Spirit Teachings
Spirit Guidance.
(guardian angels)
On the appointment of spirit-guides.
Touching Spirit-guides. How are they appointed?
"Spirit-guides
are not always attracted to those whom they direct, though this is usually the
case. Sometimes they are selected for their own fitness. They are naturally
apt to teach. Sometimes they are charged with a special commission. Sometimes
they are picked because they are able to supply what is wanting in the characters
which they train. Sometimes they themselves select a character which they wish
to mould. This is a great pleasure to the higher spirits. Sometimes they desire,
for their own spiritual progress, to be attached to a soul the training which
is irksome and difficult. They toil upward along with the soul. Sometimes they
are attracted by pure affinity, or by the remains of earth-love. Very frequently,
when there is no special mission for the soul, the guides are changed as the
soul progresses."
"The progressed spirits whose care it is to teach and educate, are in
a spiritual sense one with those to whom they impart knowledge. The pupil drinks
from the spiritual fount of the master's knowledge, and is united with him.
This is the union of spirit."
"Is it perpetuated?"
"Yes. It is the eternal law of interdependence. In spirit-life we do not
talk of independence. That is a fallacy of earth. Spirits are in union and communion
mutually interdependent. They are joined in rapport with those from whom they
have learned, or to whom they have taught somewhat."
- Signed: Magnus.
....
"Frequently it chances that a guardian continues to guide a spirit after
it has left the body, and carries on in the spheres the education begun in earth-life."
"(Man) is the recipient of guidance from spirits who have trod the path
before him, and who are commissioned to guide him if he will avail himself of
their guidance. He has within him a standard of right which will direct him
to the truth, if he will allow himself to be guided to keep it and protect it
from injury. If he refuse these helps, he falls into transgression and deterioration.
He is thrown back and finds misery in place of joy. His sins punish themselves.
Of his duties he knows by the instinct of his spirit as well as by the teaching
of his guardians. The performance of those duties brings progress and happiness.
The spirit grows and gains newer and fuller views of that which makes for perfect,
satisfying joy and peace."
"And while man feigns for himself such ignorant and impossible fancies,
he neglects or ignores those helps and protections which encircle him all around.
We have no power, indeed, to work out for man the salvation which he must work
out for himself; but we are able to aid, to comfort, and to support. Appointed
by a loving God to minister, in our several spheres, to those who need it, we
find our power curtailed, and our efforts mocked at by those who have become
too gross to recognise spirit-power, and too earthy to aspire to spiritual things.
These helps man has ever round about him; helps which he may draw to himself
by the mighty engine of prayer, and knit to him by frequent communion with them.
"Ah! you know little what power you neglect when you omit to foster, by
perpetual prayer, communion with the spirits, holy, pure, and good, who are
ready to stand by and assist you. Praise, which attunes the soul to God, and
prayer, which moves the spirit agencies--these are engines ever ready to man's
service. And yet he passes them idly by, and makes his hopes of future bliss
rest on a faith, on a creed, on an assent, on a vicarious store of merit, on
any shadowy, baseless figment rather than on fact."
(See also: "Prayer and its benefits".)
On the influence of spirit-guides.
"It is necessary that man be constantly reminded to seek spiritual gifts.
We are come to teach, not merely to amuse or astonish. But we cannot teach where
man will not be taught.
"The scanty interest that the higher revelations excite render it very
difficult for even the most advanced Intelligences to make satisfactory communication
with your world. Men care little for being taught; they seek rather to be amused.
We do what we can, hampered by many disadvantages, attacked on the one side
by the ceaseless machinations of spiritual foes, and hindered from advance on
the other by the dead, cold faith of man, or by his undeveloped and unreceptive
spirit.
"We wish we could impress on all friends who come within our influence
that, in communing, in proportion to the loftiness of their aspirations, is
the character of the spirit who come to them."
I suppose a secluded life is favourable for your influence,
rather than the busy whirl of town?
"The busy world is ever averse from the things of spirit life. Men become
absorbed in the material, that which they can see, and grasp, and hoard up,
and they forget that there is a future and spirit life. They become so earthly
that they are impervious to our influence; so material that we cannot come near
them; so full of earthly interests that there is no room for that which shall
endure when they have passed away. More than this, the constant preoccupation
leaves no time for contemplation, and the spirit is wasted for lack of sustenance.
The spiritual state is weak: the body is worn and weary with weight of work
and anxious care, and the spirit is well-nigh inaccessible. The whole air, moreover,
is heavy with conflicting passions, with heart-burnings, and jealousies, and
contentions, and all that is inimical to us. Round the busy city, with its myriad
haunts and vice, its detestable allurements, its votaries of folly and sin,
hover the legions of the opposing spirits, who watch for opportunity to lure
the wavering to their ruin. They urge on many to their grief hereafter, and
cause us many sorrows and much anxious care.
"The
life of contemplation is that which most suits communion with us. It is not
indeed to supersede the life of action, but may be in some sort combined with
it. It is most readily practised where distracting cares come not in, and where
excessive toil weakens not the bodily powers. But the desire must be inherent
in the soul; and where that is, neither distracting cares nor worldly allurements
avail to prevent the recognition of a spirit world, and of communion with it.
The heart must be prepared. But it is easier for us to make our presence felt
when the surroundings are pure and-peaceful."
"We desire to show you that God Himself is the center of influence, and
that His influence, flowing through intermediary agencies, permeates humanity;
and those influences (angelic, you call them) influence mankind. We wish to
show you how the angelic influence surrounding the center of light diffuses
itself round those it is able to reach; and how the Spirit of the Most High,
traversing those channels, reaches all who are able to receive it. Man becomes
the means of disseminating the knowledge of which he is the unconscious recipient.
Man may cultivate the power given to him and aid the work he is chosen for,
fostering the dwelling of the Spirit of God among men. The power of God comes
from on high, descending through the angel ministers, permeating His chosen
messengers, showing men how they may be fellow-workers with God."
Mrs. Speer says these fragmentary records give only the faintest
idea of what was said, and cannot give manner.
"The angels, as of old they called them, 'spirits' as ye know them, who
traverse the space between you and your God, bring down blessings from Him,
while they carry up your prayers to His Throne. These are the steps between
God and Man, the channels of influence. There is angelic influence round incarnated
souls."
On the nature and function of higher spirits.
"Our council is finished, and most of us have betaken ourselves to our
work. Imperator is still in the spheres, but he will return ere long. Imperator,
the Chief, has work which draws him at times to the spheres. Special individual
control is not his work. He rather directs general movements."
"Does he hold a high place?"
"Yes, friend, he is one of the chiefs among the higher spirits, of whom
but few return to you directly. Most of them impress their commands on intermediate
spirits. Only for a great work do the higher ones return, and their work is
of direction, control, plan, rather than of guiding the individual soul.
"If the eye of man could have seen the vast concourse of the shining ones,
massed together for consultation, and for the reception of the larger efflux
of the Divine Spirit, they would have been of good cheer. And yet there is the
opposite; the legions of the adversaries, gathered together in serried ranks,
ready to stop all progress and thwart all revelation of God's Truth."
"The higher spirits who come to your earth are influences or emanations.
They are not what you describe as persons, but emanations from higher spheres.
Learn to recognise the impersonality of the higher messages. When we first appeared
to this medium he insisted on our identifying ourselves to him. But many influences
come through our name. Two or three stages after death spirits lose much of
what you regard as individuality and become more like influences. I have now
passed to the verge of the spheres from which it is impossible to return to
you. I can influence without any regard to distance. I am very distant from
you now."
(A spirit called Elliotson controlling.)
"....
Some of the higher spirits have, as I know, almost lost their identity. There
comes a time when the individuality is dissipated and enlarged, and becomes
a centre of influence. The exalted spirit, Imperator, who directs this medium,
bathes me in his influence. I do not see him, but he permeates the space in
which I dwell. I have received his commands and instructions, but I have never
seen him. The medium sees a manifestation of him, which is necessary in his
case, not in mine. The return to earth is a great trial to me. I might compare
it to the descent from a pure and sunny atmosphere into a valley where the fog
lingers. In the atmosphere of earth I seem completely changed. The old habits
of thought awaken, and I seem to breathe a grosser air."
On influencing the medium and moulding his mind.
"Moreover, in dealing with you, spirits always proceed in one uniform
manner. They are sent to communicate through a human medium some portion of
Divine truth. In the medium's mind they find a growth of opinions, some false,
some partly true, some distorted and befogged by early prejudice and training.
Are these to be eradicated before the truer ideas are suggested? Is the mind
to be completely cleared of all preconceived ideas? By no means. It is not so
we act. Were we to do so the work of eradication would be so tedious that we
should risk leaving the mind bare of teaching altogether, and should have destroyed
without being able to create. No; we take the opinions already existent, and
mould them into closer semblance of truth. All have in some sort the germ of
truth, or we destroy them. With such as contain truth, we strive to grapple,
and to mould and form them to progress and advancement in knowledge. We know
of how little worth are the theological notions to which men attach so much
importance; and we are content to leave them to die in the brighter light to
which we lead the soul, while we supply the needed information on important
topics. Only we must eradicate dogmatism. That is all-important. Opinion, when
harmless, we do not meddle with.
"Hence it is that theological notions may remain very much what they were,
only toned down and softened in their asperities. So men falsely say that spirits
always teach that which a man has previously believed. It is far from being
so. What we now teach you is sufficient proof of that. The spirit-guides do
indeed work on that which they find already in the mind; but they mould and
temper it, and imperceptibly change and adapt it to their ends. It is only when
the views held are such as they cannot work upon, or of a positive and dogmatic
type, that the change wrought becomes plain to your eyes. You find a man who
has denied the existence of God and of spirit, who has believed only what he
can see and feel and handle; such a materialist you see converted to a belief
in God and a future existence, and you wonder at the change. But the spirit
that has been tempered, and chastened, and softened: that has been purified,
and refined, and elevated: whose rude and rough beliefs have been toned and
softened, of this change you make no note, because it is too gradual and subtle
to be perceptible to your senses. Yet such are the glorious results of our daily
work. The crude is softened; the hard, and cold, and cheerless are warmed into
loving life; the pure is refined; the noble ennobled; the good made better;
the yearning soul satisfied with richer views of its God and of its future happiness.
"The opinions have not been suppressed, but they have been modified and
changed. This is the real existent spirit influence all around of which ye know
nothing as yet: the most real and blessed part of spirit ministry.
"When, therefore, men say that spirits speak only the medium's preconceived
opinions, they are partly right. The opinions, in so far as they are harmless,
are the previous ones, only moulded in a way not perceptible to your gaze as
yet. When the opinions are hurtful, they are eradicated and destroyed.
"When
we deal with special forms of theological creed, we strive, in so far as we
can, to spiritualise previous opinion rather than eradicate it. We know--as
you cannot know--of how trifling moment are forms of faith, provided the faith
be alive and spiritual: and we strive, therefore, to build on the foundation
already laid. To this end, however, whilst the broad outlines, which are in
themselves partially truthful, or which embody as much of truth as the intelligence
can grasp, are preserved, much that is false and delusive must be cleared away.
So the work of destruction precedes the work of construction. The soul is purged
of gross error, and the truth is refined and purified as far as may be. Hence
it is that we do usually teach a modification of the views of truth held by
those to whom we speak."
The guidance of S. M.'s life, in preparation for his great work,
is reviewed.
".... You thought, as you would say, for yourself. Nay, friend, but we
thought for you, and moulded your conclusions. We judged it wise to withdraw
you, in time, from the public position of a teacher in a Church which no longer
represented your intellectual and religious plane of thought. We withdrew you
from a place where your work was done, and prepared you for another phase of
your earth-life. The tempering effect of bodily illness had been in all your
life an engine of great power with us. We have maintained a wholesome control
thereby."
"Has the whole of my life been a preparation for this?"
"It has. We have guided and planned it for no other purpose. We have wished
to secure a medium duly prepared. The mind must be prepared, and stored with
information, and the life must have been such as to fit the progressive mind
to be receptive of Truth. This can only be by prolonged training.
"You were guided by one to whom we could gain access best, to look into
Spiritualism. You were influenced powerfully. We have led you on and on; taught
you directly a gospel of God, far in advance of that you had."
Guidance, preparation and advice.
You always work so. It seems roundabout. If this be so, why
was I allowed to live so long in error?
"We have told you already that you were not fitted to receive truth. Your
past life, which has not been so long as you imagine, was a careful preparation
for progress. It was in its day useful and progressive, but only as leading
you on to higher planes of knowledge. The time will come when you will look
back on this too, which now is new and strange, and wonder how it could have
seemed to you so startling.
"Life, the totality of your being, is progressive throughout; and its
early stages are but preparatory to its later development.
"Theology was a necessary phase in your training, and we were both unwilling
and unable to prevent you from taking erroneous views. Be content to pursue
your present path. It has been one of our chiefest difficulties to uproot false
dogmas from your mind. It has been steady work, and now we hope that you may
find out much respecting the question of revelation which will enable us to
clear away false opinions and infuse true knowledge. We can do little so long
as traditional reverance for any mere words, however venerable in their associations,
is implanted in your mind. We must wait till you can appreciate at its real
value each utterance made through man, whether that utterance be contained in
your Bible or not. So long as you reply to our arguments with a text we cannot
teach you. Any one who can so reply is beyond reach of reasonable teaching.
".... Cast aside that which is merely legendary, mythical, or traditional,
and dare to walk alone, untrammelled by any bonds, and unfettered by dread of
any conclusion at which you may arrive. Dare to trust God, and seek for truth.
Dare to think soberly, calmly, about revelation.
"To
such a seeker shall come a knowledge of which he little dreams; a comfort which
no creed of tradition can afford. He will know of God and of His truth as none
can know who has not trodden the path of personal investigation. He will know
of things Divine as the traveller knows of a far-off country when he has himself
visited it and lived amongst its people. Round him will centre the ministry
of enlightenment, the guidance of the spirits whose mission it is to proclaim
truth and progress to mankind. Old prejudices will fall away; old fallacies
will shrink from the new light into congenial darkness; and the soul will stand
unbound in the presence of Truth. Be of good cheer. Jesus it was who said, 'The
Truth shall make you free, and you shall be free indeed.' "
"We do not leave you. We help, but we may not save you from personal labour.
You must do your part. When you have laboured, we will direct and guide you
to knowledge. Believe us, it is best that you do this. In no other way can you
learn the truth. If we told you, you would not believe us, nor would you understand.
There is much outside of this question of the Christian revelation that you
must look to; other Divine words; other spiritual influences; but not yet.
"Cease: and may the Blessed One illuminate you!"
Missionary spirits who return to earth.
Who are the Spirits who return to earth? Of what class?
"Principally those who are nearest to the earth, in the three lower spheres
or states of being. They converse most readily with you. Of the higher spirits,
those who are able to return are they who have what is analogous to mediumistic
power on earth. We cannot tell you more than that we higher spirits find it
very difficult to find a medium through whom we can communicate. Many spirits
would gladly converse, but for the want of a suitable medium, and from their
unwillingness to prolong their research for one they not risk the waste of time.
Hence, too, communications vary much at times. Communications which you discover
to be false are not always willfully so. As time goes on we shall know more
on the conditions which affect communication."
"We had betaken ourselves to prayer and intercession, and had withdrawn
for awhile from the cares and anxieties which beset a mission to your nether
sphere, into the peaceful seclusion and harmonious atmosphere of the sphere
of adoration. It is well that we refresh ourselves at times with rest and the
society of the blessed lest we fail and faint in our work; lest we grow sad
and weary in spirit, and cease to labour with zeal and success.
"Ah! you who in your earth-life have toiled among the lanes and alleys
of your crowded cities, who have trodden the haunts of vice in the mission of
mercy, who have breathed the stifling air, fever-laden and noisome in its impurity;
who have watched the scenes of misery and sin, and have felt yourselves powerless
to alleviate, much more to remove distress and want--you may know what are the
feelings with which we minister amongst you. You have felt sick at heart, or
you have pondered over the ignorance and folly and vice which you have no means
of removing. You have felt prostrate with association with poverty and crime,
and mind and body has wavered under the thankless toil. Yet what do we see and
feel compared with what we do? You are apt to think of us as mysterious far-off
beings who have no interest in your lives, no knowledge of your miseries, and
no share in the troubles that beset you. You do not understand that we can enter
into your feelings and know the hidden griefs that vex you, even more really
than your fellow- man can. You think of us as dissociated from earth, whereas
we have very real knowledge alike of its sorrows and its delights. And you fancy
that the miseries, physical and spiritual, which crowd around the lives of some
are beyond our ken. It is far otherwise. We see far more clearly than you the
causes that produce sorrow, the temptations that beset the criminal, the miseries
that drive to despair, the hordes of the undeveloped who throng around and tempt
to vice and sin.
"Our view is not alone of material misery, but of spiritual temptation;
not alone of the sorrows that meet the eye of sense, but of the hidden grief
of which man knows nothing. Do not fancy that we are unable to see and to know
your sorrows and crimes, nor that we can mix with your people, and breathe the
atmosphere of your world without drinking in somewhat of its curse.
"What is the contrast from your life to that of the outcast in the noisome
atmosphere of some foul den in a back alley of your crowded cities--the home
of misery and crime--compared with that which strikes cold and chilling on us
as we come to your lower spheres! We come from the land of light and purity
and beauty, wherein is naught that is unclean, unholy, or impure--from a scene
blurred with no disfigurement, where is no shadow of darkness--nothing but radiance
and unspotted purity. We leave the society of the perfected, and the atmosphere
in which dwells peace; we quit the light and love, the harmony and adoration
of the spheres, and we descend to your cold earth, to a clime of darkness and
despair--to an atmosphere of repulsion and sorrow--to an air heavy with misery
and guilt--to a people disobedient, unbelieving, steeped in materialism, and
dead to spirit influence--to a world crowded thick with vice, surrounded by
the spirits of the undeveloped, and deaf to the voice of God. We quit the home
where God's light and truth prevail, for the outer darkness of your earth, where
only the faintest glimmer of spirit-truth, from circles rare and few, greets
our eyes. Harmony and peace we exchange for turbulence and discord, for war
and turmoil; the society of the pure and peaceful for the chilling company of
the sceptic and scorner, or even of the drunkard and sensualist, the outcast
and the thief. We leave temples where we adore the God of heaven for your nether
world, where our God is unknown, and where a being of man's own imagining reigns
in His place, save when even that idol has been dethroned, and man has relapsed
into absolute disbelief in all spirit and all incorporeal existence.
"This we do, only in most cases to find a people who are deaf and dead
to us; aye, and even those who do in a measure listen to our words so long as
they please them, and coincide with what they have themselves fancied--even
they will turn away from following when we would raise them to a higher level
and show them a purer light. The story of Jesus is fulfilled again. The people
will wonder at miraculous works; they will follow so long as personal interest
is excited, and personal curiousity gratified; but when we raise them from that
level, when we cut out the egoistic element, and deal with eternal and imperial
facts, they turn back--they are not able to receive what is too high for them.
And so the designs of God are thwarted, and the benefits which we are commissioned
to bestow are cast aside with thanklessness; and the chilling sense of threatened
failure is added to our sorrow. So it is; and we withdraw at times for rest
and refreshment, and return with the harmony of the spheres to cheer and comfort
us in the midst of our labours in a cheerless world, and among a thankless people.
"We complain, but we do not faint. Association with you and with your
surroundings causes us to imbibe somewhat of the tone of your mind. We have
said what we have said that you may know that we sacrifice somewhat, and that
we are amenable to the same feelings which sway you. We suffer mental agony
and spiritual distress. We feel pangs as real as those which wring the hearts
of men. Were we not (as you say) human in our sympathies, we could not enter
into your necessities. You will know, too, one day, that by a law as yet unknown
to you, the spirit returning to earth takes on much of the pure human tone which
it loses when absent. It becomes assimilated to earth and earthly ideas."
"In these spheres they must remain subject to the attempted influence
of the missionary spirits, until the desire for progress is renewed. When the
desire rises, the spirit makes its first step. It becomes amenable to holy and
ennobling influence, and is tended by those pure spirits whose mission it is
to tend such souls. You have among you spirits bright and noble, whose mission
in the earth- life is among the dens of infamy and haunts of vice, and who are
preparing for themselves a crown of glory, whose brightest jewels are self-sacrifice
and love. So amongst us there are spirits who give themselves to work in the
sphere of the degraded and abandoned."
(See "Sin and Salvation".)
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