To Be A Spiritualist

An Address from Brother Bernard

Given in the Summertown Church, Oxford

Good evening friends.

It is with joy that we come into your midst once again to leave with you one or two thoughts that might be of help to you in the coming days.

Tonight we thought that we would leave with you one or two ideas of what it means to be a Spiritualist.

Perhaps the most important thing for you to remember is that, as a Spiritualist, you come into contact with people whose only ideas of the movement are fostered by television, by lurid tales, by things that are works of the Devil. You never hear what Spiritualism really is, the emphasise always seems to be upon the psychic side of things, people are always ready to listen to stories of ghosts and very seldom to listen to the words that come from Spirit, of inspiration. That is where your part comes in.

Because you are Spiritualists you know that it is important, while you are in the earth plane, to demonstrate in your lives what being a Spiritualist can mean and we want to emphasise the Spiritual part of it. Psychic power is there in your world, it can be tapped by people who have no knowledge whatever of the true Spirit, the psychic forces are the forces that work through nature, the forces that work through the earthquakes, through the catastrophes that happen from time to time, the forces that work throughout the realms of the unknown, the other worlds, the other universes, the other galaxies; all through the world of matter there is the psychic force. But you have got something more, you have got the force of Spirituality and that is one of the things that must be emphasised in your lives.

We often think that you are handicapped in your Spiritualist Churches because you get different speakers from week to week and some of them you may feel that you are in tune with while others leave you cold. But you know very little about the people behind that address. The actual person who takes the platform, how much of them is good, is striving for Spirituality, and how much of them is just thinking of the psychic effect that they can have upon their audience? You have got to realise that you are spirit here and now in the sense that there is within you a part of God, a part that functions, a part that uses the body of matter, that uses your intellect, your mind, and that spirit, or your soul, we do not mind which term you use, that is the essence of life upon Earth. It is for the development of that spirit, of that part of you that is a part of God.

You have probably been told time and time again that you are on a pathway that will eventually lead you to God, whatever you term God to be.

It is impossible for us, who come back from time to time from the other side of life, to give you an idea of what that life is really like because you do not have the words to express it and also because so many of the people who come to Spirit, the souls who journey on their way when they have finished with the body, so often have different ideas of what the Spirit life is and they will try to tell you in their own words of what it means to be in Spirit and to everyone it is something different.

The main thing that you got to remember is that, because life is eternal, it means that you were before you came to Earth in the same sense that you will be when you leave it. The body that you use while you are here on the earth plane is like an overall and the tools that you will use while you are in the earth plane are the circumstances of your lives. Some of you may go through life at an easy pace, you may not find anything very difficult but others will face problems that have to solved, will face situations that seem unending, but always remember that if you are given a hard row to hoe, if your life is more difficult than other peoples it is because the essence of you, because the spirit that is within you, is strong enough to cope.

Why do you come to the earth plane? Why is it that some souls just touch Earth and then pass on while others live out their full span of life? Why is it that some people can make friends easily while others go through life feeling lonely, unable to make contact? It is because the circumstances of your lives are different.

We have said before that each one of you is an individual and in the same way that you are individual in your body, in that you are just that little bit different from anyone else, so you are individual in your soul, so you are individual in your requirements for what you need during your time upon Earth.

You know, because you are Spiritualists, that you do not walk by yourselves upon the earth plane, you know that there are those from the other side of life who come to try to help you, not to tell you what you should do and what you shouldn't, not to make up your minds for you, not to solve the problems that come your way, but just to give you help, to look at the problems from another standpoint, to look at other people from another point of view. To give sympathy to those who are in trouble, to give a listening ear to those who want to pour out their woes to you. Those from the other side of life can help you, if you will let them. You may term it your conscience if you like, you may think it's a figment of your imagination and yet the ideas will come and they will take lodge in your minds so that, perhaps, you will be able to cope that little bit better with the problems that Earth offers you.

After all, when you send your children to school you do not expect them to have easy lessons the whole of their time there; you want them to be stretched, you want them to face problems in order that their minds may develop, may grow, in order that when they grow up they will be well adjusted human beings. You cannot get adjusted if life is easy all the way.

You are Spiritualists, as we said, and therefore it behoves you to show an example to others. First of all an example of being, what you would term, normal, to take your share of life upon the earth plane remembering that that is the most important thing for you at this stage of your progress. It means taking part in your politics, in your local community, being ready to serve, being ready to do the little tasks that come your way, being a member of a party, a group, a meeting, or club, taking part in sport, entertainment or a hobby of some description. You must show to others that being a Spiritualist does not make you odd, does not make you weird, does not make you somebody strange, but just a normal human being.

Then, because you are Spiritualists, it is your job to love and by loving we mean to serve others in whatever capacity it may be and, as we have said, a listening ear is often all that is required. You cannot give advice to other people unless they specifically ask for it and then you must couch it in such a way that your recipient will think it is their own idea. You have got to be tactful, you have got to be joyful, realising that life on the earth plane, however long it may seem to you, is just one speck in your life in eternity.

When Jesus walked the earth plane we do not know what he did or what he said apart from what is given in the Gospels and when you consider that they weren't written down until years after his death and then it was what people thought He had said, thought He had done. The miracle is that through the Gospels the message comes out very clear, to love one another, to do to your neighbour as you would they would do to you, to love and love and love.

That seems very simple, does it not, until you try to put it into practice? It is often easier to love someone at a distance, to send out your loving thoughts to people in the far distant countries than it is to love the next door neighbour who annoys you or the person who does you down or someone who performs an injustice against you or someone else. Over and over again you get thrust upon you from every side the evil that there is in the world, the thugs and the vandals and the terrorists. All the tragedies of life get the headlines but does the good that people do get the same treatment?

So what we are asking you to do, as Spiritualists, as people who know something of the truth, is to be messengers of good. If you hear of good deeds, if you come across something that strikes you as being noble, as being worth while, then make it your business to talk about it. Remember, if you cannot say good about anybody, then keep quiet. It sounds very easy but we know how difficult it can be because, although we have been in Spirit quite a few years, as you term years, yet we can remember. We can refer to the Akashic records and see where we went wrong in our lives upon Earth.

We come back now in order that we can help you, help you in your journey through life.

May you take the love; the love that is engendered within you; the love that comes from the Great Spirit, the love which comes to you from those in Spirit who are your helpers, your guides, and may you translate that love into practicalities and share it with everyone you meet.

Goodnight and God bless you all.