I
Much has been said of the folly and triviality of all messages coming, or purporting to come, from the Unseen. I think here, as elsewhere, like clings to like, and we get very much what we deserve; or rather, to put it in a more philosophical and Emersonian way, we receive what belongs to us.
Emerson tells us in one of his most illuminating passages, that everything which belongs to our spiritual estate is coming to us as quickly as it can travel. All the winds of heaven, all the waves of earth, are bringing it to us, and neither angel nor devil can prevent our taking what is ours or rejecting what is not ours.
This is a universal law, and applies to automatic writing as to everything else. Emphatically we get what belongs to our spiritual estate.
Therefore any casual and general remarks as to the foolishness of all automatic writing, must of necessity be made by those who are ignorant of this spiritual law, or whose experience of such messages is very limited.
I intend to give a few which I have myself received, in the form of an Appendix to my book. With one exception, they all come from a very dear friend, who passed into the other sphere little more than a year ago under peculiarly happy circumstances. I do not wish to give his name, although it would add considerably to the interest of the narrative. I shall therefore call him Mr Harry Denton. The messages will be given exactly in the form in which they were received, and without any editing. We never discussed theological ideas from any standpoint of creed; but I imagine that my friend, when here, would have looked upon Jesus Christ as one of the many inspired teachers of the world, and that his views were cosmic rather than religious—in any narrow sense—and certainly religious, in the broad sense of the term, rather than theological.
The first conversation (for this is a better description of my friend's communications than the word message) refers to my own attitude, as compared with that of a lady friend of mine, regarding Jesus of Nazareth.
H. D.—I see a great stream of light round you, Kate, and it seems to have come with your truer conception of Jesus Christ. It is all right for your friend to say she prefers to put the matter aside and leave it alone. That is just the best thing she can do; in fact, the only thing she can do at present.
The seed is still underground, and the moment of emergence has not come. To try and force it above ground just now, would be fatal. It would also be immature and uncalled for. The old husks of man-made creeds must drop off gradually, leaving the bud they protected intact, not be torn off by an impatient hand.
So far her instinct seems to me a true one. But the case is widely different for you. The husks have fallen off, as a matter of fact, and the discomfort and sense of something wrong arose from your knowing that you were only striving desperately to clutch on to them, when the fine, strong bud was there, able and ready to take its proper share of sunshine and rain, and even to bear the cold winds of misrepresentation and misunderstanding if need be.
"QUIT YOU LIKE MEN, BE STRONG." That is your lesson-book, and you will never feel happy or content until you are learning it.
Surely you must feel how much you have gained since you faced your own facts?
E. K. B.—Yes, Harry, I do; but I don't quite understand your position. Are you at the same point of view?
H. D.—No; not yet. It is all rather foreign to my previous notions. I thought of Jesus of Nazareth as a great teacher—one of the great teachers of the world—but I had still to learn His unique position as regards our chain of worlds.
They tell me here that He was the first to attain to the full stature of the Divine Man as he existed in the thought of the Absolute.
Spiritual evolution is the process, apparently the only process, whereby a Son of God in this sense can appear. And æons of time have been necessary to produce this fine Flower of Humanity. Your own band are helping me to understand this. Having attained, being the anointed One, it is given to Him to bring the whole race after Him.
This is quite a different conception from my former one, and the one held by most of those whom in old days we called Unitarians.
You have had to unlearn, or rather to drop, some of the husks of old tradition which have been guarding the truth for you, whereas I have still to come up to the truth; but the point reached will be the same, whether the approach to it is from north or south—do you see?
In Christ Jesus, they tell me, we are all new creatures, as a matter of fact; because, consciously or unconsciously, we are working together with Him to realise and manifest ourselves, as made after the Image of God.
He is the example and the pledge for us. St Paul saw this, of course, and your present position illuminates his teaching for me enormously. So I have much to thank you for, Kate. It is easier to learn from those we know and trust, than from strangers.
And, moreover, when we can learn from the loved ones on earth as well as through the loved ones here, it makes the links in the golden chain complete, and helps us to realise the unity and solidarity of our common existence, in the Father—with the Son.
H. D.