Schools in Spirit Life

One marked feature of Spiritual Life is that system of united work or study, which spirits call the “Schools.” As the spirit author* illustrates—

I speak of myself as belonging to the School of Giotto and there are the Schools of Paul, of Zoroaster, of Howard, etc. At least these names would best represent our idea to you. They come about in this way—when the man begins to look round him and ask himself to what use he had best put his new powers, he begins to think of those things of which he was most ignorant when on earth; he is then drawn by a law of natural attraction to some who are pursuing the same course and he finds among them those who have acquired knowledge that has been handed down from the long past or who are learning by practical life to make such knowledge their own.

Our School, for instance, was in past ages begun by a few who had been drawn to Giotto when he came over. Led and taught by him, they laid up a store of knowledge which should be for others like the stream of health pouring into the veins when one goes from impure to purer air. As there are always some who are studying the beautiful, so there are always students in our university. Of course, I have never seen Giotto, he has long ago passed over but it is the spirit and power of Giotto which, like the prophet’s mantle rests upon this place.

Again, there are some who, for many reasons, do not find a home, a domestic life congenial to them; yet such need not live solitary; that would be in most cases hurtful. In place of a home, they seek the companionship of those who are walking in a similar path and for months or years they live and work together.

I, myself, had given little thought on earth to beauty; had thought its study only an excuse for an idle or inexact order of mind. I had, when I passed over, a great wish to make up for this neglect. Being drawn to these friends, I said—“Teach me what beauty is; let me learn what are its lines and curves; show me how to produce its forms so as to give satisfaction to myself and pleasure to others.” There was much narrowness and self-conceit in this request. I thought “ Now I shall know the true canon of beauty and surely I shall appreciate it so well that I shall be an apt scholar.” One of our leaders impressed on me a look of divine compassion—“We will teach you,” he said, “or rather you shall teach yourself. Go out from this home away yonder in the distance; live there alone and depend on the exertions of your willpower to produce food and shelter for yourself” I went, of course, knowing there was some good reason for his command. I found what seemed a desolate barren spot. I sowed and reaped; removed obstructions; studied nature and then after a long time felt myself incited to return. “Now go,” said my guide, “to yonder city; live there.” I found in the part to which I seemed drawn a home full of suffering and deformity—or at least incompleteness of nature—but love was there and in the midst of their anguish each tried to give a cup of cold water to the other. When I returned again, my friend said—“Beauty is not a matter of angles and curves; it is not an abstract idea. It comes only through the struggle of the lower with the higher or rather it is in the higher and can best be seen when that is breaking through the lower. You brought beauty out of the earth and you saw love bringing beauty out of pain; you have learnt much; now abide here for a time and help others; then you shall go to fresh fields later on.”

Like ourselves, spirits cannot be in two places at the same time. When spirits speak of “going and coming,” their power of passing to and fro is greatly increased, as is also the amount of thought and work which can be compressed into a short space of time.

The spirit author continues her narrative—

My next change was to what I have called the School of Howard, for I felt drawn to take some active share in the work of helping and healing. I was received with expressions of pleasure and one said to me—We are just in need of help from one in your state of advancement. There is a home near here where the life lived seems a beautiful one to some of us and repulsive to others. You know what true beauty is; tell us if the repulsiveness is in the home we speak of or in ourselves.”

Then they made me see, as in a vision, this home; I followed in spirit the lives of its inhabitants and I saw that the ugliness was caused by want of true insight in the observer. Yes; we dare not here endeavour to help another until we are sure that he needs that help; often we find that there is a beam in our own eye, rather than a mote in his. I now began to see more clearly that knowledge was not a thing of the intellect at all and I returned home humbler and wiser. There is no need to go here and there to seek for work, it lies at one’s right hand, ready whenever there is sufficient daylight in our spirit to enable us to work aright. Truly it is often night with us when no man can work.

You will see by what I have said about “Schools” that, though they resemble in a few points your universities, art schools and unions of men for kindred purposes, yet we learn and work in other ways from yours; ways that may seem less direct but are really the truest. We do not separate art from life, beauty from the soul, nor do we separate work from beauty or life from art. The outer and inner correspond and we only know any art really when we have translated it into action.

There are also many communities for other purposes; for cultivating the earth—for though always beautiful because unstained yet it is barren in some directions and needs culture that it may yield delight to the psychic senses. We are not obliged to go to all such centres, for if need be, we can be taught much by others who cause true pictures to arise before our vision so that we can see all the processes and then put them into action. Nor are we confined to those with whom we live for fellowship and intercourse. It is true we have both more fully with them but if need arises I can be made to hear and see what goes on in any sphere and can communicate and be communicated with. Then again, we listen with delight to the talks and ripe experience of some whose nature it is to give out to his fellows; someone who on earth, probably, was a poet or a preacher. He, in speaking to us can see exactly the effect produced upon us by his words and he directs and modifies his speech accordingly—we answer him, as it were, without interrupting him and he need therefore never be out of harmony with his audience.

* I AWOKE! Conditions of Life on the other Side, Author Unknown, David Stott, London, 1895