A Fleet Street Editor, with some experience of Spiritualism, put questions to Silver Birch on the difference between thought and inspiration. This is how the guide answered:

"You who live in the world of matter are most unoriginal creatures. You do not, except very seldom, create anything. You are receiving stations and also transmitting stations. Thoughts come to you; they lodge with you; you add to their wings and send them forth where others receive them. The thought that comes to you is not the same as when it leaves you; your personality has quickened it, or slowed it down, enriched it, or impoverished it, made it more beautiful, or more ugly, given it new life, or perhaps vitiated it. But over and over all that, you can, when you attune yourself, receive positive inspiration from those of like mentality to yourself.

"When people 'die,' as you call it, they come to our world, but all the richness of soul and mind which is theirs cannot die. It is divine, infinite, and like all things divine and infinite, it cannot perish. All the qualities of soul and mind continue to grow, to unfold, to develop and to mature in our world. The mere fact that you possess these great qualities of the soul means that when you reach this world of ours, you soon desire to render service to those less fortunate than you. You find, or strive to find, people like yourself.

"If you were a poet, you seek a poet, a musician, you seek a musician, like interests wherever possible, so that you can give freely all you have learned in your new world. The difficulty is to achieve the process of attunement. It is not our fault that inspiration is limited to brief flashes. If the laws that regulate conditions between the two states of life were perfectly understood, if the people of your world were to rid themselves of the many prejudices and superstitions which create barriers to a full and free communication, this wisdom of the infinite could be poured through human instruments into your world. It always depends on having an instrument to receive what we give and the ability of these instruments to attune themselves to receive the highest that can be given. All inspiration, all wisdom, all truth, all knowledge is dependent upon your capacity to receive."

Explaining, on another occasion, how spirit influence is brought to bear on mediums, the guide told a group of his earthly friends:
"We work in two ways. First, there is the hard part, that is when you have to make your influence felt in your world. You do not know how difficult that is - to start off without any touch with a world of matter and then, by sheer mental exercise, concentration, projection of thought and idea focused on one person so that he or she can be influenced, unconsciously, as far as they are concerned, so that they think it is their own idea at work, to be moved into that place where the first link can be made.

"That is the hard task, and it takes years and years and years. It takes so long, sometimes, that in my case I had to start even before the instrument was born. Then having done that, the next part is not so difficult, because once you have an instrument, a medium, a channel, and you can express yourself, however poorly, it has at least forged the magnetic link, and that cannot be broken.

"From that beginning the amount of influence can be increased; the funnel of the spirit can become larger and larger; and the only limitation is the capacity of the instrument, for that is always the restriction placed upon the amount of co-operation with us. In all these cases wherever there be a fault, the fault does not lie with us but with the means at our command. When people say, 'Why does not the world of spirit do this or that?' surely the answer is that the instruments make it possible or impossible.

"After that magnetic link has been made it is much simpler, because through our world the power of the spirit can reach you. If, of your own free will, you begin to allow your inner self to develop, you allow that part of you which is the eternal reality to begin to find expression here instead of waiting until you have passed through the gate of death.

"Then the association becomes closer and richer and more effective as time goes by. After that, it is not so difficult to bring together the varying people whose meeting is part of a plan. It is the first step that is the hardest."