March 29th, 1915.
Received by James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, Helen:
Well, you have received a letter from the Judge. He was so anxious to write that we thought it would do him good to try as it would make him realize more sensibly that he is now a spirit only and also strengthen him.
Well, you may not think so but it is a fact. With many spirits when their surroundings are good and much spirit help is given them they can almost as soon as they leave the body overcome their functions of mind and do things that you little expect. The Judge was prepared, to some extent, to understand this power of communication and when we all assisted him with our powers he tried successfully to write to you. He is not yet very strong but soon will be and then I have no doubt he will want to write to you often, but of course we cannot permit him to because he is not in rapport with our band. He has not very much spiritual development and the conditions that surround him are not such as would be in accord with our conditions, and hence we will have to refuse to let him write very often but he can communicate through some of us.
Well, he is dark in appearance as he necessarily must be until he gets more enlightenment of soul. He will undoubtedly suffer because of the sins he committed when on earth, and will pay the penalty until he finds the true way to God's Love and forgiveness. Of course he has one advantage over many spirits who come over bringing the results of their life on earth and that is that he has some idea as to the way to salvation. You and Dr. Stone told him when on earth that he must turn his thoughts to spiritual things and while he did not understand just what you meant, yet, such advice had some influence on him and will cause him to try to learn what was meant, and having Rose and the rest of us to enlighten him, he will progress more rapidly to these higher things and the more rapid his progress the sooner his suffering will leave him.
He is now commencing to realize that as he sowed so must he reap. While Rose is with him a great deal and loves him and tries to help him, yet all that isn't sufficient to prevent his memory from scourging him because of the life he led on earth.
But we all pray for him and try to show him the way and he is ready to believe and is commencing already to pray to the Father.
So you see, you must all sooner or later face this great crisis and the better prepared you are to meet it, the less will be your sufferings and the more happiness you will experience.
Yes, it was Laura - she is very unhappy. I had never met her before and your mother said that she had not either. You see in this world family ties do not always bring spirits together. When the relationship is distant the spirits lose interest in relations merely because they are relations, and find themselves attracted to spirits who have like qualities and relations.
This relationship counts for very little in the spirit world of itself and when we meet our loved ones of earth, before they come over we stay with them for a while and then if there are no other attractions than mere relationship, we gradually separate. This is the law of attraction, and we are compelled to obey it. So that when on earth mortals sing of meeting again on the other shore to part no more, they will find that they are mistaken. They will meet but, unless conditions compel it, they will part again and may never meet ever in the spirit world.
Love is the thing which determines the relationship and place of living in this world; I mean similar loves existing between spirits. No spirit loves another after a little while merely because that other is a mother or father or wife or brother, but loves it because that spirit has a similar love of the beautiful and true that it has.
So you see relationship after the first meeting and living together a little while determines nothing.
Of course while the child or father of mother or sister or brother remains in the earth life the spirit relative will love them and watch over them and try to help them in every way. Especially will the mother for ties among son or daughter, and this is in accordance with the maternal law of love. But when that father or son too, becomes a spirit then the law of love as it were changes and like loves like, be there a natural relationship or not. This, I know, seems contrary to what mortals usually believe and accept as a fact, but it is true.
When my children come over my love for them will not be the same as it is now. Then they will find that their love will probably, after a time, turn elsewhere and it will be only another in memory for our loves may take entirely different directions. And this love while for the moment may seem unnatural in its workings, yet it is not, for happiness comes with love reciprocated and love comes only in reciprocation of its own kind.
We do not think that you will be forever with your children or parents or any other relative forever for that may not be so. If that relative has like attractions that you have then you may be together as long as that attraction lasts. But suppose that you make greater progress in your spiritual or even in your natural development, than the other spirit, it cannot be supposed for a moment that you will determine the results of your development in order to stay with that other spirit. No, that would be a violation of the law of progress and you could not and would not want to delay your upward movement.
So the idea that when we meet in the spirit world we meet to part no more is not correct and is contrary to the laws that determine the condition and place of habitation of spirits.
I know this of my own experience. My parents are in a lower sphere than I am and have much less spiritual development, and while I visit them sometimes, set they have not the attraction for me that other spirits to whom I have no relationship. And why is this, not because I do not care for my parents as such, but because the objects and extent of their loves are different from mine.
The main fact that they are my parents does not cause me to want to be with them all the time. I could not so desire if, as you might say, I wanted to. Love is the attraction and love must demand a likeness in a spiritual sense of the objects of its love.
The time may come when I will never again see my parents and may forget that they ever had an existence. I say may, but I hope not, for I desire that sometime they will progress so that they may be a similar condition to my own in spiritual development and then, of course, we will live in the same peace and necessity will meet and enjoy one another's company. But not because we are parents and daughter but because our loves are similar and our attractions are like.
This is a matter that few mortals understand and it may well be that they do not because the love existing between many a relative is a beautiful thing and one that causes much happiness and self preservation. There is nothing on earth like the mother's love and no provision of God's blessings for mortals equals this great gift of a Mother's love. And so with the other natural loves to a lesser degree.
But as Jesus said, "He that doeth the will of my Father is my mother and brother and sister".
So you must realize that what you and the natural love of relations is only for the earth life and a short time afterwards. Each individual is in and of himself a complete unit depending not on relationship to others, and as such must find his place in the great eternity which must be determined by the development and progress of his own soul in expectation of what may become of the souls of his earth relations. He is attracted only by souls of similar development and will find his home in the company of such souls irrespective of the question of natural relationship.
I have written enough for tonight and must stop.
So with all my love, I am
Your own true and loving,
Helen