Posted on 01 May 2025, 18:01

Let’s let William James, the great American philosopher who died in 1910, get us started.  James in this life wrote with a flare unique to him, and it shows up in the hand and thinking of Jane Roberts, his medium. (Roberts was also the medium who brought us all those Seth books.) I am fairly confident this is really James speaking, as Roberts claims in a fascinating postscript.

“Nowhere have I encountered the furnishings of a conventional heaven, or glimpsed the face of God. On the other hand, certainly I dwell in a psychological heaven by earth’s standards, for everywhere I sense a presence that is well-intentioned, gentle yet powerful, and all-knowing. This seems to be a psychological presence of such stunning parts, however, that I can point to no one place and identify it as being there in contrast to being somewhere else. At the risk of understating, this presence seems more like a loving condition that permeates existence, and from which all existence springs.”

He goes on to say, “I am convinced, then, that this atmospheric presence is the creative medium from which all consciousness springs. . . . More, this light is surely the same that in another fashion lit the skies of Boston, dawned over the ocean, and splashed upon my study floor. But the quality of this knowing light differs, for it is alive with a loving intent that is instantly felt and experienced in a direct manner. There is no mistaking its intent, and again I am struck by the ambiguity of its vastly personal and impersonal aspects.”

James then points a condemning finger at the materialist who denies the world of spirit and leaves us feeling “alienated from God and man, alone in a chaotic universe, a creature accidentally thrown into existence like a live coal from some gigantic furnace, sizzling for an instant with the cracklings and rustlings of desire, but soon reduced to ash.”

James shows himself elsewhere in the book to be well acquainted with the science of the day, but he doesn’t hesitate to denounce the conventional wisdom: “To imagine that such an entire environment [earth] is an accident is, I see now, intellectually outrageous as well as emotionally sterile.” His view of atheistic materialism is typical of all the channeled accounts I’ve read. Few of them fail to warn us of its dangers to the human spirit.

Spirits don’t speak of seeing God in some celestial humanoid form. Many of them explicitly rule it out for beings at their level. Another medium, Vale Owens, channeling his mother, writes that “God is no more visibly present here than He is in earth life.” Another spirit, Frances Banks,  tells a spirit child that God is “Much too far away for us even to see Him. We’re not ready for his glory yet.”

When Drayton Thomas asks his deceased father if we will ever be able to see God, John Thomas answers, “I do not think that, as you develop and progress, you will wish to see Him. You will not wish to limit Him in that way. . . you would have brought Him down, made Him into a Being only one millionth part of that which He is.”

Imperator, a highly advanced spirit speaking through the gifted Anglican minister and medium Stainton Moses around 1880, shamed us with some tough talk: “But though we have not yet seen Him, we know yet more and more of the fathomless perfections of His nature through a more intimate acquaintance with His works. We know, as you cannot, the power and wisdom, the tenderness and love of the Supreme. We trace it in a thousand ways which you cannot see. We feel it in a thousand forms which never reach your lower earth. And while you, poor mortals, dogmatise as to His essential attributes, and ignorantly frame for yourselves a being like unto yourselves, we are content to feel and to know His power as the operation of a Wise and Loving and All-pervading Intelligence.…His government of the universe reveals Him to us as potent, wise, and good. His dealings with ourselves we know to be tender and loving.”

In my next blog we will look at more descriptions of God from the minds of the deceased—and from my own mind.

Stafford Betty, Professor of Religious Studies, CSUB, (ret) is the author of When Did You Ever Become Less by Dying?  and Heaven and Hell Unveiled. His latest novel, Guardians of the Afterworld is published by White Crow Books.
Stafford can be found at http://www.staffordbetty.com.

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I have a special feeling for William James as he had a beautiful summer residence in the small NH town where I reside. A few years ago , a local pastor arranged for scholars and students of James to come together in a weekend to celebrate his life.

Ann

Thanks for this Stafford.  And I look forward to part two.
Of course the Jane Roberts channeling is as profound as we’ve heard,
and I’m not about to challenge it.
How souls perceive the deity, both here and there, is a fascinating study.
It raises all kind of questions, the supreme deity, the secondary supportive deities,
the various prophets pointing their fingers in the direction of devotion, the philosophers
who reckon on the zen-like approach, - “the One and the ten thousand things”.
The reguar folks who are just relieved and happy to finally be in the paradise they’d heard
about but kinda doubted.  The narow minded judgemental righteous who are shocked to
see others not of their community enjoying the pleasures of heaven and not particularly
interested in all “this god stuff”.
It’s an endless discussion and one I am sure we here will be indulging in when we ‘pass over’.

gordon phinn
Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

I have a special feeling for William James as he had a beautiful summer residence in the small NH town where I reside. A few years ago , a local pastor arranged for scholars and students of James to come together in a weekend to celebrate his life.

Ann

Stafford,
Well stated. I just finished reading Ross Douthat’s best-seller “Believe,” and in the review I left at Amazon I mentioned that once I have transitioned to whatever realm I have earned from my activities in this life and awakened there, I doubt that I will have a better understanding of God than I have now.  On second thought, I’m hoping it will be a little better, but I’m fairly certain that it will be well short of anything close to a full comprehension. 
Mike

Stafford,
Excellent article. I see your book Heaven and hell unveiled : updates from the world of spirit is on Internet Archive. Great background reading. The question of God is often asked of spirits with various responses. Different mediums connect to different spirits who are at various levels of knowledge. The bottom line is love. Most mediums connect with a love connection with only a few connecting to higher spirits. The trouble is that a solid platform of thinking has not emerged.  Books are often contradictory. As most people come to the world of afterlife communication from another religion, it is difficult to build a brand which is in agreement.

I recently acquired The Search for God by James F. Malcolm 1959. It is written for the Spiritualists with the seven principles at the rear of the book. The first principle is The Fatherhood of God. The book explains where our ideas of God come from, mainly the beliefs of different religions.

The spirits who contact are often eloquent in their descriptions of God. I think that Imperator had the best description but others are just as worthy.
I am looking forward to future articles and discussions,
Thanks
Bruce