Baptism
THE laws of the spirit world are the visible contradiction of a vast deal of theology, of so many man-made doctrines, creeds, and dogmas, and of so large a part of the impedimenta that go to make up Orthodox religion.
One of my very early discoveries here was that one law of the spirit world, just one law, can completely falsify perhaps three or four doctrinal beliefs of the earth world.
One can perceive, as a resident of the spirit world, that the earthly Church has, in its own estimation, practically taken command of the spirit world. The Church has, in effect, built a code of complicated laws by which the soul of mortal man should be governed. It has elevated the earth to a position of far wider importance than in truth it warrants.
The earth world is of some importance in the evolution of the soul of man, and it naturally takes its place in the full scheme of existence. But the earth is merely a stepping-stone to a higher life, the higher life of the spirit world. The ‘religious’ life of man upon the earth-plane should be as free as the air that he breathes. The Church has no right, no mandate, to circumscribe any soul with cramping man-made beliefs that have no approximation whatever to the truth, and that are a hindrance and not a help to man’s spiritual progression.
The Church has formulated doctrines whereby the soul’s exact state and place of abode in the spirit world have been pre-assigned to him. It has made laws, the breaking of which by man will inevitably consign him to hell for all eternity. It performs rites which, in point of absolute fact, are entirely useless to any soul, and which will not help that soul one step of the way upon his journey into the spirit world, or after.
A great deal of weight has been attached to the opinions and statements of the very early churchmen, whose so-called learning has elevated them to the title of Fathers of the Church. Never did fathers lead their children so woefully astray. They were for the most part as much in the dark as those whom they were professing to instruct. Those same Fathers of the Church are all of them in this world of spirit.
A host of them are great souls, but their views are vastly different now from those they held when upon earth. It was the contention of one of these Fathers when he was incarnate that in whatever spiritual state a man’s soul might be when his ‘death’ took place, in that state would it always remain. As the tree falls, so will it lie. The moment that ‘death’ took place, then, a man’s spiritual future was sealed. If he had misbehaved himself when upon earth, then hell was to be his portion, or perhaps, with better fortune, a sojourn of unspecified duration in purgatory. During his short life upon earth, therefore, a man would determine his abode in the spirit world for all eternity. It is upon such dicta as this that so much of Church doctrine has been founded.
In the spirit world, we are faced with reality, faced with the truth beyond all equivocation. As a priest of the Church, I performed numerous ceremonies. Since my coming to the spirit world I have seen the truth and the worth of such rites. My mind has been cleared—just as the minds of millions of others here have also been cleared—of all the falsity of so much of the religious teachings of the earth. In speaking to you thus, therefore, I give you the truth as it is known to us all in these realms.
You are not living in a world where the truth is ever to be beheld. We are. If I were to temper my statements by tampering with the truth, of what use for me to speak at all? Such communications from the spirit world would be utterly valueless. In matters appertaining to the soul and the future spiritual status of man, such an attitude would make the earth world always right and the spirit world always wrong. That is a position which we in the spirit world cannot accept. The spirit world cannot and will not take its orders from the earth world.
The Church leaders know practically nothing about the ‘future state.’ They should do. Instead, they uphold and diffuse preposterous doctrines, which are alleged to have a Divine origin and source. In most cases these doctrines are pure trivialities, which a few moments of life here in the spirit world will reveal as having evolved from trivial minds. With my fuller experience of the spirit world, I have sometimes shuddered in recalling how some petty doctrine is inseparably associated with the Greatest Mind of the universe.
When I was on earth I fully believed that to ‘die’ un-baptised was to be deprived of entry to the realms of heaven. The greatest extreme of all was to believe that un-baptised persons who passed to the spirit world in that condition were condemned to hell forever. I therefore regarded the whole ceremony of baptism as of the utmost importance to the soul’s ‘salvation.’ I deemed it, in fact, indispensable. I believed that it completely washed away every trace of ‘sin’ if the baptism were performed upon one who had already reached the ‘age of reason.’
I believed that were a person to omit being baptised until he was upon his death-bed, that being then baptised he would go straight to heaven. And further, that whatever misdeeds he had committed, those misdeeds would be taken from him in the twinkling of an eye, that his soul would be spotless and fit only for the highest heaven. I did not know then, as I know now, that there is no mystic or magic formula that will eradicate from an evil-doer the results of his evil ways. It was part of my faith that as, and when, I baptised an infant so I saved that infant for the realms of heaven; that had that infant ‘died’ without the performance of this ceremony, or at least without the barest recital even by a layman of the few brief but essential words of the actual baptism, that child would be forever deprived of the sight of God. He would never be able to see God ‘face to face.’
It did not occur to me, as I now know to be the case, that the spiritual beauty of the infant’s soul was itself a part of the Father of Heaven Himself, and that no words uttered by any person upon the earth-plane could add one trace more beauty to that soul. The soul that is implanted within the child is perfect.
There is one law, at least, in the spirit world that entirely opposes the rite of baptism, and that is the law of cause and effect.
It is a bad doctrine this baptismal ‘washing away of sins.’ Many are the souls we have met here who were shocked to learn that scores of happy children who live in the children’s realm have passed into the spirit world unbaptised. When they came to understand their new situation and the laws that govern this world, they soon realised that the spirit law that brings all the children from the earth world into their own realm in the spirit world is far, far greater than any baptismal rite. Indeed, it becomes trifling beside the truth and beauty of the children’s sphere.
To retain the rite purely as a traditional symbol, as it were, of dedicating the infant to God, would be harmless, since it would involve no one in the belief of any obscure doctrines. To perform some simple ceremony of naming an infant, and at the same time to offer thanks for having emerged safely from the ordeal of child-birth, that, too, is harmless. But to go beyond this is unquestionably wrong.
It will be remarked, perhaps, that the Scriptures, upon which so much of the Christian religion is founded, clearly state that we must be baptised, and that even the words of the formula are given, without the exact recital of which the whole ceremony is void. That is so. But because this appears in the Scriptures, I cannot alter the laws of the spirit world were I even willing and able to do so—and most emphatically I am not so! The spirit world and the laws of the spirit world are a great deal more important than some words that are alleged to have been spoken nearly two thousand years ago.
The spurious importance that has been attached to the rite of baptism is but another instance of the false position in which Christianity has been placed, giving it an exclusiveness to which it has no right. That exclusiveness has been extended until it not only reaches far out into the spirit world, but until it almost encroaches upon the Father of the universe Himself. If Christian Orthodoxy has not entirely claimed the full possessive rights of approach to the Father of the universe, it certainly claims the most extensive privileges for all who call themselves Christians, whether good or bad.
Is it in the spirit of true justice that some should be more privileged than others in matters of their ‘soul’s salvation’? Many will answer yes, because they consider that the Christian religion is above and beyond all others simply because it is ‘Christian.’ That is not a satisfactory reason, but it is one that, nevertheless, is most commonly given. When we come to discuss things with people here we find that they staunchly upheld their Christianity when upon earth, but can give no adequate reason why they did so. Some will assert that they were baptised into the Christian religion at birth, and so they have called themselves Christians ever since.
They naturally assume—at first—that they are in a Christian heaven, a heaven that is the reward for being a good Christian—or at least for being a Christian at all—and of leading a good life. And in the course of time their eyes are opened. When they set out, as I did, upon a voyage of discovery through these realms, they begin to meet people who, to say the very least, cannot really belong to these Christian realms in which they fondly imagine they are now living. They will see visitors from the higher realms whose very cast of countenance would suggest that they were not Christians; the colour of their skin and their general appearance, too, will add to this rather surprising discovery.
None of these souls was ever baptised, and so, according to some beliefs, they should have been ‘cast into exterior darkness.’ Certainly they would seem to have no business to be dwelling in these realms. But the stubborn fact remains that they are dwelling in these realms, and they are here regardless of race, or colour, or creed.
The three distinctions have no validity, no significance whatever in the spirit world. Race and colour form no hindrance to the soul’s grand progressional march, and those of us who ever entertained narrow and insular views upon the matter are compelled by force of the truth to readjust our views. Those of us who, when incarnate, preferred to regard people of other races and nationalities as human beings like ourselves, find that when we meet such people in the spirit world they are our friends, glad to know us as we are happy to know them. The colour of the skin and the contour of the nose are matters upon which we have no thought at all.
In these realms we are a great company of true friends, as proud to know one whose countenance is dusky as we are to know one whose features are pale by comparison. Gone forever are racial prejudices and the feelings of estrangement between men of different racial colour. Amongst all this immense population of various nationalities there are millions who were not baptised when they were upon earth, millions who acknowledged allegiance to no religion, but who lived their lives according to their conscience, and who behaved towards their neighbour as they would have their neighbour behave towards them. They were unhampered by any form of religious creed when they finally arrived in the spirit world.
I have said that people are here in these realms regardless of creed. By that I mean that whatever creed such people professed when they were incarnate has made no difference to their abode in the spirit world. They have earned their abode by the kind of life they led upon the earth-plane, and by that means alone. But their religious beliefs usually undergo a vast reconstruction after their transition has taken place, when they find that Orthodoxy has been peremptorily halted at the very portals of the spirit world. The churches that exist here in the old earthly form are mere religious pretenders and of no significance whatever.
In the light of our new experiences in the spirit world, we can see just what degree of reliance can be placed upon tradition in the ordering of the religious side of life upon earth. We can see how nation after nation for generation after generation has held on to the belief of the vital necessity of the baptismal rite as the spiritual key that will unlock the doors of the spirit world to the arriving soul.
We can see that Orthodoxy regards the unbaptised person as standing in deadly peril of the loss of ‘salvation’ of his soul. Many incarnate people treat such a person as a spiritual outcast, doomed to eternal perdition, fit only for the lowest hell. Orthodoxy is blindly ignorant and unwilling to learn. Throughout the centuries past it has built up an elaborate system of religious observances and religious teachings which are in the main completely worthless. The Churches have arrogated to themselves powers over the individual soul which have no basis in truth or fact. Indeed, these powers are nothing but a sham; they can never be substantiated. The Church can boast, it can try to circumscribe a soul with threats of spiritual disaster if it disobeys its counterfeit ‘commandments.’
It can try to impose all manner of restricting conditions upon its members; it can all but stifle the spiritual life out of man; it can live its self-satisfied, genteel life upon the earth-plane, proudly proclaiming, in its presumptuous way, what it fondly believes to be the ‘will of God.’
It can go upon its superior way condemning men, on the one hand, to everlasting fire and, upon the other, converting them into ‘saints’ of the Church. The Church can go on doing these absurd things, while we in the spirit world assess them at their true valuation. And it falls upon us in the spirit world to try to counteract all fallacious teachings that have been imbibed by the Church’s deluded adherents when they ultimately arrive in the spirit world.
Have I not told you how, in company with others, I am engaged upon the work of helping people immediately after they have left the earth world? We try to show them that all is well, and that splendid happiness awaits them, here and now, if they will but forget the stupid teachings of their earthly Church, cast fear from their minds, and look about them at the glories and wonders of their new land.
We and many others are continually engaged upon this work, and it is made supremely necessary by the blind religious teachings of the earth world. Never, for one moment, do we begrudge an instant of the time we devote to this work, but what I do now, in the name of us all and with the utmost vigour, is to protest against the state of affairs that should bring this work about, namely, to put right in the spirit world the results of the abysmal religious blunders of the earth world.
It is a humiliating discovery to find, after we have arrived in the spirit world, that not only are most of our religious ideas wrong, but also that we have spent our time, as part of our life's work on earth, in passing on those erroneous ideas to other people. Did I say humiliating? It is much more—it is absolutely crushing! Is it to be wondered at, therefore, that we hasten to set right, at the very first opportunity, the false teachings that we have disseminated while on earth, by helping those who, as a result of such teaching, have arrived here spiritually bemused.
The earth world is existing in a state of spiritual fog. The mists of Orthodox teachings have settled upon Christians and blotted from their sight every glimpse of the spirit world, a world that in reality is so near to them, but which Orthodoxy has made so remote. The teachers in the Churches are floundering in a morass of spiritual ignorance. When they arrive here, the weight of that ignorance presses down upon them in its full force. Their eyes are soon opened, however— opened for the first time.
They find that the jargon that stood them in such good stead and covered a wealth of spiritual ignorance is no longer of any value. The very words have an empty sound now. In one second of time, almost, they see practically the whole of their beliefs tumbling in ruins about them. All their most cherished doctrines are swept away by the plain fact of their being in the spirit world and faced with the truth. They see their theology reduced to its proper dimensions. They see that from a grain of truth there has grown a great false creed, perhaps, or that from some simple and natural act there has been built up a huge edifice of ritualistic performance, attendance at which the laity will avoid only upon deadly peril to their ‘immortal souls.’
These ministers of the Church will see that some doctrine or another to which they so steadfastly clung has now become mere nonsense, to be quickly cast aside as useless. They will discover that their dogmas and creeds have paled into complete insignificance in the light of the great truths that are confronting them upon every hand in the spirit world. They will regret the time they have spent upon earth in supporting such untruth.
Some of these people are wrathful that they should have lived in such ignorance, wrathful that others should have so led them astray. Others are wrathful with themselves for not seeing what is now so perfectly obvious to them. They feel humiliated that, after studying so much, the ‘knowledge’ which they gained is not knowledge at all.
They feel humiliated that they took upon themselves so much authority over the spiritual lives of other people. They feel humiliated in the remembrance of what they taught and preached, and of the feelings of superiority and spiritual security that their positions gave them. They feel humbled when they recall the number of times they spoke so freely of the ‘will of God’ to cover up the deficiencies of their teachings, or to soothe some soul in distress. They will recall the long and fulsome prayers, which they felt were the only kind acceptable to the Supreme Being.
They will shiver at the very thought of how they regarded themselves as being looked upon with especial favour by the Deity because they had been called to their high and holy office of minister of the Church. When the full and crushing realisation of all this comes upon them they seek to hide themselves away that they may recover from the state of overwhelming mortification which such revelations have brought upon them. They will eventually emerge from their self-communion, strengthened by the truth as they now know it, and they will solicit that help which is ever at the command of us here in every realm and region of the spirit world.
And how do I know all this? Why, my dear friend, I know it because I have witnessed it many, many times in my work among priests of my own former Church as well as among those of other communities. It is most absorbing work, and it has brought us a host of grand and enthusiastic friends. We labor together to bring solace to souls in distress, as we were once similarly distressed ourselves. So it will ever go on until the earth world becomes more enlightened and the incarnate pass to us here with a full knowledge of what is before them. It will be a happy day when that happens—and many of us will have to cast about for something else to do!
If I thus demolish the ‘sacred’ rite of baptism, it may be asked, what becomes of the words of Jesus containing his injunction to ‘go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’? Why, they just recede into their proper place, or to be more exact, they reveal their true value. Jesus never spoke those words. He would not, he could not have spoken them. His great knowledge of spiritual truths and his deep acquaintance with spiritual laws would effectually prevent him from falling into any such erroneous teaching as has been incorporated into the words I have just given. Both the words and their interpretation are a pure fabrication.
The rite of baptism is an ancient one, and it was long in existence before the birth of Jesus. Like so many others of its kind, it was begotten of ignorance of spiritual truths. An initiation ceremony may be harmless of itself—and it can be equally useless. It is the false trimmings and the embroideries that are woven into the original fabric which cause the damage.
The erroneous teaching that baptism is essential to the ‘soul’s salvation’ is completely opposed to the truths of the spirit world. Such interpolations abound in the New Testament. It is a flagrantly dishonest method employed by the Church to keep its members under its ecclesiastical thumb. It is but another instrument of fear with which to frighten its flock. It is but another example of the claims put forth by Orthodoxy for its exclusiveness.
The Christian, it is alleged, is in a vastly superior spiritual position because he is baptised, or he has enormously greater spiritual prospects than one who is not baptised. Indeed, the prospects for the unbaptised are pretty poor when they shall eventually arrive in the spirit world. Certainly there will be no ‘heaven’ for them. Or if there be some kind of heaven for them, there will be no mistake about it.
They will be in this other heaven because they are un-baptised, and therefore are merely tolerated since they have managed to lead fairly good lives while upon earth. Their unbaptised state, however, must be always with them, and it is then too late to rectify the matter. They will never be able to see God face to face. That is the great penalty for their omission. There are supposedly others, but that is the greatest. A few words, however indifferently spoken, a little water sprinkled upon a person, give him the right and privilege to see God! Was ever spiritual presumption carried to further lengths!
In ancient days, when there was a wider knowledge of psychic lore, the use of water was better understood. But there was no mystic rite involved in its employment. It was merely used to assist in the operation of psychic force because water is a powerful conductor of such force, and water supplies a natural channel. Water is also a powerful cleanser of the etheric body, and it can effectively disperse whatever unpleasant influences may have gathered around the spirit body of incarnate man.
Water is therefore a double cleanser. It will wash the physical body and at the same time help to remove whatever may be unwanted upon the spirit body. But there is no mystic, holy rite attached to this perfectly ordinary function of cleansing. Under no consideration will bathing in the water remove the blotches and blemishes which are to be seen upon the spirit body as a consequence of the kind of life its owner lives.
The first and early use of water in this way was later misunderstood, and so became an initiation ceremony upon the validity of which so much depended.
Water is a splendid channel for the operation of psychic force. It is for that reason that Jesus chose the proximity of it when he felt that the occasion called for an extra flow of power. And where could one find a better body of water than that of lake or sea, and where could one be better situated than to be upon that water?
It is chronicled in the gospels that Jesus himself was baptised. He could have submitted himself to such a ceremony without undergoing any harm. He was not imbibing any false teachings. But with his superior knowledge he knew just what psychic effect the water would have upon him—and he constantly used it for that purpose. Such incidents and occasions remain unrecorded in the New Testament, or to be more accurate, they have been expunged from it.
The baptism ‘ceremony’ of Jesus which is recounted in the Scriptures is only one among the many scores of other occasions when the similar ‘rite’ was performed. In other words, Jesus was ‘baptised’ almost every day of his short life on earth, for the simple reasons I have given you. But the Church has transformed this natural action into a ceremony to be applied once only to any individual, in the normal course of things.
I foresee that possible exception will be taken to what I have said. That I cannot help. I speak the truth. But that, it may be countered, is a mere statement. Just so, it is a mere statement—of truth, none the less. How can I bring proof to you? Corroboration, perhaps, but how to bring proof? To ask others to come who will make the same affirmations as myself will only shift the responsibility on to em>their shoulders, and so it could go on indefinitely, gathering greater numbers in the process, it is true, providing more corroboration, which as between the incarnate and concerning affairs of the earth, would have ready credence, but as concerning spirit world, no!
So I must simply repeat that I am telling the truth as millions upon millions of us in the spirit world know it. The veracity of my statements will ultimately be demonstrated to every soul whose eye I have caught, so that if you challenge me here and now, so to speak, I will reply however much you may disagree with what I am recounting to you, however much you may wish to retain your opinions and ideas or those of the Church to which you belong, such stand-point cannot alter one iota the truths of the spirit world. I cannot alter them to suit the teachings of hundreds of years of Orthodoxy.
Therefore I say that what I am now telling is what you must expect to discover, without fail, when in due course you arrive in the spirit world yourself.