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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.
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