After a time (I did not know it as time) I became aware of being led to where the earthly form was still breathing, being cared for and imbued with breath by a beloved Guardian spirit and by devoted friends in human life. I was to return after all! It was necessary to keep my spirit en rapport with the body as the Psychic Cord was not severed that connected body and spirit. But not at once was I to return.
These periods of calling my attention to and visiting the body were brief—just enough to keep the “vital spark” alive, and aid the dear attendants in both worlds to prevent the complete separation which for many days seemed imminent.
A Vast Congregation
It is well known to those who may be interested in reading these pages that during all the years of my mortal life (since the age of eleven) I have been brought before audiences and assemblies of people—many thousands; among them were hundreds who became friends—some of them life-long, some of later years. I had known of the “passing on” of very many who had been members of those audiences and of my own “Flock,” but I was not prepared for the vast congregation that came out of their respective groups composing a still greater concourse to meet me, nor was I prepared to realize that I knew most of them as friends on Earth!
There were those who had heard the utterances of my Guides through my lips when I was a child; those who had attended and were my personal friends when I was “still in my ’teens”; and those who in later years had been of the audiences in many places; and those of my own beloved Congregation!
How difficult to realize that they were all gathered into the larger “Congregation of the skies.” Each and all unfolding, working in whatever line of knowledge and work was theirs to attain and achieve! And to find all the treasured jewels of friendship more bright in the added lustre of the larger life; the flowers in the Garden of true Affection growing more and more transcendently fair!
This is indeed Heaven! Next in blessedness to the Homes of the Best Beloved which are the very Kingdom of Heaven!
Ministrations of Spirits
It was wonderful to note the ministrations of spirits to those in other less fortunate states—especially to those in Earthly forms. Wherever the ties of consanguinity were also of real affection the spirit guardians of the household responded to the “call,” perhaps only a thought, a longing, or a silent prayer for aid and strength, or a need unknown to the one ministered unto.
Time is not a factor on the spirit side, the response to a need—an aspiration, a prayer is instantaneous. Where there seems to be delay, and often doubt in the minds of those on Earth as to the presence and ministration of the loved one who has been summoned, it is because of Earthly barriers, because those in the human state cannot perceive—and many, alas, are not willing to receive the spirit friend. I saw that the usual barriers are: Uncontrolled, selfish grief—mourning for the one who has “passed on” and often forgetting the other dear ones of the household who are left; seeking for the communion to forward a purely selfish purpose; and, in general, the obstruction of false education, theological and material, through which the spiritual faculties have been closed for generations.