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— SOCRATES —

(469 - 399 B.C.)
 

Message    1

 


The Greek philosopher writes of his experiences
and progress in the spirit world

July 8, 1915

 

I am here, Socrates the Greek.

I knew that you thought of me, and I was attracted by your thought. If such a spirit is in rapport with you or has a similar soul quality, the soul condition is the great medium of attraction. I have been with you before, and we have a rapport due to the development your soul qualities.

I am now a believer in the doctrine of the soul’s immortality and in the teachings of Jesus as to the way to obtain the divine love of God, as you are, and, hence, our qualities of soul are similar. I am a follower of the Master and believe in his divine mission, although he had not come to earth in my time. I had lived in the spirit world a great many years after Jesus came before I learned and believed his larger truth of immortality.

After I became a spirit, I realized my belief in the continuity of life after death, but when I taught, of course I had only a hope, that was almost a certainty, that I should continue to live through all eternity. I had no real foundation for that belief other than the deductions from my reasoning powers and the observations of the workings of nature. I had heard of the visitations of the spirits of the departed, and although I never had any personal experiences in that direction I readily believed it to be true. My conviction in the truth of a future continuance was so strong that it amounted to a certainty, and hence, when I was dying, I comforted Plato and my other friends and disciples by telling them that they must not say Socrates will die, rather that his body will die and his soul will live forever in Fields Elysian. They believed me, and Plato afterwards enlarged on my beliefs.

Socrates did not die, for as soon as his breath left the body, which was not very painful even though the fatal hemlock did its work surely and quickly, he went into the spirit world a living entity full of the happiness that the realizations of his beliefs gave him.

My entrance into the spirit world was not a dark one but one full of light and happiness, for I was met by some of my disciples who had passed over before me and had progressed very much in their intellectual development. I then thought that my place of reception was the heaven of good spirits, for there were good spirits to meet me and carry me to my home. I was possessed with the thought that I was in the home of the blessed, and I continued there for many years and enjoyed the exchange of minds and the feasts of reason.

As my spirit life continued, I progressed, until, at last, I entered the highest intellectual sphere and became a beautiful and bright spirit, so they told me, and taught the things of a mind developed. I met many minds of great power of thought and beauty, and my happiness was beyond my conception when on earth. Many of my old friends and disciples came, and our reunions were always joyous. Plato came and Cato and others. As the ages went by, I continued in my life of intellectual enjoyment and profit with many spirits developed in their minds and powers of thought, until our existence was a continuous feast of bright and momentous thoughts interchanged.

I traversed the spheres in search of knowledge and information without limitation and found the principles of many laws of the spirit world. I found in many spheres spirits who said they were the old Hebrew prophets and teachers, and they were still teaching of their Hebrew God, who they claimed was the only God of the universe and who had made of their nation his favorite people. However, I did not find that they were much different from the rest of us; I mean what they called the “spirits of the pagan nations”. They were not superior to us in intellect, and they lived in no higher spheres than we lived in, and I could not learn that their morality was any more exalted than was ours.

However, they insisted that they were God’s favorite people and were, in their own estimation, superior to the rest of us and lived in a community all to themselves. I did not know the condition of their souls, and, as I had observed, the condition of the soul determines the appearance of the spirit, and I did not perceive their appearances were any more beautiful or godlike than were ours, and I concluded that their God was no better or greater than was ours. No one that I could find had seen any God, and I had not, so who or what God was became merely a matter of speculation, and I preferred to have the God of my own conception to the one that they claimed to have.

For long years my life went on in this way until in my wanderings I found that there was a sphere I could not enter. I commenced to make inquiries and was told that it was one of the soul spheres in which the ruler or master was a spirit called Jesus who had, since my coming to the spirit world, established a new kingdom. He was the chosen son of this God in whom he lived and had his being, and only those who had received the divine love of this God could enter this sphere or become inhabitants thereof.

I then sought for more information, and, continuing my search, I learned that this divine love had been given to mortals and spirits at the time of the birth of Jesus on earth, and that it was free for all who might seek it in the way taught by him. He was the greatest true son of this God, and in no other way than the one shown by him, could this love be obtained or the soul spheres entered.

I thereafter thought of this new revelation and let many years go by before I became convinced that I might learn something and become benefited by seeking this way and this love. After a while I began to seek, but you must know that I and spirits like me, who lived in the spheres where the mind furnished our pursuits and enjoyments, could not enter what was called the “soul spheres”, yet the inhabitants of these spheres could come into our sphere without let or hindrance.

Sometimes I met and conversed with some of the inhabitants, and on one occasion I met one called John, who was a most beautiful and luminous spirit. In our conversation he told me of this divine love of his God and of the great love and mission of Jesus. He showed me some of the truths taught by Jesus and the way to obtain this divine love, and he urged me to seek for it. Strange to me, there were not any of the intellectual qualities were required to be exercised in seeking for this love, only the longings and aspirations of my soul and the exercise of my will. It seemed so simple, so easy, that I commenced to doubt whether there was any reality in what I was told, and I hesitated to follow the advice of this spirit, John. But he was, so loving, and his countenance was so wonderful, that I concluded to try, and I commenced to pray to this God and tried to exercise faith as I was told.

After a while the most surprising of all things to me, I commenced to have new and unaccountable sensations, and with them a feeling of happiness that I had never experienced before. This made me think that there must be some truth in what I was told, and I continued to pray the harder and believe with more surety. I continued to make these efforts until, at last, the great awakening came that I had in me a love that had never before been in my soul, and a happiness that all my intellectual pursuits had never been able to supply.

It is not necessary to tell you further in detail my experience in getting and developing this love, but I became filled with it and at last entered the soul spheres, and what I saw is beyond description. I met Jesus, and I had no conception that there could be such a glorious, magnificent, and loving spirit. He was so gracious and seemed to be so much interested in my welfare and progress in the truths that he taught. Can you wonder that I am a Christian and follower of him?

Thereafter, I learned what true immortality is, and that I am a part of that immortality. I see how far short my conception and teaching of immortality were. Only this divine love can give to spirits immortality, and anything less is but the shadow of a hope, such as I had.

I am now in a sphere that is not numbered, high in the celestial heavens and not far from some of the spheres where the disciples of the Master live. I am still progressing, and that is the beauty and glory of the soul development, where there is no limit, while my intellectual development was limited.

I must stop now, as I have written more than I should have done. I will come to you sometime in the not distant future and tell you of some of the truths that I have learned.

Your friend and brother, Socrates,                                          
the onetime Greek philosopher, but now a Christian.