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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Father Robert Benson: How The Spirit World Answers Our Prayers
"As a former priest of the Church, I regret deeply that I ever gave tongue to such misguided teaching... humiliating... absolutely crushing... And there are hosts of others like me!" Robert Hugh Benson
RCC Monsignor Priest, Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914)
Editor's prefatory comments: Robert Hugh Benson passed to the next world over 100 years ago. An accomplished and well-known writer during his earthly time, he learned, with dismay, after his transition, that much of what he had taught was gross error; as such, he asked Spirit Guides to help him formulate a plan by which he might undue some of the damage that he'd wrought with his errant religious writings. A series of books ensued, channelled by Anthony Borgia, the result of his desire for restitution.
"Hugh Benson was lauded in his own day as one of the leading figures in English literature, yet today he is almost completely forgotten outside Catholic circles and is sadly neglected even among Catholics. Few stars of the literary firmament, either before or since, have shone quite so brightly in their own time before being eclipsed quite so inexplicably in posterity. Almost a century after ... Benson has become the unsung genius of the Catholic Literary Revival." "Benson was the youngest son of E. W. Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as head of the Anglican Church, was the upholder of the Protestant establishment in England. As such, his son's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1903, and his subsequent ordination, caused a sensation. Not since Newman's conversion almost 60 years earlier had the reception of a convert into the Church caused such a commotion. Shudders of shock shook the Anglican establishment, whereas many Catholics rejoiced at the news of such a high-profile coup with unrestrained triumphalism. There is no doubt that the new convert belonged to a remarkable family. Apart from his father's rise to ecclesiastical prominence as head of the Church of England, both of Benson's brothers became leading members of the Edwardian literati."
excerpts from Father Benson's Facts:
The Lord’s Prayer I [have] referred to prayers which are so familiar that they can be recited from memory and without any effort of will, leaving the mind to think of whatever it likes. Of all such prayers, I am inclined to believe that the Lord’s Prayer is the most often said under such conditions.
It has long been claimed that it is one of the most perfect of prayers, not only because it was given by Jesus himself, but because so much is contained within the compass of so few words. But whatever force the prayer might have is completely nullified by its customary thoughtless recital. There would seem to have become attached to the Lord’s Prayer, in the minds of thousands of people, some talismanic power. It usually has a place in most of the organised recitals of prayers, seemingly by virtue of some prescriptive right, as though the efficacy of any church service or private devotions would be greatly impaired if it were omitted. Now the very fact of its being so well known on earth that it can be recited by heart is also the measure,or at least one measure,of its inefficacy, for reasons that we are seen, namely, the lack of mental concentration upon what is being said. That is fatal to any and every prayer from the most sublime invocation to the most simple. The mind must be focused upon what is being said; the person who prays must know and understand exactly what he is saying, so that both knowing and understanding he can give sufficient directive force to his words and thoughts. It is really astonishing, as we see things from the spirit world, how many people fondly imagine that the bare repetition of words such as are contained, for instance, in the Lord’s Prayer, is alone necessary to achieve its purpose. It is such folk who believe that this particular prayer (and others of a similar order) carries with it some magic power of its own. They may think that because it is extracted from the Scriptures, it will have some added property that no prayer composed by an ordinary person can possibly have. So it is that this prayer has been elevated to the front rank of set invocations. Let us, then, view the Lord’s Prayer from the standpoint of the spirit world. Firstly, I would say that in so far as my experience of these realms is concerned, it is a prayer that we never employ. The principal reason for this is that the sentiment contained within it does not apply to us here. Another reason is that we seldom or never make use of prescribed or stereotype prayers . Before we proceed further, I must make it clear that whoever composed this prayer, Jesus, with his great spiritual knowledge, was not the author of it.
Jesus is presumed to have suggested to his hearer that they should pray after this manner, not necessarily using the words he gave, but after the fashion which he then proceeded to exemplify. The first feature we notice is brevity. The next is that the opening of the prayer is devoid of extravagant, excessive, and perforce, insincere adulation of the Father of Heaven, addressed specifically to Himself. I have already spoken of this to you, and here in this prayer we have an ideal opening. Can it seriously be thought and believed that God would actually take pleasure in listening to the recitation of a long catalogue of His supposed superlative qualities? I say supposed qualities because so much is attributed to the Great Father that has its origin in a total misconception of Him. The adjectival preambles of most of the earth world’s prayers are but a survival of paganism, when people worshipped gods of varying descriptions and of uncertain temper.
The faithful of those remote days attributed most things to their deities; personal and national misfortunes, storms and other meteorological disturbances of whatever nature, all were ascribed to the wrath of the gods. It became vitally necessary, therefore, to address their deities in terms which they considered would please them most, thus throwing them into a good humour and placating them generally. They were under the delusion that what a god likes to hear most is a recital of his own sterling qualities. Once a pleasant relationship was thus established, the real object of the prayer could be proceeded with. This relic of paganism still resident in the minds of a great host of folk upon earth, and never more so than among Orthodoxy and its exponents. The composers of prayers have followed this tradition. The Lord’s Prayer, then, commences with the brief Hallowed be Thy name Even this is not essential. It could easily be omitted from any prayer without impairing the value of it whatever. Thy kingdom come is a phrase that means nothing in the minds of most people. They say it because it is included in the prayer, and therefore its value is upon the same level as so much else which is nothing more than mere theology, churchmen teach that these words are the expression of hope that all men will come to know God, and that God’s spiritual kingdom may be spread throughout the world. The very vagueness of the whole ’interpretation’ is revealed in its terms.
Theologians will contend that the universality of God’s kingdom can only come about through the spreading of the Christian religion. The latter then becomes the standard of spiritual knowledge and spiritual teaching by which the whole earth shall be governed, and the religious and secular affairs of its people conducted. The life that follows after death will be a Christian life, to be lived in all the perfection of true religious thought and knowledge as gained through the Christian religion. Doubts are, of course, entertained concerning the fate of the heathen, the un-baptised, and, without doubt, those who practise communication with the spirit world. These latter folk are oftimes regarded as beyond all hope! How are ecclesiastics to know, unless they have taken the trouble to ascertain that the spirit world is not an exclusively Christian world; that its inhabitants are here in these and other realms regardless of whether they were Christians or not; that the fact of their being Christian or not is a matter that is never inquired into, never heeded even; that whether they were Christians, or not, makes not the slightest difference to their spiritual status and the welcome they receive here in these realms, not the least difference to their spiritual prospects or means of attaining spiritual evolution and progression! How are people, especially the orthodox teachers of the earth world, to know if they never trouble to find out that the spirit world contains in these realms of light, as well as in higher and lower states, individuals who, collectively, held every shade of non-Christian thought when they were incarnate? To pray, then, that the Christian religion may be spread throughout the whole face of the earth is not necessarily a good thing because orthodox Christianity embodies within it so much that is absolutely false. It will bolster up and support systems of living that are unquestionably wrong as we see things in these realms. The historical record of organised Christianity is not a good one. The list of people who have had their earthly lives violently terminated in the name of Christianity is a horrible one. There is scarcely a religious denomination upon earth that does not claim its role of martyrs for the faith, whose transitions were encompassed by opposing sects. The kingdom of God does not include religious teaching accompanied by force; it does not include religious persecution; it does not countenance the use of the word heretic: it does not, in fact, include much of what is in the minds of ecclesiastics when they hope for the coming of this kingdom. It is even believed by doctors of the Church that the kingdom of God, when fully established, will witness the complete overthrow of Satan, and sin will thus be banished from the earth. Such beliefs as these are childishly crude. I freely confess that once I believed these things myself when I was incarnate, and taught them. But those days are passed, and I am now a happy resident of the spirit world where we can see the precise value of so much that we embraced as religious beliefs before we came to dwell in these lands. Very well, then, I hear it objected. Tell us precisely what is the kingdom of God. Now you are asking me to explain something that has been invented by the earth world. It is rather you who could explain to me just what is meant by it. Beyond what I have given you as to its interpretation by churchmen, there is nothing that can be added that is of any consequence in further exposition. Later on I will suggest something to you that will, perhaps, throw a little light upon the joint relationship of our two worlds, yours and mine, and which light, if you wish so to regard it, be considered as giving some substance to the words Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done. In this brief phrase is bound up the very essence of the whole prayer because it is taught and believed upon earth that one's prayers are answered or remain unanswered according to God's will! Indeed, the will of God is brought forward upon every occasion when some religious mystery presents itself. A prayer is not answered; therefore it is because God's will ordains that it should not be answered. We are not worthy that it should be, that is what you would be officially told by a minister of the church when asked to explain why a prayer offered up in a deserving case has brought forth no response in kind. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Resident in the minds of so many people is the thought that God's will is nothing if not capricious. We cannot hope to know or understand His will, folk will say. Of course they cannot, for they have made of it such an impossible thing. They have made of it a scapegoat, an explanation for something, which seemingly cannot be explained upon any other grounds. If they lose the physical presence of a dearly loved friend or relation through his transition in his early earthly life, then it is God’s will that he should leave the earth plane, God's will that he should suffer from some dreadful ailment that caused his passing. If people, or a whole nation, suffer a dire calamity, then it is God's wlll that it should be so. So a lengthy charter of disabilities, calamities, misfortunes, and disasters could be enumerated, any of which would be confidently attributed to the will of God. Would the same folk also ascribe to the will of God all the good things, which they enjoyed? Would they say it is His will that they should enjoy a comfortable home in pleasant surroundings, enhanced by personal material prosperity? Would they attribute a perfection of summer weather to His will, just as they alleged that it was His will that caused a hurricane of wind or a devastating earthquake? Most people are inclined to think that the will of God is distinctly one-sided, indulging in calamities rather than in benefits. Who upon earth knows what is the will of God? Yet people pray for it to be done on earth as it is in heaven from which it must be assumed that they know what is God's will in heaven at least. It is so easy in the presence of some inexplicable event or happening to place its cause in the will of God. It attaches blame in a case where personal suffering is undergone, but the word blame is very much softened if it is disguised beneath the words the will of God. How often is heard the cry in the midst of disaster: I suppose it is God's will, and I suppose there must be some reason for it, but I cannot understand it. Why should this happen to me? Not that such folk would assume some right of immunity from troubles of any kind, but because, so far, they had not encountered them; their lives had taken them along quietly upon an even course, untroubled by any major difficulties, but with an average proportion of minor difficulties that they were easily able to solve by their own ordinary endeavours. Then a greater tragedy overtakes them, apparently under the operation of the will of God, and they are nonplussed. The will of God has intruded into a happy and peaceful life, but for what sound reason it is impossible to understand. Yet those unhappy souls may have earnestly prayed for years Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. And they would have assumed, presumably, that these apparent vagaries of will upon the part of God were the natural, everyday state of things in "heaven" otherwise they would not have prayed for that particular exercise of divine will as they did. Would it not be wiser, then, to try to discover what is the will of God in heaven before praying for its extension and operation upon earth?
Editor's note: This is funny.
That, it would be objected, is impossible. How can anyone know what is the will of God? Just so. And in that case were it not more expedient not to ask in prayer for something about which we can know nothing concerning force or its power or its mode of operation, or, indeed, at what consequences might follow a full response to the request? Once again we see the remnants of paganism in all this confusion of ideas upon the will of God. In remote times, the same beliefs were held by man's ancestors upon earth in regard to his particular gods. These early gods were deities of very uncertain temper and temperament. They could smile or frown with equal facility and with equal reason or lack of it upon all people, regardless of their positions life. At all costs the gods must be propitiated, because it was they who dispensed alike benefits and misfortunes upon all people. It was their god's will that violent storms should sweep the countryside that pestilences and plagues and famines should ravage the earth. They could never understand what it was that impelled their gods to order such things, beyond the possibility, perhaps, that an insufficient number of sacrifices had been offered or that there had been a general want of respect and reverence... Where these reasons could not be adduced, then it was merely the will of their gods that it should be so. When a multiplicity of gods were displaced in favour of one great God, these same absurd ideas were transferred to the Father of the universe. Orthodoxy has finely retained them within the body of its teachings, and the people themselves have entertained the same beliefs that have been handed down from their pagan ancestors. Again it may he countered: You are supposed to be living in a heaven of some sort; perhaps you could say, in broad terms, what is the will of God? The heaven you inhabit may not be the heaven of theology; it may not be the heaven that a great many people have envisaged as paradise; it may even be better than that; it may be a heaven, in the contemplation of which, many folk may be displeased or disturbed, or even revolted. Whichever it may be, your happiness seems to be of a high order, and it is a happiness, which is enjoyed by millions of other people, so you claim. Can you not tell us something of the will of God? I can, but I can only tell you very little for the simple reason that there is really very little to tell! It is the earth people, led and inspired by orthodox teaching, who have made such an enormous factor of God's will!
I have said to you before, but I must say it again because, like so much that is extremely simple, the mere statement is apt to slip by almost unperceived, or with its full significance unrealised.
The will of the Father of the universe is that the whole universe of living things should be happy. The destiny of all mankind is ultimate supreme and unalloyed happiness, which, in the spirit world, will one day be enjoyed by every single soul that is born upon earth. There lies before every person the whole of eternity of time in which to reach that sublime condition. In the meantime, each soul will enjoy in the spirit world a measure of felicity in exact keeping with his spiritual progression. When the feeling that the particular happiness is growing weak, is losing its edge, as it were, the moment has come for considering the means of taking another step forward upon the pathway of progression, and so bringing to the individual soul a fresh access of gratification. Happiness. That is the supreme will of the Father of heaven and earth. Happiness, and everything that such happiness can connote. From that will of happiness comes the wish for the welfare of all mankind, whether incarnate or discarnate. The Father would never inflict one moment's sorrow upon any living soul. But what, it may be objected, of death itself? Does not that alone bring sorrow and sadness to millions of people on earth? Most assuredly it does, but it need not; it was never intended that it should. That is not God's will. Have we not ready discussed the words blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted? There would be no mourning upon earth if every man knew of the truths of the spirit world and of spirit life. If all men knew of and practised communication between our two worlds, and thus were enabled to speak with their departed friends and relatives and so continue a natural intercourse with them just as though they were still incarnate, if all men knew that truth, the sad tears that are so often shed would soon be wiped away to be shed no more. No longer would it be conceived as the will of God that some tender flower of childhood should be taken from its happy home and family upon earth in the death of the physical body, to go, albeit, to greater happiness in the spirit world, but to leave behind deep sorrow and misery, for however much one may rejoice that a cherished friend is gone to a higher life, there still remains the sadness of separation. But if, even in departure for the higher life, there remains no separation by virtue of the practice of communication, then there will be no sadness if the channels are provided for such communication. The great misconception of ascribing so much to the will of God for which no other explanation can be found also arises from a misunderstanding of the causes of numberless things that take place upon earth. So much is put down to the will of God that is caused by none other than the will of man. So much is put down to the will of God that is nothing other than natural forces at work. How many people for how many years believed that all diseases of the physical body were inflicted by God as a punishment? Numbers there are who believe it still. They will point to the New Testament, and quote Jesus as saying to one whom he had healed: Thy sins are forgiven thee. God had relented, forgiven the afflicted ones his sins, and his disease had departed from him. The storms and tempests that take place upon earth are not acts of God. They are the work of natural forces. When certain conditions of atmosphere and temperature prevail, then meteorological disturbances ensue. They are not an intervention of the will of God.
When great wars are waged upon earth, it is not through the will of God that they take place, but through the will of man-of man alone. Wars are not sent to the peoples of the earth world because they have misbehaved themselves in some wholesale fashion. From the Father of us all can come nothing that is not of the highest and best and purest, and war is of the lowest and worst and foulest. The Father, therefore, has no hand in it. If one were to make a list of all the events, circumstances, and so forth, which are imputed solely to the will of God, the list would be a horrifying one. It would reveal in its cold narration not a Father of love, but a God whose mind would be anything but the perfect mind it is. It would reveal a Personage who could dispense with justice in favour of mercy, because of the applied merits of another's sacrifice, or through special pleading. Thus there would be no true justice. It would reveal a Being of such uncertain and capricious mind that no human being would know when or where He would strike next. He might hammer out the life of any individual by inflicting upon him some dreadful disease, or He might send a great storm of wind and destruction, or a foul pestilence upon a whole nation. He might involve many nations in cruel and barbarous warfare where the slaughter is counted in hundreds of thousands of victims. The sins of the individual and of entire populations would be punished by direct intervention of God. Thus you would be led to believe and much more besides that is utterly erroneous by those who are the properly constituted authority for diffusing religious teachings upon earth. All this is so far, so dreadful, and deplorably far from the truth concerning the personality of the Supreme Being, for no suffering of whatever nature or cause, or sadness or sorrow, no unhappiness, no afflictions of body or mind; no pestilences or diseases, no storms or great tempests upon land or sea, no famines, no wars, great or small, none of these visitations, as they are called, are caused, either directly or indirectly, by the Great Father of the universe. All such terrestrial disasters appertain to the earth people and to them alone, and they have their causes either through the functioning of natural forces or through the evil ways of man upon earth. They are not the will of God. Nothing that is not for the good of mankind and for his happiness and welfare is according to the will of the Father. That, my good friend, is the one true and safe rule which you can apply to all events and circumstances that you will encounter during the term of an earthly life, and that condition of affairs has existed since the earth world became habitable. Seek always an earthly cause for all that not manifestly for man's true happiness, and then you will begin to perceive something of the will of God. Seeking forgiveness of God is perhaps one of the most general exhortations both embodied in prayers and included within the terms of formal statements of beliefs. The forgiveness of sins committed against God - what are those sins? I have no need to enumerate to you a long list of transgressions. I fancy they are sufficiently well known! But you are taught upon earth that when you commit sin you have offended God. I have told you, only a moment ago, how you cannot, you simply cannot, offend God. Bethink you for one moment that if the Church's teaching were true, God would be existing in a continued all and never-ending state of being offended because man is himself permanently in a state of sin. You have only to refer to the printed words of the various prayer books to ascertain just what is man's spiritual condition. God is so immeasurably high, and poor mankind is so immeasurably low, a 'miserable sinner,' in fact. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. How many people can earnestly and sincerely and truthfully say, as they recite this part of the Lord's Prayer, that they have forgiven those who have trespassed against them? Assuredly such a sentence were better left unsaid. The latter half means little in the minds of so many people, and the first part can have no effect whatever upon any individual, however piously it may be said, and with whatever high hopes of receiving forgiveness the suppliant may have.
The Father cannot be offended. He has no forgiveness to give. He does not condemn; He does not punish, nor does He relegate to others either the power or the right to punish. The offences, which the great majority of mankind commit, are offences against natural laws, the laws that govern the spiritual nature of man, and those offences themselves react upon the one who commits them. We may offend fellowman, and we can, and we should, obtain his forgiveness. Then we can proceed to put ourselves in proper spiritual order. In doing so, we shall have the help of the spirit world under the guidance of the Father of the universe Himself, through His ministers of the spirit world. We have not offended God; we have broken certain spiritual laws. If you were to cast yourself from a high wall in total disregard of the law of gravity, you would have no one to blame but yourself because your physical body was drawn violently towards the ground at the cost of broken limbs or other injuries. In this respect you have broken the law of gravity, but you have offended no one, injured no one, in this case, but yourself. The spiritual laws must be respected just as you upon earth respect the law of gravity, a law that is ever-present and so potent. The dismal burden of so many of the 'authorised' prayers is the constant begging to God for mercy and the forgiveness of man's sins. This inveterate custom of hammering into the minds of the users of prayer books their innate sinfulness is bad for it sets up all manner of morbid conditions in the consciousness of folk with sensitive minds. The publicly recited prayers are no better in this respect. They forever proclaim man's sinfulness and unworthiness, until man himself, if he ponders upon the matter, can see very little hope in his future prospects when he passes into the spirit world. Mercy and forgiveness, these he will cling to, because he is taught that God is all merciful and will forgive the sins of all those who are truly contrite. I have tried to explain to you how both mercy and forgiveness are not dispensed by the Father of Heaven. The Church will insist that it is right, and will so continue to stress these two points until it learns some degree of enlightenment. While the Church is spending so much time upon two erroneous beliefs it might be spending such valuable time in preaching and teaching the truth. Orthodoxy is blind, but its blindness does not merely affect the ecclesiastics who uphold it, it materially affects the thousands of souls who believe what those same ecclesiastics teach them.
Thus they arrive in the spirit world, when their earthly life is ended, with their minds clouded by ignorance and befogged by erroneous beliefs. We, in the spirit world, have to put this right. We have to bring knowledge of the truth to souls befuddled with earthly religious teachings, which have woefully led them astray, not from the path of moral rectitude, but along the path of sheer ignorance of the conditions of life in spirit lands. Speak to any one of such folk, and Orthodoxy would blush with shame could it hear the remarks that are made by these souls as upon the way they have been misled.
Editor's note: My own Dad, from the afterlife, lamented, "How could I have been so wrong about so many things?"
You can understand, then, how we have no great liking for the institutions, which are responsible for this state of things. As it is, the errors of the Church have to be set right in the spirit world after countless souls have passed into it. I have recounted to you the abject terror in which numberless people arrive in these lands, actuated solely by the fear of the awful judgement, which is supposed to await every soul upon its transition. I have also recounted to you some details of the overwhelming relief, which we are able to bring to these tortured souls. It is because I myself once taught such things that I now spend a great deal of my life in the spirit world coming to the instant rescue and relief of these spiritually deluded folk. Would that I had never given tongue to such errors when I was living on earth! It is an uncomfortable feeling, I do assure you, to discover that what one taught with seeming authority has not a vestige of truth in it. It is more than uncomfortable; it is humiliating. But with complete understanding we can go to the aid of people who have themselves been afflicted by such teachings, and thus we can help to put things right not only for newly arrived friends in distress, but for ourselves as well. There are too many 'mysteries' attached to the religions of the earth world, mysteries which no one on earth or in the spirit world can solve or will ever be able to solve. Religion is wrapped in strange problems; so many farfetched beliefs are held, so much time is wasted in the recital of incomprehensible creeds, that the whole business of travelling safely into the spirit world has become a hazardous process, something to be feared and dreaded, so problematical in its outcome, so circumscribed with pious nonsense which has no relation to the truth, so insulting to the Father of the universe, that man, by being constantly told that he is a miserable sinner can only throw himself upon the mercy of God and beg forgiveness for his many sins. Nothing could be more undignified than that man should grovel (as he is taught to do) in self-abasement under the overpowering weight of his supposed sins. It must not be supposed that I am suggesting that most of the inhabitants of the earth are saints. Very far from it. But the low spiritual degree in which most people have been placed by the alleged authority of earthly spiritual teachers is highly exaggerated. Mankind is not nearly so bad individually as the Churches would have him to be. The Church is no judge of such things. We in the spirit world are alone competent to appraise a man's true spiritual status. It is patent for all to see. Let us forgive those who have offended us. That is vital, but let us not seek forgiveness from God. He does not give it because He has nothing to forgive. He cannot be offended, but we can break the laws of the spirit, and in breaking them we cannot ask the law to forgive us. But we can set about putting matters right so that we are again in harmony with that law and not defying it. The Church teaches that no matter what sins a person has committed, no matter how evil a life a man has led, God has infinite mercy and will forgive the truly contrite through the merits of the great soul whom the earth knows as Jesus. Indeed, so immense are the powers accredited to Jesus, not only to achieve man's 'salvation' upon earth but in his advocacy at the High Court of Heaven that these suppositions form the termination of every official prayer that is uttered publicly, or printed in the books for personal devotions. These peculiar terminations have seemed to take upon themselves a talismanic value, a magical power which most assuredly they do not, and cannot, possess. As an article of prayer they are completely worthless. In fact, in any form or in any circumstances whatsoever, they are worthless. They are part of the huge theological edifice of spiritual error, which the Church has erected and presented to the confusion of countless millions of souls when they ultimately arrive in the spirit world. They discover for themselves that it is useless to cry for mercy against the operation of a natural law, which they have flouted and broken. They can cry aloud to the Father of Heaven, but not for mercy. That would be useless also. But they can send forth then a prayer for help to the realms above them, and help will instantly be forthcoming, not in the shape of mercy nor in the form of forgiveness of 'sins,' but some soul who is devoting his energies to those in distress will at once present himself, or herself, to the afflicted one. Thereupon the latter can disburden his troubled mind to his rescuer, who will be able to show him the means of redeeming the lost ground, not through the merits or sacrifice of another, but solely by his own endeavours. Alone he must work out his own 'salvation,' but with such actual assistance as to the ways and means of accomplishing it as, in his lack of knowledge, he will require. The recitation of a thousand creeds will avail him nothing. Faith of this description is valueless to advance the soul one fraction of an inch upon the way of progression. Our best friend, in such cases, can only offer and give friendly assistance; the actual work of personal redemption is carried out by the individual concerned alone. He it is who must set about putting himself in harmony with the laws he has broken, however they may have been broken, and to whatever extent. If his offences are against others, his first act will be to seek the forgiveness of those whom he has wronged. The latter will readily forgive him for you must know that enmities can quickly cease in the spirit world in certain quarters. Then he will be quickly shown how to redeem himself to fit himself for taking up his undoubted heritage of happiness in these lands. His past errors will have been set right by his own endeavours and not by any magical process of vicarious atonement; by personal application, possibly by sheer hard work. The Church which makes such boastful claims upon earth has contributed nothing in truth or knowledge or assistance towards helping the soul in its life in the spirit world. The very prayers which are said for the dead are based upon knowledge so faulty that they are of little or no help to the departed soul. The Church has, in fact, disastrously failed. And the failure of the Church is for all to see here in these spirit lands where we have to set right the effect upon the faithful of its multitudinous errors. Perhaps one of the gravest misconceptions of the Father of the universe is expressed in the last words of this prayer we are discussing: Lead us not into temptation. Here again we are not concerned with the original documents of the New Testament, but solely with the words as I have here set them down and as they are also set down in the myriad printed copies of the gospels. The theologian will object that no sane person would ever believe God Himself would deliberately lead a single human being into temptation, but there are many, many sane people who do believe it, who, moreover, believe every word of the New Testament exactly as it is recorded in their own language, people who would disagree with the theologian most emphatically. God, they would affirm, does most certainly lead us into temptation, and if we fail in spiritual strength and fall into sin and die unrepentant, then we shall be damned for all eternity. Then would follow the usual crude and nonsensical beliefs held by such people. The theologian in this instance would be right - God would not, does not, cannot, lead a single individual into temptation. But why voice the wicked suggestion that He does? Why, above all things, say one thing and mean exactly the opposite? Thus do words lose their meaning entirely. Such verbal methods would never be tolerated for an instant in the ordinary intercourse of daily life upon the earth-plane or upon any other plane of existence. Chaos would result inevitably if we persisted in saying one thing while, at the same time, meaning something entirely the opposite. Precision and exactitude in important, as well as in the lesser matters of daily life, would be forever lacking, or, at least, one would never know if words were to be taken as they stand, or if the reverse meaning were intended. Ordinary affairs could never be carried on if verbal conditions of that sort prevailed. Yet such rhetorical looseness of words and speech is freely tolerated in so vitally important a subject as prayer. If there is one thing where precision and exactitude is essential it is in the framing of prayer. We have already discussed that aspect of the matter, and I have given you some suggestions upon the subject. Here I will amplify what I have given you by emphasising the fact that the logical theories, which are incorporated within so many prayers, are perfectly useless and completely ineffective. They are so many empty words, and as such would be far better omitted altogether. They merely serve to confuse the main purport of the prayer. The recitation of religious beliefs during the course of praying are equally worthless, whether those beliefs are true beliefs or just the recital of fallacious doctrines, and again but serve to confuse the real purport of the prayer. There is no spiritual value whatever in affirming, either publicly or privately, one's religious beliefs in the form of a set and recognised creed, or in a creed of one's own composition. In the ages past it became the custom of congregations to make these public avowals as a means of demonstrating clearly that they were of the true faith and not contaminated by the heretical beliefs of others. Such ostentatious displays had no more spiritual value then as now. To return to the Lord's Prayer. Though the churchman would strenuously deny that God would ever lead man into temptation, despite the statement to the contrary in the Lords prayer, yet the same ecclesiastic would assert that God will 'try' a person: that is, tribulations will be 'sent' to him to test the quality of his spiritual power of resistance, and though, properly speaking, temptation comes from the devil: yet God allows the devil to do his fell work and so on upon the same lines. Indeed, when one comes to weigh these things up, the God of theology has laid so many traps for the unheeding, has made life upon earth, in its relation to life in the spirit world, such a mass of complexities of dogma, and made heaven into such a pious, almost impossible place, that many an individual is fully justified in shuddering at the prospect of going there. He will associate the hereafter with the particular brand of religion which he favored or with which he was most familiar, and if he allows himself to think at all upon the matter he will compare the life he is now living, which may be comfortable enough to suit his desires, with the religious type of life that is associated in his mind with the Church's heaven. He will feel that, at least as far as he is concerned, he will be something of a fish out of water, and living in a constant state of embarrassment among people of a degree of piety to which he could never hope to attain. This confusion in the minds of men has not arisen solely through the Church's erroneous teaching, but it has also been brought about by the very contents of official powers. If a person is a churchgoer he will regularly hear the words lead us not into temptation addressed to the Father. What is the result? If he believes that God may at any moment lead him to temptation by acting as that extremely unpleasant functionary, an agent provocateur, he is doing himself no spiritual good by believing such a mischievous thing. If he does not believe that the Father would ever tempt him to transgress, then by saying directly the opposite in his prayer, he is failing in the first principle of successful prayer, namely, that a prayer should be clear and exact in its terms and thoughts.
Editor's note: God, "an agent provocateur" - that's a good one.
So many people say their prayers faithfully and earnestly, but alas, they will tell you that they never seem to be answered. There may be many reasons for that; I shall hope to go into some of them with you presently. For the moment, however, objections may be raised as to what I have said concerning the Lord's Prayer, the most widely cherished and favourite among prayers. Who is this fellow, it may be objected, who tries to demolish the actual prayer that was given to the world by Jesus himself as a model for all prayers? I would answer that this prayer has never been used as a model for all prayers, as it is plain to see by the fulsome compositions, which are daily recited, and which appear in the prayer books. The precedent whether fortuitously implied, or not, the precedent of precision and succinctness has been totally ignored in favour of oratorical exhibitions framed in lengthy periods and pompous phraseology. As to the prayer having been given to the world by Jesus, as I observed at the outset, whoever was the author of it, it certainly was not Jesus. His spiritual knowledge was in those times far too great for him to have fallen into any such error.
Prayer Answered THERE is another aspect of prayer to which we could profitably devote some attention, and it might it expressed thus: is prayer answered? That is a question, which exercises a great many minds upon earth. Some will assert most emphatically that prayer is answered, and they will bring forward a personal experience to demonstrate their claim. Others, not so fortunate, will deny that prayer is answered because they have had no personal experience of it. From this opposed evidence, the incarnate might answer our initial question in this manner: prayer is sometimes answered, but it depends entirely upon the Will of God. If our supplication is in accordance with God, we shall have our request granted: if it is against God?s will, we shall not. If only we could obtain some glimmering (the incarnate might add) of what is God's will, then we should have a solution to the whole problem of the efficacy of prayer. Once again we have the introduction of the will of God to provide an explanation for a spiritual state of affairs where seemingly no other explanation can be found, this time to explain the failure or otherwise of prayer. So unsatisfactory is this reason that the will of God becomes translated into the whim of God for upon no other grounds can be based the apparent partiality and capriciousness in God's exercising of His will, and the general uncertainty of prayers being answered. The experience of most people is that they pray to the Father for some especial purpose while at the same time they are completely uncertain in their minds of what the issue will be, if any. It may mean success, or it may mean failure. Even if it be alleged that any cause of failure must be attributed to lack of faith, the suppliant may retort that he reposed absolute faith in his prayer being answered. Nothing, indeed, could appear to be more hazardous than the outcome of prayer where some particular request is made. Many a pious soul will hide his disappointment and sadness resulting from the failure of his prayer in the words Thy will be done. And with that despairing cry all hopes have finally vanished, for to whom can he now appeal? For some inscrutable reason God has not seen fit, he would say, to answer his prayer, and so there is nothing more that can be done. In the spirit world, we never make use of the words Thy will be done. We prefer to say, in effect, Thy wisdom prevail. And God's wisdom prevails. It prevails in every single instance, without fail. That wisdom is manifested through the illustrious personages who inhabit the highest realms, and to whom we turn in whatever major difficulties we may have. When we have any request to make, we find the answer comes to us instantly, whether it be yes or no. But that does not come within our present consideration since you are not yet an inhabitant of these lands. Let us rule out, forever, any notion that the will of God is concerned with the answering of your prayers, and if we discuss how they are answered we shall see at once why it is that on occasion they are not answered. We are, of course, only considering prayers that contain a specific request, whether it be for spiritual guidance in some form or other, or whether it be for material assistance during time of difficulty or distress. With prayers of thanksgiving, or with the many pious ejaculations that appear in the prayer books, we are not here concerned It is widely supposed that God, being omnipotent and omniscient, responds to the prayers of the incarnate Himself. If a fully answered prayer is connected with any matter concerning the Church, the whole occurrence is regarded as a 'miracle,' or the next thing to it. In such a case, though, it may not be due to the direct intervention of God. The answer to the prayer may be alleged to have come about through the kind offices of some 'saint' of the Church. It is because of the belief that prayers are answered through the direct intervention of God that so much misapprehension exists. Miracles do not happen. Nothing happens upon earth or in the spirit realms that is above or beyond natural laws. There is no such thing or state as that of being 'supernatural.'
Editor's note: I once had a professor who said, "There is no such thing as a 'loophole' in the law - the law either covers a situation or it does not." This, in principle, is what Benson is saying about miracles. There is no magic wand, no loopholes, in the next world. What we consider to be 'miracles' are, in fact, expressions of natural law - all is governed by natural law - and our framing the issue as 'miracles' merely represents a lack of understanding concerning how the universe really works.
How certain minds upon earth love to refer to anything touching upon the spirit world as 'supernatural'! From the supposed vision in the sky to the haunting of a house, all alike are 'supernatural'; the ghosts and the goblins and the apparitions, with a variety of other choice designations, all are used to indicate a dweller in spirit lands. To those who use such words in offensive ridicule or in pure thoughtlessness, I would say: have a care. Remember that every soul who lived on earth now lives in the spirit would claim for them the spiritual altitude of 'saints,' then they are living upon slightly lower planes, and they must be counted among the many millions of us here. Be cautious of using such a term to describe a spirit person as may, in time, be used against you in similar offensive derision. This very mundane view of the spirit world is held by the incarnate because they consider themselves in most respects as superior to the inhabitant of the spirit world by virtue of the fact that the incarnate are still upon earth, the good, firm earth where reality surrounds them. They are living the normal life. In the spirit world it is vastly different. That is vague and shadowy, unseen and far off; the denizens of those regions are ghosts, spectres, or wraiths; shadows. In fact, the very land they live in must be unsubstantial because, like its inhabitants, it cannot be seen with the eye in the healthy fashion in which things can be perceived upon the substantial earth. The spirit world, to these minds, is an unhealthy place altogether, and the less said about it, or even thought about it, the better. There are many people who think this way, and who are still living upon earth. There are millions of people in the spirit world who thought that way themselves, once upon a time, when they were incarnate. They all experienced a shock to their self-satisfaction when they discovered the truth of things for themselves upon their arrival in these lands. However, this is something of a digression, I am afraid. Let us resume. If we examine the procedure of the answering of prayer we shall be able to see why prayer at times is not answered. First of all, a supplication is made to the Father. It is impossible for me to go into the details of every type of petition for reasons, which you will readily understand. There are millions upon millions of requests coming into the spirit world, and each with enormously differing intentions, conditions and circumstances. Every prayer is taken care of, individually. If the thoughts have been fully concentrated upon the words or the intention, which the words clothe, and if it has adequate directive power behind it, then that prayer will unfailingly reach its high destination. For our present purposes we will consider that the prayer has reached those realms of light. Our first point of contact with it will be, thenceforward, with the spirit guide of the person who sent forth the prayer. Here I must explain that every human being upon earth is in the spiritual charge of a wise and experienced soul who is known technically upon the earth-plane as a spirit guide. Spirit guides belong to a noble order of beings in the spirit world. They have all been resident in these lands for many hundreds of years, and they are especially chosen for their work because of the high degree of wisdom, which they possess among their many other important attributes. The guides have charge of their wards from the latter's infancy. They are, therefore, fully conversant with all the circumstances and affairs in the lives of their charges. Happiest are those among the incarnate who, while yet upon earth, have met their spirit guides and spoken with them. Your spirit guide is fully conversant with whatever prayers you may say which contain a request. The guide, being familiar with the content of certain of your prayers, it is but natural that he should undertake the task, often an extremely difficult one, of bringing about an answer to them.
But the guide does not essay this task alone; he will have a number of willing helpers. In many cases they will be either the friends or relations of the suppliant or both. Those friends or relations may either be resident in the spirit world, or some may still be upon the earth-plane. The actual process, then, of answering a prayer consists in influencing, impressionably or inspirationally, such persons upon earth as are in a position to bring about the fulfilment of the suppliant's wishes, either directly or indirectly. The spirit guide will in every case use his judgement and discretion as to whether a prayer shall be answered fully and at the earliest possible moment, whether it shall be answered only partially or conditionally where such is practicable; whether the prayer shall be remitted to some future time when conditions and circumstances are more propitious.
Editor's note: Psychic-medium Linda, communicating with Spirit Guides on my behalf regarding an issue of pressing importance, offered the following from them: "Thank you for your patience!" I was deeply moved by their graciousness. As there is a considerable amount of arranging of cirmcumstances to bring into reality my request, such maneuvering requires time, even years; but they assure me they are working on it.
Finally, the guide will exercise his discretion as to whether the wishes of the suppliant shall be fulfilled at all. The guide's wisdom will tell him that for some wish to be granted to his charge which would prove harmful to the latter will remain unanswered. Naturally, it is not all requests, which, in their fulfilment, are injurious to the person who makes the supplication, but the fulfilment might be injurious to others, and therefore it will not be granted. Here let it be said that more prayers, by countless thousands, are answered completely and fully than are left unanswered. If it be wise and possible and practicable, a prayerful request will be granted without doubt. The will of God does not enter into the matter, but most decidedly the wisdom of God does. That wisdom is manifested through the spirit guides of the incarnate, and it is derived, where necessary, from the highest beings. But it must be remembered that spirit guides do not possess almighty powers, although they draw their power from the Father Himself. When a spirit guide commences to set in motion the various forces to influence, by impression, certain people upon earth, he will always be cognizant of the percipients' free will. He is bound to respect it, and to do nothing that will in any way infringe the right of exercising it. Thus far I have but treated the subject in the abstract. Let me give an example which will, I hope, serve to clarify the matter; such an example as we might choose from scores upon scores. The variety of requests that are contained in prayers is endless, as you can imagine when you consider for a moment the vast diversification of human affairs and circumstances that constitute the lives of people still living upon the earth. Every one has his particular wants and ambitions, and although countless numbers of people never give a thought to prayer in this connection, yet there are still countless numbers who do. Here, then, is an simple example, and a common one. A son or a daughter, shall we say, prays fervently that the mother, who is dangerously ill, may not be taken from them in death. The prayers, however, are unavailing, and the mother dies. Why was this particular request seemingly refused when so much happiness would have ensued if it had been granted in the mother's recovery? The religiously inclined, as well as Orthodoxy itself, would reply that it was not the will of God that the lady should remain upon earth, that God called her to another life, and so on, all of which is very far from the mark. Let us see what happened, or could happen, when that prayer was sent out. Before, perhaps long before, any prayers for the lady's recovery were ever uttered, the spirit guide of the mother was already in as close attendance upon her as possible with spirit doctors. The prayer in this event would not be lost or redundant, but would serve to bring them all, the patient, the guide, and the doctors, in much closer rapport, and so, if it were possible to affect a cure, that cure would most certainly be brought about. On the other hand, the patient might have been so far removed in attunement with her spirit guide that he would have been unable to draw sufficiently close because of the material barrier separating them, a barrier that was erected by the patient's material thoughts, or her mode of life, or her heedlessness of anything beyond the earthly plane of existence, or from a variety of other causes. The prayer might help to disperse this eventually, but by then it might be too late for the disease might have gained far too great a hold to respond to treatment from either world, yours or ours. The result, therefore, is inevitable, and a transition takes place. But the transition will have taken place in spite of help that was actually given from the spirit world, and not because help was withheld. So you see, here we have what appears, from an earthly point of view, a clear case of the failure of prayer. But the prayer itself has not failed inasmuch as it was fully answered to the best ability of all those who were concerned in its answering. The true failure was not upon the part of the prayer or upon the part of those who were undertaking its answer. In this particular instance, as in thousands of others, the fault lies with the incarnate. The powers of spirit healers or doctors are not infallible or omnipotent. In all cases they will work to the utmost of their capabilities to prolong the earthly span of any incarnate person under their care, but they cannot prolong life in any person upon earth indefinitely. The tissues will themselves wear out in the natural course of things, and transition takes place. There are many people still living upon earth who owe their continued life upon that plane to the spirit doctors and their self-sacrificing earthly instruments. Such people may be fully aware of the fact, and they are highly appreciative of what has been done. There are many more who could have the enormous advantages of this service, but they do not believe such a thing possible, or they find the whole subject distasteful. Again there are others who pray for their recovery and expect that, by the direct intervention of God, they will be made whole again. But they make no forthright effort to help the unseen spirit folk who are doing their utmost to restore the patient to a state of sound health. So one could go on multiplying not only different cases, but an immensity of different circumstances. What so many people do not realise is that the simplest request contained in a prayer may mean an enormous amount of work upon the part of the spirit people concerned in bringing about the suppliant's wishes. Again, what so many do not grasp is that when prayers contain a specific request of a material nature, the fulfilment of the prayer must in the ultimate devolve upon some person or persons who are still incarnate. And it does not stop there. The more susceptible an incarnate person is to the impressions which come from the spirit world, so much the greater are the chances of a successful issue to a prayer. It is very easy to say a simple little prayer containing some request but to bring an answer may involve the influencing of any number of people on earth, including the person who has said the prayer. It may be necessary to lead the latter carefully in the right direction, to impress him to get into contact with certain people who, in turn, will get into contact with others, and so forming as complete a chain of individuals as is possible to imagine so that in the end the right person may be reached, and the prayer fully answered. It may rest, indeed; it so often does rest with our ability to impinge our thoughts upon the last person with sufficient vigour to achieve our purpose and the purpose of the prayer. The whole structure of human contacts may be demolished by the inability of the last individual to receive our direct impressions. We may then have to retrace our steps, as it were, and endeavour to find another who is less material in mind and outlook, or whose psychic faculties are keener, and so construct another chain of persons, another group of links. No, my good friend, the answering of prayer is not child's play. It not infrequently involves a vast deal of hard work upon our part.
Sometimes we are able to interview people when they come to visit these lands during their sleep state, and lay our case before them. Seldom do we have a refusal to our wishes on behalf of our friend in need upon earth. Such people are most times eager and ready to help us by falling in with our wishes, while they are upon their nocturnal or other sleep, state visit. Their intentions are pure and genuine and honest, but, alas, when they return to their earthly bodies and recover their physical consciousness, it so often happens that they take with them no recollection whatever of their good intentions and resolutions to do what we desire of them. But we persevere, and keep on persevering, until either we achieve success, or until we are obliged reluctantly to abandon our efforts altogether, or at least for some more auspicious time and occasion. The principal trouble beneath which prayer has so long laboured comes from the wrong views which people on earth hold in respect of it. For many, many years, the incarnate have expected too much of prayer. For so long Orthodoxy has dinned into the ears of its faithful that prayer is practically all-powerful. It is no such thing. God will answer your prayers, it is asserted, if it were His Will to do so or if you have sufficient faith?or both. Thus is prayer bolstered up and kept alive, while any failures are imputed to God's will or lack of faith. Faith in what, or whom? You will be able to perceive for yourself just how much has faith to do with the answering of prayer. People can have absolute faith, as they allege, but the prayer is still unsuccessful. A strong, firm, good intention is by far the best. Faith is too unsubstantial, too vague. But a firm resolve to help the prayer to the utmost of one's abilities upon earth, to be as cheerful as circumstances will allow, to be hopeful, and to be confident and sure that, provided the request in the prayer will harm no one, including the suppliant, then a great array of spirit helpers and friends will labour unremittingly to fulfil the wishes expressed in the prayer. It requires no faith. It will be seen that the over-expectation of the results of prayer, together with the faulty conception of the means used to answer it, are responsible for a great deal of public prayer that is completely useless. Such, for example, as public prayers for rain, or for any other changes in meteorological conditions. How could we possibly alter the weather from the spirit world? We cannot do so any more than can you upon earth alter it. The spirit world has no influence whatever over the states of the weather on earth. The changes in the weather are brought about by the natural laws, which govern the atmosphere of the material world. Alteration of atmosphere and temperature produce their varying results, but they cannot be influenced by anyone from the spirit world as is sometimes supposed. It has even been suggested that the earthly elements are under the particular supervision of some great soul in spirit lands. That is impossible. If Orthodoxy only knew the truth about prayer, its efficacy, its limitations, and the modus operandi of answering it, it would never in the past have made prayer ridiculous with such exhibitions as 'prayers for rain.' Orthodoxy is no more enlightened now upon the subject, and still clings to the will of God to provide an explanation for something, indeed many things, which it is at a complete loss to understand, but which may be found in the simple exposition of a spiritual truth or the operation of a spiritual law. Orthodoxy has not even yet learned how to pray. How can it instruct others when its own ignorance and lack of knowledge is so profound?
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