August 29, 2007

  •                    Teachings of Silver Birch
                                         DEBATE WITH A MINISTER

    "I am certain I was not talking to any of the sitters. There was beyond doubt some other entity present and he knew his Bible, too." These remarks were made by a Methodist minister who, while attending a conference in London, was invited to meet Silver Birch and to submit to him any questions he desired. After the first sitting, the minister was so intrigued that he wanted another talk and the next time he prepared his questions beforehand.  This chapter presents a new facet of the Silver Birch personality, for the guide is disclosed as a debater of no mean order.

    HUNDREDS of Methodist ministers, old and young, were gathered at their annual conference at the Central Hall, Westminster.  They had been discussing every aspect of their teaching, and work, for nearly two weeks.
    Now and then, though only in conversation, "Spiritualism had cropped up.  One Methodist minister,, who called on Hamen Swaffer, asked how he could go to a seance.  He had read Doyle's book, The New Revelation, but, otherwise, he knew little.

    "You can come to my home circle tomorrow night," said Swaffer. "During the sitting, Silver Birch,, one of the guides, will control a trance medium. You can ask him any question you like, argue, contradict, and differ, say anything you please. But do not go away afterwards and complain that something was not explained to you. You can ask anything.  We will print the story, but omit your name. Then you will not get into a row, unless you want to.

    The parson, charming, most intelligent young man obviously imbued with the love of service went to the seance.  In due course, Silver Birch came through.
    "May the inspiration of the Great White Spirit dwell among you all," he began, "and may you all respond to all that He would have you do, so that each one of you may feel you are a part of the Great White Spirit. Take that part with you wherever you go, and show it to all the children of the Great White Spirit".

    Then, addressing the parson, he explained: "My medium is filled with the power of what you call 'the Holy Spirit.' That makes him 'speak in tongues'. I am one of those who have already been resurrected."
    "What do you think of the other world?" asked the clergyman, beginning his search for knowledge of spirit teaching.

    "It is very much like your world," was the reply, "except that our world is a world of effects, and yours is a world of causes.
    "Did you have any fear when you left this world?"
    "No.  All we Red Indians were psychic, and we understood it was nothing to be afraid of. We were psychic like the man who founded your religion Wesley.  He was moved by the power of the spirit.  You know that?"
    "Yes," said the minister.

    "But they do not move by the 'power of the spirit' now," went on the guide.  "There are many links in the chain which leads to the Great White Spirit, and the lowest ones in your world are linked to the highest angels, as you call them, in the world of spirit.  No one in  your world is so bad that he is not in touch with the Great White Spirit,

     Whom you call God.  "
    "Do you know one another on the Other Side?" asked the Methodist.
    "How do you know them in your world?" was the reply.
    "With my eyes," said the parson; "I see with them."
    "But you do not see with your physical eyes," persisted the guide.  "You see with the spirit."

    "Yes," admitted the minister.  "I see with my mentality, which, I suppose, is part of the spirit."
    "I see with my spirit, too," explained the guide.  "I see your spirit, and I also see your physical body.  But that is only a shadow.  The light is the spirit."
    "What is the greatest sin people commit on earth?" asked the Methodist.
    "There are many, many sins," was the answer; "but the greatest sin of all is the sin against the Great Spirit."
    "Tell him what that means," interposed a sitter.

    "It is those who know, and deny the Great Spirit," explained the spirit.  "That is the biggest sin of all."
    "That is what they call 'the sin against the Holy Ghost,' said one of the circle.
    "They call it 'the sin against the Holy Ghost' in the big book," replied the guide; "but it is really the sin against the spirit."

    "What do you think of the Revised Version?" asked the parson "Which is better, the Revised or the Authorized?"
    "The words do not matter, said the guide.  "It is what you do, MY son, that counts.  The truth of the Great White Spirit is found in many books and also in the hearts of those who try to serve Him, wherever they are, and whoever they might be.  That is the greatest Bible of all."

    "Suppose they do not get converted before they die?" asked the clergyman.  "What happens then"
    "I do not understand what you mean by converted, said Silver Birch.  "Put it more plainly.  "
    "Suppose a man lives a wicked life, and passes on," said the minister.  "Another man makes a mental resolve to do right.  What will the difference between the two men be in the other realm?"

    I will tell you from your own book," said the spirit. "That which a man sows, that shall he reap!  You cannot change that. You bring into our world what you are not what you think you are, and not what you try to show other people you are.  It is what you are inside. You will be able to see it for yourself when you come here."
    "He dreams dreams," said the guide, meaning the parson, to Swaffer.

    "Do you mean he is psychic?" asked Swaffer.
    "Yes,” was the answer.  "Why did you bring him here?"
    "Oh! He called on me,, " said Swaffer.
    "He is being led step by step," said the guide, "and the light must be shown gradually."

    When, in the pages which follow, you read Silver Birch’s teaching, you must understand that it is all written down in the dark by a reporter who uses braille notepaper, and who, expert stenographer though he is, is often tested severely to. keep pace with the rapidity of Silver Birch's speech. On no occasion has a single word to be altered. Silver Birch's words flow in perfect English. Only the punctuation marks have to be put in, and even for these there is always a natural place, which could not be mistaken
    .
    Silver Birch's philosophy, as you will easily understands is that of a Pantheist, a man who realizes that God is found in Nature itself, that there is an unalterable Law which governs everything, and that God is the Law.
    "You are within the Great Spirit," says Silver Birch, and the Great Spirit is within you." So we learn we are all potential gods, part of the great creative principle which is everything.

    Yet Silver Birch does not stop at unapplied philosophy.  He forces home, always, the lesson that we are here to do a job. He sums up religion in the one word "Service," and strives to teach us, clumsy instruments though we may be, that we are in this world so that we may make an end of war, abolish poverty and hasten the time when God's bounty will be spread in all its lavishness among all the peoples of the world.

    "Our allegiance," says Silver Birth, "is not to a Creed, not to a Book, not to a Church, but to the Great Spirit of Life and to his eternal natural laws."
    So it is that the members of his circle, six in number, include three Jews and three Gentiles, who find in Spiritualism no racial or creedal difference.  Three were Agnostics and a fourth was a Wesleyan minister who, just before he joined our circle, had left Methodism because no longer could he accept its teachings.

    Sometimes, to vary the sittings, Silver Birch allows some other spirit to control his medium.  So Northcliffe, Galsworthy, Hall Caine, Gilbert Parker, Horace Greeley, Dick Sheppard, Abraham Lincoln and personal friends of the sitters have visited us.  Still, all that is for another book
     ....
    During my years of sitting with Silver Birch, I have never known him to forget anything, although we may do so.
    And never, by any syllable does he depart from his self-chosen mission to instruct the children of men in a simpler and more beneficent way of life.

    Maurice Barbanell passed to spirit July 1981.  He was the medium for Silver Birch, which started in 1920 at the age of 18.

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