July 8th, 1915.
Received: by James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, Socrates, the Greek.
I knew that you thought of me and I was attracted by your thought.
If such 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 there is a rapport growing out of your soul qualities. I am now a believer in the Christian doctrine of the soul's immortality, and in the teachings of Jesus as to the way to obtain the Divine Love of the Father, as you are, and, hence, our qualities of soul are similar.
I am now a follower of the Master and believe in his Divine mission on earth, although he had not come to earth when I lived. After I became a spirit I realized my belief in the continuity of life after death, and lived in the spirit world a great many years after Jesus came before I learned and believed his larger truth of immortality.
Of course, when I taught I had only a hope which was almost a certainty that I should continue to live through all eternity, but I had no other foundation for that belief 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, but had never had any personal experiences in that direction, but I readily believed it to be true.
My conviction of the truth of a future continuance was so strong that it amounted to a certainty, and hence when I died, I comforted Plato and my other friends and disciples, by telling them that they must not say that Socrates will die but rather that his body will die; his soul will live forever in fields Elysian. They believed me, and Plato afterwards enlarged on my belief.
And Socrates did not die, but as soon as his breath left the body, which was not very painful even though the fatal hemlock did its work sure 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 full of light and happiness, for I was met by some of my disciples who had passed over before me and who had progressed very much in the 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 then possessed of what I 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.
And as I continued to live, 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 over and our reunions were always joyous. Plato came and Cato and others.
And the ages went by, and 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; but 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.
But 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 just what the conditions of their souls were, but, as I observed the condition of the soul determines the appearances of the spirit, I did not perceive that 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, and I commenced to make inquiries and was told that it was one of the Soul Spheres in which the great ruler or Master was a spirit called Jesus, who had, since my coming to the spirit world, established a New Kingdom, and was the chosen son of God in whom he lived and had his being; and that 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 Love had been given to men 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. That he was the greatest true son of this God, and that in no other way than the one shown by this son 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 benefitted by seeking this way and this Love; and after awhile 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 this Soul Sphere, yet the inhabitants of that Soul Sphere could come into our spherewithout let or hindrance.
And I sometimes met and conversed with some of these inhabitants; and on one occasion I met one called John, who was a most beautiful and luminous spirit, and in our conversation he told me of this Divine Love of his God, and of the Great Love and mission of Jesus, and showed me some of the truths taught by Jesus, and the way to obtain this Divine Love, and urged me to seek for it.
Strange to me, there were not any of the intellectual qualities 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, 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, which 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 never before was in my soul, and a happiness that all my intellectual pursuits had never been able to supply.
Well, 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 Sphere, and what I saw is beyond description.
I met Jesus, and 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; but it is 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. But I will come to you sometime in the not distant future and tell you of some of the truths which I have learned.
Your friend and brother,
Socrates
the one time Greek philosopher but now a Christian.