CHAPTER FIVE
ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OPPOSITION
Dr. Neil Hitchen is a pseudonym we will use for an acquaintance of Andrija’s who had had an interest in his work for many years. Formerly a leading political figure, Dr. Hitchen had more recently spent several years in education. He had begun his career, however, in the ministry, so when he and his wife Alice paid a visit to Ossining and participated in some communications, it was natural that the subject of Christianity and the Church should come up.
Recalling that in a recent communication Tom had said that there was a time, two thousand years ago, when the Earth was ready to make the evolutionary change now being attempted, Andrija asked if the time referred to was the period of Jesus Christ.
“This is correct,” Tom answered, “but we do not call him Jesus Christ. We call him the Nazarene. He was one of us. His inspirational work and healings were inspired by us and his energy was supplied by us. We had great hopes at that time, but then you made a god of him as you have made a god of many. This will not happen this time. There will not be one but there will be a collection of beings who will raise the consciousness of this planet.”
“There are many on Earth who expect the return of the Nazarene,” Andrija said, “but I gather from what you say that this is not possible.”
“A single individual will not return,” Tom said. “There are many of you on this planet that are similar to the Nazarene. It is very important that you do not deify us. It is important that you understand that God is in each and every one of you, that God is love and it is love that creates the one God.”
Neil Hitchen said that he would be willing to help in any appropriate way, and was wondering whether he should go back into the religious sphere, for instance by accepting an offer of the presidency of a university with religious affiliations.
Tom said emphatically, “No. With them you can only go so far, because of the indoctrination they have had over two thousand years.”
Neil then asked if his political connections could be of any use to the project. For instance, he could speak to people in the new President’s entourage and possibly to President Ford himself.
In response to this suggestion Tom said, “We have found in the past that when you tell people the truth they feel threatened or feel that it cannot be so. But if it is their thought and they come to you, they readily accept … We are grateful for your offer to help this project. You are in a position, more than any of these beings, to help with contacts and credibility. You must walk softly and with patience, and you must drop the seeds.”
At the beginning of the next extended series of communications held at Ossining after Assagioli’s death,
Tom volunteered some information which will be as challenging for the reader as it was for John, Andrija and Phyllis, and no doubt will cause some to conclude that the communications must be contaminated by the unconscious of one or other of the participants. Recalling the July 20th celebration and what they had learned about their roles at that time, Tom said he would now like to take the explanation one step further. It was very important that they should now understand their special relationship to the Nine.
“The Nine of us are in the area that you call the zone of cold. The three of you are here on the planet Earth. Now visualize as we are speaking to you of what is transpiring. Around each of you beings there are three other beings that are three beings of the Nine. This makes you then the center as three of the Nine surround each of you … This then feeds and nourishes and sustains you, who in turn sustain us, because without you three beings we cannot accomplish what is needed on this mission. You cannot be replaced. Do you understand?”
“We are honored,” Andrija said, “but it is difficult to understand.”
Tom said that there were also problems of understanding on their side. “The difficulty we have is in understanding the problems you have in this gross, heavy density world that as physical beings you must exist upon. This is creating problems for our project, but the project must continue, and its completion cannot be delayed.”
It would greatly help the project, Andrija said, if the Management would provide them, as promised some time ago, with the clear statement of purpose and program imprinted on magnetic tape so that in future there should be no ambiguities arising out of their personal interpretations of the communications and understanding of the work. The statement had not yet been received, and Andrija now asked when they might expect it.
This brought from Tom a rapidly spoken reproach: “We have observed the great anxiety generating around all three of you beings waiting for this statement and program. We have actually at times given you part of the program before you asked, and at times after you asked, and you seem to be delayed by waiting for this program, as if you cannot go forward without it. We do not understand its importance, or why you are waiting, when you already know why you are here, why we are coming and why we are doing this work with you. We understand that you would like to relay this statement to the rest of the world, and that you feel that this would be something that could be given to the people and they would believe. But there are those that still would not believe. Do you understand?”
Andrija answered that they understood that, but the point was that each of them had a partial and personal understanding of the program and the philosophy, and they wanted a definitive statement in order to give their group internal coherence. “I’m sorry if we’re transmitting anxiety,” he said, “but it is not a lack of faith or concern that leads to our anxiety. It is an anxiety to get ahead with the work. I hope you understand that.”
“I understand it because I am the one that works most closely with all of you,” said Tom, “but the other members do not understand it.”
Andrija asked John to put his point of view to the Council, and John said that he, too, was concerned that their understanding of the message and the program might be distorted in their individual interpretations, or even that the communications themselves might be distorted by the consciousness of the channel. Tom assured him that there were no distortions in the channeling.
Then Andrija asked if the Council now understood their anxiety, saying, “It is a kind of healthy anticipatory anxiety. I hope it has no negative connotations for you.”
Tom absented himself for about half a minute to consult with the Council, then returned and said, “Let me explain to you their feeling. It is now the consensus among our group that the delay that was brought about in giving this statement has now caused us to take a new look at why you want this statement. I know why you want it, but when we observe you it is as if you have put down your plough and are no longer ploughing the ground to plant the seeds because you are waiting for the horse to pull the plough. We are disturbed, the entire Council is disturbed, because of your anxieties, and because you are waiting only for a statement. You must understand that I am their spokesman as I am your spokesman, and I understand why you do what you do. I am only relating to you the Council’s feelings.”
Andrija said that for his part he didn’t see the justice of the reproach that the work had stopped. He, John and Phyllis had all been working consistently for the cause in their different ways.
“We did not say the work had stopped,” Tom said. “We were speaking of within your minds. All three of you have thought that you could not really go forward until this statement had been completed. This is what we speak of.”
John conceded that this was true of himself, but Andrija continued to rebut the reproach. “I think
what may have been interpreted as a kind of stoppage is really prudence on our part,” he said.
“Our interest is largely in economy of effort. We want to do the right thing. So it’s in this spirit that we’re asking for guidance.”
Tom replied to this, after a long pause of consultation, with a strong speech and the introduction of a shift of perspective on the problem, which virtually disposed of the question of the need for a statement and program.
“You know this physical world better than we know it,” he said. “We need your minds, and we need your energies. We suggest that you know better than we in which direction you are to go. If we feel that anything you are doing will jeopardize the program, you will be made aware of that. We cannot lay out a complete formula for you, and a direction. There are things that we try to help you with, and there are things that we try to institute. In the past we have made many errors with this, because from where we sit it looks as if this may be possible or feasible, but then we find in your physical world it is not always so. We do not understand your material world, so therefore we have decided that only when we feel the program could be contaminated or disrupted will we then step in. We will guide and direct you as much as we can. You can ask us if we feel you are going in the right direction or the wrong direction, but at the same time you must realize that we do not understand this material world and physical thing that you exist with. You understand that this is the error we made with Uri. We did not understand about the material part.”
Andrija and John never did get their definitive statement, but after this explanation the lack of it ceased to be a matter of concern, for they tended to regard themselves more as responsible partners in a project than as servants of a cause.
