The Betty books concern that moment of human life described in the Tibetan scripture The Precious Garland. In the process of death we arrive at the strange experience “when consciousness remains as an orphan, with no support.” The Invisibles worked with Betty to help her cross that threshold going both ways: from form to pure consciousness to form again.
Speaking from beyond, Betty explained that the work she had done with the Invisibles during her lifetime in the obstructed had helped her learn to adapt her consciousness to the unobstructed; but the step by step process had actually been provided to give her extraordinary training in coming back to communicate with Stewart and their readers.
What followed, Stewart described as “forty sessions of communication with Betty; sessions vivid with her unseen presence, from turn of phrase and mode of thought to her own special brand of fun and laughter.”
Darby conducted the sessions. He asked questions, requested clarification, and protested in the name of Newtonian physics. His efforts helped Betty communicate more clearly.
With the world at war again, Betty said that her mission was to encourage people to find their own proof of the continuity of consciousness after death. She asked her readers to imagine how different the world would be if we understood we are temporary visitors with other destinations ahead of us, instead of desperate creatures struggling through our brief hours in the sun. She and the Invisibles wanted to provide reassurance for families who lost loved ones as the war killed millions. Using the exercises in the books, anyone could experience the unobstructed.
The key to the exercises is relaxed appreciation. Stewart asks us to cultivate the feeling we get when we admire a beautiful sunset, to enjoy the sound of frogs chirping in the night, or the sight of “good old pups,” as he puts it, wagging their tails, leading the way on a walk. He asks us to notice how it expands our senses, how we experience what we’ve been missing wrapped up in our own thoughts: bird song, the tint of the sky behind a lush hill, small wonders that refresh the soul. He explains that, for most people, the soul is like a dehydrated husk.
Betty denied that she was now in a different world. The difference is not in location but frequency. The world of human bodies exists at a much lower frequency than pure consciousness.
According to Betty, consciousness is the matrix and sustenance of form. Electric current, a hunk of granite, a bee buzzing by, in every variation of matter, at the center of the particles that make forms, consciousness exists.
Three sentences stand out in the metaphysical works of the Whites.
Consciousness is everything.
Attention is existence.
The individual is immortal.
“The obstructed universe,” Betty explained from the afterlife, “is for the purpose of birth, of the individualization of consciousness. All matter is born in your universe. Nothing is lost. Individuality is not lost; though in its lower forms matter can be burned, turned into gas, or what have you. Yet it is all kept. It is the highest form, the soul, that goes on undivided. Your scientists have accepted the law of the indestructibility of matter; but I say to you that this law is only a corollary of the indestructibility of consciousness.”
One of the implications of the Betty books is that we have forgotten the part of our consciousness which exists outside of time. From that point of view anyone who sets up shop as a gatekeeper to paradise is selling water by the river. No one has a monopoly on rites of purification or human transcendence. These are birthrights of every human being.
*
Betty’s poetic sensitivity to natural beauty, and her wholesome, humorous, and often sublime advice about living a good life, comforted a nation at war and in mourning that found hope in the revelation that the mysterious Betty was none other than the wife of the famous writer beloved by generations. Stewart could have built a metaphysical empire from the attention he received.
Mrs. Leslie Kimmell, Stewart’s secretary at the end of his life, said he had an aversion to meddling in other people’s affairs. He amused himself by reading, going to the movies, gardening, and dictating letters giving advice to seekers, who were encouraged to think it through for themselves. Two Cairn Terriers followed him around: one chosen from beyond by Betty. As Kimmell told the story:
His cairn terriers Toto and Bibi (Swahili for “Little Boy” and “Little Girl”) were always at his heels. Toto “the little yellow dog” which Betty “found” for Stewart shortly after her death, was a real person; and with him Betty made some of her most amusing demonstrations. Often Toto would sit up opposite an expanse of bare wall looking intently at a spot less than five feet from the floor (Betty was four feet eleven inches tall), waving his paws in the way he had been taught to show that they were “clean” and obviously begging to be played with. Then he would go through all the motions of retrieving a ball, scuttling across the room and under furniture, returning with “it” in his mouth to be tossed again by his invisible companion.
Kimmell described Stewart as “a reticent, even a shy person. The very quietness of his manner invited confidence, and his genuine interest encouraged one to talk freely.” Elsewhere she wrote that Stewart had a “light touch. The humor which made him such a popular dinner guest carried over into every aspect of his life.”
Kimmell described Stewart in his later years. “He always carried with him the feel of the outdoors. His skin was bronzed and ruddy; his eyes had that indescribable expression characteristic of people who are accustomed to scanning the horizon. Even in his seventies he had the appearance of being much younger.”
But Kimmell wrote: “No matter how vividly he might feel Betty’s presence, the life he had shared with her for so many years was over; the house was big and quiet; the garden missed her magic touch.” In a letter to Kimmell, Stewart admitted that it required resolution to face “the loss of the physical presence of so vibrant and exquisite a personality.”
Kimmell recalled that Stewart spent an hour a day meditating in Betty’s blue room, where he felt her presence and received instruction. Private interviews were granted to people seeking help only after Stewart felt more secure in the support that he believed Betty and the Invisibles gave him. The many requests for a school or organization of some kind were “gently but determinedly discouraged.” He didn’t want to convert anyone. He often said: “every fellow has to find his own way.”
*
