Why are there forces of darkness?

 There are always forces of darkness because in your great universe there are always two forces balancing one the other. Your planet would not be turning gently and steadily as part of the universe unless it was balanced and held in position by various other forces So the whole of your planet is governed by pairs of opposites - light and darkness; lightness and heaviness; heat and cold. Similarly, in the evolution of the planet as a whole, there is the gradual evolving of spirits out of the dark into the light. But there are some spirits who prefer to remain in the shadow, because they have what you would call a perverted degree of consciousness, and so they are trying to withstand evolution into harmony and light.

 Is the spirit world able to foresee the violent happenings in the world, and to help those who die suddenly?

 Yes and no. Firstly, with our wider vision we are often able to see the inharmonious forces gathering together, and if we can do so, we try to guide or impress those whom we can reach, so that they will not be in a place where such explosions of destructive energy are going to happen. But if the people are intent upon their own desires then, even if we give a warning or a caution, it is ignored. But there are many who have been in these dangerous places yet were not involved, because they were receptive to the influence which we of the spirit tried to exert. Also, many spirits who are the servers will congregate into such places, either to alleviate the suffering of those who are injured, or to reach those whose life comes to a sudden ending, so that we may convey them from the places of fear and disaster into a place of peace where they may rest in calm, and gradually awake to light.

 There seem to be so many tragic, violent deaths throughout the whole of the world. What are the reasons for these happenings?

 Take your mind back into the past years of your earth's history and remember how much violence there has been in times of war; when one faction is fighting another, many men and women unthinkingly terminate the lives of others. The soul sows in the great field of mortal experience and often may retain some memory of its sowing, and then it must reap the result of what was sown a long time ago. When those who have perpetrated these deeds move into the regions of the spirit after death, they may see how they brought suffering to the peoples of the earth. But until they experience suffering for themselves, they do not have a full understanding of the repercussions of that which they have done. So many come again to the mortal life. They grow, develop, become men or women, and then the karma ripens - they come together in one place or as a group, and there is a suddeness, a breaking through of violence which terminates life. Then we in spirit say that it is the ripening of a group karma.

 If the spiritual law is one of love why was the god of the old Testament so vengeful and angry? Did that god evolve into a loving god. . .

 That which you call the god of your ancient scripture was not the same as this which we refer to as the power of the great Master Creator, but was the spirit in charge of the tribes of that special time. Even as you have in your mortal existence today remembrances of kings and of rulers who become revered and loved as national symbols to you, so to the people in those ancient times an ancestral spirit who could communicate with them became known as a leader, or what is now called a ‘god�?- not ‘The God�?but ‘a god�? Because these people were dwelling in conditions of harshness and desert lands, there was a need for strength and courage, and because they were often attacked by persons who threatened to destroy them, so the ancestral spirit (known as their ‘god�? advised them in such a way that their interpretation of the commands was, as you will call it, in cruelty and in vengeance. Therefore I would say to you that special interpretation of the ‘god�?is not the same as the more universal interpretation of the God of whom we speak.

 What happens about God then - does He disappear?

 Not so. That tribal influence still continues in the regions of the spirit, even as the influence of the Master Jesus still continues in the regions of the spirit. But the power of thought, as exerted by earth's dwellers, is very creative, very strong, and therefore those who adhere to the thoughts of Jehovah add to his strength by their thoughts and by their prayers, even as you add to the influence of the Master Jesus, or the Love Christ, by your thought or prayer.

 When you refer to the ‘tribes�?I assume you mean the Hebrew tribes?

 This is true and there is a strong tribal influence still at work amongst those who, as it were, belong to Jehovah (sometimes called God), and these peoples are held together by the unity of that group of spirits. But as your world is moving forward into newer understandings and newer revelations, so the influence of the tribal entity is becoming less powerful, and the peoples themselves are becoming wider in their understanding and way of life - even as some of the followers of Jesus who, in the past, have been strictly held in narrow orthodoxies, are now moving out into wider understandings because the spirits who grouped themselves around such beings are slowly relaxing their influence.

 Can the human race create an entity out of a psychological need, such as a great teacher?

 This is true. They can create what could be called a great thought form, into which they would try to fit any enlightened being who may be in the mortal world at that special time. So you may have a man or a woman who is, as you will call it, a great person but who still has certain weaknesses and faults, but because persons in a particular nation are desirous of seeing in that one an especial revelation, then they will invest that name, or that person, with the qualities they desire. This can be seen in your mortal world where men and women desire that there shall be an ideal woman, and therefore they invest the woman who was the mother of the Master Jesus with their particular images so that she becomes the outward and visible sign of their inward and invisible desires. Such a person can get great powers, because the concentration of love and thought by people in the mortal life, and also those in the spirit life, create what could be called an enlarged aura, or a great circle of souls, who become a group soul blended with the Christ influence, which we call ‘en-Christed�?or ‘Jesus-like�?souls. Such souls come and go into the atmosphere of the earthly world (sometimes seen by those who have clear vision). They work in the influence of the Christ, or in the influence of Jesus, taking to Him, bringing from Him, an influence which is very special.

 Will racial colour prejudice eventually be eradicated by love?

 Unity of races is slowly coming into being because your world is upon the threshold of a New Age. Always when there is a New Age coming into being there comes the birth of a new race. With the intermixing of blood between different nationalities, there is slowly being born a new race of men and of women through whom true international love and understanding will be expressed. But until this truly comes into manifestation the old racial prejudices will continue to show themselves, with some of the old racial hatreds continuing to manifest, but slowly, very slowly, it will die away Already you begin to see this pattern showing itself in your earthly world, for people whose skin is darker than your own are slowly intermixing, intermarrying, interworking, inter-educating, here in your own English land, in the great places of America, in Japan and China. Indeed all over the world there is this interblending of the great races, in the production of a new coming of humanity, which will be free from this hateful prejudice.

 Some people say that human nature never changes. Would you say this is correct?

 The consciousness of people in the earthly world is slowly changing. People are beginning to live more in a psychic, mental region than in previous times, when they lived very much more in the emotional level of their beings. As humanity goes forward into the years which are still to come, the healing energies will be active but more active on the mental plane; the healing currents will more easily influence the human nervous system and the brain system. Healing by the touch of the hand will not cease, but the mental aspect of healing will become stronger, as your world moves on.

 It is always important in your earthly world that all people should have a little of what is termed ‘faith�? that they should not live with the thought that death is entirely the end. If they belong to any form of religion, that religion will give to them certain simple prayer's and some faith, either in the power of the great Master Creator, in the power of God, or in the power of one of the prophets; in the moment of crisis that faith will reassert itself and become, as it were, a power­ful vibration which attunes them to another region of the spirit life.

 What happens to them if they do not have any faith?

 Then they are involved, as suicides, in the purely bodily processes, because the energies are deeply involved in the purely etheric realm and invariably they will come to the end in a state of considerable fear, which is rather similar to the condition of one who dies in despair, for fear brings about a darkening and also a shrinkage within the consciousness.

 Can you speak about that state which is known as ‘enlightenment�? such as obtained by the Masters Jesus and Buddha?

 Enlightenment can be possible to any one of earth's dwellers who learns how to master their various bodies, their nervous system and their physical being. By simply learning to transfer the attention from one level of consciousness unto another, so a degree of enlightenment may be attained.

 Human souls keep their consciousness very much below the region of the heart. Their desires and feelings are associated mostly with digestion and with the sexual impulses, and only gradually do they learn to bring their attention up into the region of the heart, with feelings of compassion and love for the human souls and the surrounding world. Gradually, through the learning of spiritual truths, attention is sometimes transferred into the regions of the brain, and such persons try to gain a mastery over the processes of thought, the swiftly ever-moving region of thoughts and ideas associated with the brain. When this mastery has been attained, then it is possible to transfer attention into the higher regions of the brain itself - to think through the top of the brain and to breathe in the life energies, so that the brain becomes animated and spiritualised. Then through this, when there is a unity between all levels of the consciousness from the lowest to the highest, these Masters of whom you speak are able to open the higher spiritual consciousness unto a realisation of the great unity and beauty of the spiritual worlds - this could be described as ‘enlightenment�?

 How would we recognise such a person?

 By bringing your awareness into the higher levels of your brain consciousness and through that, learning to look at those whom you meet, to discover what degree of light they are emitting, and by learning to see them with love, not to judge them for their weaknesses, but to love them in all things. Gradually your vision will be cleared and you will be able to see how much clear light is shining amongst the teachers and the preachers and the revealers in your earthly world.

 Is a person’s appearance an indication in a measure of their spiritual status?

 Yes, to those who have the eyes to see the truth which may be hidden. You in the earthly life will look at a man or a woman who is tall in stature and dignified in bearing and will say: “Yes, this seems to be a great man, a great woman�? But upon the earth you may have little men and little women who are nevertheless great within their spiritual understanding, but when they leave the mortal body and come into the spiritual life, then their height and their stature will express the growth of their spiritual consciousness, for here in the spirit there is no limitation to the unfoldment, no limitation to the growth and to the reaching upwards into the powers of light.

 But within the dark, low places of the astral realm, you may see men and women who have not yet grown into the fullness of their spiritual stature; and the man or woman who may have been tall and large in the physical body, after death becomes shrunken and small, because this is the state of the spiritual consciousness. Nobility should be written upon the brow of man in the calm, clear straight look of his eyes; love should be written in the language of the spirit, upon the mouth of man and of woman in the tender upturning of the smile, and peace should be written upon the countenance in the calm, restful attitude of the head, which shows that peace is within the inner soul.

 The greatness of the soul and the spirit also lies in the sense of enlargement which you may sometimes feel when in your greater moments of prayer, dedication and pure lovingness, you feel as if you are enlarging, for the spiritual aura enlarges, it swells and it grows around you, and it is from the substance of the spiritual aura that the stature of your spirit body will later be woven, when you come to live and to dwell in the life of the spirit.

 I suppose that when one becomes more aware, or spiritualised, one can become more averse to material things, and isolated from one's associates in everyday life?

 This is true, but even if you become more isolated from your companions in the earthly world, you become more united with your spiritual companions of the spiritual world.

 Will the aura surrounding the planet earth ever be completely pure?

 A great purification and transmutation is occurring in this day and age, because there is, as it were, a thinning of the aura that closed off humankind from their knowledge and contact with the spirit regions. As that aura thins, or refines, so many people become naturally sensitive to the things of the spirit. As they see their visions, and are guided by their spiritual inspiration, so are they impelled to add their influence to the cleansing and refining of the whole atmosphere of your world. This is happening not only in your English land, but the purification is slowly spreading from land to land, group to group, for persons all over your world are meeting together in small groups for prayer, meditation and the radiating of light and harmony, which is bringing about a thinner, a finer, a better radiation within the spiritual atmosphere. But as this comes into being, so inevitably it stirs that which needs to be cleaned or refined, and so you find emerging from the darker areas of the planet's aura radiations of memories long gone by, sometimes outbursts of violence and of hurtfulness, which are a breaking-through of the impressions left in the aura in ages past.

 So, beloved ones, lift your vision and try to see the whole of your earthly planet as we behold it, slowly but surely being infiltrated by the influences of light, peace and harmony, as we of the spirit conjoin to the ones in the earth, to bring about this slow and beautiful transmution. I would say to you that, in the fullness of time, the cleansing will be complete and rebirth will come into being, as your world moves forward into the more complete manifestations of its newer Age.

 Are our dreams memories of our sleep state activities?

 Partly: but I would say that when the body and the brain is laid to rest and the spirit leaves for a while its body and comes into the pure place of the spirit, then indeed your communion with each other continues and your communion with us continues also. If you return to your bodies from your states of sleep and you retain within your consciousness words which seem to be of some discourse that brings to you understanding, then you can say “I have been in the communion of the spirit land, whilst the body slept�?

 If in your dreams you return sometimes to your body with the thought that you have been worshipping in cathedrals filled with radiant light, in which you hear glorious music and come refreshed and uplifted to your bodies, then think not that it is but a foolish dream, but rather say to yourself “In my time of sleep I have been free from the body and within the spirit realm I have been worshipping in the counterpart of the beautiful cathedrals I have known on the earth. I have been dwelling and absorbing peace and comfort from the chapels or the temples which I have loved, for I know that their influence continues within the radiant places of the spirit�? If in your dreams you think that you have spoken unto spirits whom you know not, or you bring back to your brain the remembrance of some who have advised you, be not astonished and think not that it is strange that you should hear from spirits whom you have not yet known, for affinity is still maintained within the shining realms and unity is to be found with many souls whom you do not remember in the mortal mind, but who love you still in the purity of the spirit.

 So, sometimes as you pass into your time of sleep and your brain lays its many thoughts to rest, you may with intention let go of your body and say: “I will that I may go into the gardens of rest�?or “I would ask that I may be taken unto the temples of wisdom�?or sometimes ask for a reunion within the gardens of reunion, that you may meet there loved ones who have gone before. So go forth in peace and understanding upon your various ways. Feel not that at any place or at any time you are lonely or separated from each other, or even separated from we who seek to help you. Once unity has been created, then unity continues. With this thought we would bless these who are here, and would lift them into the great garden of peace in which the lily flowers of prayer bloom in their radiance and in their purity. Standing for a while within the garden of prayer they may indeed uplift their spiritual vision to that great pure Light which shines far and away in the beauty of the spheres, which is the radiant Light created by the great Master Christ, as He sends forth His blessing unto all who seek it.