Part 2

There was a perception of great Light, a consciousness of Illumination, an awakening to the vastness, the unlimitation of this Realm of Spirit.

O how often, when in “dreams” or “visions” I had been permitted and aided by my Guides to visit the Spirit States, this inner and higher Realm, I had longed to remain! But ever willing to answer the call of duty, of added work to be performed by me, I would return to fill my place at the appointed time. NOW; NOW?--

All else was swallowed up--eclipsed by the wonderful experiences that came--the Beloved Presences--the vistas of luminous Spirits! This was a state of Super-Consciousness; the awakening of faculties and perceptions before unknown, of being aware, almost without limitation: of KNOWING. Whatever is the nature and state of the real Ego this seemed as near to the Absolute as one could well conceive! There was so much of me! There was so little of me! There were so many and such surpassing Spirits! How one shrinks in the presence of the mighty ones! How one expands in the Knowledge of the Infinite: His Image!

Often in approaching a transcendent Light there would appear an atmosphere of ensphering tints--there would also seem to be a sphere of sound, of surpassing music. On being admitted to that sphere it would prove to be a group of spirits who thus in accord are Light and Harmony. Where one can enter such an “atmosphere” communing with such a group it is because one has need of and is in harmony with the spirits of that group.

SENSES MERGED IN PERCEPTION

Objective scenes seemed ever to be adaptations to my state, and would often vanish as I became aware of the minds or spirits suggested by the scenes.

“All human sensations, as sight and hearing, are readily perceived by one awakening to spiritual states to be but manifestations of consciousness through the physical limitations to which the spirit in its mental states of earth becomes accustomed. But here all is merged in perception--where one perceives and understands,” thus said the Guide.

This added consciousness--uniting or releasing the faculties--is not all at once: I found myself thinking in the accustomed channels, in words as well as thoughts, listening for replies instead of knowing that the answer had been thought to me, really was there before I had questioned; of looking for beautiful forms and scenes instead of perceiving the Soul of Beauty which was (is) everywhere.

I became more and more aware that the whole of me, released from the fetters of the bodily senses, could perceive and receive more perfectly the answer to every question, even before its formulation in thought.

“Formulation is a process of limitation, sometimes of hindrance,” said the Guide. “A feeble comparison of what ‘perception’ really is may be found in an artist (of Earth) whose prepared mind (and therefore vision) sees the beauty in a landscape, a sunset sky that another sees not at all, or dimly. Prepared senses are the result of prepared minds, of being pervaded by the awareness of the Spirit,” said the Presence.

It is of little avail, however, to attempt to bring into outward forms of thought and expression the perceptions one is aware of while one is in that inner state, excepting that they relate to conditions under which those loved and loving ones in that state can reach and change for the better the sorrowing hearts in human life, the shadowed conditions of earth existence.

THE BODY IN CHARGE OF GUARDIANS

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.

When human hands and hearts, even though the latter is wrung by pain, seek to help others who are in sorrow or need, then the way is opened and the helpers are helped by the ministering ones.

To mourn the friend as utterly “gone” who has only dropped the outer garments of the dust is to close, for the time, the avenue of communication or ministration. Long must the spirit helpers work and wait for people to be ready to receive their response to the call for aid. So many did I see who could not reach the recognition of their loved ones that I wished over and over again that there were more real “Message bearers,” more to give comfort to those that mourn! And then the Presence answered: “Not all are ready to whom the Messages now are given, nor are those protected adequately who are the chosen Instruments for Message bearing, but the seed is being sown and will take root in thousands of lives.”

THOUGHT-FORMS

I was shown those who existed in the thought-forms and scenes of their recent human states: Such as these were surrounded with the “things” (forms of things) familiar to them on Earth, and apparently necessary to their happiness even in the new state of existence. These scenes illustrated that our lives even in the human state, consist largely of “states of mind,” that we see the things we are accustomed to see, or have trained our minds or wishes to see omitting many and sometimes most of the things of beauty and of import that we might see.

The spirit states that are “exactly like the scenes of Earth” are composed of the thought-forms of the spirits’ imaging or reproduction, and are the reality to them. I recalled the weaving of a web that I had once seen an industrious spider perfect and he was afterward caught in his own web. I wondered if we are not often in human life--and the states that immediately follow the weavers of many such “cobwebs”? These thought-webs seemed to proceed from the minds of the spirits fashioning them and in which the spirits seemed to be ensphered, sometimes enshadowed. Before my questionings had taken form in my mind the answer came from the Presence: “No, they are not enmeshed by the thought-forms; their creation is the result of the present condition; remove the power to produce thought-forms, i.e., to create ones own environment and you remove all activity of mind. As the Spirit unfolds the thought-forms change and then disappear as perception takes the place of limitation by the senses.”

With the almost axiomatic proposition that “our world of life is what we make it” our spirit-surroundings and conditions the result of our states of unfoldment, it became less difficult even when returning to the limitations of human organism to understand the conditions of existence in the “next stage” of personal experience beyond the “transition” misnamed “death.”