Although I first read about the automatic-writing mediumship of James E. Padgett, a Washington, D.C. lawyer (upper right photo), 20 or more years ago and found the messages coming through him from the spirit world very meaningful and impressive, I was reluctant to take them too seriously because many of them purportedly came directly from Jesus. Others came from Bible scribes, John, Luke, Paul, and still others from luminaries such as Martin Luther, Emanuel Swedenborg, and George Washington. It’s not that I don’t honor Jesus and the others; it was just that I reasoned that if they were to communicate, they would choose a way that would be more evidential and more recognizable by the masses. While Padgett recorded the messages between 1914 and 1921, they were first published in the Book of Truths in 1940. When I first read about them some 60 years later, they were for the most part unknown to the vast majority of people. Surely, I reasoned, Jesus could have foreseen that few people would have accepted them and could have figured out a better way to communicate with us.
While it was recorded that Pagett initially had doubts about the messages, he appears to have become convinced that they were not tricks of his subconscious mind – that the communicators were who they claimed to be. So why the delay in publishing them? I suspect that Padgett had reservations about publishing them because they would have damaged his reputation in the legal profession, but indications are that he was still collecting or assembling them when he died somewhat prematurely. No doubt they would have invited guffaws and sneers from both Christians and atheists. The teachings given to Padgett as well as those also purportedly coming from Jesus to Helen Schucman (bottom right photo), published in A Course in Miracles (ACIM) in 1976, have been resurrected by Jonathan Beecher, the owner of White Crow Books, in No One’s Dead, subtitled The Jesus Messages.
“There is no way of knowing whether Jesus communicated with Padgett and Schucman, but for the purposes of this book, I am assuming that Jesus – and other communicators – were who they said they were,” Beecher states. “… These messages can be viewed in several ways: as fiction, as messages from impostors, or as genuine. Depending on the reader’s worldview, they can be ignored or taken as guidance from people who have gone before us – and used as a roadmap of the levels beyond death.”
In recently rereading the messages given to Padgett more than a century ago, I remain puzzled, wondering if the teachings really came from Jesus, John, Luke, Paul, and the others. It’s often been reported that devious earthbound spirits are responsible for many communications coming through mediums, some of them impersonating famous people. However, a conflict immediately presents itself, i.e., why are these devious spirits supporting an extremely virtuous way of life? Or, why would impostor spirits be advocating righteousness? I further considered the possibility that both Padgett and Schucman were subconsciously and unconsciously putting their own interpretations to biblical and other spiritual matters, but it is fairly certain that most of what was communicated was well beyond their education, motivation, beliefs, and experiences. Padgett was raised a Methodist and Schucman was a Jewish atheist, although her mother was Christian. Padgett kept his messages secret except to close friends, while Schucman wasn’t identified as the author of ACIM until after her death in 1981. It’s highly unlikely that fame was a motivator.
Why Padgett and Schucman? Couldn’t the spirit world have found a better way to educate the public? Now, many years later, Padgett is for the most part unknown, while Schucman’s influence seems to be waning. It was explained to Padgett that he was chosen as a medium by advanced spirits because his brain was best tuned, or spiritually developed, to receive the messages. In more technical terms, he was at the proper frequency and his subconscious was less likely to interfere with their messages. The communicators said it was difficult to find a medium with such a mindset. Their objective seems to have been to plant seeds and hope they would sprout. They had no control over the extent to which the teachings were disseminated or accepted. It was said somewhere that they can’t interfere with our progress.
Since Jesus and John are quoted as saying that many Bible messages were misinterpreted, misunderstood, or otherwise wrong, the fundamentalists of Christianity would likely say the impostors were “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” In a September 24, 1914 message to Padgett, Jesus is quoted as saying there is no Trinity, only one God, the Father, “I am not the equal of my Father. He is the only True God. I came from the spirit world to earth and took the form of man, but I did not become a God, only the son of my Father.” John says that the Book of Revelation “is only a mere allegory of some one or more writers who were gifted with some knowledge of the Christian teachings and unusually oriented imaginations.” Other subjects which have been misinterpreted or misunderstood according to the “teachers,” are original sin, vicarious atonement, eternal hell, the rapture, and the resurrection.
According to Luke, the doctrine of Original Sin “is a mocking, damnable lie, and the sooner man realizes the fact that it is a fraud and deceit, the sooner he will be able to get rid of those things which have placed him in his present condition and held him there bound, as it were, hand and foot.”
One looking for an answer on the abortion issue will not find it. Jesus told Pagett that “the soul becomes individualized the moment it finds lodgment in the receptacle prepared by the laws of nature in using the human father and mother as its instruments.” When “lodgment” takes place is not stated. Physical lodgment or soul lodgment?
As for a “Judgment Day,” Jesus said it not a special time when all men meet in the presence of God. “The judgment day is every day, both in the earth life of man and in life in the spirit, where the law of compensation is working.” He further explained that memory is man’s storehouse of good and evil and memory does not die with the death of the physical body.
Jesus told Padgett that physical life has only one primary objective. “As I have told you before, man’s existence in the flesh is only for the purpose of giving his soul an individualization, and all other apparent objects are only secondary, as you may say, accidental accompaniments of this process of individualization.” He further explained that the idea man is created in the image of God, refers to the soul, not the physical body.
Other topics discussed by Jesus and the luminaries of religious history include war, prayer, free will, baptism, suicide, immortality, divine love and the afterlife environment. Beecher also draws a little from the communication coming through other well-known mediums, including Leslie Flint, Chico Xavier, and Maurice Barbanell. In addition to the “teachings,” purportedly coming from advanced beings, there are a number of exchanges with former relatives and friends. A man named George Olson communicated through Flint on November 15, 1967, telling his friend, George Woods, that because he had a preconceived idea of the spirit world, he adjusted quickly to the conditions there. He found everything was more vibrant and exciting than what he had experienced in the earth realm. On the other hand, there were many reports of souls not yet realizing they were “dead” as their earth ties were too strong, preventing them from “awakening” to the larger reality. A former Washington, D.C. restaurant owner known to Padgett apparently understood that he had passed over, but said he was miserable, blaming the Catholic Church clergy for misleading him during his life.
Beecher discusses his very interesting spiritually transformative experience, an accident that changed his entire worldview and prompted his investigation of psychic matters. “The accident – apart from the inconvenience of the physical injury – seemed inconsequential at the time,” he writes, “but it turned out to be life changing.” He further tells of some very evidential sittings he had with mediums during his awakening days.
While the fundamentalists of religion will most certainly reject it, Beecher points out that Jesus and the other communicators were not advocating abandoning the Bible, one’s faith in God, or immortality. “There is nothing in the Padgett messages or A Course in Miracles that should leave people – Christian or otherwise – feeling spiritually bankrupt or hopeless,” he writes, adding Luke’s message that the Bible contains many truths, enough to enable man to reach the Kingdom of Heaven, provided they are correctly understood and applied. Overall, the messages should clarify a number of puzzling passages in the Bible and move the Christian from blind faith to true faith, or conviction.
Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die,Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife,Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I. and No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife. His latest book Consciousness Beyond Death: New and Old Light on Near-Death Experiences is published by White Crow books.
Next blog post: August 25
Michael (and Jon…)
Most interesting. I have an earlier copy of the Padgett messages, compiled by a fellow named Douglas Oreck a number of years ago. as well as the Shucman ACIM material–but perhaps like you Mike, could never quite figure out what to do with them.
Jon–I see on Amazon that your new book is only coming out as an e-book. Are you planning on having a “real” print edition for dinosaurs like me who don’t “do Kindle”? Would love to have one…
Don, as always, I appreciate your interest. The book is available in paperback. It’s coming out on August 28. For some reason Amazon hasn’t linked the formats yet. You can find links to Amazon and Bookshop.org here:
https://whitecrowbooks.com/book/1346/
Jon
Dear Jon. Congratulations to your new book! I am presently reading your book “In Times of War” and enjoy it thoroughly – just like Mike recommended. I wish you had known about the thousands of revelations and prophetic words by Christ/Jesus (and other spirit beings) that came through Gabriele in Germany for the past 50 years and are not all stored in the Sophia Library. https://www.sophia-bibliothek.de/en/. All her books are available in many languages at https://gabriele-publishing-house.com. Among many other paths I have also been a student of the Course in Miracles for many years and found it beneficial. However, the material that came through Gabriele – who died last year – has had a much deeper impact on my life. It is also the basis for many of my short YouTube videos: http://www.LIFEexplained.com. I thought you may wanted to know about this material from Christ/Jesus. Blessings. Hans
I can’t judge this particular channeled material, but in general, the stuff that isn’t genuine is probably generated by the subconscious and is not a deliberate hoax. I doubt there’s enough money in channeled literature to justify a conscious deception in most cases, although there are occasional big-name frauds who get rich by channeling “higher entities.” They are rare, though.
“Shouldn’t they be teaching evil?” If they are demonic spirits, yes. If they are manifestations of the subconscious or deliberate fictional creations, probably not.
I think certain channelers, like Jane Roberts and Geraldine Cummins, are likely to be genuine, even if some of their messages have been distorted in transmission. In general, I look for evidential material. Roberts’s messages from Seth were sophisticated enough to inspire a book that interprets quantum physics in light of Sethian philosophy. Cummins’s “Swan on a Black Sea” contains a great deal of specific biographical detail about the alleged communicator.
In the absence of evidential material, we can only judge if the messages “feel true.” The problem is that many of the channelers are steeped in spiritualist ideas going back to Swedenborg, and may produce communiques that seem right just because they dovetail with that tradition. It’s the problem of confirmation bias.
As far as Jesus is concerned, I sometimes think Edgar Cayce got it right when he said Jesus is a conflation of two (or was it three?) historical figures with different agendas. But who knows?
I look forward to reading Jonathan’s book!
M. P. “I can’t judge this particular channeled material, but in general, the stuff that isn’t genuine is probably generated by the subconscious and is not a deliberate hoax.”
Padgett’s grandmother addresses the subconscious origin hypothesis thusly: “My thoughts are not your thoughts; and when I think, your mind catches the thought but does not create the same. So you must believe that I am doing the writing and not you—for I write some thoughts which you could not write if you tried. How do you like that for assurance? But to be serious, you could not write the things that I write without giving much thought to the different subject matters, for some of them are not familiar to you, as you have often said. Let go the idea that you are writing things which emanate from what is sometimes called your subconscious mind…”
The complaint of spirits that a medium’s low brow beliefs are polluting the purity of their thoughts, could also be a result of operator error, improper tuning of the mediumistic instrument, or spiritual incompatibility. Presumably Jesus chose Padgett because he was a harmonious spirit that could serve as an accurate channel. As for Schucman, perhaps it was in part his way of saying to her fellow atheists that “Jesus loves you too.” 😉
Thanks, David, for mentioning the grandmother’s comment. As you no doubt know, some skeptics claimed that “Patience Worth” came from the subconscious of Pearl Curran, but the question was never answered as to how all that got into her subconscious, including the 16th century vocabulary and pronunciation. While Padgett’s messages are not as far-out as Curran’s, the same question presents itself. Is it possible that Padgett was reading all kinds of religious material and storing it away in his subconscious while carrying on a successful law practice? I doubt it, but there is no way of proving that.
Mike and David,
Having read hundreds of the Padgett messages, what I found interesting was the number obscure historic figures that with the benefit of the internet, we can look up in seconds. Padgett would’ve had to have an encyclopedic knowledge to be aware of some of these people. During the nine years he spent receiving messages, he was acting as an attorney, dealing with the death of his daughter and wife, and it seems unlikely that he would have spent the hours necessary in the library to look up obscure figures and create messages about them, although of course it’s possible.
Then there’s Leslie Stone and Eugene Morgan, who also received evidential messages from family and friends via Padgett , which in turn convinced them that messages coming through to Padgett via his band were genuine.
I wouldn’t call this channeling in the way I understand it. It’s more like straightforward automatic writing mediumship in the same way Geraldine Cummings and Chico Xavier operated. It doesn’t convincingly demonstrate the communicators were who they said they were, but it seems unlikely that the information was coming from his subconscious mind (whatever that is).
Jesus reportedly said, “By their fruit you will recognize them.” Personally, this fruit makes a lot more sense than the Christian dogma we’ve been fed for 2000 years.
Michael,
I would be very happy if you (or anyone else) take the time to read the book and share your thoughts.
I neglected to mention the possibility of a “Group Soul” identifying itself as Jesus. As Allan Kardec came to understand, superior spirits, while preserving their individuality, have no need to be identified with their teachings delivered while on earth, but because humans seem to need an identity in order to fix their ideas, superior spirits who identify with the teachings of the famous personage and belong to the same “family” or “collective whole” may take that famous name to appease us, as it is the teaching, not the signature, that is important. Kardec explained:
“In proportion as spirits are purified and elevated in the hierarchy, the distinctive characters of their personalities are, in some sort, obliterated in the uniformity of perfection, and yet they do not the less preserve their individuality: this is the case with the superior and pure spirits. In this condition, the name they had on earth, in one of their thousand ephemeral corporeal existences, is quite an insignificant thing. Let us remark again that spirits are attracted to each other by the similarity of their qualities, and that they thus form sympathetic groups or families…but as names are necessary to us to fix our ideas, they can take that of any known personage whose nature is best identified with their own…It thus follows that if a person’s guardian angel gives his name as St. Peter, for instance, there is no actual proof that it is the apostle of that name; it may be he, or it may be an entirely unknown spirit belonging to the family of spirits of which St. Peter makes a part; it also follows that under whatever name the guardian angel is invoked, he comes to the call that is made, because he is attracted by the thought, and the name is indifferent to him.” (Kardec, 1874)
Frankly, I don’t like Kardec’s explanation. It suggests that there are good impostor spirits and I struggle with that idea. Nevertheless, Kardec makes sense most of the time.
Hi Mike,
Regarding spirit identity and especially profound communications, for me this quote applies:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
We do not know the true identity of the spirit of Silver Birch, Imperator, Rector, and many others with serious and thought-provoking messages.
If we already have accepted that we are spirits living a human material life, that there is an afterlife and the faculty of mediumship exists. What most Spiritists consider most important now, is the continuing study of the philosophical and moral teachings, and the repercussions of the practice of morality since it affects our future in the afterlife and further.
For this, it does not matter the name of the spirit in a particular lifetime. We have had a myriad of material lives with as many names. It requires our commonsense, intelligence and reason to accept or reject whatever spirit communication.
There is no way that we can absolutely verify a spirit’s identity.
Regarding, superior spirits, they may give a name that is revered because humans give importance to names. So many people need/crave a name to decide about the message.
Also, regarding the book I mentioned, the “Life of Jesus Dictated by Himself”… purported to be Jesus communicating about his life on earth and his mission…
There is a free English translation online at this link:
https://lifeofjesusdictatedbyhehimself.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/life-of-jesus-11-05-19.pdf
Best wishes all.
Respectfully,
Yvonne Limoges
I agree with you Mike. Kardec’s benign imposter theory is highly suspect. It is clear in the Padgett communications that the spirit identifying himself as the person Jesus, was doing so to emphasize his shared personhood with all humanity. Jesus the individual may be a member of the Christ collective, group soul, whatever, but he specifically came to Padgett to dispel the notion of being an elite member of a holy trinity.
Michael,
Many Spiritists feel Jesus communicated in the communicationks vua mediumship gathered in the book entitled:
Life of Jesus dictated by Himself
Translators Ovidio Rebaudi and Jeannette Aquino
Take Care!
Yvonne
Jon and Michael,
I can easily relate to your discussions. Two sections are calling for comment: “While it was recorded that Pagett initially had doubts about the messages, he appears to have become convinced that they were not tricks of his subconscious mind – that the communicators were who they claimed to be.”
This is the daily battle to understand if the subconscious is running wild and you are on the road to the loony bin. There are points when evidence comes through from the spirits which is later verified as correct. I know that the subconscious is not advanced enough to give material that, at the time, is later proved to be correct. To me, I turn to these proofs to act as anchors to overcome any second thoughts. I think that this is an underinvestigated area.
The second area for comment is “In more technical terms, he was at the proper frequency and his subconscious was less likely to interfere with their messages. The communicators said it was difficult to find a medium with such a mindset.”
Sir Oliver Lodge uses the terms an educated mind and brain capacity. It is difficult to match mediums with communicators. Communicators are patient and attempt to use a variety of mediums, different types and grades. The shotgun approach.
I plan to read Jon’s book but I will read it from a different point of view. I will look for the medium’s thinking about the messages. I know that Cayce had trouble with reincarnation which went against his beliefs.
When a medium name drops even other mediums are worried.
Thanks,
Bruce
Bruce,
I appreciate you taking the time to read the book and giving a medium’s perspective.
My understanding of Padgett is that he was receiving messages from deceased family members—particularly his wife, Helen—as well as from friends and business associates. These messages were evidential, and he came to accept them as authentic. When the first messages purporting to be from Jesus came through, he didn’t initially accept them. Padgett eventually came to accept the messages from Jesus because his deceased family members and peers assured him that the communicators were who they claimed to be.
In the book I wrote:
“Famous communicators aren’t that interesting from an evidential point of view. Unless they are known to the sitter, they are unlikely to give personal evidence that can be verified, or tell us anything that’s not in the public domain. Nevertheless, what they say about their experiences after death—what their opinions, regrets, and hopes are—can be revealing.”
My interest is not so much in who they were, but in what they said about the nature of our reality and the consequences of our lives after death. That’s what the book is about.
Jon said “Famous communicators aren’t that interesting from an evidential point of view. Unless they are known to the sitter, they are unlikely to give personal evidence that can be verified, or tell us anything that’s not in the public domain.”
Famous communicators, because of their public lectures, writing, performances, etc. can be identified through means that would not work for private individuals without a body of text to compare to the communication received. A Stylometric analysis can be conducted to determine the degree of likelihood as to whether a claim of authorship is valid. It is understandable that our b.s. detectors are triggered when prominent names are dropped since we tend to regard the argument of an authority more highly than that of a person who failed to achieve notoriety while in the flesh.
My own White Crow with respect to the channeling of famous names is in a little booklet Two Lectures on The Present Crisis featuring a debate between two spirits; that of the deceased abolitionist Rev. Theodore Parker and the Honorable Henry Clay of Kentucky, given as tensions were mounting towards secession and war. As the publisher put it in the preface: “While, as a general thing, we should be inclined to ignore names as of very little consequence, cases may arise where identification, in a public gathering, of those who have been prominently before the public in their earth life, may be productive of great benefit. This I deem one of them.”
There is no doubt in my mind as to the distinct personalities expressed in this debate, and the opposing arguments are framed in a style characteristic of the oratorical flourish and thinking of the persons that they claim to be.
David, I should have included the full paragraph in the book which reads: “Famous communicators aren’t that interesting from an evidential point of view. Unless they are known to the sitter, they are unlikely to give personal evidence which can be verified, or tell us anything that’s not in the public domain.
Nevertheless, what they say about their experiences after death—what their opinions, regrets, and hopes are—can be revealing.”
I have no knowledge of Clay other than what I read on Wikipedia but when you think that Cora Scott/Richmond was 20 years old at the time “Clay” came through, it must been interesting to witness. At first glance, it’s certainly sounds like Clay. Do you know if it aligns with his thinking while he was alive?
Jon said:
At first glance, it’s certainly sounds like Clay. Do you know if it aligns with his thinking while he was alive?
Yes, Clay was a strong supporter of maintaining the union, and he proposed the Missouri Compromise of 1850 as an effort to mollify the South while giving the North California as a free state in the union.
In October 1996 I had a vision of Jesus in a meditation, followed by what I eventually learned was a kundalini awakening. I knew nothing about meditation, having taken it up as moral support for my husband who had terminal cancer. I had rejected religion wholesale nearly 30 years prior and considered myself an atheist at the time, so this was a most shocking event. Two and a half years later, I came across A Course in Miracles and joined a group. I could make no sense of it, and the group leader only added to the confusion. One night, I decided to pray: “O.K. Jesus, you said ‘Ask and you will receive, so I’ve got a few questions for you.” A voice began to speak inside my head. I have no idea what I asked initially, or what the answers were, but they were rapid-fire, and soon the answers started to come before I could finish the question. At some point, there was a lull in the conversation, and as I was seeing my hypnotherapist the next day, I asked what I needed to work on. The voice said ‘Fear.’
‘Fear of what?’
“Fear of abandonment.’
‘I’ve already worked on that.’ (Thinking it was referring to my father’s abandonment when I was young)
“You haven’t worked on your fear of abandonment by God.’
‘What! I couldn’t go to Pat and say that! I would be too embarrassed.’
‘There’s no need to be. She will understand. I have sent you to Pat.’
The conversation ended abruptly, and I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down what I could remember. When I came to the ‘fear of abandonment by God,’ I became confused. Was it ‘by God,’ or ‘of God.’ Eventually, I understood that it was my abandonment of God that was the issue. The conversation gave me a little more confidence in the source of ACIM but my confusion over just a single word also made me wary about the potential for misunderstanding and mistranslation.
I was still baffled by the book and gave it up soon afterwards. It sat on the bookshelf for another 5 years until one day I picked it up, started the workbook and became obsessed with it for the next 20 years. Somewhere along the line, I began doing dialogues with the voice as a way of trying to understand what it was about, addressing the voice as Jesus, even though I always felt sheepish about it. Eventually, he gave me the name ‘Christos’ to use, and he has since become a very real individual to me. I feel like I’m being mentored by a kind, wise ancient soul, and the name and form no longer matters. There is no doubt in my mind Helen was tuning into a wholly benevolent divine source, but I also believe that the work is coloured by her own personality, conditioning and education. How could it not be? That doesn’t invalidate it by any means, it is still an incredible work. One thing I appreciated about it from the start is its insistence on the practitioner developing their capacity to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in whatever form works for them.
I have ordered the book and look forward to reading it.
I am an ITC Researcher and for the last 10 years have recorded conversations with over 100 deceased people and over 40 people who were sleeping.
I have had many conversation and recordings from Jesus, his Mother Mary and Mary Magdeline. I have written a few short books about this. The books are available in PDF format. My books and some of the recordings are freely available from my Website “cawsiegner.com”. There are also a number of Videos which are also freely available. Have a look and decide for yourself.
My goal is to help people understand that WE ARE ALL SPIRITS HAVING A HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
Clive Siegner said: “WE ARE ALL SPIRITS HAVING A HUMAN EXPERIENCE.”
Yes indeed.
Dear Gloria, I agree that from a physical perspective ACIM can at times be baffling. In the book I write:
“Jesus in ACIM doesn’t appear to dwell on the things that occupy our lives, such as wealth, poverty, war, peace, marriage, gender, violence, and things of that nature. It’s as if he’s an advanced being at a level beyond the physical and spirit world—like a psychiatrist explaining to a patient who’s hallucinating—he’s telling us, “None of this is real. It’s all in your mind,” and trying to get us to snap out of our delusion.”
And later I write: “In the Padgett messages, Jesus is relatively straightforward and easy to understand. We might not agree with him or believe what he’s saying, or accept that it’s Jesus communicating—that’s down to the individual—but we can grasp the concepts. But if Jesus had dictated A Course in Miracles in the early twentieth century, the Padgett era, with its emphasis on oneness, the interconnectedness of all things, and the illusion of time, space, and separation, people might have found it too mystical, particularly in the West.”
However, I can imagine having just died and discovered I’m very much alive, reading ACIM and it making more sense from a spirit world perspective, and the Padgett communicators, even more so.
Thank you for ordering the book. I appreciate it.
Jon – Thanks for writing the book and bringing Padgett’s work to light again, as well as reminding me that I need to take another crack at the ACIM material. I’ll be ordering a copy soon.
Thanks David.
I didn’t plan to write a book about Padgett, ACIM or Jesus. After Robert Bigelow’s competition for the best evidence for life after death, I had it in my mind to write a letter to Robert.
At the end of the book I wrote:
“I didn’t intend to write this book. It was going to be a letter—a letter to Robert. The Robert in the book. I didn’t plan to mention Jesus—he wasn’t in my thoughts. I wanted to tell Robert I was past wondering whether there is life after death—that I was certain. I doubted his competition—though laudable—would come up with any novel insights beyond the ever-increasing evidence of communication from beyond. There were already countless accounts in existence for anyone who’s curious, and no doubt his competition would give people plenty more to read about.
“Then a man from Thailand emailed me, asking if I could help promote a book he’d published years earlier on the automatic writings of James E. Padgett. I was aware of Padgett but hadn’t paid much attention to his writings. I felt it was all a bit too religious for me. I explained that White Crow was a publisher, and since his books were already published, I couldn’t really help.
“We arranged to have a chat anyway and the same day a commenter in France mentioned “Padgett” on the White Crow website. That was unusual. Being the moderator, I checked and found that it was the first time Padgett had been mentioned in the comments for seven years. Coincidence? A sign? Who knows? Whatever it was it nudged me toward writing a book about contemporary messages purporting to come from Jesus.”
Thank you, Yvonne, for the link and the comment. Concerning Silver Birch, here is what was said about him by Hannen Swaffer, the journalist who was most familiar with him or it.
“Silver Birch, as we call him, is not a Red Indian,” Swaffer explained. “Who he is, we do not know. We assume that he uses the name of the spirit through whose astral body he expresses himself, it being impossible for the high vibration of the spiritual realm to which he belongs to manifest except through some other instrument.”
At one sitting, Silver Birch responded to a question about his identity by saying he was not a Red Indian. “I am using the astral body of a Red Indian because this particular one had many psychic gifts on earth and therefore became available for me when I was asked to return and engage on this mission,” he explained. “My life on earth goes back as an individual much further than the Red Indian I use to speak to you.”
The communicating entity further explained that Silver Birch was his medium on that side, just as Barbanell was the medium in the world of those in attendance. “I had to have what in your world would be a transformer, someone through whom the vibrations can be stepped up or slowed down so that I can achieve communication on your level.”
The entity stressed that who he was in the earth life made no difference and no one would be able to prove it one way or the other. He asked to be judged solely on what he had to say. He added that his knowledge comes from the infinite source and streams through countless beings, “each charged with particular tasks to ensure that as much of its purity and pristine beauty should be preserved. There is a great host of beings, ranging from what you might call the masters. They are beyond such descriptions.”
Jon and Michael,
I must agree with Michael as Silver Birch said its the message not the claimed personality. I have looked briefly at the book for clues. I came across this section: Mrs. Padgett Describes the Method Used to Communicate Her Thoughts Through Mr. Padgett.
I AM HERE. Helen. (my note this is a smart method to alert the medium to be ready for transmission and allows other communicators to give separate advice)
Let me tell you that you are only making yourself unhappy trying to learn all about the way I write to you. You cannot do it, as you are not able to see my method, and I cannot fully explain it to you. But I will try to do the best I can. When you take hold of the pencil. I exercise all my power to move the pencil so that it will write just what I think. But, in order to do that. I have to let my thoughts go through your brain. You do not do the thinking, but merely let the thoughts pass through your brain. And the movement of the pencil is caused by the exercise of your brain in conjunction with my power which I exercise on the pencil. So, you see. you do not originate the thought. but merely convey it to the hand which I guide in accordance with my thought. You do not have anything more to do with what is wntten than an electric wire has to do with transmitting a message from the party at the end where the message is given. Let me explain it another way. When I think a thought, I pass it through your brain to your hand, and my power to move your hand is brought into action, just as. when you think a thought. your power to move your hand is brought into action. My thoughts are not your thoughts. When I think, your mind catches the thought but does not create the same. So, you must believe that I am doing the writing and not you, for I write some thoughts which you could not write if you tried. How do you like that for assurance? But, to be serious, you could not write the things that I write without giving much thought to the different subject matters, for some of them are not familiar to you. as you have often said. Dismiss the idea that you are writing the things which emanate from what is sometimes called your subconscious mind. for you have no subconscious mind. And when they let their explanations of things which they cannot account for rest on the assertion that the subconscious mind furnishes these thoughts. they are all wrong. I am not a very good expounder of these things. but I have tried to make it as plain as I could. When you receive communications from Mr. Riddle, he will be able to explain more fully and more satisfactorily the laws which govern these things. and you must let him write soon. I am studying the laws of physical and psychical sciences so that I may be able to assist you in your investigation when you come to search for the true relationship between spirits and mortals, and the laws which control these communications. (Are you also studying the laws pertaining to such things as clairvoyance?) The Love of God. which passes all purely mental understanding, is the one great thing to soulfully learn of and possess.
This is a gem of this book, well worth having the full context in hard copy. We have an educated man in close discussions with his departed wife.
I am very impressed.
Bruce
Seemingly supporting Kardec’s comments above, Sir Oliver Lodge had this to say in the famous “Confucius” case as reported by Professor Neville Whymant: “It does not seem necessary to assume the actual presence of the great Chinese Sage himself, but it is possible that some disciple of that period may be exerting himself, as so many others on that side are exerting themselves, to give scholarly proof of survival, and to awaken our dormant minds to possibilities in the universe to which we are for the most part blind and deaf.”
Michael and Jon,
By a strange coincidence, I am informed of a similar book which was delivered in 1920. The “dead” Professor William James had some unfinished business. I like the preface that reminds us again of the importance of the message.
The message which is the important part of this book came through Mrs. Burke, a Boston lady, well known to many people as of admirable character and unquestioned veracity. She tells in her Afterword how it came. She believes it to have been imparted to her by William James, who died in 1910. When her manuscript came into my hands, apparently by chance, for examination, it seemed to me not of exceptional importance as a spiritist document, but of decided interest as a religious document. That is to say, I thought the story of the process by which the automatic writing was done, though interesting and important as an introduction to what followed it, had been more fully and persuasively told in other books, but I thought the substance of the discourses which make up most of the book was remarkable and very useful, especially in its bearing on the present world-crisis, and that it should be brought to the notice of seekers after truth.
In reading and rereading the proofs for it, I have been more impressed than ever with the remarkable quality of the message and its timeliness in present affairs.
I have found some of the automatic books both interesting and edifying, and for that reason was the more willing to assist in bringing this one to print. (The print run was 1000 books)
If they came out of the invisible world in which those whom we call “dead” continue their activities, they are not subject to the same control that has charge of what Doctor James wrote while still, as we say, “alive.” Whether they did so come is a matter for individual judgment, the substance of the discourses being, I should say, the main basis of opinion.
The One Way Jane Revere Burke 1933
Why the message? Chapter 1 has “While I was on earth – alive, as you call it -I thought I knew a lot, but now that I have begun to learn a little I see that I failed to know what is in truth about the most essential thing of all – namely, you cannot prove by your intellect those things which can be proved only by life.”
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks, Bruce. I have that book, but I read it about 25 years ago and forgot about it until you reminded me. I need to reread it soon. When I pulled it off the shelf, it opened to page 35, where I had highlighted a William James quote: “A man may know his native village very well, almost every foot of it being familiar to him, but when he climbs a high mountain and looks down on it he gets a new valuation. That is just what happens to us in coming here. Some things that seemed very important to us on earth shrank into insignificance from the higher point of view.” There is also another book involving communication from Jesus that I have in my library, but I can’t think of the title or the author. It will come to me sooner or later.
Bruce, the name of the medium I mentioned yesterday as having authored several books about the teachings of Jesus, as related to her by Jesus, came to me today. It is Dolores Cannon. However, I haven’t found her books in my library yet. I think there are three of them.
Michael,
You started me thinking and I remember reading about Hafed who taught Jesus. The book was Hafed, prince of Persia : his experiences in earth-life and spirit-life ; being spirit communications received through Mr. David Duguid. I read it over thirty years ago.
You would have to be a very good medium. Cayce had the Archangel Michael pop in to one of his groups.
Thanks,
Bruce