WHEN SORROW COMES ...

   In this chapter, you will find Silver Birch's views on bereave-ment, suicide, euthanasia, birth control and cruelty to animals.

　While Silver Birch's work is mainly teaching, the need for comfort is always stressed. Following are some remarks to a woman sitter whose husband had recently passed on:

　SOON you will begin to understand that the unity of the spirit is greater than the unity of physical things. Your husband is much closer to you now than ever he could be in your world.

　The loss of the physical presence is great, only because your world has not progressed beyond the vibration of matter. When it has progressed it will realize that matter is only the shadow. It is because you are in the shadow that you think it is real.

　When you are evolved you will be able to distinguish between the light and the shadow caused by the light. The ties of earth do not bind, but the ties of spirit endure for ever.

　You must try to understand that what seems to you a great sorrow is part of a plan which will be a great help to many. You must not look at it from a personal view. If, through the experience which comes to you, many can be lifted up, then that helps to develop your spirit. It will be of great help to you when you also come over on this side and join him.

　The “dead” do not leave you. They pass through a door into a new life. For them it is a great release. It is not hard for them. Their only sorrows are your sorrows.

　In your evolution, you are still more responsive to material vibrations than to the vibrations of spirit. Your spirit friends are very near to you, nearer than they were before they lost their material bodies, but you only respond to the slow vibrations of matter and you cannot pick up the quick vibrations with which they surround you. You are not physical. You are spirits now, who have come into the world of matter to learn the lessons of matter. When you have learned those lessons you go on. If sometimes it is a hard lesson, is it not worth it?

　Why do you try to judge eternity by physical things？You cannot measure the sky; you cannot even measure your own world. Yet you want to measure all eternity by the few years that man lives in your world.

　　　　WHY SUICIDE IS WRONG

　Silver Birch's attitude to suicide is uncompromising.   It is absolutely contrary to the Law to curtail one's life on earth. His answer to a question from one who had considered this step prevented her from committing it. The question and the answer were:

　IS it ever permissible for a person to pass on by his own actーsuch as the one who is left of a devoted companionship?

　No. You must live your lives according to the Law, for the Law is always perfect in its operation. It is controlled by perfect love and by the Great Spirit, Who is in all things and Who works through all things. You have no right to interfere with the operation of the Law, and if you do you must pay the price for cutting yourself off.

　If you force the apple to drop from the tree before it is ripe, then the apple has no sweetness. If you force yourself to go into the next stage of life before your spirit is ready, then you will have to pay the price in the long adjustment that you will have to make. It will also have the effect of causing you to be separated from the ones you love, for you will have made a gulf.

　After this answer had been published in “Psychic News", the woman wrote:

　I do not know whether you thank Silver Birch for answer-ing questions. But, if so, will you please tender him the gratitude of "The One Left Behind" for so quickly as well as so clearly replying? And tell him that, though bitterly disappointed at his dictum, I will accept his ruling and carry on” to the best of my ability till I receive my call.

　　SHOULD DOCTORS END LIFE

　Euthanasia (easy, painless death) has been hotly debated inside and outside the Spiritualist movement. Is it ever permissible for a doctor to cut short a patient's life to end pain, where the illness is considered to be so advanced that recovery is impossible? Apart from the fact that it is never possible to say that a patient will not recoverーthe almost unbelievable successes in spiritual healing are one objection to euthanasiaーSilver Birch maintains that life is sacred.

　WHAT have you to say about the plea that doctors should be empowered by law to put an end to the life of one who is suffering without any hope of recovery?

　I say that all life belongs to the Great Spirit. When it is time for a body to fall away and the spirit to become eman-cipated, then, obeying a natural law, it does so.

Do you believe it right to prolong the life of a person by physical means?

　Yes.

　Even if by prolonging life you prolong their suffering?

　Yes. But you forget one thing. When it is time for the soul to be released it goes, and there is nothing that you can do in your world of matter to alter that law.

　Would the killing of incurable people bring them more suffering to be worked out on the Other Side or in another life?

　No, but it would give a shock to the unready spirit and that shock would affect it. A great deal of adjustment would have to be made which would not otherwise have been necessary.

　Have we the power to prolong life?

　You try to keep the body alive. That is right. But when the time for the spirit to depart has come, you can do no more.

　Are our efforts to prolong life useless, then?

　Yes. If, as you say, doctors can keep people alive, why is it that death defeats them?

　But patients can be kept alive for a time.

　Only if the sick man can respond. You can give oxygen, but only up to a point. When the soul is ready for my world, then there is nothing you can do.

　If the time of passing is fixed, and the spirit in normal conditions passes to the next world only when it is ready, why is it that the expectation of life is rising?

　Because your world is evolving. It is not the physical that determines the spiritual, but the spiritual that determines the physical.

　　　　　BIRTH CONTROL

　Is it right to attempt to prevent the entry of souls into this world? Silver Birch's remarks on birth control must be taken to refer only to the prevention of birth and must not be read as an implied sanction to abortionーand every “remedy" after conception is an abortion, for the spirit has already contacted matter and the earth life has begun.

　WHAT is the spirit world's view of birth control?

　You have been given free will and a conscience to distinguish between that which is wrong and that which is right. It always depends on the motive. Say that once. Say it a hundred times. What is your motive? It is that which counts, nothing else.

　But does the restriction of births interfere with the Law?

　Where there is to be born a spirit through two in your world, it will come through those who will not prevent its entry. The Law is supreme. If it is part of your evolution that through you there is to come into your world a spirit, a new life, then you would not prevent it because you would desire it.

　Then, if it was to be, you would want it to happen.

　Yes, because you would have reached that stage in evolution where it was necessary that the influence of a new life should be brought into your life.

　Is that necessarily a higher evolution?

　No, it is not high, it is not low. I must make a distinction between those who seek only to enjoy the lust of the body and to prevent the consequences. With that I do not agree, because the motive is one of lowly selfishness.

　But if one had an idea it was not advisable, from the child's point of view, what then?

　Is that not the motive? It always depends on the motive. You cannot cheat the Law. The Law is registered on your soul. Every act, every thought, every idea, every desire is registered for ever on the aura of your soul. It can be read by those who have the eyes of the spirit. The motive of everything you have ever done in your world of matter is known by those who see with the eyes of spirit. Your soul is naked before them.

　At what period after conception does a spirit enter the body of a baby?

　I know that many will not agree with me, but I say that from the moment the two seeds have become one and there is provided in that very miniature form a vehicle through which a spirit can function, from that moment the spirit starts its earthly career.

　If the life of an insane person is a waste of time, in that he is unable to learn anything through physical defects, what is the view of the spirit world regarding sterilization, which would prevent hereditary insanity and would avoid that waste of time?

　I cannot, and no one throughout the whole universe can alter the law of life. When a soul is ready to be born into your world of matter, the soul is born. You ask why. I preach reincarnation. That is the reason.

　　　CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

　Ignorance is no defence if natural laws are broken. To inflict unnecessary pain, on man or beast, is an infringement of the Law and a good motive is not sufficient to wipe out the bad effect. Below are Silver Birch's replies to questions asked about cruelty to animals:

　HOW do you view the ever increasing practice of experiments on living animals, often causing terrible pain to helpless creatures?  Many people on this side are striving to get this unholy thine stopped. Are they helped in any way from the spirit world?

　Every soul that desires to serve at once brings to its aid those in my world who will inspire and sustain and bring them new power of the spirit to aid the work they seek to do. It is wrong to administer pain to any of the creatures of the Great Spirit, but you must remember that there are many who do it in ignorance, not realizing the pain that they inflict, only possessed with motives to help their fellow men. But they are still breaking the Law.

　But if, as we are often told, only the motive counts, will those people who inflict pain in what they conceive to be service to their fellow men have to pay the penalty for breaking the Law?

　The motives may be good, but the principle is unaltered. If one deliberately inflicts pain, knowing it will hurt, that means that the one who does it is conscious of his respon-sibility. His motives, of course, are good, but he has inflicted pain. All these facts are taken into account, but I cannot agree with the practice of inflicting pain.

　Are animals sent to earth to help mankind?

　Oh, yes. And mankind is sent to help them.

　But is the sole purpose of the animal creation not to be of use to man?

　No, that is only part of the work.

　Do you believe that vivisection can be right when it is undertaken with a good motive?

　No. How can that which is cruel be right? How can that which causes pain, which inflicts torture, be right? It is con-trary to all that we teach. It is wrong to experiment on those who are not capable of resisting.

　Do you agree that no cure for cancer will ever be found by that method?

　Your world cannot produce remedies for the diseases which it has created by living contrary to the laws of the Great Spirit. There will be found remedies for all your diseases, but they will not be found by experiments on animals.

　Why does not the spirit world interfere when it sees so many appalling atrocities committed on animals?

　Because the universe is ruled by natural laws.