On the Origin of Species

To begin with―

In the very, very long ago, when form on the earth was only just beginning to exist, the Great Almighty God developed His wonderful scheme―that all created things should ultimately become part of Himself. 

At the first, there was no such thing as evil because the form on the earth―though alive―was not a real intelligence―or even made up of separate entities. 

That took place very gradually indeed and took millions of years to accomplish. 

First of all came creatures that just crawled about―

Later on, some things that stood upright and were of enormous height and rather like huge jellyfish―with just the very faintest glimmer of intelligence in them. 

Again―after many years―beings came to be developed with definite limbs and heads with brains inside them―though absolutely undeveloped. 

Then was the time for teaching, so the Great Almighty God sent wonderful spirits from other planets to work on the earth and teach these rudimentary, uncivilised egos. 

They must have had a disagreeable job because these creatures were awfully hard to teach―

The earth was not at all a nice place to live on then. 

It was half-dark, thick and steamy―quite unlike what it is today. 

As time went on, these earth creatures gradually became more developed, but only on certain lines. 

They were animals―not men―as we understand the word. 

They came to realise that if one was stronger than another, he could get more to eat and brute force was their way up. 

You will understand how absolutely impossible it was at that time to teach those egos anything spiritual at all. 

The Great God knew that and patiently watched the evolution of all those souls. 

For―mind you―they were souls from the very beginning. 

At last came the time when they were developed enough to be considered a nation and then one of these great spirits took the office of king and rifled in the ordinary way. 

But in between all this development there had been very long rests―when evolution stopped entirely―and all the egos on the earth were put to a kind of sleep and the great spirits returned to their real homes. 

 I am afraid this will sound nonsense to you, but it is so hard for me to explain. 

You see, do you not, that evil, as it is called, had its origin in the very earliest dim ages of the world's history and was simply a finding out of the egos of their own powers. 

At that time, they had no conception of good and evil. 

They simply found out that they could obtain certain benefits to themselves by behaving in a certain way. 

So for thousands and thousands of years, all the egos on the earth were a cruel and savage race―simply because it was their development. 

Then gradually some became a little better, and the Great God knew then that the time had come for further teaching. 

And so it went on―

Age after age―

Until the earth reached that wonderful stage on its journey called the Golden Age. 

That was the time when the egos had arrived at the stage when they could distinguish between good and evil―when their King―the Manu―was a mighty spirit who ruled his people wisely and well and who was in direct communication with spirits on this side.

That state of things lasted a very long time and then came events, which led to the downfall of the people of that time. 

Evil conquered, and the great majority of the inhabitants of the earth were drowned in a mighty flood. 

The Manu had done his very best for the people, and seeing that the doom was inevitable, he took the remnant of the people who were still trying to follow the upward path and led them to a place of safety. 

Evil only becomes evil to be responsible for, and avoided, when knowledge of higher powers comes, too. 

Up until then, although the results were the same, it was not evil, as you understand it, but merely a natural consequence of the primitive struggles of the primitive ego.

―The Witness

Before you are earthborn.

Having visited the pure little ones in their spiritual home, and the poor sick and maimed ones in their hospital―or place of healing, the spirit author's [Letters from a Spirit] thoughts turn towards the creation of these spirits—

I longed to know if the pre-existent state was a reality―or only existed in the imaginations of sundry good people.

My boys told me that surely spirits were made―are―of the All-Father who is literally the Father of us all. 

They sought permission, for which we had to wait, but finally, we went to see the baby souls, as I cannot help calling them, before they are earthborn.

I cannot express how strange and awful it is to me to think of my being a literal child of the Most High―created and living in a spirit-state, then embodied in the flesh for a while, and then returning to a spiritual state again. 

And again, the mystery of one being in this pre-existent condition of different societies from which we are born. 

Is this the reason for the attraction that we feel for some persons whom we meet on earth? 

An attraction so strong and persistent that all other ties seem weak beside it. 

Are we spiritual brethren from the same home though in the flesh aliens and strangers?

It is simply awful to think of what mysteries we are. 

Wrapt in the unknown from the beginning of our existence to the end―only there is no end. 

How could we endure it―only that we know that underneath are the everlasting arms?

I do not know where is this pre-existent place of spirits. 

No more do I know how I got there―or to any place. 

Only we are there, and there is none of the swishing through the air that I thought there must be in a spirit's progress.

As we came to the place, I saw―first of all―a filmy, rosy mist like the loveliest of sunset clouds―delicate, elusive, wreaths of floating colour—but radiant all through, as if the brightness was all inside instead of being reflected.

It grew brighter as we advanced until it was like a sea of rosy brightness. 

Billow upon billow of softest down would not express the delicacy of these lovely folds of misty light. 

There were shapes of flowers all through these cloudfolds and exquisite fragrance and colours we know nothing of on earth―of which none have ever dreamed―so pure and faint and spirit-like.

There were forms of lovely women, so rarefied that they looked like shapes of air.

My boys said they were the angels of the inmost heaven who alone are pure enough to be given charge of these God-souls.

They were ethereal—like a vision of pure light—if we could imagine light in a form—wrapped and swathed and floating in rosy ether. 

They—like all the rest whom we see here—suit their glory to their uses―or at work, to use plain terms, but they are beyond all conception of loveliness then.

Gerald told me that he had been given a vision of that heaven and it was a glory of burning light too intense for his endurance even to look upon, but when these holy ones came to care for the little souls, they left behind the burning glory and showed ineffable tenderness.

It was like nothing that I had ever seen―or imagined.

There were no solid-looking habitations, trees―or even flowers. 

But if one could imagine a sea of loveliest rose mist, waves and billows perfectly alive with the exquisite baby forms and faces—no, not a mass, that sounds too heavy, but they were everywhere, floated and enwrapped and upborne by the cloudy rose light until whether baby was cloud―or cloud was baby, one could scarcely tell.

I had to see all that was possible, for I could not be sure of ever coming again, so I looked very anxiously to perceive if the wee souls had any real difference—or were simply forms of purest life—

As the thought crossed my mind, a soft billow of mist came close to me—for we were obliged to stop a little way off—and as the folds parted, in the midst was such a marvellous angel of a woman. 

Clinging to her were a dozen tiny forms of every shade of complexion, eyes and hair that belong to one race. 

Clear blue eyes, roguish black ones, grey and brown—any shade and tint and hair like sunshine, brown and black.

I said It seems that complexion is not an accident.

No, Gerald answered— 

Everyone is to eternity in this respect as the Father creates them and the clothing of flesh receives from the spirit its hue and colour.

And I asked—

Are any more refined than others?

No, dear Mother, Gerald answered—

They are all God's children and of His spirit. 

As He is Love Itself,—Wisdom itself—these little ones are forms of love and wisdom—only He is Infinite and Uncreate, and they are finite—the creations of His hand.

How triumphantly the thought shot through me—

If this is our origin, there can be but one end.

And the boys looking at me cried—

Why Mother your face shines like the sun—a thought of the dear Lord's must have come to you—

I could not help it but broke out—

Hallelujah to the Father of all spirits. 

Blessed be His Holy Name.

The air had been full of the faintest murmurings of music—unearthly sweet—but as I spoke, a peal of sound—soft and thrilling—but so powerful and full that it was like a strong wind came sweeping through the misty, rosy clouds, and I heard—I do really believe—the voices of the very angels about the inmost glory.

I was faint with ecstasy and realised that my body was much too gross for that sphere, as my earthly one would have been for my present home.

The light grew brilliant, painfully so to me though it was soft too—a very rapture of rose and gold and every tiny soul chanted like a little silver flute to the praise of the Most High. 

Then something covered us in like thick, snowy clouds, and we were borne swiftly away.

I cannot bear such happiness without a reaction yet was thrilling through with a rapture so intense that it was a pain, and so we went floating away.

It was my first experience in this mode of progressing and if my heavenly boys had not been one on each side with their strong arms about me, I think that I should have been a little afraid.

Suddenly, I saw close before me a noble face with deep tender eyes and such a loving smile. 

A little sorrowful too, I fancied.

I looked at the boys and their faces were fairly radiant. 

A feeling of unspeakable peace and awe came over me, as I thought―

It is The Christ! 

A voice of perfect modulations answered―

No, my sister, only one of His lowliest ministers. 

You have unsettled questions in your mind and I am come to answer you.

So I said―

I cannot help thinking how pitiful it is that those pure child souls must pass through the martyrdom of earthly existence.

He answered―

There is no other road than that which He took who is the Way and the Truth and the Life. 

These little souls are but thoughts of God and unembodied even in spiritual forms. 

They exist in the Divine―or Creative Sphere, but they are only recipients of life and joy. 

They have no ability to perform uses―or to do good to anyone. 

They are forms of innocence, but not innocence itself because they are not capable of exercising choice. 

They are held in purity, but do not choose it―hence are not in the exercise of freedom. 

They receive their freedom with the nature derived from human parents. 

I do not mean the body—that is but a garment—but a plane of natural life, which is capable of experience―capable of acting and choice―hence freedom―thus each acquires a separate and individual existence.

I enquired―

And the little ones who but breathe earthly air and are gone?

They have the human nature for a plane of reception and can be tempted, resist and conquer, he replied, as in those who pass through an earthly experience. 

None are wanting in the germs of all possible spiritual gifts, but those who develop one special gift on earth are stronger―or more powerful in that direction than those who have received simply enough human embodiment to open the planes of life to them. 

For this reason, the physical death of children is a disorderly thing and is only permitted―not ordained. 

The instinct—as it is called—of parental love will fight for a child's life when it is all in vain, but it is really the perception of an implanted truth, which desires the perfection of life for its own child. 

The children are holy—as you have witnessed in those beside you—but they will not to eternity be as strong in some respects as if their earthly lives had been lived out to maturity. 

There is always a difference―not in purity, but in intellectual development. 

Nor is there among this class any special gift, which has been strengthened by earthly exercise and development. 

For instance, the genius, as it is called, of a musician exists, as do all germs of perfection in all created souls, but it has had no plane of human life to develop upon and hence remains a gift―or germ―not a speciality.

I said―

Perfect through suffering—that is the rule—

He answered with a heavenly smile―

He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

But then I began to feel pitiful for the dear ones who died early, and he said so gently—

There is no injustice done, my sister. 

The children who pass away are not punished for the lack of strength, which makes human life impossible. 

If they are not notably and exceptionally strong in any direction, they are pure forms of life, and blessedness thrills through them with no remembrance of pain. 

If they are not kings and priests in the Kingdom, they are those whose angels do always behold the face of the Father in Heaven. 

They have the innocence of ignorance, and the adult―the innocence of wisdom, but all are alike in one respect. 

The Life of the Lord fills them and pulses through them and they are alike holy and happy. 

But as one star differs from another star in glory, so must it be in the Celestial Kingdom in which the Lord dwells—the inmost of all.

He was gone, and we floated on in such perfect peace and serenity, as belongs to this life of ours. 

Through exquisite vibrations of music and clouds of fragrance until Gerald said softly―

Mother, that was one of the angels of the House of David.

And that is your society? I enquired.

Yes, they answered together―

He gave us leave to take you there because he told us that you would never be satisfied until you knew all about children and all have to be satisfied―or the promise is broken.

Oh, how poor and fragmentary this showing of mine is. 

How little it expresses of the flood of illumination, which surged and enfolded me. 

But how can I express what no human language can convey―

How to describe the indescribable―or give what cannot be communicated, but in bits and fragments.