March 27, 1921
Received By James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Let me write a few lines tonight, as I have not written you for a long time and desire to tell you of the scene that was depicted to you tonight by the words and music at the church.
I was present at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus and saw all that took place and the wonderful display of the forces of nature that were presented to you tonight in the drama of the crucifixion. Well, as you may not know, many of the scenes that were so forcibly presented to your imagination never had any reality in fact and the drama was the production of the oriental mind, which was so often used to depict things that had their origin only in such eastern imaginations.
When Jesus was crucified, there was no great concourse of people; because he was considered as a common malefactor paying the penalties that followed the violation of the law that he was charged with violating. Of course, there were soldiers and a large number of the members of the Jewish Sanhedrim and a few followers present, but there was no unusual crowd to witness the execution.
He was not the only one crucified at the time and the other two were considered just as the Jews considered him - violator of their laws and one to be punished by hanging on the cross. The words that he is supposed to have uttered at the time of his extremis were not uttered by him and no words that he may have spoken could have been heard by any of his followers, for they were kept away from the immediate scene of his execution, and it was only after he had been pronounced dead and found ready to be removed from the cross, that his followers were permitted to approach his body and remove it from the tree. The others, who were engaged in the execution did not hear any words of his, and as I have said, his followers could not hear and, thus, be able to report any supposed saying of his. So far as known, he died as bravely - that is without fear or doubt as to the future as did any other who has suffered the same fate.
The words that he is supposed to have uttered were not so uttered, and he did not call upon the Father for His help, or to cause the bitter cup to pass from him, and all reports of what he said or did at that time are not true, but merely the imaginings of those who wrote of him in later times. There was no sudden breaking up of nature or things material, and the accounts of the graves opening, and the bodies arising therefrom and being seen and talked with in the city are purely fiction and have no foundation in fact.
I know that Christians of today will not be ready to receive these statements as true, because of the long years of belief in these things that have obtained during the centuries. Why men should want to believe in these representations of things that never happened, it is hard to understand, for in themselves that have no significance except that mere endeavor to make as dramatic and impressive on humanity the wonderful circumstances that they allege surrounded the death of Jesus. If they will only think, they must realize that the death of Jesus, accompanied by all the startling environments described in the Bible, did not afford one iota of help in way of saving a human soul or teaching that soul the true way to the Father's Kingdom. His life is what had the effect and not his death; and the sooner men learn that Truth, the sooner will they learn the fact that no death of Jesus could save them from themselves, or show them the way to the Celestial Kingdom.
I know that men will not want to believe what I have written and continue in their belief that all these tragic circumstances surrounded the death of Jesus. And I suppose that this belief will continue with them for a long time to come. But what I have said is true, and no man can by any possible workings of God's laws find any hope or assurance of immortality in these things.You may ask me how I know that Jesus uttered no words at the time of his death, and I can answer by saying that he told me so himself.
He has not been present tonight at any of the churches, where his death on the cross is celebrated, and will not be until after the time of the great worship and adoration of him by the churches has gone by. This worship is all very distasteful to him and are such that he does not desire to witness and, hence, he remains in his home in the high Celestial Spheres. He desires men to worship only the One True Father that he worships and, thus, receive the true benediction of the Father.
Well, I see that you are tired and I will not write more. With my love, I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
**********
Helen confirms that Samuel wrote the preceding message.
I am here, your true and loving Helen
Well dear, I see that you are tired and I will not write much.
The message that you received is from Samuel, who was present at the crucifixion in spirit and heard and saw what took place, and so can be believed. I know also that what the Bible contains as to the crucifixion of Jesus is very erroneous and written by men to impress their followers of the importance of Jesus' death.
I will not write more now. So believe that I love you with all my heart and want you to be happy. Good night.
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Showing posts with label Samuel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Samuel. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2014
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Samuel Writes of His Love for James Padgett and His Desire to Write on the Higher Truths
May 1, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
Yes, I am Samuel who has written to you many times before and expect to write you many more times in the future as I have some messages that I desire to write regarding the higher truths and I also want to communicate to you, personally, for I am much interested in you and your work and the fact that you have been selected to do this work makes you an object of my love and care and causes me to desire to be with you in love and friendship.
Well tonight I will not write one of my formal letters but will only say that you are in a much better condition than you have been and will now get in such a rapport with us that will enable us to deliver the messages as we desire.
I have heard what the writer has just written you and know that what he says is true and as your friend and brother, I urge you to believe and pray to the Father with all the longings of your soul and with the faith that admits of no doubt.
Many spirits are here tonight desiring to write and express to you the gratitude for what you have done for them and tell you of the progress that they have made but, of course, they cannot all write. I will soon come and write. So believe that I love you and am,
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
Yes, I am Samuel who has written to you many times before and expect to write you many more times in the future as I have some messages that I desire to write regarding the higher truths and I also want to communicate to you, personally, for I am much interested in you and your work and the fact that you have been selected to do this work makes you an object of my love and care and causes me to desire to be with you in love and friendship.
Well tonight I will not write one of my formal letters but will only say that you are in a much better condition than you have been and will now get in such a rapport with us that will enable us to deliver the messages as we desire.
I have heard what the writer has just written you and know that what he says is true and as your friend and brother, I urge you to believe and pray to the Father with all the longings of your soul and with the faith that admits of no doubt.
Many spirits are here tonight desiring to write and express to you the gratitude for what you have done for them and tell you of the progress that they have made but, of course, they cannot all write. I will soon come and write. So believe that I love you and am,
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Saul Writes that God is a God of the Individual and not of any Race or Nation
January 31, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Saul.
I have not written you for some time and I would like to say only a few words and these are that never in all the battles with the Amalekites did God help me or bring to me victory, as is set forth in the Old Testament. Although some of the prophets, like Samuel, at the time might have thought, yet as I now know, it was not true. God was not the partial and particular patron of the Jews, and to Him is was just as sinful for the Jews to commit murder and the other horrible crimes that are mentioned in the book in connection with my life as King, as it would have been for the Pagans to have done the same thing.
God is not the God of any race, but He is the God of every individual child who comes to Him in true supplication and prayer, seeking His Love and help in his spiritual nature. God will respond and the individual surely will be helped. But should that individual come to Him seeking power and assistance to murder his fellow man, no matter how great an enemy he might be, God would not help him or approve of his desires, and this being so, you can readily see that He would not help any nation to commit such acts and gain the victory.
And I want to tell you here, that God is not a God of nations, but of individuals only, and only as the individuals that compose the nations can He be said to be a God of nations. He wants not the praise of men or of nations because of victory that they might acquire through bloodshed and cruelties ascribed to His help, but he wants the praise of men only because their souls may have been awakened to His Love and have acquired victory over sin and evil. Nations rise and fall and disappear from the face of the earth, but the individuals who compose these nations never die, even though the physical bodies die, and God is a God only of those things that never die, and He is interested in having the individual become victor over sin and the appetites of the flesh.
Of course, the individuals make the nation and give it its character and qualities and, hence, the nation will become sinful and cruel as the individuals that compose it become sinful and cruel. He does not deal with nations as such, but only with the small, but important, units that make the nation. Hence, for a nation to say that God is our God, or that God will help us to victory over our enemies, is all wrong. When the individual gains the victory over his greatest enemy, himself, then he can claim that God is his God and give Him the praise, and when all the individuals of a nation have gained that victory then that nation can proclaim that God is its God and render to Him praise for the victory. But only in such event is any nation justified in saying, "God is our God."
And here let me say that no Christian nation so called has yet, as individuals, attained to that condition of righteousness and victory over sin, that it can claim to be God's chosen nation. And so I say that I, Saul the King, before my alleged fall from the grace of God, was no more helped by God, than I was after that supposed event, for the reason that while outwardly I may have appeared to seek God's directions and listened to the advice of His prophets, yet inwardly, I was no more in accord with Him or reconciled to Him than I was after the momentous event.
God never helped the Jews, as a nation, to any greater extent than He did any other nation for they, as individuals, were no more in attunement with Him than were many individuals of what were called the Pagan nations.
When I went to Samuel in my despair, as the Bible portrays, and felt the burden of the sins of my life, I became nearer to God than I had ever been before, and He was more my God than ever, though I did not realize it. I merely write this to show men that they must not believe and rely on the statement that because I was said to have observed God's Will and obeyed His commands before the time that I realized defeat was certain to be mine, that God was any more my God then, directing and assisting me to overcome my enemies, than he was after that event.
I have written enough and will now stop. So with all my love, and the assurance that God is a God of the individual and not of the nation, I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Saul
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Saul.
I have not written you for some time and I would like to say only a few words and these are that never in all the battles with the Amalekites did God help me or bring to me victory, as is set forth in the Old Testament. Although some of the prophets, like Samuel, at the time might have thought, yet as I now know, it was not true. God was not the partial and particular patron of the Jews, and to Him is was just as sinful for the Jews to commit murder and the other horrible crimes that are mentioned in the book in connection with my life as King, as it would have been for the Pagans to have done the same thing.
God is not the God of any race, but He is the God of every individual child who comes to Him in true supplication and prayer, seeking His Love and help in his spiritual nature. God will respond and the individual surely will be helped. But should that individual come to Him seeking power and assistance to murder his fellow man, no matter how great an enemy he might be, God would not help him or approve of his desires, and this being so, you can readily see that He would not help any nation to commit such acts and gain the victory.
And I want to tell you here, that God is not a God of nations, but of individuals only, and only as the individuals that compose the nations can He be said to be a God of nations. He wants not the praise of men or of nations because of victory that they might acquire through bloodshed and cruelties ascribed to His help, but he wants the praise of men only because their souls may have been awakened to His Love and have acquired victory over sin and evil. Nations rise and fall and disappear from the face of the earth, but the individuals who compose these nations never die, even though the physical bodies die, and God is a God only of those things that never die, and He is interested in having the individual become victor over sin and the appetites of the flesh.
Of course, the individuals make the nation and give it its character and qualities and, hence, the nation will become sinful and cruel as the individuals that compose it become sinful and cruel. He does not deal with nations as such, but only with the small, but important, units that make the nation. Hence, for a nation to say that God is our God, or that God will help us to victory over our enemies, is all wrong. When the individual gains the victory over his greatest enemy, himself, then he can claim that God is his God and give Him the praise, and when all the individuals of a nation have gained that victory then that nation can proclaim that God is its God and render to Him praise for the victory. But only in such event is any nation justified in saying, "God is our God."
And here let me say that no Christian nation so called has yet, as individuals, attained to that condition of righteousness and victory over sin, that it can claim to be God's chosen nation. And so I say that I, Saul the King, before my alleged fall from the grace of God, was no more helped by God, than I was after that supposed event, for the reason that while outwardly I may have appeared to seek God's directions and listened to the advice of His prophets, yet inwardly, I was no more in accord with Him or reconciled to Him than I was after the momentous event.
God never helped the Jews, as a nation, to any greater extent than He did any other nation for they, as individuals, were no more in attunement with Him than were many individuals of what were called the Pagan nations.
When I went to Samuel in my despair, as the Bible portrays, and felt the burden of the sins of my life, I became nearer to God than I had ever been before, and He was more my God than ever, though I did not realize it. I merely write this to show men that they must not believe and rely on the statement that because I was said to have observed God's Will and obeyed His commands before the time that I realized defeat was certain to be mine, that God was any more my God then, directing and assisting me to overcome my enemies, than he was after that event.
I have written enough and will now stop. So with all my love, and the assurance that God is a God of the individual and not of the nation, I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Saul
Monday, December 16, 2013
John Writes that No Spirit Has the Gift of Prophecy; Confirmations by Samuel and Helen
January 7, 1917
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, John.
I was with you tonight and heard the alleged prophecies and was interested in the great number of people that were present intently listening to the words of the speaker (Mrs. Kates). To you, the most significant element in the meeting should be the large number of persons present evidently interested in the teachings of spiritualism, or in what they supposed might be manifested as the workings of the spirits. It shows that many of earth are deeply interested in this truth and desire to learn whatever may be taught and demonstrated and such evidence should be inspiring to you in your work of receiving and preparing the great truths that come to you through the medium of spiritualism. The people are longing for the truths of which they know not, but intuitively feel must exist somewhere and hope that a revelation of them may in some manner come to their hopeful souls.
So become more earnest in your desire to receive these truths and give more of your time that can be spared from your business to receiving the messages, and you will the sooner accomplish the work and get in stronger rapport with those who write. After tonight we will come more frequently and more regularly and deliver our messages and will not permit these other messages that you may call personal to interfere with the transmission of ours. I am glad that you are in so much better condition tonight and assure you that you may continue to grow better and better, if you will only follow our advice. Try your best to cast aside your worries. Have faith in us and in our promises and you will not be disappointed. I will come soon and write you another message.
Well, the fact is that she (Mrs. Kates) was controlled by a spirit part of the time that she was speaking, and he suggested to her some of the thoughts that she gave utterance to, but most of her declarations of prophecy came from her own mind, as they had been lodged therein by her observations and thoughts. What she said was really her own prognostications rather than prophecy.
The spirit who controlled her impressed upon her his thoughts as to what the future might be, and her speculations were as reliable as his, except that he has a wider scope of vision as to causes that may bring about results, such as she spoke of. As we have told you before, no spirit has the gift of prophecy, as mortals term it, arising from a supernatural or omniscient power; and these prophecies should be accepted with all the allowance that want of knowledge on the part of spirits or mortals will justify.
Some of those who heard her may believe in what she said and be benefitted by it, for she said some things that are helpful, and in that view some good may come from her lecture; but to accept what was said as known truths is a deception and should not be accepted.
I will not write more tonight. Remember what I have said and believe that I love you and am trying to help you. Good night.
Your brother in Christ,
John
**********
Samuel Confirms John's Message
I am here, Samuel.
I will say a few words only. I am glad that John wrote so encouragingly, as it will do you good, and I want to substantiate what he said. You may look for better conditions now. Only keep up your courage and have faith in what we write you. You have my love and blessings. So believe in us all and let not the things that appear insurmountable discourage you. I will come soon. Good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
**********
Helen Confirms John's Message
I am here, Helen.
Well, my dear, I am glad that John wrote you as he did, and you must believe in what he said. I was also glad that you are in so much better condition and that you have set aside your worries. Soon this burden will not come to you and you will be free.
I was with you tonight and heard the prophecies and as John said, they were mostly speculations of the medium and also of the spirit who controlled her. No reliance can be placed upon what she said as prophecies. Many of the things that she mentioned may come true for there are many causes in operation that will bring about some of the effects that she mentioned.
Well, I will not write more tonight, and I would advise you to go to bed early and get up early. It will help you very much in every way. Believe that I love you and am
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, John.
I was with you tonight and heard the alleged prophecies and was interested in the great number of people that were present intently listening to the words of the speaker (Mrs. Kates). To you, the most significant element in the meeting should be the large number of persons present evidently interested in the teachings of spiritualism, or in what they supposed might be manifested as the workings of the spirits. It shows that many of earth are deeply interested in this truth and desire to learn whatever may be taught and demonstrated and such evidence should be inspiring to you in your work of receiving and preparing the great truths that come to you through the medium of spiritualism. The people are longing for the truths of which they know not, but intuitively feel must exist somewhere and hope that a revelation of them may in some manner come to their hopeful souls.
So become more earnest in your desire to receive these truths and give more of your time that can be spared from your business to receiving the messages, and you will the sooner accomplish the work and get in stronger rapport with those who write. After tonight we will come more frequently and more regularly and deliver our messages and will not permit these other messages that you may call personal to interfere with the transmission of ours. I am glad that you are in so much better condition tonight and assure you that you may continue to grow better and better, if you will only follow our advice. Try your best to cast aside your worries. Have faith in us and in our promises and you will not be disappointed. I will come soon and write you another message.
Well, the fact is that she (Mrs. Kates) was controlled by a spirit part of the time that she was speaking, and he suggested to her some of the thoughts that she gave utterance to, but most of her declarations of prophecy came from her own mind, as they had been lodged therein by her observations and thoughts. What she said was really her own prognostications rather than prophecy.
The spirit who controlled her impressed upon her his thoughts as to what the future might be, and her speculations were as reliable as his, except that he has a wider scope of vision as to causes that may bring about results, such as she spoke of. As we have told you before, no spirit has the gift of prophecy, as mortals term it, arising from a supernatural or omniscient power; and these prophecies should be accepted with all the allowance that want of knowledge on the part of spirits or mortals will justify.
Some of those who heard her may believe in what she said and be benefitted by it, for she said some things that are helpful, and in that view some good may come from her lecture; but to accept what was said as known truths is a deception and should not be accepted.
I will not write more tonight. Remember what I have said and believe that I love you and am trying to help you. Good night.
Your brother in Christ,
John
**********
Samuel Confirms John's Message
I am here, Samuel.
I will say a few words only. I am glad that John wrote so encouragingly, as it will do you good, and I want to substantiate what he said. You may look for better conditions now. Only keep up your courage and have faith in what we write you. You have my love and blessings. So believe in us all and let not the things that appear insurmountable discourage you. I will come soon. Good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
**********
Helen Confirms John's Message
I am here, Helen.
Well, my dear, I am glad that John wrote you as he did, and you must believe in what he said. I was also glad that you are in so much better condition and that you have set aside your worries. Soon this burden will not come to you and you will be free.
I was with you tonight and heard the prophecies and as John said, they were mostly speculations of the medium and also of the spirit who controlled her. No reliance can be placed upon what she said as prophecies. Many of the things that she mentioned may come true for there are many causes in operation that will bring about some of the effects that she mentioned.
Well, I will not write more tonight, and I would advise you to go to bed early and get up early. It will help you very much in every way. Believe that I love you and am
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Friday, November 22, 2013
Samuel Writes on "What causes the souls of men the unrest that now exists in the world?"
December 13, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
No, I have not written for a long time, although I have been with you quite often and seen the other spirits write, and heard the conversation of yourself and friends on many occasions as you discussed the truth of things spiritual, and commented on the messages that you received on the sermons of the preachers who attempted to explain what they called the Bible truths.
Tonight I desire to say a few words on the subject: "What causes the souls of men the unrest that now exists in the mortal world?"
This is a subject, I know, that of late has been widely discussed and many causes given and tried to be explained as the basis for such conditions of men, individually, and as comprising nations. I realize that it is a large and comprehensive question and to discuss it in all its features would require much more time than we have to devote to it tonight and, hence, I will call attention to only a few of these causes.
In the first place, man is so created, or rather he has brought himself into such a condition that self love or selfishness - and I mean the purely human selfishness and not that of the higher and proper kind - has become the mainspring or active principle of all his motives for doing or not doing a thing or things and, in so acting, the rights of others are considered only in a secondary or subordinate sense.
If the recognition of these rights does not involve any sacrifice of what he considers is for his own advantage, then these rights may be recognized and admitted and permitted to be carried into actual enjoyment; but if there be any conflict between his conception of what he is entitled to and the actual rights of his brother or friend or stranger, he will see only the justice of his own rights and his consequent action will be based on that conception.
And having this motive of selfishness predominant and controlling in his actions, it seldom occurs that the rights of these others are fairly recognized and, consequently, there arises injustice and harm and the desire of conferring those things which would naturally arise from the conception of the rights of these brothers is ignored.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
No, I have not written for a long time, although I have been with you quite often and seen the other spirits write, and heard the conversation of yourself and friends on many occasions as you discussed the truth of things spiritual, and commented on the messages that you received on the sermons of the preachers who attempted to explain what they called the Bible truths.
Tonight I desire to say a few words on the subject: "What causes the souls of men the unrest that now exists in the mortal world?"
This is a subject, I know, that of late has been widely discussed and many causes given and tried to be explained as the basis for such conditions of men, individually, and as comprising nations. I realize that it is a large and comprehensive question and to discuss it in all its features would require much more time than we have to devote to it tonight and, hence, I will call attention to only a few of these causes.
In the first place, man is so created, or rather he has brought himself into such a condition that self love or selfishness - and I mean the purely human selfishness and not that of the higher and proper kind - has become the mainspring or active principle of all his motives for doing or not doing a thing or things and, in so acting, the rights of others are considered only in a secondary or subordinate sense.
If the recognition of these rights does not involve any sacrifice of what he considers is for his own advantage, then these rights may be recognized and admitted and permitted to be carried into actual enjoyment; but if there be any conflict between his conception of what he is entitled to and the actual rights of his brother or friend or stranger, he will see only the justice of his own rights and his consequent action will be based on that conception.
And having this motive of selfishness predominant and controlling in his actions, it seldom occurs that the rights of these others are fairly recognized and, consequently, there arises injustice and harm and the desire of conferring those things which would naturally arise from the conception of the rights of these brothers is ignored.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Friday, September 6, 2013
Samuel Writes that Divine Love Brings Happiness and Peace that Passeth all Understanding
September 10, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
I come to write you that I am with you in love and hope for your present blessing and happiness. I know that the worries of life prevent you from realizing the influence of this Great Love which is surrounding you and which is ready and waiting to fill your soul to its fullness. But if you will pray more to the Father and exercise your faith, you will find that your worries will lessen and peace will come to you in such abundance and beauty that you will feel like a new man.
As John said, with this faith, Love will flow into your soul, and you will realize to some extent the joys of our Celestial conditions - for the Love that may be yours is the same Love, in its nature, that we possess, and that has made Angels of us all and inhabitants of the Father's Kingdom. Only believe and you will realize how willing this Love is to take possession of your soul and make you so happy that even the troubles that you have will not be sufficient to take from you the great peace that surpasseth all understanding.
I have been in the spirit for many years and have possessed this Love for a long time and know by actual experience what it is, and what great joy it brings to its possessor, so that you can rely on what I promise you and feel the certainty that actual knowledge gives. I am now, a wholly redeemed child of the Father, and one who knows that His Divine Love in the soul makes the man or spirit of the Essence of the Father. When this Love enters the soul of man, it increases like the leaven in the dough and continues in its work until the whole soul is impregnated with it and everything of sin or error is wholly eradicated.
Love worketh all things that man can wish for or conceive of and more besides. Paul's description of Love and the wonderful qualities and conditions that emanate from it does not contain all its emanations and resultant happiness.
But I must not write more tonight for it is late and you are tiring. So believe what I have said and try to follow my advice, and you will soon experience that peace and happiness which only this Love can bring to the souls of men. So with my love and blessings I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
I come to write you that I am with you in love and hope for your present blessing and happiness. I know that the worries of life prevent you from realizing the influence of this Great Love which is surrounding you and which is ready and waiting to fill your soul to its fullness. But if you will pray more to the Father and exercise your faith, you will find that your worries will lessen and peace will come to you in such abundance and beauty that you will feel like a new man.
As John said, with this faith, Love will flow into your soul, and you will realize to some extent the joys of our Celestial conditions - for the Love that may be yours is the same Love, in its nature, that we possess, and that has made Angels of us all and inhabitants of the Father's Kingdom. Only believe and you will realize how willing this Love is to take possession of your soul and make you so happy that even the troubles that you have will not be sufficient to take from you the great peace that surpasseth all understanding.
I have been in the spirit for many years and have possessed this Love for a long time and know by actual experience what it is, and what great joy it brings to its possessor, so that you can rely on what I promise you and feel the certainty that actual knowledge gives. I am now, a wholly redeemed child of the Father, and one who knows that His Divine Love in the soul makes the man or spirit of the Essence of the Father. When this Love enters the soul of man, it increases like the leaven in the dough and continues in its work until the whole soul is impregnated with it and everything of sin or error is wholly eradicated.
Love worketh all things that man can wish for or conceive of and more besides. Paul's description of Love and the wonderful qualities and conditions that emanate from it does not contain all its emanations and resultant happiness.
But I must not write more tonight for it is late and you are tiring. So believe what I have said and try to follow my advice, and you will soon experience that peace and happiness which only this Love can bring to the souls of men. So with my love and blessings I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Samuel Writes Further on Continuous Life After the Death of the Body
March 30, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
I desire to continue my message on the subject of the continuous life of a man after the death of the body, as shown by the manifestations of nature.
As I was saying, the apparent death and resuscitation of things of the vegetable kingdom, do not furnish any argument that man will continue to live after the death of the physical body. Now I know it is difficult to understand what there can be in the manifestations of nature to prove such persistent life, and that the people for whose benefit I am writing this will not be willing to use evidence of things of a spiritual nature to prove this continuous life and, hence, I will confine myself to matters material.
Well, in the first place, there is no such thing as the death of anything in all the material universe of God. Every primal element has life in it, even though that life may not be apparent to the consciousness of men, but it is a fact. Every atom or electron, as the scientists term these particles of matter that are reduced to their infinitesimal proportions, is pregnant with life; and the very apparent decay of material substances is nothing more nor less than the results of the operation of the life that they contain, working out the changes of form or expression.
If the scientists will investigate and analyze the constituents of particles of all matter, notwithstanding that they appear to be devoid of the life principle, he will find that life, in some of its expressions, is contained in these particles, and that there is nothing in the material things of nature that is completely inert. There is no such thing as inertia - it only appears to exist; and while it may not be apparent to the natural eye that everything in the material has life within itself, and as a result therefrom, there is force and motion, yet such is the fact.
This life principle permeates everything - applies to and forms a part of everything that has the appearance of natural existence. The grain of sand on the seashore or the dust of the decayed tree has within it life, and this life is no more nonexistent or absent from these material things, than are the elements that compose this visible form of matter ever lost or without existence. It is true that these elements change their forms and their compositions, yet they never cease to exist, or become nothing. Nothing means a void, and in God's creation there is no void. Everything is of substance and there are no vacancies unfilled.
And, hence, as life is the foundation principle of existence and life exists everywhere, and there being no void in nature, life permeates everything, whether visible to the mortal eye or senses or not.
When that which is material decays or disintegrates, it does not do so as the result of the absence of life, but as the result of the operation of this principle of life upon the material in such a way as to cause the separation of its elements, and their change into new forms and appearances.
I know it is said that the workings of the elements; that is fire and water and air and chemicals known and unknown, cause the disintegration or even the disappearance of things material, but this is not strictly true, for these elements do not affect these things themselves, as a primary result of their workings, but what they affect is the life within these materials, and as that life lessens or changes, the materials of which that life is a part disintegrate or dissolve, as is sometimes said, into thin air; and never does any part of the material substance, no matter how minute it may come to be, die - that is, in the sense of losing life.
Life is a thing of such delicate nature, and is so susceptible to a division or reduction to a smallness almost to infinity, that no substance can become so small that life is not a part of it and the vital principle of its existence.
As is known, the solid rock may be reduced not only to dust but to a liquid and then to a vapor and then to a gas and then to that - that is not sensitive to the consciousness of men, and yet the life principle exists in all these forms of that material rock; and that which ultimates (finally goes) into apparent nothingness, contains life just as does the original rock, or any of its subsequent forms in the process of reduction to seeming extinction.
The materialist accepts these phenomena as true, and blindly and with full assurance announces that nothing in creation is ever lost or annihilated. This being true, why is not the conclusion logical that the apparently inanimate rock or the animal without reasoning powers or the man with the reasonable faculties, is never annihilated or lost; or in other words, never dies the death that results in nothingness!
But they say, while this may be true, yet the materials which form these various aspects of existence do not necessarily or probably come together again and reform the identical being that once appeared as an existing thing and then dissolved into the elements that composed the thing; and hence, while the elements in some form may continue to live forever, yet that form in which they once existed will not again appear. I know that this is a reasonable conclusion and one in accord with the demonstrations of science, and is applicable to the merely physical man just as to any other manifestations of the material things of nature.
But even these materialists admit that in the case of man, there is something in his formation and essential being that is more than or in addition to the merely physical portions of him, and while they may say that this something is wholly of a material nature, yet they admit that it is of a material different and distinct from the material that forms the visible physical body.
I do not speak of the soul or spiritual part of man, but of the intellect and of the five senses and of the reasoning powers, all which, of course, includes the memory. That part of man that embraces these things, the materialists must admit, is distinct and different from the mere body, and, even though it were here to be conceded that they are material, yet no man has ever seen them or felt them or in any way perceived their existence as he has that which he knows to be of the material. He has seen and heard and known the effects of the existence of these invisible material qualities, as he may call them, but has never demonstrated that they died when the physical body died. The furthest that he can go in this direction is that they disappeared and became lost to his consciousness; but that they disintegrated or dissolved or were reduced to a gaseous substance or thin air, in which he has seen the visible physical body disappear, he cannot affirm. The limit of his knowledge is that with the death of the physical body, this other, as he terms it, material part of man disappears and never again reappears to his physical senses.
As I say, he has never observed and has no knowledge of any disintegration of these invisible material parts of man into any primary elements or atoms or electrons, as he applies such terminology to the physical body, and hence he is not justified in concluding that any such results to this invisible material follows the death and dissolving of the flesh and blood and bones of man. To so conclude is more of a speculation than to hold that the invisible material did not dissolve into forms more invisible, if such an expression can be used.
As I have said, life is in all things, visible and invisible, and there is no vacuum in nature. While man is living it is demonstrated that life is in this invisible part of man, and more abundantly than in the merely visible body; and as life continues after death in the elements of this latter body, why cannot we declare that after death life continues in the invisible part of man? Nothing is ever lost or annihilated, and hence these parts of man cannot be annihilated, and existing they must contain life.
Has the materialist ever been able to demonstrate to his own satisfaction even, that this invisible part of man, which he says is material, ceases to live? He cannot say that the elements of the physical body, no matter what form they may assume, cease to live, but on the contrary affirmatively asserts that they are never annihilated and continue to exist; and as life is necessary to existence they must continue to have life.
So according to their own arguments and demonstrations and ultimate claims, the death of the physical body does not destroy the elements which compose that body but only the form in which these elements were combined. Then from this the most that they can claim as to the invisible material part of man is, that while the material which composed this part is not dead or annihilated, yet their formation may be disintegrated or changed; and hence the identity of the man, as to this portion of him, no longer exists. But this conclusion does not follow as a logical sequence, and the materialist has nothing upon which to base this conclusion, except that he has seen and knows that when the visible body dies it disintegrates and ultimately disappears.
He has never seen the disintegration of this invisible part of man, though he has seen its manifestations decay and even destroyed; but the cause of this is shown to be some decadence or disorganization of some part of the visible body through which the invisible manifested.
These materialists have knowledge of the facts that men have been deprived of their arms or legs or other parts of the body, and yet the invisible parts remained perfect, performing their functions. Also it is true, that men have received injury to their physical organs of sight or hearing, and, as a consequence the invisible organs of sight or hearing did not function, but that fact constitutes no proof that they were dead or had ceased to preserve the form they had before the physical organs were impaired; for when the defects of the physical organs were removed and these organs again came into condition to do their functioning, the invisible faculties of sight and hearing manifested their existence again just as they had existed before the physical organs were impaired. And so many similar instances might be referred to, to show that death or destruction of any or many parts of the visible body does not destroy or disseminate into its elements the invisible material part of man.
And besides, let the materialists consider the great difference in the powers and objects of the creation of these visible and invisible parts of man, and they will realize that the purely physical is wholly subordinated and used merely to enable the invisible parts to manifest themselves, and show that the real man is the invisible part, and that man can lose part of his physical vestment, and yet exist and perform his functions and exercise his powers.
I have thus tried to show that no argument can be drawn from any analogy between the vegetable things of nature, dying and coming to life again, and man's dying. Yet neither can any argument be drawn from the fact that the visible body of man dies and goes into its elements never to be resuscitated again as the same body, to show that the invisible body of man dies and is dissolved into its elements, and that man ceases to be the individual that he was before the death of the physical body.
I may not have made my message as plain and convincing as I would desire, but in discussions of this kind it is difficult to transmit the various shades of thought through the medium of a mortal. I thank you for your courtesy and will stop now. So with all my love and the blessings of the Father, I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
I desire to continue my message on the subject of the continuous life of a man after the death of the body, as shown by the manifestations of nature.
As I was saying, the apparent death and resuscitation of things of the vegetable kingdom, do not furnish any argument that man will continue to live after the death of the physical body. Now I know it is difficult to understand what there can be in the manifestations of nature to prove such persistent life, and that the people for whose benefit I am writing this will not be willing to use evidence of things of a spiritual nature to prove this continuous life and, hence, I will confine myself to matters material.
Well, in the first place, there is no such thing as the death of anything in all the material universe of God. Every primal element has life in it, even though that life may not be apparent to the consciousness of men, but it is a fact. Every atom or electron, as the scientists term these particles of matter that are reduced to their infinitesimal proportions, is pregnant with life; and the very apparent decay of material substances is nothing more nor less than the results of the operation of the life that they contain, working out the changes of form or expression.
If the scientists will investigate and analyze the constituents of particles of all matter, notwithstanding that they appear to be devoid of the life principle, he will find that life, in some of its expressions, is contained in these particles, and that there is nothing in the material things of nature that is completely inert. There is no such thing as inertia - it only appears to exist; and while it may not be apparent to the natural eye that everything in the material has life within itself, and as a result therefrom, there is force and motion, yet such is the fact.
This life principle permeates everything - applies to and forms a part of everything that has the appearance of natural existence. The grain of sand on the seashore or the dust of the decayed tree has within it life, and this life is no more nonexistent or absent from these material things, than are the elements that compose this visible form of matter ever lost or without existence. It is true that these elements change their forms and their compositions, yet they never cease to exist, or become nothing. Nothing means a void, and in God's creation there is no void. Everything is of substance and there are no vacancies unfilled.
And, hence, as life is the foundation principle of existence and life exists everywhere, and there being no void in nature, life permeates everything, whether visible to the mortal eye or senses or not.
When that which is material decays or disintegrates, it does not do so as the result of the absence of life, but as the result of the operation of this principle of life upon the material in such a way as to cause the separation of its elements, and their change into new forms and appearances.
I know it is said that the workings of the elements; that is fire and water and air and chemicals known and unknown, cause the disintegration or even the disappearance of things material, but this is not strictly true, for these elements do not affect these things themselves, as a primary result of their workings, but what they affect is the life within these materials, and as that life lessens or changes, the materials of which that life is a part disintegrate or dissolve, as is sometimes said, into thin air; and never does any part of the material substance, no matter how minute it may come to be, die - that is, in the sense of losing life.
Life is a thing of such delicate nature, and is so susceptible to a division or reduction to a smallness almost to infinity, that no substance can become so small that life is not a part of it and the vital principle of its existence.
As is known, the solid rock may be reduced not only to dust but to a liquid and then to a vapor and then to a gas and then to that - that is not sensitive to the consciousness of men, and yet the life principle exists in all these forms of that material rock; and that which ultimates (finally goes) into apparent nothingness, contains life just as does the original rock, or any of its subsequent forms in the process of reduction to seeming extinction.
The materialist accepts these phenomena as true, and blindly and with full assurance announces that nothing in creation is ever lost or annihilated. This being true, why is not the conclusion logical that the apparently inanimate rock or the animal without reasoning powers or the man with the reasonable faculties, is never annihilated or lost; or in other words, never dies the death that results in nothingness!
But they say, while this may be true, yet the materials which form these various aspects of existence do not necessarily or probably come together again and reform the identical being that once appeared as an existing thing and then dissolved into the elements that composed the thing; and hence, while the elements in some form may continue to live forever, yet that form in which they once existed will not again appear. I know that this is a reasonable conclusion and one in accord with the demonstrations of science, and is applicable to the merely physical man just as to any other manifestations of the material things of nature.
But even these materialists admit that in the case of man, there is something in his formation and essential being that is more than or in addition to the merely physical portions of him, and while they may say that this something is wholly of a material nature, yet they admit that it is of a material different and distinct from the material that forms the visible physical body.
I do not speak of the soul or spiritual part of man, but of the intellect and of the five senses and of the reasoning powers, all which, of course, includes the memory. That part of man that embraces these things, the materialists must admit, is distinct and different from the mere body, and, even though it were here to be conceded that they are material, yet no man has ever seen them or felt them or in any way perceived their existence as he has that which he knows to be of the material. He has seen and heard and known the effects of the existence of these invisible material qualities, as he may call them, but has never demonstrated that they died when the physical body died. The furthest that he can go in this direction is that they disappeared and became lost to his consciousness; but that they disintegrated or dissolved or were reduced to a gaseous substance or thin air, in which he has seen the visible physical body disappear, he cannot affirm. The limit of his knowledge is that with the death of the physical body, this other, as he terms it, material part of man disappears and never again reappears to his physical senses.
As I say, he has never observed and has no knowledge of any disintegration of these invisible material parts of man into any primary elements or atoms or electrons, as he applies such terminology to the physical body, and hence he is not justified in concluding that any such results to this invisible material follows the death and dissolving of the flesh and blood and bones of man. To so conclude is more of a speculation than to hold that the invisible material did not dissolve into forms more invisible, if such an expression can be used.
As I have said, life is in all things, visible and invisible, and there is no vacuum in nature. While man is living it is demonstrated that life is in this invisible part of man, and more abundantly than in the merely visible body; and as life continues after death in the elements of this latter body, why cannot we declare that after death life continues in the invisible part of man? Nothing is ever lost or annihilated, and hence these parts of man cannot be annihilated, and existing they must contain life.
Has the materialist ever been able to demonstrate to his own satisfaction even, that this invisible part of man, which he says is material, ceases to live? He cannot say that the elements of the physical body, no matter what form they may assume, cease to live, but on the contrary affirmatively asserts that they are never annihilated and continue to exist; and as life is necessary to existence they must continue to have life.
So according to their own arguments and demonstrations and ultimate claims, the death of the physical body does not destroy the elements which compose that body but only the form in which these elements were combined. Then from this the most that they can claim as to the invisible material part of man is, that while the material which composed this part is not dead or annihilated, yet their formation may be disintegrated or changed; and hence the identity of the man, as to this portion of him, no longer exists. But this conclusion does not follow as a logical sequence, and the materialist has nothing upon which to base this conclusion, except that he has seen and knows that when the visible body dies it disintegrates and ultimately disappears.
He has never seen the disintegration of this invisible part of man, though he has seen its manifestations decay and even destroyed; but the cause of this is shown to be some decadence or disorganization of some part of the visible body through which the invisible manifested.
These materialists have knowledge of the facts that men have been deprived of their arms or legs or other parts of the body, and yet the invisible parts remained perfect, performing their functions. Also it is true, that men have received injury to their physical organs of sight or hearing, and, as a consequence the invisible organs of sight or hearing did not function, but that fact constitutes no proof that they were dead or had ceased to preserve the form they had before the physical organs were impaired; for when the defects of the physical organs were removed and these organs again came into condition to do their functioning, the invisible faculties of sight and hearing manifested their existence again just as they had existed before the physical organs were impaired. And so many similar instances might be referred to, to show that death or destruction of any or many parts of the visible body does not destroy or disseminate into its elements the invisible material part of man.
And besides, let the materialists consider the great difference in the powers and objects of the creation of these visible and invisible parts of man, and they will realize that the purely physical is wholly subordinated and used merely to enable the invisible parts to manifest themselves, and show that the real man is the invisible part, and that man can lose part of his physical vestment, and yet exist and perform his functions and exercise his powers.
I have thus tried to show that no argument can be drawn from any analogy between the vegetable things of nature, dying and coming to life again, and man's dying. Yet neither can any argument be drawn from the fact that the visible body of man dies and goes into its elements never to be resuscitated again as the same body, to show that the invisible body of man dies and is dissolved into its elements, and that man ceases to be the individual that he was before the death of the physical body.
I may not have made my message as plain and convincing as I would desire, but in discussions of this kind it is difficult to transmit the various shades of thought through the medium of a mortal. I thank you for your courtesy and will stop now. So with all my love and the blessings of the Father, I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Samuel Writes About Continuous Life After the Death of the Body
March 21, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
I desire to write for a short time on a subject that is of importance to those who are in doubt as to the reality of the future life. I know that a vast majority of mortals believe in a future existence and the immortality of the soul, but there are a considerable number of mortals who do not know these facts or who have no belief regarding the matter and simply say "I don't know." It is to these latter persons that I wish to write.
In the first place, all persons know, if they know anything, that they are living and that sooner or later what they call death is inevitable - no matter from what cause it may take place. "To live" then, implies that there is such a thing as continuous life; and "to die," to these people demonstrates that the life with which they are acquainted ceases and that the material body in which this life manifests itself gradually disintegrates into the original elements that composed that body.
Now a man - being a materialist purely- would seem to be correct in his conclusions that when life, which could be manifested only through the material things of nature, ceases, and the body becomes inanimate and dead, that then is the end not only of the body but of the individual. And if there existed no other manifestation of life than this physical one, there would be no foundation upon which to base the assumption that the death of the body does not end all.
I know it has been asserted in the way of argument that even though the material parts of vegetation die, yet as spring comes around, these materials show forth again the life that had previously manifested itself and, therefore, by analogy the death of the human body merely means that its life will appear again in evidence in some other body or form.
But upon close investigation and exact reasoning, it will be seen that the two subjects of demonstration are not alike, because while the material of the vegetable kingdom apparently dies, yet it does not all die, for even though you may apparently see the particular body of the tree or plant or every part of it go into decay or rottenness, yet as a fact, this is not true. The whole of the material plant which enclosed or manifested life does not die until out of it a new body arises and grows, and the life that animated the body that appears to have died continues in it awaiting the new growth for its display of existence.
The flower dies and the bush upon which it grows may appear to die, yet the roots continue to enclose the life principle which causes the bush to grow again, and which has its genesis in these roots, and is the same life that originally existed in the bush. Pluck up the bush by the roots and expose them to the elements until they die and commence to disintegrate, and then replant them, and you will find they will not grow, for the reason that the life which had animated them has departed.
And the same conclusions will be reached when you apply the same investigation and reasoning to every species of the vegetable kingdom. The grain of corn, though apparently dead, is in reality not dead, but continues to contain the life principle which was the cause of the growth of the stalk and the blade and the ear in the blade. Nothing of the vegetable kingdom will be reproduced or form the basis of a new growth, unless some part of the old growth retains in it the life force.
In man's investigation of the wonders of vegetable life, he has discovered that a grain of corn that had been entombed in the hands of an Egyptian mummy for more than three thousand years, when planted in the ground, reproduced the stalk and blade and ear of corn, just as the original material body had produced. And why? Not because when the grain of corn was planted in the earth it received unto itself new life or any force that was not already in it, but because the grain had never ceased to be without the life that existed in it as it grew from the original seed to the perfect grain. The grain had never lost its life and had never died, though apparently it had. Always there was some part of the original body that continued to exist and that held enclosed in itself the life principle. Without the preservation of some part of the original body, there could never have been a manifestation of the life that caused the growth of that body. This phenomena, as you call it, was not the resurrection of a material body that had died and become disintegrated and nonexistent, but was merely the resurrection of that part of the old body that had never died, but had always retained in it the life principle. And this, I say, is no argument for the future existence of man, as viewed from a purely material aspect.
When the body of a man dies it is eternally destroyed, either by natural decay or by incineration or, sometimes, by cannibals, so that no portion of his body remains in which the life principle may be preserved; and so far as the material body is involved, it utterly disappears - no roots remain in the ground and no grain or seed of it is preserved from which a new body may arise.
So I say, the phenomena of the vegetable apparently dying and, after a season springing forth again, and producing a body similar to the one that had formerly lived and died, furnishes no demonstration or argument from which, logically, can be drawn the conclusion that when a man dies, he will not cease to exist, or will live again.
From the purely material standpoint, the materialist has the better of the argument, and he may well ask the question: "When a man dies shall he live again?" and answer the inquiry by saying, nature furnishes no proof that he will.
It may be said that life permeates all nature and is the basis of all existence, and that assertion is true; but it does not follow therefrom that any particular manifestation of life, such as the individual man, when once ceasing to manifest, will again be reproduced in that particular identity of material manifestation, or in that form or existence that will make itself the identical being that had ceased to exist.
So to show man that there is a continuous existence after the death of the body - and I mean an individual, identical existence - something more is required than the argument of analogy in nature, or to the material things of nature in which life appears and then apparently disappears and then reappears. As the discussion on this phase of the matter will require more time than you have tonight to receive it, I will defer the treatment until later. With all my love I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
I desire to write for a short time on a subject that is of importance to those who are in doubt as to the reality of the future life. I know that a vast majority of mortals believe in a future existence and the immortality of the soul, but there are a considerable number of mortals who do not know these facts or who have no belief regarding the matter and simply say "I don't know." It is to these latter persons that I wish to write.
In the first place, all persons know, if they know anything, that they are living and that sooner or later what they call death is inevitable - no matter from what cause it may take place. "To live" then, implies that there is such a thing as continuous life; and "to die," to these people demonstrates that the life with which they are acquainted ceases and that the material body in which this life manifests itself gradually disintegrates into the original elements that composed that body.
Now a man - being a materialist purely- would seem to be correct in his conclusions that when life, which could be manifested only through the material things of nature, ceases, and the body becomes inanimate and dead, that then is the end not only of the body but of the individual. And if there existed no other manifestation of life than this physical one, there would be no foundation upon which to base the assumption that the death of the body does not end all.
I know it has been asserted in the way of argument that even though the material parts of vegetation die, yet as spring comes around, these materials show forth again the life that had previously manifested itself and, therefore, by analogy the death of the human body merely means that its life will appear again in evidence in some other body or form.
But upon close investigation and exact reasoning, it will be seen that the two subjects of demonstration are not alike, because while the material of the vegetable kingdom apparently dies, yet it does not all die, for even though you may apparently see the particular body of the tree or plant or every part of it go into decay or rottenness, yet as a fact, this is not true. The whole of the material plant which enclosed or manifested life does not die until out of it a new body arises and grows, and the life that animated the body that appears to have died continues in it awaiting the new growth for its display of existence.
The flower dies and the bush upon which it grows may appear to die, yet the roots continue to enclose the life principle which causes the bush to grow again, and which has its genesis in these roots, and is the same life that originally existed in the bush. Pluck up the bush by the roots and expose them to the elements until they die and commence to disintegrate, and then replant them, and you will find they will not grow, for the reason that the life which had animated them has departed.
And the same conclusions will be reached when you apply the same investigation and reasoning to every species of the vegetable kingdom. The grain of corn, though apparently dead, is in reality not dead, but continues to contain the life principle which was the cause of the growth of the stalk and the blade and the ear in the blade. Nothing of the vegetable kingdom will be reproduced or form the basis of a new growth, unless some part of the old growth retains in it the life force.
In man's investigation of the wonders of vegetable life, he has discovered that a grain of corn that had been entombed in the hands of an Egyptian mummy for more than three thousand years, when planted in the ground, reproduced the stalk and blade and ear of corn, just as the original material body had produced. And why? Not because when the grain of corn was planted in the earth it received unto itself new life or any force that was not already in it, but because the grain had never ceased to be without the life that existed in it as it grew from the original seed to the perfect grain. The grain had never lost its life and had never died, though apparently it had. Always there was some part of the original body that continued to exist and that held enclosed in itself the life principle. Without the preservation of some part of the original body, there could never have been a manifestation of the life that caused the growth of that body. This phenomena, as you call it, was not the resurrection of a material body that had died and become disintegrated and nonexistent, but was merely the resurrection of that part of the old body that had never died, but had always retained in it the life principle. And this, I say, is no argument for the future existence of man, as viewed from a purely material aspect.
When the body of a man dies it is eternally destroyed, either by natural decay or by incineration or, sometimes, by cannibals, so that no portion of his body remains in which the life principle may be preserved; and so far as the material body is involved, it utterly disappears - no roots remain in the ground and no grain or seed of it is preserved from which a new body may arise.
So I say, the phenomena of the vegetable apparently dying and, after a season springing forth again, and producing a body similar to the one that had formerly lived and died, furnishes no demonstration or argument from which, logically, can be drawn the conclusion that when a man dies, he will not cease to exist, or will live again.
From the purely material standpoint, the materialist has the better of the argument, and he may well ask the question: "When a man dies shall he live again?" and answer the inquiry by saying, nature furnishes no proof that he will.
It may be said that life permeates all nature and is the basis of all existence, and that assertion is true; but it does not follow therefrom that any particular manifestation of life, such as the individual man, when once ceasing to manifest, will again be reproduced in that particular identity of material manifestation, or in that form or existence that will make itself the identical being that had ceased to exist.
So to show man that there is a continuous existence after the death of the body - and I mean an individual, identical existence - something more is required than the argument of analogy in nature, or to the material things of nature in which life appears and then apparently disappears and then reappears. As the discussion on this phase of the matter will require more time than you have tonight to receive it, I will defer the treatment until later. With all my love I will say good night.
Your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Samuel the Prophet Writes About the Incarnation of the Soul
January 17, 1916
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
Yes, Samuel, the prophet.
Well, I will not write long tonight, as I merely want to say that you are much better in your spiritual condition, and the rapport between us is so much greater than heretofore. Tonight, I desire to say one word on the subject of my knowledge of how a soul is born into the flesh and becomes an individualized person.
I heard what Luke wrote you, and I agree with him in his explanation of the character and qualities of the soul in its state before its incarnation; but I want to add one other thing to what he wrote and, that is, that when the soul first separates into its two component parts, and one of these parts enters into the physical body, the other part remains a mere soul, invisible even to us, but having an existence of which we are conscious and hovers close to the earth plane seeking the opportunity to also incarnate and become individualized; and this happens within a short time after the separation from the half that has already incarnated. Of course, when I say a short time, I do not mean in a few months or even a few years, because sometimes there is a space of several scores of years between the two incarnations; but such time seems short to us who know nothing of time.
The soul, which remains as Luke has told you, as well as the soul that enters the human body, loses its consciousness of having been a part only of one complete soul, and of its relationship to the other part of that soul and exists in the supposition that it is still a complete soul and needs no other soul to make it complete. This is a provision of the Father's goodness, so that the soul that continues in its pristine existence will not become lonely or unhappy.
You will naturally ask how I know this, as we have said these souls are not visible to us, and I can only answer that we spirits who have developed our souls to a high degree have acquired certain faculties, or what you may call senses, which enable us to know these things. It is not necessary that we should see these unindividualized souls in order to know of their existences and the qualities that they possess any more than it is that we should be able to see the Great Oversoul of the Father in order to understand its qualities and attributes and existence. I know it is hard for you to understand this, and I cannot now satisfactorily explain it, for your senses of the earth life are not capable of comprehending the explanation, but what I tell you is true.
We often see the birth of the two parts of the souls into mortals and know that such souls then, for the first time, assumes a shape and form, for this invisible image of God fills the whole of the spirit body, and from that body assumes or receives its form, and thereby becomes individualized. The soul is the life of the spirit body and never leaves it during the earth life of the mortal; and comes with it at the death of the physical body, and remains a part of it during all the time of the existence of the spirit body in the spirit world. Whether it can ever become lost is a question upon which I shall write you later. You will remember that Jesus said, according to the Bible, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
I will say this, though, at this time that a man may retain his soul as a fact and yet have a consciousness of having lost it, and he is then as if he had no soul.
I have said to you what I intended to write, because Luke had omitted to speak of the condition of that half of the soul that remained in the spirit world after the other half had been incarnated.
Matters of this kind, though, are not important as regards the salvation of man, or the perfecting of his soul to such a degree that that soul may become at-one with the Great Soul, having what it did not possess before its seeking a dwelling place in the flesh and, that is, the Divine Nature of the Father and immortality as an individualized, never dying person.
As we proceed in these writings, you will understand the importance of the soul's becoming incarnated, and then leaving the flesh and again returning to the spirit spheres. And you will also learn that the doctrine of evolution is to an extent correct, but not as commencing from an atom or from an animal inferior to man. Back of and greater than this doctrine of evolution is the great and more Divine doctrine of involution; for if the soul had not come from above and been placed in the physical man, there would never have been any evolution; and if the soul had never received its individualized existence by coming into the body of the human, it would never have evolved to the Divine Nature, as well as to the individualized being that follows that incarnation.
When I say the Divine Nature, I do not mean that all souls, either on earth or in the great eternity, necessarily receive that Divine Nature, for many of them do not and never will; but all, no matter whether they come into the Divine Nature or retain the nature which was theirs in their preexistence, will become individualized personalities, and which will be theirs so long as that soul and its spirit body shall continue to exist.
I have written enough for tonight, but will come again and write you other truths. So with my love and blessings,
I am your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel.
Yes, Samuel, the prophet.
Well, I will not write long tonight, as I merely want to say that you are much better in your spiritual condition, and the rapport between us is so much greater than heretofore. Tonight, I desire to say one word on the subject of my knowledge of how a soul is born into the flesh and becomes an individualized person.
I heard what Luke wrote you, and I agree with him in his explanation of the character and qualities of the soul in its state before its incarnation; but I want to add one other thing to what he wrote and, that is, that when the soul first separates into its two component parts, and one of these parts enters into the physical body, the other part remains a mere soul, invisible even to us, but having an existence of which we are conscious and hovers close to the earth plane seeking the opportunity to also incarnate and become individualized; and this happens within a short time after the separation from the half that has already incarnated. Of course, when I say a short time, I do not mean in a few months or even a few years, because sometimes there is a space of several scores of years between the two incarnations; but such time seems short to us who know nothing of time.
The soul, which remains as Luke has told you, as well as the soul that enters the human body, loses its consciousness of having been a part only of one complete soul, and of its relationship to the other part of that soul and exists in the supposition that it is still a complete soul and needs no other soul to make it complete. This is a provision of the Father's goodness, so that the soul that continues in its pristine existence will not become lonely or unhappy.
You will naturally ask how I know this, as we have said these souls are not visible to us, and I can only answer that we spirits who have developed our souls to a high degree have acquired certain faculties, or what you may call senses, which enable us to know these things. It is not necessary that we should see these unindividualized souls in order to know of their existences and the qualities that they possess any more than it is that we should be able to see the Great Oversoul of the Father in order to understand its qualities and attributes and existence. I know it is hard for you to understand this, and I cannot now satisfactorily explain it, for your senses of the earth life are not capable of comprehending the explanation, but what I tell you is true.
We often see the birth of the two parts of the souls into mortals and know that such souls then, for the first time, assumes a shape and form, for this invisible image of God fills the whole of the spirit body, and from that body assumes or receives its form, and thereby becomes individualized. The soul is the life of the spirit body and never leaves it during the earth life of the mortal; and comes with it at the death of the physical body, and remains a part of it during all the time of the existence of the spirit body in the spirit world. Whether it can ever become lost is a question upon which I shall write you later. You will remember that Jesus said, according to the Bible, "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
I will say this, though, at this time that a man may retain his soul as a fact and yet have a consciousness of having lost it, and he is then as if he had no soul.
I have said to you what I intended to write, because Luke had omitted to speak of the condition of that half of the soul that remained in the spirit world after the other half had been incarnated.
Matters of this kind, though, are not important as regards the salvation of man, or the perfecting of his soul to such a degree that that soul may become at-one with the Great Soul, having what it did not possess before its seeking a dwelling place in the flesh and, that is, the Divine Nature of the Father and immortality as an individualized, never dying person.
As we proceed in these writings, you will understand the importance of the soul's becoming incarnated, and then leaving the flesh and again returning to the spirit spheres. And you will also learn that the doctrine of evolution is to an extent correct, but not as commencing from an atom or from an animal inferior to man. Back of and greater than this doctrine of evolution is the great and more Divine doctrine of involution; for if the soul had not come from above and been placed in the physical man, there would never have been any evolution; and if the soul had never received its individualized existence by coming into the body of the human, it would never have evolved to the Divine Nature, as well as to the individualized being that follows that incarnation.
When I say the Divine Nature, I do not mean that all souls, either on earth or in the great eternity, necessarily receive that Divine Nature, for many of them do not and never will; but all, no matter whether they come into the Divine Nature or retain the nature which was theirs in their preexistence, will become individualized personalities, and which will be theirs so long as that soul and its spirit body shall continue to exist.
I have written enough for tonight, but will come again and write you other truths. So with my love and blessings,
I am your brother in Christ,
Samuel
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Helen Writes About the Spirits of Light and Truth Who Were With James Padgett and Dr. Leslie R. Stone at the Park
September 13, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Helen.
Well, sweetheart, you are very sleepy and must go to bed. But I must tell you how I enjoyed the conversation which you and Dr. Stone had tonight in the park. The spiritual influence around you was great and working to do you both good.
Mary was there and she was enjoying the conversation as much as I and was trying to make the Doctor feel her presence as I was you. What a wonderful thing this Love of the Father is and how glad I am that you have it to the extent that you have.
Yes, Samuel was there and so were your band and some of the apostles, all enjoying the ideas which you both expressed. We could see the workings of your brain and souls and we tried to impress you with the truth and make you realize fully the many sayings of the Bible as well as what has been written to you by us dealing with the subjects that you were discussing.
So how happy you ought to be to know that you have with you so often so many of the higher spirits of "Light and Truth".
I will not write longer tonight. So with all my love,
I am your own true loving,
Helen
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Helen.
Well, sweetheart, you are very sleepy and must go to bed. But I must tell you how I enjoyed the conversation which you and Dr. Stone had tonight in the park. The spiritual influence around you was great and working to do you both good.
Mary was there and she was enjoying the conversation as much as I and was trying to make the Doctor feel her presence as I was you. What a wonderful thing this Love of the Father is and how glad I am that you have it to the extent that you have.
Yes, Samuel was there and so were your band and some of the apostles, all enjoying the ideas which you both expressed. We could see the workings of your brain and souls and we tried to impress you with the truth and make you realize fully the many sayings of the Bible as well as what has been written to you by us dealing with the subjects that you were discussing.
So how happy you ought to be to know that you have with you so often so many of the higher spirits of "Light and Truth".
I will not write longer tonight. So with all my love,
I am your own true loving,
Helen
Monday, October 15, 2012
Samuel the Prophet Describes the Homes and Surroundings in the Celestial Spheres
August 17, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel the Prophet.
I am the prophet who came to you before and wrote. Tonight, I want to tell you of the wonderful things which God has prepared for his redeemed children in the Celestial Spheres, where only those who have received the New Birth can enter.
In these spheres are homes made of the most beautiful materials that can be imagined, and which are of a real and permanent character, and not subject to decay or deterioration of any kind, and which are made without hands, but by the soul's development, and the Love which each spirit possesses.
These homes are furnished with everything that is suited to make the inhabitants happy and contented; and not one element of inharmony has any abiding place therein. Every home has its library, and the most beautiful furniture and paintings and wall coverings, and also rooms that are devoted to the various uses that a spirit may need them for. The music is sublime beyond conception; and there are all kinds of musical instruments which the spirits know how to play and, as you may not suppose, every spirit has the ability to sing. There are no voices that are out of tune with the surroundings and with the other voices. Every spirit has music in his soul, and every spirit has the vocal qualities to express that music.
Couches for repose are provided, and running fountains and beautiful flowers of every hue and variety, and lawns the most beautiful and green. Trees are in abundance and are planted in the most artistic manner, so that they are in harmony with the surrounding landscape.
And the light that comes to our homes is of such a kind that I cannot describe it, and can only say that with it and in it are the most soothing and wonderful influences that spirits can conceive of.
All these things and many more are provided by our loving Father for the happiness of His children. But above all is this, the wonderful Love of the Father, which is always with us, and which fills our souls to overflowing, and keeps us in one continuous state of happiness and peace and joy.
All these things are freely given to us, and with them the knowledge that we are a part of the Father's Divine Being and have, beyond the possibility of losing it, the immortality which Jesus brought to light when he came to earth.
I have been in these Heavens many years, and know whereof I speak; and when I tell you of these things, I do so that you and all mankind may know that these delights may be yours and theirs, if you will only let the Divine Love of the Father enter your souls and take complete possession of it.
Well, as to our social enjoyments, we are so loving, one to the other that nothing arises, as on earth, to cause one the slightest jar in our wonderful harmony. We visit one another and give our experiences of the love life that we lead, and have music, and interchange thoughts about our continuous progress, and our work in the spirit world. Every spirit in our sphere may visit every other spirit, and know that the door is always open and a warm welcome awaiting him.
I cannot tell you of all these wonders because there are no words that will convey our meanings. Your capacity to understand is limited by your mental boundaries and, hence, I am at a disadvantage. But this I can tell you, and that is, that some day, if you get the Divine Love in your soul in sufficient abundance, you will see and understand for yourselves what God has in store for you. It was truly said, "that no eye has seen, or mind conceived, the wonderful things that await the true child of the Father."
No, there are no streets of gold or walls of jasper, or any of these material things that John made use of in his Apocalypse to describe the City of God. They were merely used as symbols, but they did not express the wonders of our homes.
I will not write more tonight, but will come again sometime and tell you of things that are of more importance than a description of our homes.
With all my love, I am your Brother in Christ,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Samuel the Prophet.
I am the prophet who came to you before and wrote. Tonight, I want to tell you of the wonderful things which God has prepared for his redeemed children in the Celestial Spheres, where only those who have received the New Birth can enter.
In these spheres are homes made of the most beautiful materials that can be imagined, and which are of a real and permanent character, and not subject to decay or deterioration of any kind, and which are made without hands, but by the soul's development, and the Love which each spirit possesses.
These homes are furnished with everything that is suited to make the inhabitants happy and contented; and not one element of inharmony has any abiding place therein. Every home has its library, and the most beautiful furniture and paintings and wall coverings, and also rooms that are devoted to the various uses that a spirit may need them for. The music is sublime beyond conception; and there are all kinds of musical instruments which the spirits know how to play and, as you may not suppose, every spirit has the ability to sing. There are no voices that are out of tune with the surroundings and with the other voices. Every spirit has music in his soul, and every spirit has the vocal qualities to express that music.
Couches for repose are provided, and running fountains and beautiful flowers of every hue and variety, and lawns the most beautiful and green. Trees are in abundance and are planted in the most artistic manner, so that they are in harmony with the surrounding landscape.
And the light that comes to our homes is of such a kind that I cannot describe it, and can only say that with it and in it are the most soothing and wonderful influences that spirits can conceive of.
All these things and many more are provided by our loving Father for the happiness of His children. But above all is this, the wonderful Love of the Father, which is always with us, and which fills our souls to overflowing, and keeps us in one continuous state of happiness and peace and joy.
All these things are freely given to us, and with them the knowledge that we are a part of the Father's Divine Being and have, beyond the possibility of losing it, the immortality which Jesus brought to light when he came to earth.
I have been in these Heavens many years, and know whereof I speak; and when I tell you of these things, I do so that you and all mankind may know that these delights may be yours and theirs, if you will only let the Divine Love of the Father enter your souls and take complete possession of it.
Well, as to our social enjoyments, we are so loving, one to the other that nothing arises, as on earth, to cause one the slightest jar in our wonderful harmony. We visit one another and give our experiences of the love life that we lead, and have music, and interchange thoughts about our continuous progress, and our work in the spirit world. Every spirit in our sphere may visit every other spirit, and know that the door is always open and a warm welcome awaiting him.
I cannot tell you of all these wonders because there are no words that will convey our meanings. Your capacity to understand is limited by your mental boundaries and, hence, I am at a disadvantage. But this I can tell you, and that is, that some day, if you get the Divine Love in your soul in sufficient abundance, you will see and understand for yourselves what God has in store for you. It was truly said, "that no eye has seen, or mind conceived, the wonderful things that await the true child of the Father."
No, there are no streets of gold or walls of jasper, or any of these material things that John made use of in his Apocalypse to describe the City of God. They were merely used as symbols, but they did not express the wonders of our homes.
I will not write more tonight, but will come again sometime and tell you of things that are of more importance than a description of our homes.
With all my love, I am your Brother in Christ,
Samuel
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Saul of the Old Testament Writes That He Was Once a Wicked Man But Became a Redeemed Spirit and Resides in the Celestial Kingdom
August 7, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Saul of the Old Testament.
I am the same Saul that called up Samuel, or rather who caused the woman of Endor to do so. I was a wicked man in those days and knew not the love of God, and very little of my fellow mortals. I was a cruel man and a worker of iniquity, and violated God's laws in many ways. As you have read, I came to the end of my resources and went to consult Samuel as the last resort. I did not know that God had abandoned me until Samuel had told me.
Yes, He did and was my protector as long as I obeyed Him and did what was right in His sight. I know that He did, because when I obeyed Him, I was successful and happy. I only knew from what the prophets told me, and they claimed to have communications with God in some way. I believed this and, hence, thought that God was protecting me.
I am a redeemed spirit now and am happy in the Love of the Father. I became a lover of the Father and an inhabitant of His Kingdom long after Jesus proclaimed the Great Truth of Divine Love restored. Before that I was a spirit who lived in the happiness which I experienced in developing my soul and becoming a good spirit, free from sin and error, but this happiness is not that which I now enjoy.
I want to confirm what Samuel said as to the woman of Endor. She was not a witch or evil woman, but was a medium and received communications from the higher spirits of the spirit world. She had been abused for centuries and should not be further thought of as a wicked woman.
I will not write more tonight.
Well, do you suppose that we of the spirit world stand still in our mental advancement? I know all the important languages of the earth and can write them and understand them. Do not think that spirits do not learn here just as they learned as mortals. The only difference is that they can learn so much more rapidly and can retain their knowledge more easily than mortals can.
So I will say goodnight.
Your brother in Christ,
Saul
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Saul of the Old Testament.
I am the same Saul that called up Samuel, or rather who caused the woman of Endor to do so. I was a wicked man in those days and knew not the love of God, and very little of my fellow mortals. I was a cruel man and a worker of iniquity, and violated God's laws in many ways. As you have read, I came to the end of my resources and went to consult Samuel as the last resort. I did not know that God had abandoned me until Samuel had told me.
Yes, He did and was my protector as long as I obeyed Him and did what was right in His sight. I know that He did, because when I obeyed Him, I was successful and happy. I only knew from what the prophets told me, and they claimed to have communications with God in some way. I believed this and, hence, thought that God was protecting me.
I am a redeemed spirit now and am happy in the Love of the Father. I became a lover of the Father and an inhabitant of His Kingdom long after Jesus proclaimed the Great Truth of Divine Love restored. Before that I was a spirit who lived in the happiness which I experienced in developing my soul and becoming a good spirit, free from sin and error, but this happiness is not that which I now enjoy.
I want to confirm what Samuel said as to the woman of Endor. She was not a witch or evil woman, but was a medium and received communications from the higher spirits of the spirit world. She had been abused for centuries and should not be further thought of as a wicked woman.
I will not write more tonight.
Well, do you suppose that we of the spirit world stand still in our mental advancement? I know all the important languages of the earth and can write them and understand them. Do not think that spirits do not learn here just as they learned as mortals. The only difference is that they can learn so much more rapidly and can retain their knowledge more easily than mortals can.
So I will say goodnight.
Your brother in Christ,
Saul
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Samuel the Prophet Writes that Mankind Must Seek for Divine Love in Order to Obtain Supreme Bliss
August 5, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am Samuel the Prophet.
I want to tell you that I am in a condition to tell you of my existence here in the spirit world, and what I know about the truths of the doctrines of Jesus as I have learned them since I became possessed of the Divine Love, which he brought to earth and to the world of spirits.
I have lived a great many years in this spirit life, more than you may think from the account of my earth life as contained in the Old Testament, for that book does not state correctly the time when I lived as a mortal. Many thousand years have gone by since I lived and performed my work as prophet and teacher on the earth, and I have in all these long years learned many things about the spiritual world, and its conditions and laws.
In the first place, I am not a spirit who was given over to the evils that men are usually possessed of when they become spirits, because when I lived on earth I was very close to the Father in His thoughts and love. I mean the love which He gave to man at that time. This love, while not the Divine Love, yet, was a love that was sufficient to make men happy when they possessed it free from sin and error and tried to do the Will of the Father as they understood that Will. Many men thought that they understood this Will, when in reality they only knew that which the laws of Moses taught them to be right in the sight of God. But some men were given a deeper insight into the mind and love of the Father to bless and make men happy in their natural love and, consequently, were closer to Him and better understood His Will and what was pleasing to Him.
I have since my becoming a spirit learned many truths, which I did not understand on earth, and which are necessary to know in order to be able to enjoy this love in its fullness. I never, though, possessed this Divine Love until after Jesus came to earth and showed men and spirits what this Love meant and how necessary it was to obtain it in order to become a part of God's Divinity.
I do not now see that I was any more in favor of God, as I then possessed only this natural love, than were many others who had the privilege of receiving from His Angels the inspirations, which came to them at times, and which made them able to tell the inhabitants of earth what was the purpose of God to have them do. I was only a man in the sense that I was only possessed of this natural love and, hence, could get no higher in the spiritual world than this natural love would enable me to attain.
I am now in a Heaven, which this Divine Love has opened up to me, and which enables me to enjoy the great happiness which that Love causes all to have who possess it.
When I lived in the spirit world before obtaining this Divine Love, I was only possessed of that happiness which comes from the natural love, and I knew nothing of the happiness which I now possess. So you see, the spirit which has not this Divine Love can go no higher in the spiritual spheres than it is fitted to occupy by reason of this natural love, and the principal source of happiness is this natural love and the development of the mental faculties. On earth it is possible for a man to obtain this happiness and live in the Heaven of the perfect natural man, as I did prior to my obtaining this Divine Love.
I was a spirit in the highest of the spiritual spheres and was very happy, as I thought, but when I obtained this Divine Love, I realized that the happiness of my former condition was as nothing compared to that of my present condition and I, therefore, want to tell all mankind that they must seek for this higher Love if they wish to obtain a bliss that is supreme.
I know that this rambling talk may not seem very instructive, but I merely wish to emphasize the fact that I lived a mere man, though in the spirit form, before I obtained the Divine Love, and that only with the coming of that Love in my soul did I partake of the Divinity of the Father.
Well, they are still in the spiritual heavens because they have not yet embraced the Christ doctrine of Divine Love. They are living and teaching the doctrines that they taught on earth, only much improved.
I don't know, except that they have been satisfied with what they taught and the happiness that they live in. It may seem strange to you that they have not found this Love in all these years, but it is a fact, and they are not seeking for it. I feel that they have neglected a great opportunity and have lost very much by letting all these years go by without having sought the great truth.
The different teachers of the various religions which have come to earth are occupying planes in the spiritual heavens all to themselves. They, the Jews, still think that theirs is the only true religion, and that they are the chosen people of God, and that all others are mistaken in their doctrines.
Well, I must stop. So thanking you for your kindness, I will say goodnight.
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am Samuel the Prophet.
I want to tell you that I am in a condition to tell you of my existence here in the spirit world, and what I know about the truths of the doctrines of Jesus as I have learned them since I became possessed of the Divine Love, which he brought to earth and to the world of spirits.
I have lived a great many years in this spirit life, more than you may think from the account of my earth life as contained in the Old Testament, for that book does not state correctly the time when I lived as a mortal. Many thousand years have gone by since I lived and performed my work as prophet and teacher on the earth, and I have in all these long years learned many things about the spiritual world, and its conditions and laws.
In the first place, I am not a spirit who was given over to the evils that men are usually possessed of when they become spirits, because when I lived on earth I was very close to the Father in His thoughts and love. I mean the love which He gave to man at that time. This love, while not the Divine Love, yet, was a love that was sufficient to make men happy when they possessed it free from sin and error and tried to do the Will of the Father as they understood that Will. Many men thought that they understood this Will, when in reality they only knew that which the laws of Moses taught them to be right in the sight of God. But some men were given a deeper insight into the mind and love of the Father to bless and make men happy in their natural love and, consequently, were closer to Him and better understood His Will and what was pleasing to Him.
I have since my becoming a spirit learned many truths, which I did not understand on earth, and which are necessary to know in order to be able to enjoy this love in its fullness. I never, though, possessed this Divine Love until after Jesus came to earth and showed men and spirits what this Love meant and how necessary it was to obtain it in order to become a part of God's Divinity.
I do not now see that I was any more in favor of God, as I then possessed only this natural love, than were many others who had the privilege of receiving from His Angels the inspirations, which came to them at times, and which made them able to tell the inhabitants of earth what was the purpose of God to have them do. I was only a man in the sense that I was only possessed of this natural love and, hence, could get no higher in the spiritual world than this natural love would enable me to attain.
I am now in a Heaven, which this Divine Love has opened up to me, and which enables me to enjoy the great happiness which that Love causes all to have who possess it.
When I lived in the spirit world before obtaining this Divine Love, I was only possessed of that happiness which comes from the natural love, and I knew nothing of the happiness which I now possess. So you see, the spirit which has not this Divine Love can go no higher in the spiritual spheres than it is fitted to occupy by reason of this natural love, and the principal source of happiness is this natural love and the development of the mental faculties. On earth it is possible for a man to obtain this happiness and live in the Heaven of the perfect natural man, as I did prior to my obtaining this Divine Love.
I was a spirit in the highest of the spiritual spheres and was very happy, as I thought, but when I obtained this Divine Love, I realized that the happiness of my former condition was as nothing compared to that of my present condition and I, therefore, want to tell all mankind that they must seek for this higher Love if they wish to obtain a bliss that is supreme.
I know that this rambling talk may not seem very instructive, but I merely wish to emphasize the fact that I lived a mere man, though in the spirit form, before I obtained the Divine Love, and that only with the coming of that Love in my soul did I partake of the Divinity of the Father.
Well, they are still in the spiritual heavens because they have not yet embraced the Christ doctrine of Divine Love. They are living and teaching the doctrines that they taught on earth, only much improved.
I don't know, except that they have been satisfied with what they taught and the happiness that they live in. It may seem strange to you that they have not found this Love in all these years, but it is a fact, and they are not seeking for it. I feel that they have neglected a great opportunity and have lost very much by letting all these years go by without having sought the great truth.
The different teachers of the various religions which have come to earth are occupying planes in the spiritual heavens all to themselves. They, the Jews, still think that theirs is the only true religion, and that they are the chosen people of God, and that all others are mistaken in their doctrines.
Well, I must stop. So thanking you for your kindness, I will say goodnight.
Samuel
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Helen Writes That Samuel and Daniel Are Powerful, Young and Beautiful Spirits
July 21, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Helen.
Well, sweetheart you must stop for tonight. You are tired and it will do you harm to write more.
They are powerful spirits and look as young as do the spirits of those who died recently, and were very young. I mean they looked like young men - and really are, and they are very highly developed in their souls and intellects. Daniel is especially beautiful and also very powerful.
With all my love, I am
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
I am here, Helen.
Well, sweetheart you must stop for tonight. You are tired and it will do you harm to write more.
They are powerful spirits and look as young as do the spirits of those who died recently, and were very young. I mean they looked like young men - and really are, and they are very highly developed in their souls and intellects. Daniel is especially beautiful and also very powerful.
With all my love, I am
Your own true and loving,
Helen
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Samuel, Prophet of God of the Old Testament, Writes His Testimony
July 21, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Samuel, the Prophet of God of the Old Testament.
I am the same Samuel whom the woman of Endor called from the spirit world to show Saul his doom, and as I come to you tonight, I came to her at that time, only my purpose is not the same, and I am not the same spirit in my qualifications.
I am now a Christian and know what the Divine Love of the Father means, while then, I did not, and was a spirit living in comparative happiness and existing in the consciousness that I had done my work on earth, and was then enjoying the repose of the righteous; for as we understood that word then in both the mortal and spirit worlds, I was a righteous man.
I come to you tonight, because I see that you have been chosen to do the great work of the Master in His efforts to redeem mankind from their lives of sin and error, and to show them the way by which they may partake of the Divine Nature of the Father and obtain immortality.
How much more mankind, and spirits, too, are blessed now than they were when I was a mortal, and for a long time after I became a spirit. My God then and your God now are the same, but His Great Gift of Divine Love was not in existence then as It is now. And so you and all other mortals should realize the great privilege you have because of this Gift and the gift of Jesus to explain and show the Way by which that Love may be obtained, and that freely without mental exercise of a high order, but merely by the longings and aspirations of the soul in its desires to become a part of the Father's Divinity.
I tell you that the ways of God are wonderful and mysterious, and His Plans, while to us may seem to be working slowly, yet, they are working surely and will be accomplished in His Own fullness of time.
I never knew when on earth that God was such a God of Love and Mercy. He was our Jehovah and ruler. He was a God of anger and wrath and a jealous God, as l thought, ever ready to punish those whom He thought to be His enemies with massacre and death. I obeyed Him and performed His work as I understood I should more through fear than love. In fact, love was never with me a weapon or instrument to be used in bringing the disobedient Jew to a compliance with what we thought was the will of God.
In such a method of procuring obedience, the soul was never developed and love was a minor factor in making the Jews obedient to the Father's requirements. Our principal desires were for the success of our earthly undertakings, and when these were accomplished, we had no further use for our God, except to keep Him in reserve for occasions that might arise when, as we thought, we might need His assistance.
I know that Moses commanded the Jews to love God with all their souls and mind and strength, and many of them thought that they were doing so, but in reality their love was limited by the extent of their desires for worldly gain. And this I know, for when they had succeeded in obtaining what they wanted, they forgot to love God; and, hence, we prophets were so often required to instruct them, and so frequently did call them to a recollection of God, and the danger they ran in forgetting Him and His laws. But we seldom attempted to have them call back in their recollections of Him through love, but nearly always through threatenings and the portrayal of dire punishments that would be inflicted upon them should they continue to forget Him.
And, thus, it was that Saul sought my help and advice. He thought that not only had God forsaken him, but that he had forsaken God, and he expected the punishment that he though, would result from such neglect to serve and obey God. And he thought, that as I was in the spirit world and probably very close to God, I would exercise some influence and have the great threatened calamity arrested. Be he did not seek me through love of God, but through fear of his enemies and dread that God would direct His wrath upon him.
So you see, fear was the ruling sentiment that actuated the Jews in my time in their dealings with God, and when that fear was allayed or forgotten - God was forgotten, and only again remembered when danger appeared. Of course, there were many exceptions to this class of Jews, for there were some who really loved God, and that in a way that no fear of wrath or anger on His part formed a part of their love.
So you will see that the laws of Moses were not so much intended to regulate the spiritual or soul part of the Jews, but to control them in their dealings with one another in the practical affairs of life and in their dealings with the heathens and strangers.
The moral laws thus taught were taught for the purpose of making them righteous as between themselves and then, as a consequence, so they thought, they would be righteous towards God. But the great essential to make them one with God by obtaining the Divine Love was missing, and never sought for, and could not then be found for it did not then exist for mankind.
I am now a Christian and know that the Divine Love is a reality and that all men may have it if they will will only seek for it.
Well, the woman of Endor was not a witch and did not practice the black art. She was a good woman possessed of powers to call up the dead, as they were called. She did not engage in practices of doing harm to mortals, such as putting spells upon them or using charms, but she was a true medium and, while not possessed of much spirituality, yet, she was a woman of good morals and had around her many spirits of the higher order whose only desires were to do good to mortals. She was the one who was careful to have no evil spirits come and communicate, and her powers with the higher ones were very great. Had she been of what you call the lower class of mediums, I would never have responded to her call. She was in rapport with men and other spirits whose thoughts were turned to the higher things of the spirit world and, hence, she had no difficulty in having us appear when she desired it for the consolation of help to mortals.
Saul, I had instructed and advised when alive, and naturally after I became a spirit and he needed help, he would seek my advice. In those days, mediums were more numerous than most people suppose, and because of their being so common and of such different kinds, and the most of them engaged in necromancy and evil arts, there were passed strict laws against them pursuing their calling or engaging in the practice of consulting spirits.
But not all were bad and many of them did good in the world, and among these was the woman of Endor, notwithstanding that she has been so vilified and abused by the churches and preachers. You may be surprised when I tell you that she is now living high up in the Celestial Heavens and a redeemed spirit enjoying the Divine Love of God.
Well, I must stop, but I will come again sometime and tell you of the things that I know in reference to these higher spheres. I will say goodnight.
Your friend and brother,
Samuel
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.
Samuel, the Prophet of God of the Old Testament.
I am the same Samuel whom the woman of Endor called from the spirit world to show Saul his doom, and as I come to you tonight, I came to her at that time, only my purpose is not the same, and I am not the same spirit in my qualifications.
I am now a Christian and know what the Divine Love of the Father means, while then, I did not, and was a spirit living in comparative happiness and existing in the consciousness that I had done my work on earth, and was then enjoying the repose of the righteous; for as we understood that word then in both the mortal and spirit worlds, I was a righteous man.
I come to you tonight, because I see that you have been chosen to do the great work of the Master in His efforts to redeem mankind from their lives of sin and error, and to show them the way by which they may partake of the Divine Nature of the Father and obtain immortality.
How much more mankind, and spirits, too, are blessed now than they were when I was a mortal, and for a long time after I became a spirit. My God then and your God now are the same, but His Great Gift of Divine Love was not in existence then as It is now. And so you and all other mortals should realize the great privilege you have because of this Gift and the gift of Jesus to explain and show the Way by which that Love may be obtained, and that freely without mental exercise of a high order, but merely by the longings and aspirations of the soul in its desires to become a part of the Father's Divinity.
I tell you that the ways of God are wonderful and mysterious, and His Plans, while to us may seem to be working slowly, yet, they are working surely and will be accomplished in His Own fullness of time.
I never knew when on earth that God was such a God of Love and Mercy. He was our Jehovah and ruler. He was a God of anger and wrath and a jealous God, as l thought, ever ready to punish those whom He thought to be His enemies with massacre and death. I obeyed Him and performed His work as I understood I should more through fear than love. In fact, love was never with me a weapon or instrument to be used in bringing the disobedient Jew to a compliance with what we thought was the will of God.
In such a method of procuring obedience, the soul was never developed and love was a minor factor in making the Jews obedient to the Father's requirements. Our principal desires were for the success of our earthly undertakings, and when these were accomplished, we had no further use for our God, except to keep Him in reserve for occasions that might arise when, as we thought, we might need His assistance.
I know that Moses commanded the Jews to love God with all their souls and mind and strength, and many of them thought that they were doing so, but in reality their love was limited by the extent of their desires for worldly gain. And this I know, for when they had succeeded in obtaining what they wanted, they forgot to love God; and, hence, we prophets were so often required to instruct them, and so frequently did call them to a recollection of God, and the danger they ran in forgetting Him and His laws. But we seldom attempted to have them call back in their recollections of Him through love, but nearly always through threatenings and the portrayal of dire punishments that would be inflicted upon them should they continue to forget Him.
And, thus, it was that Saul sought my help and advice. He thought that not only had God forsaken him, but that he had forsaken God, and he expected the punishment that he though, would result from such neglect to serve and obey God. And he thought, that as I was in the spirit world and probably very close to God, I would exercise some influence and have the great threatened calamity arrested. Be he did not seek me through love of God, but through fear of his enemies and dread that God would direct His wrath upon him.
So you see, fear was the ruling sentiment that actuated the Jews in my time in their dealings with God, and when that fear was allayed or forgotten - God was forgotten, and only again remembered when danger appeared. Of course, there were many exceptions to this class of Jews, for there were some who really loved God, and that in a way that no fear of wrath or anger on His part formed a part of their love.
So you will see that the laws of Moses were not so much intended to regulate the spiritual or soul part of the Jews, but to control them in their dealings with one another in the practical affairs of life and in their dealings with the heathens and strangers.
The moral laws thus taught were taught for the purpose of making them righteous as between themselves and then, as a consequence, so they thought, they would be righteous towards God. But the great essential to make them one with God by obtaining the Divine Love was missing, and never sought for, and could not then be found for it did not then exist for mankind.
I am now a Christian and know that the Divine Love is a reality and that all men may have it if they will will only seek for it.
Well, the woman of Endor was not a witch and did not practice the black art. She was a good woman possessed of powers to call up the dead, as they were called. She did not engage in practices of doing harm to mortals, such as putting spells upon them or using charms, but she was a true medium and, while not possessed of much spirituality, yet, she was a woman of good morals and had around her many spirits of the higher order whose only desires were to do good to mortals. She was the one who was careful to have no evil spirits come and communicate, and her powers with the higher ones were very great. Had she been of what you call the lower class of mediums, I would never have responded to her call. She was in rapport with men and other spirits whose thoughts were turned to the higher things of the spirit world and, hence, she had no difficulty in having us appear when she desired it for the consolation of help to mortals.
Saul, I had instructed and advised when alive, and naturally after I became a spirit and he needed help, he would seek my advice. In those days, mediums were more numerous than most people suppose, and because of their being so common and of such different kinds, and the most of them engaged in necromancy and evil arts, there were passed strict laws against them pursuing their calling or engaging in the practice of consulting spirits.
But not all were bad and many of them did good in the world, and among these was the woman of Endor, notwithstanding that she has been so vilified and abused by the churches and preachers. You may be surprised when I tell you that she is now living high up in the Celestial Heavens and a redeemed spirit enjoying the Divine Love of God.
Well, I must stop, but I will come again sometime and tell you of the things that I know in reference to these higher spheres. I will say goodnight.
Your friend and brother,
Samuel
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