The Garden of Earth Extract from 'Post Mortem Journal'. Communications from Lawrence of Arabia through the Mediumship of Jane Sherwood. If one has borne even a small part in public affairs the results of mistakes and sins are public too. Normally, knowledge of earth happenings, even those touching one's own name and fame are hidden from us, and perhaps wisely so. Yet I have chosen to know and I have to balance against the dismay and suffering the pleasures of satisfied vanity when fame is kind. Mitchell (person helping Lawrence) says that the disproportion in seeming effects is an illusion; that to have been in the public eye does not mean that one's deeds, if evil, are any more heinous than those a private individual may commit although they may appear to affect a smaller circle of lives. In fact, large or small are impossible to determine on our scale of measurement and only the vanity of making some stir in the world makes us regard either sins or virtues as more important than those of which a kind of fortitude seems to blossom. It may well be, as Mitchell says, that self-blame is really only my vanity tripping me up again, so no more of it. The outcome of this searching experience is a conviction of the importance of the theory of reincarnation. I need to know more about the law of Karma; how it operates and how far it may be responsible for the changes and chances of life on earth. Not that any such knowledge will exonerate me from full responsibility; it will only spread it over many more lives, since it seems that each succeeding life presents the same kind of problems and offers fresh opportunities to solve them. Why should one sorrow over mistakes and wasted opportunities when each of us comes here eventually where conditions are kind and congenial? This diary (book) of mine should supply an answer to that question. 'As a man sows, so also shall he reap' is true through every change that the human spirit can undergo. There can be no place left in an illimitable universe where it does not hold good. Yet there is still a reason for stressing the importance of the earth experience. It seems that in the cycle of growth this is the formative stage when alone any real growth in essence takes place. When the earth life is over and one comes here, the law of affinity takes one into congenial conditions and the general alleviation of circumstances removes all outer sources of conflict. There is no more struggle for existence. Our work here is a kind of mopping-up operation. We can, in fact we must, graduate from regions where our faults of temper and our sense of guilt are tolerated to those where we have to clear ourselves of these stains of earth. But although we may clear ourselves and in the ascent of the planes gradually purify our being until we are again essential spirit, still no actual growth in this spirit will have been made here. What we bring from earth remains our all, so our fate is bound up with our earth experiences; only in the struggle and turmoil of life there are we able to make any real difference to our spiritual stature. So, although this in-between period is a wonderful interlude, the real work has to be done on earth. There is further mention of this topic by Lawrence which reads: In the old legend Satan was cast out of heaven but allowed to work his will on earth. This reflects a necessary truth. There is no place for an evil principle here and we have passed beyond the scope of nearly every temptation. Here in the pure sunlight of happiness we mature as we purge our bodies of their corroded ills, but we can add nothing to our stature. That is to be achieved, it at all by our lives on earth; all we can do here is to perfect what has been won there in the conflict. Here we simply consolidate our gains. Published by The C.W. Daniel Company Ltd. ISBN: 0-85207-253-8