Thoughts About Executions

I have been thinking about the lady in the USA condemned to death by injection for killing two people while under the influence of drugs.

During a small circle the day before the execution I had the opportunity to talk to a person in Spirit about this who said that the lady was coming home and there would be no reprieve. I asked if the speaker was aware of what the people who had been killed were thinking and the speaker said something like "Well, they are thinking that is what she did to them, so why not; it is only justice."

Some years ago somebody else in Spirit, with a different viewpoint, said "Why are you sending us all your problems? Are you not able to sort them out on your side? Are you not aware that people who come over here angry are very difficult to deal with!"

Perhaps this person was more directly involved with new arrivals from our side than the people who were killed by this lady at a time when she did not realise what she was doing.

Here in the UK the question about the Death Penalty; or, to be precise, the lack of it, is often raised. Some people want it re-instated for certain types of crimes.

Let us look at this from another direction.

It is assumed that Death is a punishment.

People will often say, and I know some who do, that there cannot be a God to allow that, when referring to a loved one who has died of, maybe, cancer or some kindly person who has died in an accident of some sort. Acts of God are always disasters!

Stand back from life on earth and look at it as a learning exercise of great complexity; realising that the undertaking of this journey through a physical life was chosen by yourself before you came, in order to learn certain things that would be of use to you when your physical life is over and you return to Spirit. If you consider this you will see that to die is not a punishment, but the conclusion of a mission and a returning back to where you came from.

Under "normal" conditions - bearing in mind that there is no such thing as "normal", everybody's mission is different, therefore life must be different for every person on earth. People may share part of their mission together but there will always be something that is different for each person. There is one common thing that we all have and that is we are at the stage where the earth plane is where we have chosen to come for our development.

So, when we terminate somebody's life earlier than was planned by that individual, we may send them back to Spirit with "unfinished business". How great a disappointment this is to the individual depends on how much of their mission they have failed to complete. If the person missed out on a great deal of what they had hoped to achieve they may have to return to the earth quite quickly in order to carry out the things which were missed.

One speaker in a group said that all the people who were killed in the atomic bombs of the second world war were back on the earth as their lives were interrupted.

The only thing killing somebody does is it gets them out of your way; they cannot bother you any more; at least not in this life. Whether they will 'bother you' in the next depends on many factors. The laws of compensation and retribution are perfect; nobody cheats God.

When the person is received into Spirit, by those who come to help that soul over into the next life, special care is needed because that person is often very frightened of what is going to happen. After a time of rest and adjustment there will come a time for reflection about what has happened and what led up to it. I am assuming that the person did commit the crime for which the execution was the, so called, punishment.

If the act was a "one off" committed under a great strain where the normal character of that person "gave way" and somebody was killed I suspect counselling may be required as the person will probably feel very guilty about it. Habitual criminals do not appear to have any guilt feelings either on this side or the next. It may be a long time before a "guiltless" person comes to terms with the acts of great unkindness they carried out while on earth.

You could say that the only crime there can be is the omission of love in its truest sense. We are told that "God" or "The Great Spirit" is perfect, infinite Love and as God - whatever that is - loves us regardless of who and what we are so we should reflect that love to all of God's creation; i.e. everything. We are told that this earth and everything on it is part of God's creation so we, in our turn, should love all that has been created; including ourselves as we are all part of that creation.

If you read 'Conversation with God' you will find the idea, which is coming across more and more, is that God is 'everything that is' - there is nothing that is not God - therefore we are all part of God. A part of God expressing itself in a physical environment. We are part of God and if we could remember who we truly are thing would change a great deal for the better in this world.

We should, therefore, see that to kill somebody in revenge, for that is what execution really is, should be replaced by compassion, understanding and assistance. Another method of dealing with people should be thought of. All we are really doing is passing the "problem" onto the next level for somebody else to deal with. 'Passing the buck', as they say.

It may be, of course, that somebody who is a continuous threat to society needs to be controlled all of their life. I am quite in favour of the idea of electronic tagging so you always know where somebody is. People who go through life continually leaving a trail of unhappy people behind them are, in my view, much worse than somebody who may have, just once in their life, murdered somebody when they were cornered. Some animals only attack when there is no alternative.

If somebody's crime is based on the love of money send them to an agency who are doing work in areas where there is great poverty. If you have an habitual thief send them somewhere where there is nothing to steal. Perhaps their better side will surface and that person may begin to help and, in doing so, start to make amends for past actions. You never know; they may become a saint.

I remember a lady asking a question about a dog she had put down for biting a child. Later on she realised that the child may have caused the dog to bite it by the way it had treated the dog; she regretted not giving the dog another chance. I advised her to send thoughts of love to the dog and that it would understand how she felt and then to be kind to animals, especially dogs, for the rest of her life. I include this to show that people do think about things that they do and, sometimes, regret what they did.

If we can put men on the moon and send probes to explore the planets surely we can think of some way of dealing with people who are difficult and do not want to be part of "normal" society.

"Murders are some on the nicest people I know" somebody once said. If that is so what is it about them that makes them commit murders? Do they crack easy? Have a low threshold of tolerance? Unable to take any kind of stress?

There will always be those who are incurable; hell bent on their own personal destruction. Why is that? I think a session with a hypnotist would be quite interesting. How much of what we are now lies in the past eating away at our subconscious minds, driving us on to do things which "normal" society considers outrageous.

What nutcase would starve himself to death in an attic scrounging money to buy paint and canvass to create pictures which he cannot sell? When he is dead they are worth millions!

All I ask for is a re-think of the rules. Death is not the answer. The world showed its compassion at the death of Diana; we have shown what we are capable of. Let us carry that forward into our everyday lives and STOP PASSING THE BUCK.

John Hardaker. February, 1998.