WHENCE COMES INSPIRATION ?
This chapter contains Silver Birch's views on inspiration and hypnotism and a striking tribute to Thomas Paine, once described as "a dirty little Atheist”.
Inspiration is at once the most common and the least recognized form of mediumship. It is mainly through in-spiration that men continue their work after death, by im pressing their thoughts on those still in this world, through whom in most instances the actual work must be done. This is Silver Birch's comment on one recently passed on:
HE is now learning how to serve. Those who come to us with the desire to serve are taught how they can influence your world by the power of thought. Much can be done by the intensive thought of those who desire to uplift humanity. We teach them concentration to enable them to help in the fight for the Great Spirit and His truth. Although these people are lost to your world in the physical sense, they are really a new strength to you, because they have joined with us to help you.
There is no eternal sleep, because we disturb the dead. There are some who go to sleep because they are taught that that is what will happen. We let them sleep until they wake up. You are taught some funny things in your world. They cannot s leep for ever, though. In any case, who wants to sleep when there is work to be done?
Questions and Answers:
ARE people of a certain craftーfor instance, newspaper menーhelped by identifiable newspaper men who have passed on?
Yes, nothing is lost in your world or in mine. The talent that expresses itself in your world continues to unfold and evolve in the realm of spirit, and the higher it evolves the more it realizes that it must find an instrument through whom it can express itself. So it always seeks to further its evolution by finding one through whom its powers can be revealed. Sometimes that inspiration is unconscious, sometimes it is known. Sometimes so strong is the impressing personality that the stamp of his character is revealed in the inspiration.
Is that inspiration collective, or is it through one individual?
It is both, because all labour in our world is co-operative. We do not expend our energies except in group service. But each of us has to find the instrument through whom he can best express himself.
If nearly everything is received inspirationally, as we are some-times told about great poets, painters, etc., where does individual originality begin?
I know nothing about beginnings or endings. The Great Spirit is life, life is the Great Spirit. All the seeds of life have been sown. All that is in the universe, as far as my knowledge takes me, always was and always will be. You are all parts of the Great Spirit, with His spirit embedded within the physical body. In miniature, you are the Great Spirit and have access to all the powers of the Great Spirit, according to the evolu-tion of your soul ーthat is the range that you can receive of all
the power that is within the universe.
So that, whilst you cannot create, you can add to, you can shape, you can build, you can deflect, you can improve, you can beautify, you can combine, and you can do much to make better the world in which you live and the universe of which your world of matter is a very small part. The Great Spirit has provided His children with all the materials and the tools. They can help you to fashion, but they cannot create.
HYPNOTISMーITS VIRTUES AND DANGERS
How many hypnotists understand the power that is theirs? Influence over the mind of another is an immense powerーfor good or ill. Here are Silver Birch's answers to some questions on this little-understood subject:
IS hypnotism a good subject for study?
If the man who hypnotizes is of good intent, and desires to use his power for service—then, of course, it is good. The hypnotist is only tapping some of the latent powers of the soul.
What is it that the hypnotist gets in touch with?
The over-self, which is the same as the Great Spirit within. I have often told you that, if you could realize the power within you, and if you would use that power, it would enable you to overcome every difficulty. Those powers can be contacted by development, by attuning yourselves to higher vibrations, by living better lives of service, by raising your spirits. The more you are of the earth earthy, the lower are the vibrations to which you respond. The higher you reach out in self-abnegation, the higher are the vibrations to which you respond and the more the Great Spirit that is within you can express itself.
Is the Great Spirit within a separate entity, capable of reasoning, thinking and acting independently of the conscious self?
No, it is conditioned by that part of the conscious mind which is now expressed through your material body. It is only conditioned in that way while you are living in the world of matter. It is not conditioned under the influence of hypnotism, because the hypnotist is like the gaoler who opens the prison door and allows the prisoner to escape. If the hypnotist is of good intent, he can perform great service, for he can stimulate the divine within. But, also, he can stimulate
the animal within. But always remember that the conscious-ness which you now express is but a very small fragment of the consciousness which one day you will express.
That makes us a little dissatisfied.
Yes, it is good to be dissatisfied. Smug satisfaction is no incentive to progress.
Is hypnotism as an aid to mediumship possible and advisable?
It has been tried, but it has been found that once the guides take charge the power of the hypnotist in your world is at an end, for the medium does not then come within the range of his influence. It is not advisable because once a medium has become subject to spirit power he is outside the influence of the hypnotist. It would be better for him to start his development in séances so that the spirit power can begin gradually to exert its influence over him.
No, there are no "short cuts”. You are dealing with the soul and its faculties, and it has taken many millions of years to bring you to where you are today. It is because your world has tried to ignore the spiritual things that it has brought about so many of its disasters. The things of the spirit require careful nurture and slow growth.
A SPIRIT PRAISES THOMAS PAINE
"The 'villains' of yesterday become the heroes of today," said Silver Birch, when, in 1937, he referred to the bi-centenary of Thomas Paine, the famous reformer. He went on:
THIS is the day that your world of matter pays tribute to one who, though he did not realize it, was filled with the power of the spirit, and who strove in his own day to uplift those who were oppressed and crushed, who struggled to raise the weak and the fallen, who fought against all injustice and strove to teach man his rightful heritage.
Those who were in high places fought against that one man, but, because the power of the spirit moved him, that which he did triumphed over all the difficulties of your world. Though he was despised in his day, though he was rejected and perse-cuted, his work lives on.
I ask you to learn the lesson of that, for the work you do today is the continuation of that same labour. Though you are obstructed, though you meet with hostility and opposition, it is the same truth that you seek to express. You may not
gain recognition from those who should be your allies in the great fight for spiritual and material freedom, but your work will live on because that work is stamped with the seal of divine approval.
For that holy and sacred task we need all people of good will, for we recognize no earthly leaders and do not dis-tinguish between class or nation, race or colour, religion or lack of it. We only see the works, the service, the efforts made to uplift; to help and to succour.
That is the great lesson to learn on this day, when tribute is paid in your world and in mine to one inspired man. Your world thinks only of his service in the past. We recognize that a soul which was filled with the burning zeal to labour for his fellows has not become extinguished, but that since his passing to my world he has continued to render service, and still continues to give service, using all his power to aid wherever he can those who strive to improve the lot of the children of the Great Spirit.
Yours is a strange world. The villains of yesterday become the heroes of today—and often vour heroes of today are the villains of tomorrow. Those who are despised in your generation will be eulogized in the generations to come.
How narrow is the view of those who call themselves religious! They construct round their religion a thick wall of crceds, and refuse to permit any but those who agree with them to come into their little walled sanctuary. They say: "Outside the wall are those who are the Atheists. Inside are the elect, the religious ones, those who believe as we do."
But the real man of religion is the one who strives to uplift his fellows, who sees only a wrong to be righted, barriers to be crushed, ignorance to be driven out, hunger to be abolished, slums that must be uprooted. He is the real man of religion, for there is no other way of religion except that a man shall lay down his life in the service of humanity.
I tell you always the same things. I can only give you in a few simple words the spiritual truths that you should know by now. There is nothing new to add to spiritual truth. All that is necessary is that those who dwell in your world should so allow their spiritual natures to function that they will be able to receive more readily the power of the spiritーwhich, too often, they deny.