Channeled Explanations About 'God,' the Astral World and Hell or Heaven Within You — 'Red Cloud' Through Estelle Roberts

Written By Mark Russell Bell
(illustration by Grok Imagine)
 
 
As mentioned in some previous articles at this blog — Estelle Roberts (1889-1970) would enter a trance state and then the voices of unseen people in Spirit would converse with sitters during 'Direct Voice' seances.  (1, 2)  At other trance seances, her guide 'Red Cloud' would speak through her and these accounts correlate with what today is observed under the category of psychic phenomena known as 'deep trance,' 'overshadowing' or 'total takeover'  'channeling.'  (channeling articles index)  Occasionally there were 'apports' (materialized objects) and at one seance Spiritualist journalist Maurice Barbanell witnessed the full body materialization of 'Red Cloud.'  Maurice wrote about the various manifestations of Estelle's mediumship—including clairvoyance and clairaudience—in several chapters of Power of the Spirit, a 1949 memoir about the many people whom he personally witnessed to manifest the 'power of the spirit' in diverse ways.  (article)
 
Here's a short biography of the medium from a current website dedicated to her.  (estelleroberts.co.uk)

Born in Kensington in May 1889, May Estelle Wills was one of eight children, the only one who from her earliest recollections could hear spirit voices.  Frequently beaten by her father to correct what he considered to be her unruly imagination as he had no understanding of Spiritualism whatsoever.

A frequent visitor from the spirit world was her brother, who had died before she was born.  Many other spirit children would visit and it was a constant cause of concern when her parents would listen to her having conversations with them.

When she grew a little older, she went out to work at the age of fifteen.  Estelle secured a position as a nursemaid to a family in Turnham Green, looking after the children, a position which she loved.

In later life Estelle was married twice.  Firstly, to Hugh, with whom she was very happily married.  Hugh understood about Estelle's spirit friends and in due course they had three children of their own to look after.

They struggled to get by on Hugh’s limited income as a clerk, and after a few years Hugh fell ill and was thought to be suffering with Consumption which later turned out to be Bright's disease.  No longer able to work, Estelle had to support the family.  With ten shillings per week from sickness benefits Estelle frequently went without meals to help feed the rest of her family.

The doctors advised a move closer to the sea to aid Hugh's medical condition, so they moved the family to Hastings in Kent.  Hugh tried to work but was just not able to attend regularly, so they took in paying guests to supplement their income.  Frequently collapsing from hunger and exhaustion Estelle fought on to support the family.

Throughout this time, Estelle continued to enjoy the company of her spirit friends and she was sure this was all in preparation for something greater to follow.

Months later in May 1919, Hugh became seriously ill and eventually passed to the spirit world as Estelle sat with him and watched his spirit leave his body.  The following few nights Estelle heard Hugh calling to her to join him.  He later returned with a different message apologising for calling to her to join him.

At this time, Estelle decided to leave Hastings and move Hampton-upon-Thames with the children.  She secured a position at a local factory which helped her to support the children.  Becoming ill once again Estelle found herself unable to work for several months.  When she was feeling a little better, she started to work as a waitress at Victoria station, which continued until she met and married Arthur Roberts.

Estelle was invited by a neighbour to attend Hampton Spiritualist church which she did regularly and began to understand a little more about Spiritualism.  Singled out by one of the demonstrating mediums Estelle was told "You are a medium and have much work to do."

Shortly after this, Estelle heard and saw Red cloud for the first time.  This was the start of Estelle and Arthur sitting regularly in a darkened room to further her spiritual development.

In 1922 Estelle and Arthur had a son named Terry.  Shortly after this, Estelle felt she had reached a stage in her development that she could work and help people with her mediumship.  She longed to share her understanding with people and with the help from Red Cloud she worked among the people bringing messages of comfort to the bereaved.  She also shared greater understanding of what she believed to be the truth about the afterlife.

Estelle continued to sit in her home circle with others including Maurice and Sylvia Barbanell, they always started by singing 'Onward Christian Soldiers' then a gramophone playing during the sitting.  Singing and music give vibrations which are helpful to the spirit world.  The record always played was "Rose Marie," the Drury Lane musical comedy.  After about ten minutes you see one of the trumpets move and soon the voice of Red Cloud, "God bless you all."

Maurice Barbanell concluded his book The Trumpet Shall Sound (1933) with "an example of Red Cloud's inspired teaching."
 
The glory of life is to love,
Not to be loved;
To give, not to get;
To serve, not to be served;
To be a strong hand to another in the time of need,
To be a cup of strength to a soul in a crisis of weakness
That is to know the glory of life.

The title page of the book presents a Bible passage concerning a 'trumpet':
 
"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible . . ."
I Corinthians 15.  52.

Meanwhile —
 


A series of blog articles published earlier this year include "Documenting A Potentially Cataclysmic War With Thought-Provoking X.com Posts".


The book Red Cloud Speaks subtitled Trance Teachings through Estelle Roberts was published in 1938 and the Compiler's Note reports the following.

When it was suggested that the trance addresses given by Red Cloud, through his medium Estelle Roberts, should be published as a book, I gladly undertook the task of preparing this volume.

To do this meant reading scores of trance addresses given by the spirit guide during the past few years and making selections from those suitable for printing in book form.

Some explanation is necessary to those who are strangers to the subject of Spiritualism.

Red Cloud speaks through his medium when she in trance.  His personality is quite distinct from that of his medium.  His voice is entirely different also.  He speaks in characteristic, masculine tones. . . .
 
A Foreword by Red Cloud begins with a note:
 
A few days before the completed manuscript of this book was sent to the printers, Red Cloud, speaking through his medium, who was in trance, dictated this foreword.

Red Cloud's personal introductory statements include these made in September, 1938.

It was the year 1914 when we returned to earth.  We found that man had become so saturated with his beliefs, which are and always have been totally opposed to God, that he was dead to the reality of himself and the spiritual laws which govern him.  The world was insane with bloodlust, drenching the mind of man with desires which were obliterating his realisation of the catastrophic effect upon himself and incoming generations . . . We received instructions from the council chamber to set about our tasks of making man understand that the gift of God is eternal life; to comfort the mourner; to heal the sick; the feed the hungry and to cast out devils; to bring back to man the spiritual law of his birthright in God; to put into operation the brotherhood of man and leave with him the wisdom of the spirit . . . Remember, "To know God is to love your fellow men; to worship God is to serve them; to believe in God is to succour them; and to see God is to bring peace amongst the nations."
 
Regarding potential influences to channeled material by the medium or 'channeler' whose physicality is being used by an entity, 'Chang' speaking through entranced medium Douglas Johnson circa 1968 has been quoted to have stated this explanation about the form of transcendental communication today called 'channeling.'
 
It is like pouring water into a mind . . . And if you pour water into a vessel that is shaped round, the water will be round-shaped in that vessel.  Therefore the words that we pour through human instruments are certain to take the shape of the mind of that instrument, although the essence of that message may well remain.  This is our difficulty.  Some instruments are better than others.  Psychic gifts are not necessarily spiritual.  It is a gift that is like music.  Remember this.  Not all those who are endowed with the gift of music may lead lives that are exactly spiritual in nature.  We make use of what material is available.  (article)
 
While this blogger was once again reading Red Cloud Speaks after many years these past few days, there were occasions when I realized that there were a few statements that didn't impress me as being literally correct yet instead figurative generalizations.  I'm reminded of other advice from a channeled entity — that of 'Thodore Parker' through Mrs. J. H. Conant in 1869.
 
"It should be understood that each distinct intelligence, or human spirit, retains its own special intellectual integrity after death as before.  All are entitled to their own opinions and the expression of the same, if they express themselves at all.  All questions relating to well-developed scientific facts will, without doubt, be answered, by all intelligences coming here, in a similar manner.  The idea will be one and the same, though the expression or clothing of the idea may be different in all.  But with regard to all questions of theology, you must expect that each spirit will preserve his or her own opinions, and if questioned will give them according to their best ability so to do. . . ."  (article)
 

A photo of Estelle Roberts is juxtaposed with a 'scotograph' of her guide 'Red Cloud' complete with a noticeable instance of the telltale letter 'M'.

 

Excerpts From Red Cloud Speaks

 
Chapter Two

CONCEPTION OF GOD

 
For many centuries the Church has led men and women along the line of a belief in a heaven and hell, also that God is a personal being upon a throne.  I find it very difficult to eradicate those old ideas.
 
Now first let us take the word "God."  What does it mean?  It is simply and solely an abbreviation of the word "good."  The word "holy" means "whole."  These two words in their true conception have a totally different meaning to us than they may have to you.  There is another word used in the language of the Bible.  When you hear that the "Lord" spoke, that is only another word for "Law," meaning the good of the law in the perfection of the whole.  I know how difficult it is for you to accept God as a great infinite thought, mind, or spirit.  Yet you have been taught God is spirit — not a spirit.  "God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."  God, or Good, is the perfection of mind or consciousness.  That perfected being is in you and me and in every spirit that breathes.

When you are taught that the kingdom of heaven is within you, that is true.  You will not go to some place in the universe to find God.  You will not go many, many thousands of miles to find God.  That permeating influence is in your midst.  The kingdom of heaven is yours at any time that you choose to adjust your consciousness to it.  I do not say that whilst in your world you can become perfect, because you are still in an imperfect world, dealing with the confused thoughts of men and women who see "through a glass darkly," and who may stay three score years and ten in that imperfect state.
 
Never believe that you are going to meet some great soul upon a throne at any time.  As you progress, the thought within your consciousness tells you how to differentiate, even as it does now between good and evil.  You know today the difference between right and wrong and you know instinctively when error is in your midst.  Then you must also know that God is in your midst, because you realise there is something better.

Instinctively every man, woman and child knows right from wrong.  Therefore if you know that error exists, you must also know that good exists, and vice versa.  You cannot have the realisation of the one without the other.  It is no use if you say, "I have no free will."  That is the one blessing that the law has given to all of you, the free will to think for yourselves and to work out your own salvation.  If you are going to be governed by some personal being, some great and mighty one, what do you think you have to live for?  Have I not always taught: "Do not believe me.  Think it out for yourselves."

I do not ask you to agree with me, but I do ask you to come and let us reason together.  All though the ages the great thinkers have reasoned together.  Today men and women are desirous of learning the truth, and they must realise fully that the first great cause of all life is mind, consciousness.  Nothing exists for you unless you know it is good or bad.  You are conscious of both error and perfection and you must refuse to live in the thoughts of your fellow-men, but strike out for yourselves individually and work out your own salvation.

Jesus said to his disciples, "It is expedient that I go away, otherwise the fullness will not come unto you," — meaning that if they relied upon the personality of Jesus of Nazareth at all times they could not work out their own salvation.  You, like the disciples of old, must not depend upon the personality of Jesus, or Red Cloud.  You have to work out your own spiritual evolution.
 
You should begin to understand that no man has the monopoly of God.  No money can buy God.  Remember the law, "God is not mocked."  "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord."  No one can intercede for you unless you intercede for yourself.  You have free will.  No one can bind you.  Each man can only bind himself.  You are a free individual thought in that great conscious law.
 
No Church can take you out of hell and place you in heaven.  Neither can a guide do so.  You are as free as the air you breathe.  You can either remain outside the law of the universe as long as you like, or you can enter into the Law tomorrow, today, or at this very moment. 
 
Instead of realising the beauty, justice and perfection of that great first law called God, you make an image in the likeness of a man.  But on what grounds do you base it?  Man's conception of God is that He has a body, because of his material aspect.  If you could see the law in operation you would understand that God is the seed from which, when planted, springs the green leaf or the small flower.  God is planted in the hearts of men.  Flowers, birds and creatures that crawl upon the face of the earth are aspects, lesser thoughts of that great creative law of good, man being the highest conception of thought in operation.
 
You take the child and, as its unfolding consciousness tenderly breaks forth like a young blossom, it is taught that it is condemned because it is born into sin.  In a sense that is right, but is that young mind capable of understanding the real message behind those words?  Born into error if you like, but why sin?  The child is also taught that if it is good it will go to heaven, otherwise it will go to hell and suffer eternal torture.
 
Surely it must be realised by now that there is no such place as hell.  Hell is a confused state of mind.  You do not have to wait for death to go to hell.  You can be in hell through fear, here and now.  I have never seen a pit with boiling liquid, or a pit with fire, or a demon with a forked tail.  But I have seen men rise in agony through having seen the result of their wrong-doing.  No man gives you hell.  You give it to yourselves.
 
Instead of teaching your children these things, they should be taught from the beginning that they are governed firstly and lastly by natural law, that the mind is God within them, that the ground of that mind can be tilled with the harmony of God's kingdom.  No one can tell them what they are to do.  They must live their lives according to their desire.  You would then find that children, instead of having these inharmonious notes, would never know fear.
 
One of the great tragedies of your world is caused through fear, the jangling note which strikes the ear of the mind of men and women, bearing them mentally and physically to the ground.  It is the knife of error that will destroy.  Yet it only exists in the hell of a man's conscience when he lives outside the law of God.
 
Pray for good.  Pray to the law to know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  That is how you are going to understand God.  That is how you must understand God.  "He that goeth into the inner chamber of his mind and prayeth to the Father in secret is heard of the Father and rewarded openly."  Remember the Law that hears all prayers is not a spirit upon a great throne.  God is, at all times, the Law.  Know that the Law is no respecter of persons.  God respects no one man more than another.  He respects, or rather the Law respects, every good thought, and every good motive of every man or woman.
 
God considers the cause and motive.  That is what I want you to understand.  The sooner you eradicate the idea from your mind that God must be approached as a being, the sooner you will begin to understand how to work with your own evolution.  And your life, spiritually and materially, will be much easier, for once that you drink of the waters of life, you shall no longer thirst.  When you touch that harmonious rhythm you are changed in the twinkling of an eye.  It simply means that you have found God.

Here Are Some More Excerpts From Red Cloud Speaks

  
You are taught from my world that man is the apex of life, or spirit in matter.  He is vibrating on the highest vibration there is in matter.  Man is the apex of the evolution of matter.
 
As you come up the scale, and as each object takes on the life as each body progresses, matter must eventually in its process of evolution become spiritualized.  The vibration from the lowest to the highest in man has got to become more and more spiritualised in its consciousness.
 
As in the animal kingdom, the life force comes up, up, up; each vibration has got to become more attuned to the higher vibration above it, so that each vibration goes on to the next — or shall I say, as put to you in different language but with the same meaning by the Nazarene, "In the Father's house are many mansions."
 
The vibrations of all life are inter-dependent, and vibration in the lower kingdoms are dependent upon the apex.  For example, you have in your schools the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh standards.  You have the teachers and you also have the head master.  As the scholar goes up through each standard, so the process of evolution of mind is going on.  Such is the plan of life.
 
 
When the vibration, which is you, the actual soul, is vibrating on a higher state of its progress, then the atom falls away, even as when the butterfly arrives the carcass of matter falls away.  That is what happens to you when you pass through what you call death, but which to us is nothing more than the atom falling away from you.  You will find another body of atoms which will be yours, for remember, you are eternal.  You are going on and on.
 
 
Is death a mystery?  No, it is an expression, an experience.  You pass from one body to another.  When you come into matter as a man you have a shape; you have a body.  When you leave matter you still have a body, and so you go on in vibration.  Man must learn to live inside the divine law of vibration, the law of love.  It is the science of life, the science of religion.
 
"Man must raise his temporal power
But God alone can paint a flower."
 
And remember:
 
"Man can raise his temple above
But God alone sends down love."
 
That is the Law.  That Law never decays.  It is the Law that lifts man from pillar to pillar.  It is the fulfillment of the vibration of this earth matter.  Once man realises in his consciousness that he can climb the ladder of love into the highest vibration of his God, then he has learned the science of life.  Once he has touched that vibration he knows and can repeat the words used by the Nazarene in his extremity of suffering, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
 
 
What are you doing to assist in this world that is shackled by fear?  Are you trying to break the bonds of humanity?  Are you doing your work according to your understanding?  Or do you say, "It is a good theory but a doubtful practice"?  It is well for the Christians that Jesus of Nazareth did not say this.  Are you afraid of what your fellow men might say about you?  If you are, then remember that all through the ages the saints, seers and the prophets have suffered much, mentally and physically, that you, the Christians of today, might have the privilege of hearing the word of the spirit.
 
 
Two thousand years ago the birth of a great truth took place.  The 2,000 years' cycle is coming round today and truth is dawning once more. . . .
 
 
Man is eternal.  He cannot die because he is part of God, part of the great universe, which has eternal life.  But because man for many centuries has endeavored to cut away the roots of God from his consciousness, travail and confusion have taken place, because through man's mind the effect is left upon the world.  You do not suppose that in my world, with our knowledge of the Law, with our love and belief that we the hovels you have.  You do not suppose that we have laboratories where men of intelligence and skill seek and manufacture gases to destroy their fellows.
 
Every action, every movement, every thought is stamped with the indelible stamp of consciousness upon each one of you.  Through centuries man has left his effect upon the world that it is now spiritually bankrupt.  Man runs hither and thither, only able to behold his little state of existence in the matter-world.  Instead of this man must get back to the consciousness of the great law of cause and effect that governs him.  This does not belong to the material, finite universe, but to the spiritual universe.
 
 
Each one of you must abide in your own tabernacle of mind, for that is your temple of God.  Your free will is the altar upon which you lay the gifts of your mind.  You can lay upon that altar love, service, courage, strength, all those attributes of harmony and rhythm of this universe of perfection.  You have free will to do that.
 
You have, on the other hand, the free will to live in an illusion of fear, death, suffering and all those things that, like a bogey-man, need not exist, for they do not do so to those who live by their free will in God.  You know there need not be, in your world, all the strife that you see around you.  You see bloodshed and war, humanity crying out in its terror, and  frankly, your world is sick unto death because it has abused its free will.  Your world has abused god.  He has not abused the world.
 
If you go back over this past two thousand years at no time has God ever left you comfortless.  Two thousand years ago you had the pure teaching given to you by Jesus of Nazareth.  You have had it from the Buddha, Zoroaster and Confucius.  Through the ages, through your incarnations, which are entirely of your own free will, they have come with you, suffered with you, been crucified mentally so that they might come into the vibrations of your jangling notes, and of their own free will teach you.  At all times you have had the opportunity to listen.
 
 
If a man, after death, believes in annihilation and thinks that nothing exists beyond, he creates around him a cloak of error.  He sees "through a glass darkly" in his conscious mind in the spirit world.  If you cloak your body in finite thought, you remain on the finite vibration until you realise that creative thought is infinite and awaken to your own possibilities.  If a man creates around himself the thought that after death he must sleep, we have a slumberland plane in my world where these people through generations of teaching have been taught that they must sleep until the resurrection day.  There they lie, countless millions of them.  They think that is the right thing to do.
 
 
No man can wrap up God in a small parcel and say: "My idea of religion is the only one.  My idea of God is the most perfect."  Man can only see according to his conscious understanding of creative thought, finite or infinite.  No man has a monopoly of the Law.  I ask you to understand that the desire of the infinite force, or the Law, is to create a perfect heaven, a perfect mental-world for your fellow men.  Believe this in all simplicity when I tell you.  It does not need long prayers.  It does not mean that you must cry out to the Father.  With all your power create in your own little mental world peace, love, simplicity, pity and tolerance.
 
Above all, be tolerant, for the more you unfold these attributes of the spirit and the infinite being, the more you are wiping out the lower vibrations of the finite thought, for "corruption cannot take on incorruption."  The finite cannot take on the infinite, but the infinite perfection can wipe out the error of the finite. 
 
   
You have a very limited idea of life in the world past death.
 
First of all I should like you to know that the world from whence I come is as solid to us as your world is to you.  When we study your minds we see that you have an idea that the next state of existence is a totally different life from the one in which you now live.  I want you to put that idea completely from your mind, and to know that the next state of life that you inherit will be as solid as the body in which you live now.
 
Does this life continue?  Definitely.  From the moment that the body, the coat I call it, in which you are encased at present drops away from you, activity of mind and being continues as before, for man is indestructible.  He lives because he never dies.  When he enters the next state surrounding your earthly belt, he enters a new life, at first.  It may be bewildering to him because his mind believed many things to the contrary whilst in the body.  He believed that he was obliged to lie in the grave until the Resurrection Day.  Man is eternal and at no period can his activities cease.
 
When he has had such a belief and enters the astral world, he finds it difficult to realise that he is dead.  He goes around at his fellow men and asks them how it is he is dead yet alive.  It is all very bewildering.
 
Then again you have the man who believes that his sins are forgiven him whilst in the body with the result that his life in the astral world is very disappointing.  He has not remembered the teaching of Paul which says, "Work out your own salvation."  He has not realised the law of cause and effect, which rules that no man can forgive your sins.  You have to work out your own evolution here and now. 
 
So you will find that a man with that mental outlook upon entering the astral world find it very difficult to readjust himself to his new life.  In such a case as this he usually enters one of the homes in the astral world, and we endeavor to teach him.  But like certain men in your world he usually has his own ideas and is still allowed to think along those lines, if he desires so to do.  But those who believe in the finality of death will not progress far in the mental world.
 
 
. . . "Red Cloud, were do you obtain all the materials with which to build [in your astral world]?"  You know the one aspect you hold is that your little earth is the only planet in a solid state.  There are many planets, many states of existence.  What right has man to limit God?  You have such a wrong aspect of God.  You seem to think that He will suddenly uproot you from one vibration of existence and plant you in another which is totally different for your mental capacity to assimilate.  What right have you to think of the great creative force in that way?  The world from whence I come has a natural process of unfoldment.  Each planet that man inherits is only just a little removed from the last state of existence.  But there are states within states, and that is what you have to understand.  There are spheres, mental spheres and planets within planets, the possibilities of which man cannot discern with his material eyes.
 
 
What do you know of eternal life?  You do not even realise that whilst you sleep you enjoy our day in the astral world.  You cannot stay in that body more than a few hours at a stretch.  You are forced to leave it.  So you say: "I will go to sleep," and you lie down in a bed and you think that the actual you is in that body.  I tell you it is not.  It is only the material jacket that lies there.  You are in the day of your own spiritual kingdom.
 
 
In the lower strata of the astral world we have to enforce law and order, for those that you have sent over to us are in the same state of mind as when they left the earthly body.  They are not totally different.  That is only what you have been led to believe.  But who authorises that belief?  You must realise that you can advance into the highest states of  the astral world if you so wish, just in the same way as you can go down into the depths of the slums in your world, then to pass again into the beauty of the open spaces.  But we do not have slums.  Oh no!  We only have the minds that have not progressed.  We have the people, but not the structures that you build.  We build a better environment for those souls.  Men and women of my world have learnt that they should not appreciate the things of the material — money, and all those physical attributes.  They have learnt in this world to appreciate the good they can do to uplift the lowly ones, to build better homes, a better environment and all that will help to uplift their minds.
 
In my world greatness is not judged by wealth or title, but by greatness of spirit, and a man is known according to his aspect and by the good deeds he has performed whilst in the matter-body.
 
 
What is inspiration?  Man is a spirit here and now and even though he does not yet realise it fully his soul is operating in the spirit spheres now whilst he is on the earth.  I think perhaps it will help you to understand and realise this a little better if I explain to you what inspiration really is.
 
Sometimes, when you look back over the ages and read the lives of your saints, as you term them, you say: "They were inspired by the holy spirit of God and in the strength of the inspiration they were able to accomplish these things."  Sometimes as you gaze upon a man or woman who plays an instrument perfectly you watch the ecstasy upon their faces.  You see that wondrous joy visualise within the depths of their eyes, you say: "They are inspired."
 
Then again you look upon an artist, perhaps an author, who sits at his table without physical food hour after hour, forgetting things physical, writing—writing—writing.  Here again you say: "He is inspired."  Then you have your platform worker who has ideals and endeavours to give them voice from the public platform.  His oratory astounds you.  Here again you say: "He is inspired."
 
All these things you attribute to inspiration.
 

Inspiration is food for the soul body and is as necessary as physical food for the physical body.
 

A man who commits suicide automatically puts into operation premature birth into the spirit world.  He is born into the spirit realms out of season.  That is the first thing that I must touch upon so that you may realise men and women must obey the Law.
 
If you force the spirit from the body before its due season, you automatically commit a breach of the Law; therefore you stop in the vibrations near the earth world until the fullness of your birth takes place.
 
 
There is one thing you must realise.  Every motive, every thought is registered, for everything you do is known to us.  This man's material body suddenly crashes, and through suicide his astral body enters my world.  It is a great shock to him to find that he is not dead, and that he has, as you say, only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, into the fire of reality, for he now realises that he has left undone those things that he ought to have done.
 
 
What do you do after death?  You may have read how Raymond Lodge told his father—that grand old man Oliver Lodge whom we on our side love so well—that in the world of spirit whisky and cigars could be obtained.  Your world mocked, and we wondered at your ignorance.
 
Automatically a man who desires drink after death draws near to your world, enters your houses of drink, and there, in the aura of those who are still in the body, taps into the mind the vibrations of those imbibing alcohol.
 
A spirit, from my world, may also impinge upon a mind of a man or woman who loiters in these houses of crime, because it is the law of attraction.  It often happens that the man dwelling in the matter-world thinks he is asking for the drink because he himself desires it, but the spirit of the man in my world is urging him on so that he, too, can get the desire thought from the earthly man.
 
"Birds of a feather flock together," you say.  In your world you do not find the dustman and the prince walking arm in arm.  You find the dustman with his fellow men and the prince with his.  Such is the law of attraction.  Until that spirit desires something better he will hang around your earthly plane, living that type of life.  One day the awakening for something better comes to him, and automatically, as the desire is, there so is the Law put into operation for him, and he rises a little in his evolution.  No man can give you the kingdom of heaven, for it is already within you.
 
The drunkard gets a square deal from my world, more so than he does in your world, because often you do not know the motive of a man's life, and you condemn him, whereas we know the truth.
 
Then we have the drug addict — the person who thinks that by taking a small tube and syringe he can inject some drug into himself, thereby sending his mental body (his spirit), into a world of seductive beauty.  It is a poor man or woman who does this thing!  What right have you to drive your body, the real you, from the temple that God gave you?  What is the result?  The spirit, having experienced the sensations of being out of the body, desires to leave again and again.  You know the result, even as I know it.  It results in another earth-bound spirit who will not face up to his own responsibility.
 
The word "obsession" is used indiscriminately by a great many people in your world.  They have an idea that it refers only to evil spirits.  Another word that is also used without due thought is "possession."
 
Man whilst in the material body is surrounded by an aura, a magnetic aura that stands out sometimes a foot, or sometimes only six inches from the material body.  This aura is often seen by clairvoyants.  In the old days it was depicted as a halo around the head.  This halo was painted by a great many of the old Italian artists, but it is really the aura that is seen surrounding the material body.
 
The aura, like all things that you possess whilst in a material body, is there for a special purpose.  You know there is a great pressure of air upon the physical body.  You know of the ether in space, and you know that the material body is held upright by the force of gravitation between earth and the light of the sun.  Although you may not yet realise it, it is symbolical of man's upright condition in the spiritual kingdom.  You are given an aura of protection to keep the material body in alignment with the ether and the pressure of air around you of many pounds to the square inch.  It also protects man from interpenetrating too far into the astral world in the first stages after death.
 
It is a protection for those who mentally are not sufficiently advanced to enter the astral world and grapple with its power.
 
The aura holds you between the spheres and the earth world.  It is magnetic and its vibrations are the thoughts radiating from the mind which are reflected in the aura.
 
Remember that this aura is governed by the mind from within, not from without, and so there is  a perpetual outward radiation, or in the words of your Bible, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man."  It is the thoughts thrown out into the aura that form the power over you, guarding you from obsession.
 
Now, what is meant by obsession?  I am speaking as spirit coming from my world.  Obsession can take two forms, good and evil.  For instance, at this moment I am in possession of a woman's body, but I want you to realise that I am possessing this body with the free will and sanction of the owner.  Still it is one form of obsession.
 
Although I am obsessing the medium by the possession the body, the spirit of the medium is standing just a little way away and could, at any given moment, through the operation of her mind, eject me from this body.  She knows enough of the law governing possession or obsession to be capable of retaining through the aura the power to eject me and be "master of the situation."
 
The aura in this instance is permeated with the thought of service, blending with the vibrations of the teachers and workers who hold the outgoing vibration of thought from the medium's body and aura.  Thus the flow, backwards and forwards, is perfect.  That is possession or obsession on a right basis, because the owner of the body retains charge at all times and is capable of returning to it without injury, distress, or any distortion or disturbance of the vibrations.
 
Then we have the other side of obsession.  I just remarked that it was that which goeth out that defileth.  This is portrayed by a dark aura.  Immediately the aura is darkened by wrong thinking, it automatically becomes jangled on its vibrations so that the aura becomes thin and the astral world comes closer to the mind or space inhabiting that body.  This often results in a person becoming obsessed by voices.
 
[In this paragraph the earthly predicament of metaphysically ignorant or superstitious people is expressed in language comprehensible to presumably 'protected' 'Spiritualists' during the 1930s.]  In that case the aura is distinctly thin because the mind has not sent out sufficient protective thought, with the result that the aura interpenetrates the astral world and, by the law of cause and effect, that soul contacts the plane or sphere it will inherit when it leaves the material body.  When a person who is clairaudient hears these voices in the lower states of the astral, you must realise that the vibrations are not good.  Always advise them first to cleanse their mind, then to see a good healer who will automatically, with the power of the spirit, demagnetise the aura, heal the split, and cause a readjustment which will discontinue this tapping of the astral world.
 
One thing people cannot yet grasp is the fact that there are good, bad and indifferent spirits surrounding you.  The people of my world are the people who come from your world, and according to how you send them over, so they are in this world.
 
Each one of you is a spirit treading an earthly pathway, and you should  be master of that instrument though which you operate.  Automatically you attract around you good or evil spirits, according to your own mentality.  If you think along the lines of goodness; if you have love for your fellow men and for all those attributes of the spirit that are of God, you can be obsessed or possessed by the spirit of God within your own soul.  That is another form of obsession.
 
Be possessed of the highest ideals of the spiritual kingdom in your aura, and you will attract masters, teachers, helpers, inspirers, workers and strengtheners from the Godhead.
 
  
Your world has disobeyed the law of spirit.  One of the laws the Nazarene taught you was "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, then all these things are added unto you."  I wonder if you think those words were just a phrase or do you realise he who came to fulfill the Law was teaching the Law.
 
He said to you, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," and the kingdom of God is the law of love universal.  When we from this world are asked why you are in such a disorganised state, we know it is because man has sought not the kingdom of God, but the manifestation of the second law — "and these things are added unto you."  He has sought the illusion of matter, the illusion of materialism, he has excluded the law of the spirit.
 
And so we see your god of materialism failing you.  You have had wars and rumours of wars, bloodshed, suffering, bankruptcy, degradation, sorrow.  These are the fruits of the law of cause and effect, due to man worshipping his god of materialism.  How little man understands that law of the spirit, the universal law, and yet in his own soul man knows because his soul responds to the vibrations of the Law around him.
 
If I said to you, "You can go out and steal and rob, it is all right," your own soul would instantly respond to the vibrations of the truth and know that I was leading you astray.  Therefore you do and can respond to these laws which are as perfect as night and day.
 
You would say, perhaps, "What are these laws composed of?  How do we come in contact with them?  I cannot love all men."  Remember another part of your Bible, where one of the followers of the Nazarene said, "Brethren, concerning spiritual gifts I would not have you ignorant."  He went on to say, "You can have all the gifts of the spirit, but if you have not charity you are as sounding brass, or as a tinkling cymbal."  One of the laws of the great oversoul of spirit is charity.  What charity?  Remember I am teaching you from the Bible.  I may not always put it in the words as written, but I put the facts before you.  Remember these words, "Charity is not puffed up, seeketh not its own, is humble always."  Charity of thought.  Charity within yourself.  As you accomplish and fulfill the divine laws of the Universal God, slowly as you respond to these laws which are already within you, you will awaken to tolerance and charity, which is the fulfillment of the Law.
 
 
Are your minds and your souls desirous of understanding that wondrous, desirable charity which is akin to the love of the kingdom of heaven?  Remember the mind is the altar of the soul, and as you react to that great  overpowering love of the Universal God, you will begin to see the other man's point of view, because as tolerance takes the place of the exclusion of the Law you begin to understand the real meaning of those words, "Neither do I condemn thee."
 
 
Remember to fulfill the Law you must become a server of the Law, and it is natural that the first desire, as you progress into the consciousness of the spirit, is to serve humanity.
 

Man lives in an imperfect matter-world where you have two laws in operation.  You have the law of Christ, the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."  That must supersede the law of Moses which say, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."  Today there are people in your world who come under the law of Moses even as there are those who come under the law of Christ.  How are you going to keep those who come under that law of Moses from destroying the man who comes under the law of Christ?  Here are questions I should like to ask the man who says, "There should be no armaments," though I will assert that from my world he is right.  "Is he right whilst in your world?  Do you think that a man who deliberately arms himself to go out and destroy his fellow men, thereby showing that he comes under the law of Moses, is justified in so doing, or do you think that the other man who comes under the law of Christ is justified in not arming?"
 

Supposing the Christian man takes a gun and says: "Well, if by holding this gun I can keep a Moses man in subjection, am I justified in so doing?  I do not want to use it, but, if it will keep him in resistance am I wise in so doing?  I do not want to use it, but, if it will keep him and hold him in resistance am I wise in doing so?"  The one thing that people always forget is the motive, and it is the motive that counts.  From the aspect of your world you often have to take the lesser of two evils.  Let us look at it in this way.  Is it the gun, or is it the motive? 

 
Which one amongst you is brave enough to stand up and say, "I would rather die and let my wife and child die by my side than a hold a gun to keep them alive"?  Do not think that from my aspect we believe in war and bloodshed.  That only belongs to your world.  In my world we have only one law — the law of Christ, which has superseded the law of Moses.  But we know that in the imperfect world in which you live you come under the two laws. 
 
 
Unless you are born of the Spirit you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  What does it mean?  It means this: unless you can blend your body, soul and mind with a greater understanding of the Spirit in its eternity, then you must pass backwards and forwards from the astral to earth.  Until you are born to the fuller understanding you must still travel backwards and forwards.

You do not go very far away, but stay until a real desire makes you say: "How can I enter the Kingdom of Heaven?  What is it I must learn?"  You must learn what spirit is.  You have to register divine thought in its fullness.  You must tune into that divine law before you can be born of the Spirit.

 
He who denies the reality of his spiritual self annihilates himself to the extent of that real kingdom which is his inheritance.  So, in accordance with the Law, he dies in the astral world, not of bodily disease, but a disease of the mind, of error, which extinguishes the light which is his own reality.  Therefore he is reborn; that is the second death — reborn into matter.

 
You must be born again, whether you like it or not.  It is fixed by your evolution.  You can be born into that greater expanse and expression of life past the astral or automatically you will die from the astral and return to the matter world, there to take up, according to your character, you belief, your desire and motive, all that you have left undone and have done erroneously.

No one will dictate to you.  Least of all shall we do so.  Whether in the body or out of the body, you must advance here and there, or be earthbound, according to individual free will.

You will persist after death, perhaps only to find out that you must return.  Learn the lesson here and now and thus escape from confusion.  Understand now that you can live in the real world where there is no more suffering, no more sorrow and no more pain.  That is the world where you really belong.

If you prefer to wander along the pathway of confusion and "see through a glass darkly," living only according to man-made laws, that is your responsibility.
  

Excerpts From Red Cloud Speaks: Chapter Nineteen QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

 
What do you think about the Oxford Group movement, that great religious body of men who claim that they have direct guidance from God Almighty?
 
Call a rose by any other name and it is still as sweet.  I want to ask you a plain question.  You know you are governed by law and that your vibrations can only reach out according to your evolution.  Do you honestly believe that any man or woman can be in supreme contact with God?
 
No man can state that he is in direct contact with God because God is a Whole, not a being.  The expressions of the Law in the highest stages of evolution are inexpressible in matter, and the higher you climb the ladder of evolution the less likely you are to remember earth and its groups.  Matter is a very slow vibration to you then when you have advanced to the quick vibration of spirit.  You will then realise the vastness of the Law, and what a small fraction of the Great Infinite Consciousness we all are.  Do you understand me?
 
I understand perfectly, but I should like you to enlarge upon it in this way.  These people apparently appear to get guidance and their lives seem to be changed, and they seem to be converted after they have come to a realisation of this guidance from above.
 
Yes, but you asked me, my son, to express what I thought of their direct guidance from God, and I have answered that question, but what do they understand as God?  That is the point I query.  You must remember there are layers and layers, interpenetrating spheres, and on each sphere is a master who is throwing all his power, his knowledge and his wisdom combined with love on to the plane beneath — and so it is through all the spheres.
 
The ideals are good, but I want to see man accepting free will and personal responsibility.  I want men and women to realise that they are individual souls working out their individual evolution, and by doing so they will readjust themselves to the Law.  In that readjustment they would be wisely led because they are the branches of the tree, the small branches going out from the sturdy stems, and the tree trunk itself is the Godhead, the Law, which will give the branches little by little the sustenance which they need.
  

Can you tell me the law operating behind man's desire all through the ages for some creed or dogma?
 
The conception of God varies tremendously according to the evolution of the soul conceiving God.  Always within man there is the breath of God which gives him a great urge to praise something, and man has always raised something up.  It has always been so.  That urge makes man try to express in physical atoms something that he cannot see and hold.  In the olden days they slaughtered animals, sacrificing in blood, and fashioned their dogmas and creeds accordingly.  But today man is beginning to break away from dogmas and creeds, realising that although part of the whole plan, they were only a very small part.  From the lower concepts of God man is getting on to a higher concept.
 
 
The rays of the spirit are penetrating.  If man makes an attempt to readjust himself, automatically the Law helps him.  If a man endeavours to lift his aspirations and inspirations, automatically power is given him.  When man realises that through worshipping the god of materialism he has left himself bankrupt of light and is stumbling in the darkness of the illusion of matter, even as a frightened child will cry out to its mother and be answered, so will God answer, for God has never failed humanity.  The Law has never failed you.  If you have rejected it, it is always there in your midst, waiting for you to pick it up again.  You can out it down today and pick it up tomorrow.  If you reject it for two hundred years, it still waits for you.
 
 
How is it that out of all these human beings coming back into this matter-world so few have perfected themselves are ready to pass on?
 
Only because they still desire to live, by their free will, on the earthly plane.  When they leave the astral world they come to the earth with great ideals.  They come from my world full of what they want to put right.  When they enter the matter-world the still small voice of God still talks to them, but they do not listen to it.  And they love the things of the matter-world.
 
So, instead of going forward they must remain, shall I say, stagnant for a short time, for what are three score years and ten in eternity?  That is why half of the people come back to my world having left undone the things they ought not to have done.  That is the reason.  Remember Jesus gave you these words: "Many are called, but few are chosen."  There are few who can overcome the temptations of the matter-world, but there are today more than there have been for three or four centuries.
 
But, Red Cloud, the population of the world seems to be increasing.  How is it we have so many people coming back?
 
Remember the astral world is a vast world.  If you send them into my world they do not always advance.  They will come back with the same mind, and remember, there is all eternity for them.  They have free will, and if they desire to live in that state no one can take it from them.
 
Please do not think that humanity is not expanding in its consciousness.  Look back.  About a hundred and fifty years ago, as you count time, a man would have been hanged for stealing a coat.  Just over a hundred years ago you would not have listened to me.  You would have burned my medium as a witch.  So, you see, man is slowly awakening.  Truth is coming through, even to the most distorted mind.c
 

Is everybody guided by a spirit, whether conscious of it or not?
 
Everyone has a guardian spirit.  Someone from my world who has accepted this task is watching over you, whether you like it or not.  These guardians only influence you for good.  Of course, you can attract other spirits, because as a man thinketh so is it.  Even as you attract in your world, so you attract from my world.  But there is always a good spirit watching you, impressing you with that thought of godliness, loveliness and Truth, and you can accept them or leave them just as you wish.
 

You speak of inspiration being a spiritual gift.  Why is it then that sometimes the greatest artist is sometimes the most tiresome, egotistical person one can possibly know?
 
Because the soul is not yet awake.  It is when the three bodies, body, spirit and soul, work in conjunction, one with the other, that you have the perfection in the soul.  I know how difficult it is in your earthly planet to see the three bodies working harmoniously.  You have never seen it better expressed than in him whom you term Jesus Christ.
 
 
. . . God in His mercy sends His messengers to help man on his way.  If you will only awaken to that which we teach, and readjust yourselves, so soon will you be able to reach the higher spheres where pain and suffering are no more.  If you purify your mind your bodies will become clean.
 
 
Have the rest of the planetary system and the respective cosmic systems their inhabitants?  If so, why do we never hear from them, and why is that nothing seems to come to tell us what they are like?
 
Because your world does not even believe in its next state.  Yet all life is immortal.  What is gained by their coming through from other planets into this dense atmosphere where the atmospherics of thought-vibrations and strata of your world are such that they find it difficult to get through the chloroform of thought of your world?
 
How do persons suffer on the Other Side for anything they have done on this earth?  Is it possible to put things right?
 
When you get to my world, your mind thinks more clearly so that you see the opposite aspect of your life and your possibilities.  This is demonstrated in picture form.  You are shown what is left undone.  Then remorse sets in and your one desire is to put things right.  When you desire to put things right, there is always the opportunity.  The Law is just, and mankind must work it out.
 

Can you tell me what happens to murderers and suicides?  Is it an evil spirit or an obsession which is responsible?
 
They commit these deeds for one of two reasons.  Either because they are undeveloped and are struggling in their darkness, or because they are obsessed by another spirit who has contacted them due to their having similar vibrations.  Any action that a man does is the effect of his previous deeds, perhaps in a former life.
 
Does everyone who dies enter the astral world or can he or she miss it?
 
Everyone must automatically pass to the astral world.
  
*
 

Below: "An infrared red photo of Leslie Flint showing ectoplasm emanating from his neck which is used to build the "Voicebox."  (article)

 
  
Mark Russell Bell https://www.paranormalpeople.net/
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Channeled Explanations About 'God' and 'Christ' — Chico Xavier (1910-2002)