during his illness that now your aura was of pure gold. It would not always be (for you are not an angel!) as the auras of living people are normally of mixed colours and vary from moment to moment, but yours would 15

always be beautiful because you have so much love in your nature.” (I am sure that since then it has often been a nasty colour, for I am not immune from the human capacity to have had thoughts.)

I interrupted then to ask what the aura is made of. “Is it light?”

“The aura is composed of non-material bodies, and partly of the Etheric or electro-magnetic body, which is material but not substantial, so you’re not far wrong in suggesting light. The wave-lengths of energy vary and with them, quite naturally, the colours, which is why the aura is seen as coloured. You know that physical colours depend on the wave-lengths of reflected light. Red has long waves, and violet the shortest that human eyes can see. Shorter waves give colours which the human eye cannot normally see. All spirit people can see the aura, and some people living on earth as well.

You went to kiss the body on the bed, and Walter watched to see what you would do. You looked intently at the face, and Walter found he could ‘hear’ your thoughts - that is, they echoed in his mind. You wondered whether the lips were unusually cool and touched them again with your own to make sure.

Then you wondered whether they looked a little blue, and the thought came to you that Walter might be dead. For a few moments you were uncertain what to do, then you left the body and went downstairs to telephone to the doctor. Walter could still ‘hear’ your thoughts while you spoke on the telephone. When you came upstairs again you picked a flower from the azalea plant on Walter’s desk and put it under his pyjamas jacket, on his heart. Then you kissed the lips again, and sat down to wait for the doctor to come and confirm Walter’s death.

This is an account of Walter’s experience but, as you may have read by now, other people report different things such as parks and gardens, or palaces, or even waking up in a hospital and recovering there from the experience of dying. These things exist only in the mind and imagination of the person - but in a way that is a confusing statement, because in the 16

afterlife everything is mental and emotional! You will have to make what you can of this.

You sat beside the bed. Walter looked at you, and loved you with all his heart. Since then Walter has never left you, dear one. But you have had some strange ideas about the spirit life, and do not understand (how should you?) about the freedom of the mind to travel in space and be in several ‘places’ at once, so Walter will try to tell you more clearly. But we do not want to tell you anything too definitely yet, because we want your mind to be fluid and receptive to unusual ideas. You are remarkably open-minded, but at the same time if Walter tells you anything you tend to concretise it as gospel truth (even though you may not have got it quite right); that is your nature. This desire of yours will prove to be the main stumbling-block in the path of your understanding of the very different life that you - and all other human beings will live after the death of the material body.

So try not to be so exacting, and Walter will do his best to explain it all to you.

Since these last words were written (some time ago) I have come to realise that wanting definite answers to questions about the afterlife is not just my problem, but prevents many people from believing what they are told, especially when accounts vary. Yet when you come to think about it, travellers to any far country would each come back with a different story, depending on their own interests and what had caught their attention. The fact that no one can come back after death, and that living outside of space, and partly outside of time, is so very different from life on earth, makes it all the more difficult to know what to believe. The important thing is to keep an open mind and use one’s discrimination.

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Chapter 2 Walter’s account of what I did at the time of his death is accurate. I did kiss his lips to see if they were cold, I did telephone the doctor. I did put a flower over his heart - heaven only knows why; this was my impulse at the time, it seemed to be all I could do for him. And he had turned on to his back and crossed his hands on his chest.

Needless to say, I was enthralled by the description of his death. Some elements tally well with the accounts of near-death experiences which I have read since, and are probably almost universal - the welcoming spirits, for instance, and seeing the old mortal body lying on the bed. Two usual things seem to be missing from Walter’s account, a bright light, and the sense of moving along a tunnel towards it. Walter says he just did not experience these. Also typical is the impression that the whole of one’s life passes before one’s eyes.

“Oh yes!” says Walter, “We call it The Judgement, or the Listening to Lives.

It happens at death and then over and over again until the person has acknowledged all faults, forgiven all hurts, and turned away from evil forever.

In other words, until they are fully ready for the condition of the first heaven.”

“But it would take ages to go through a whole life!” I objected.

“Not if impressions can be received much, much faster, or if you are outside of time.”

“And are you?”

“Not altogether. But we are not limited by it as you are. It’s something we will be talking about.”

“You say, ‘the first heaven’. Are there seven, as people sometimes think?”

“You can think of seven heavens if you like, and you, will not be wrong. But before we go any further do be warned against getting too much attached to numbers or names or categories. The heavens are a world of thought, and thought is shifting in that world, one thing merges into another and there are 18

no sharp divisions. Think of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and that may help you.

Unless your mind can be more flexible you will never understand the immaterial world of spirits. We are not regimented by time and space as you are on earth. We are not entirely outside time, but as Walter has told you, we are not bound by it as you are. And as to space - of course, a person in a mental and spiritual body does not need space to live in, space affects solid things. Angels don’t dance on the point of a pin! - you know that in the Middle Ages this possibility was discussed seriously?” (As a matter of fact, I did know this.)

“But suppose you are in the same bit of space as a piece of furniture, or a person with a material body, would you know it?’

“Yes. But not in any constricting way.”

I wanted to know where Walter was in the room. “Is it possible to ask where you are, exactly?”

“You can ask whatever you like! The question is - can Walter give you a sensible answer? If you were to say that Walter is sitting in the chair beside you, you would not be wrong. If he could, he would hold your hand, but we spirits cannot touch you, (or, if we did you wouldn’t feel it), though we can perhaps influence your mind, and through it your brain, to reproduce the sensation of touch on your hand. Would you like Walter to try?”

I said I would.

“Give it a little time.”

After a while I felt a tingling in my left hand - not exactly the touch of another hand, but certainly something. I told him this.

“Well, that’s not bad for a first try! We may get better at it. If your mind were not exceptionally receptive, you would not be able to talk to Walter at all.”

After that, Walter used the tingling in my palm whenever he wanted me to get out a pen and, as it were, take dictation from him. I always kept a notebook handy, and we ‘spoke’ every day, sometimes several times. Much later, the pen became unnecessary (unless I wanted to get some detail 19

absolutely right) and I could ‘hear’ his thoughts in my mind, the words echoing there.

After we had done the hand-holding experiment, he asked, “Now, would you like Walter to tell you about how discarnate spirits see, and hear, and experience other sensations?”

“Yes please.”

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

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

The material body knows the reality of the world around it through the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and two others less well understood - the senses of time and location. (Location is sensed magnetically - you know that birds use it when they migrate - while time is known through the rate of impressions taken in; the quicker impressions are received the more time is stretched to accommodate them, so it seems to pass more slowly). Clocks are man-made, and measure time as it is for mankind as a whole, and as indicated by the movement of heavenly bodies like the twenty-four hours it takes the earth to revolve on its axis, or the year it takes to go round the sun. Clocks don’t tell the time, but record rates of change. They don’t have validity outside human experience - the earth doesn’t need clocks to tell it how to spin! For the individual, time can seem to 20

vary speeding up when you are happy and slowing tediously when you are bored. It also slows dramatically in moments of crisis like a car crash, when impressions come in at a much faster rate. (This is for survival, to give you time to get away from danger).

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

The discarnate spirit sees through the power of love - yes love. This allows it to know the nature of things at first hand. From the new spirit’s point of view, it just finds it is able to see, even though it has no material eyes! The seeing is less uniform than it used to be, and you could say we only see something if we look at it - rather as on earth you only notice the first raindrops on the windscreen of a car if you look at them, instead of through them, as you do when you are driving with your eyes focused on the road.

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

The earth is too beautiful to describe and we love it so much! People are also the most beautiful things, clothed in such splendour that, as Jesus Christ said of flowers, (‘the lilies of the field’), ‘Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ You on earth, who have seen black, brown, white or yellow skin only in its nakedness, or covered with clothes, without it’s garment of iridescent aura, have no idea how beautiful the human form can be. Babies and young children, in particular, are radiant. Later in life the Etheric body becomes disfigured if the life has been selfish and unloving, for the aura expresses the psychic condition of the person. Those people on earth who can see auras confirm this.

I asked whether old and ugly people looked beautiful too, for they often don’t seem so to us on earth.

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“Don’t you understand? It depends upon their psychic state. It’s the soul we’re looking at, not just the body.”

“Yes, I do see now.”

“Spirits also hear with the ears of love. When on earth you hear a sound, you actually hear the spirit of it as well as the ‘noise’. Music-lovers may perhaps understand this. You can hear music silently ‘in your head’, and that is how spirits hear. Music is more changed than vision because we hear not only the notes, but we hear (much better than you do) the limitless resonances which accompany them. We listen sometimes to concerts given by musicians on earth, and we wonder how the performers can play so well when they don’t know the full result of their playing. (Some do. Composers, particularly, can be inspired to hear with the ears of love, and have said that what they hear in their minds is far, far more beautiful than any performance of it could be!) We spirits hear the spirit of the performance.”

“But what do you hear with?” I asked. “Hearing seems such a very physical thing! Is it really the non-material senses of empathy and intuition that you told me about before?”

“Yes it is.”

The sense of smell, too, is very strong for spirits and we love flowers. No, Walter is not pulling your leg! You may find it difficult to believe that intuition and love can give value to scents, but they can, for scent has it’s non-material aspect. Only taste is missing after the death of the material body - it is, in fact, an extension of the sense of smell, given especially for use on earth. Since the mind does not eat, it has no need for the sense of taste.”

An objection occurred to me. “But Walter, I’ve heard that in accounts of the after-death experience some people talk about banquets. How could they enjoy these if they can’t taste anything’?”

“You still don’t understand the power of the mind’s imagination! People can imagine taste as well as anything else. Think!”

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I thought, and suddenly saw a possibility. “You mean they are living in the state of illusion?”

“Exactly. You’re right. If those on earth suffering from D.Ts. can imagine nests of snakes on the ceiling - which they can, though the snakes are not there for anyone else - what is to prevent discarnate spirits from imagining delicious tastes? Without a material body the mind is much freer to create whatever illusion it likes,” “This is very confusing! One feels like asking whether anything at all is real, on earth or in heaven! Do we imagine the whole universe? Does it exist only in the human mind? Is the whole thing a human construct?” This thought had crossed my mind sometimes, but I had dismissed it as being too difficult to entertain.

“That’s a good question! But no, there is true reality. Discrimination another function of love - enables you to recognise it wherever you are, on earth or in heaven.

Now, to finish about the senses; touch is not missing; although as spirits live in a world without solid objects and have very little substance themselves, you might think it would be. We are aware of objects in a pleasant way, and also aware of each other, although a spirit does not need space as a material body does and spirits can easily share space with one another, and with other objects if necessary. You may think this contradicts the statement that heaven is outside time and space. Do not be too black and white in your thinking where the heavens are concerned; there are many heavens, many conditions of the soul, and some are nearer to earth than others.”

“Are any of them nearer to God?” “Of course. We are talking about the progression of the soul towards union with God the Creator. But after the death of the material body it still has a long way to go.”

Once the writing became an established thing, and I had accepted it as far as I could, I told my son Christopher about it. He is my only child. His father 23

died when he was eighteen, and when Walter died he was long grown-up and thinking about training for ministry in the Church of England, which he has since done. He was interested, but cautious. He and his wife were regular church-goers, and he made contact with his bishop’s advisor on psychic matters, a canon of the cathedral, and arranged for me to meet him. I was glad to, for I certainly sometimes wondered about my own state of mind.

Christopher first went to see the Canon himself and explained his concern to him. He asked whether my mind might be disturbed, and whether I might be imagining the whole thing, quite expecting the answer to be yes, at any rate to the second question.

To his astonishment the Canon replied that I seemed to be in contact with discarnate spirits, and the important thing was to make sure they were good ones and not malign. I think Christopher’s Christian faith, though genuine enough, and not fundamentalist or dogmatic, had not included a belief in spirits!

I went to see the Canon, taking some pages of the writing with me, and found the visit very helpful. After talking to me about my experiences he read carefully some of what Walter had written. I asked what he thought, and what he was looking for in the writing, He looked up from the pages. “I’m looking for the word ‘love’,” he replied.

I had to laugh. “You’ll certainly find it! Walter calls all sorts of things ‘love’ which I would use a different word for. ‘Love’ is scattered all over the writing!”

He said he thought I was in contact with good spirits, but if ever I had cause to doubt this, he would be happy to see me again. As I left, I asked, “Do you think I’m quite sane?”

Then he really laughed. “You’re as sane as I am!” he said. I found this reassuring.

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Chapter 3 As I told the Canon who was so helpful to me, Walter talks a great deal about love. This not unusual in someone whose thinking is essentially spiritual, but I realised that he was sometimes using the word in a sense which was somewhat strange to me, and I asked him just what he understood by love.

“Walter will try to tell you. Love is the creative and controlling power of the universe. It is the only true and final reality, the truth behind all other apparent realities, and from it all things are made.”

I was very surprised. “Do you mean literally that it is the substance from which the universe is made? It seems awfully unlikely.”

“Have patience. Can you believe that God made the universe from his own nature?”

“Yes. I think that is a Christian belief, and although I may not always be a conventional Christian, I see no reason to question the main things, especially when I personally don’t know any better.”

“Good. And God is love.”

“I think that’s playing with words. If we don’t know what God is, and we don’t know exactly what love is, it doesn’t take us much further forward, does it?”

“Certainly we do not know the nature of the Transcendent God, though we can see the Immanent God in everything around us. When we say that God is love, what we mean is that Nature and mankind experience what God is, and we know it as love. When we feel true, uncontaminated love, that is the nearest we will ever get to knowing what God is really like. And all sentient creatures know love, so whether they admit it or not, they know God.” “What is love contaminated with - if it is?”

“Most often possessiveness or self-concern. Sometimes jealousy or some such feeling. But let Walter tell you more about the nature of love.

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Love has the triple form of tenderness, energy and light - that is why you sometimes feel confused about it. You know love well enough as tenderness, you don’t know it so well in its other forms of energy and light. In its three forms it is the life of all creation. Consider the first words of St. John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, All things were made by him; and without him was not anything that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.’

That couldn’t be put more plainly, could it? The Word is God, life is God’s light, the Word is Life.”

I love this passage dearly, but I had never thought of the ‘Word’, or Logos, as being love, and said so. “Why ‘word’?”

“Have you come across the idea that life resides in the breath?”

“Yes. I think it exists in Indian thought, and probably elsewhere,” “And that speech is somehow sacred?”

I began to get the (by now) not unfamiliar feeling that my capacity for understanding was being stretched to the limit. I know that more primitive societies have considered speech to have mystical significance, and that part of speech, a person’s spoken name, was thought to carry the essence of himself or herself, and should therefore be kept secret, but I had not thought of this as more than primitive superstition. “Do you take that sort of idea seriously, Walter? I never did.”

“You don’t want to dismiss things out of hand when you don’t understand them! Much of primitive religious thought is just superstition based on ignorance - lack of scientific knowledge was bound to lead to some strange ideas - but by no means all of it. People have always had a degree of direct knowledge - intuition and empathy. Speech involves breath, and material life is dependent on breath, don’t forget. How do you check whether a person is still alive? You test to see whether they are breathing.”

“Yes, but that’s just material life. It isn’t the spiritual life of God!” 26

“Walter sees your point. No, of course it isn’t. Take the word ‘breath’ as symbolical; as the material person exhales breath, so the spiritual person, the Creator, exhales his nature, and from it is formed all the spiritual and material universe.”

“Then why not say so? No - all right, let it go.” I felt I needed time to see whether I could accept this as an idea. I asked: “Do some people on earth know that love (or the Word) is life? Most people don’t take the Bible literally.”

“Of course they know! Do you remember the end of Dante’s Divine Comedy: ‘Love which moves the sun and the other stars.’?

Well then. Love is experienced on many levels, but always in the three forms, tenderness, energy and light. Tenderness; this is the form of love which will be familiar to you. Attraction to a person or thing is a form of tenderness. Material attraction is magnetic. It is experienced by sub-atomic particles, by stars and planets, and by all created forms including living ones.

Things and people have a physical attraction for each other which is magnetic. Attraction can also be mental or spiritual.”

Although Walter had said this form of love would be familiar to me, I had certainly never thought of electro-magnetic attraction between inanimate objects as love, but I decided not to interrupt him.

“Mental attraction is also tenderness - it is love given to ideas; at this level it begins to be love as we human beings understand it. (Even being in love is an idea; it is sparked by physical attraction, but essentially you love the idea of the other person, or even the idea of being in love.) For the sake of ideas we live and die; think about it. Ideas control our whole life. The idea of success - of getting on in the world; the idea of happiness - of finding someone to love and to love you; the idea of honour, or duty to a principle, or perhaps to your family or country. The idea of having power. Or the bad idea that if you don’t look after yourself, no one else will look after you (which is actually the opposite of the truth).

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Some ideas are good and some bad. Some are taught in families or are part of the culture, and some are acquired by the individual as he or she goes through life.

Spiritual love is also well-known, although when we feel this it is seldom pure. We love good (God), we love beauty and truth, and we love each other; but, sadly, we also love our own comfort and the pleasure of getting our own way and of indulging our minds and bodies. Only the tender love of God is entirely pure. This He feels for his creation - for us. Love is contaminated because of some fear, or some need; God has neither any fear nor any need.

Physical, mental, and spiritual; these are the three forms of tender love.

The second strand of love is energy. Tender love carries energy with it and leads to energy. This can be material energy, psychic energy, or spiritual energy. All but all - the energy in the universe is the energy of love; that’s what Dante meant. And as you know from your school physics that energy and matter are alternative forms, that they are made from one another and can revert to the original form, and that the sum of the energy and matter in the universe is fixed and cannot alter, you will begin to see how love is the only true and final reality, and from it all things are made.”

I said, “But you still have to convince me that energy is love! I understand about tenderness - although I’m surprised that attraction between people should be magnetic - but I had never thought of energy as a form of love. Can you convince me?”

“Wait until Walter has finished telling you about the three forms of love, then he will see what he can do.

The third strand of love is ‘light’, which is inherent in the action of tenderness and its energy. Sometimes light is seen as a result On the material level, the whole universe is the light of God’s love, resulting from his tender desire to create, together with the energy of pure spirit. On the human level, light is truth and understanding, psychic light - for people understand those things, creatures and people and ideas which they love, to 28

which they give love in the form of interest and care, and fail to understand things to which they are indifferent. Understanding and truth are the light of love in a mental or psychic form - and as true knowledge and being are ultimately the same thing, the light of love can so irradiate a human psyche as to transform it utterly. (The term ‘psychic’ applies fully only to human beings, who are rational and reflective creatures, though some animals share a part of the psychic capacity.)

A psyche which — understood the nature of God would become pure spirit; but this has been found on earth only once in the history of mankind.”

When Walter said that you understand things when you give them interest and care, I felt that I really knew what he meant. In the days when I sometimes wrote articles for a living, I was often asked to do a piece on a subject I knew nothing about. By the time I had researched it and written the article, (which you can’t do successfully without giving interest and care), I always found that I had become enthusiastic about whatever it was. This surprised me at first. But I do see that interest and care lead to love, and I can even see that they could be themselves a kind of love, though I would never have thought of it on my own.

Walter went on: “In God himself the light of love is his transcendent glow, of which we experience only the dim radiance - and just as well, for we wouldn’t be able to endure it in our present condition. As St Paul said, ‘For now, we see through a glass darkly but then face to face; now I know in part but then I shall know even as also I am known.’ (1 Corinthians 13.12) The Holy Spirit is love, radiating from the source, God, in its tender and comforting form as experienced by all creation. This is the aspect of God’s love which links creation to him. The Holy Spirit can also carry the energy and light - the full force of love - which are gloriously experienced in mystical conditions, and at other times at rare, brief flashes by people living on earth. It can be experienced as spiritual illumination.

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Although love is known and experienced on many levels in its three forms, these cannot truly be separated, for one leads to another and they are forever merging and parting again, as in a three-coloured plait only to merge once more. Love is in truth three in one and one in three, and can be seen to be so in many ways. Only in God himself are the three aspects fully unified and at one; in creation they are always seen as separate entities. When God the Father is seen as tender love and the desire to create, then the energy of his love is seen as the Holy Spirit and creation itself as its light.

But by God’s grace men and women, too, carry the desire to create. This is tenderness, and is one of the ways in which we are made in the image of God. The energy of love is then will (which is psychic energy), and the light is one of the many artefacts, perhaps a work of art, made on earth by people – or it may be a happy country, or a happy marriage, or a new child.

The grace of God comes through the Holy Spirit and is freely given to anyone who is willing to receive it” This dissertation on love gave me a lot to think about There were many connections I had never made in my mind; for instance, to call the desire to create a form of love - though I could now see that one could think of it in that way. I mean, you have to be strongly drawn to a thing before you want to take the trouble to make it - or do it - and as I’ve already said, once you start on something you do warm towards it. And - yes - the energy to get on with whatever it is may be missing at the beginning, but it increases as you give attention. First love to draw you to a project, then energy, then the result. It does make sense, at any rate in the field of human endeavour. Sometimes people even become quite addicted to a project they had started in a halfhearted way. They come to love it.

And Walter’s theory of love as three-stranded does tie energy in with what he calls tender love, and make sense of it. Whereas, on its own, I couldn’t possibly see that energy could be called love, it did make sense as part of a three-fold package.

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I remembered that the Greek philosopher Empedocles held that love is the force which pulls things together and hate the force which drives them apart, and when I read this I found it convincing - though I have a suspicion that love and hate are not opposites - the opposite of both is indifference. I asked about it.

“You are right, dear one, in saying that love and hate are not opposites, in that hate cannot exist without the energy of love. Hate, like all evil, has no energy of its own. How could it have, since all energy is love? Where there is hate, it lives on love given, in some form, to the self. And since, when you are indifferent to something, you do not give it the energy of your love - attention it stands to reason that you will not hate it either.

Love and hate produce exactly opposite results, and Empedocles was right there.”

I said, “Are you talking only about the human (and perhaps animal) psyche? I mean, love exists outside of human beings; what about hate? Is it spirit on its own?”

“What a difficult question! The answer is both yes and no. Both are spirits, love is finally the only spirit, which carries all the potential of the universe: hate has no power of its own and so is not an entity which can stand alone. It is an evil spirit but not a person, and it only has force when it enters the mind of a living creature and there uses the energy of the creature’s life. If creatures do not give house-room to hate, it can do nothing.”

I had a feeling we would have to revert to this subject (and indeed we did), but I now wanted to ask something else.

“Walter, where did the idea of the three strands of love come from? Is it your own? I’ve never found it in any book.” In my anxiety to be sure that Walter really did write with me, I was always looking for some way of proving that he did, and constantly checking to substantiate what he told me. Walter probably knew this perfectly well, since he could read my thoughts, but I can’t say he ever helped me.

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“Well, it’s there all right. You probably didn’t recognise it. But as a start, what about the Trinity? God is said to be ‘Three in One and One in Three’, and he is also said to be I.ove.”

“But God is what you might call a case on his own. What about love throughout the universe?”

“You can probably accept the light of love. And love is patently tenderness, in its everyday meaning. And Dante, and others, have known that love is energy.”

“Yes - but to make a system of it!”

“There are trinities all over the place in religious thought! Why shouldn’t Walter have one?”

“Then it is your own idea!”

“No. But you will have to be patient” That’s all I could get out of him. I did, in the end, find a parallel but that was much later.

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Chapter 4 My son Christopher had been told that I was in touch with (probably) good spirits. This strengthened my feeling that the writing with Walter was just what it seemed to be, and not some strange behaviour on the part of my unconscious mind, as my critical faculty still believed it might be. This doubt never quite went away, and if such an explanation were to be presented to me now, with good backing, I wouldn’t refuse to entertain it, though I’m pretty sure it isn’t true.

Two things stood firm against doubt. One was the content of the material coming from Walter, which I was sure I could not have originated myself in any possible way and which accorded very well with his nature as I knew it.

The other was that as we wrote, and as Walter talked into my mind, I was strongly aware of his personality. The words came with overtones of mood; sometimes Walter was amused, sometimes teasing, sometimes very serious over something. He had always been fond of (to my mind) rather silly jokes, (I have no slapstick sense of humour, though I’m enormously diverted by the ridiculous), and every now and again he tried one of his jokes on me in the writing, and I realised his intention afterwards, and was sorry to see that I hadn’t responded because all his jokes were kindly meant and full of good feeling.

In face of this very individual trait which emerged in the writing, how could I seriously doubt that I wrote with Walter?

On one occasion his sense of humour really scored. As the next year advanced I decided to plant some flowers on his grave. I’m not very good over graves, but wanted to do something, so I took a garden spade and fork and some wallflower plants to the churchyard and made my way to Walter’s grave, which I must admit I had not visited for some weeks. To my confusion there had been a number of burials since, and as it was too soon for a

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headstone I was uncertain about which grave was Walter’s. I stood doubtfully beside what I thought was the right one, and said to him, “I think this is right, but I’m not quite sure.”

“It’s the right one,” said Walter, in my mind.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Do you think Walter doesn’t know his own grave?”

I dug the stony earth with some difficulty, put in the plants, and watered them from the tap provided for the purpose. Then I went home.

That evening there was a ring on my doorbell, and when I opened the door I was surprised to see the vicar. I invited him in. He seemed embarrassed.

“Mrs. Shepherd,” he said, “Did you plant some flowers on your husband’s grave today?”

“Yes, I did. Is there some rule against it?” Individual churches do have rules about what you put on tombstones, and so on.

“Good heavens no! It’s just that - according to our records - that’s the wrong grave!”

When he had gone, with the promise that I would move the plants, I said crossly to Walter, “Well, you were a lot of help! The wrong grave indeed!”

Then I realised he had misled me on purpose and thought it very funny. I wasn’t pleased at the time, though I saw the funny side later.

At first I wrote only with Walter, but as the weeks went by he began to talk about ‘the spirits’ or ‘your heaven’, and it became evident that he was supported in the writing by other spirits. He told me the spirits were pleased that we had such a good contact, and that we proposed to write a book. (This was something I had tried before, without success, and was anxious to do.)

The spirits had, he said, devised a scheme of testing and training to help me develop in the best possible way. Looking back, I think I should have been less compliant, but I was so enchanted to be writing with Walter that at first I didn’t pay much attention to the other spirits. I trusted Walter entirely (he is the most trustworthy person), and had not yet grasped that discarnate spirits 34

do not know everything, by any means. (To be fair to Walter, he had tried to tell me this.)

However, the presence of good spirits did open my mind to the possibility of bad ones. To teach me caution, Walter encouraged me to be nervous, and would sometimes stop the writing, saying there were evil spirits about. It was not so much that I was afraid, as that I began to think I ought to be. In the end I asked Walter whether it would be better if we wrote on consecrated ground for instance in a church. “Excellent idea!” he said. “Whenever there is communication between earth and heaven, it is the person living on earth who is in danger. We are arranging special protection for you, but it is not in place yet”.

“There were several churches within easy walking distance of the town cottage I lived in, and I tried each in turn, only to find the door firmly locked; in this lawless age even places of worship have to protect themselves from vandals. Finally I found one church which left a small side door open during the day, and I used to take notebook and pen, and sit in an empty pew to write with Walter. One day the vicar - who was unknown to me came into the church, and asked me whether I wanted anything. Somewhat embarrassed, I said the first thing which came into my head - that I had come into the church to meditate; I did not want to go into long and possibly difficult explanations.

He smiled, and said I was welcome, and to say if he could help me in any way.

One day it was raining. I sat by the window at home, and thought how much I would like to write with Walter where I was, as there were several things I wanted to ask him and I really didn’t feel like walking all the way to the church to do so. Walter had said that writing on consecrated ground was a temporary expedient; he and the spirits were arranging protection for me. I wondered how long this would take, and in what form it would come.

Suddenly, as I thought about it, a verse from the 23rd Psalm came into my mind with a very strong impact. It was: 35

‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me.’

I realised suddenly what Walter had meant by protection. This would come from the Spirit of God within myself; I had only to know I could ask for help and it would be given to me! I did not need anything else. There was no need to write in a church, no need to fear evil spirits, for so long as I didn’t give them any encouragement they couldn’t hurt me! I found this knowledge, and the thought of the psalm, truly moving, and sat for a long time by my window letting it sink in.

Finally I asked: “Walter! Is that right? I have my own protection? I am not in danger?”

“Of course that’s right, dear one.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why get me all worked up about evil spirits when it was not necessary?”

“It was necessary for you to find out for yourself that the Power of Good is your protection.”

“But you told me in the end? You put the 23rd Psalm into my mind?”

“No. Your own Spirit told you.”

This was a surprise.

“Well I know now. I shall never be afraid of evil spirits again!”

“Good. But if ever you feel unduly angry or upset, don’t write. As you may have heard, it is true that we have opened a channel which could be used by other spirits. You have wondered if this was possible, and it is. If you have had thoughts in your mind, do not write, because had thoughts can attract them. We are not worried about you, but it is better to be sure. Now do you understand?”

This episode made me wonder more about the nature of evil spirits. Were they sentient beings who knew what they were doing, or were they something different?

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“Both are true,” said Walter. “There are people who have lived on earth, and have there chosen to take evil as their god. They do this for many reasons. Some think that as Evil seems dominant in the world, it is safer to worship it. Some are lacking in proper self-confidence, and think that being devil-worshippers will make them seem more important.

After the death of the material body, they discover that the Prince of Darkness, whom they worshipped, does not exist. Evil is not a positive entity it is negative, and lives through the energy of love. This knowledge causes great suffering to those people who had been its subjects, and their condition is then that of hell. (Hell has no absolute meaning for those people who have loved good, however much they may suffer.) Some evil people go on trying to serve evil, all the same, and they become one kind of evil spirit. There are very few of them, but they can cause great trouble.

So what is evil, you will ask. Evil is an idea in the collective mind of mankind (and to some extent of animals, but they do not have the choice of thought that human beings have); the idea that if you do not fight for existence against other people you will go under in the struggle for life, and no one will help you. Also, that if you have to do things, in order to survive, which you do not really approve in your heart, that is just the way the world is and you must go along with it or go under. Human beings have come to believe that it is not within their power to be good. They forget that they are the children of good and not of evil. This idea is so strong that it has even entered the Collective Unconscious Mind of the human race.”

“If that’s one kind of evil spirit, what other kinds are there?”

“Walter will tell you. But first he will tell you about what we truly are. We are the children of God the Creator. The Spirit of God is our most secret life. It tells us that we are alive, that we love good, and that we are aware of love and need it.

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It also tells us that we need goodness, beauty, and the reality of the universe, which is truth, and the light of God’s love. Our joy in these good things, and our gratitude, is the best praise we can give to him.

Now for the spirits of evil. When we think we are angry, or jealous, or vindictive, or have any other bad feelings, we are under the influence of a stranger - a spirit which is not our own. This is evil - or rather, these feelings are evil spirits, as are those evil spirits which have lived on earth as men or women and who continue to serve evil after death. As Walter has said, there are very few of those - perhaps not one living on earth at present; there are many more evil spirits which are not whole human beings, like the spirits of anger and despair. They can control a person because he or she has ceased (for the moment) to love good, and is prepared to entertain evil thoughts and give them life with the energy of the mind’s love. They cannot have life any other way. In our hearts we always know we are doing wrong, but when we are hurt, evil seems comforting and beguiling. Actually it makes things worse.”

“But can you really say that such feelings as anger and resentment are strangers to us? Surely everything we are is given by the Creator, and these feelings, however destructive, must be natural to us? They must have been given with a purpose?”

“Of course it is true that man, made by God from his own nature, cannot be anything that God is not. Where would any characteristic come from, if not from the Creator and origin of all things?

Walter may be wrong, but he wonders whether God may feel anger when he sees some action on the part of a created being which merits it, such as deliberate hurt inflicted on someone or some creature which has no defence against it?

But the bitterness and resentment which living people feel are often based on what they see as attacks against the ego, and the Seven Deadly Sins of tradition are indulgences of the self, such as covetousness and gluttony. You 38

can love the beauty of the world without owning it, and enjoy good food (and other things) without greed.

These are faults of those whose love is given to the self; and not first to the Spirit. The basis of all evil is prior love of the self. God did not create evil, mankind and perhaps other members of creation did; that’s why Walter says it is a stranger to our nature and why it has no life of its own and relies on the life of love.”

I think this is one of the most difficult subjects of all, and I felt we would have to return to it - which we did. In the meantime I asked, “But can evil spirits which are not human beings or animals, with a mind, really do things on purpose?”

“Well, in a way they can, because they are ideas, and are given life in the mind of a living person. The purpose, or direction, is in the mind of the person having the ideas. If you are to understand this, and not dismiss it as ridiculous, you will have to be willing to give up some cherished human ideas about truth and reality, and look at things from another angle. When you can do this it will greatly help you to see some of the differences between heaven and earth, and will be a help to the good spirits who are always helping you.”

This was written some time ago, and I don’t now find it difficult to accept that we are totally controlled by ideas. I’ve noticed that every idea is, as it were, powered by a non-material feeling. If one doesn’t feel strongly about an idea, (Walter would say, if one doesn’t love it) it simply doesn’t stay in the mind. Also, non-material feelings are always accompanied by physical sensations anger, for instance can make one hot, and sorrow brings a choke in the throat. These feelings and sensations are always attached to an idea or if they are not, one feels sure there is an unconscious idea behind them.

The number of feelings is limited, but an uncountable number of different thoughts go with them, things which make one angry or happy or whatever.

What these are, depends on who one is. Body and feelings are controlled by 39

ideas, no doubt about it. The mind, I suppose, is its ideas, as Walter has told me.

He went on, “Most evil in done in the name of imagined good, for even when people are being selfish they don’t often admit it to themselves. They think up some good reason for what they are doing. (There people who know good but choose evil because they are so besotted with selfishness, but this is far rarer than you might think. Plenty of evil is being done, but very nearly always in the name of imagined good. We call ‘this having false gods’. Or it may be due to lack of imagination and empathy).

The most recent examples of evil done on a horrifying scale include the killing of whole races or orders of people. This is happening all over the world, but in Europe we still think of the concentration camps of the Second World War in which so many people, mostly Jewish, met a terrible end. Adolph Hitler ordered these appalling crimes for what he believed to be the good of the German nation. It goes without saying that he did not love the Jews; such a suggestion may sound absurd, but we have to consider it, for Hitler not only did not love the Jews, he did not love human life, or consider its sanctity, or he would not have ordered its destruction. His mind was so deformed by evil ideas that he saw as good what was in fact evil, and has since been denounced as such by people all over the world. He committed evil on an enormous scale in the name of his false god - what he thought to be good.

It was the Greek philosopher Socrates who said that no man ever did evil on purpose. This is an example of what he meant.

So long as real love is present there can be no evil. You cannot harm a person and give love to him or her at the same time. You cannot both harm and love the planet Earth. The most hideous crimes of history have been committed because people acted without love. You may think it ridiculous to talk about crime and love in the same breath; it is not. Love is our life, and evil is lack of pure love. Even selfishness, which is the root of evil, is powerless where there is love. With love, you cannot even harm a person who stands in 40

your way. You can’t bring yourself to do it - you won’t feel you want to do it - if your love of abstract good (God), and of that particular person (your neighbour) is stronger than your desire for whatever achievement attracts you.

All religions which have stood the test of time tell us that God is Love. So if you love God more than your own desires, you will not do any evil thing. It was not for nothing that Jesus Christ said, ‘Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you.’ Most people think this advice impossible to follow (together with much else that he taught) in the world as it is. They are wrong.

It is the only advice which will make any difference to the bad condition of the world. So long as hate and harm are passed on from one person to another, and are not stopped by the contrary motion of good actions, they will continue to circulate in the world and create all its miseries. God (and his loving goodness in people’s hearts) is not responsible for suffering; evil is. And evil must be fought and overcome in the hearts and minds of mankind, for other creatures do not act from reason, and we do.

There is a great battle going on between good and evil, and we men and women are the ground on which the battle will be won or lost”

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Chapter 5 When Walter writes with authority on fundamental subjects like Love and Evil, the natural reaction is to ask whether he is qualified to do so. We need to know more about what he is like as a person, and also how much spirits learn by the dramatic event of entering the afterlife.

Walter and I first met just after the death of my first husband, Stuart, when the last thing in my mind was another major commitment, as Stuart and I had had a stormy relationship. Stuart had been one of those extreme extroverts who are full of goodwill towards the world and quick at seeing solutions to problems; the other side of the coin is that they always think they know what is best for other people, and since they don’t know what goes on inside their own minds, they seldom know what anyone else is thinking or feeling - or wanting - an attitude which is hard to live with. Stuart was a heavy social drinker, and died at the age of fifty-one of liver and kidney failure. I valued him in many ways as a friend, but found him impossible as a husband. At his death, my strongest feeling was searing pity for the waste of such a promising life.

Walter was older than I was, and had been on his own for several years.

(He never blamed his first wife for leaving him, saying she was young and needed more attention than he could give her.) He was writing all the scientific and technical articles for a part-work encyclopaedia of which I was the assistant editor. The editor lived and worked in rural Sussex, and I worked there with him. It was my job to keep in touch with the contributors and make sure the articles we needed arrived on time, so I soon got to know Walter well. We were married not long afterwards.

From the first I felt great admiration and respect for Walter. He was extremely good at his work and always totally reliable. With him, for the first time in my adult life I was actually encouraged to be myself and to do my own thing, and I loved it. While he was single-minded and sometimes inflexible 42

over his work and his inner life, in his outward dealing with people he was accommodating in the extreme and loved to look after them in his gentle and considerate way. He had trained as an artist, and his water-colour landscapes are beautiful, I believe not only in my eyes.

He had written and published some fifty books, mostly on science and natural history - and anyone who has tried to get even one book published will know what a feat that is! He had done original research in geology (a fossil found in clay is named after him), and was a clever inventor with a truly original mind. In his simple workshop he could, and did, make almost anything with his clever hands, out of bits and pieces of wood and metal and anything else that came to hand. He made telescopes and microscopes, beautifully decorated and finished, (and a clever little glass which was both at the same time). If ever I needed a gadget for the kitchen, he would devise and make it for me.

He ought, you would think, to have had an agent, taken out copyrights, and made money from his inventions. But although on one hand he would have liked more money and more recognition, there was something in him which revolted against making money out of anything which was important to him.

His outlook on life was totally non-commercial, sometimes to the point of being unworldly. His books (for which he did have a good agent) were all commissioned beforehand and sold well enough, but there were certainly no best-sellers among them, and if asked to write a book on any subject which did not seem important to him, he might gently have refused. He lived by the precept that no good work is ever done for money.

You will have gathered by now that in spite of his generally accommodating personality, Walter was an eccentric of the first order. He had all the simplicity of what I truly think of as a degree of genius. This kind of simplicity is, I think, what Jesus Christ meant when he said of children, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.�

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However, it doesn’t help to pay the hills, and I had unfortunately brought to our marriage some of Stuart’s debts. Needless to say, Walter and I were always, sometimes desperately, short of money, especially when later I was out of work and Walter was working on a book for which the advance had been spent long before.

But we were never short of mutual love and respect; and once I had come to appreciate the sheer quality of the person I had married, we were very happy together. He was the easiest person to live with, so long as his wife didn’t expect too much attention for herself, for his own life was demanding.

Fortunately, I too loved my work.

Walter’s study and workroom were stamped with his own seal in every smallest detail. Not surprisingly, considering his attitude towards it, he had been short of money all his life; yet I doubt whether any place of work could have been better stocked with everything needed to ply a trade, all put together with thrift and minute care. Whatever was needed, Walter could usually produce it. He had designed and personally made his desk and all his bookcases. On the front of the desk is a dragon plaque, his favourite symbol, and a rough metal sculpture in the form of a dragon - which he called his Presiding Genius - dominated the mantelpiece. Every ornament in the room had its special place. Each book in his large reference library was there because it was a tool needed for a specific purpose, and the little money available was spent on up-to-date reference books, essential if he was to write on scientific subjects. In spite of the number of books, he could always find the one he needed.

He also had a library of poetry, classical literature, psychology, philosophy, theology and much else, and listened to a lot of classical music.

In the workshop, carpentry tools (some, objects of virtue in themselves, inherited from an uncle, and dating from the beginning of the twentieth century) were arranged with absolute precision, the spanners and screwdrivers hanging on nails in order of size, and tobacco tins holding every 44

kind of nail, screw, nut and so on, that anyone could ever want. This, later on, fascinated my two young grandsons. They were also impressed by the way Walter would stop whatever he was doing, without complaint, to pay attention to them and explain whatever they wanted to know.

So much for Walter as a person. He was completely organised in his personal life, and as confident in his own field as he was diffident in others. I asked him once how he could bear to live with me, since I am not the tidiest of people. He said equably that so long as he was free to arrange his own part of the house as he liked, he was happier for me to have the rest as I wanted it.

He wanted the other person to be happy and content, and never played competitive games as he preferred his opponent to win!

I asked him how much he had learned since he entered the afterlife, and how much of what he was telling me he had taken with him when he died.

“Walter knew a certain amount about scientific subjects, as you know. For the rest - on earth, if you want to learn anything known to the human race you can look it up in books (or now, on the internet) if you know the right place to look. In Heaven, we can read each other’s thoughts, as you also know by now. So anything which is in the human mind - or ever has been - is accessible to us. Think about that! And the contents of the former unconscious mind is there to be read, as well as what is conscious. The Spirit within each person knows all there is to be known, and the amount that the mind can access the Spirit’s knowledge depends on the spiritual development of that person; needless to say, most of the Spirit’s knowledge is not shared by the person during life on earth. All human beings learn some things as they travel through life. After death, more becomes clear. During the journey through the heavens, gradually the mind comes to be identical with the Spirit.

As you know by now, there are many heavens, and the condition of being depends on which state the psyche has reached.

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Another advantage is that without the necessity of looking after the endless tiresome needs of the material body for food, warmth, shelter and security from danger, we spirits have the most wonderful abundance of psychic energy, which we can use as we like.

Does that answer your question?”

When I first communicated with Walter I certainly had doubts about the validity of the experience, but at the same time I was rather overwhelmed by it, and tended to believe everything I was told, because I felt that, if I was indeed in contact with discarnate spirits, they would have attained all possible knowledge about what Walter calls ‘the truths’.

In this I was wrong, as I now know. It’s important to realise that discarnate spirits are simply human beings at a later stage of development; they are not superhuman beings. If they knew a lot on earth, as Walter did, they have taken that knowledge with them, and if they have questioning minds, as Walter has, they will have found out even more from other spirits about the subjects which interest them. But they don’t know everything, and they themselves are still learning. The object, don’t forget, is not to acquire more facts, but to grow in being. I think this means that when you have all love, you will have all knowledge, through your own faculties of empathy and intuition.

When I asked a difficult question, Walter sometimes took time to answer it; I now know that he was asking the opinion of other spirits. If this happened while we were writing, he would draw little circles on the paper to tell me that he was still there. Then, after a while, he would answer my question. (If I had doubted Walter’s identity, the circles might have convinced me, for they were always perfectly round; I can’t draw a perfect circle to save my life! It was one of his gifts.)

My willingness to take everything as gospel truth made me excessively vulnerable. I was desperately anxious to learn and willing to put up with a great deal from the spirits, because one of my deepest convictions is that nothing worthwhile is ever achieved in this life without effort and even pain. I 46

trusted Walter absolutely, with good reason from my experience of him, and through him I took the other spirits on trust. This was a mistake, because while I still don’t think they were actually bad, they were not very intelligent in their handling of me, and as Walter was new to the whole thing, he hadn’t the confidence to insist on his own opinion. Also, it must he admitted, the management of people was never his strong point!

The spirits said they had devised a plan for my teaching and training. I have read that teachers of Zen Buddhism will sometimes answer a student’s question by slapping his face, or some such thing. (This had always struck me as quite lunatic, and no way to teach anybody anything!). The spirits could not slap me, for spirits cannot touch a living person, but they could and did cause me a great deal of mental anguish in many ways. My capacity for understanding would be stretched to its limit, as I tried to take in some new concept - then I would find that they had been leading me up some garden path - they had been misleading me, even lying to me, and I was left nursing a badly bruised ego. If my ego had needed taking down a peg or two, this might have been a good thing, but on the contrary, if anything it needed building up, as Walter now confirms. In mental ways they treated me very roughly. I would have got used to this, perhaps, if I had retained my respect for the sprits, but I didn’t. I told Walter that I believed the teacher to follow on all occasions was Jesus Christ, and that he had never descended to lying to his hearers!

Walter replied that they were misleading me for my own good, but I knew the method was bad and not honest. And unnecessary. I was only too ready to be told the full truth, and to give up any misconceptions I might have.

For a long time I was afraid that if I refused to talk to the spirits I would also lose the link with Walter, as he had told me that, in the beginning, he had needed the spiritual energy of the others in order to make contact with me. I asked Walter about this, but he said he didn’t know. This period of doubt continued; but I do not believe in letting life blackmail one, in the end one has 47

to make the decision and take the risk, whatever it may be. I told Walter I would have no more to do with the other spirits, whatever the consequences.

There were none! Walter and I continued to write as before. At first Walter would hear no word against the other spirits, and would not even admit that they had behaved badly, and this did cause difficulty between us. But finally he agreed that they had not done their home-work where I was concerned, and had entirely mistaken the probable effect on me of their actions. I’m still puzzled by this, as they could read my thoughts and cannot have been completely ignorant of what I’m like - but it doesn’t matter now, and while the experience was unpleasant and disorientating at the time, it’s long over. I think that the idea of having power over a person still living on earth may have gone to their heads; Walter tells me that some spirits long to maintain contact with those still on earth. I was probably unlucky.

That’s my assessment of what happened. I will now ask Walter what he thinks, for I expect enough time has gone by for him to give me an honest answer.

“The clue lies in who the spirits really are. You have asked Walter before about this, but for various reasons he has not been able to tell you. Now he can.

The truth is that they are your ancestors.

You have heard of spirit groups. These groups are based on the family, although when an individual does not love his or her family, that person is free to join another group after death. In heaven, love is the only truly important consideration.

You do not know your ancestors personally, as for the most part you were always separated from them by time, and they had no exact knowledge of you. If they relied on Walter to tell them what you were like he may have given them the wrong information, or they may not have believed him, thinking that he was prejudiced in your favour - which he was. As for reading 48

your thoughts - Walter has already told you that he finds your thoughts very difficult to read, so perhaps they did too.

The spirits thought you had too much enthusiasm in your nature and set out to reduce it. They did not know how emotionally sensitive you are, or that all your emotions, including enthusiasm, are well controlled by your exceptionally strong capacity for rational thought. This was where they made a serious mistake, because not only were your feelings well controlled, but your mind is critical and your standards high. You disapproved strongly of the methods used to train you. The spirits had not expected this.

Try not to think too badly of them. They were certainly unwise, but they acted, as they thought, in your best interests.”

I considered this. “Walter, do you not value verbal truth? It seems to me that without it true communication between human beings is impossible. They lied to me! One must be able to trust what the other person says.”

“Oh, Walter entirely agrees with you! Of course he sets a high value on verbal truth. But he also values good family feeling.”

Probably the truth is that the spirits and I failed to understand each other as Walter would say, there wasn’t enough love between us to create mutual understanding.

Gradually, over the years, this whole episode has faded into the background. I’m telling about it now because it throws light on the nature of discarnate spirits, and on the dangers inherent in talking to them. If I had been weak-minded, they might have brain-washed me; if they had been bad, I might then have done what the Bible expressly forbids and ‘followed a multitude to do evil’. If I had been emotionally unstable, I can assure you I would have had a nervous breakdown.

As things are, no great harm was done in the end; though it did mean that for some time I put aside the idea of writing this book. I had lost confidence in the whole thing.

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“Well Walter,” I said, “if I meet the ancestor spirits in the afterlife I shall just have to see how the situation can be dealt with when the time comes.”

“You will forgive them, dear one, without any doubt.”

“Maybe. We’ll see. But I doubt whether I will love them.”

“Then you can choose to belong to another group.”

Sometime after this conversation, the problem of the spirits (which must have been working itself out in my unconscious mind all the time) surfaced, and it occurred to me to wonder why Walter should think that their family relationship to me made any fundamental difference. I then had some further ideas: These spirits might have kept a family interest in their descendants. I know they had encouraged Walter to try to contact me, and had helped him to do so. With what they did to me, they were plainly undermining my enthusiasm (for no one can go on being enthusiastic if constantly slapped down), and my trust in other people.

I enthusiastic, and by nature I am a highly co-operative person.

Walter is adamant that the spirits had only my best interests at heart.

When dealing with discarnate spirits it is extremely difficult to know who you are talking to. If bad spirits had contacted me and I had trusted them, it is true they could have done great damage. It doesn’t do to overrate one’s own strength.

Could it be that the ancestor spirits felt responsible for my (as it seemed to them) vulnerable position - even felt appalled that it had come about? They didn’t know me well, and didn’t therefore realise that I was in little danger, since I had difficulty in fully believing in the contact with Walter, let alone with anyone else! - and would certainly never have done anything which my own Spirit told me was wrong, however much I longed to learn from what I was being taught If all this is true, then all the spirits could do was to try to make me less vulnerable. However ham-handed their methods, at least they become 50

understandable. One can only say that my ancestor spirits, in dealing with me, took a sledge-hammer to crack a nut and showed little understanding of the mind and heart of another person. But then - Walter hasn’t much of this gift either, however superior his intelligence in other fields.

“Walter, is any of this true?”

“Yes, dear love, it is. All of it” I can’t say this knowledge makes me feel more reconciled to the spirits, but at least their actions become comprehensible.

You will observe that I write all along as though Walter definitely talks to me, although no such thing has ever been established.

Well - what else am I to do? Either I refuse the whole communication and put an end to it - which would be to lose a gold-mine of knowledge and experience, and cause myself great pain in parting with Walter - or I take it at face value and assume I am talking to him. I have opted for this. As I have said, emotionally I have done so from the start. Rationally - accepting that the thing is happening - there seem to be these two alternatives. Either my goldmine comes from Walter, a discarnate spirit or I am somehow tapping into some psychic function of my own, which knows a great deal more (unconsciously) than my conscious mind knows, or ever has known.

Depth psychology doesn’t seem to help much. Some material in the unconscious is believed to have come from consciousness - that is, it has been conscious a one time and has been forgotten, or deliberately pushed into unawareness as unacceptable. This part they call the Personal Unconscious. In addition, there is the Collective Unconscious which is shared by all mankind, and which holds the knowledge acquired during evolution, from the beginning of life on earth to birth as an individual human being. It seems to me logically unlikely that either of these aspects of the unconscious mind could produce the kind of information which is coming to me - from somewhere. I prefer to accept that Walter’s mind has survived the death of his material body and is communicating, through the power of love, with mine.

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Chapter 6 We talk about God a great deal, so I had better define what we each mean by the concept. Especially as many people find it very difficult if asked to love something which is, to them, nothing more than someone else’s idea - and unlikely at that!

Though, having said that, in my experience most people want to have faith, but find it difficult from a rational point of view.

“You are right,” Walter agrees. “You are the one who still lives on earth among people who do not know who or what God is. Now that Walter is personally free of the earth, he tends to forget how mistaken people can be!”

I said doubtfully that while certainly they were mistaken, I thought it was more that they were looking in the wrong direction.

“Where do you think they ought to look?”

“Well, not up in the sky! . . . I think they expect to find recognizable traces of the Creator in material life, and when they don’t, they assume he doesn’t exist! Or they are just too busy living to think about it.

It seems to me that there is in the world a force of absolute good, as opposed to the evil which one can so easily see in many aspects of human life, and that I want with all my heart to be on the side of this goodness! It is spiritual and not material, but it can and does permeate the material of all things, including the human body. And since matter and force are known to be the same and interchangeable, perhaps matter is the form taken by spirit in certain circumstances.”

“Not at all a bad description of the Immanent God!” said Walter, “The God immanent in creation. But there is also the Transcendent God.” “Perhaps. But I don’t know anything about Him - or Her.” “A very wise point of view! (Yes, it’s a pity there is no, neuter personal pronoun in the English Language. Using ‘She’ gives no advantage, it is still one-sided.) There is a mediaeval book well named The Cloud of Unknowing.

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If all religions admitted that they know almost nothing about the Transcendent God - and can know nothing - there would be no religious wars. Differences in dogma and ritual are man-made and bear no relation to the real nature of God - which no one can know, except by inference.”

“Then who or what are we asking people to love?”

“Christians believe that in his life and teaching Jesus Christ demonstrated the loving nature of God, and certainly there is nothing in the New Testament of the Bible to contradict this idea. People can see and love goodness, beauty and truth in creation, of course, and they can revere the unknown Ground of All Being, who is at once the creator and origin of all there is.

But the trouble with people living on earth is that they think material things are real and doubt whether spirit really exists. They are used to finding out about reality through their five senses, and when they come across anything which the senses cannot experience, they assume it is not real!

They are wrong. Spirit is truly alive! That’s what life is - the spirit in things.

The material body, without spirit, feels and knows nothing. It is like a lump of meat. What you know as your deepest self is in fact your Spirit Spirit is the only true and eternal reality and always was. Behind every truth, behind every known material thing, there is a further reality; behind matter, energy behind energy, spirit. Until you reach God, who is the final and absolute reality and is therefore known as the Ground of All Being. People who don’t believe in spirit cannot believe in any god. They are the victims of their rational intellect” “But Walter - surely intellect is good!”

“Of course. But its job is to make judgements of fact, not of value.”

“Is the existence of God not a fact?”

“Ask yourself - Is your own faith in God rational or emotional, does it stem from the brain or from the feeling faculty?

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As I was brought up to be an entirely rational agnostic, and came gradually to submit to a deep need within me for faith, I was bound to admit that this is not, in me, a rational thing. “But still, the existence of God is a fact?”

“Yea. But the rational mind cannot prove it, and must submit to knowledge from other sources - which knowledge we can have. God is Spirit, the supremely intelligent Spirit of Loving Goodness who is the origin of all things, the ultimate reality behind all realities. This is not sentimental theorising, but fact.

I found myself remembering the inspiring words from St. John’s Gospel: ‘God is a spirit, arid they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.’

“We all know that,” I said.

Yes, some people do know it. But do they believe it in their hearts? That is the question.

Yet, although they don’t know it, most people love God more than they love themselves. They know their life and their world to be imperfect, and they long for perfection in all things. In fact, they are longing for God himself!

Though they may not realise it. Only God is perfection. That we love and admire the best we can imagine is our unconscious tribute to God’s real nature.

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

They give and receive love. They recognise these good things, and love them. This is because they resonate with the Spirit of God, deep within each individual, which recognises its own nature. Did you realise that you cannot recognise something you have never known? - you need something to compare it with. If you did not have love within you, how would you know love when you met it’? Or beauty? Or truth?

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

This simple concept can be quite difficult for people to grasp because they think of beauty and truth as being attributes of something else - a good man, the good earth, a beautiful landscape, a true story. They are attributes - but only because the man, the earth, the landscape, and the story each reflect a part of God’s nature. You might call the landscape ‘sunny’, but that doesn’t mean it is the sun, it means that it reflects the light of the sun. Do you follow this?”

“Yes. It’s very clear.”

“Good. But just to confuse you, the attributes are also powers in their own right because they carry the energy of God’s love. When you think of the effect they have on people, this is less surprising.

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

But in eternity it will not be. It is not Just as pure water is water, whether it is in a lake, a river, or a cup, so the nature of good remains unchanged wherever it is found. Spirit is love. Love is.

If you feel completely unselfish love now, it is of God’s nature and eternal, whatever may happen tomorrow. God is pure goodness - and goodness, unmixed with any other thing, goodness for its own sake, is love. Most religions tell you that God is love. God is also said to be beauty and truth.

God’s beauty is everything in the universe which affects us as being beautiful, and his truth (to us) is our experience of reality - what exists and is real, as opposed to what is unreal.

But do not imagine that the goodness, beauty and truth which we experience as human beings are God himself we are a long way from that.

They are the radiance of his nature reflected to us from his creation.”

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‘The radiance of God reflected from his creation’ sounded to me like the light of the sun reflected from solid objects. “Is it true that the eye sees only the light from the sun, and not actually the object it thinks it is seeing?

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

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

“True.”

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

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

God, we are told, is a personal god, to whom we can pray saying ‘Our Father...’ This is difficult enough, when we have never seen him. Still less do we like the idea that he is something so amorphous as goodness or love, which are diffused all over the world and seem to belong to other things.

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

Walter will tell you how it is. The idea of God which you have is probably not quite right. He is a person to us, in the sense that his Spirit is the personal life of each individual creature. God is not individual as John and Mary are or if he is, we cannot know him in this way. And he is not general, like the idea of water. He is abstract goodness and love - that is, goodness and love existing and independent on any contingency because he is the source of all the goodness and love in the universe, which would not exist if he were not there to originate them. His relation to his qualities is the same as that of the 56

sun to its heat, and as we have said, the analogy is a good one, for the sun’s rays have to strike matter and be absorbed or reflected before we are aware of their warmth, and God’s qualities are also reflected to us, and we then recognise them.

We call God’s love the Holy Spirit, and it is all we can ever know of him. It is not his self, it is his ‘sunshine’, the love that shines from him. Even so, it is greater and more wonderful than anything else in the universe, and it gives us all of our experience of love and goodness.

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

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

No wonder God has arranged things so that we do not know our Spirit directly during life, and will not know it fully until we have passed through many heavenly conditions, The Holy Spirit radiates, not only from God, but also from the individual Spirit within each person, forming a mediator. It is the Spirit within each creature which thinks, feels, suffers and loves. The material 57

body, without spirit, feels and knows nothing. What you know as your deepest self is in fact your Spirit.

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

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

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

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

“You think people cannot accept the idea that a concept like love can be a sentient, thinking being? Well, look at it like this. God is love; God feels love.

Since he is the origin of all things, including love itself, the two statements mean the same thing.

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

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

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

I began to see that in order to understand what Walter was telling me, I really would have to shift my mental sights. How one views life is partly unconscious; that’s why it’s so difficult to change. The idea that knowledge and being are the same thing was new to me. I’d thought of knowledge as something you acquire, and being as something you are.

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

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

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

Tell me, is acceptance always a matter for the heart?”

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

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“I can understand that!

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

“The feeling and thinking belong to the mind of God, who is the origin of Mind, and who is sole origin of the three aspects of love - tenderness, energy and light - which combine only in God himself, and in creation are seen separately; because, by the nature of things, the entity which carries one aspect will not, in that moment, carry another. Love has no other origin. When we creatures feel love, we are experiencing a part of the Creator’s own nature. God not only thinks and feels as we do, we can have no possible idea of the magnificence of his thought which can hold all creation in its imagination, or the depth of his feeling which encompasses all mankind and all beings in caring love. What we on earth experience is the radiance of God’s nature reflected from the individual entities of his creation; goodness, beauty and truth are the pure spirits through which we see the love of God in the world we know.

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

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

Intellect without love is far from God’s nature, and is not good. In fact, it’s very dangerous, for if you do what you think is good, and act without love, you can be cruel, or tyrannical, Goodness is God, our creator. The two words in English are nearly the same, and there are similarities in other languages, for unconsciously mankind knows this. Those people who love good in the abstract for its own sake, and who unselfishly love the good of others, are giving their allegiance to God, whether they know it or not, whether or not they even acknowledge the existence of God, and whether or not they follow any religion.

Imagine a world in which all people treated each other with gentle and loving goodness. It would be a paradise! This is what the world will be like 60

when we all do the will of God. It is a promise; the world will be paradise one day. If it is not always a good place now we have only ourselves to blame, because we do not always do good. Adam is mankind. His sin is that people choose to value their own wants (not even their needs, but the things they want) above the welfare of other people, of animals, and of the planet Earth.

They choose self before goodness, and in this way introduce evil into the world. Great evil can have very small beginnings, and they are always a failure of love towards the good.”

“Are we always to blame? For instance, we have to kill animals in order to eat. Yet there is the Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

“Well, we do not have to kill in order to eat - unless you count harvesting vegetables as ‘killing’. Buddhists don’t eat meat; if they can survive without it, so could we. Walter knows that if you yourself had to kill your own meat, you would do without. You have grown up in a culture where you eat meat, and someone else kills it for you, and so long as the animal has lived a good life, you are able to accept this. Walter was the same.

In fact, so are many good people in the world, Walter did not mean that the individual is to blame for evil - although there is the paradox that only individual love can vanquish it! Evil is an idea in the Collective Conscious mind of mankind.

But then, Walter knows this idea of killing exercises your mind, and you may say that animals kill each other as food, and this seems to be the norm in nature. And therefore, presumably, the will of God. To many people, no doubt this is a real problem, and Walter must honestly say that he doesn’t know the full answer. Did God intend all creatures to be herbivores, and has the whole biosphere deviated from His original intention?

Possibly. We don’t know.

What is certain is that you personally do give concern (love) to the life of all animals, especially those kept on farms for food or milk. This is not perhaps 61

perfect, but it is a long way from the thoughtless or heedless selfishness which gives rise to evil.

For the eventual good of all creation - for his own great plan - God has given mankind the freedom to choose where they will give love. The worldwide collective human mind has chosen to love its own desires. This is the root cause of evil.

I said, “You know, I don’t think most people really mean to be selfish. They just follow what others are doing. It’s difficult to break away and think, or do, something different,” “In other words, they ‘follow a multitude to do evil’. Like eating animals which have been cruelly raised on factory farms, just because the food is cheap and easy to buy?”

“Yes. They don’t have to see the farms, so they pretend they don’t exist.”

Walter said: “It is surprisingly difficult to do good when others do the opposite. But what you want to know is why God does not prevent all the suffering in the world?”

“Yes. I have wondered whether human beings have too much of the sense of self-preservation in their make-up and too little tender love. Since he is allpowerful, couldn’t God adjust the balance?”

Walter took some time to answer this, and drew quite a lot of little circles.

Finally he wrote: “When, after the Ice Age, human beings were struggling to survive on this planet Earth, do you think more loving kindness would have helped them? Or more aggressive self-assertion?”

I said I thought that in those hard and primitive conditions they would have needed love to bind communities together in mutual help, but they would have needed even more aggression to cope with the harsh conditions of their life. “But that was a long time ago,” I added. “We don’t need it now. People, especially young men, are too aggressive.”

“Where do we get qualities like aggression from?”

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“I suppose they are built into the genes of the race. And of animals - and even plants? - for that matter.”

Walter then asked, to my surprise, “Are you a creationist or an evolutionist?”

“What a question! Well - you mean do I believe in God the Creator, or do I think the world evolved mechanically, ‘by accident’? I’m sure you think as I do, that the two ideas don’t conflict. I am both. I believe that God set up the universe to develop as it has, and then it followed more or less the path set out by Darwin. Not, of course, by accident. Why ask?”

“You are right. The Creator set us on the course to survive on the planet and to reach our present stage of development - which is plainly far from complete. What we are now was planned aeons ago, and people and other creatures cannot be immediately changed physically even by the creator himself. The genetic inheritance is as it is, and must remain so. Any change would involve going back, perhaps, to the beginning of life on earth. Change must come mentally and spiritually, and there it is still taking place, and may well do so for many ages yet.

I said sadly that we didn’t seem to be changing quickly enough. “But surely God can influence the individual person who is doing something bad?”

“We have free will, and we often choose not to listen to the prompting of the Spirit within, or to the voices of good spirits who are constantly guiding us.”

“If free will causes so much trouble, why on earth did God ever give it to us?”

Walter does not know the mind of God; no one does. But he would say that without free will we would not ever become anything worth having at all! We would be puppets, without individual personality.”

“So what does the outcome depend on?”

“Why, the creative love of each person, of course. What else?”

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I thought about Walter’s answers for a long time, then I asked, “What do you honestly think of our chances of survival? The world’s in such a mess that one must wonder.”

Walter replied, “Think historically, and you will see that in the past many civilisations have failed, but the human race has survived.

The love in the human heart is eternal, and cannot be destroyed. If God required human beings to live on earth, and be to his agents there, we will certainly continue to do so.

Don’t forget that Walter doesn’t know. Until it happens, the future is there only as possibilities. But he thinks the journey is a long one, and we human beings are still near the beginning. This is no time to try to see the end. Have faith in God, and live as best you can in the moment.”

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Chapter 7 According to Walter, a person can have, or be in, several different bodies.

There is the material body (which he describes as being on its own, and without the Spirit and the other bodies which give it life, like a lump of meat), the Etheric body, the Lustral body, and finally the Glorified body. So far, these are merely names to me. Also, I remember reading that in theosophy they have many more than four bodies, and the names are different I asked Walter to tell me exactly what a body is.

“A body is the vehicle in which the spirit lives, and which is designed to make contact with whichever world surrounds it at the time. Your spirit is energy of a very high order. It does not make any contact with the material world - only with the spirit of creation. The material body makes contact with matter through its senses, and through the nervous system and brain, which work through the Etheric or electro-magnetic body; they are material in structure, but electro-magnetic in function. That is, the nervous system and brain are made of cells like the rest of the material body, but their job is to carry messages and hold ideas, and this is done electro-chemically.

You also need to make contact with the world of ideas, and this your Mental body does, through its capacity for thought Walter does not usually use the word ‘mental’ for this body, but it is useful sometimes because, while thought is never really material, it is not always totally spiritual either.

Sometimes the mind uses the brain like a computer. The operation is mechanical and does not involve the Lustral body, or true thought You probably recognise the difference between the two kinds of thinking?”

“Yes, I do. I like to do puzzles in the daily paper. Most do not involve the kind of thought which stretches the mind, and which can be very tiring. They involve the eye, and some other part of the brain, or so it seems.”

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“Yes. Using the Lustral body can be tiring because you are giving the energy of love. True thought involves the giving of love’s energy. All thought is action, talking energy. True thought takes even more energy.

Now, more about the bodies.

Remember what Walter has already told you about love. Your spirit is pure love. Earthly love is not pure. Even heavenly love is not entirely pure, until the spirit enters the Glorified body. So other bodies are needed to mediate between your divine spirit and any other conditions it may meet.

The material body is formed basically from chemical elements and compounds, and has the well-known five senses (plus two more which we will talk about).

The Etheric body looks after the electro-magnetic systems of a person during life on earth (including the brain and the aura). It is not material, but it is not spiritual either - it is electro-magnetic, and therefore not chemical but physical, that is, it belongs to those phenomena studied by physics. Most physicists now accept that there is an electro-magnetic shell around all things.

The Lustral body is mental and spiritual, and serves the individual Spirit on earth and during its journey through the heavens.

The Glorified body is the final, purified condition for human beings and all creation.

But remember, these are merely names and others could be used. Do not worry if you find that other systems of thought give the bodies other names. It is not important, so long as we know what we are talking about. As to more bodies - you could have any number you wanted to! Consider the material body, which is familiar to you. You could divide this into a skeletal body (bones), a fluid body (liquids), a cellular body (cells), a pneumatic body (breath), and you could probably think of several more and make out a case for them. Language is a flexible tool. But Walter thinks the four bodies he has suggested provide enough divisions for our purpose.�

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“The name that sticks in my mind is the ‘Astral’ body.”

“You can have the Astral body now if you like. ‘Astral’ means ‘of the stars’.

It is the body of non-material feeling. Walter did not mention it because, during life on earth, thought and love cannot be separated and all nonmaterial feelings are based on love - even hate, which seems to be the it’s opposite. The Astral body is the body of love. Spirits live in it when their thought has become all love, even though the love is not yet pure.”

“Another question - you’ve told me that your present body looks the same shape as the earthly body used to be. Is that significant?”

“Not really. That is, the shape has no significance in the afterlife. It’s the general shape which developed through evolution as being the most suitable for human beings living in the conditions of earth. It is, as you might say nowadays, totally ‘fit for purpose’. However long human beings remain on earth, it will hardly alter at all. As for Walter, his mind is used to the idea that he is a certain shape, so he keeps the same form. A matter of convenience, that’s all.”

“If you were pushed, how many bodies would you say one might reasonably count.”

“Probably twelve, But do forget it.”

“Very well. What about food? Does each body need a different kind? I’m asking because I believe human beings can’t live without physical impressions - and, of course, air.”

“Quite right. The material body needs ordinary food, and the pneumatic part of it needs air. Physical impressions feed the Etheric body, (impressions reach the skin electrically, and are transmitted to the brain as electrical impulses). The psyche is nourished by all four types of food, through its contact with the other bodies. But as a matter of fact, all the bodies are interdependent during life on earth. And, through its own individual spirit, the psyche is nourished by love. And love is reflected to it from other people and things.

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You see how complex it all is! And what a wonderful creation an animal such as a man or woman is!”

“So all the bodies are with us throughout life on earth?”

“All except the Glorified body. Or so Walter believes, though he may be wrong. That is the body in which we will finally reach the presence of God, and Walter has never met a spirit who knew the first thing about it! Though tradition tells that Jesus Christ was aware during his earthly life even of the Glorified body. It might well be true.”

“What does it actually mean, to live in a body?”

“You can be said to live in a body when your awareness makes contact with it, and you behave in an appropriate way. Living on earth at all means that we live in the material body. Functioning as an electro-magnetically controlled system, as we all do, is to live in the Etheric body. Breathing, and needing gases in and around the body (such as air) means living in the Pneumatic body. On those occasions when we get a taste of heaven on earth - which most people do just sometimes - we are getting a taste of living in the Astral body. When you really think, as opposed to using your brain like a computer, you are in the Lustral body. The higher bodies are, we believe, experienced more often by mystics.

Of all the people who have ever lived on earth, only Jesus Christ is said to have lived in the Glorified body; that was after his resurrection. Walter thinks that by an amazing act of spiritual regeneration, the material body may be able to be assimilated into the Glorified body. This might have happened at the Resurrection, for according to legend, the material body of Christ was not found in the tomb. But of course Walter doesn’t know - how can anyone know anything about such an extraordinary event?”

“What about other great teachers? Did they not live in the Glorified body?”

“If they did, there is no record of it. Perhaps the Buddha experienced higher bodies.”

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“You said the material body has two senses beyond the well-known five.

What are they?”

“Location and time. Location is sensed by the Etheric body, to be exact, as the awareness of position in space comes from the earth’s magnetic field.

Birds and animals use it to find their way over immense distances, and even in mankind it is used more than people realise. Human beings still have a good directional sense, but few know this or use it.

Time, as you know by now, is the measurement of change. People and animals know the speed of change in the world and in themselves by the rate at which they take in impressions. Human beings call this the passing of time”.

Another question had occurred to me. “The expression, ‘body and soul’. .....Where is the soul in all this? I thought the soul was the body of thought and love.”

“It is the soul which lives in bodies, you silly goose! Your soul, your psyche, is yourself! It lives at present in the material bodies, and now and again becomes aware that it has a Lustral body. Perhaps twice in your life you have lived briefly fully in the Astral body, when the eyes of your soul were opened by love. After death, Walter and other loving spirits of heaven will teach you to know the Astral body more often. After that, it will be up to you to learn if you can.”

I had an idea “If the higher bodies are with us now, does that mean that the soul - the mind and feelings - are living here on earth the same kind of life they will live in the world after death? I remember that the Christian writer Martin Israel said in one of his books, ‘There is, after all, only one existence, and this is eternal life.’ Did he mean that we are living our eternal life now?”

“Of course you are!”

“Then death won’t make all that much difference? Discarnate spirits really are very much like they were on earth?”

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“Death is an important rite of passage and affects each individual differently. Some are much changed by it some hardly at all. But yes - you will retain all your main characteristics, and still be recognisably yourself.”

“Are there many good spirits in heaven?” I very much liked the idea of finding helpers. “I mean, there must be a lot of new souls needing help.”

“If you could see the multitude of the hosts of heaven, you wouldn’t ask!

Not all look after the earth, but don’t worry, every person living on earth is cared for, not only by one guardian spirit, but by a host of them! If it were not so, the human race would have died out long ago, for it is always trying to destroy itself by its silly behaviour.”

That I can believe.

I had another idea. “Walter, I’m wondering whether one could have what you might call a Social body? If the material body is the one to make contact with the world you find yourself in, then you do need something to make contact with human society; to a lot of people this doesn’t come naturally at all, but it can be learned.

When I was young, I used to feel like an actor who has strayed onto the stage in the wrong play - one of which he didn’t know the words! I simply could not get the hang of what people, as a crowd, were aiming to achieve!

Then I married Stuart, who was a natural on the social scene, and I learned a lot from him. Finally (aged thirty-five to forty) I felt I had got the measure of it all, which I had always wanted to do. Did you ever feel lost, like I did?”

“Walter was not at all interested in such things. He wanted to understand about natural things - how the planet Earth and the universe works, and about plants and animals. Human beings too - but their natural selves, not their social customs.” He then added: “Sadly, you did not get much social life when you were married to Walter.”

“I soon got used to it; and now I am quite indifferent to the whole thing! I feel convinced that the country is going in the wrong direction, and that I don’t want to go with it!

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What do you think about the theory of a Social body?”

“It’s a new idea to Walter. He can see that it might be so. Though there are many skills one has to learn in order to live on earth, and learning a skill is not quite the same as living in a body! However, we’ll consider it. But Walter thinks that whatever your surroundings, you personally would not have felt totally at home on earth. You will really be at home in heaven — wait and see!”

Later I asked again how one lives in a body, for I felt I still didn’t understand this.

“Well if you didn’t know that you live in the material body, you wouldn’t be able to use it, even to move your arms and legs, would you? The unconscious systems which are built into you at birth keep you alive, but without consciousness you couldn’t achieve anything. How can you move an arm if you don’t know it’s yours? How can you speak if you don’t know you have a tongue and a voice-box? It’s the same with any body - you can’t truly live in it unless you know what to do, and can consider how best to use it. The conscious mind must expand to include deeper knowledge before you can live in the more subtle bodies. They are existent with you now, but you don’t know how to live in them.

You must love God who - whether people know it or not - is the source of all love, and of all bodies - and ask for his help. He will give you his love in the form you can understand, which is knowledge or illumination. With his help, you can then use the functions of the more subtle bodies; you alone can do nothing. This divine help is what is meant by grace.”

“Can you give me any glimmer of an example?”

“Yes, The Mental or Lustral body is the body of thought. People have to learn how to think. A lot of the time, the brain is controlled largely by nonspiritual bodies such as the Etheric body - that is not true thought, but is electro-chemical operation, and very useful for working out statistics and so forth, and learning the dates of the Kings and Queens of England! Thinking 71

means asking difficult questions, and it is hard work. Education is not learning facts, but learning how to think about them. You are at present learning how to live in the Lustral body. Knowledge which can become being involves thought. Cerebral activity is not always thought.”

“And the body of thought is a spiritual body? Yet you tell me that spirit is love. Which is true?”

“Both, of course. The soul is love, but it is also thought; this is part of your spiritual self. Have you ever measured a thought, or held it in your hand?

Thought is not material or physical, at all. Do you begin to understand what Walter is telling you?”

“I suspect that I understand very imperfectly.”

“Excellent! If you thought you understood, you would close your mind to further teaching. Never do that - for on earth you will never know it all!”

“And spirits don’t know everything either?”

“Quite right. They don’t.”

Walter had told me that the last thing he now thought about was having a body; but when I questioned whether a spiritual body was really necessary (as the idea of space is different for them) he asked indignantly whether I imagined that he floated about amorphously with nothing to hold him together at all!

I said, “Of course, it’s difficult for us on earth to come to terms with this question as we are used to solid bodies, in which the whole person is held together in an envelope of skin.”

“Good heavens! Is that what you think you are? A sort of sausage stuffed into a skin? What about your magnetic shell? What about your mind, which can go to Timbuktu and back, as far afield as you can imagine? What about your heart’s love, which can follow another person out of the room and right across the world? You really do have the oddest idea if you think the whole of you is contained within your skin! Of course it isn’t now, any more than it will 72

be when you are in heaven, and your skin is left behind on earth once and for all!”

Since then, Walter has made some apparently conflicting statements to me about bodies. He has also told me that I will understand nothing if my thinking is too black and white, so I try to heed the warning. He says: That he is generally unaware of having a body.

That one of the greatest joys of dying is to get rid of the material body, with its constant demands for food, sleep, and attention, and its need for warmth, shelter and safety.

That he is always in the room, or car, or garden, or countryside with me.

(What he means, I think, is that he can be, in the blink of an eye.)

That spirit is immaterial, yet spirit bodies are not entirely without materiality, and are less comfortable occupying the same space as a solid object, although it can easily be done. (This I find difficult to grasp. “What is the nonspiritual element in these bodies?” “You will best understand it as light.”

“Does that conflict with solid objects?” “It does not conflict. But it makes for awareness of them.”)

That if he wishes to hear a concert in London, he has only to will it and he is there. He would not then be mentally with me as well, but if I needed him, my thought would reach him by telepathy and he would come back immediately. (“I don’t want to interfere with your life too much, Walter, or to call you back from something else you are doing!” “Walter is your guardian spirit. Nothing else is more important to him.”)

That the aura or halo which people have during life on earth is composed not only of magnetism, but also of the subtle bodies, That the names of the subtle bodies are not important. He advises me to avoid the complexities of Hindu and Theosophical ideas, which to a Western person can be confusing and unnecessary to understanding of the truth, although in themselves they are not untrue. They belong to a different way of thought.

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That the Lustral, or Mental, body is not itself always synonymous with mind, nor the Astral body with love. Mind and love, together as soul or psyche, inhabit or inform each body in turn, the higher bodies being always present in the lower ones as potential.

That the heavens are a part of creation, being the soul of the earth, and all creation exists both in eternity and in space/time. Doing is always in time; being always in eternity. Pure love is the eternal state of being.

I begin to understand at last that the bodies are in fact conditions of the soul, and have no meaning if the soul is not there! If the soul - the individual is totally concerned with material living, then he or she is in the material body; if the person is taken up by true thought, that is to be in the condition of the Lustral body; totally unselfish love (and I do see how rare that is) would mean you are in the Astral body. Bodies are not just shapes - they are conditions!

“At last!” is Walter’s comment. “In fact, they are not essentially shapes at all.”

“I see now what you meant by saying that the Lustral body is not always the body of thought nor the Astral body of love. Love can be twisted or contaminated, and then the person would not be in a spiritual body at all! And thought can be the purest love!”

“You are getting the idea.”

“So talking about bodies is just a convenient way of describing conditions of the psyche - of the individual person?”

“You could say that. Words are clumsy tools - thoughts are far more subtle.

But without words, how would we understand each other at all, or exchange our ideas?

There is a beautiful passage in the Bible,” he told me, “in the book of Ecclesiastes, describing the process of change at the time of death: ‘Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, 74

or the wheel broken at the cistern.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.’

The silver cord of love binds the soul to earth and its many loves; there are people who say they can see it. This must be loosened before the soul can leave earth. When an old or sick person takes a long time to die, it is that the silver cord still holds them.

‘Dust’ is the material and physical bodies which, after death, are given back to the earth for recycling. No material element, and no physical energy, can ever be destroyed; this is a commonplace of physics.

The golden bowl is the Lustral body; after a time this becomes unnecessary and must be ‘broken’ so that the spirit can progress through the heavens.

The pitcher is the Astral body; this too will no longer be necessary when the time comes.

Finally, in the Glorified body, the spirit will return to God, who gave it.

‘The wheel is broken at the cistern.’ The wheel is a circle containing a cross. It is an important religious symbol signifying the crucifixion of the Spirit of Love during life on earth (the incarnation of Spirit), and even in the heavens, until the self is strong enough in its love to defeat all obstacles.

The circle is one of the great symbols of creation, meaning unity or completeness. It signifies the only true wholeness, God himself, and his Son, the Spirit of Love in all mankind (in fact, in all creation, but as human beings this is difficult for us to grasp.) When the cross is imposed on the circle, the four arms are the instincts for life, the Four Loves, upon the dark elements of which the Spirit is crucified. Imagine what it must be for the Spirit of Love to be at the mercy of the world, with nothing but its own love for protection (for the Spirit will fight evil with no other weapon); think of all the suffering in the world, and you will not ask whether crucifixion is the right word.

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Jesus Christ did not die on the cross just to show what a human being can survive while maintaining the life of the Spirit. He died on the cross as a great and enduring symbol of the suffering of the Spirit of Love within each one of us.”

I find that a potent and amazing thought, and one which had never so much as crossed my mind. But now that Walter has written it for me, I’m sure it’s true. It adds great significance to the story of Jesus Christ, Although I fully accept the spiritual (if not all the historical) truth of the Biblical accounts, I’ve never been able to see that death by crucifixion was necessary; and I certainly cannot accept a good God who would require the death of his son as a scapegoat for human sin. It simply makes no sense, and one could not respect, let alone worship a God like that.

But that death on the cross is a great symbol of the suffering of the Spirit of Love within the world - that makes triumphant sense!

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Chapter 8 “You always liked Walter’s knowledge of science, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did - and do.”

“Well, Walter is going to tell you some things which are scientific truth from the point of view of heaven. You will have to open your mind to the unexpected, or you may not be able to accept them. Can you do that?”

“I can try.”

“Good. The beginning is quite easy, you’ll find.

Do you remember that, when Walter was talking about love, he said the physical relationships of living things are largely determined by the attractions and antipathies between them, and that these are magnetic? Well, the planet Earth is well known to be a giant magnet with its ends very near the geographic north and south poles. Lines of magnetism run round the earth’s surface, and under the sea, and through the atmosphere, and these are known to be used by fish, birds, and other animals as a means of orientation.

All material entities on earth, from rocks and grains of sand to mice and men, from cells to forest trees, are also surrounded by a magnetic shell, and this is sensitive to the magnetism of the earth, with which it is connected. So it will readily be seen that the planet Earth and her children are closely interdependent. She affects them, and they affect her. The earth’s weather is determined by her surroundings in the universe, and by her own state of being, which itself is influenced by the electro-magnetic, mental and spiritual condition of all the creatures on her surface and within her globe. As the whole of creation is one with the Creator, so the Planet is one with her creatures. No creature is self-sufficient” “You have explained about the physical connection. How does the mental and spiritual connection happen?”

“You have said you know the Spirit of the Earth - the feeling of dreaming peace that you experience particularly by rivers and lakes, and in the still of 77

evening. You must be able to share that aspect of the earth’s nature, or you couldn’t say you know it. You, and all the earth’s children can share in her spirit.

As for the mental element, the earth does not think as human beings do; but then nor do trees and rivers. Yet the capacity for mind is latent in these parts of creation. It must be, or evolution could not have brought it out in humans.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“Of course it is! At the beginning of creation, God gave to the universe mind - all the mind it will ever need for its simple tasks of making stars and setting them on their courses. Yes — the results may be awe-inspiring, but the laws of the universe are simple. This mind takes the form of creative imagination and its attendant energy; (these are the tenderness and energy of love). The words ‘Creative imagination’ sounds impressive, but it is actually something quite understandable. It would not, for instance, occur to you to put on the kettle for a cup of tea, if you had not first imagined what would happen when the kettle was put on to the stove - that is, that it would boil! You would not put the tea in the pot if you had not first seen in your imagination that it would brew!

Do you follow this?”

“Yes - now that you tell me!

“This simple mind of the universe is shared by the earth and her creatures.

In addition, the earth is given her own mind, which we share, as it is concerned with the earth’s special province, organic life.

Walter has told you that a mind is its ideas. In the mind of the earth are four great ideas which control our entire lives - for good or ill. These are the Four Loves. They are: Love of Life, Love of Living, Love of Love, and Love of Loving.

I asked whether, in people and animals, these were not rather instincts than ideas.

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“You can think of them as instincts if you like. What are instincts but unconscious ideas? Ideas in the unconscious mind?”

Thinking it over, I couldn’t disagree with this.

Walter had already pointed out to me that no action is possible if it is not powered first by an idea. “How could you get out of bed in the morning if you didn’t first have the idea of doing so? What makes you clean your teeth if not the idea in your mind that you ought to?”

“Yes,” he said now “Getting out of bed and cleaning your teeth are conscious ideas. But what about looking after your own child (and other children and animals, and old or sick people, creatures who cannot look after themselves), or running away from a burning house, or trying to swim if you are thrown into water? The ideas which trigger these actions are in the unconscious mind, and are designed to ensure the continuance of life on earth.”

“So which heading do these come under? Which of your Four Loves?”

“Usually more than one. You will find that all so-called instincts are caused by these loves; sometimes one alone, but more often a combination of least two. The earth gives them to her children - the greater life of the animal kingdom, and the less evolved life of the vegetable kingdom.”

“You used to tell me that I am a child of the earth. Isn’t everyone?”

“In one sense - yes, of course. In another, no; Walter, for example, is more a child of the universe. He is interested in what you might call the universal picture - the creation of stars and planets, and how galaxies work. You understand, while the mind of the universe itself may be simple, the same ideas in the human mind can be much more complex; which is why human beings have importance in the scheme of things. You love plants and animals much better, and you wish to understand other people; and often do. Walter, as you know, has a great deal of creative imagination - a gift of the universe.

He never had much understanding of the human heart and mind - a gift of the earth, which you have.”

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“Why are people so different?”

“If God did not wish us to be different, he would have made us all the same!

We are members of the body of creation, don’t forget, and each of us has a function. A body wouldn’t work very well if it had innumerable legs, but no head and no hands!”

I had never thought of it like that, and couldn’t help laughing. Walter laughed too. I always know when he is amused.

“I think, Walter, that you are both head and hands!” I told him. “You have skills in both directions!”

“Then you are both head and heart, for your thinking and feeling capacities are unusually well balanced. Your loving heart is full of enthusiasm, but your critical head won’t let it get away with any shoddy sentimentality!”

I was immediately diverted. “Exactly what is sentimentality? It must have an element of love in it?”

“Sentimentality is love without common sense.”

And so it is!

He went on: “People are different because their natures, and their skills, together make a whole. You can have another Biblical reference if you like: ‘I am the vine, and ye are the branches.’ (John 15.5). Each one of us is, one could say, a very small twig of the vine. We depend on its main stem for our life, but we may be an independent leaf or tendril, each doing a different thing.

But do you want to hear some more about the Four Loves?”

I apologised for raising a side issue, and asked him to go on.

“Well - remember there are no sharp divisions in creation, and none on earth. Walter will tell you how the Four Loves are experienced by different kinds of creature, but bear in mind that some are just beginning to have one kind of life, and some another. Others have lost some, or all, of a kind of mind in the process of their evolution. (Mankind, for example, now has - amongst 80

other things - comparatively little sense of smell, or of direction, compared with other animals. In compensation people have gained rational thought) In plants, Love of Life causes them to grow, to take in nourishment to breathe - oh yes, they do! - and to reproduce their species.

Animals experience Love of Life in far more varied ways. Not only do they grow, eat and drink, need various experiences, breathe, and reproduce, they also love their companions, their mates, and their children because of the life which animates them all (though this caring instinct is caused by more than one of the loves). They also feel a bond with everything which is alive (yes, even with the prey they eat, as some primitive human tribes do), and they will love human beings if allowed to.

Their Love of Living is expressed in many joyful ways. No person who understands its joy in its free life would ever keep an animal or bird in captivity for even one day, (except perhaps to treat its hurt body and make it well.)

In plants, their Love of Living is strong but simple; they turn towards the sun as it appears to move from east to west in the sky, they bend towards light, and they lift their heads to the rain.

Animals love loving (Love of Loving) as anyone who has ever lovingly handled an animal will know. This love glows from the creature’s eyes.

There are people who believe that plants know the joy of given love - that they react to certain music, and grow better if tended with love, if true, this is Love of Loving. It probably is true, for how else do we account for the phenomenon known as having green fingers? Plants grow better for people who treat them with loving care.

Animals also know dimly, what many humans know well - the Love of Love for its own sake; not because of the pleasure it gives, not because it is synonymous with life, but because it is good - of God. All creatures are the children of God and contain a spark of his Spirit within their souls. The love without calls to the love within, and is seen and recognised as good. This is 81

an entirely different idea from Love of Life. To know and value love itself is to know God’s goodness, and this, in varying degree, all animals and people do.”

“How do you know?”

“It is known in heaven. Now - do you follow all this? Do you think you could find a way to express the ‘flavour’ of each of the Loves?”

At first I thought I could not do this, but then ideas began to form in my mind. “From what you have said, I think perhaps Love of Life is a caring instinct, something felt by people who value life as such, and want to preserve life, whether their own, or life in general. Perhaps when I look after the plants in my greenhouse (which I really do love) my feeling for them is caused by Love of Life?”

“Good. Any more?”

“Self-preservation could come from Love of Life? If so, it is only good some of the time, and can be dangerous. It can get out of hand, make people and animals become too competitive, fight wars and so on. Or just score over others and do them down. You have already said that each of the instincts has its dark side.

And then - if one’s own life became too important, I think one might be too careful of it, and afraid to take risks, and that’s not good.”

“You’re doing well, and have already realised that all these Loves can have bad, as well as good, results. Do you begin to see why Walter told you that the Spirit of Love is crucified on the cross of the Four Loves? They control the whole life of the biosphere, and especially of human beings - for evil as well as for good.

Now tell me about Love of Living.”

“Oh, Love of Living must be the enjoyment of life! Is it delight in being alive? One aspect of loving and enjoying all the good and beautiful things in the world?

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The dark side would be self-indulgence - gluttony and excess - bingedrinking, drugs. And if they were too busy just living, it might make a person selfish, and careless of the good of others, and of animals and plants and the planet... Am I on the right track?”

“You are, dear love. Go on.”

“Is Love of Loving the intense human and animal need to give and receive love?”

“Not quite.”

“Well, you tell me.”

“It is the love of the soul for God. Walter told you before that the will is in love with the Spirit. It loves the Spirit of God wherever it is found in creation.

Because each soul loves God, it loves the spark of God’s nature in other souls, and expresses this recognition by the desire to give and receive love.

Also it loves, for their own sake, God’s attributes of Goodness, Beauty and Truth.”

“Isn’t that - by what you have said - Love of Love?”

“Love of Love, is to love Love itself, because is God’s nature, and entirely good. It is to love God. As opposed to Love of Loving, which is to see love in creation.”

To my mind, this is the most difficult distinction to make. In fact, when Walter asked me to describe the various kinds of love, I had thought all this would be quite impossible, and I was surprised to find that it isn’t at all! So far, I think perhaps these ideas are so true that all experience of life can be fitted into them. (I found this when I first heard of the cabbalistic Tree of Life, another system of thought which seems to be all-embracing.)

I asked: “Would Love of Loving be what we usually think of as loving other people, and things, and creatures; and would Love of Love be nearer to religious devotion?”

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“Devotion is one aspect of it. Also the awareness of powers greater than yourself. This gives one of the great virtues humility - which is not lack of selfesteem, but the acceptance of one’s proper place in creation.”

I said that while I fully understood what he said about humility, I still followed the rest with difficulty but might get better used to the ideas.

Also, that I felt there were many damaged people - and animals, when they came into contact with bad people - who had sadly lost their capacity to recognise love, because of what had been done to them in their life. “‘Sadly’ is the right word! What you say is, of course, true. To be unable to recognise love is the final tragedy of any life. Only the unstinting giving of love to such a creature can cure this ill. And even that may not be enough.”

“What happens in the end, then?”

“Heaven has resources of love unknown on earth! No soul is past curing.

Wait and see. With your particular gifts, in Heaven you may well be given the task of helping damaged souls. Walter doesn’t know.”

I said that Walter was giving the wrong picture of me; there are many people I don’t really like, and others to whom I am indifferent. I’m not really a lover of mankind as a whole; I love ideas - and dogs - better.

“You don’t have to like people in order to love them! The two things are quite different! You yourself cannot see any creature in need without wanting to help it. You have great empathy with those in need. Empathy is a form of love.”

“So what is really the difference between liking and love? I feel you are right, but I can’t see why.”

“When you dislike people, you are disliking the outer self, perhaps the persona - the face which people show to the world. When you love, you are loving the true self - and the Spirit within. When you perceive a person’s need, you see further into their nature - past the barriers people normally put up to protect themselves from pain.”

“That makes a lot of sense! Why did I never think of it for myself?”

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“You can’t think of everything. You have a very critical mind, so you see any faults which are there, and if you feel you don’t like them, you are too honest to pretend to yourself. But if for some reason you are able to see through the outer layers, you are immediately drawn to the real Self - the Spirit.

This is through Love of Life (which you desire to preserve), or Love of Love for its own sake. Does that convince you?”

Something occurred to me. “You say that the Four Loves come from the mind of the earth?”

“Yes. They apply to the earth’s biosphere; the Universe would have no use for them.”

“They are meant to exist?”

“Of course.”

“Then why is the Spirit crucified on the four arms of the Loves? That cannot be intended?”

“No indeed, it cannot. But you remember that each of these loves could be used well or badly; for good or for ill? Walter may have given you the impression that it is always the ideas of the psyche’s mind which lead people to do bad things. They very often do; but there are also these influences which come from the heart, the feeling centre; what you would probably call instincts. These are from the Four Loves: usually more than one at a time, but to suit your tidy mind we will try to consider each of the Loves separately.

Love of Life can result in a person or creature clinging on to life for too long.

Or being so careful of life they will take no risks. Or harming others in order to prolong its own life. It can also involve fighting for life, and those of ones children or close connections.”

I objected: “Most cultures think it legitimate to protect your own life, and those of others close to you, even if you have to fight” “Jesus Christ did not think so.” This is absolutely true, and the statement gave me quite a shock. “He told his followers not to resist aggression - to turn 85

the other cheek. When he was arrested and executed, he lived out this precept. He made no move to save himself, and went without resistance to the Cross. Have you really thought about that?

As I was writing this on Easter Sunday, the question was particularly poignant I saw immediately that Walter is right, and that what he said had strong relevance to my own opinions. I said slowly that I realised Jesus Christ could have saved himself, and chose not to do so. I believe he had the full power of the Spirit, and didn’t use it But it had not really dawned on me that we were meant to do the same.

“Why not?”

“Well . . We are not God! We do not aspire to perfection or to sacrifice.”

“Yet you love and revere the person of Jesus Christ?”

I was again considerably taken aback, but he went on: “Don’t worry Walter does not expect martyrdom from you! He just wanted to shock you into seeing how far human beings fall short of the perfect life.

Your material life is not your own, you know it is given by God for the duration of your time on earth, and at the end of that time it will be required of you, and must be relinquished. You are not entitled to defend it by force, or to harm others in doing so.

This is one of the areas in which ordinary people, whether Christian or not, consider the teachings of Jesus Christ to be impossible in the world as it is.

So their Love of Life — with other causes - continues to start wars, and to cause distress in other people.

Next, Love of Living. This is the most dangerous of the Loves. Human beings enjoy their way of life, and refuse to give it up even when it causes trouble, or even suffering, to other people, to creatures, or to the biosphere.

Animals are at fault too, but it is we humans who, having self-knowledge, must bear the full responsibility for what we do.

We must have everything we want, at any cost. The more successful the civilisation, the more the division between ‘need’ and ‘want’ becomes blurred.

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We do not stop to consider what we are doing to others. We kill and eat whatever we want. In the name of ‘cuisine’ we do dreadful things like keeping animals on factory farms, force-feeding geese and boiling lobsters alive. We reduce other animal species to extinction (for we too are animals, you know).

We are greedy and self-indulgent. We even damage our own health, and that of our children and pets by unwise or excessive eating. Food is far from being the only culprit. Some people drink too much, some take drugs. Some overindulge in other ways, or even give in to desires which are actively evil.

Love of Living is another of the causes of wars. If our way of life is threatened, we will fight to preserve it.

Love of Loving. In order to obtain the love and esteem they crave from others, some human beings will do anything, whether dishonest, or cringing, or harmful. This love leads to jealousy and possessiveness in relationships, whether between man and woman, mother and child, or Mend and Mend. It is one of the reasons why cults are able to manipulate their devotees. Anything you love can be loved to excess, and this always has bad results.

You would think that Love of Love must be all good, since it includes love of God. But it can lead to religious fervour, and that in turn to intolerance - to hatred of other religions, where other faiths are prevented, if possible, from worshipping in their own way. It has caused wars. It can lead to the belief that there is only one way of loving, and so to dogmatic assertions about the nature of goodness, beauty and truth in the world.

All evil behaviour which originates in the heart comes from the Four Loves, usually not separated from one another, but mixed.”

I said I had certainly thought it was ideas of the psyche’s mind which led us into sin. Now it seems it can be the loves of the heart?

“When the Four Loves include the love of God and of your neighbour, they are entirely good. When they are turned inwards, towards the ego, and are tainted with self-concern, then they become the cross on which the Spirit of Love is crucified.”

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“I want to ask you, Walter - we are told, ‘Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself’ Are we then allowed to consider our own selves on a par with other selves?”

“Yes. The ideal is forty percent for the self and sixty per cent for God, in any individual action. Any less for the self, and that person’s Guardian Spirit has a hard time looking after them; any less for God is not enough.”

I see what it is. I have believed-like many people – that before the more difficult principles of Jesus Christ’s teaching can be put into operation, Evil must first be defeated, since in the world as it is anyone consistently turning the other cheek or giving away both coat and cloak, would immediately be trampled underfoot Walter is telling me that on the contrary, it is only by love and total nonresistance based on the strength of inner love, that Evil can be defeated, so these good qualities must come first, whatever the consequences. We must take the risk, and bear with the results.

I still wonder how many of us, in practice, could do that? Very few, I suspect.

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Chapter 9 Some people who read what Walter writes will come to the conclusion, as I do, that whether or not they totally accept all his ideas with their reasoning minds, they do recognise in them truths which resonate in the heart.

Others, I know, will need a great deal of convincing that the whole thing is anything but moonshine.

“Walter why are people afraid of spiritual things?”

“Well some minds are used to thinking of reality in terms of the phenomenal universe, the visible and tangible world around. If they want to know whether something is real they touch it, or test it chemically, or perhaps look through a telescope, or even an electron microscope. We are telling them that the world they know is the outward expression of the Spirit which is alive within each existing thing, and which is more real than matter, so we are turning their usual way of thinking on its head! You can’t expect them to like it.

The trouble is that there are concepts, like the existence of God, which cannot be proved by rational argument.”

This is true, as I know by experience. Some years ago, my friend Gordon told me he had decided take the ‘A’ Level course in Philosophy at the local college of Adult Education, and I said I would join him. I was over seventy at the time, and he in his forties. The other students were mostly between thirty and forty, and were taking the course for varying reasons. Some needed the certificate, and some, like us, didn’t, and were following the course from interest only.

In due course Gordon and I came to study the Philosophy of Religion. The tutor, a young atheist, had trouble with us, because we already knew something about the subject, and he (of course) didn’t. But none of us had ever come across the accepted four proofs for the existence of God. We were not well impressed by them. Two I have forgotten, but one went something like this: God is the purest good which can be imagined by 89

mankind; if anyone could imagine a greater good, then our God would be superseded, and the new Good would be God. Until that happens, God remains unchallenged.

This is all very well if you believe in Supreme Good as an entity in the first place. But if you refuse to believe in Spirit at all, the argument is meaningless.

The fourth proof, I personally did find more convincing; it is known as the Watchmaker proof. It goes like this. Suppose you are cast upon the shore of a desert island, and there you find a watch. Since the watch is a complicated man-made object, somebody must have made it. So you can safely assume the existence of a watchmaker.

In the same way, it must be admitted that the universe and everything in it (including men and mice, cells, atoms and planets) is a highly complicated mechanism. It is so unlikely to have evolved without any sort of prior plan, even given unlimited time for the process, that the existence of an organizing mind can quite safely be postulated.

In other words, it is easier to believe in a Creator God than to believe in evolution happening without a controlling mind, and entirely by accident.

I am convinced by this argument; other people, plainly, are not or they wouldn’t call themselves atheists.

“Perhaps they have never heard the Watchmaker proof?” Walter suggested, laughing.

“Would it make any difference if they had? Would it convince them?”

“It doesn’t convince everyone, for it has been refuted!”

“You mean they prefer to accept the story of the monkeys and the typewriters? (Nowadays it would be word processors!) You know the one - if you left enough monkeys with enough typewriters for an unlimited time, in the end they would produce the works of Shakespeare. Well, I think they wouldn’t.”

“Of course they would not! The best of Shakespeare’s writing came from a highly-evolved Spirit. Even if the monkeys produced some known words (In 90

English? Has anyone thought of that? What about all the possible languages?) these would never add up to the profound thought in King Lear, for example.”

“As to all the possible languages,” I felt bound to say, “That probably doesn’t enter into it, since we are postulating unlimited time!”

“Agreed. But it’s still a silly idea.”

“It isn’t mine.”

“No. Walter thinks these matters are complicated for some people because they don’t understand the difference between what is material, and what is not. Many who live on earth wrongly think that some earthly things are immaterial physical energy, for instance, or electric currents. Some people would even think this of gases. These can all be measured by means of instruments, and belong to the material earth. Energy is less material than matter, and it is well known that matter is made from energy in the stars, and will revert to energy if vitalised. But it is all matter.”

“But Walter, that’s the whole trouble! We’re talking about people who firmly believe that only matter is real!”

“Walter thinks you worry a great deal too much about this. We are writing for those who want to open their minds to the possibility of heaven. ‘He that has ears to hear, let him hear’.” (Luke 8.8). It is useless to talk to those who don’t want to listen. Their time has not yet come.

There is, you remember, a time for everything ‘To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven’.

A time to be born and a time to die’...”

“Yes, and, ‘A time to keep silence, and a time to speak,’ which is relevant here. So you are not too bothered if people don’t believe you?”

“Dear love, when you come to the afterlife you will understand that most of the things we worried about on earth will solve themselves in the long run. It is enough if you are concerned about what you do. As for other people - all 91

you can do is to give them the chance of knowing the truths; if they don’t take it, that is not your responsibility.

Besides which, the important thing is not whether someone agrees to believe in any set of precepts, or even in any god. The importance lies in their loving-kindness towards others in daily life. Your own father was not a believer.”

This is true. My father was what one might call a nineteenth-century agnostic - a follower of Thomas Huxley. He brought me up to think as he did, and to believe that every problem could be solved by rational thought, by excluding what he saw as the contamination of emotional thinking. If he worshipped anything, it was logic.

I followed this recipe until my mid-twenties. My father was a very clever man - perhaps brilliant - and I had great respect and love for him. However, I began to realise then that logic is all very well if you have every possible fact about a situation; you can line up the facts, and make your decision according to how they balance. The trouble is that you never do have all the facts! I was always saying to myself “If I had known so-and-so, I would have acted differently! What a pity I didn’t know.”

Finally it came home to me that logic is not enough, and needs to be supplemented by some aspect of feeling. And then I realised that, by nature, I need a religious belief; and one has to live with one’s own feeling of conviction.

“I have worried about my father,” I admitted. “He kept an open mind, but he never found any sort of faith. On the other hand, he was the kindest and most loving man. One could say that he worshipped goodness, beauty and truth all his life! And acted according to his principles.”

“Good heavens!” said Walter, “you don’t need to worry about your father!

He was and is a good man. He is entirely at home in Heaven!

Walter is a Christian, as you know, but he has told you that goodness doesn’t depend on following Christianity, or any other religion.”

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“But surely it’s better to believe in God?” “Most people do have some sort of belief. Believing in God is not the same as having a set religion. And there are many ways of reaching the top of the mountain, but to travel alone (with no like-minded companions to help on the way) is the most difficult of all. It calls for a great deal of dedication and selfdiscipline.”

“Service families like mine,” I said thoughtfully, “are trained in self-discipline from the cradle up. My parents lived in the most dreadful climates, often with very primitive amenities, and accepted that they would be parted from their families and children for years at a time. To them, this was all part of serving your community. Are we lucky in having had that training?”

“More lucky than you know. But there are other ways of life which teach self-discipline. It is implicit in the learning of any skill. Think of musicians - and ballet dancers - and jockeys, who must be very careful, particularly about how much they eat. And explorers and mountaineers who must endure cold and exhaustion! The list is long.”

“But you’re not saying that comfort, and all the good things of life, are evil, surely? Living on earth, you were something of a natural ascetic, and preferred a simple life, but I never thought of you as a puritan”!

“Good heavens, what an idea! No - the good things of life are given by God to be enjoyed, and he would much sooner see laughter than tears. Take what you are given, and give thanks to the Giver - but do not seek to take what is not yours, and do not, do not, do the slightest harm to anyone, or any other thing, in order to gratify your own desires.”

I said it sounded like walking a tightrope, and very difficult, for many people, to put into practice.

Walter replied simply, “It is the Strait and Narrow Path. No one ever said it was easy. The Primrose Path is the easy one.”

“Surely there is no harm in primroses! Could we call it the Path of Illusion?’

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“We could. But we won’t. You need a better reason than that if you are going to abandon accepted terms for things. It is a mistake to bring in change just for the sake of it. Walter has told you that change is life, and so it is; but there is plenty of change in the world without introducing it unnecessarily.

People recognise what’s familiar, and that makes for better communication.”

“All right. We’ll keep the Primrose Path.

I want to go back to the difficulty people have in accepting the immaterial, because even if we agree that it doesn’t matter too much what they think they believe, awareness of Spirit must make a lot of difference to everyday life.”

“It does. Unfortunately, the world-wide conscious human mind has got hold of the wrong idea, and clings to it. Until people start to think spiritually, physical creation is all they have, and all they can know.

People on earth are in an extraordinary and terrible situation, one which a writer of fiction would hardly dare to invent. They are spirits, living temporarily in a physical body, who have forgotten they are spirits and even try to deny it, because they think the body is all there is.

It is as though an actor had forgotten his real identity, believed himself to be the character he plays on stage, and persisted on living as though he were this imaginary person.

In the worldwide collective mind, people have forgotten they are children of God, and behave if as they were no more than animals without a soul. Not that such a creature could live at all; for the Spirit is, and carries, all life, in animals as elsewhere In Europe this forgetting has happened quite recently - over the last two or three hundred years. This was when the development of science seemed to carry people away from religious faith.

Because they have forgotten they are spirits, they are prevented from being what they could be, and are separated from their true selves. At different times on earth - and even now, in different parts of the earth - people think, and have thought, more spiritually. This kind of thinking is rare in what is 94

called the ‘civilised’ world. Mankind has to develop a reasoning mind, and the price paid is loss of spiritual awareness. But, ‘God is a Spirit, and they who worship him, must worship him in Spirit and in truth’.

Material life is true enough while it lasts, but for the individual person it lasts for a very short time. If people would only realise that their level of being and behaviour while on earth is influencing the future - not of some concept vague to them like ‘soul’ - but of their own self which they know and love so well, perhaps they would take more notice when they are told that the way to a good future life is to keep the laws of God while on earth.

It will be hard for those who have been knowingly cruel to children or animals, or the helpless, or have behaved selfishly or unkindly, or have deliberately harmed their beautiful planet. They will suffer greatly in their Spirit. But heaven will welcome those who have suffered on earth, and will heal their wounds with love.

The laws of God? All good religions give them, but to Christians they have been stated very clearly. ‘Love God; and love your neighbour as yourself.’

That is, love Good for its own sake; and give to other people as much love and consideration (or a bit more, to be on the safe side!) as you give to your own interests.”

“That is the key commandment, isn’t it?...

I’ve been thinking about myth and legend, which, it seems to me, teach good principles too. Some legends have a basis in fact, but a lot of myth and legend is story-telling no one even pretends it’s true. Yet it has a strong moral influence on the culture of a people.”

“Yes. If you study these stories you will find that they contain - in the form of a fantasy - much of what Walter has been telling you.

We are not ‘such stuff as dreams are made on’, perhaps, but we are the stuff of myth and legend. We are the king who is deposed by an imposter, and the princess who cannot find her lover. We are Psyche (soul) in her 95

search for Cupid (Love), and we are the last of the lovers of the life of the soul.”

“Does that mean anything, Walter?”

“Yes. It means we are the last to know that we love the soul!

We are the men of the forest and the hills, and the maidens of the sea. We are all the mothers who have ever wept for their sons as Mary did for Jesus, and we are all the sons who have loved their fathers as Jesus loved God. There is no story that does not have its origin in human experience. How could there be? - for no human being can dredge from imagination something which does not have its origin in reality, however much the story-teller patches together pieces of existent things. Only God can create a thing entirely new.

Imaginary creatures often look like giant ants or beetles, perhaps with human characteristics, and the worst one can say about them is that they are odd, or funny, or both. They should not be frightening, for they are really quite familiar. All human imagination is based on the contents of the universe; and the universe is not so very strange to us either, because it is reflected in people and their dreams, sleeping or waking.”

I asked about the quest for the Holy Grail. “Is that the search for the Spirit’?

“Yes. Sometimes the Grail is a cup (which is a feminine symbol), sometimes a stone, and sometimes it has no material form”.

“I was thinking about the tale of King Arthur. I recently read it again. It’s a very uplifting story the idea of a whole kingdom given over to goodness - and very sad - how it all came to an end. One is left thinking - if only Arthur had not fathered Mordred, and if only Lancelot and Guinevere had been able to put their love for Arthur, and or the idea of Camelot, above their love for each other; because all the loves were so real! Also, if only Guinevere had been able to have children.

Then I thought; But that’s how the world is! Full of the words ‘if only’.

Wishing isn’t going to make anything better.

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And then I began to see what you meant by saying that the things of the world are not real. Even if this story were true, all the events in it would long ago have ceased to exist, and what are we left with? A wonderful story of aspiration and love! And an abiding lesson in what not to do!”

“Well darling, you at least have learnt something from it! And since the story is many centuries old, you are certainly not the first person to do so.

Walter knows what you have been thinking and fearing in your mind. You fear that evil is what matters - that pain, and horror, and anger and cruelty are real, and hurt people, and that in contrast love and gentleness seem pale shadows, however much you admire and uphold them. Isn’t that so?

You are wrong.

All the terrible things, which undoubtedly do happen on earth, are real enough at the time; but only in time, and only during earthly life. Imagine how much worse it would be if they were perpetuated in eternity! But they are not When the body dies, evil dies too. In every soul, even the most depraved, are goodness, beauty and truth, love and gentleness, and they are there for eternity, and will be when all the hate and pain has gone. These qualifies, which on earth seem weak and vulnerable, in heaven are strong and triumphant!

Can you truly believe this? If you can hold on to this belief; you will suffer much less for life on earth. Walter knows that you, personally, have not had an easy life; but neither have you suffered on earth as some people do, and you are much less concerned about yourself than for those others who suffer.

That is as it should be. And there is the promise, don’t forget, that the Kingdom of God will come on earth.

But it is not you or Walter who alone will cure the world of evil. We will add our little bit to all the good stories and legends which have been teaching people since time began, and hopefully to all the good that prophets and teachers have done, and we will leave the rest to God, and through his love, to the good spirits of heaven.

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Don’t try to take on the task of fighting evil on your own, for you cannot succeed. Just put all the love you can into the world around you, and leave the rest to the powers of Heaven.

And remember that the battle cannot be lost, for Love is real in all eternity, and evil is not.�

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Chapter 10 “When you talk about the afterlife,” I told Walter, “there are some things which seem to me to be contradictions, and I would like to ask you about them. Probably they are due to my faulty understanding.”

He suggested I should give him some examples.

“Well, you have just told me that there is no evil in heaven. Does that mean, ‘in the afterlife’? Because you have also told me that immediately after the death of the material body, spirits are very much the same as they were on earth, which must mean that they are far from perfect, and can’t be in the condition of heaven. Do they not take some of their evil with them?”

“Yes, they do. But evil cannot flourish after death, as it does on earth.

There are certain checks on it. There are a few evil spirits in the afterlife, but they cannot do evil in those conditions.

You remember that spirits can read each other’s thoughts in fact, that is how they ‘talk’ to each other. Evil very often depends for its effects on deception, on hiding your intentions, and in making someone believe what is not true. Satan is called the Father of Lies. You can’t deceive when your thoughts are an open book to all and sundry.

Then, some evil actions involve inflicting pain on the human body. In the afterlife there is no material body to feel pain.

Finally, if anyone is suffering mental and spiritual pain, this will be reflected in their thoughts, so it will be known, and there are many Good Spirits of Heaven to comfort and console them and give them strength. No spirit in the afterlife suffers in this way for long.

So there is really no way that evil can be done once souls have left the earth.

As Walter has told you, there are a few discarnate evil spirits who have so far resisted all attempts to make them give up their bad ways. Because they cannot be successful in heaven, of course they try to contact and target 99

people living on earth. They then put wicked thoughts into those people’s minds - such as the command to commit murder, or details of how to inflict pain. Horrific crimes like the Moors Murders are instigated by evil spirits; though they would not be able to have much influence if people did not already have evil thoughts in their minds. These enable the evil spirits to enter the mind and inject their poison.

Unfortunately, most minds have bad thoughts sometimes, and can be vulnerable. It’s a question of how long the will (the mind’s energy) allows these thoughts to remain there; whether it gives them house-room. People who love God reject bad thoughts as soon as they appear.”

I said, “Another question. You talk about heaven; yet in the beginning - as I understand it - the soul may not be in heaven after death, any more than it was before, since it has taken many of its imperfect earthly characteristics with it. This is confusing.”

“Walter is at fault. Sometimes he says ‘heaven’ when he should say ‘the afterlife’. He did not mean to confuse you. Certainly, in the afterlife the soul is not in heaven until it has reached a more perfected condition.”

At first a soul, now usually called a spirit is much as it was at the time of death. The event of death is a rite of passage; on those who have not been aware of the Spirit within them during life on earth, death can have a very strong effect. Those who already live much in the Spirit may not be greatly changed.

As Walter has told you, the heavens represent many conditions of the human soul or Spirit. Before fully entering the state of the first heaven, the Spirit must continue the journey through Purgatory (where it is purged of evil thoughts and desires) which it had begun on earth. At the time of death, it is plain to see that souls are far from perfect in their love. At this time, they have an occasional taste of heaven, as they did on earth, but it does not last - any more than it did on earth.

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You really must be fluid in your imagination if you are to understand all this.

Just as on earth, a soul may be in one condition at one moment, and another at the next. There are no exact divisions between the heavens.

Some lessons are more easily learnt on earth, because the material senses are very sensitive, and the discarnate soul has lost them and must rely on other ways to learn. On the other hand, in the afterlife the pressures of life on earth – to survive, to eat, to earn a living, to deal with cruelty and indifference in others - are entirely missing, and the soul is surrounded by love, and the helpfulness of the Good Spirits of Heaven, who are there to support and teach.

The obviously imperfect state of the soul at death is one of the main reasons why people on earth have devised the theory of reincarnation. If the soul were to enter another body, and go through the cycle of life on earth all over again and again, and again this would be one way of purifying that soul, and ridding it of the dross which prevents it from experiencing the pure love of heaven.

But then, there would be no need for the many conditions of the heavens; and Walter, a spirit who has recently lived on earth and is now mostly in the first heaven, can assure you that these really do exist, As to reincarnation Walter thinks it very possible that some highly evolved spirits may elect to return to earth in order to help mankind. It seems likely; though Walter has asked, and spirits in the first heaven know nothing definite about it. But Walter is equally certain that spirits in what you might call the lower heavens do not reincarnate, so it is not the common practice.

Now, would you like Walter to tell you more about death, and the afterlife?�

I said I would. I also said I had probably not taken in all he had told me already. These new ideas are not easy to absorb. “Walter understands that. You are not doing too badly.

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Well first, death itself. By the way, never try to find other words to express death. Every material body dies, and it is better to be honest about it. The Spirit cannot die.

At death, life withdraws from the cells and nervous system of the material body, including the brain; that is, from the body’s chemical and electromagnetic parts. Some of the Etheric body is temporarily retained, because the mind thinks it can’t do without it. This is not true, and the mind soon gets used to its new conditions.

“What did the mind think it couldn’t do?”

“Like you, it finds it hard to believe that it can think without the brain, see without physical eyes, or manage without the other senses. Don’t forget, we are talking about any ordinary mind, which is still much as it used to be on earth. Perhaps it has never even thought about an afterlife? All of a sudden, it is faced with the reality of it.”

“Yes, I see! To some people it must come as a shock. Especially those who are killed suddenly in an accident - or soldiers killed in battle, for example.”

“Soldiers sometimes try to go on fighting! It is quite difficult for the good spirits to persuade them to stop.”

“I can imagine it - now that you’ve told me. But you had thought about it.

Did you keep your Etheric body?”

“Yes. Because it is the general practice. Some people on earth, those who can see auras, see the Etheric body after death and call it a ghost; but this is only one explanation for ghosts. At other times the discarnate spirit deliberately projects a mental image because it wants to be seen, and this is the ‘ghost.’

But let us get back to the time immediately after death. The chemical elements of the material body are recycled by the earth. (No thing in the universe - no matter or energy - can be destroyed). The electricity and magnetism released from the material body is free to return to the systems of the planet and the universe.

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So what remains? Materialists would have us believe that the reasoning mind and the emotional feelings have also gone, and nothing is left of the personality. Fortunately, as Walter can assure you from his own experience, this idea is quite wrong. The brain is not the mind, nor does the nervous system control any more than the sensory side of the emotional feelings. The mind remains what it always was - a non-material entity or spirit, which during life on earth concerned itself with abstract thought, and with any idea about how to achieve anything, and which carried the energy of desire (the will) which made achievement possible. Although on earth the mind used the brain for routine tasks, it was always capable of thinking without it, and now takes over the work, using the non-material senses of intuition and empathy. (The retention of a part of the Etheric body gave it time to get used to this new situation.)”

“What exactly, is the difference between intuition and empathy?”

“Intuition is what you might call inspired guessing. It enables you to see what will happen, based on what already exists. If you like, it converts possibilities into reality. It is used on earth, but most people do not dare to rely on it. Some people, like yourself, are highly intuitive; but they usually like to check their intuitions against a more reasoned outlook.

Empathy is direct knowledge of the nature of things, events, and people. It gives insight into the hearts and minds of other people, animals, and even things. On earth, one of its uses is to allow a craftsman to know the nature of the materials he works with, and what can be done with them. You will have experienced this faculty when you made pottery.”

“Yes. I know exactly what you mean. One has to become the clay, in a way.”

“That’s right. Both are forms of love.”

I suddenly had a moment of illumination.

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“Walter! Everything which exists in the afterlife is also here during life on earth! We just don’t realize it, or know what to do with it, or how to value it. Is that right?”

“Yes. Walter has already told you that all the subtle bodies are with us on earth, but people don’t live in them. It’s sometimes difficult to make you understand things - but you do get there in the end!

Creation is one whole. It consists of earth, or rather the universe, and heaven. Read the book of Genesis, and you will see that Walter is telling you nothing new. According to Genesis, at the time of creation Heaven was created on the second day, and earth on the third day - a ‘day’ being a stage of creation, you understand.

Heaven belongs to earth - or rather, perhaps we should say, earth belongs to Heaven, since spirit is the origin of matter, and not the other way round or perhaps we should not use the word ‘belongs’ at all; Heaven and earth are one creation, and form a whole. Heaven is the soul of the earth.”

“Do other possible inhabited planets have their own heavens?”

“If they are inhabited, then they will have. If they are not inhabited, their heavens will be only a possibility” “This is fascinating!” I declared. “Then Heaven consists of the souls of those who have lived on earth?”

“And also the souls of those who live on earth now! Try not to think in terms of time, past and future. Your material body is on earth, but your soul is in the same condition as it will be after the death of the body. (As we have said, this condition is not always heaven. It may be illusion or purgatory.)”

“I am thinking of a quotation from Martin Israel’s book Summons to Life. He says: ‘There is, after all, only one existence, and this is eternal life.’”

“Exactly what Walter is trying to explain to you.”

Another idea occurred to me. “You have told me that a mind is its ideas the word ‘mind’, you say, means a collection of ideas; I quote you: ‘a mind without ideas is not a mind, anymore than pages without words are a written 104

book’. So is there an analogy here? Souls are like ideas, and together form the heavens, as ideas form a mind?”

“That’s very good - Walter likes that! It’s quite correct. The reason why you jumped to the conclusion that a body must die before the soul can be in heaven, is that you are living a life dominated by the idea of time. Earth lives in time and space; the heavens live in eternity, which is timelessness - not endless time, you understand.”

“Yet to some extent the heavens live in time, from what you say. Is that only because they are in contact with earth?”

“Not only. Time is the measure of change. Where there is change of any kind, there appears to be time. In the first stages of the afterlife, souls are in process of learning, and therefore of change, so to that extent they live partly in time.

The condition of being is in eternity, whether on earth or in heaven. Where being is changeless, there is no time. When being is pure love, what need is there for change? So the more evolved the soul, the more it lives out of time.

You will have noticed that, on earth, there are occasions when time seems to slow down, or to go more quickly.

‘Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade.’

These lines describe a state of mind where ‘time stands still’. That is because the poet (Andrew Marvell) was describing a condition where, through love, the eternal state of being has taken over from the normal constant change which is life on earth.”

I told him about a quite different incident, when I had noticed a change in the rate of time during a car accident. Other people have had the same experience.

“I was idly watching a car driving towards me. It swerved, and hit a stone bridge. The car seemed to go into the air in slow motion, so that I felt there would have been time to get out a camera and photograph it as slow as that.

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It turned round completely, then landed on its four tyres. No one, thank God, was seriously hurt. I can’t see why that should affect my being, since I didn’t even know the people in the car.”

“In moments of crisis, the human eye and brain can take in impressions at a faster rate; perhaps to give more apparent time to run away! You were in no danger, but you might have been. Yours is quite a usual experience.”

“Well, at least I know you are right in saying that the passing of time is not uniform. As for Andrew Marvell’s poem - when we were talking about the Spirit of the Earth you mentioned the dreaming peace one feels near water, and in other quiet places. This can happen sometimes on summer evenings almost anywhere. Again - time slows down. Yet, oddly enough, it goes only too fast when one is very happy!”

“Walter thinks that is probably for another reason; you are not paying attention to the passing of time at all, you are giving your all your attention in another direction. Perhaps to a much-loved companion.”

“Of course! Attention, you say, is a form of love!”

I wanted to try to imagine what it would be like just after the moment of death. “Will you be there, Walter? Will you greet me when I die?”

“Of course! Walter will be one of the shining forms you first see when you open your eyes to your new life. He will welcome you with so much joy!”

“Before we started to talk about time, we were discussing the soul in the afterlife, and that reminds me that I have been asked to find out from you what happens to babies and young children when their material body dies.”

“Babies, of course, hardly know that they have died, since they don’t consciously know what it is like to be alive; they simply exist from moment to moment. They accept the afterlife without difficulty, as they have accepted conditions on earth.”

“But do they grow up?”

“Just consider what you are asking. How could they grow up in the material body, since that has been left behind?”

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“No - they couldn’t. But the mind could develop.”

“We - that is, human beings - know very little about the mind of a new-born baby, because it cannot tell us at the time, and does not remember when it is older.”

I was following a train of thought. “Since you say the mind can imagine what it likes when it is not constrained by material reality, the baby could imagine an older body for itself if it wanted to, and if this became more suitable when compared with other people.”

“Yes, it could. . . Walter is bound to tell you that he simply does not know!

But one thing he can tell you, there is very little evil in a newborn child. There may be faults in the genes, and there might have been bad pre-natal influences, but with all the loving good spirits to look after it, the baby is unlikely to develop any actual evil.

Walter thinks that babies and small children would very quickly attain the condition where the soul is pure love - much more easily than the rest of us who have so much earthly baggage of get rid of. Don’t forget: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the Kingdom of God.’ (Mark 10.14). Not of Heaven; of God. Walter likes to think of the little ones, with their innocence, being welcomed without hesitation into the presence of God the Creator!’”

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Chapter 11 ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life’s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy……’

“Do you recognise these lines?

“Yes. They come from Wordsworth’s poem ‘Intimations of Immortality’. I think it is one of the most beautiful poems in the English language!”

“You find it beautiful because your Spirit tells you it is true. Beauty and truth, two attributes of the Godhead, are closely linked.

Do you recognise in these lines elements of what Walter has been telling you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You see - Walter’s is not a lone voice! Poets know these truths through the spiritual senses of intuition and empathy.”

“But Walter - the poet suggests that the Spirit in us is asleep! Yet you have told me that the Spirit is fully conscious all the time, and knows everything.”

“You silly goose! It is not the Spirit which is asleep - it is the psyche! It is you yourself, and all the other selves. Of course we are asleep! We have forgotten who we are, and think we are just a material body; or many of us do.”

“So does this happen at birth, as the lines suggest?”

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“The Spirit enters the new entity at conception; without spirit there could be no life. As to the forgetting - that probably happens gradually, as the mind develops. Walter thinks that as the mind becomes no longer a potential but an actuality - that is, once even the simplest ideas are to be found in it - so the Spirit hands over to it the direction of the new human being.

During the embryonic stage, in the womb, the Spirit has guided the growth of the child. The Spirit has all love, and all mind, and if it continued its control the individual would be loving and perfect - but that is not the plan. The psyche of mankind must continue to develop rapidly if we are to fulfil our destiny here on earth. So at birth the Spirit gives up all expression of its ability to act in conscious matters, and hands over its active role to the growing mind, which must learn to make the decisions for the person during life if that person is to develop his or her faculties by use. This will never happen if all decisions are made by the Spirit - you don’t develop if you are never required to take the initiative.

This amazing abrogation of power might well be remembered by those human parents who want to do everything for their children often with the best intentions, but nearly always with the worst results.”

“Walter - I must ask - how on earth do you know all this? I really don’t think it is known to biologists.”

“Biologists are the last scientists to admit the existence of the Spirit at all! so how could they know? No, they don’t know all this. Astronomers often believe in Spirit; perhaps studying the universe gives them a good sense of their own relative unimportance. Biologists seldom. This is a fact, easily checked.

As to how Walter knows it is known in heaven. This is one of the things he has discovered since he entered the afterlife.”

“Walter what is our destiny here on earth, for which we need the psyche to grow?”

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“It is to be God’s agents in the defeat of evil, and for that we will need not only love, but a great deal of intelligence as well. Love and clear thought together form Wisdom Sophia.”

I commented: “Yet you talk as though evil existed only, or mainly, in the human psyche.”

“So it does. But it also exists throughout all the biosphere. Only human beings have conscious thought, so only they can combat evil, whether in themselves or elsewhere.

But to go back to the story of the Spirit arid the psyche. The new chain of command is confirmed by the nature of the material and physical bodies after birth. The mind then commands the body through the pituitary gland and the nervous system, and also the brain and its thoughts.

If, later on, the mind gets hold of wrong ideas, the Spirit will not correct them, but will give the energy of its love to whatever the mind thinks good. All love, and therefore all energy, must come from the Spirit, through the heart; there is no other source.”

I asked: “When you talk about the heart, is that the physical organ or not? I think it isn’t.”

“You are right. The heart has been linked with feeling for so long, all over the world, that it’s easier to go along with the convention. In truth, love cannot be located in any special part of the material body; the entire body is permeated by Spirit! But the nervous centre which deals with feeling is near to the place where people think their heart is positioned (they are usually slightly incorrect). You know a little about the ‘chakras’? In the East they are better informed about matters concerning feeling than we are in the West.

The Spirit directs life in the womb; then it leaves the direction partly to the mother, and partly (later, fully) to the child’s own psyche. The role of the mother (or a really satisfactory substitute) is vital to the child’s good future life.

If love is given in good measure in the first weeks, then the person is never 110

going to lack love in life, either to give or to receive, and he or she will have the best possible protection against evil.

You will find that even women who do not generally love children, or who thought they didn’t want one, will give loving care to a very small baby; this instinct is built into the human race to give children a good start. Food and warmth are necessary too, of course, and the giving of them is the caring part of love; but love itself is the vital factor.

Much evil in the world - though not all - is caused by people who have lacked love in early infancy.”

“Is the father’s love also important to the young baby?”

“He may even be the carer! Then his love is all-important. But nature has endowed the mother with the necessary physical gifts - milk to feed the child, for example - and emotional gifts (psychologists know that women are more often ‘feeling’ people), and society does better to follow the dictates of nature when possible. If there is a mother, then she is the best carer. If she is temperamentally unsuited to the job, which a few women are, then perhaps it is better to find a substitute.”

Something occurred to me. “If the Spirit enters the ovum when it is fertilised, and is fully conscious within the developing baby, then it must from the beginning be fully capable of giving and receiving love. Does the capacity for love depend on the intellect too?”

“That’s difficult to answer. In a way it does. A small baby is capable of giving and receiving all the love in the world, but it doesn’t know it! However, don’t ever get the idea that the need if not there!

But to return to the psyche and the Spirit. When human beings lived in innocence in the ‘Garden of Eden’ stage, the supremacy of the psyche worked very well, because it had not occurred to the young psyche to be selfseeking; it did not even know how to set about getting from life what it wanted for itself, and simply took things as they came, as the animals do. You will have noticed the remarkable acceptance of a well-loved animal.”

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“Yes, I have. It’s true.”

“In those early days, people accepted the experience of each day, and perhaps propitiated the gods in the hope that they would be kind.

They lived like the animals. You cannot say that an animal is ever selfish in any deliberate way. It behaves as the moment dictates, and does not plan for itself at all; any planning is done automatically by the instincts.

But people soon learned to be selfish. They found they were able to arrange things to suit themselves; and so it was that the evil idea of getting what you can for yourself, and your family and friends - who are extensions of your idea of yourself - without considering equally the welfare of others, came into being. This idea may have developed further when the first farmers planted fields of corn; they then considered that they owned the land, and others wished to take it from them, thus causing conflict between people.

The idea in now in the collective conscious mind of the whole human race, and is not the fault of any individual person.

It is original sin.”

This surprised me quite a lot. If I had been asked to define original sin, I wouldn’t have done it like this. On the other hand, plainly ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ is a commandment directly aimed at that sort of thinking. It does all make sense.

Walter went on: “This was the beginning of the crucifixion of the Spirit. The mind loved things because it, or the body, liked them, not because they were intrinsically good. The Spirit could not correct this error without destroying the person. Although all energy comes from the Spirit and the mind can do nothing without it, the mind and not the Spirit has control of the computer which is the brain. The ideas of the mind are stored in the brain. A serious fight between Spirit and mind - feeling and reason - would lead to a breakdown of the mental processes, disintegration of the personality, and madness.

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This how the human being is made. The ideas of the mind have supremacy over the feelings of the heart. People will do what they think they want, or ought, to do, rather than what their loving heart tells them is good. The mind can substitute false ideas of good for true good itself. If the heart protests that some ideas are not good, the mind replies that they are nevertheless expedient - or perhaps pleasant, or exciting, or cannot be avoided.

The actions of a life are initiated by ideas. Without the idea that you should do the shopping, your larder would remain empty. Everything you do started as an idea in the mind. The Spirit, you remember, has given up the active role so that the mind can develop. The Spirit’s love is not able to influence actions unless the mind asks the heart for a value-judgment, and acts upon it; in people committed to goodness, this is what happens. They ask: ‘What is best?’ not ‘What do I want’?’ or ‘What is expedient?’

The heart’s love is always tender - it is the love of God; the mind’s loves can be tough or even cruel because, through original sin, it is determined to have its own way.

This is what we mean by the true loves of the Spirit and the false loves of the psyche.”

“Walter, do you think there is a parallel between the growth of the baby’s psyche, as you have described it, and the change from the primitive to what we call ‘civilised’ life? It seems to me that while the child has no say in its own life, it cannot be selfish, and in the same way, when life is very hard or primitive, the adult person has less chance to get ideas about what he or she wants - what people call their ‘rights’ - and to develop a selfish outlook.”

“Yes. And you will notice that ‘rights’ soon turn into ‘wrongs’ if the selfseeking mind doesn’t get what it wants! It’s a good observation.”

“Then - it seems awful not to wish an easy life for people - but if life is too easy, it’s much harder for them to be good. You have said that the individual is not responsible for the Evil Idea, so they really can’t be blamed if when the going is easy, they become self-seeking.

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Looking back on a long life, I can’t help being struck by the fact that, in this present age, people do seem to expect much too much out of life. Earlier generations were perfectly happy - probably much happier - with much less.

This really is a fact. Now, they simply cannot be satisfied with ‘a modest sufficiency’, but feel they have to fill their houses with whatever is in the shops. Much of it is soon superseded and thrown away. It doesn’t make them really happy, and it gets them into debt. But they can’t seem to stop.

Yet I’m sure the individual person is no different! People in themselves are just as good and loving as they ever were, when you talk to them individually.

And a lot of them don’t like the way the world is going.”

“Walter is always telling you that people are all children of God, and have His Spirit of Love in their hearts! Of course they are no different from earlier generations - how could they be? The genetic make-up of human beings doesn’t change in two or three generations. It remains the same for millennia.”

“Then why . . .?”

“There is at present an upsurge of evil ideas within human society. You are living in one of the countries worst affected. The reasons for this are many.

We could discuss the Spirit of the Age. Or crowd psychology. Most people are not leaders of fashion; they are more likely to follow someone else’s lead.

If a few people behave selfishly and take advantage of others, they will probably achieve a following. This is easier in this age of mass communication. The young, especially, see on television, perhaps, that some pop star has a riotous life style, lives in a grand house, or drives an expensive car, and they think this must be totally desirable, and the goal to be aimed for.

They see that others drink too much or take drugs. And they come to think that this, too, is desirable.

But in fact many people know the main reason for the present-day troubles, and it is even discussed in public. The basic trouble is that, with the best 114

possible intentions, adults have made life too easy for their children. It is an example of love without common sense.

When children were spanked by their parents for misbehaving, it was not those parents who ill-treated their children, since they were motivated by care for the child’s future; and it was not those children who turned out badly. It was, as it always will be, the children who did not have enough love in the form of attention.

This misplaced leniency, together with lack of love (attention) has been going on for nearly a century, so several generations of people are now affected. Changes in the community’s lifestyle have compounded the fault.

But do not despair. As you have realised, men and woman are no worse at heart than they used to be. There is a great deal of evil in society now, and more and more people are coming to dislike it. If evil is in the open, people can see it, and hopefully deal with it; if it is hidden, it grows unnoticed. It has surfaced in other ages, and has been contained.”

“Then are you hopeful?”

“Heaven is very much concerned. As Walter has told you, Heaven is the soul of the earth and is allowed to give it illumination. Every person living on earth is looked after by more than one guardian spirit. These spirits can make contact with the unconscious mind of their charges, and can put into those minds ideas which may influence the earth people for good, if they will take heed. The spirits cannot speak direct to the conscious mind, and only a few people have, like you, the gift of bringing unconscious illumination into the conscious mind.”

“What is this gift?” I asked, for of course I haven’t the faintest idea how I do it.

“It is rather like musical ability - you just have it, or you don’t. And then, even if you do have the gift, you need someone you trust in heaven to send the messages, and enough love between the two of you to form a strong link.

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Walter knows very well that if you had not loved and trusted him so well, you would have refused to write with him. Isn’t that so?”

I thought of all the doubts I have had. “Yes, it is.”

“And then, the spirit in heaven needs to be a good sender, and the person on earth a good receiver. There is a lot against the success of communication like ours.

No - the earth will not be saved by conscious contact with heaven. We can only hope that people on earth will come to listen to their own good hearts.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Walter will tell you what he thinks. But don’t forget that the future is only a possibility until it happens. With intuition and empathy, people - and spirits can make a good guess, but they don’t know.

When God created the biosphere he intended that in the end it should stand alone. He did not intend to interfere with it more than he had to, in order to prevent it from destroying itself. Nor would it be allowed to destroy the planet Earth. God would not destroy the human race, even to save the earth but he doesn’t need to. As it is, it takes all the efforts of heaven to prevent it from destroying itself!

The plan worked well until creatures, and especially humans, began to get ideas about how they ought to be living, and what was due to them as their rights. The fact is that individual creatures cannot have the right to any particular way of life if the whole of society is to thrive. Each must play the part allotted to that person. The welfare of the individual is looked after by the sense of responsibility for others which is built in to the nature of creatures not only humans, but other animals too, as you know.

If the individual becomes concerned with its own welfare beyond the point where this becomes a burden on the community, then the whole of that society disintegrates.

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This happened to the Roman Empire, and is the reason why all civilisations have so far died out. Individuals become self-concerned, and the good of society is disregarded. It simply doesn’t work.

Do not imagine that human nature has changed. It is reacting to the mood of the times.

What happens to Western culture now depends on whether the natural good in individuals is, or is not, stronger than the wrong ideas which have become prevalent. Because of good modern communications, the present situation is new to the world, and no one can tell how it will work out.

Although the Western World is dominant, do not forget that it does not include all the human beings on the planet. If Europe and America were to cease to exist, there would still be the sub-continent of India, the vast territories of China, and the whole of Islam; to mention only the larger units.

God did not create only the Western World! He created mankind.”

I asked: “Do you mean that evolution has a sort of built-in fail-safe factor, so that if people take the wrong course the whole structure collapses, and they have to start again at the point where they went wrong?”

“You are absolutely right; that is how it is. If ever, when things become relatively easy, and people have enough to eat and good warmth and shelter, they still work together for the common good, without snatching what they can for themselves; if ever that time comes, then their civilisation will not collapse but will go on to a better and better life. Even to paradise on earth. It hasn’t happened yet.”

“Do you think there is any hope for us?”

“Walter simply doesn’t know whether the present world culture can be saved. You yourself can make as good a guess.”

“How far back do you think we would have to go? If we survived at all?”

“Perhaps to the Ice Age? Again, who knows? Walter doesn’t know any more than you do. At present it looks as though the world’s weather may 117

present a drastic solution. There may even be another Ice Age. We will have to wait and see.�

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Chapter 12 Walter has told me that, during its time in the womb, the Spirit looks after the development of the new child, at birth handing over its care to the mother and then gradually to the child’s own psyche. He has also told me that during life it is the mind, with its ideas, which makes all decisions for the individual. It occurs to me that I don’t really know what all this means.

“Walter - by what mechanism does the Spirit care for the growing embryo?

And exactly how does the psyche influence us during life? Is it consciously, or is it through the unconscious mind?”

“These are two different questions. Let’s take the first one first. What you mean is that as the Spirit cannot touch the material body, there must be some way in which it causes the body to react. Is that right?

“Yes, exactly.”

“Well, as you know by now, all energy comes from the Spirit, which is Life itself. Cells have an inbuilt desire to divide and reproduce. You could say that this idea, or instinct, is in the mind of each cell. To a cell, this would be Love of Living. The Spirit can choose which cells divide and how, by giving energy to some and not to others. In this way it can encourage some cells to form for instance - a nose, and prevent others from growing in an inappropriate place. That’s a sort of shorthand answer. Is it good enough?”

“Well, it does give me a general idea, but I have a couple of questions. You talk about the division of cells being discouraged by the Spirit if it is not required. Yet in the case of cancer, the cells are not prevented from overreproducing; why is this?”

“Walter was talking about what happens before the birth of the child. He has told you that when the individual life on earth begins at birth, control is given to the child’s own psyche, so that the Spirit is no longer in charge. We do not think that a child has ever been born with cancer. This develops later,

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when the psyche is in control, and wrong ideas in the psyche itself are the main cause of it.

What else did you want to know?”

“What about genetic faults? Can the Spirit not prevent these from developing?”

“No it can’t. These are in the DNA, and no amount of love with cure them.

We have been talking about the material body. As you know, your actions are controlled by ideas in the mind. No idea: no action. A person in a coma cannot act.

Where the mind is concerned, in the early stages of the embryo the Spirit will give love (energy) to those ideas it wants to encourage and not to others.

At birth, as you already know, the Spirit abrogates its power of veto, and will give love to any ideas of the mind. An idea carries the tenderness of love which gives desire, and the energy of love, which fuels the action. The result of the action is then the light of love, which as we have said before can be all sorts of things.

Does that give you a good enough answer to your first question?”

“Yes. The Spirit controls both body and mind by the giving or withholding of love; that is, energy.”

“Good. Then we will go on to the second question. But first, Walter wants to tell you something about the unconscious mind. In depth psychology, this is considered to consist of two parts, the Personal Unconscious, whose contents have at one time been conscious, and which is unique to the individual, and the Collective Unconscious, which is shared with all mankind.

This last is usually considered to be a treasure-house of power and important potential. It has even been considered to equate with the Mind of God, or with the collective mind of Mankind, containing all that has ever been known.

The idea is not true. It is consciousness which is important. And also the Personal Unconscious.”

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“But unconscious ideas do exist! They affect mood - and, for that matter, behaviour!”

“Of course they do. And it is very difficult - sometimes impossible - to reach them and change them for the better. But they exist in the Personal Unconscious.

The Collective Unconscious contains the experience gained during evolution through the lower forms of life, before we became human beings at all, and also from some of mankind’s very early experiences. That is valuable in that it teaches empathy - like the boy Arthur when, as a child, Merlin taught him what it is like to be a bird, and a fish, and other things. (You told Walter you had been reading the legend of King Arthur.) When we humans are able to understand other forms of life, it is because we have been through that stage ourselves and have, as it were, a picture in the Collective Unconscious mind with which to compare anything we find out.’

“Are you telling me there are no ideas in that mind, only pictures?”

“Darling, we simply don’t know what is in it! People on earth have no way of finding out, since if they had conscious knowledge of it, it would not be unconscious! And in Heaven it doesn’t exist. All mind is conscious.

We think the Collective Unconscious must contain pictures, as these seem to influence how some artists see the world. It is also a reasonable assumption, since there was very little of what we would call ‘thought’ in the early stages of evolution, and impressions taken by the growing mind would very likely be in picture form.”

“What about the body processes, like digestion? These are unconscious” “Yes. It is possible that they are controlled by a part of the Unconscious Mind. But Walter doesn’t think so. He thinks - and so do many other spirits that the person’s own Spirit, when it hands over to the psyche at birth, retains control of the body’s internal processes. This would be a wise thing to do.

You can see how disastrous it could be if the conscious mind were able to interfere with these unconscious processes. People might try to change the 121

shape and functions of their body according to fashions and the whim of the moment, or in order to excel at some sport! So Walter thinks that love is given where necessary by the individual Spirit.”

I said I had always thought the body was programmed to operate automatically. “Is the Spirit in control of the autonomic nervous system, then?”

“Both are probably true. No doubt the systems are set up to work on their own, but if things go wrong, the Spirit can intervene.”

“But even so,” I objected, “things do go wrong - with the digestion, for example.”

“The digestion, like other processes, has to work within the framework of the material body - the stomach, intestines, and so on. These are subject to illness, of course. And all illness is caused by wrong thoughts in the mind, usually beyond any control by the sufferer.

Are you any the wiser now?”

“I think so. . . You were talking about the unconscious.”

“Yes. This leaves the Collective Unconscious as a sort of ancestral record, and certainly no treasure-house of knowledge. It knows what snakes and fish and frogs know - but that is nothing compared to the knowledge of humans!

All knowledge, and all power, needs to be conscious, because consciousness is life and reality. This is true right through the Universe, from God to the atom and beyond. The great reservoir of knowledge and power could be the conscious mind itself, if it better understood its own Spirit.

Your second question was: How does the psyche influence us through life on earth? You really already know the answer to this. The psyche is the seat of ideas, and we are controlled by our ideas. In fact, the mind is its ideas, and without ideas we could do nothing. You might say, we would be nothing.

Are you answered?”

I said I thought I was. “But it’s a new idea that the conscious mind is - or could be - the treasure-house of knowledge and wisdom. I suppose the truth is that, as things are, it isn’t!”

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“That is because not many people on earth are as yet living in their spiritual bodies, although these are with them on earth. The Spirit is conscious; if you are ever to live in spiritual bodies, and not only in the material and Etheric ones, it will be consciously. If Evil is to be defeated, it will be by consciously loving Good.”

He went on: “Walter has said that most people love God in their hearts.

When they come to acknowledge this, when they love him with the reasoning mind as well as in the heart, they will no longer do any evil thing. Well - will they?”

“No. That’s quite true; they won’t.”

A thought occurred to me: “You said we don’t ‘yet’ live in our spiritual bodies. Presumably that means we will one day? If you compare the human race to a growing child, how old would you say it is? How far have we got in the journey of its life on earth?”

“Walter would say it is a toddler; perhaps two years old.”

“Good heavens! Is that all? Then will we change altogether? I have sometimes wondered whether we would end up even a different shape, as the demands of life change.”

“Not a different shape. The material body is already exactly right for life on earth, and the head has grown larger to accommodate the larger brain.

Nothing more is needed. It is the psyche which needs to develop. And will unless disaster prevents it from doing so.”

“You know,” I said, “in spite of all you have said about the psyche, I still find it difficult to know to what degree it can be equated with the mind. I mean, what is the difference?”

“The psyche is the mind and non-material emotional centre of a living person. You are not alone - many psychologists would be hard put to tell you what they think it is! During life on earth, the psyche controls, and interacts with, the electro-magnetic (etheric) part of the living body. For this reason the materialists can think of it as material, and do. They are wrong; the psyche is 123

a spirit. In books on psychology you will read that mechanical thoughts and feelings, verging on sensation of the physical body, are attributed to the psyche. But in fact, thoughts and feelings controlled by the brain and nervous system, such as fear, hunger, lust or anger, are not a part of the psyche at all, but belong to the material body.

Some are evil, and some necessary on earth; all die with the body, or are shed in the afterlife as soon as possible. What continues after death is the true psyche - creative thought and emotional feeling.

People living on earth experience the psyche as intuition, empathy, and creative imagination, and also the will which powers them.”

“Not as ideas?”

“Certainly as ideas! All the three words which Walter has just given you are functions powered by the will (love) and giving rise to ideas.

Walter has already explained that while ‘creative imagination’ sounds rather grand, in fact it is the most everyday thing in the world. Some people might think they haven’t got any - but they certainly have! Without it, they would not be able to plan the simplest day. Creative imagination accounts for all actions from getting out of bed in the morning to painting a masterpiece. Knowledge and empathy tell you how to do it, and intuition tells you the likely result Every act is a creation, resulting in something that was not there before, and it involves imagination because in order to know whether it should be done you have to look into the future - perhaps only a minute hence, but that is still future; the result of your action cannot possibly be with you in the present, when you are still wondering how or whether to do it! The psyche includes the desire to create (to act), and the energy of that desire (that is, the tenderness and energy of love). These two contents of the psyche are everyday things, and account for every large or small action, every day of your life. If you did not see in imagination (and where else would you see it, for it is not there in the present) the boiling water in your kettle, you would not 124

put it on the fire, and you would not get your cup of tea! The mere sight of a kettle is not enough to tell you that water can boil.

“Well, but you would never know unless someone told you! Or unless you were the first to discover it.”

“Quite right. The psyche also includes knowledge - which, when you think about it, consists of ideas about all sorts of things. The mind of the psyche consists of its ideas - remember? - and these may come from personal experience, from some other psyche, or from a source like a book, which is the same as getting it from another person. True knowledge is experience, the truth of which has been personally discovered, or is known by intuition.

Facts which you get second hand are not knowledge until they enter your own psyche as known truth, and when they do this they transform the psyche itself.

Your true self includes the truth you know: real knowledge and being are the same thing.

Some people are crammed with facts they have not experienced, and which have not therefore affected their psyche. These constitute a false personal being. Once experienced, some of these facts may enter the psyche and become part of the real person, but until they do they are useless, and may be harmful. ‘I always thought that marmalade was green!’ could be said by someone who has never seen or eaten marmalade. That wouldn’t matter too much. But what about: ‘I always thought all business people could be trusted,’ or ‘I always thought all red berries were edible.’? Both ideas might lead to disaster. But far worse - and not that uncommon: ‘I always thought all foreigners were dangerous, and should be killed.’”

A thought struck me. “I went wrong over an idea, didn’t I - that discarnate spirits had all knowledge and wisdom! If I hadn’t thought that, I wouldn’t have trusted the ancestor’ spirits, and got my fingers burned.”

“Walter is glad you realise that! You see - you have gained knowledge, and it has entered into your being. Now, for the future, you know.

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All people hold some ideas which are second-hand and possibly dangerous, and some people are so full of them that they have hardly any true identity at all. You may wonder how they survive in the world. Well heaven looks after them, and a sore trial they are to their guardian spirits!”

“I suppose they usually get these ideas from their parents, or family, or from their peers?”

“Very often. On the other hand, most families pass down good ideas to their children, and only a few bad ones, so don’t blame them for all evil.”

“The trouble at present is that young people won’t listen to their elders, for good or ill.”

“Absolutely true. But Walter thinks this will pass. It must, if the human race is to survive.

People often feel they need to build a protective wall between themselves and the rest of the world, and to do this they use some ideas which are true and some which are not, creating a facade behind which they can hide their weaknesses. With this shield they feel they cannot be attacked at their weakest points, as no one will know which they are. Psychologists have called this false person the Persona, after the masks worn by actors in Ancient Greece to identify the characters they were playing. (This is still done in Japanese theatre.) The Persona does not only hide weakness; it can present a brave show, and add greatly to the stature of the personality.

In some people it is very like the real person behind it; in others it is almost entirely false.”

I said I thought most people had a Persona to some degree, acquiring it during their teen years, or sometimes even earlier, “One of the tasks of growing up - often not finished until quite late in life is to get rid of the false hits, until the face you present to the world represents as exactly as possible the true nature behind the mask.

“I think I was seventy or more before I really achieved this. And, oh! the joy when one does - the sense of release!”

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“You have done well if you have achieved it at all!

So long as the mask is not too far from reality, and can be taken off at will, it is not too dangerous and can be helpful, as the world is a hard place and few people can face it without protection. But the Persona can grow on to the person so that it cannot be taken off, and then it prevents the proper growth of the psyche, leading to self-deception and loss of identity, for in the end the person no longer knows which is the Persona and which the real self.

“Like the Red Shoes which grew on to the little girl’s feet, in that most dreadful of fairy tales.”

“Yes. Fairy tales tell us the truths. The little girl was determined to have her own way - to wear the Red Shoes, and to dance in them. She saw this as the expression of her own self. Then she couldn’t take them off, and could not stop dancing, although she was dropping with fatigue.

At death, this inability to shed the Persona causes a terrible dilemma, because all falsehood in the personality must be discarded before the psyche can join the Spirit and progress through the heavens.”

“Before the ‘Golden bowl’ of the Lustral body can be ‘broken’?”

“Well done! Yes, exactly.”

“When the Lustral body has been superseded, does the psyche, with the Spirit of Love, then live in the Astral body.”

“Yes. That is what it is called. What it means is that the feeling part of the spirit person is then all love, and is no longer contaminated with any bad feelings.”

I had to smile at Walter’s determination that I should not use names (of bodies or anything else) without fully understanding what those names represent. As Shakespeare pointed out, the name of a thing is not its identity, merely a convenient label.

“Walter, you have said that some things are more easily learned here on earth than in the afterlife. Is this one of them - discarding those parts of the Persona which are not true to yourself?”

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“Yes, it is.

The psyche is mental spirit. Without it the body would be - not a lump of meat, as it would be without the individual Spirit - but a cabbage. The psyche and the brain are not synonymous; you know that, but it is very important that you should remember it. The psyche is a spirit; the brain is part of the material body. The mind part of the psyche uses the brain as a tool; it no more is the brain than a carpenter is his adze. Damage to the brain damages, not the psyche, but the connection between the two.”

“That accounts for the feeling one gets with brain-damaged people that something within them understands only too well, but cannot communicate what they know and want.”

“Yes. It is a sad fact that this was not understood until recently. People were treated cruelly for what is no more than a mechanical malfunction.

Also, much of what people believe to be intelligence is intellect, and belongs to the electro-magnetic system of the brain - which works better in some people than in others, but is never a spiritual function. Electro-magnetism is not a spirit, it is material; in the language of heaven, the Etheric body.

If the psyche stretches out to learn all it can by personal experience, or by the exercise of its intuitive knowledge of truth (which is given by contact with the Spirit of Love), then it will grow and develop, and live in its own Lustral body.

This is the object of our experience on Earth. To allow the psyche to reach its full potential. As Walter has told you, there are certain lessons which are learned more easily on earth (though sometimes not without suffering).”

“Is that why a hard life can in some ways be a blessing?”

“Yes, it is. Some lessons can be learned only with difficulty in the continuing life in the conditions of heaven, after the death of the material body. What you do not learn now, you will have to learn later, and it may be harder - that is the simple truth. We do not stop learning just because we 128

have finished with the physical body. And just as well, for you will agree that no one is perfect at the end of life on earth.”

“Well, that’s true enough! But why is it harder to learn in the afterlife? I would have thought that it would be easier to take things in, without the pressures of living on earth, and when you are surrounded by loving and helpful spirits.”

“Dear love, you are making the all-too-human mistake of judging others by yourself! You are so anxious to learn that you will not find it hard. But many people don’t want to give up their wrong ideas! They will fight to keep them!

All the love in heaven finds it hard to get through to someone who is determined not to have it.

That’s why learning can be hard in the afterlife. It is painfully difficult to give up your most cherished ideas. But every soul learns in the end. The Church Father, Origen, taught that every person in the world, however evil, would be saved in the end, and this is the blessed truth. Thanks be to God! “So Walter, can I summarize what you have told me.

On earth, the psyche is both thought and feeling, for the two cannot be separated. It is also the individual self - which presumably consists of thought and feeling?”

“Yes. And while on earth, temporarily of sensation.”

“So Descartes was not too far wrong when he said: ‘I think, therefore I am’?”

“Walter believes he put too much emphasis on thought and forgot feeling.”

“Well - yes. . . But that was a diversion. The intellect, as opposed to intelligence, is the work of the mind using the brain as a tool, and is material.”

“Yes.” “In the heavens, thought and feeling gradually become entirely loving; the psyche then joins with the individual Spirit to live in the Astral body. This - the ‘Pitcher’ of Ecclesiastes - is eventually superseded, and the psyche and 129

Spirit, thought and love together in the Glorified body, return unto God who gave life to them.”

“Good. You have understood. The glorified person will retain personality all the good things gained by each of us during life on Earth and in the heavens, and will return to God bearing this treasure.”

“Dare one say - by which God will be enriched?”

“That is the hope of the spirits of heaven.”

“What a wonderful thought!”

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Chapter 13 A proper medium contacts lots of spirits, and while I never think of myself as a medium, of course I have wondered whether I could do so. “But only through a contact in the afterlife,” Walter points out to me. “You must surely realise that Walter is not cut out for the job of a medium’s spirit guide!”

Well, that’s true enough. It wasn’t a serious desire on my part; I just wondered. However, apart from Walter and the ancestor spirits, I am confident that I have written with the spirit of one other person. Possibly one other - but only one, so far as I definitely know.

Christopher had two sons, my grandsons John and Simon, with two years between them. It’s a lucky grandparent who knows their grandchildren well, and I had a particularly good relationship with mine. The whole family lived together in one house for a while - not altogether a good idea. But the children, then about five and seven, used to come with me to walk the dog in the woods. I also took them swimming in the river in the days when rivers were not polluted as they are now.

In the woods, I taught them to climb trees as I had done at their age. They used to inch along a horizontal branch, about five feet up, and jump so that I could catch them, and John still remembers how much they enjoyed themselves. He talks about the time when he jumped when I was not expecting him; we both rolled down a slope into a bed of stinging nettles, and lay there laughing, while Simon sat straddled in the tree, impatiently awaiting his turn. Simon was always impatient. He was the bright one, full of energy and enthusiasm. The sort of child you have to repress sometimes, for his own good.

As Simon grew up, he managed to keep in the top few of his class at school, though he said to me: “It’s not fair, Granny! The really bright ones can get away with doing no work at all! I have to work like stink to keep up with them.”

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I moved house when they were fourteen and sixteen. John, the hardworking, reliable one, shifted tons of earth to level some of the sloping garden for me, while Simon, gifted in so many ways, built artistic d-i-y-stone walls, to support paths and flower-beds, with the quantities of Mendip stone lying about everywhere.

In due course, Simon chose the army for his career, was accepted by his grandfather Stuart’s regiment, and went to Sandhurst (the officers’ training college) having first toughened himself with endless exercise, running, and so on. He was therefore surprised and mortified to find that he couldn’t stay the course. After ten days they sent him home with suspected glandular fever.

Over the next eighteen months, numerous tests failed to locate the real trouble. Then, finally, he was diagnosed as having cancer; non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The next two years were filled with chemotherapy (which he loathed), radiotherapy, and periods of remission. No one could have met the challenge of cancer with more courage. He spoke freely about his illness, even gave talks about it, and kept copious diaries. The family moved to Norfolk, where Christopher’s work took them, and on a visit south Simon met a school friend, who asked how he was.

“Actually,” said Simon, “I’m dying of cancer.” “Well Granny,” he said to me.

It’s so difficult to know what to say when people ask silly questions like that!”

During a good period of remission he made an epic bicycle ride, starting from Norfolk and riding over most of southern England, staying with family and friends (including me), and raising money for the Macmillan nurses. But the cancer was winning. Finally, at the age of twenty-one, he died. By that time he had an enormous tumour, filling most of his chest cavity.

I used to go up to Norfolk (a long journey from Somerset) to see him, and when Christopher told me Simon was near the end of his life, I arranged to go up again. We thought we had a few days. Walter had died some years before, and I had to get someone to take the dog. But the end came too 132

quickly for me, and Simon died just before I was due to go. His father telephoned me with the news.

I went to bed and lay for some time, unable to make up my mind to turn out the light, thinking of Simon as I had known him, and of what his parents and John were going through. Finally, at about midnight, I decided to see whether I could go to sleep. I put out my hand to the light switch, but was arrested by Simon’s voice in my mind saying: “Granny, I want to talk to you.”

I picked up a pen and pad of paper.

The pen wrote: “Granny, I’m all right! The cancer has gone! Isn’t it marvellous?”

We wrote for a while, then I really did go to sleep.

Since then we have written several times, and Simon has given me messages for his parents. Some years ago we had something of a family crisis, and Simon gave me great moral support. I know he is always there.

John, the most down-to-earth of mortals, is occasionally strongly conscious that Simon is with him, and his mother Molly feels his presence in the house.

I asked whether he would write a piece for me to put in this book, and this is what he wrote: “Dearest Granny, I’m so pleased to be talking to you!

I want to say first how much I love and honour you, and how much you have always mattered in my life. I love my parents of course, but you are special!” I certainly hadn’t asked for this tribute but there it is. He went on: “When you come to heaven I will be the first of the spirits to greet you; if Grandfather doesn’t beat me to it - which he probably will!” Walter was no blood relation to the boys, but he was their only living grandfather, and a very successful one.

“By the way, he is so excited about the book you are writing with him! I do hope it’s published, and that lots of people read and love it. Not bad going writing a book at your age! Not that I’m surprised - ‘capable de tout’, my Granny!

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I’m having a most interesting time in the afterlife, and doing not too badly at all. Because I was young when I died, I was given the job of greeting young people and teenagers when they first come here, and showing them how to cope with this kind of life, and I’ve gone on doing it because I like it, and don’t seem to be too bad at it.

There are some suicides, when young people simply couldn’t cope with life, and a lot of them have been killed in accidents of some kind, because luckily not so many young people die naturally, as I did - if you can call cancer natural.

When they are killed in a motor-bike crash, for instance, they can’t think what’s happened to them, and have a hard time believing they are dead - and still living! Especially as lots of them didn’t believe in an afterlife at all. Well, they have to, now! It comes as quite a shock.

Do you remember me telling you that at school I could always know which ones were Christians, because they had more purpose in life? The same applies here. Of course, at school we didn’t have many people from other faiths, and I’m not so narrow-minded as to think that Christianity is the only way - but I still think it’s the best.

Whatever the new young spirits are, I talk to them and get them to know where they are, and to calm down and accept the new life as it is. They have their own special problems compared to older people, and I would say that very often they are dreadfully self-centred and self-willed. Of course, all that has to go before they can be in heaven, and I must say that once you get through the outer layer, so to speak, they soon learn that their old values were all wrong, and won’t do among the good spirits of heaven. They need lots of love and caring for, and most soon respond; luckily they all have one thing in common - they do like being the same as the people round them, and that helps.

I really don’t think parents are very sensible in this generation, as they don’t seem to bring their children up very well, or to give them the right ideas. It’s 134

not as though it were rocket science to learn the basics of good human behaviour! Most young people don’t have a clue. Some do, though, and I’ve made some good friends.

I realise how lucky I was with all my family! What a splendid brother John is. I’m so glad he’s happy in his life and job, and proud of him for refusing to give up what he wanted to do, even if it has no social cachet! John never wanted to do anything but drive, and the bigger the vehicle, the happier he is.

Simon went on: “Besides looking after the new young spirits, I manage to travel quite a bit, sometimes with Grandfather Stuart. You know how much I had always admired what you told me about him, and it was a great thrill meeting him in the afterlife. Of course he has gone back to the best he was on earth - and even better. He has a very strong spirit. You know he went with the astronauts on the first mission to the moon, years ago! He told you, didn’t he, and you didn’t know whether to believe him - or even whether you were really talking to him or not. Well, it’s true. He went with them to give spiritual support. That’s what we do.”

It was very interesting to know that I really had written with Stuart. As Simon says, I doubted it at the time, and didn’t know whether to believe what I was told.

Simon went on: “We’ve been to the space station quite a bit, and on expeditions to places like the North and South Poles, and climbing Everest, and so on. Of course, it’s no hardship to us, as we have no material body to suffer in any way. The people we go with don’t consciously know we are with them, but we are able to make a lot of difference to their morale. That’s what spirits can do. Grandfather Walter has told you that we make contact through the Personal Unconscious minds of people. They don’t know this, because they haven’t got your special gift, but it’s very worthwhile work for us to do, Grandfather Stuart is in his element because he is such a courageous person, and he can give courage to other people.

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That’s all I’m going to say for now, but do talk to me again soon. I send all my very best love to you, dear precious Granny of mine!”

I said, “It’s lovely to talk to you, darling, and to know more about your life.”

It was lovely talking to Simon; but of course quite different from talking to Walter, and fascinating to know that spirits can live so differently in the afterlife! Simon the young adventurer, with his welfare work as well, and Walter . . . Now I think of it, what does Walter do when he is not writing a book with me, or acting as my guardian?

“Walter, what else do you do besides looking after me? I’ve always felt there was something else, something I was hesitant to drag you away from.”

“Darling, there is no question of dragging Walter away from anything! He has told you that without all the demands of material living, we spirits have almost unlimited amounts of the energy of love to give, and can easily do more than one thing at a time.

But yes - Walter has other interests, of course. He acts as a sort of school for those spirits who would like to know more about the material earth and universe; don’t forget that Heaven is a part of earth - its Spirit, in fact and some spirits feel they have not taken advantage of the opportunity when living on the earth to learn about its nature. So they come to Walter, and he teaches them much what he is teaching you.”

“But what you tell me is not just physical science.”

“No. Well, in this book we are not being too technical, because some people might not want it. But you have asked Walter many highly technical scientific questions in the past! And then again, Walter is always telling you that one can’t make sharp divisions; this applies to conditions on earth, and spirits in the afterlife understand that better than you do.”

“Yes, I expect they would. Well, I have learnt something about you, today and about Simon.”

I think that in order to correspond as freely as Walter and I do, the circumstances need to be exactly right. The person on earth has to be a good 136

receiver, and have this gift Walter and Simon talk about. The person in the afterlife has to be a good sender. And there has to be a strong bond of love between them.

“But Walter, something is puzzling me; professional mediums do not have this bond with their spirit contacts, so far as one knows, yet they are able to talk with them.”

“The love may not be for the person; it may be for the contact itself. It may be or humanity, whom the medium wishes to benefit. You can rest assured that there is strong feeling there, in some way or another.

Walter will tell you something. If you had died first, we would probably not be writing together. Walter would be a had receiver, because his mind is not open to the thoughts of others, as yours is; and while yours is a strong spirit, you are hesitant to inflict your ideas on other people, so on the whole you don’t project them.”

“Another thing: why are spirit guides so often Red Indian, or exotic in some way?”

Walter laughed. “In actual fact, they are often a member of the medium’s own family! If the medium is Red Indian, then the guide may well be. If not, it is unlikely.”

“Then why do they say they are?”

“Walter doesn’t really know. It may be that the name would not be significant, and the spirit wants to be taken seriously. It may be that the spirit wants to hide the real name, for some reason. It’s a puzzle, isn’t it?”

“Do you think most professional mediums are genuinely in touch with the afterlife?”

“Do you know, Walter thinks they probably are! There are charlatans in every profession, and no doubt some mediums are not what they seem, and take advantage of the desire of both earth and Heaven to be in contact with each other, and of people on earth to be in touch with those who have died; but most are genuine enough, Walter thinks. That doesn’t mean the spirit 137

person has anything important to say, of course. But in some cases, the mere contact is enough to bring consolation. Does it matter so much, then, if nothing important is said?�

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Chapter 14 I said to Walter: “There is something I really want to ask you about.

Consciousness is a deep and rather exciting mystery. I’ve often tried to think it out, and I can’t say I’ve got anywhere. What on earth - or heaven - is it? I mean, who or what is conscious? Where does consciousness reside?

“Well darling, you do realise that you are asking very difficult questions - to which many people would like to know the answers? Walter will answer you as clearly as he can, but first it would be as well to make sure we have a sound basis to work on.

What is, to you, your own self?”

I answered readily enough, “The psyche.”

“And what is the psyche?

“Well, the dictionary definition is, ‘The principle of mental and emotional life, conscious and unconscious’, which is very near to what you’ve told me although I don’t know whether you would call the Unconscious a part of the psyche? I mean, I couldn’t call the Unconscious part of what I think I am, because I don’t consciously know that it’s there!”

“To be strictly accurate, it is only the conscious part of the psyche which you think of as your own self. But the dictionary is right - the Unconscious is part of it.

The psyche is spirit, and not material. It includes the mind and non-material feelings. It does not include that part of the mechanical mind which uses the brain as a computer, and which is part of the material and Etheric bodies.”

“This seems to me to be a difficult distinction to make, for surely one is constantly veering between true thought and mechanical thought?”

“And why not? Did you think your spiritual life was always dear cut?”

I had to laugh, for Walter is always accusing me of concrete thinking, “All right - no.”

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“Next question - we have talked about the various bodies in which the psyche can live. Do you remember what we said about them?”

“I think so. What we on earth would call the physical bodies are the material and Etheric (electro-magnetic) parts of a person. The Lustral body is thought, when not mechanical. The Astral body is pure love, which is rare on earth. So I suppose you would say that the soul, or psyche, lives in the mechanical or mental body some of the time, its own Lustral body quite a bit of the time, and the Astral body just now and again?”

“That will do very well. Now Walter can talk to you about consciousness.

You - the psyche, which is your non-material self - give love in the form of attention or awareness to whatever exists in that moment for whichever body you happen to be living in, and the result is your consciousness.

Consciousness shifts from one part of the self and its environment to another, and back again, and it can expand or contract, to take in more or less of what is there. You can look at a small area by the beam of a torch, or you can switch on the electric light and see all at a glance. (We can carry the analogy further by saying that to be in the sunlight, which is so much stronger than electricity, you would have to be illuminated by the love of the Spirit.)

It is the mind which directs the beam, which may be bright or dim.

Sometimes it shows up the physical body; when you are lying in the sun, for example, or swimming in the sea, making love, eating a delicious meal - or perhaps, on the contrary, feeling cold and hungry. You may be swamped by physical sensation and have hardly a thought in your mind. Attention - love is all with the body.

Sometimes the beam of consciousness lights up the mind, either the psyche or its intellect: you may be working out a problem, planning something you hope to make, or just doing the accounts or some routine mental job which takes all your attention.

The mind can also be in Limbo, which is not a state of consciousness at all, when you are lost in daydreams which have nothing to do with reality, making 140

up imaginary conversations, or having improbable adventures. These mental activities can be creative, but often they are not, and they can be dangerous.”

I said: “I’ve heard this theory before - that consciousness is like the beam of a torch, and I’ve never understood it! Now I’m getting the idea. But what makes the beam either bright or dim?

“Your good or bad contact with the Spirit, of course.”

“And if the psyche’s awareness of the Spirit is really good?”

“Consciousness, when illuminated by the Spirit, gives the psyche (the person) a taste of heaven. The psyche’s condition can be said to shuffle continually between earth and Heaven, depending on its awareness. The first heavens are not unknown to people on earth and from the eternal point of view the soul is always in heaven - only, for most of the time during life on earth, the rest of consciousness is not with it. In its constant expansion and contraction, it can include body, mind and spirit together in a flash of heightened awareness, or it can contract, to lodge in one small area of the body - as in the case of severe toothache, which can drive out every other consideration.”

“Could you say that you are conscious of what you think you are, or experience in some way, at that moment?”

“Yes, you could.”

“And that you need to give love, in the form of attention, to a thing before you can be conscious of it?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“When one is doing a difficult job, one has to give full attention to it, and sometimes there is no energy to notice anything else.”

“You are right to use the word ‘energy’, for what you are giving is the energy of love. The more you have to give, the more you can do your job without losing sight of the rest of your surroundings.”

“And good contact with the Spirit means more love - and energy - to give?”

“Of course. The Spirit is Love, and is the source of love to the psyche.”

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I wanted to ask Walter about the sense of ‘I’ which everyone has at the centre of their being the sense of intensely personal identity What - I imagine - Descartes meant when he said, ‘I think, therefore I am’. “Walter, what is the ‘I’?”

“What do you think it is?”

“From what you’ve told me - the psyche.”

“In fact, the true ‘I’ is the individual Spirit. During life on earth, what you think it is depends on which body the psyche is living in at that moment. In children, the sense of personal identity is usually absent until the age of about three; until then they often refer to themselves by name - ‘John does this’, or ‘Mary does that’. They have identity, for themselves, only as one of a group.”

I said thoughtfully that I remembered, as a child of about six, getting the most intense and immediate feeling of isolated personality - the realisation that, while I saw everyone else from the outside, I was shut up inside this person, and must share whatever happened to her through life! I found this terrifying, I remember praying, Please God, let me out!”

“Then you were a very conscious little girl!”

“Of course, it wasn’t there all the time, this feeling. It just came over me sometimes. Looking out of one’s eyes, from inside one’s head, instead of looking at people more casually as one normally does! As one gets older, it comes less and less. I can still call it up if I want to, but most of the time life is too full of other things. And I’ve long ago got used to the whole idea, and no longer find it frightening.”

“It is a wise psyche which views the future life with caution, for everyone will suffer pain to some extent. But the future cannot be avoided, and in the event courage is given. It’s important not to dread the future too much, because courage is not given until the time comes.

Where in your body did you feel the sensation of ‘I’” “That’s very hard to answer. Not just in the head. No - I think it was more a feeling than a thought.”

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“Yes. It is very difficult to say where consciousness resides, because it is probably not quite what you think it to be. It is neither a state of being, nor a state of mind. It is, in fact, the awareness of being alive! The Spirit is Love and also Life. Awareness of it gives life and consciousness, which can appear to be in body, mind or spirit.

The body feels alive when it is well and healthy, and then we say its vitality is good. When it is asleep, the sense of existence is absent, and although it is still alive it is no longer in contact with the world around or with its controlling psyche. The power of movement, by the way, is partially switched off in the brain you may turn over in your sleep, for example, but you do not normally get up and walk (in sleepwalking, something has gone wrong with the switch.). This is so that the body shall get the rest it needs. In dreaming sleep, the body may make small movements, but it does not follow through the impulse towards, for instance, running. Think how inconvenient it would be if it did! Automatic functions continue, like breathing, digestion, and the circulation of the blood. So they do when the person is in a faint, or a coma.

A person in these states is unconscious, and not aware of their surroundings.

The body as such has no mind above cell level. For mind, it depends on the psyche, through the central nervous system and the brain.

The psyche is capable of being conscious in a much wider sense than the material body. It has not only knowledge, but reflection. It knows that it knows. It is aware of the conditions of its life, (and normally those of the body). It has memory of the past and, through its creative imagination, it can protect into the possible future.

During life on earth, when the body is unconscious, the psyche is cut off from its material surroundings and therefore appears unconscious too; for a body, don’t forget, is the vehicle of communication with the world you are living in - for the material and Etheric bodies this world is the material and physical planet Earth, and the psyche is dependent on them while it lives on 143

earth. It could use its senses of empathy and intuition, but these give a different kind of awareness - and anyway, it has not yet fully learned to do so.

The psyche is not cut off from the Spirit when the other two bodies are unavailable; even scientists on earth are becoming doubtful about whether the mind is totally unconscious when the body is under an anaesthetic or in a coma. From the point of view of Heaven it is not unconscious, but from the earthly point of view, it appears to be.

You see how complex the subject is!”

“What about the condition of body and mind during sleep?”

“From the point of the view of the person themselves, both are unconscious. Neither is able to communicate with the world around.”

“And what about dreams?”

“During certain periods of sleep, the mind becomes active, it tries to tell the body to move, but this it cannot do, or only slightly. This is the period of dreaming sleep.”

“Walter - what are dreams, actually?”

“Walter thinks that dreams are just what they seem to be - a tangled skein of different threads. No doubt, the mechanical mind is getting rid of all sorts of material it no longer needs, by exteriorizing it. The psyche is giving expression to feelings and thoughts which have been repressed, and lessening their pressure in this way. We think the Spirit is using this avenue of opportunity to tell the psyche - which will not always listen when it is awake things it ought to know, and things it ought to do. This would account for the ‘Big Dreams’ spoken of by Australian Aborigines and North American Indians, and experienced all over the world. They tell important truths because they come from the Spirit.

One thing is certain - dreaming is no accident it is too predictable in occurrence and timing for that it is essential for the good health of body and mind, both.

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You already know that the Spirit is always conscious. In fact, consciousness in body and mind is their sharing of the life of the Spirit Mind and body both share it, to a degree depending on three things: the condition of their being, their true knowledge, and how far they are able to live in the present moment - the moment now.

The body knows this sharing as vitality, and the psyche knows it as awareness of life, of the truth of existence. In fact, as consciousness.

“So what prevents body and mind from sharing the life of the Spirit all the time? And just what difference would it make to them if they did?”

“The difference would be, that the body would be perfectly healthy and full of vitality, and the mind would be in heaven all the time. What prevents this, is the ideas of the mind. The psyche is the individual. It includes heart and mind, If the heart were full of love, not corroded by such feelings as anger, jealousy, hate, or undue self-concern, and the mind were to put the welfare of others and of creation first, and its own desires second, then the psyche would be totally happy, and the body would be totally well. It is the psyche which controls the welfare and health of the body. Wrong thoughts in the mind cause malfunctions at every level of being material and psychic.

But while what Walter has said is true, it does not alter the fact that illness of any kind deserves sympathy and help from all who can give it. It is the responsibility - the sacred duty - of each person on earth to care for other people.”

I asked: “Why did you say that the body and psyche can share the consciousness of the Spirit only in the present moment? If consciousness is the life of the Spirit, the Spirit is eternal and not time-bound, so why is the present moment so important to it?”

“You have to look at it, not from the Spirit’s point of view, but from the point of view of the body and psyche.

The body gains knowledge through its physical senses and, as you know by experience, these operate in the present moment or not at all. When you 145

sit on a pin, the pain is not an hour ago, or tomorrow. If it is to share in the Spirit’s life, the body can only do so on its own terms. That is - now.”

“If I have got it right, sensations are actually processed in the brain - in the Etheric body?”

“Yes, that is true.”

“And the mind of the psyche controls the brain? Can one separate the life of body and psyche at all?”

“Good question! During life on earth, they are all part of the incarnated individual as a whole, and cannot really be separated.

Both pain and pleasure are felt as much in the psyche as in the body. If the mind refuses to tell the body that it is suffering them, it will feel nothing. The term ‘mind over matter’ is a statement of the truth. The psyche carries the body’s consciousness most of the time.”

“Then why can’t we simply switch off pain, when it gets too bad?

“You could, if you had perfect control of your bodily and psychic processes.

It is believed, probably with truth, that holy people in places like Tibet can sit in a cave during the coldest mountain winter, with no extra clothing, and without suffering from cold, simply by controlling their body temperature through willpower. They have trained mind and body until they can do this.

They are people of high spiritual being.”

“But why can’t we do the same? Are we not supposed to have so much control over ourselves?”

“A certain degree of pain and discomfort is good, it is a warning signal of danger - surely you know that? Without the pain of burning, a child would not be warned to avoid the fire. Without the discomfort of feeling cold, people (especially the elderly) would endanger their lives from hypothermia.”

“Yes I do know. But excessive pain is not good. Sick people and creatures can suffer badly, and evil people can inflict pain on purpose.”

“That is only too true, but there are several factors here. What does ‘excessive’ mean? It depends on what people expect from life. Comparatively 146

recently, in this county, people have come to think of any pain or discomfort as unacceptable. Walter knows that you personally were trained in early life as Walter was - to put up with a certain amount of pain without complaining; not too much, but at least a little. In the present generation, in the Western world, because life is comparatively easy (no one starves, or goes seriously without necessities) and painkillers abundant, many people imagine they can go through life with no pain or discomfort at all! If, in these people, the psyche could tell the body to feel no pain, it would do so, sometimes with very adverse results. You can’t have it both ways. Either you have your early warning system, which is pain, or you don’t But to go back to consciousness, and the need for immediate experience.

When René Descartes said ‘I think, therefore I am’, he was reflecting the fact that in all living people, and in thinking types in particular, consciousness is generally focused on the psyche, and ‘feels’ as though it were in the head. To share the experience of the body, (we all know the term ‘absence of mind’) the mind must be giving attention (love) to the body in the moment now.”

I was surprised. “I thought you were going to say that the body must be aware of the mind, not the other way round!”

“Oh dear! How can the body, which is aware only with its physical senses, know the existence of mind, which is spirit? Physical senses are not designed to recognise spirit, and they don’t. The body is never aware of mind or spirit except as vitality. Apart from that it knows only sensory feelings.

No. The mind must be aware of the body. And it must do so in the present moment if it is to share what the body knows.

The mind’s own life also exists in the present. It takes the form of ideas, as you know by now. It gets these from several sources; often from another person, or a book, which is the same thing, When it accepts an idea, it can plainly only do so at the moment when the idea if given - or possibly at a later moment, when it ‘sinks in’. Then that moment is ‘now’ for that given idea.

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The psyche could share all consciousness, through the love of the Spirit, in the form of direct knowledge or intuition; but this not only must be done in the present instant, it involves the mind’s opening its awareness to include a spectrum of knowledge wider than its own usual activities. We all do this to a limited extent, or we could not live as children of God, but we do it to only to a limited extent, even the best of us.

The non-material senses of the mind, creative imagination, empathy and intuition, also operate in the present. Creative imagination operates now, to see future possibilities - not future events. When people claim to foretell the future it is because probabilities can be interpreted more clearly by creative imagination than most of us realise.”

I said slowly, thinking it out: “So awareness is something which needs to be given. Does it involve the giving of love - attention, perhaps? unconditionally?”

“Yes, dear one, it does! That is the exact truth.”

“And could you call consciousness the psyche’s admitted knowledge of what exists; what is. Of the truth. Of what you call the Light of God’s Love?’

“Well you are really progressing! Soon Walter won’t be able to teach you anything at all!”

That’s a bad joke. I’m groping on the fringes of understanding any of it! And well you know it! Just now and again a ray of light brings illumination.’

“Walter is pleased that you have learned that reality - what actually exists at that moment - is the light of God’s love.

You, the psyche, give love, in the form of attention or awareness, to what actually truly exists, and the result is consciousness. There! You have the definition you wanted.”

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Chapter 15 Walter has told me about the nature of consciousness, but there are many related questions I still need to ask him. For instance, he says that the attention given in consciousness is love. “Is it the energy of love? I ask because giving attention is undoubtedly tiring.”

“If your attention includes enough of the tenderness of love, giving it will not be tiring, because as soon as tender love is given, it is replaced by the Spirit.

You must know that working on something you really love is not tiring at all!”

“I have noticed that! And I suppose that is why when you truly love someone the love you have to give is unlimited? I mean, because it is immediately replaced by the Spirit.”

“Yes.” “Shakespeare knew that: My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep, The more I give to thee, the more I have, For both are infinite.

I find those lines from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ remarkably beautiful - and true.”

“You see - you knew the answer to your question all along.”

“If I did, it was not consciously.

Now I want to ask something else. What - exactly is memory? You say that consciousness is experienced in the moment NOW, but to recall past events surely the mind needs to leave the present and travel into the past?”

Walter replied: “You are not thinking clearly. You are remembering the past, but when are you doing so? In the present, of course.”

“I suppose that’s true! But tell me how memory works. Does the mind depend on the brain to store memories electronically? And then retrieve them as required?”

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“That’s so only for the workings of the mechanical mind. It is not the whole story, even on earth where you have a physical brain. And then - what did you think memory was in the afterlife, when there is no brain?

No, all memory is held by the Spirit. Walter has told you that after death the unconscious mind becomes conscious, and that the whole life passes through the mind, again and again, until all faults have been admitted, all hurts forgiven, and no feeling remains in the mind and heart except love. This plainly means that every incident in the life has been remembered - and since there is no longer a physical brain to hold the memories, they must be held elsewhere. They are held by the individual Spirit” I considered this for a while, then I said: “You know, I don’t understand what that means. Can you tell me how the Spirit holds memories?”

“Just as it did when you lived on earth! Every incident in your life invokes some sort of feeling in you - liking or dislike, pleasure or pain, and so on.

Feelings involve the use of energy. All these non-material feelings are powered by love - there is no other energy in the universe. What you experience as life, love itself, caring, attention, and all good feelings, all are powered by love. So are the bad feelings such as hate, anger, jealousy and vindictiveness; they are, you could say, a twisted form of love, which has been deformed by undue self-concern.”

“In the language of depth psychology, does the ‘shadow’ not take on energy of its own?”

“It has energy - but not of its own. It takes the energy of love.

All love comes from the Spirit, and is given wherever the psyche wants it.

This is what is meant free will. So your individual Spirit knows everything that happens to you through life. It has an unlimited amount of the energy of love because the Spirit itself is Love - so it forgets nothing. Your psyche forgets things because it runs out of the energy to remember them.

Rather than asking: What is memory? You might have asked: What is forgetting?”

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“That would not have occurred to me!

Another question. You were saying that one may be conscious of the body, mind, or spirit. Is it, that one or the other is being more demanding at that moment?”

“You could say that. What you are aware of is, for the moment, your whole self. It is you for all practical purposes. Those parts of you which are not, at the moment conscious, might as well not be there, since you can’t use them.

(If you remember them at all, then you are not unconscious of them.)

We earlier talked about pain, and particularly, toothache. This is made more bearable if you can deliberately expand your consciousness to include other things. Best of all is to pray. Even in severe pain - which most people on earth never experience, but sadly many do - this can be eased by heaven if the heart is turned to God in open supplication. God never intended us to suffer as we do.”

I said: “You wouldn’t know, but I think most women suffer severe pain in childbirth.”

“It’s true that Walter doesn’t have experience of that. Perhaps he should have said that most men never suffer severe pain.”

“Well, I daresay that’s good enough. A timely reminder that you don’t know everything! But if God did not intend us to suffer - why do we?”

A long pause, while Walter considered the question, and perhaps asked other spirits. Then he said: “The answer to your question is too complex to be put into a few words, but it has to do with the choice by the world-wide human psyche which - you remember? - has been given free will in order that it may learn to stand alone. The human psyche has chosen not to obey the will of God in many respects; each individual psyche thinks it knows best what is good for itself. It chooses to love its own desires and. its own comfort more than the wider good - of other people, of the community, of mankind, of the planet, and of creation as a whole. This means that its links with its own Spirit are not so strong as they should be. Can you understand this?”

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“Yes. It makes sense.”

“If the Spirit has good contact with the psyche, it can control (for instance) the degree of pain suffered. If the psyche will not listen - then by its own decision at the birth of the individual, the Spirit can do nothing. The psyche (the person) has made a choice and must abide by the consequences.”

“But surely not all people are so self-willed? I think lots of them are very unselfish.”

“Walter has told you before that, living as you do on earth, you are not in the position to judge all this - any more than a fish can judge whether water is wet! But it is true that individual people are good. They are God’s children, and their hearts are full of love. The individual cannot be blamed for the ideas in the Collective Conscious Mind. That’s where the Evil Idea exists, and it is Original Sin. This is no individual fault.”

“Walter, you said that the psyche has control of the welfare and health of the body. Do you mean that all illness comes from the mind?”

“Yes - but don’t misunderstand this. In the usual conditions of earth, the psyche - the mind - cannot make the body well all the time.”

“I’m sure it can’t, or we would all have perfect health! And then, what about catching viruses and infections? Or breaking bones in an accident? These are things which happen to us, they are not in the mind.”

“It’s very difficult to tell you the truth without misleading you at the same time! If - and Walter knows this is not so on earth at present - but if all psyches were full of love and in perfect contact with their own Spirit, then the power of the Spirit’s love could counteract illness before it affected the body.

Accidents would not occur, because full attention would be given at all times.”

“No amount of given attention would prevent a tile from falling off someone else’s roof and hurting me!”

“Your own attention wouldn’t help there - unless it allowed you to take evasive action. But if that someone else had paid full attention to their roof, the tile would not be loose.”

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I didn’t like this argument, and was silent while I considered what to say.

Walter went on: “You think Walter is describing an impossible world, don’t you? Well, it is not impossible. The fact that most people think is forms the most serious barrier to improvement.”

I tried another tack. “What about genetic diseases? Good heavens, babies suffer from them! Surely a baby’s psyche has nothing in it which shouldn’t be there?”

“Agreed. But genetic faults are passed on from former generations; ‘The third and fourth generation of those that hate me . .’ Something in an ancestor’s mind has caused the genetic fault in the first place.”

I said with feeling: “I’m sure God must often regret giving us free will!”

“If you can think of a better, and more trouble-free, way of producing adventurous and free-thinking individuals, you had better tell him!”

“Of course I can’t think of a better way - but then, I’m not God!” Do we, I wondered, ask the impossible of Him - and then make sure by our own actions that we can’t get it? I remember Walter telling me that if the members of a community get too many ideas about the rights of the individual, then in time that community will inevitably die, as every empire has done since history began. A group has the obligation to care for individuals; individuals have the obligation to care for each other, and for the community as a whole - but only secondly for themselves. Which makes one wonder (again) how long our present civilisation will last?

But I had more to ask Walter about consciousness. “You say it can be directed. Who decides where it will operate?”

“It is the person themselves, the psyche, who decides the direction of consciousness. Even when the body’s sensations might overwhelm the mind, a trained psyche can operate the power of direction. For instance, an athlete can train him or her self to overcome the pain barrier so as to achieve the necessary skills. The love of the heart, in the form of desire, interest or 153

affection, is given by the Spirit, but it is not directed. It can be given wherever the mind likes; that is our freedom of choice, what we call free will. Where love is given, there is consciousness, for otherwise you would not have the feeling of awareness.

The direction of this given love depends on the nature and condition of the mind, constantly changing as ideas drift in and out. But in any person, at any time, consciousness will be found within certain limits. That person’s desires and interests will be predominantly physical, mental, or spiritual, or some combination of the three; and this means that the person has a recognisable nature or mood of being.”

“In other words, in the terminology of the psychologist C.G. Jung, each person belongs to a different psychological type - is that true?”

“Yes, quite true.”

I remembered that Jung has two general types, extravert and introvert, and four functions, thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Walter read my thought.

“Walter thinks that if Dr. Jung were alive on the earth now, he might wish to enlarge his ideas! He would agree that all knowledge is open-ended. But the ideas are sound as far as they go.”

I said: “I think it’s difficult to apply blanket terms to most people, and I wonder whether each function should be considered separately. I think you are predominantly an introverted thinker - although not an extreme one, like the Old Testament prophets! And yet I wonder? - after all, you are also an artist, and must have a strong feeling function.

I’m a good old muddle; when I do tests, I come out right in the middle of the chart!”

Walter said quite seriously that he thought I have a very well-balanced personality, but that I am undoubtedly a feeling type, with a strong thinking capacity and good intuition. I suspected he might be laughing at me. He explained: “As you know, Walter has a horror of cut and dried systems.

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However this is a good one, although Walter would disagree with Dr. Jung when he calls intuition a function like the others, since, unlike them, it is a matter of living in the psyche’s Lustral body. However, we should not be too exacting.

People change, by the way, as they grow older. Walter was once far less introverted.”

“And I, when young, was more so.”

Walter went on: “The Spirit of Love, existing within each creature as life, has Cosmic Consciousness, which means it is able to see Creation from the point of view of any or all of its creatures, not only the one it inhabits or informs. The human imagination can hardly encompass this idea, for it means that the Spirit knows what it is like to be a star, a piece of iron, a black-beetle, an electron, or anything else you can think of. It will have ideas which are very strange indeed to people living on the earth, with their limited consciousness. This accounts for a dangerous aspect of the Spirit’s influence on the mind. You didn’t expect to hear the Spirit called dangerous, did you?”

“No, I certainly did not!”

“The Spirit has all the power of the universe, which is the unimaginably great energy of God’s love, so it is a storehouse of power. If the mind should gain access to even a little of this power, or come to share the stranger aspects of the Spirit’s knowledge before it is ready (which it never will be, on earth), it would be in serious danger of losing its grip on its own view of reality, and thus its sanity. It would be dwarfed and overwhelmed by the images available to the Spirit. This is the cause of some kinds of insanity, especially when the mind is weak in some way. It also accounts for some strange images experienced by the mind; these can be seen in paintings, sometimes, or they are described in books.”

I exclaimed: “Oh, I see! You are saying that the power and terror wrongly ascribed to the Collective Unconscious (and experienced by Jung in a 155

courageous experiment on himself) actually belong to the Spirit, and come from it! That’s amazing! I would never have thought of such a thing!”

“Would you not? Well it’s true.”

“How does the mind gain access to this strange knowledge which it should not have?”

“Walter has told you that the will - the energy of the mind - is in love with the Spirit. It is always trying to reach it. Wild behaviour by human beings is often a part of this search. It will not lead to the Spirit itself, of course, for only the full force of the tender aspect of Love can safely be fully experienced on earth, not of its knowledge or its energy. But sometimes the will is partly successful. That is the best answer Walter can give you.”

“Is that why genius is said to be near to madness?”

“Look at the lives of people with the gift of what is called genius, and see what you think.

But not all the images available to the Spirit are dangerous. Some are symbols which have great significance for mankind because they express the Truths of Creation. These are not harmful, but can be given to the psyche by the Spirit for its good and its healing. The psyche recognises them. One such symbol is the cross, adopted for its own by Christianity. Walter has told you how it expresses the life of the Spirit in its incarnation; the four arms being the instincts, or Loves, which cause natural conflict and suffering, in human life particularly. The circle is unity: as well as God himself, the single perfection and whole. It also signifies the Spirit, the glorified and whole Self. The cross within the circle means the incarnated Spirit.

The Spirit also gives to the psyche ideas which are powerful visions towards which mankind aspires - or you could say they are models of the way people as a whole would do well to behave. These ideas enter the psyche with creative force. Jung recognised their reality in the minds of his patients, and called them the Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. He came to understand many truths about the human psyche.”

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“But you are saying these Archetypes don’t come from the Collective Unconscious?”

“Well, as a matter of fact that may not be entirely true? You will see that it is not always easy to answer your questions accurately. The Spirit, don’t forget existed it as it is now from the start of evolution. Think what that means. The Spirit with its amazing knowledge and power, is yet the life force of the lowest forms of life - and always has been. In humans in particular it was the psyche which had to develop and change, both the conscious and unconscious part of it. During this growing process, the Archetypes may well have entered the Collective Unconscious, passing from the Spirit to the growing psyche - we cannot know. But they originate with the Spirit, that is sure. They are symbolic ideas which the mind recognises in contact with the Spirit and if accepted they lead thinking in the right direction.”

“Can you give some examples?”

“Yes. The vision of the Wise Old Man causes people to respect the wisdom of age. Without it, the young tend to think they know everything.”

“I know, and that strikes me as simply stupid? I even saw this when I was young myself. What on earth do these young people think one is doing living a long life on earth, if one doesn’t learn anything in the process? Do they think they themselves will be none the wiser in forty years’ time, do you imagine?”

“Probably thinking is just what they don’t do. No - young people want to assert their independence, and to do so they feel they must belittle the knowledge of older people. The Archetype of the Wise Old Man helps to counter this. Its influence will return, for the present age will not last forever, you know? Though while it does, you may well find the Western World a particularly tiresome place to live in?

Another Archetype, the idea of the Great Mother, brings awareness of caring loving-kindness - one of the salient characteristics of the feminine principle - and of its value, superior to that of intellect Unfortunately, this has 157

never prevented people from choosing their leaders from among the clever rather than the loving.”

“Walter, that’s not quite true? In more primitive tribes it is always the Elders who make the decisions and are respected as leaders! And in this country, the Quakers have what they call the Elders of the Meeting.”

“The Society of Friends, the Quakers, are not to be compared with other groups - they have particularly wise principles. But yes, it’s true that tribal societies respect the knowledge of age. That only goes to show how difficult it is for human beings to live in larger communities without losing their way. Tell me of an empire which chooses love and wisdom over youth and superficial intelligence!”

“I can’t, of course. And you are right.”

“Unfortunately Walter is right. But throughout the history of humanity the good ideas are constantly renewed, and they help to counteract the world’s tendency to worship such things as success, quick results, the short term view, fame, and superficial youth and beauty in things and people. These are not bad in their proper time and place, but if worshipped they lead people astray and become False Gods.

An Archetype can never be applied to oneself without bad effect. They are too great for one person to carry. This idea was explored by the writer H. G. Wells in his book ‘Christina Alberta’s Father’. The father came to imagine that he was Sargon, (king of Ancient Samaria and known as ‘The Ideal King’, and a good representative of the Wise Old Man archetype). This illusion was disastrous to his mental stability.

But each person does, to some extent, represent in their community one or more of the great ideas - perhaps a different one at a different stage of life. If this is strong in them, others may see them as ‘archetypal’.”

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Chapter 16 When we were talking about giving attention, Walter said something which interested me. This was, that if the attention given contains enough of the tenderness of love, it does not exhaust one’s supply of energy since, as love is given, so it is replaced by the Spirit.

“From what you said before, I thought that every action began with the tenderness of love, which then carried energy along with it.”

“If only that were true, life would be much simpler! If you loved everything you did, think how happy you would be!”

“Is it possible, then, to start with one of the other aspects of love?”

“Certainly. How many things do you do, not because you really want to, but perhaps because you think you ought to? Or - like washing the dishes because it really must be done?”

“So what about the different strands of love?”

“In those cases the ideas of the psyche provide the energy for the job. The energy has come from the Spirit originally, but it comes via the psyche as an idea.”

“Does an idea carry energy then?”

“Of course. If it didn’t, it would not enter your mind, let alone impel you to action! By its existence, the idea has life, and life carries the energy of love.”

“I can only say that I had misunderstood. You know, I sometimes think I’ve just been skating along on the surface of all these ideas! It doesn’t do to take any of them for granted, does it?”

“Good. That’s another important lesson learned. But don’t despair; in time you will learn more and more about the Truths, and understand them more deeply.”

“I hope that’s a promise! But, in the meantime, how can one deal with the problem of having started an action without enough tenderness?”

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“By providing the tenderness of love out of your own store, of course! Either don’t do whatever it is, or perform every action with loving care. This is not too difficult; you have already described how you came to love the subjects you wrote about.

Consider the task, and whether it really needs to be done. If it does, take pleasure in doing what you have decided to do - in achieving clean dishes, for example, and leaving the kitchen clean and tidy. Imagine the result when you have finished - you will find that the mental picture of clean dishes - or whatever it is - will act as a strong incentive to you. If you accept the task, and decide to enjoy doing it, you will find that you can do it without fatigue or dislike. You personally are blessed with the gift of acceptance, and enjoy nearly everything you do. Walter hopes you count your blessings, for so you should.”

“You mean, the Good Fairy gives one blessings at birth, and one should be grateful for them?”

“You can use that terminology if it helps you; there is no harm. Folklore and legend is intended to pass on the Truths.

“In practice, I thank God for any good thing I have been given.”

“Even better, since all good comes from God, rather than from a fairy at the christening. But the important thing is to have the humility to feel grateful.”

“You think it takes humility.”

“Of course it does! Without it, you might feel that being grateful somehow involved admitting that you had needed help and couldn’t manage on your own. And that this gave you a lower, or less attractive, image. This is false pride.”

I said I thought this attitude showed uncertainty of one’s own worth, and Walter agreed.

“But you were asking about the three aspects of love, and the order in which they manifest themselves. If you feel you want to do, or make, something, then you start with the desire to create, which carries tenderness.

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Don’t forget that every act is a new creation. The tenderness carries energy, and the resultant effect is light.

If you see something in need of attention - say, a plant which needs watering, or a picture which needs straightening on the wall - then you begin with what exists (the light of love), you give it the tenderness of attention, and this brings the energy to do what is necessary.”

“But you have said one can begin with energy?”

“Walter is searching for another good example of this . . . Yes - when you were working, you went to the office in the morning. You did not know what would need doing when you got there, but you loved your job, and expected to give your best work for the hours of the working day. One could say that you started with the energy of love; this led to pleasure in whatever task came to hand, and the result was work well done. Energy - tenderness light.

“Suppose you were given a job you didn’t want to do, and did it without any love at all!”

“Then it would probably turn out very badly! And leave you feeling exhausted! Plainly, if love is twisted to give dislike, we are not really talking about the three aspects of love.”

“I’m sorry to persist, but where did the energy come from to do the job at all?”

“It came from the store the psyche is given for the process of living, and was not renewed when it had been used because love had not been given out to another person or thing. This was why you felt exhausted.”

“So the Spirit gives the psyche energy all the time for just living?”

“Of course it does. The Spirit is not only love, remember, it is also life. Did you think, that ‘just living’ took no energy?”

Well, of course I didn’t think anything of the kind! Sometimes just living is as much as one can do! “What about those unfortunate people who do work they don’t really like, all the time? They must be permanently tired!”

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“Yes, they are. Or at Least, they are not able to be as creative as they should be. It’s all comparative, you know. Walter is always telling you not to set any false boundaries when you discuss the Truths, they merge into one another, as do the Heavens.

Life on earth is not ideal, and for some people it is harder than for others.

They have enough energy to keep going, and they use this up, and have nothing left for what they would really like to do. So in their leisure time they seek amusement - the derivation of ‘amuse’ is -a, not, and Muse, one of the Greek goddesses of the liberal arts. To be a-mused is to be ‘not inspired’.”

“But some amusements, like the theatre, or books - even the cinema or television occasionally can indeed be inspiring!”

“Then at that time they are not just a-musements, are they?”

“I want to clarify something. Energy always comes from tenderness, and if there is no tenderness, then the energy comes from the Spirit, via the ideas of the psyche?”

“Yes, that is true. Shall Walter tell you some more about love?”

“Please.”

“Human beings know the eternal Spirit of Life as love, given and received.

Only God’s Spirit has the power to create life. For instance, without its gift men and women cannot lie together and create a new being. A baby is the child at once of God, and of its human parents.”

“So you could say that the act of conception is yet another trinity - mother, father, and Spirit?

“You could indeed.”

“Do you think that Spirit is sometimes deliberately withheld from it? When a child is wanted, but not conceived?”

A pause for thought, then he said, “That is one of the things Walter doesn’t know - perhaps only God knows.

On earth, each stage of the life of the biosphere has a physical body, to some degree a mind which is a spirit, and a share in the living Spirit, the love 162

of God, without which there cannot be any life at all. Spirit is the essence of being, and life is its manifestation. Life is therefore Love; all the aspects of Love. Tenderness, energy (which is the life force) and the light of God’s love, which is the living creature itself.

Human beings know the eternal, divine Spirit of Life as love, given or received. This can be anything from everyday human love, whoever or whatever it may be inspired by, to knowledge of God’s nature given in brief flashes of spiritual illumination.”

“So if people do bad things in the name of love - of another person, of an ideology, of a nation, of a religious system, of any idea - then the love itself is still good, and from God?” “Yes...but if bad things are done the love will certainly be tainted by some other emotion involving the extended self. This would be a misuse of love.”

“Yes, I see. So love of family or nation or culture is not bad at all so long as you don’t use it to do bad things.”

“That’s true darling but think how dangerous excessive loves can be! They can soon get out of hand. Don’t forget that hate uses the energy of love.

You need to know that when the Spirit of Life is given to each individual creature at conception, it does not come through the Universe or the Earth, as many other loves do - such as the four Loves or instincts - and this means that our relationship with God is a personal one. Think of a circle with God written at the top and ‘mankind’ written on the right, and the rest of the circumference given over to ‘creation’. Starting from God, travel round the circle clockwise, and you come to mankind almost immediately - then travel the other way, and in the end you come back to mankind by a longer route, through creation. Look - Walter will draw it for you! xxxxxx But during their life on earth most human beings are very little aware of this personal Spirit, and most of their love, given or received, is reflected from other entities or creatures of creation.”

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“Or ideas?”

“An idea, in this context, is an entity.”

“So that’s why religions talk about a personal God? I think it’s a mistake - I mean, it encourages people to think about God as a person, an old man up in the sky, perhaps.”

“All definite statements are dangerous, when you are dealing with human minds and emotions! If they can possibly misunderstand statements, people will. Did you never wonder why Jesus Christ taught in parables, instead of giving his meaning in simple words?”

“Yes I did! In my teen years, I thought it very tiresome of him. There I was, longing to understand, and I was fobbed off with stories!”

“Well, it was, of course, so that his words should carry less possibility of being twisted and misunderstood. The ‘stories’, as you call them, demonstrated the truth then, and still do, two thousand years later. That’s remarkable enough!

But no, God is not a person, like you or Walter. ‘God is a Spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.’ The individual Spirit of God is personal to each of us, and to all other creatures, and for that reason he is a personal God.” “Yes I see . . . Walter, you were talking about the conception of a child. I need to ask you about what modern culture has done to the sexual act.

When I was young - all those years ago - it was hardly mentioned. My mother had a special voice for death, illness, and sex. She was a great one for avoiding anything she didn’t want to confront, and I always hated this attitude the more I disliked anything, the more I wanted to get it out into the open and deal with it. (But in thought, if not entirely in time, she was a Victorian - and she had so many good qualities that I am not really criticising her. Just stating how it was.)

Now ‘they’ have gone overboard for the word sex. They talk about ‘having sex’ - as though everyone didn’t have a gender! They talk about something 164

totally inappropriate, like a town, as being ‘sexy’. And they talk about the sexual act as though it were a bar of chocolate - even more completely physical than the act of eating!

I think it’s too important to be dealt with like that. It is, after all, the act of love.”

“Walter thinks your fierce disapproval is partly for the misuse of the word!

Words in the English language mean a great deal to you. On that level, you are showing attachment to something ephemeral, for words are only the outward expression of the inner idea, and they are changing all the time; they are not important in the final scheme of things; the importance lies in the idea behind the words. (Though Walter will agree that they are attractive in themselves; he loves them too. He will also agree that if a word is used too often in the wrong context, it loses its meaning.)

But of course you are absolutely and fundamentally right, otherwise, in what you say. Love between two people is the most important thing in the whole world - saving only love for God. And the act of love is charged with every aspect of love - physical, mental and spiritual. To some people, and on some occasions, it can be the nearest they will get to Heaven while still on earth. When it is sold for money, or taken by force, or when spiritual and mental love is missing, this is very sad indeed. In fact, it is often evil.”

“You know, I would really like to know why God made the sexual urge in humans so strong that people will go to extreme lengths to indulge it. Surely a weaker instinct would still have ensured the continuance of the race? It’s the same question I asked about aggression, which also seems excessively strong, and there you did give me an answer.”

“Darling, we don’t know the mind of God - no one does. But perhaps the instinct is not any stronger than it needs to be, since the survival of the human race is so very important. Walter has told you that we humans have a vital role to play in the scheme of things.

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Walter understands the reason for your question, but he cannot fully answer it. You are thinking of truly dreadful acts, like the rape and murder of small children, and mass rapes during time of war? The sexual abuse of prisoners?”

“Yes. Are the people who do these things quite mad? I am not only revolted, I cannot comprehend these things at all. Why do human beings behave in this way? I’m asking you because if one can’t understand it, one can’t come to terms with a thing.”

Walter was silent for a while, then he said: “There is more than the sexual instinct at work there. The use of power over the helpless is one of the worst factors.”

“There are times when I hate the human race!”

“When you feel inclined to do so, remember the Spirit of God within each single one of them, crucified on the cross of the Four Loves, its power sometimes usurped by hate. And pity them instead.”

“I can only say, it is very hard to do so.”

“Do not add to the world’s store of hate by hating anyone or anything. Hate the deed, but do not hate the doer. St Paul said that, and it is the best possible advice. Hate will not defeat evil; only love can do that” I said slowly, thinking it out “I suppose that if evil uses the energy of love, having none of its own, the closer it gets to love the more energy it can find?”

“Yes, that is absolutely true. Walter hadn’t thought to say it to you. It may help you to know this.”

“I will hold it in my mind. But now I’m going to turn away from these dreadful things. It’s good to remember them, but bad, I think, to dwell on what one can’t change.

To go back to everyday life, I’m afraid that even in marriage, spiritual and mental love is often missing. One has to live in the world of here and now, but I do not find it easy to accept that the man is no longer the breadwinner, though I must admit that when he was, women often married for security 166

rather than for love, while some men chose a wife because she was rich (which no doubt they still do). I think women have taken on too much, now. I really wanted a job, but I know that many women would really rather be home-makers; and that system was so much better for children, because as things are home-making is neglected. But I realise that my ideas belong to my generation, and wonder where the truth is, now that the climate of opinion has changed.”

“Walter thinks that there are worse things in a marriage than security and commitment, and that the proportion of people who come to regret a marriage is no less now than it ever was, in spite of apparently freer choice for women.

Nor is romantic love an infallible basis for happiness. When it fades, something more enduring is needed and it does not always develop. Much better, is loving goodwill on both sides.

Also, people need to remember that marriage is not just a personal matter it is a commitment to each other in the context of the community. Ideally, the two concerned should ask themselves whether their union will benefit their friends and families as well as themselves. But this is asking a great deal in a world where most human beings consider it morally right to put their own desires first as a matter of course.

And unfortunately, most people don’t stop to think before they take on these commitments.

I said: “Another thing I want to ask you about is homosexual love. Again, I find this difficult to come to terms with. We used not to know it existed although of course it always did! I’m aware that I’m bound to be prejudiced, since for most of my life it has been actually illegal - which, once I had taken the problem on board, I did not agree with. But plainly it does nothing for the survival of the species, and I wonder whether it is good for communities which I suspect will be your criterion. And I also wonder, if it is not good for the community, whether it is not an avoidable form of self-indulgence? Or 167

again, it may be a natural way of curbing a population which is increasing too quickly? What do you say?”

“Even in heaven, opinion is divided about this. On the one hand, there cannot be evil where there is real love, and this can well exist between two people of the same gender. On the other hand, marriage between two people of different genders is a great, and most desirable, stabilising force.”

“If I had discovered I was a Lesbian - I’ve thought about this - I think I would have lived a celibate life rather than risk damage to the social structure, and self-indulgence in my own nature. You didn’t need to tell me about the importance of this - I knew. But then, to go back to the psychological types, I am not a sensation person, and emotional love would be enough for me.

Purely physical love would never have satisfied me, even though being in love has brought me one or two moments of supreme joy, which I suspect were spiritual. I realise it is not so for many others.”

“No it isn’t. The trouble is that throughout the world the stable basis for any community has always been marriage in some form, in which two people of different sexes can conceive children of their own, within their community, and bring them up in a stable environment. This worked well for centuries for millennia - and no one can yet tell whether any alternative method will be so good. All creatures, not only humans, have been given the instinct - the love - to care for their own children. It is the children who suffer when a good format is abandoned. It was certainly wrong that homosexual lovers should be in fear of the law of the land, and without doubt in individual cases they have true love and commitment to one another. Perhaps the best solution would have been to change the harsh law, but maintain an attitude of social discouragement. Peer pressure is a strong force, and might well have discouraged young people from choosing a path which was not absolutely essential to them. All young people admire their own sex; it is a natural stage in their development as human beings, so there is always the danger that they will be misled when young.

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Also, many marriages now end prematurely, causing harm to children. No doubt in the past an unhappy marriage harmed them too. Things have changed - but is it for the better? We will have to wait and see what happens.

The human story still has far to go.

Walter is afraid he has not given you a good reply to your questions.”

“What you are saying is that there is no definite answer, and that every case should be considered on its own merits?”

“Not a bad summing up. But children should be considered before people follow their own inclinations, especially once they have become parents.

And the good of the community must be paramount if the human race is to survive on earth, for people are social animals and need a social structure for their wellbeing. That is certain, whatever else may not be.”

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Chapter 17 Something had been on my mind for a while. “Walter, it has been said that spirits in the afterlife are held back in their journey through the heavens if they remain in contact with people on earth. Tell me if this is true. I would not want to hold you back in any way.”

“No darling, it’s quite untrue.”

“But if spirits become more advanced - more spiritual? - doesn’t that mean they have less in common with us on earth?”

“In one way it does. They become less worldly, and less concerned with what the world considers to be important, such as success, advancement, and intellectual cleverness. But then, so do you yourself, don’t you, as you get older?”

“Yes I do. I think many people do. But after all, I still live on earth and have a material body to look after and care for, which is very much a matter of this earth and that takes attention and energy.”

“It does indeed. But we in the heavens are not divorced from the earth, you know. We are the spirits of the earth, and not of some other part of creation.

Heaven and earth are one whole. We are not bound by space as you are, and much less by time, but our love still belongs to the earth, and to those on earth whom we care for in every possible sense.”

“And you don’t feel pulled towards God and away from the earth, which is, after all, material?”

“You do have the strangest ideas! What makes you think that God is not present in every part of the earth, or that life on earth is entirely material? You know very well that He - his loving Spirit - is in every created thing, and especially in every sentient creature! To be near to God doesn’t mean being far from the earth. It means being far from evil, and glorification of the self.

Whether on earth or in the heavens, the more the glorification of the self dies in us, the nearer we come to God’s presence. And as our given love 170

becomes purer, we spirits come ever closer to the earth we love. In the words of the hymn: ‘Be still, for the presence of the Lord, The Holy One is here...’

These words are completely true, for life on earth as well as in the heavens. The whole earth is full of the presence of the Lord. Those on earth who are truly selfless are far nearer to God than spirits in the afterlife who are not!”

“I know, Walter, that you need to tell me things again and again before I fully take them in! I ought to have realised that, by now.”

“You’re doing well enough. No, Walter is not held back by talking with you.

On the contrary, we have much to learn from one another; we have some gifts which are the same, but many which are quite different. On earth, no one person has all the gifts. You learn about the eternal truths from Walter, and he learns about human nature from you.”

I suspect that for me at any rate, the enemy of true understanding is too ready an acceptance of ideas which are attractive. I’m easily beguiled when an appeal is made to me by the beauty of ideas, and words, and then I don’t think enough about the meaning behind them.

Some poetry has this effect on me. I’ve always loved the word ‘eternity’. It’s so easy to accept a lovely word without asking whether one really knows what it stands for!

But now I did ask about time and eternity. “You have said that time is the measure of change; change is the reality, and time merely its measurement I found this idea rather difficult, at first.

Yet - when one thinks about it, without movement or change - in growth, position or general state of the things around - one would not be aware of the passing of any time, would one? I mean, the mind is aware that time has passed, but to measure it, failing a clock one looks as the sun or for longer periods one looks at the growth of vegetation or some such thing. If there 171

were no change anywhere, then time would become meaningless. So I see that time is secondary, and change the important thing.

Walter has told me that life itself involves change. This is not a new idea. In Hindu belief, the God Shin dances on the waves, and so maintains the existence of the world. If he ever stopped dancing, the world would cease to be. Physicists know that all apparently solid matter consists of sub-atomic particles in incredibly rapid movement If they ceased to spin (to dance) our material earth would fall apart and cease to exist. So it seems that Walter is not alone in what he says.

I also know that it is a philosophical concept that time and eternity meet in the moment NOW, and that true reality can exist only in that moment. One can see this meeting as a cross, so : . If time is the horizontal line, xxxxxxx… then eternity meets it at right angles as a series of vertical lines, each one of which crosses the line of time at a point which is the advancing moment NOW. This demonstrates the passing of time.

“But Walter, there is also a theory among some scientists that time could go backwards. I find it all very confusing, and cannot imagine this. Can you help me?”

“As to time going backwards, Walter thinks perhaps they are being confused by the fact that certain chemical and physical processes can be reversed. This merely means that matter can change its state - and then change back. It has nothing to do with time. Whichever way the change goes, time will measure it, and time will seem to you to move towards the future and away from the past.

For the rest, what you have said is substantially true. Change is essential to life on earth. Everything grows, or changes, and dies. People are born, and live, and die. So do empires, and dynasties, and families. Plants and animals.

Even seas, continents and mountains - though they do this so slowly that the individual person does not notice it.. The whole earth is formed; exists; arid 172

finally ends. Even the Universe will finally come to an end, with all its stars and planets and galaxies.”

“What will happen then?”

“Walter is sure that God knows! Certainly he, Walter, does not, and nor do the spirits of heaven.”

“Now there’s a thought! Does heaven itself live and then die?”

“In a way it does. It is a part of Creation, don’t forget, and is one with the earth. Do you remember the words ‘. . . till heaven and earth shall pass . . .’ from St. Matthew’s Gospel? Walter really knows no more about these things than you do, but he thinks that when the earth no longer exists as an entity, and so no more human spirits are entering the condition of the heavens, it must be that gradually all the spirits of heaven will work through their purgatory, inhabit the Glorified body, and return to God, who gave them life in the first place.

You cannot be told too often that Heaven is not a location. Heaven is the company of its spirits, just as a religion is of its adherents. When there are no spirits in it, there will be no heaven, and no need for it” “What about evil spirits?”

“Oh, there will be no Evil! Evil exists in time; all is Love in eternity. When there is no Universe, no earth, and no Heaven, Love will still exist, in eternity; but not Evil! Don’t you understand? The battle against Evil cannot finally be lost” “It’s a wonderful thought! But now I’m going to go back and ask you exactly what is eternity? It’s all very well having abstract ideas and drawing diagrams, but where is the truth? I don’t think I know at all what eternity really is! I know it’s said to be not unlimited time, but timelessness, but I can’t imagine it.”

Walter thought for a while, then he said: “Very well, let us be entirely practical. If you are sitting on a chair in your garden, is the chair in eternity?”

I laughed, and said it sounded most unlikely. “Chairs don’t last for ever!”

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“Are the plants in the garden in eternity?”

“Is that a catch question? Not in their present form, anyway. They will die off in the winter.”

“Can you think, now, of anything that is certainly eternal and will not die?”

“Only the final reality which I think of as God.” “What is God?” “Well - Love?”

“Yes. Good. And do you love your garden? Do you love it, not just because it is yours - part of your idea of yourself - but because it is beautiful, and good, and exists as such?”

“Yes, I certainly do.” A garden is important in my life.

“Perhaps while you sit in that temporary chair, your love for your garden is in eternity? Your body is on earth, while your soul is feeling the reality of love, in Heaven, in eternity? All in the present moment?”

“But I don’t only love my garden in the moment now, I remember that I loved it yesterday, and I have faith that I will love it tomorrow.”

“The mind can travel in time; the body cannot. The mind is not bound by time; it is a spirit and knows eternity. The material body does not. When your mind experiences love, and is in eternity, that is in the moment NOW. You remember yesterday’s love, but you are not living it; nor are you actually feeling tomorrow’s love.

There are two things here. First, the whole pattern of existence is shifting all the time from one condition to another. If you are in eternity now, the next moment you may be time-bound. Second, when the psyche is living in its own spiritual body - which is not by any means all the time - it is in one of the heavens. But the material body belongs to the earth, and that is where it lives its life. When the body’s vitality and bliss reach a heavenly quality, it is in fact the psyche which knows this.

Do not, do not, try to build walls between earth and Heaven, the body and the psyche, or even time and eternity. It cannot be done. Truth is not like that.

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Remember the painter Turner, who said that he specialised in indistinctness.

Remember his marvellous pictures, and try to think as he did, and you will understand the truths better.”

I don’t know whether I can follow this advice, although I will try. Walter probably always found it easier. When he lived on earth, he was a great admirer of Turner’s work, and had several books with good reproductions of the pictures. Perhaps I should study them; though I do remember the wonderful quality of light, and of fused colour.

“I didn’t realise that the material body never experiences heaven,” I said.

“That’s because you have been building walls in your mind between the material body and the psyche, and had forgotten that both work together, all the time. During life on earth, they can seldom be separated, as they both go to make the person. Were you not once interested in the correlation between physical and psychological types?”

“Yes, I thought of making it into a book, there are enough theories. That’s what I was about to work on when we first wrote; and why I had a pad of A4 paper all ready for you on my knee!”

I went on, “I am interested in how the body and psyche work together. And I’m wondering about mental thought which is not purely of the psyche, but is mechanical. Thought itself is never material, surely? I mean, one can’t hold a thought in the hand, or measure it with an instrument.”

“Well - thought can be mechanical, a matter of the brain’s electro-chemical circuits, or based on illusion, in which case it is not all spiritual. But it is never all material, either. Emotional love — love of the heart - is spirit, even if it is given in error.”

I did begin to see what Walter was saying. It is true that thought can be mechanical. And while love of any particular thing or person can be temporary - even a mistaken idea the emotional feeling of love itself is the same at any time, in any circumstances, and what is more it is the same all over the world, and always has been, if the stories are true. All people know 175

and recognise it. Walter would say that the Spirit is Love inside each individual recognises and resonates with love in all the world around.

“And - Walter - there are other things which also stay the same wherever and whenever they are found. People vary in their ideas of what should be called good, or beautiful, or true, but all over the world they acknowledge that goodness, beauty and truth as such do exist, don’t they?”

“They do indeed. And Goodness, Beauty and Truth are said to be the three attributes of the Godhead.”

“And Love”.

“Of course. You could say that Goodness carries the energy of Love, Beauty the tenderness; and Truth, or reality as it exists, is the light of Love.

The three entwine to make the whole of Love. And God is Love.”

I said, “I want to tell you something I have realised about these three aspects of Love. At first, I suspected you of inventing the whole thing! But now I have remembered that I have come across something like this idea before! When I worked with the group who studied the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, one of the central themes was that every action consists of three elements, the active, the passive, and the neutralising. Because the teaching was based on Hindu ideas, these were called Rajas, Tamas, and Sattva but like you, I prefer not to use exotic words, which I think tend to mask truth in glamour and make understanding more difficult.

There may not be a strict correlation between these ideas and your aspects of Love, but there are strong similarities. The active principle is obviously energy, the passive could be tenderness, and we were told that the neutralizing is often the result of the other two, so it has links with Truth, the Light of God’s Love.

They didn’t tell us that every action is creative, so far as I remember, but I think they would have agreed.”

“Walter said that other similar ideas would occur to you.”

He went on, “You left the group before Walter met you. Why did you?”

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“I liked the teaching, but the whole thing became too exclusive - too much like a cult! We were even told not to make friends with anyone who did not belong to the group! Anything like that makes me uneasy and drives me away. I stayed with them for seven years, and left with misgivings. But I’m very glad I did.”

“You showed good common sense and discrimination.”

“It’s long ago. . Walter, I’ve been considering all you’ve told me, and I have come to the conclusion that one of the keys to it all, if not the main one, is attention. You say this is a form of love. If you give attention to what exists at that moment - the Light of God’s love - you have consciousness. If you give it with tenderness, you have loving care. In itself, as one knows by personal experience, it required energy.

All in all, you have the three components of love, so it must be important.

What do you say?”

“Walter will say that you have at last understood as you rightly believe a key factor in the nature of Truth.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this right at the beginning? I think it would have helped.”

“Because you would have accepted it at face value and without real understanding - as you often did, when we first wrote. Much better find it out for yourself, and then you will never forget it.”

“Is attention itself one of the strands of love, or all of them at once?”

“You have asked a vital question. Attention is neutral, but it cannot be given alone, so it is better to think of it as a kind of love. It can be associated with any of the three strands of love. In itself, it is the focusing of the mind on something, and this requires at least the energy of love. But with energy alone it is usually dangerous. It can give rise to hate, or any violent feeling.

You can focus on something in order to harm it, even kill it. To guard against this you need tenderness. With tenderness alone, it is tender love lacking in 177

purpose. Give attention with light, and you see things as they really are, but without any feeling, or any intention towards them.

Better still, give it with all three strands of love, including light; then your tenderness is not diffused, but is for the specific thing you are considering.

The three aspects of love will exist in turn, since nothing in creation can encompass all three together at the same time.”

“Giving attention is usually very tiring. Why is this?”

“It is because you do not really love, with tenderness, what you are doing.

When you made pottery, was it tiring to give attention to making a pot? Is it tiring to give full attention to something you really love making, or doing? Or to someone you love?”

Well, I had to admit that it is not! “Suppose you fully accept a task with all its needs, but without specifically loving it?”

“That’s impossible! Acceptance is another of the keys to understanding the truths. To accept is to feel tender love for what really is, for the light of God’s love. It is to be aware, with tender love, of true reality. This in itself brings energy, and you have all three strands of love for a satisfactory life.

Acceptance and attention. If you can achieve this combination you will not need Walter to explain the truths to you anymore.”

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Chapter 18 I want to take stock of the things Walter has told me in this book, and to see which I have remembered, and which now seem important to me.

“Good idea,” says Walter. “It will be very interesting to see what you choose.”

“Well, you have made me understand with my deepest being that ‘There is only one existence, and this is eternal life’ (a quotation from Martin Israel).

We are all living our eternal life now. We happen to be living it in a material body; after its death we will live on with the same psyche - mind, feelings, and personality - that we have now.

Then, there are two facts which I think we need to emphasize more, because for some reason, while I ought to know them well enough by now, they don’t seem to have sunk into my mind.

One is that in the afterlife everything merges into everything else and there are no sharp divisions - the psyche wanders from purgatory to heaven and back again, and from one heaven, or state of being, to another, gradually settling for longer into the higher condition. Have I got that right?”

“Yes darling Walter did warn you that because of your type of mind you would find this difficult to accept.”

“I thought I had accepted it. But I can’t seem to make the idea my own, although I do know that the mind does just the same thing here on earth.”

“Indeed it does.”

“The other fact I find difficult to remember is that discarnate spirits don’t know everything! They are not gods - just human beings in the next stage of eternal life - and while they have certain advantages over those of us still on earth, there are still many things they will learn as they go through the heavens. One should not expect perfection from them, or one will be disappointed.”

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Walter said: “You learned that from the ‘ancestor’ spirits, didn’t you; and you learned it the hard way! Your wrong idea was partly due to your respect for Walter’s knowledge of the nature of the earth and creation (and other things), a respect which you transferred to any other spirits sponsored, as it were, by Walter, and partly due to your own superior understanding, which because it is coupled with humility, but not always with due acceptance of what exists - leads you to compare all other people, and not only spirits, with yourself, and to expect too much wisdom and understanding from them! Do you accept this assessment?”

“You told me ages ago that any good qualities one has belong to God, and should not be claimed personally. This I do not find difficult to understand, since it agrees with what I had learned before. Yes, I do accept what you say.

For the rest, to judge others by oneself is a general human failing, not just mine. And I do think one expects from other people the gifts one actually has oneself - while they will in fact have other gifts which one does not possess.”

Walter’s comment was, “Well observed, and perfectly true.” He went on to ask what else I wanted to pick out of the book as important.

“Well, first you told me about the experience of your own death. I found this very moving, and true to what I already knew. Then let’s start at the beginning of your story of the human condition.

People on earth, you say, consist of three parts - body, mind and Spirit.

During life on earth, the mind and non-material feelings (which are spirit) together are called the soul. After death, we call the person a spirit. So far, this agrees with traditional thinking.

The material body has an electro-magnetic component, which you call the Etheric body. This operates the body’s circuits, including the five senses, the nerves, and the brain, and also includes the aura, the body’s magnetic field though this is a complex structure, in which the finer bodies play a part.

The mind consists of its thoughts, and is not material but spiritual. Anything which cannot be studied by chemists or physicists needs to be spirit, you say, 180

since it is not material, and there is nothing else it can be. Thoughts cannot, during life on earth, be separated from non-material feelings, because if a thought is not powered by some sort of feeling, it will not even enter the mind, let alone stay there. Mind and feeling are bound together.

The causes of all things on earth however material, lie in Spirit. The Spirit of God (of Love) is the life of every created entity: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . All things were made by him, and without him was not anything that was made.’ (John 1. 1-5) The Word, or Logos, is the creative principle of the Godhead, and for Christians Jesus Christ is its living reality. His crucifixion is a deliberate, unending reminder of the suffering of the Spirit in the often evil conditions of earth.

Whether one is considering the whole Universe or a human being, all causes lie in Spirit, and only results are material. The Spirit is the Life of the created thing. Without Spirit there is no life.

In human beings, the unit of thought and emotional feeling is called the psyche. Psyche is a Greek word meaning butterfly, (the Ancient Greeks liked to compare our nonmaterial aspects with a bird or butterfly). You emphasise that thought and feeling are considered together because they cannot be separated. The psyche is the thinking and feeling part of a human being, and the seat of what we feel to be our individuality. It is what the philosopher René Descartes meant when he famously said: ‘I think, therefore I am.’ It is the ‘I’ for people on earth; the individual person. When you say ‘I’, you mean your psyche. Everybody has a sense of identity, which seems to be located in the head.

The true ‘I’ is the Spirit, but psyche and Spirit do not become one unit until after death, and after the discarnate spirit has passed through many conditions of the afterlife.

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After the death of the material body, the psyche continues to live its eternal life. It never was material, and there was no reason why it should die with the body. For the psyche death is just a stage on the journey; for the material body it is the end, since the person does not need that body any more.

On earth, each person has an element of thought which is not all spirit. The psyche uses the material brain with its electro-chemical systems to do its mechanical thinking - calculation, collection of data, some evaluations, and so on - as an operator might use a computer, and while actual thought is not material, this type of thinking is not really abstract thought at all. But at the same time, the psyche can and does use its own spiritual functions of creative imagination, empathy and intuition. Value judgments are made by its feeling centre.

“I want to stop here and ask you something. Is the psyche’s feeling centre nearer to the Spirit in nature than thought is?”

“Yes. It is love which gives value and discrimination. Spirit and psyche are never totally separated, you know. The psyche is your own awareness of yourself, but the Spirit is your life force. How could one do without the other?”

“Writing objectively,” I said, “as we inevitably do, it’s difficult not to put things into categories, and to remember your injunction not to build walls.

Well, to go on. The death of the material body means the loss of its senses, and the psyche’s own senses then take over, so that the discarnate spirit finds it can see, hear, and smell as it did when on earth. Sight and hearing are in a way less exact, but their range is enhanced, and spirits are delighted by the beauty of the earth, including the changing colours of the many auras.

Of the earthly senses, feeling is slightly altered, and the spirit would have no use for the sense of taste, as it doesn’t need to eat!

However, the afterlife provides ideal conditions for the mind’s imagination to operate, since there is no material body to insist on its own sense of reality, and the imagination is capable of calling up banquets, palaces, parks and 182

gardens and anything else, and at first it often does so. Finally, it tires of these illusions - that’s what they are.

The afterlife is not a place; it is a series of conditions of the human psyche.

There is only one location for the story of mankind, and that is the earth and her surrounding Universe. Location implies space, and a spirit does not need space to live in.

But after death, the discarnate spirit does find itself in the place on earth that it knows, though it is perfectly free to move to somewhere else if it wants to. Locality is not important to it, unless through love of a person or place. A spirit moves by the power of thought or desire. Most spirits stay, at any rate at first, near to those they loved on earth. They have much the same mental and spiritual conditions as they knew on earth; that is, purgatory (the learning process), or one of the many states of heaven, or sometimes illusion or limbo.

These are not places, in any sense of the word; they are conditions of the mind and feelings, just as they were on earth, and they come and go and merge one into another, until finally the psyche settles more or less definitely into the state of the first heaven, and starts its journey towards the presence of God. This it will reach when, with the help of the good spirits of heaven, it has purged itself of all bad feelings, acknowledged all faults, forgiven all hurts, and is in truth made of nothing but Love. To help in this process, the whole of life passes at intervals before the mind. You, Walter, call this the ‘Listening to Lives’; although you say it is more like pictures thrown on to a screen and accompanied by feeling. The memories of all the incidents in a life are held by the Spirit (which gave the energy of love to remember them in the first place) just as they were on earth.”

I asked now, “There is a theory - I don’t know much about it - regarding some sort of memory bank for the whole world. Is there any truth in it?”

“You would do better to ignore these obscure theories, they will only confuse you. Think of it like this. In one sense, all Spirit is one. In another sense, each person’s Spirit is individual. How can Walter tell you that all 183

memories are held together, since they are held by Spirit? Yet from each person’s point of view, they come from their own unique Spirit. You see how difficult it is not to mislead you? Walter tries to tell you things which will throw light into dark corners, not those which will make the darkness deeper!”

“Darling, I really trust you to do that, and to tell me in ways I can understand. Well - you say that spirits still exist to some degree in time, though not in space as they did on earth. All actions (including thought and learning, which are actions) take place in time; being is in eternity. After death, the spirit still needs to change; this happens in time; when the being of a spirit becomes pure love it passes out of time and is fully in eternity.

God is Love, and Love is the only energy and the only substance in the creation of the whole Universe; that is, of all Creation, which God made from his own being. You quote Dante: ‘Love which moves the sun and the other stars’ to prove that that poets sometimes know that energy is love. All energy in the Universe - material or spiritual - is the energy of Love. All the loving care and goodwill in the universe is the tenderness of love. Creation itself is the Light of love, the result of God’s tenderness and energy. The tenderness of love, in God himself or in his creatures, gives the desire to create; the energy of love then powers the whole Universe, and all acts of creation within it; and Creation itself, or any created thing, is the Light of Love. These are the three strands into which Love divides while within Creation; tenderness, energy and light. It is a law of the Universe that no one entity ever carries all three at the same time; they are always seen separately. Only in the person of God himself are they united.”

I stopped to ask Walter how we were doing. I say ‘we’, because without doubt he was guiding me while I tried to pick my way through what he had taught me.

“We are doing well, dear love. Where shall we go next?”

“I think I shall stop and have some lunch!”

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“Good idea! Walter will be ready when you have fed your body. He is glad you look after it so well.”

“It’s my animal, and I have to care for it! Now that the old dog is dead, it’s the only animal in the house.” (My sixth Labrador dog, Henry a retired guidedog, died last year.)

“Then go and feed it!”

Later, after lunch, I said: “Our next subject is the nature of God. You agree with the traditional view that there are two aspects of God, the Immanent and the Transcendent - which latter I feel I know nothing about.

You reply that no one could know the Godhead, and those who say they do are deceiving themselves - and others. Organised religion can be good, and many people need its help, but it can be rigidly hound by dogma. Much more important is loving-kindness towards others and love of a good and loving God, even if the idea of what he is like is somewhat vague or mistaken.

The Immanent God is the life within each entity of creation. The individual Spirit is a spark of God’s own nature, and is the true self of every living thing.

In this way (and certainly not in the shape of the physical body as some people have mistakenly tried to believe) God makes us in his own image, and we are all his sons and daughters. It is only when the psyche becomes aware of the Spirit within, that we can truly know this, and the realisation is usually a gradual growth. Since God is Love, good feeling is therefore more important to his creatures than good intelligence. Thought, however clear, without love, can lead to cruelty and sin. True love is always intelligent by its nature love and intelligence together give wisdom, Sophia”.

I asked here, “Why is Wisdom feminine?”

This is what you replied “In the language of heaven, masculine is the giving principle and feminine the receiving. On earth, men and women all have these in varying proportions, regardless of their gender but perhaps somewhat depending on their circumstances. Women, for example, are more often ‘giving’ in relation to their families.

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Knowledge needs to be received, with love, before wisdom can exist.

Therefore Sophia is feminine. The Spirit, the giver of love, is masculine. The psyche, the soul, is feminine.”

“The Holy Spirit, you tell me Walter, is the radiance of God’s love in which we all live and have our being, and which brings us comfort and tender love.

It reaches us through our own Spirit, and is reflected to us from the goodness, beauty, truth and love in other parts of Creation. Just as we love the sunlight, but would be burned to death in the sun itself, so in our present condition we could not bear the full knowledge of God’s glory.”

I asked, “Is that all right?”

“Excellent, dear love. Walter will stop you if it is not.”

“Good. Perhaps we should talk next about bodies. A body, you say, is the vehicle in which the individual psyche lives, and which enables it to be in contact with whichever world is around it at that time. It is not, on its own, a living entity without the psyche or individual each body is in fact a different condition of the person. The material body has no awareness, without the Spirit it would be just a lump of meat.

You name two physical bodies, the material, and the Etheric or electromagnetic body which controls the nervous system, the brain and the material senses, and includes the aura - though this is also a complex structure involving the more subtle bodies.

The psyche’s own Lustral body is with it on earth (as are all the subtle bodies except - probably - the Glorified body) but the psyche lives at different times in different bodies as it chooses, and is so often in the material body that people have come to believe they are material beings and not spirits at all! This forgetting of their real nature is the great tragedy of the human race.

It is as though an actor had forgotten who he is and lived permanently in his stage character.

The psyche can do and think as it likes. God has given it the gift of free will so that it shall grow and develop independence, and this gift is often used 186

badly. It leads, in fact, to the Evil Idea, which has even entered the Collective Mind of the human race - it is that each individual should consider his or her own welfare before that of other people, or that of the earth. This is Original Sin. The idea is entirely untrue, since it is the responsibility of the group to care for the individual, and the responsibility of individuals to care first for each other and for the community, and only secondly for themselves. (In ‘developed’ countries, these ideas may have existed more commonly in the past, when economic difficulties forced people to look after each other more than they do now.) In God’s eyes, each of us is of unique importance, and so we should be to other people, for any civilisation or empire in which citizens demand too much for themselves, or insist too strongly on their rights, will inevitably die. This is the salient reason for the death of past empires. When the human race achieves good living without self-aggrandizement, then there will be paradise on earth.

Individuals and groups must also care for the earth herself; their own survival depends on her well-being.

The material body is abandoned at death, and the Etheric body very soon afterwards. The psyche then lives in its own Lustral body until, having abjured all evil thoughts and feelings, it can join with the Spirit of Love in the Astral body. Together they advance through the heavens, finally entering (you believe) the presence of God in the Glorified body. This process of death and resurrection is described at the end of the Book of Ecclesiastes, in the words which begin: ‘Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken . .’. The silver cord of love holds the person to the earth, and the golden bowl is the Lustral body, which must eventually be ‘broken’, or abandoned when mind and love come together to inhabit the Astral body. (This is the ‘pitcher’ of Ecclesiastes which is ‘broken’, to be superseded by the Glorified body.)

‘The wheel broken at the cistern’ is the symbol of the incarnated spirit, made by placing a cross within the circle of existence.

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You told me that the earth shares with her children in the biosphere (that is, all plants and animals) her Spirit and her mind. The Spirit of the earth is experienced as a feeling of deep peace, sometimes found near water, or in lonely places. This is the spirit of the Second Heaven, and because that is her spiritual home, the planet Earth is an angel.

Walter, I want to stop and ask you something.”

“Yes, darling?”

“It is about the Earth being an angel. A spirit in the condition of the second heaven is called an angel?”

“Yes.” “And the Spirit of the Earth is made up of the combined Spirits of all the creatures of the biosphere?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“But these individual creatures are not all angels, surely?”

“Walter sees your problem. No, of course they are not. That would mean that every human being would be an angel.”

“So, can the Earth be what her children are not?”

“Well . . - you cannot compare the planet Earth with a single human being.

And you cannot, during life on earth, consider the Spirit of the animal kingdom without its psyche. It is the psyche which must learn to love before the creature can become an angel. The mind of the Earth is simple; in human beings (in particular) thought has become highly complex, and can lead to evil. It is our capacity for reflective thought which places the human race in a class of its own - for better and for worse.

Do you remember what Walter told you about the mind of the Earth?”

“Yes. It contains the four great ideas which govern our lives; the Four Loves. They are Love of Life, Love of Living, Love of Loving and Love of Love. Plants and animals (including human beings) are all ruled by the Four Loves. Used positively, these ideas result in successful life on earth; negatively, they are the cause of the crucifixion of the Spirit of Love within 188

each individual creature: each of the Loves being one arm of the cross. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross is an enduring symbol of this great truth, and ensures that it will never be forgotten by the human race.

Every created entity on earth has, all around it, a magnetic shell. The planet Earth herself is encircled by lines of magnetism. All physical love is attraction based on magnetism. The Earth and her children are therefore linked in common love, and anything happening to one affects all of them.

Major conflict on the human level even affects the Earth’s climate and causes natural disasters.

You told me about the power for good contained in myth and legend, arid said that Evil lives in time, but Good in eternity. This is why - wonderful thought! - the battle against Evil cannot finally be lost, however hard the fight may be in the meantime. After death, evil is gradually shed from the psyche the self. Although there are some evil spirits in the afterlife, they can do no harm to discarnate spirits. This is why they try to harm people still living on earth; but they cannot physically touch human beings, and they can enter a mind only if it invites them by already containing had thoughts. The best protection against Evil on earth - or anywhere - is love, and only love will finally defeat evil (force cannot do so). Love of God, love of others, and love of the life of earth herself.”

I stopped to ask: “Are we still on the right track?”

“Walter has no complaints. Please go on.”

“You talked about the conception a of child and growth of the embryo, and quoted Wordsworth’s lines beginning: ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting . .’ It is the psyche which is asleep. The idea of a world in the sleep of ignorance comes from many sources. Poets, you said, often know these truths.

Only God’s Spirit, you tell me, can create life. A baby is the child of father, mother, and Spirit; another trinity. Mankind is connected with God in two ways; directly through the person’s individual Spirit, and less directly through 189

the spirit the love, and the goodness, beauty and truth - in each entity of Creation, God is a personal god because his Spirit is the individual life of each person, not because God is himself a person, as we understand the term.

Heaven and Earth are part of one whole, and while a person’s body lives on earth, the soul is already in one of the spiritual conditions it will find in the afterlife. Possibly other planets have their own heavens; if they are inhabited, this is very likely. Earth exists in time: heaven in eternity. On earth, life cannot exist without change and this involves time. Being is a stable state, in eternity.

Love is always eternal.

I said I had never really understood the nature of eternity, and its relation to time. You drew me a diagram, showing the line of time as a horizontal, crossed at right angles by lines of eternity - each cross marking the progressive moment NOW. You said that we truly live only in the present moment, memory and anticipation are not experienced as immediate reality.

All action (including thought) is in time; being is in eternity.

You told me that the Collective Unconscious is a record of past collective experiences, not the great treasure-house of power and knowledge it is believed to be - this is the Spirit. The Spirit it totally conscious, although the psyche may not be aware of it, Consciousness is all-important. The growth of the collective human psyche can be compared to that of a growing child; on this scale, the human race considered as a whole is at present a toddler, although individual men and women can be adults.

Every act is a creation, since it results in something which was not there beforehand. Time measures change, it is not an entity in its own right. Being is in eternity. The human soul is now in eternity. To quote the mystic and writer Martin Israel, ‘There is, after all, only one existence, and this is eternal life.’ We discussed the nature of consciousness - something I had always wondered about. You said it was attention (love) given by the psyche to 190

reality as it is in the moment NOW. It can be compared to the shifting beam of a torch, or to full light. The psyche can believe it ‘is’ with body, mind or Spirit.

Wherever it is, it carries the sense of ‘I’, of isolated personality.

Attention, you told me, is given love.

I said that because of its bad deeds I often hate the human race. You told me never to hate anyone or anything, never to add to the already too great store of hate in the world; to remember, instead, the Spirit of Love within each person, crucified on the arms of the Four Loves, and feel pity.

I asked you whether it is true that spirits living in the afterlife are held back in their progress if they talk to those on earth; you assured me that they are not, and that you and I learn much from one another. You told me that it is glorification of the self which holds anyone back from God’s presence, and that those on earth can be closer to Him than others who are discarnate spirits, if they love Him truly enough.

There! Have I forgotten anything important?”

“No, darling. Of course, there are many other things in the book, but you have covered the main ones. You are a good pupil to have absorbed so much.”

“I have my teacher to thank for that.”

“Now we will make an end for a time, and you can do all the things in your house and garden which have been neglected for this book.”

“Will we write another one?”

“Probably, dear love. Wait and see. In the meantime, Walter is always with you.”

“I know that. I know I can talk to you all the time”

The End

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