"ONE WAR ENDS ..."
CHAPTER VII
"ONE WAR ENDS ..."
RUMOURS of the collapse of the war in Europe were spreading fast when our circle met only a few days before the great news was officially released.
"One war ends. Another war beginsーthe war against human greed, selfishness and materialism, the war to liberate man and to build systems in an ever-better world in which freedom, equity, justice and decency are the lot of all peoples. This is not a new gospel. It is the old one; but it is still true.”
That is what Silver Birch told us at the sitting. “You are witnessing the birth of a new order," he said. “All around you are the signs that the old world, founded on selfishness, material-ism, greed, avarice and cruelty, is dying. You who call your-selves Spiritualists are the custodians of a great truth, for you are the sentries guarding the outposts, helping to forge the new era.
"Think of yourselves as the soldiers of the Great Spirit, fighting the greatest fight of all. For you are helping to vanquish all the forces that belong to the darkness of man's ignorance and brought war, misery, chaos and bankruptcy to your world. You are helping to shape a new world, in which all the children of the Great Spirit will share to the full the richness of the bounty He has freely given."
And it was in the still unaccustomed atmosphere of a rocket-less, siren-less London that the home circle met again the following week.
I have told, in the foreword how, like many other people, the members of our circle have received spirit protection from bombing throughout the war. I have tried to explain why we have been so highly privileged. When, two or three times, we have asked Silver Birch how he was able to give us this immunity, he would jestingly reply: "Oh, I huff and I puff ! But sometimes you give me quite a lot of trouble.” He would add that we could best help him by casting out all thoughts of fear, telling us, "Fear is your worst enemy." Beyond those remarks he would not go. But when, at this first sitting after VE-Day, the guide was asked whether he could now give us more information as to how spirit protection functions and explain its limitation and its possibilities, he went into further details.
Fully aware of the controversial nature of the whole subject, and conscious of the questions his explanations would raise in many minds he began: “You have all been brought through the fire unharmed and even unsinged. There is none who comes within the immediate radius of this influence who has been hurt, although you have had narrow escapes."
Then, admitting the difficulty of explaining how our safety had been ensured, he said that there was no means of our under-standing more than the fact that "certain rays are put into operation more or less as healing rays are transmitted through healing instruments, and then they radiate wherever the ray is designed to exert the influence. We can make no impact on your world without the use of a sensitive, one who is receptive to our vibration."
Speaking of the visit of a well-known medium to our circle, he said: “You remember, perhaps, when Lillian Bailey came here, she told what she sawーa large mass of rays round the medium and then fine threads of cobweb going all over the room and extending beyond, each person being similarly enmeshed with these webs or threads so that they also became sending or transmitting stations.
"The medium is the transformer and you all help to transmit rays wherever we want to take them. These rays can neutralise the material vibrations in your world. In the same way as the knowledge of certain spirit forces can neutralise or supersede the power of gravitation, so other rays can neutralise or supersede the electrical or magnetic or physical impulses belonging to bombs and guns.
"I have always stressed to you, until sometimes I have won-dered whether I was becoming wearisome, that fear is your worst enemy, that calm confidence helps us to help you. Fear disturbs. Fear sends wavering emanations into the atmosphere around you, and nullifies the conditions which make it possible for our power to operate amongst you.
"So if you ask me: 'Why, if some people have had guidance and protection, why not others?' the answer is that it is all circumstanced by the conditions that are available.
"If you say to me: 'Why is one healed and another is not?' 'Why is one forewarned and another is not?' 'Why is one saved and another killed?' the answer is that it all depends on the con-ditions available at the time. No miracle is involved. It is all done according to some natural law.
"The radius of spirit influence depends upon the people who are in co-operation with it. It does not extend to all the people of your world. If it did, then many disasters and happenings would not occur, or at least they would not have the effect on the people; but we must always take things as they are.
"We are trying to revolutionise the whole of man's concep-tion of the universe in which he dwells. We are trying to provide him with a spiritual basis so that he can interpret life in terms of truth and knowledge and wisdom, so that the causes of all war and all hatred may be eliminated.
"That is an ambitious and great task. It is important that as many as possible should be dedicated to it. We can only reach those whom we can reach. It is done slowly and gradually, almost one at a time. The natural corollary is that those who are brought within the sphere of this spirit power can be given a pro-tection, a mantle of love to be wrapped around them. I wish with all my heart and soul that all could have it, and it is part of our task to make it available to every human being in your world.
"The benediction of the spirit is a warm, living, vital, eternal reality. Rejoice that it falls on you. Those who dwell amid this power should have a tranquillity, peace, calmness and a con-fidence that no matter what happens they know all is well.
"Fear is your worst enemy. Abolish fear. Fear disturbs, fear nullifies, fear restricts, fear beclouds your judgment. Banish fear,
"There is no event in your world or in mine that need cause you to entertain fear. You are part of the eternal spirit which is the breath of life itself and you possess, potentially, all its divine properties and are capable of resisting and overcoming all that crosses your pathway through an eternal life.”