WHEN ANIMALS DIE

　ＭOST people have wondered at one time or another what happens to pet animals after death. Silver Birch was once asked a series of questions on the subject by one of the circle, Sylvia Barbanell, who was at that time preparing a book on animal survival.* (*"When Your Animal Dies” (Psychic Press, 5/-)

　"Do some animals spend their whole time with their human friends on the Other Side, or is their real home on the animal sphere?" Silver Birch was asked.

　"It depends,” he replied, “because love is the index. You know that love determines the survival of animals. It is the love that exists between the animal and the person that enables the animal to obtain that temporary consciousness that exists beyond the grave of matter. If an animal and—I do not like the word 'owner,' because no one owns another soulーand the one whom it has served are in the world of spirit together, then the home of the animal is the home of the individual who has always loved it. That is its home. It stays where love is, for love is the link that binds it to the one who loves it. It has no necessity to go to the animal plane.

　"Those who dwell in the animal sphere are the ones who come to the world of spirit before the masters, as you call them, arrive in our world, because it is necessary that someone shall take care of them. Otherwise they would be distracted, being cut off from the love which not only warmed their hearts but breathed a temporary immortality into them. Where the animal comes to our world preceding the one who loved it, who gave it shelter and taught it all the habits of memory, of reason, of judgment and affection, it goes to the animal world to await the time when it can greet the one it has missed. There it is put in the charge of those specially trained to look after animals, just as you have trainers in your world to care for animals when their masters and mistresses are away.”

　Will you describe what it is that an animal obtains from human contact that make it survive?" was the next question.

　Silver Birch replied, “In the long line of evolution, at some stage the Great Spirit, or the Law, breathed into animal and it became a living soul, conscious, aware of its own existence. Then came the dawn of reason; intelligence bloomed; there was judgment, the ability to reflect, to decide, to weigh and to consider. But potentially all that existed—no matter how far back in the line of evolution you go. It required the breath of the Great Spirit to awaken it. Just as the Great Spirit enabled a divine spark to become a flame, so you, by love, transfer that process to the animal who lives within the shelter of your affection. You are part of the Great Spirit, having the power within you to transfer the attribute of spirit to the next in the line of evolution, so that by your association, by radiating love, you awaken that consciousness which in time, through the process of evolution, would reach its own apex.”

　"How long does the survival of an animal last?" the guide was asked. "Is it as long as that of a human being?"

　"No," answered Silver Birch. "there is this difference. At some stage the animal and the human evolution inevitably part company. It may take, as you measure time, hundreds of thousands of years, but their rate of spiritual evolution is un-equal. The animal has to be left behind because it cannot keep pace with the growing soul that restlessly struggles towards the greater light.

　"Once you have passed from the veil of matter and accus-tomed yourself to conditions of the spiritual life, once you have realized that the ties which bind you to earth are severed, the desire to progress, the desire to unfold the surging divinity within becomes quickened. You seek to unfold all the qualities which, by their practice, will enable you to be of greater service wherever you are. The higher you climb in that realm of spiritual unfoldment, the more difficult is it for the animal to keep pace with you. And so the love which kindled for a while a flame that burned beyond death gradually becomes attenuated. The flame flickers and it merges in the end with the group soul of that species."

　"Why are animals, particularly cats and dogs, often more psychic than human beings?" was another question.

　"Because although they have not as yet, as far as evolution goes, reached the stage where they become humans," said the spirit, “they have not had to face the 'civilized' life that human beings do. If the human had not had the 'benefits' of what you call civilization, then he would have reached the stage before now where the exercise of psychic qualities was part of his normal life. He has sacrificed that for his civilization. But the animal, not faced with the economic problems, with the sociological problems that affect human beings, has con-tinued in the evolutionary line to the stage that humans should have reached, but have not, and therefore is in posses-sion of those psychic qualities which humans have, but often repress, because of the material life they have to lead."