‘Thy Kingdom Come’

A LITTLE earlier, when we were discussing the Lord’s Prayer, I suggested that I might be able to throw some light upon the joint relationship of our two worlds, and which might be, if you choose so to regard it, considered as giving some substance to the words Thy kingdom come.

The theological idea that the request is supposed to embody, namely, that God’s spiritual kingdom may come to be spread throughout the whole world, is as vague as most theological ideas usually are. In fact, Orthodoxy has no clear notion in its mind as to what this clause in the Lord’s Prayer can really mean. It has a pious sound and a truly spiritual ring about it, and it can obviously do no harm to retain the words and repeat them.

The words have recurred to my mind a number of times since I first came to dwell in these lands many years ago. In the spirit world, the Father of the universe is regarded as the King of Kings. But things are very different here in the spirit world as compared with the earth. We are forever seeing evidence of the Great Spirit of all. Indeed, in these realms, and in many, many others, it is impossible not to see such evidence. It lives with us, and we live with it. But such things are not evident to earthly minds. How, then, according to the terms of the Lord’s Prayer, was that kingdom to be extended to earth?

Let us go back a little while in history. What is most important is that the people of the earth world are totally unaware of the spirit world that is existing round about them. It is only the comparative few, whose psychic faculties have been developed, who have any perception of the great world that is unseen to other folk.

Now from the beginning of time upon earth it was never intended that our two worlds should be thus separated by any barrier. Primitive man, as the early inhabitants of the earth are called, was not shut off from his brother in the spirit world in such a wholesale fashion as are you today.

Primitive though he may have been, primitive though he was in the eyes of today’s earth world, yet his psychic talents were more highly developed generally, and were not confined to a relative few, here and there. The exercise of such powers was widespread. Yet man of those times is considered barbaric and uncivilised, and, from a religious point of view, nothing but a heathen!

The process of civilising the earth has had the effect of reducing in enormous proportions the possession of any psychic faculties at all. Thus our two worlds have become more widely separated until those who possess any psychic powers are in the minority. They are the exception and not the rule. Man has paid the penalty for thus casting aside what he was meant to have and to use as his natural right upon earth, namely the power and ability to exercise those extra senses with which the spirit world could communicate with him.

It is authority in various forms that again is to blame, for it was authority that gradually suppressed these powers in the people and retained them exclusively for themselves. But that exclusiveness brought with it its own penalty. Authority was denied communion with the spirit world by the spirit people themselves because it had no right to retain such powers in its own hands, for its own use and benefit, to the exclusion of all others. It was being used by authority for the furtherance of its own ends, and those ends did not coincide with the purposes of the spirit world. Mediumship, as the possession of psychic powers is named, was not totally destroyed, but it was limited to the few, and the world has suffered for it ever since.

The earth has become more civilised, so it is generally claimed, but has it? Science has advanced by gigantic strides since those early days, since the days, in fact, of Jesus himself. His times are not to be compared with the present day. Every sphere of life upon earth has marched forward, whether it be science, or art, or medicine, to name but three.

The earth, it would be claimed, is a gentler, nobler place since Jesus lived upon it. One has only to cast one’s eyes about to observe patent signs upon every hand of the immense advances that have been made in all sections of society, and life upon earth has assumed a degree of comfort and pleasantness in normal times that was not only unthought of two thousand years ago, but unimaginable. But there is a flaw in this statement of the world’s progress, and the very language in which we are now writing affords the most lamentable sign of just how far the earth has evolved spiritually.

There are two terms which have become of common place usage, and those terms are war-time and peace-time. For so long has life on earth been an alternation of peace and war that common terms are used to describe it. The words war-time and peace-time are as much part of the earth dweller’s life as are the words denoting the alternating seasons of summer-time and winter-time. That is a terrible indictment upon the people of earth.

What has all this, you will perhaps say, to do with the kingdom of God? Precisely—what has it to do with the kingdom of God? The answer: it has nothing to do with the kingdom of God because any suggestion of that kingdom being established upon earth is frustrated, suffocated, nullified by the state of things that is existing upon earth at this present time, and that has been existing for hundreds of years. Great material progress has been made, but spiritual progress lags far behind.

Mankind is endowed with free will, and he has exercised that free will through the centuries, casting aside the great help which is ever at his call from the spirit world. The path was carefully chosen upon which man could walk to his advantage, but he chose to exercise his free will, and he did so to his own disadvantage.

The mere demanding of our rights does not necessarily mean that the awarding of those rights will eventuate to our advantage. The wise man will not insist in such cases, but prefer to listen to abler counsels. The earth chose to go its own way, and it has done so. It has effectively shut out the spirit world from all its governments and councils.

The Church has gone its own ineffective, futile way, powerless to prevent evil things from happening, and guilty itself of a long and ghastly catalogue of unspeakable horrors now known to the world as religious persecution, where so-called heretics were put to all manner of tortures because they tried to think for themselves, and where death was the order of the day for the enemies of the Church.

How can the Church lead a single soul when the Church itself is blind? It has been blind for centuries. It has no solution to the major problems which are confronting, and will continue to confront, the earth world for just so long as it continues to spurn the spirit world, and while people disbelieve in its existence, and, therefore, in the existence of its inhabitants. Or if, as church-goers, they believe in some sort of vague ‘hereafter,’ that ‘hereafter’ has no concern with the earthly material present, and it can provide no solution to any problem whatsoever. It is the clever brains of the earth world who will find a way out of the morass. That remains to be seen, and seen it will be.

How can the kingdom of God come within a thousand leagues of being established upon earth when the very people who talk about it so much and so loudly—the churchmen—have not the remotest notion of how to set about it? The delivery of eloquent addresses interlaced with the most lofty thoughts culled from the Scriptures will effect nothing.

The whole truth is that the earth cannot exist without the intervention of the spirit world, and that means it cannot exist without the direct assistance and advice of the great and wise ones of these spirit lands. Man could be inspired to perform gigantic deeds for the betterment of the whole earth, but he shuts himself off from almost every source of inspiration—except the lowest.

Inspiration does still take place, but its powers are circumscribed and its advantages limited by man’s ignorance of the truth. As for direct communication with the spirit world, that is out of the question. The relative few who know of and practise communication with us—and they are few by comparison with the earth’s populations—are not openly to be found among those who have the ordering of a country’s affairs. Indeed, in some enlightened places people who hold converse with us are outlawed.

There are many tremendous problems which will come up in turn for solution, and solved they must be if the earth world is to survive. Man will doubtless endeavour to solve those problems for himself, thinking that he is a superior being with a superior brain. He will provide a great and impressive showing, and he will utter a voluminous number of words. The religious-minded people, as well as official religion, will sternly aver that unless the nations ask for God’s help and guidance nothing can be achieved, and having asked for that help and guidance, they will provide no means for God to give them through his messengers of the spirit world.

There is no mistake about it, let me assure you. All the problems of the earth could be satisfactorily solved if the people of the earth would only turn to the people of the spirit world. In the spirit world there resides the purest wisdom, and from the immense reservoirs of this wisdom man is free to draw for whatever he may need.

If the people of the earth were to turn to the spirit world and the immeasurably wise beings who live here in the exalted realms, and in all earnestness were to place their social and international problems before them, they could, and they would, receive the precise plan and details for the enucleation of every problem, however complex it might be, that confronts the governments and nations of the earth. But those high beings would make one stipulation if success were to follow, and that is that implicit obedience to their directions would have to be accorded because by that means only would success be accomplished.

Of what good is it to pray Thy kingdom come, when not only do the incarnate make no attempt to bring it about, but, indeed, have not the remotest notion of how to bring it about? Merely praying for the kingdom of God will not suffice; something must be done by man himself to bring it to pass. And that will not be done by increasing the congregations in the churches; it will not be done by studying the Scriptures more assiduously. It will not be done by a thousand ‘calls to religion,’ whether those calls are made by self-appointed evangelists or by the whole of the hierarchy of the Church.

My friends may perhaps argue with me that if one were to follow the teachings of Jesus strictly, the world’s difficulties would soon be settled, and a Utopian earth would be the result. Such an issue might be the case if all the teachings that Jesus gave had been fully recorded in all their exactitude. But they were not so recorded, and those that have been set down have a great many errors in them, the result of later tampering.

How far are the extant teachings of Jesus really observed by folk upon earth? Not very far, that is clear to see. But there are many and pressing questions that cry—and will cry—for solution, and which cannot receive any answer from the words of Jesus. The teachings of Jesus are spiritual teachings. The difficulties of the earth are in so many cases purely material and mundane. They cannot be regarded in the light of scriptural texts, and spiritual teachings will not offer a solution.

It is the concrete that is wanted, and the concrete is at the disposal of the people of earth if they will but approach the spirit world and ask for it.

Some of my good friends upon earth will perhaps laugh at me. They will say that my enthusiasm is running away with me; or that I am too much of a visionary; and that my suggestions are beyond all hope of accomplishment. Then let me answer that I am not a visionary, and that my suggestions are not beyond all hope of accomplishment. In the first place, they are not mine alone. And they are based upon a common knowledge in these realms of terrestrial affairs generally.

We do not pretend to prophesying, but there are many things in these lands of which all its inhabitants are cognisant, but of which the earth world must remain in ignorance, though it is the fault of the earth that they should so remain in ignorance.

The gradual drift that has taken place on earth in man's affairs is a drift from spiritual truth and not towards it. The troubles of the earth have been brought upon man by his ignorance and folly, not by his supposed ‘sinfulness,’ as some claim. If the drift persists, he will land himself in inextricable difficulties of such magnitude as the earth has never yet known.

Man upon earth is the most stubborn of creatures. He prides himself upon his common sense which, truly, he may possess in abundance. But a time comes when sense that is something better than merely common is urgently needed. Special sense is required, and that special sense, that wisdom, is not to be found upon earth. But it is to be found in illimitable abundance in the spirit world.

Now what I have just sketched to you can be regarded as something of a preliminary to the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. It is that state in a modified form. There is a greater and fuller, indeed, more comprehensive sense, in which that state can be widespread over the earth. That brings us to the exercise of one’s psychic faculties.

It is the custom on earth for many, many people not only to decry such abilities as are possessed by psychically trained persons, but it is also the custom to deny the very existence of such faculties. There is only one description for such folk, and we do not hesitate to use it in the spirit world—they are fools. These realms are full of people who once, when they were on earth, denied that such things as psychic faculties existed. They know better now. They know that such faculties are part of the natural make-up of man.

They are not some strange idiosyncrasy displayed by peculiar people; something that is a little weird and uncanny, and rather unpleasant; something that is a trifle unhealthy and morbid; something that is, above all things, better left alone.

Science may, of course, put the matter to some laboratory tests, but that is different. Scientists can easily protect themselves. And if a scientist proclaims upon superficial examination that there is no evidence that psychic faculties exist, and less than no evidence that a spirit world and spirit people exist, then it will be just what was expected.

If, however, a scientist, more enlightened than his brothers in science, should proclaim that psychic faculties displayed through the mediumship of ordinary normal people are a reality, that the spirit world and spirit people do exist; and if he similarly announces that he has had superabundant and irrefragable evidence from his own relatives and friends in the spirit world, establishing their exact identity and the reality of the spirit world, then after such testimony there can only be one response; the scientist in question is in his dotage.

He may have been vastly clever in his own legitimate work, but he has at last reached his dotage, and is therefore not responsible for his freakish ideas about a ‘hereafter.’ He is enormously learned upon all subjects but this one, and upon this he is unreliable and must not be heeded. But psychic faculties and powers do exist, and there are thousands of folk who possess them and employ them for the good of their fellows.

All people possess the powers of mediumship inherently. In the majority of folk they want developing and bringing out, and regulating along adequate lines so that the best may be made of them, just as the artist and musician, shall we say, must develop his abilities by working upon the right lines. There is nothing unhealthy or morbid in such things because they are natural to man. It was intended that they should be so from the beginning.

Man upon earth was never meant to be cut off from the spirit world, neither was the spirit world meant to be cut off from intercourse with the people still upon earth. Mediumship is the natural channel for communication, and by putting its powers into use man is fulfilling his proper destiny, not proceeding against his destiny, as he does by ignoring his own natural powers.

Now if the whole earth world were to become psychically developed in every branch of its exposition, the earth-plane would soon become a very different place. First of all, think of the universal sorrowing that would vanish from the face of the earth. When your friends pass at ‘death’ into the spirit world, those at the bedside would be able to see them depart in the capable hands of folk who had come to fetch them to their spirit home. You would be able to see them off, just as you do now when they go away upon an earthly visit.

Shortly after their transition, they would return to you filled with the buoyancy of the new life, excited with the glories they are enjoying as their right, and so ready to impart knowledge and give help to those still upon earth. Your friends would be seen coming into your rooms as naturally as though they were still incarnate, coming into your rooms as they do now, but, alas, to their sorrow, they are unseen.

They cannot give you that word of greeting, of help, of good counsel because they lack the means of getting it to you, directly or indirectly, even if, in the latter case, you would believe them were they successful. Your friends and relations would be ever willing to join in your many activities, ready to support you in your difficulties with their greater and wider knowledge, and with the still greater and wider knowledge upon which they can draw from wise and experienced beings from the higher realms.

They would not live your life for you. That would not be right. But by their co-operation they would—and could—make life upon earth nothing but the happiest, a fitting prelude to the wondrous happiness that is to be found here in these realms. So much sorrow and sadness, so much misery, would be eradicated, so much suffering, so many horrors and injustices, so many wrongs, would be removed from the earth if the two worlds could be thus joined together in unity of thought, word, and deed.

A unity of thought, word, and deed, as between the earth world and the spirit world. That is some approach to the realisation of the kingdom of God. Just think what it would mean to the populations of the earth. Freedom from fear, from fear of material unrest and difficulties, and the many insecurities that earthly life brings with it through the action of man in relation to his incarnate brother; and freedom from fear of what is to become of him when his earthly life ends.

Can the Church give man that freedom? The Church is incapable of it. All that the Church can do is to call for ‘faith’ upon the part of men, to put their trust in the mercy of God, to beg that Jesus may plead for them on that ‘last dread day.’

The last dread day, indeed! What wicked teachings are these, when the truth is to be had for the asking? Is it to be wondered at that man is fearful for himself and his family and friends when he comes to think of the ‘'life beyond the grave’? Fear is dominating the earth world, and fear is not a good companion to harbour in one’s house.

It is in the power of the spirit world to banish fear from the mind of every soul upon earth, if the earth will but take the trouble to seek enlightenment. How can the kingdom of God be established upon earth when man is himself, through the power of Orthodoxy, trying to close and tighten the existing barriers between the two worlds?

The relative few upon earth who are aware of our existence in the spirit world and who call upon us for our help, the help which we are so happy to give, the comparative few who communicate with us regularly, such people know from joyous experience the enormous difference which the truth of spiritual things can and does make in their daily lives on earth. They can see something of the purpose of their lives upon earth; they know of the beauties, the natural beauties, of the life that awaits them when their earthly journey is done.

They are not dominated by a fear of what will betide them when their dissolution takes place. They are not frightened by dogmatic and doctrinal bogies that have no existence in reality. They are not frightened of us from the spirit world. A person is not frightened of his own father and mother when they are both incarnate. Why should the same person be frightened of them when, in the exhilaration of their life and in the splendid reality of the spirit world, his own parents go back to earth and try to speak to him?

That is not right, a man will say. They have gone to their ‘eternal rest,’ and it would not be proper to disturb them. Besides, the Church says they cannot come back, or would not come back if they could. It is only devils that come back, impersonate our own kindred, deceive us, and thus try to ruin us spiritually, so that we jeopardise our ‘immortal souls.’

What arrant nonsense! Poor blind man upon earth. The Church has led him astray, widely astray. It prays hard for the setting up of the kingdom of God upon earth; it professes to know so much, in the presumption of its assumed authority, about spiritual matters, and is perfectly content to go on in the same fruitless manner, fondly imagining that large congregations are a splendid sign of man’s ‘returning to God,’ satisfied to go on preaching the same useless doctrines which have no relation whatever to the truth, providing no solution to any of the earth’s difficulties, powerless to right any wrong, and in many cases thoroughly indifferent to, or condoning, many wrongs of divers sorts, completely ignorant of one little item of sound information concerning a man’s condition after he has ‘died.’

The Church professes to have the spiritual care of man in its hands—and knows next to nothing about the matter at all. And that great and illustrious soul, whom the earth knows as Jesus, sees from his exalted estate the havoc that has been wrought in the simple, direct, forthright teachings, the proclamation of which ultimately cost him his earthly life. He sees himself elevated into that deific position which never, for a single fraction of a second, did he imagine would be his in the minds of the people of earth.

He knows that he tried so hard to show people how they could make the earth into a gloriously happy place, to show people how the power of the Greatest Mind could be brought to earth through His benign representatives of the spirit world. He tried so diligently to show that if man would but listen to the voices from the spirit world all would be right with the earth, and that there would ensue a regime of happiness and repose for all men upon earth, the regime of the Father of the universe Himself, spreading right from its great source to the uttermost bounds of the earth. And all this would be accomplished through God’s ‘angels of light’, whom an ignorant section of the earth call devils. God sends his ministers to earth, and the Church, which claims for itself as belonging to God, calls them emissaries of Satan!

The Church has become stupefied by its own fantastic doctrines and beliefs. It has become inflated by its own self-importance. It has become hypnotised by its own apparent security. It has become absorbed in the details of dogma and doctrine, and the outward displays of showy ritual. It has poured money into bricks and mortar because it really believes that the House of God warrants a lavish expenditure in art and architecture.

That may be justified only when all else is fully provided for—the poor people, for instance; for with the Father the needy come always first. But man himself can fitly be his own House of God, for he can send his thoughts, his petitions, and the expression of his needs from the privacy of his mind in his own home with equal—and probably better—effect.

As we see things in their clear light in the spirit world, we regard the Church on earth—and by Church I mean all those religious bodies who nominate themselves Christian—we regard the Church upon earth not as a help to man in his spiritual progression, but as a downright and deliberate hindrance. The Church is blocking the way to the diffusion of spiritual truth and knowledge throughout the earth world. It is no help to man in his journey through his earthly life, though seemingly it may be.

You have only to see for yourself the state of lamentable ignorance in which so many thousands upon thousands of kind and honest folk arrive in these lands of the spirit world. Their minds are clouded with crude and primitive beliefs, the choice gems from the ecclesiastical casket of spiritual teachings. They find the gems are but the veriest paste—and worthless. While the owner of them thought himself passing rich in spiritual knowledge, he finds himself bankrupt.

Man upon earth is scarcely living. He imagines he is, but in reality he is not. He sees all the signs of a material world round and about him, and overlooks, or forgets, the immense world and its gigantic populations that are unseen, namely, the spirit world. The Church prays for the coming of the kingdom of God, and visualises that kingdom as being, of course, essentially a Christian kingdom, with itself as its head upon earth. But the spirit world has different ideas upon the subject.

Now it may be objected that there are many things that must be altered on earth, many wrong things that must be swept away, before such a halcyon state of existence can be the case, and that it is man's duty to right these things himself, and perhaps would right them, but that there are too many obstacles in the way, the principal obstacle being man himself. That is so, but the wisest brains upon earth are far, far outmatched by wiser brains in the spirit world.

The earth lacks the wisdom and the knowledge on the one hand, and it lacks spiritual progression and evolution upon the other. The knowledge and the wisdom it can obtain from the spirit world; the means of progression and evolution will be revealed from that knowledge. The heart of man must change before life upon earth can become the true state of happiness it was meant to be. The Church is incapable of working any such change simply because it has no knowledge of the spiritual truth.

It deals very glibly in heaven and hell, knowing nothing of the former, and threatening with the latter. and the general prospect held out for most people is a gloomy and depressing one.

If the psychic faculties of all men on earth were fully developed, each according to his particular make-up, man would learn the truth at first hand. The truth would show him which way it were better to proceed for his soul’s welfare. He would learn of the consequences of evil ways; he would learn also of the beauties that a life of service to his brother will bring him. Life upon earth would be lived by all folk according to the perfect laws of the spirit world, and not according to the many discriminating laws and modes of living as at present upon earth.

Moral justice would go hand in hand with legal justice, and the supreme guidance of wise beings in the spirit world would ever be at the disposal of earth folk in the solution of any and every difficulty. Those of the incarnate who are in direct communication with even the humblest of us here know just what the help of the spirit world means in their daily lives. We can help to smooth the way through life for them to the utmost of our abilities and what can thus be done individually can also be done nationally and internationally.

In the kingdom of God on earth, no person would be overlooked, neglected, or forgotten. The many injustices under which man labours now upon earth would be righted if those who are responsible trusted a little less to their own ‘wisdom,’ and sought a little of the real wisdom of the spirit world. Man on earth has not so far made a very brilliant success of conducting the affairs of the earth. In truth, he is not yet capable of doing so, but he will not realise it.

The earth is faced with many acute difficulties. They are acute at present, but they will become chronic if they are not dealt with adequately and finally. Man is laying up a dreadful store of unhappiness in the future for the earth world if, in the very superior attitude of mind he adopts towards the spirit world, he tries to close the door upon us altogether. He will not succeed, of course. It was tried nigh upon two thousand years ago in a small corner of the earth.

Orthodoxy—of another sort, but equally bad—was responsible for the great tragedy of Calvary, and Jesus, who dealt only in spiritual truth, was the victim. It was not the Father of the universe who demanded the sacrifice of His only son to redeem the world. That is a monumental untruth. It was Orthodoxy that would not listen to the truth that caused the transition of Jesus. And Christian Orthodoxy has done no better. It has opposed the very truth that Jesus himself came to give to humanity. It opposes the truth at this exact moment of time. But—magna est veritas, et praevalebit.

The Church has assumed responsibility for the spiritual care of man upon earth, and the Church has failed dismally. It is in most respects an impostor, for in professing to know much, it knows very little which can be of spiritual service to man. It can provide no answers to vital questions, questions that are in the minds of so many people. Can the Church answer these questions, for instance, as applied to yourself: What becomes of me when I die? What has become of all my relatives and friends? Why is there this seemingly profound silence between them and me?

To the last question I would answer such folk that there is no need, no need whatever, for that profound silence, for it can be and is broken, just as I have broken it, even as I am now breaking it to you, my good friend, and even as I shall continue to break it for just so long as I can serve a good and wholesome purpose.

Man on earth should have no fear for his spiritual future. He should be able to live his good life upon earth in complete happiness of mind, and in complete freedom from fear for his future in the spirit world.

We are not devils, though there are plenty of evil people in the spirit world, but it is not the spirit world that has made them evil. It is the earth world that has sent them here in that state. The clergy of the Church, or some of them, consider us as devils.

There are clergymen still upon earth who fully qualify for that designation themselves, but that is not to say that all ministers of religion are devils. The same stupid cry of devils was put up in the time of Jesus and in the same connection. Let people forget the devils and think of other folk in the spirit world who are eager and waiting to speak to them.

Now, my good friend, these present writings must close. We have touched upon a great theme only in a very abbreviated fashion, but then the subject is itself enormous. So I have felt that it would be best to treat of a few matters from the New Testament, rather than to take a broad survey of the whole, which would perforce remain sketchy. There is much, so very much, that I have left unsaid and which we have not even considered remotely, but I shall hope to speak to you again upon kindred matters and go into other questions which I am obliged here to omit.

But in the little that I have said, it is my earnest hope that I have shed some light, and perhaps pointed the way for my friends to study a great book—the New Testament—with their critical faculties fully alert, and not to be misguided by unreliable traditional interpretations of what are perfectly plain statements of the truth, and not to be misled by others who, in assuming the role of spiritual teachers, are not in a position to give the truth, although they are in the position to learn the truth from the spirit world—had they the wit to do so.

I do not profess to be your spiritual teacher. That would be presumption upon my part, but I can give you some of the knowledge—the common knowledge of these realms—which I have gained since I left the earth world for the greater and more beautiful spirit world.

Here, so much has been made plain to me. I am anxious to pass on that news to you that your life on earth may be made that much happier, and your understanding that much clearer. It is a little thing to do for so much that I have received. My debt has increased since I first began to speak to my friends upon earth, for it is from those same good friends, whose encouraging thoughts have always reached me, that so much unreserved kindness has been shown to me in the attention which my words have been accorded.

Benedicat te omnipotens Deus.

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