When we spoke of ways of finding happiness she said: “Who fears the purpose he should serve with force destroys it. Fear not. Find it, serve it, and happiness of a positive kind will find you.... Your force is scattered among many latent purposes. Find the dominant call of Progress to your soul, and follow that, leaving the rest behind.”
Again, a day or two later, the present preoccupation of healers on the next plane was mentioned, when I asked Mary K. whether a certain woman would come at a given time to meet friends who had asked for her.
“She may. I shall try to have her here,” she said. “Her work is healing, and all our healers are working constantly.... She was an artist with you, and somewhat deterrent. She has found a new purpose.”
The day before the last Lessons were given, Maynard Holt, explaining to a friend the seven purposes, said: “Every Human being who is for progress and construction serves one or more of these purposes. It is by them that what you know as human force is ultimately grouped for eternal advance. Our effort now is to unite all forces for Progress in conscious co-operation.” After speaking of Germany’s unity of purpose, he went on: “She is, and has been for years, the center of forces and purposes of disintegration in your life. She is, in theological parlance, the ally of his Satanic Majesty. We have learned here that there is no evil, per se. There is only purpose, constructive or destructive.... But the forces of disintegration are gathering for a battle of wits and morals, and we are emulating Germany in just one thing.... We are preparing. We want you to wake up and realize what is going on. We want every one of you to find and recognize not only your own purpose, but the other fellow’s. Find out who is for progress, and who merely camouflages disintegration. Conscious co-operation of constructive purpose is warranted to beat the devil. He can’t defeat it, nor yet delay it. (O) That is what it means to all of us.... Come on in. The water’s fine!”
V
As has been said, our invisible friends have seemed somewhat hazy in their perceptions of time and place and of mundane details generally, and they have shown no inclination to concern themselves with our trivial personal affairs. When pressed for specific statements about small details, their replies have been sometimes in exact accordance with the fact as we have perceived it, sometimes not, but they have rarely diverged widely from the truth. In the larger matters directly related to spiritual unity and growth they have been correct, as when Mary K. explicitly stated, March 23d (already quoted), that the German offensive then in progress and up to that time successful would ultimately fail.
On one occasion, apropos of certain questions her husband had asked, Mary Kendal said: “We are not here to satisfy intellectual or any other kind of curiosity. If we were not sure you would use this information for construction, we wouldn’t fuss about it—except you and I, Manzie.”
Several times during March and April, however, Mary K. gave me correct and specific information about various minor affairs, and these incidents are mentioned here because I have been asked repeatedly whether such statements had been made and verified, rather than because undue importance is attached to them.