OTHER-SIDE VIEW OF WAR
Silver Birch has always been unwavering in his denuncia-tion of war and the taking of life in any circumstances. He has always urged the spreading of peace teaching, as is shown by the following selection from his talks:
WE do not want the spirit world to become once again a hospital for broken souls. Those of us who work amongst you know that you must be prepared to take into your world all that which we try to teach you. We cannot do it for you. We can only see the result of those things you do which are wrong and show you what happens in our world when you do wrong things in yours.
It is because we see the destruction and the harm done that we have to point out the resultーthere come into the spirit world those who are not yet ready. They are plucked from the tree of life before the fruit is ripe. Why should we have to mend broken souls because you have destroyed the means through which they functioned on earth? Why should we have to give up our progress in order to serve those who only come into our world because you have failed to do your
duty？
If we did not love, and if we did not express the love of the Great Spirit, we would not be working amongst the children of earth. You must try to judge us only by the truths we try to teach you. You can never say to us: “That which you teach is wrong; it is against our common sense."
It cannot be right, even for your material world, to justify war. Even in things of matter, it leads only to destruction.
It cannot be right for our world, because you interfere with the operation of the law. How dare the children of earth interfere with the divine law that the spirit should drop from the body when it is ripe!
You must stand for that which is right. Those who are blind must not be allowed to interfere with the work of the spirit. You do not know how in your world there is at work an organized effort to upset all that which makes for progress, peace and harmony. Your world has to learn not to think in terms of separate peoples, but to realize that all are the children of the Great Spirit. The barriers are made by the children of earth, not by the Great Spirit. He has given to each one of them a part of His spirit and, because of that, they are all parts of Him.
When there is so much work of construction to be done in your world, why is it that even your "wise ones” seek only to destroy? The Great Spirit has given natural laws to regulate all these things. The children must not seek to interfere with the laws. If you do not live within the Law the result can only be destruction and chaos. Have you not seen it already?
I urge each one of you to do what you can to throw all your weight and your work among those who seek to bring the Great Spirit's plan into your world. Do you think the Great Spirit wants blood to be shed？ Do you think the Great Spirit wants misery, suffering, unemployment, hungry people, dirty houses, wars? Do you think the Great Spirit wants His children to be denied the bounty He has given? Do you think the Great Spirit wants little children to be denied guidance from their parents because they have been forced into my world?
If you are loyal to that which we try to teach youーonly because, like you, we seek to serve the Great Spiritーyou will help in this work. It is against the Law of the Great Spirit for any one to try to put an end to the physical life of another spirit.
When the lust to kill is fostered, reason departs. Not only is the Great Spirit within you, but there is also the remnant of your animal evolution. Your progress and your evolution consist in learning to subdue the animal and in allowing the Great Spirit to shine. If you allow the animal side to come out on top, then you have war and strife and killing, but if you allow the Great Spirit to shine, and you seek to serve one another, then you will have peace and harmony and plenty.
You must not divide your world into countries or peoples. You must try to teach that they are all parts of the Great Spirit. They are all His children. Even those who are divided by seas are brothers and sisters in the sight of the Great Spirit of all. Our teaching is simple but true. It is founded on the laws of the Great Spirit. If you seek to build your world, ignoring the Law, you must have chaos and disorder. You become bankrupt.
There will be many wars in your world of matter unless great efforts and sacrifices are made. You have sown the seeds and you must reap what you have sown, for you cannot cheat the law of cause and effect. You cannot sow bloodshed and reap peace. You cannot sow the desire for material power and then expect to escape the consequences. Sow love, and love will come. Sow peace, and peace will arise. Sow seeds of service everywhere and the world will be filled with service. These are the simple truths of the Great Spirit. They are so simple that they confound the "wise ones” of your world.
Questions and Answers:
DID not any good at all come out of the sacrifices of those who "died" in the War?
l can see none. Your world of matter is nearer chaos today, and is more filled with destruction, than it was when your "Great War" began.
Can so much heroism be spent in vain? Is there no spiritual repercussion?
There is on the part of the individuals who made the sacrifice, because their motive was good. But do not forget that your world has betrayed them. It has made their sacrifice pointless, because it has continued in its materialism.
Is it of any use that Armistice services should go on, year after year?
It is better to remember those you call dead for two minutes than not to think of them at all. But I do not see what good can come when you celebrate the Armistice with a display of military might, with rifles and bayonets, with soldiers, with the firing of maroons and with all that comes with war. Could you not have an Armistice that was a spiritual service?
Are you in favour of the continuance of Spiritualist services of remembrance on that date?
Wherever truth is expressed good is done, if speeches are given as an incentive to service. Vain speeches that lead to nothing are valueless. It is not sufficient to have speeches, and for audiences to be smugly satisfied with the feeling that they are in favour of peace. I want them active. I want them serving. I want them uplifting the weak. I want them healing the sick. I want them comforting the mourner. I want them Sheltering the homeless. I want them to put an end to all the abuses that are a blot on your world of matter. Only through service can peace come. It will not come until all are imbued with the ideals of service, until all practise service. For nine-teen years they have been holding Armistices, and today the Arnistice is but a short break in the preparations for war.
Do you agree with the Pacifist movement?
I belong to no party. I wear no label. I see service, motive. Do not be confused with titles. Ask what is the aim, what is the desire, because there are men of honesty and good intent even in opposing camps. The teaching that we have to give you is very simple, but it requires courage to put it into practice. Whenever a start is made, whenever there is the determination that comes with knowledge of the spirit and the truths of the spirit, whenever service and not selfishness is applied to all the affairs of every-day life in the world of matter, then you will have peace and concord in your world.
It will not come through any party, but through the chil-dren of the Great Spirit who, realizing these things are true, apply them in their lives, in their politics, in their factories, in their governments, in their international transactions. We can enunciate principles that we know are founded on truth, and tell you with certainty that their application will bring results. You are in the realm of matter. Yours is the respon-sibility. We can only strive to guide you, with all our love
and helpfulness, and co-operate with you whenever your feet are on the right paths.
Would it not be folly for Great Britain to refrain from arming in view of the undoubted fact that other great powers of Europe are armed to the teeth?
Have I not already said so many times that you think in terms of one country and one people while I think in terms of the Great Spirit and all His children? I tell you that you will not find peace by making machines of destruction. You find peace when there is a desire for peace and when all neople live by the law of love and service. I do not think only of one country and one race of people. I think of all peoples as one, as part of the Great Spirit. They are all His children. Until you apply His laws to your world of matter, you will have war and destruction, pestilence, havoc, chaos and bankruptcy all over again.
The following questions were asked in reference to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia:
Does the spirit world agree with sanctions?
You know my views. Life belongs to the Great Spirit, not to His children. They must not shorten life. That is against the Law. And, if they do that, they must pay the price.
But in this case the motive would be good, for it would be an attempt to stop the war.
If you sow the seeds of might, then out of those seeds there can only come more might. Have you not been told before by those who are your earthly counsellors that it was a war to end war?
Do you think we should let a bully kill innocent people?
You want us to pronounce a verdict on half-way happen-ings, but we deal with eternal principles. If the eternal principles had been applied in the beginning, then you would not have your present difficulties. Because you have reached difficulties, you say to us: Shall we apply some measure which may, for the moment, remedy the evil which has accrued? Only eternal principles can procure eternal peace.
Should we not support the League of Nations?
Is there a desire among those who are counsellors of nations for peace? Is peace in their hearts and in their souls? Are they determined to abide by the eternal principles of the laws of the Great Spirit, or do they merely seek to stop that which might become a menace to their own countries? Do they not still think in terms of wealth and nation and race, instead of in terms of the Great Spirit and His children? We deal with the eternal principles, with the Great Spirit and His laws and their operation. There is no other way.
You may succeed for a time with your half-measures, but out of evil always there will come evil. One day, your world will realize that love can overcome evil because love is the expression of the Great Spirit. When, in the spirit of love, all people seek to solve their problems, then peace will reign in your world. But all desires which are contrary to the law of love will always produce disruption, chaos and bankruptcy. You must strive to deal with roots, for by no other way can you have eternal peace.
Is there not some reason for war in the cosmos?
No. You make wars in your world. We do not make them in ours. But whenever you have the lust to kill, you always attract those who are bound to earth with similar desires.
Silver Birch usually gives a message for Armistice Day. In 1937 it was:
EACH succeeding year makes the futility of this human sacrifice more apparent. Your world will pay for just two minutes of its time a silent tribute in memory of the "glorious dead," and after that they will be forgotten for another year, until they are taken off the shelf and dusted once again.
Their sacrifices were all in vain. They have been crucified for nineteen years. The Great War! Its greatness consisted in the amount of slaughter, wasted slaughter. The Great War, that was to end all war! How hollow, how full of mockery do those words sound!
Do you not consider that those who made every sacrifice shor they could make in the world of matter, even to laving down their physical lives, have not spent years in bitter dis-illusionment? They were cut off in the prime of earthly life. They were sent unprepared into the world of spirit. They passed on cheerfully for an ideal, that your civilization might be saved, and they have been betrayed ever since.
War has not been driven from the face of the earth, for, even as you will pay tribute to the “fallen dead," as you call them, of your last war, there will be no armistice in the East or in Spain, where the killing will continue even without a cessation of two minutes.
Does your world of matter realize that peace can only come from the application of spiritual laws to worldly matters? It is selfishness that brings not only war, with its train of bloodshed, misery and weeping, but chaos, confusion, disaster and bankruptcy.
They must learn that only by substituting service for selfishness can peace come, that the old ideas of materialisin and power and desires to aggrandise nations must be swept away and in their place there must reign the desire to live for one another, the stronger to help the weaker, the richer to give to the poorer.
Do not insult those who have been translated to spirit realms with tributes that come from the lips and not from the heart. All other methods have been tried and they have failed you. But not yet has the application of spiritual truths been tried. Unless your world does so, it will continue with war and bloodshed that will, in the end, destroy your much-vaunted civilization.