Posted on 12 July 2018, 8:34

Before we discuss this question, may I remind readers that what follows is a recording of a single occasion in years of conversations with the spirit of Stephen the Martyr, Thomas Ashman being the medium. Linguists, historians and theologians have studied the dialectical Greek that Stephen used on two occasions, and have concluded that it is authentically Stephen that we are hearing from.  [See ]http://www.thegroundoffaith.net/issues/2017-02/]

Stephen or shall we say, Spirit, had led us into many experiences, of a timeless, spaceless, realm, an eternal present.  If such a realm is just there then how could there be development in that realm?

This is how the conversation went:

Michael:  In the material world we have a time of past, present and future. In the world of which you are a part, which I suppose is related to this world, are there a past and a present and a future? Is there development? There must be development.

Stephen:  Take your mind into the ocean. Can you define there, time? ... Yes there is development.  There are currents, and there is light [and] evolution.

Yet, does it really change?  (No.) This is the closest parallel in the physical. Only when you yourself have physically travelled into space, will you gain a closer parallel. Seen from the perspective of outer space the world appears to remain the same, as does the ocean.

Suppose you are in a cave, back from the mouth.  It is as if what you can see through the mouth of the cave is the present moment. But if you move forward to the mouth your angle of vision becomes greater and you can see then both what has come before and what is to come.

[This brings to mind Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (Republic VII).

Renée Weber, in an essay, “Field Consciousness and Field Ethics”, with reference to Bohm, writes: “When pressed, Bohm agrees to the correlation between Plato’s cave with the explicate order, and Plato’s metaphor of the light with Bohm’s implicate order. Both Plato’s light (sun) and Bohm’s implicate order can be apprehended only through insight, both lie beyond language and both are inaccessible except to those willing to undergo strenuous and single-minded change”.  I understand Stephen to equate “world seen from outer space”, “ocean”, and the reference to seeing the past, present and future all at once. I would also equate these with “light” and with “the implicate world” and Plato’s world of “ideal forms.”  Stephen’s picture of the cage has us in the physical looking out, whereas Plato has prisoners looking at shadows on a wall.]

Stephen: If you feel, it is much better than being able to hold with the physical mind. For as some insight comes in, other insight may begin to escape you.

[It seems that Bohm believes that insight is “inaccessible except to those willing to undergo strenuous and single-minded change”.  If we remember some of the intuitions which come spontaneously to many of us, shall we say that we correctly intuit the death of a person on the other side of the world or we have some life-changing dream, then “strenuous” and “striving” might seem inappropriate words. The intuitions just arrive. But no doubt, unless there is a true wish to respond to the Cell of influence, the coming of isolated intuitions will have limited significance in our lives.]

Feel within; recall the knowledge, which you have.

Call upon the reserves, probe, recall to mind and pray for the right questions, as I pray that my answer will be right, as I probe long back into a consciousness with physical restriction to give you an answer in relationship; as I probe into Thomas’s mind, into his experience.

Michael:  Do we have an expanding God?

Stephen: We talk of expanding and that God must expand, because, for instance, the population increases and the universe gets larger. But then again we would lose the truth that all that there has ever been was always there. Do not think that I speak against anything that has been spoken; for if the conversation had continued, you would have come to a conclusion, each of you separately, and as a result of that conclusion you would have stopped learning any more on this subject.

[Refer to the previous chapter: “This knowledge is brought to your consciousness, not as a gift, but as a recall. I have said on many occasions that nothing I say is unknown to you. Fear not your questions, for what you ask is what you know.  I assist as your memory, only in so much as that I help the decision as to when you might recall.”  Our cells, souls, belong to the ocean, to the light. It is certainly a question of letting go the exertions of the mind because mind, thought, reason and striving cannot bring insight. Meister Eckhart asserts that “there is nothing in the universe so much like God as silence”. But for Bohm and even more for Stephen, beyond silence there is the consciousness of the One “A paradigm of a unified field of being, a self-conscious universe realising itself to be integrally whole and interconnected”. [Weber, op.cit. p. 42]]

Olive: Is it necessary to learn any more?

Stephen: If by “learn” it is meant “Do you pass tests, do you have a record of achievements of learning”, then we have never started. Do you have specific questions?

To understand what is, in the way that you have been given to understand and the way that it becomes easier for you to understand, is the way that you should understand.

The way that you feel, motivates you into the [helps bring about the?] experiences.
 
If you have these experiences, know that these experiences are needed for you.

This is the childlike simplicity - the jacket you wear is your jacket, simply because you have that jacket. It is the one that you have need of. What you have is what you need. All may like the concept that your needs will be supplied to you.

Olive:  Is there any sense in which we supply the need?  I mean this: Is it possible in this physical to sow a seed in what we might call the spiritual and the harvest of which I reap? I sow an angry thought, a destructive thought and reap that harvest?

Stephen: You will recognise a harvest that you reap as being the results of your angry thoughts. 

This does not necessarily mean that you have your needs supplied [by others]. Most of these needs are supplied by you. But they are supplied, nevertheless, with all these other things that we choose to produce.’

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.

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