December 16th, 1914.
Received by:James Padgett
Washington D.C.
I am here, your old partner:
I want to talk a little with you. You have not given me the opportunity before and I commenced to think that you did not wish to hear from me. Well I will try my best and will talk to you about the laws of control of spirits over human beings.
You are not very different from us in your mental or spiritual conditions. We, of course, have no physical bodies but our spiritual bodies are very much like those we had on earth in former shape except that we are young and strong and not affected by those things which you are subject to.
You must know however that we are all affected to a greater or lesser degree by the condition of our soul development. Your wife, for instance, is now a very beautiful spirit both as regards her spiritual body as well as her spiritual soul. She is one of the most beautiful that I come in contact with except your mother and grandmother who are beyond my ability to describe. I am also very different but not so very much changed as I have not yet made very great progress in the things pertaining to the involution (development) of the soul.
My ideas are not very much changed as I still think that I am a man who must depend upon himself for his advancement and that God is a way off somewhere in the heavens and not much interested in my welfare. But your father is now in another plane and I commence to wonder why he should progress and I be left to live in this earth plane, and as I think of this I feel that there must be something more to my being lifted out of my present conditions through my own efforts. I hear what your mother tells me but somehow I do not quite catch the import of her teachings as I believe that her ideas are more or less the result of her training on earth and have no actual foundation for a belief in the help of the Holy Spirit to rest upon, but as I see the wonderful change in your wife and father, I cannot but think that there must be something more than my own efforts at elevating myself is necessary to my rising out of my present condition. So I am thinking deeply on the subject. Your grandmother has also told me of the wonderful work of the Holy Spirit in her case, as well as in that of very many other spirits who were in my condition when they first came to the spirit world and it all makes me think that there is something in this wonderful transformation of these spirits beyond what I have ever thought of.
I will try to learn what it is if I possibly can so if you can help me in any way please do so for I do not want to remain in this state if there is any way for me to progress out of it. You seem to be in great favor with some spirits who have told me that they were benefited by you and hence I say, if you can help me do so.
I have had a spirit come to me who said he was Jesus but I did not believe him even though he was of a most exceeding brightness and loveliness. I do not believe in his being Jesus even though your mother told me that he was. But until I can see that he is the true Jesus I do not care to listen to him, for I have never believed that Jesus is any more than man or that he can save anyone from sin or error. Yet as he seems so good and lovely I sometimes think that maybe I am all wrong and that he is, in truth, what he claims to be. I will, in future, listen more to him and if he can show me the way to higher things as your mother claims he can, I will let his teachings linger in my thoughts for consideration.
I am not very happy as I have told you, but I am studying the laws of the spirit world and find them very interesting to my peculiar make of mind.
I find that you can sense my thoughts and write them as you are now doing, but when you are not in a condition you cannot hear what I say or I cannot cause you to move the pencil in conformity with what I desire you to write. Why this is, I am not yet able to determine, but I am told by those who have given a longer investigation to the subject, that you have certain qualities that must respond to certain qualities that I have and if they do not, then there can be no communication. What these qualities are I do not know, only that they do exist and that the more perfect they are the more successful the writing of them with mine. You call it rapport, but that is not exactly the whole meaning of the condition, for some people seem to have these qualities and yet between them and the spirit there is not any rapport or condition of love or sympathy or what else that may be understood in the term. So you see, we do not exactly know just what is necessary to establish this junction of powers or qualities. I am trying to discover what this is, if possible. You seem to have these qualities to a very large extent and I find no difficulty in coming with a condition that enables me to freely express and you to receive what I wish to communicate.
I will inform you of my efforts just as soon as I am able to discover the real secret of this condition that exists.
You are writing what I really express to you. There is no such thing as the subconscious mind, the only mind that you have is the one that enables you to express what you really know of your own thoughts which do not depend upon what others may infuse into your brain as I am doing now, but which have their origination in your brain and which do not result from exterior minds. What is called the subconscious mind is merely an imaginary thing used by the scientist to denote that which they have no better name to call it by. It is not a part of your self or your brain, but only the image that these wise men use for what they are not able to explain.
So do not think that when something comes to your consciousness that you cannot account for, that it is the subconscious self that produces it. It is not, there are only two sources of thought, one that arises from your own brain and the other that comes to you from outside minds as consciousness which is that condition of being that enables you to feel or know that certain things exist either as actualities or as mere ideas which so far as you know have no real existences.
Consciousness is a realization of being nothing that does not exist or is capable of expressing itself in consciousness. Mere dreams are not really things that lie in consciousness for they do not always have an existence, they are only shadows of what might have an existence. So you see, consciousness is not anything else than the evidence of what exists and of what your brain feels or knows. Do not think that I can tell you everything that you may want to know for I cannot. I am only a student as you are but of course I am an older one and am in a position to possibly learn more than you.
You must not think that memory is an evidence of any subconsciousness because it is just as much of the faculty of the brain as any other part of it that shows its operations. Memory is not separate or distinct from the brain. It is merely that portion which keeps in full existence knowledge or experiences already gained. Memory creates nothing new and when you recall things that you once knew and have forgotten memory only supplies those things from its storehouse which you put there to have filled. So let not the thoughts that memory is anything other than a part of the brain. No subconscious self is involved in memory but memory is its own self and is only a part of the brain as I have said.
There is no middle ground between the brain as a generator or instrument of producing thought and the minds of spirits or others who supply independent thoughts even though sometimes the wise men thought that such thoughts are of their own creation. You seem to be very much interested in this matter and I will give more attention to its study and try to learn the operation of the thoughts of spirits upon the brains of mortals.
No laws that I am acquainted with show that a thought is other than the emanation of what passes through a man's brain and what spirits put into it. I mean that thoughts are not the result of anything but that which arises from the observations of the five senses of a man or from what is suggested by spirits. I have not made myself very clear I know but sometime I will write you more fully and clearly on this subject.
I am engaged in studying the laws of spiritual life and its connection with the earth life. I do not yet know just what that connection is, but I believe that I will very soon. I am sure that you will be much benefited if you will let me tell you occasionally just what your relation as a human is to yourself when you come over here. I do not know that I am very different from what I was on earth except that I am no longer suffering from the limitations which the body placed on me.
My mind is just the same and my ideas of life are nearly the same except that I see that material things are not of very much importance to a man even when he is on earth. You may do everything possible to accumulate and enjoy these things but in a moment you are without them except as your earthly desires and cravings for them may cause you to believe even after you are here, that they are still with you. This is the one great thing that prevents spirits from progressing to higher things. I never cared much for these material things. Yet I find that even the little desires that I had to possess them have held me from progressing to a plane where I am informed intellect rules supreme and when great minds exchange thoughts of moment to both spirit and earth life.
Yes, sometimes he is in the third (spirit) sphere and is a very happy spirit and is much engaged in his studies of spiritual things. He should be able to tell you a great deal about these things if you give him the opportunity. Yes, I see Mrs. Riddle and Bert very often. They are not very happy because they think that the spirit life is not what it should be. They do not realize that they are altogether in the spirit, but have an idea that they are still a part of the earth and consequently, as they cannot take any part in earthly affairs, they are not so happy. Your mother has been talking to them a great deal lately and trying to teach them of the spiritual things that she so believes in but I doubt if they are very much impressed.
No, I cannot help them for I do not believe in such things as I told you.
I will try to do as you say, but it will be hard for me to believe that prayer is anything more than the mere expression of a desire and reaches no higher than a man's own mind and wishes.
I will do as you suggest and if you are right I shall not fail to give it all my earnest and deepest efforts; if you are right I shall never know how to thank you, but you will know just as soon as I know. But in the meantime do not let the thought that I am not doing all that I can to make a better man of myself enter into your mind for I am. I will pray with you as you say. I commence to see what you mean and it seems to me that there is some true philosophy in what you say.
I want to get everything that any of God's children may have and if what you tell me is the only way to get this wonderful happiness, I will try even though my doubts are now mountains high. I will pray with you tonight and try to believe with all my mind and soul.
Yes, I will give my attention to them also and if they tell me what they actually know I will get the happiness which they have, so do what you think is best for me and I will try to have the faith that you speak of.
Yes, your father is very different in his appearance and I wondered what caused it and thought that maybe some peculiar condition of his spiritual body had been created by something which he had learned from his wife or mother-in-law. But I now see that it must have been caused by some other powers of influence and I want it too, if it is for me.
Yes, I see that you are very much interested in not only myself but in them and I will try my best to obtain what you tell me of, so that I may help them as you say. I know that I was not given to spiritual things on earth, but I did not see the necessity of being so, for I thought that when I died I would not need anything but my own help to live a life of comparative happiness. But if you are right, I will soon know the difference, for I shall do as you say. I will pray and ask God to give me faith to believe that He is my saviour from sin.
Yes, I see that there must be something in it. They are all claiming to have the love, but myself, so I must be wrong and they right. You are right, let me think of what you have told me and I will soon know if I am to be like the rest of the band.
Yes, I know that you loved me even when on earth and that thought has helped me to believe that what you tell me to believe, and that what you tell me now is the outgrowth of your love. I am so glad that I have you to think of me and show me the way and now I will say goodnight.
Your one-time friend,
A. G. Riddle