Starting Out / Our Objectives

(Granger): The idea that physical death is the end of anything, with the exception of the physical body, is in error. We are just as real as you are, and you will be just as real as we are when you come over here. We do not want to mislead you, however, into thinking that we are "over here" as versus "over there." We are simply at a different vibration from yours. You may not think it is that simple, but it is. There is very little change in your sense of awareness when you leave the physical body. When we first arrive in this vibration we have all the same awareness we had in physical life. We do not, of course, use the senses in quite the same way, but we learn to operate very quickly.

We call our group "The Starters." We think that name is as good as any since we are always saying we are ready to start. We are interested in developing certain ideas, and in giving certain explanations. There are some problems because of the different sets of parameters used here to those you are accustomed to in your life on earth. Do not think this is a great struggle, however; it is indeed a real pleasure for us.

There are many people, of course, who will not accept the concepts we are giving you. Do not be too concerned; each one travels at his or her own speed. No one is obligated to believe everything we will present here. We will give you information from which each one should select his or her own ideas. There is a law that states all men are equal to the ideas they comprise. There is no law, however, to say their beliefs must include any specific sets of ideas. We do not want to have anyone feel guilty if he or she does not accept what we say. Do not underestimate the power of thinking, however. One of the most important concepts in life is the way in which you think about yourself.

We are not a lot of "spooks" sitting around all day thinking up things to do to scare people over on the earth. If nothing else comes out of this effort we would, at least, like to get that idea put to bed. We have much better things to do, and certainly it is not our intention to upset anyone. We may not be the best lot of people who ever lived in the earth, but certainly we are not the worst either.

Do not accept anything you receive at face value. Always challenge the source from which the writing is coming. There are any number of groups here who look for a channel; we cannot guarantee always to be the ones doing the writing. Whenever you are in doubt, stop and challenge the source. We will confirm it is the Starters by a signature. The signature will always look like this: Granger. Yes "Granger" is the signature for The Starters. We will never at any time send messages through any other channel without first telling you. Do not at any time hesitate to request a signature from the source.

There are ways we could be helped here by your efforts. The old idea of praying for those who are dead is not such a bad idea at all. I, Granger, know the Catholic Church continues the practice, but not in a very useful way. We need a more practical form of effort. Creative thinking is of great importance in this area. I am aware this is foreign to your (the writer's) thinking, but we will get around to the specifics so that you will have a clearer picture of what is needed. Do not close your mind, that is all we ask at this time. We are not a religious group of any type. There are many backgrounds here: some are Protestant, some are Catholic, some are of many other faiths, and some are of none. As a group, we do not adhere to any particular set of beliefs; you will not receive any dogma from us.

We would like to correct the impression held by so many on earth, that from over here we have the benefit of ultimate, divine knowledge and wisdom in all areas of life. We do not have such infinite knowledge here, any more than you do there. We do, however, have the benefit of a much wider range of awareness of consciousness than you have available on your side. We work our way through problems, and learn through situations, just as you do. We benefit from doing this writing, just as you do; it takes effort to gather the information here, as there. We learn better ways of putting information together for you, in your terms of comprehension, and we certainly enjoy doing the work.

Some people will ask you, on occasion, a somewhat obvious question: "Why do The Starters want to bother doing all that writing? Why do they not just sit back and enjoy themselves?" That is an understandable question from those on earth, weary from the daily struggle. But the question arises out of the concept people on earth have of those who have passed on, "to their well deserved rest." And that is a point we want to clarify. If you wish to rest when you arrive here ...and you surely will arrive, you may rest to your heart's desire. But understand that there is a very real limit to how much resting most of us can enjoy. Soon you say, "Enough is enough, I need a job!" And you start looking around for a project in which you are interested. Those who are in this group, which we refer to as The Starters, have at least one thing in common, we want to raise the level of consciousness and awareness in the earth. We are, of course, by no means the only ones who have that desire; many try in various ways with various levels of success. We want to add one other element to our effort. At all times, we want to present accurate and correct information. Your willingness to keep an open but reasonable mind helps us in this effort. We are aware that you have some concerns in your own mind, but the fact that you leave open the door to new information helps us.

We are aware that you will be queried as to why you did not ask for the "earth-life" identity of those who work in this group You will be told that we are simply a figment of your imagination; that you suffer from one complex or another, and have invented us in your subconscious mind. as a form of overcompensation. And these are, of course, reasonable explanations of the source from which you are writing. We do not see any reason for, or benefit to come from, debating the issue; let each one come to his or her own conclusion. What we would like, however, is to have each reader give fair consideration, out of an open mind, to the validity of the material presented in this book. If we have done anything to open new channels of thought for you, that will be all the recognition we require.

We do not wish to present the earth-life names of those in the group. It would be of no real benefit to anyone, and you would have no means at your disposal to prove the list, or to verify that we are the "after-life" of those particular persons anyway. For the record, we will say that had you specifically requested the earth-names of those in the group we would have been under an obligation to give you the information.

[In a later section of the book, while discussing the nature of war, Granger wrote: "Here we sit together in this group and watch the struggles in earth between nations and peoples. In this group, we include Jews and Arabs, Russians and Americans, Canadians who are of French and of English extractions, Japanese and Australians, Indians of North America, and natives of the tribes and nations of South America, the islands of the Pacific, and many from Africa and India."]

(Granger:) As you are aware, there is danger of error from the source of the mind of the person receiving the material. Whenever information is received through the mind, it is subject to "colouring" by the beliefs resident in the writer's (receiver's) mind. This is always a problem. Many books of this nature are distorted by the mind of the writer colouring the given information with beliefs from his or her own subconscious beliefs. We are on guard for that, and will advise you whenever we see that happening. Since you are aware of this source of misleading information from the beginning of the book, we believe there will be very little, if any, colouring of information in this book.

Many good writing experiences have gone off the rails because the receiver in the earth failed to detect fraudulent writing. We have as many and as clever counterfeiters here as you do over there. The objective of the false writing is, of course, to obtain a channel into the earth, through which the source group hope to gain some form of influence or control. Usually these groups do not intend to do any harm to anyone in the earth. It is mostly the desire to carve out some area of control or influence. Many very sincere religious groups from here try to develop channels into the earth for the purpose of presenting their own present level of convictions into the earth. Many good people in the earth take this type of writing as "Gospel Truth," coming all but directly from God. Often nothing could be farther from the truth.

We need to be aware of the danger of deception for those who seek contact with loved ones, or close friends, for personal and emotional reasons. There is great opportunity for deception in the psychic field, and particularly for those who have emotional or personal reasons for seeking reassurance from "beyond." In this work, as in any work where you are in close contact with unknown sources, keep a clear, open and objective eye, and a mind on the alert. If you do that, and use some wisdom, you will not be likely to stray far from the mark of truth; any deception will soon become evident.

There are, I suppose, other dangers in psychic research or exploration of almost any sort that opens the channels of the mind. One such is the danger from what is referred to as possession, in one form or another. Again, this source of danger is most directly relative to the mind seeking comfort or personal reassurance. Whenever the mind wants to believe in a particular emotional situation or presence of a personality, there is presented the opportunity for deception. On earth, many people get taken, as they say, because they want to believe in some sales pitch being presented to them. It appeals to the ego, or to a little bit of greed, or some other element of the emotions. The situation from this side is not very different. There are those here as willing to play a "con-game" as they were on earth; we don't suddenly become higher-level personalities just because we leave the physical body. Always keep in mind that in psychic work of any kind you are subject to being mislead by some personality or group. Now that situation in the physical-earth life does not prevent you from continuing to conduct business, nor should it stop you from doing research at the psychic level. We think there is great benefit to be had in carefully controlled and well documented research in the physics field. We would like to see more research carried out at a high level of investigation, with proper controls and background in the special fields of research.

You have the earth filled with electronic devices of all sorts, waiting to receive any message, in any form or code from outer space, on the speculation that some intelligence may be trying to communicate with earth. Why not set up similar, or any other, attempts to record or receive data from those who may have survived death; or even from those of high intelligence who may never have entered the physical dimension of life but are willing to communicate if contacted or given the opportunity to make contact?

We will describe the way we get our information to you. Often we are able to just think the words, and you get them. Sometimes we must assist your hand in writing the correct word. We do that through the motor-muscle control centres in your brain; it is not affecting your control in any way whatsoever. We are not the type who wishes to control anyone. We might add, however, there are those around who do want to control. We think you can quickly sort them out.

We are sending this information to you through a psychic channel. The channel is of a rather complex structure that involves stepping down our vibration to yours. We do that in several stages, each stage has to be controlled very carefully. We are having a lot of pleasure, however, from doing it. We have a clever little way now of getting the information to you; we send the messages one word at a time. You will note that sometimes you get a word ahead of the order. That is because of the way we arrange the words. They are all ready, but we need to keep them time-phased for you. To do that we must guess at your writing speed. Do not worry about it; it is working very well.

[On 26 March, 1978, the channel of communication from Granger changed somewhat with the following comment: "This Easter Morning we will communicate in a slightly different style from the past, in that we will be able to send the message directly to you without the need to step-down the vibration to a lower level. This change is possible because your mind is now tuned into, and open to, the higher vibration. The choice is made from your own Will. We do not interfere with the well being of your mind in any way. This is an accomplishment to be desired. You should never in any way abuse the privilege of tuning into this higher vibration."]

Our Objectives

(Granger): Many people are very concerned about survival following physical death. We think it is more important to understand why you are in the earth in the first place. There are, of course, no simple answers here. Life is very complex indeed, but we can think about some of the factors involved. One reason we know of for being in the physical-earth life is to develop an individual personality. You may do that in a very adequate way, or do nothing. There is a certain freedom of choice as to the extent you may wish to develop or not. Many people do not accept the challenge of life; they let it pass them by. That is a great mistake. Learning is of magnificent importance. Never pass up an opportunity to learn about the processes of life. We greet those who make an effort to learn more.

Do not misunderstand me, we do not want to be considered a lot of eggheads. We want to get to the understanding with you that we are not so very different from you. But we wish you could see the effort made here to help those who try to learn more about life. We are not trying to control the thinking of other people; that is not allowed. We try to assist whenever they make the effort to learn. Understand the value of learning all you can on the earth plane. It will help you to understand the higher planes so much better.

Knowledge here must be applied. We have a great array of information we work from. We take many ideas and work them into something new. The result may be seen on earth as what appears to be a breakthrough in knowledge. However, we are not just involved in working with the earth. We have many other forms of effort and tasks. But you need to understand that the earth plane is not in isolation from other levels of consciousness. We are concerned with what happens there. The sum total of all our tasks, yours and ours, will achieve the objective of raising the whole level of consciousness.