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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Soulmate, Myself:
The Wedding Song
Epilogue, Part I
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A Consistent Message from Many Spirit Guides
The conjunctive “well then” of The Wedding Song’s verse three signals a unitive expression, an internal harmony, of the song’s message. But this singularity of mission is also reflected in many of the Spirit Guides’ channeled writings over the last 300 years. Other messengers from Heaven speak of the same wonder.
The Wedding Song is no “period piece” but, in its timelessness, represents a settled state of mind – more of lament than rejoicing – of the Guides concerning what they deem to be the calamitous state of marriage in our world and its destructive effect upon the human spirit.
After finishing the writing of this book, I happened to be rereading “Spirit Teachings (1883),” channeled by William Stainton Moses. With The Wedding Song still fresh in my thoughts, I was amazed to perceive several points of confluence. I’d like to share these with you now as they both illuminate and confirm the message of The Wedding Song.
The Reluctant Messenger
The Reverend William Stainton Moses did not like what was happening to him. His newly discovered mediumistic abilities brought him into conflict with the Church and long-held views of the Christian tradition. For some time he resisted the messages of the Guides, debated with them, accused them of diabolical intent. Eventually, however, he had to admit that his own “automatic writings” represented a high degree of wisdom and could not be easily dismissed.
The following excerpts from “Spirit Teachings” will help us in our investigation of The Wedding Song.
William Moses: "I asked whether marriage ties were perpetuated [in the next world]."
Spirit Guides: "That depends entirely on similarity of taste and equality of development. In the case of this being attained, the spirits can progress side by side... All things with us are subordinated in the education of the spirit... no tie can be perpetuated which is not a help to progress... The loving bonds which encircle such souls are the greatest incentive to mutual development, and so the relations are perpetuated."
Authentic Marriage is Meant to Develop Us Spiritually
The marriage bond is perpetuated if (1) its participants know a “similarity of taste and equality of development.” We bring to mind Adam’s enthusiasm with first sight of Eve: “You are just like me! – you are soulmate, myself!”
Notice, also, (2) a primary emphasis by the Guides on marriage as aid to the soul’s evolvement: “All things with us are subordinated in the education of the spirit… no tie can be perpetuated which is not a help to progress.”
The Worldly Marriage as “Buying and Selling” versus “Holiest Law of Life”
Spirit Guides: "Some of your more advanced reformers have seen the vast importance which attaches to the subject of marriage... [This subject is] intimately bound up with the great questions of disease, crime, poverty, insanity, which vex and disturb us in our dealings with men… the infamous buying and selling, the social slavery into which you have degraded the holiest and divinest law of life."
The Guides of William Stainton Moses here equate the worldly marriage with “buying and selling” which very closely approximates the egoic “giving and receiving” of The Wedding Song, John and Mary’s domestic-business contract. We gasp at the Guides’ weighty antithetical phrase, marriage as “the holiest and divinest law of life.” This ironical positioning of thought reminds us of Jesus’ words when he forcibly cleared the temple. Taken aback by the stark contrast of base merchandizing versus sacred purpose, he asserted: “You have made this house of prayer into a den of thieves” (see Editor’s Word Gems essay under “Believe,” Mark 11).
We are appalled by the Guides’ harsh evaluation: “[This subject of inauthentic marriage is] intimately bound up with the great questions of disease, crime, poverty, insanity, which vex and disturb us in our dealings with men.”
Granted, John and Mary tell their “little white lies” in order to “catch a fish in the sea” and land a mate, but is it as bad as the Guides would have it? Dramatic words are these, the “disease, crime, poverty, insanity,” which, the Guides insist, flow from the inauthentic marriage. Instinctively, some would rise to defend John and Mary against these seemingly exaggerated charges.
Are they exaggerated? The Guides stand on a very high mountain and enjoy a wide-latitude perspective denied to us down here in the “muck-and-mire trenches.”
Spirit Guides: "You are ignorant in respect of the world of causes, and foolish in respect of what you do in your world in providing conditions favourable to crime and sin. Your ignorance perpetuates these conditions, and renders it more hard for us to impress upon you the true principles which should govern the origination and development of life upon your globe and the cultivation of spiritual progress."
“degeneration of the race is inevitable when marriage is debased”
All of this jeremiad is well in line with the afterlife testimony of Frederic Myers (transmitted via Juliet Goodenow, Vanishing Night, 1923). Professor Myers employs the same stern and dire language regarding the state of marriage in our world:
"Marriage is the uniting of twin souls. This is the only spiritual marriage and the only marriage that survives bodily death… The divine origin of man and his companion, woman [is metaphorically presented to us in the Genesis account]: 'bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.' This creation typifies the relationship between man and wife. The oneness of marriage is essential to harmony, and therefore to family life... The cradle of the human family was wrought in perfection, calculated to preserve the beauty of the form divine; of the sanctity of love the world is deeply cognizant; of all the mistakes and the sorrows of ill-guided unions and unhappy homes … of all that make up the sorrows of life, this is the most lamentable and far-reaching in its effect on life and society. Degeneration of the race is inevitable when marriage is debased, for out of the consecrated home comes strength and fortitude for whatsoever life offers to man."
Denying the Oneness of the Divine Essence
Frederic Myers, with the Guides, sees what we do not see. After listing many of the sins and sorrows of humankind, we are moved by the extreme gravity of his judgment: “…of all that make up the sorrows of life, this is the most lamentable and far-reaching in its effect on life and society.”
What is the focus of this lament?
It is the inauthentic marriage which denies “the oneness” to be known in the divine essence -- a oneness inspired by a “made in the image” sense of joy experienced only in the Twin Soul union, which was designed not only as means to know and emulate God (“calculated to preserve the divine form”), but to protect the human race from “degeneration.”
And what is the nature of this “degeneration”?
Myers and The Wedding Song
As Myers informs us, it is the lack of spiritual oneness. The Wedding Song, too, speaks of receipt of this blessing as the “union of spirits.” The Genesis account refers to its absence, the interpersonal disharmony, as “eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” And, as we’ve seen, the song envisions destined Twins as “traveling on” toward a state of One Person, ever increasing levels of intimacy, a sense of wholeness, completeness, and satisfaction. But, as Myers reminds us, referencing Adam’s ardent statement to Eve, the marriages of our world know nothing of this happiness as they lack “oneness.”
What does this mean in practical terms? How does this lack of “oneness” affect our day-to-day lives? Think of the negative domino-effect of what happens in the marriages and homes of our world: the pandemic sense of separateness, the “buying and selling” of egoism, the "each against the other" in a quest to "make me happy" -- the effects of which then spilling over into all levels of society: the lack of close community, the “each man for himself” impetus, the self-centered existence and greed, the “me against all” mentality. In this tawdry circle of self-centeredness and vice we find the seedbed and origin of all crime and wars, all oppression and suffering.
But how does it begin? The Guides, Myers, and The Wedding Song offer an implied answer. The authentic marriage was meant to model, portray, and teach the joy of God’s own mind. To whom? To everyone, but especially the most vulnerable – the children, the tractable spirits, who grow up in the “buying and selling,” the neurotic “giving and receiving,” the “me-ism,” of the inauthentic marriage.
To formative little minds, these distortions of reality quickly become a settled view in a quick-drying cement:
“This is the real world,” the children begin to believe. “Materialism is where the action is. Finding one’s happiness against all others is the smart way to live. Look out for yourself because no one else will. There is no God, no joy, no goodness, no purpose to this life, no higher aim than to seek for bodily pleasure and comfort. We know this to be true because it's what we’ve learned from mom and dad. It’s how they live and treat each other.”
This is what Myers sees.
The little children, and then all of society in their wake, are damaged, almost beyond repair, never having received their rightful heritage, that of knowing, up close, the joy of God’s mind, which was to be displayed by the spirits-in-union of their Twin-Soul parents.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Inheritance,” 162nd episode; Juliana O'Donnell Tainer, Data’s “mother,” encourages her compassionate son: “On Altrea [her home planet] there’s a saying, that a child born from parents who love each other will have nothing but goodness in his heart. I guess that explains you.”
Such deficit, a lack of authentic love, the venerable Spirit Guides maintain, becomes the “degeneration of the race” – the ripple-effect result of John and Mary’s “buying and selling,” their misdirected “giving and receiving.”
Authentic marriage is meant to spiritually develop not only its participants, Twins Souls lovers, but, in the overflow of their love, all of society.
There is much more that could be said concerning parallels of Spirit Teachings with The Wedding Song, but I will leave the remainder to your own readings and meditations.
Editor’s note: Allow me to restate once more. These Guides are saying that virtually no one on Earth has met or understood the real romantic love. Think of how anomalous this is. There are large numbers who would insist that their marriages represent eternal love. And many of these will transition to Summerland with expectation that the marriage union of the Earth will exist in eternity. But none of this is true. The average person, the average couple, say the Guides, has no clear concept of what true love is or feels like. This is big news.
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