43 QUESTION: It says in the Greber book that the only means for spiritual growth is through mediumship or spirit communication in some other form. In other teachings it says that one can contact the divine part within oneself that contains all wisdom. Which is right and how would either one work?

ANSWER: Of course, the final aim is to find that which is divine in yourself. There is no doubt about it. But until you can get that far, you need help. Often, communication with the Spirit World of God is the best means to get the help. Complicated and perilous as the establishment of such communication is, once it is established, it is best suited to help you remove all that obstructs your own divine spark. However, this is not the only way. Human teachers also can help you remove your inner obstructions. There have always been great teachers who have done just that.

In your time, there is a further means, the medicine of the soul that you call depth analysis. The fact that it is not always handled well no more disproves its value for freeing the soul – and that is its ultimate purpose, whether your doctors know it or not – than badly applied or arrested development in mediumship disproves the value of that.

Communication with the Spirit World ultimately has only one purpose, no matter in what stage of development the medium is. Learning about the facts of Creation, about God, and what happens in the universe and the various spheres is secondary, my friends. The sole purpose of telling you about such things is to help you understand the reason for life and the necessity of development, and to give you the incentive to overcome your resistance to taking the steps to reach your own divine spark. You should consider all teachings and all religions from that point of view.

The knowledge of universal facts is a help and an incentive and not the final aim. The final aim is self-finding and self-purification, for only through that can you make contact with your own divine spark. Otherwise it is blurred and unreliable, and can easily be confused with unconscious desires that have nothing to do with the divine in the human being.

Yet contact with the Divine World is not the way for all human beings. Other ways may be better suited for some people. It depends on the personality and its stage of development, but the only reason for life on Earth is purification and self-finding. There are many ways that can help you in that. If you have the grace and the privilege to communicate with God’s world, this method should be best suited to help you, because it would naturally be a little faster and more direct in showing you how to proceed on your path to find yourself. But it is not the only way.

 

63 QUESTION: Might I ask, how much can be asked of you spirits concerning thoughts in other human beings? There is someone I would love to know more about – to understand. Could the spirits see what is going on and tell us about it so that we understand better?

ANSWER: We can see all right, but it would be entirely against spiritual law to tell you about it. One reason is that it would be violating the other person’s privacy and free will. That person may not want to be understood by another human being and may decide to hide behind a wall. This may not be a wise decision, but it has to be respected. Another reason is that it would not add to your own growth.

You can unfold your intuition, sensitivity, and your ability to understand, only by developing yourself. This is the only healthy and good way to gain access to understanding other people, to bridge the wall of separation. It must happen through your own efforts. If the spirits were to do what you suggest, they would not only be unethical, but they would also weaken you.

There are certain exceptions, but how, when and why these exceptions occur is too complicated to go into now. But if it ever happens, there is a good and valid reason for it. That then would be entirely constructive.

 

80 QUESTION: Could you comment on something I recently saw? I witnessed a demonstration of clairvoyance in which the medium was not in a trance, but could see certain spirits. What happens in such a case? Is this a case of mind-reading, perception of etheric bodies, or is it possible that the spirit in question was actually there so that the medium could see it?

ANSWER: All these alternatives are possible. Humanity always thinks in terms of either/or. I have no way of determining now which of these alternatives apply to the particular case. But it really does not make as much difference as you are inclined to believe. You seem to think that if it is a question of mind reading, this eliminates the spirit-being’s living and existing. The spirit’s aliveness and its bond with you may cause your subconscious to be impressed by it, so that a clairvoyant perceives it through the detour of your own subconscious.

QUESTION: But is it possible that the actual spirit was really there?

ANSWER: Of course it is possible. Absolutely.

 

QA181 QUESTION: We want to know about an idea the medium [Eva] had, that it would be beneficial for us to do some breathing and relaxation and vibration exercises before the lecture, to put us into a better and more open mood for it.

ANSWER: Yes, I think this would be very constructive indeed. To do this for a few minutes would open many, many inner channels, where the words that are being said here would not be merely received on an intellectual level, but would also go in deeper, on an emotional level.

Even on the intellectual level, it is very often that my words reverberate, that some of my friends here sit here with blocks, with fears, with anxiety, with defenses, and with other rigid defenses to give a certain appearance. They do not let go; they do not dare to be themselves; they are constricted inside, and therefore the words cannot really reach them.

They may reach them to a certain extent already, of course, and in fact, even now sometimes they bypass the brain and are received on an inner level. But if these exercises would be done, the inner person would be more receptive and you would feel the words more. You would be less walled off and more receptive, in other words.

That is why I would welcome such a thing very much. Later, as this whole group develops into different and more expansive stages, more can be done. More will be in store. But at the moment, this would be very welcome.

 

QA192 QUESTION: In the last few months, one of the well-known seers and healers in the United States has expressed the view that there is not such a process as reincarnation. I communicated with this person, who I understand is able to be in touch with the Spirit World, and her answer was that very many other people – mediums as well as people delving in the psychic sciences, both in the United States as well as in England – hold the same view. She says that “there are many mansions in my father’s kingdom,” but people don’t come here again. And I would be very thankful to you if you can comment upon this process, because I personally feel and I believe this.

ANSWER: This is wrong. This is all I can say. It is not correct. The life, the Earth sphere, the life of matter, has a very definite function. And this function is, true enough, only one phase in many, many other phases in the whole scheme of the evolutionary process. However, there is not a single phase in the evolutionary process that can be dealt with in one infinitesimal time span, just as one life. That could not be, even with the greatest of exceptions, even with the speediest of all developments.

The best way to gauge this is if you compare the many, many different states of consciousness represented on this Earth sphere. If the Earth sphere would only be one lifetime, to be gone through at one stage, then indeed the entities incarnated here would all be, more or less, within a limited framework, within the same stage of development.

But you can find here such vast discrepancies, with all degrees in between, that it stands to reason that those who have attained the highest degree of consciousness a human being can have, that they have lived previous lifetimes in exactly the same sphere, because otherwise they could not have gotten there.

It is true that the discrepancies exist; it is not true that all agree. And this is provable. It is does not matter to what degree one or the other is more numerous in representation. Times change, and changing times account for the geography too. I mean, the entire East, whose spiritual development for centuries was far, far ahead of the Western civilization, all agree on the process of reincarnation.

But there are many personal reasons why these misunderstandings or these narrow lines and blocks exist. I say it is unimportant from the human point of view to dwell on this question. I say it is wasted energy; I say it should not be made such a terribly important point of, because, from the point of view of mental concepts, it cannot be proven either way. And from the point of view of inner experience, it cannot be conveyed as proof.

Inner experience is only possible to the degree we are open to an idea. The moment we are closed to an idea, inner experience is closed too. Thus, if a person is closed, for example, to the idea that a greater consciousness than the intellect exists, he can never experience that such greater consciousness indeed exists. It is so with everything else.

It would be a very serious matter if, for example, the need to develop and be in truth with one’s inner being would be denied. That would indeed require a very effective counter standpoint. It would be important for individuals to be convinced that life is a continuum, that this life on Earth is not just one haphazard appearance without anything before or after, that there is indeed a great continuous chain of events, expressing the evolution of the person. That is important.

But whether or not reincarnation is a fact or not is not important. I mention it because it is a truth and I convey the truth as I see it. But I do not dwell on it, as you all know, while I do dwell on the continuous existence of entities and on the importance of continued development. This is what I have to say.

QUESTION: May I ask one for a further comment upon a statement, made again by the same person: that dead spirits possess human beings, and that it is because they have been told they are going to be reincarnated that they seek to incarnate that way.

ANSWER: Well, you could say, by the same token, that the blocks and the prejudices and the preconceived ideas of mediums – this is just as true – would then come out either by being blocked to the truth a highly developed spirit wants to bring through. A medium may exist in many forms. It may be a sensitive or it may be a highly intuitive person who is open to spiritual forces in one way but closed in other ways – such a person would then draw certain spirits who are in the same blocked belief.

You could just say, with the same justification, there are very good spirits or less-developed spirits, but they are still not in the light of the total divine truth, and they see only according to their prejudices. Now, there are many human beings who are very spiritual people, very highly developed people in certain ways, but they have their prejudices. When they leave their body, these prejudices are not automatically eliminated.

Thus, for example, a very devout Catholic – who has done within his own religion the best he could, he has grown in his best way – will be in the Spirit World where he will have relative light and well-being, because this is his state of consciousness. But his preconceived ideas will begin to get in an environment where all the other spirits will be equally convinced of the Catholic truth, and that will be his experience in the Spirit World.

Were he to communicate through a medium, he would be drawn to such a medium that would have equal ideas and that would then be supposedly a proof.

Therefore, I say, what spirits say through a medium about the facts of spiritual life can never be a proof by hearsay. But I do say that when you develop within your own Pathwork, your own purification, your own straightening out of your inner errors – that is all you need. Then you will receive from within yourself, your own answers that are important for you.

You will not have to take anyone else’s testimony; you will take them or leave them; and you will learn to have such an open mind, such an uncluttered mind, such an unencumbered mind, such a flexible spirit in which you can indeed receive the inner enlightenment that is important for just what you need.

Otherwise, these become doctrinal, dogmatic argumentative questions, which is just as wasteful as when the different religions argue with one another that each has the truth. Stay away from this.

Next Topic