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Forecasts based on plans made by the invisibles and carried out by them unaided.
The
Foretold Letters
Aitken
AT A Leonard sitting on October 28, 1938, my usual communicators inquired if I had recently received a letter from a middle aged man about his son. As I had not received any such letter they proceeded to give some particulars and I promised to keep the matter in mind and await results.
A letter arrived which seemed to meet the case. It was dated eleven days after this sitting. The writer, Mr. Lionel G. Aitken, stated that he first thought of writing after hearing me speak at a Queen's Hall meeting on October 9, which was three weeks before this sitting. One sentence of the letter reads, "Not very long ago I lost a son, a splendid young man, full of the joy of life and success." It alluded to some evidential sittings with London mediums but did not in any way suggest that I might possibly obtain messages for him through Mrs. Leonard.
When sending the notes of my sitting I inquired when Mr. Aitken had first thought of writing. He replied, "I don't think I had thought of mentioning my case to you and asking advice until I actually wrote the letter. I merely intended to thank you for your address. It appears that you had news of something I was going to write days before I wrote it or had consciously thought of it."
The above derives special significance from the facts:
(a) I had not heard of this family.
(b) There had been no intercourse between them and Mrs. Leonard.
(c) The son had previously proved himself an able communicator.
(d) At four later Leonard sittings he gave me additional evidences of his identity, one of these being a group of connected facts unknown to his father but common knowledge to the deceased and his surviving brother.
The crucial dates are: October 9, Mr. Aitken hears me speak at a public service. October
8, the message is given at my sitting. November 8 Mr. Aitken writes his letter.
Those who incline to attribute all psychic messages to telepathy from human minds will find this incident difficult to explain. It can hardly be supposed that the medium tapped Mr. Aitken's memory before either she or I were aware of his existence, or that she divined a purpose of which he remained entirely unaware until he was in the act of writing to thank me for remarks he heard me make in public.
Netherton
The second case is similar. On March 17, 1939 Feda
said:
Will you keep a look out for a letter asking you about a lady, not one we have had, a new one
I think that someone has written, or is writing to ask if you can help about her. The one she is expecting to write is a
man.
After many identifying details had been given we continued:
C.D.T.: Won't it be a pity, Feda, if after taking all this trouble I don't get any inquiry?
Feda: I think you will and soon... The lady seems satisfied and says, "I'll see what I can do".
Ten days later I received a letter from a complete stranger, a Mr. C. G. Netherton of Bournemouth. Correspondence followed and we found that out of 31 items given for purposes of identification 23 were accurate. Mr. Netherton told me that the idea of
writing had been in his mind since March 2, but that he had only decided to send the letter a day or two before he actually did so. He further informed me that his wife had been a firm believer in the possibility of psychic communication. It looks as if she had been impressing him to write, and that a belief in her ability to do so was the ground of her forecast that I should hear from him.
A
Builder of Churches
My friend Frederick Lawrence, F.R.I.B.A., of Southbourne, received through several sensitives a definite forecast to the effect that he would build many churches. How unlikely this seemed will be seen from the following quotations.
January 30, 1930, sitting with Mrs. Hester Dowden.
F.L. What kind of work do I do?
Ans. Architecture.
F.L. Can you put it more definitely?
Ans. Churches.
F.L. You speak of churches and of my
work? Is the designing of churches then my work?
Ans. It is. Ye will build several churches.
Commenting on this Lawrence
writes:
"I had been an architect for a good many years and had erected about one thousand buildings. All but one of these had been secular. Houses, shops, garages, a school, a hotel; year in year out I had built such things. I had finished Hillsborough Church during June 1930. I had been asked to build a small church, by no means an important one as ordinarily understood, at Garstone. On the best reckoning, the proportion of churches to other buildings was thus two in a thousand, or one-fifth of one per cent.
"On May 7, 1932, this question was referred to again. Many will remember the period around 1932. Building, among other forms of production, seemed to have come to a natural and final end; and I thought and said that the references to my designing more "Houses of Prayer" were the outcome of faulty judgment. Quickly and emphatically following this thought came the words; 'Ye need not care or be worried about these Houses that ye are to build. Of a sudden will the work come on ye and ye will find it hard to do all that is required of ye.'
"Practically nothing but a letter or two from church building committees followed that for two years. About October, 1934, a veritable avalanche came upon me. The words just quoted were more than merely fulfilled. Indeed, within a year, I used to fear to go to my office in case another committee should have written. Letters from about seventy towns and villages came to me during a period of a few months. As I write in midsummer, 1939, there have been somewhere over thirty church contracts completed, and there are about twenty more in various stages of being planned and many are not yet begun.
"I have written fully on this point because here was a very material result following a prediction which no living person could normally have made I, least of all. Every medium I have seen since has referred to 'your churches'."
At a later sitting with Geraldine Cummins on November 14, 1936, the words were, "Ye are... set to carry out the task of raising churches to our Blessed Lord and Master. Other signs I gave ye were the demands from the people of thy land to build churches. Is that not so?"
The foregoing quotations are from The Shining Brother, which Lawrence published under the pseudonym of
Lawrence Temple. It is a remarkable and fascinating account of experiences which reshaped his life and entirely changed the direction of his professional work.
He had told me his story in 1939, and I then urged him to write it in full and publish. This he finally agreed to do and asked me to contribute the Introduction. In writing that I quoted the number of ecclesiastical works he had done up to that date.
When he passed on in May, 1948, I was permitted to inspect his list of constructions and completed designs. From this it appeared that he had a total of
fifty-one places of worship, and a further twenty-five consisting of alterations, improvements, additions, and church furnishings, etc., making in all seventy-six works.
Thus was fulfilled the unexpected prediction of 1932 that, from his designing of secular buildings, he was about to turn to the building of churches. The book makes fascinating reading,
as the Plan and the Planners are there revealed in full.
Summary
of the Foregoing Types of Forecast
The foregoing classes of forecasts can be best explained by the ability of Communicators to ascertain the thoughts and intentions of men, subconscious as well as conscious, and by, certain plans formed in Communicators' own minds. With this data they proceed to draw inferences in accordance with psychological laws as familiar to us as to them. It may well be that, in addition to this means of acquiring their data, they make use of causal laws, whether physical or psychological or both, about which we on earth know nothing. Consider how a meteorologist bases his forcasts of coming weather on a knowledge of laws governing atmospheric movements which are unfamiliar to ordinary people.
Scripture
References
The accounts given by St. Paul of events leading up. to his conversion reveal the disclosure of plans which had been formed for his future activities. Piecing together Acts IX vv. 3-19; XXII vv. 6-15; XXVI 13-19, we find forecasts and their
fulfilments.
Forecasts; He would be told in Damascus what he should do.
In a vision he saw Ananias visiting him and restoring his lost eyesight.
Fulfilment; Ananias visited him and delivered instructions for future work.
At the same time eyesight was restored.
A perception of human thought is the groundwork of many incidents recorded in Scripture. For example; St. Peter's visit to Cornelius (Acts IX v. 12) "Behold he prayeth"; and (Acts X v. 31) "Cornelius, thy prayer is heard." Indeed the whole subject of prayer rests on the implication that our upward thought and appeal is understood in realms other than earth.
It is noteworthy that many of the best forecasts have been given through sensitives. For example, "The Turn of the Tide", which related to our victory at EI Alamein, (see later under Type 6), given by my father and also by the son of the Rev. A. F. Webling. These Communicators realised that this precognition was not the result of their own powers, but was given to them. Philip Webling stated that he had to
consider what the message meant and he gave the conclusion at which he had arrived. This reminds one of the incident in St. Paul's journeying when he and his companion were headed off their project of preaching in Asia and Bithynia, and were directed to Macedonia instead. "They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia; and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not; and passing by Mysia they came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us. And when he had seen the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia,
concluding that God had called us for to preach the gospel unto them".
An incident further illustrating this type of forecast is described in my book, From Life to
Life, Chapter IX. A Mrs. Guise is prompted by her deceased son to write the letter which eventually brought her into touch with a person through whom he was able to communicate with her.
Importance
of our Conclusion
We have now inspected a small selection of the instances which point to intervention by the discarnate in human affairs. We have seen revealed .their knowledge of human intentions, also of their ability (when given a channel of communication) to suggest wise courses of action. And, further than this, we have glimpsed their ability to guide to a successful conclusion their own plans for bringing about certain events on earth. Perusal of the printed page is easy, and reaction thereto will be but faint compared with the deep impression made upon those primarily concerned in receiving such communications and subsequently seeing the forecasts fulfilled by events.
That some forecasts fail altogether, while some few prove inexact as to time of fruition, suggests that our Communicators are not infallible, but that their forecasts are contingent on the carrying out of plans already formed in human minds. Such plans are often modified or given up. Where the discarnate seek to play an active part in bringing about purposes of their own, they do so by mental suggestion and never attempt compulsion. Man is left entirely free to choose: he can act upon the idea which he finds within himself, or he can reject it. His rejection can falsify a forecast which his acceptance would have made eventuate in fact. It may be that many a bright idea owes its origin to a source other than the prescience of the one becoming conscious of it; some of these fructify while others are modified or even lost by human inaction.
When we pray, "Thy Kingdom come", do we not visualise some sort of unseen guidance in human affairs? Conceivably such guidance may be exerted by the Great Mind behind all Creation; equally is it conceivable that God carries out His purposes by "ministering spirits, servants of His who do His pleasure", among whom are some "we loved and lost".
Do the foregoing instances accord with belief in the mental activity of those no longer in the earthly body? They certainly seem to do so. Have we any alternative explanation of these and similar incidents? I know of none. Not that I am unfamiliar with the doubts, derision, alternative theories and fantastic improbabilities by which some strive to turn us from the paths of common sense and mental probity.
I remember the many other lines of evidence. all of which point in the same direction and converge to form a body of evidence which seems irresistible. Of those other lines of evidence this book will say nothing, since its aim is to establish the significance of but one single aspect of communications from the Beyond.
To those who feel prompted to remark that it seems strange that our Communicators should dwell on trifling predictions and matters of minute interest to a few, when there is so much that humanity needs to know, so many facts which would be of "real importance to us"! To such, if they have had patience to read thus far,
I would reply somewhat like this; a general knowledge and certainty of human survival would, for multitudes of people, change their whole outlook on life. Assured knowledge, in place of the half-belief which has but little influence on conduct, would be of highest importance to the individuals who compose the nations of the world. For, political and international difficulties are, at bottom, rooted in trends of character, habits of thought and conduct, which breed fear. Consider the injustices that rankle in men's minds, the prevalent disregard for the
well-being of other persons and other grades of society, or other nations. These are the roots of the world's ill. And if certainty of life beyond death is not itself a complete and all-sufficient remedy, yet more than most other things would it hasten the general recovery of sanity, good cheer, mutual helpfulness and peace.
This certainty changes one's whole outlook on life. Even church members have often discovered in the shock of a personal bereavement that their previous easy belief was insufficient. While those with no belief have provided instances of mental collapse, or permanently embittered soul, when death removed from their side the one on whom all hope and love had centred.
But once assured by present-day and repeatable facts, by conversations with the one removed, especially when supplemented by reading the results obtained by those who have given prolonged and conscientious study to the subject, then a real conception of God's beneficent governance of all things, a governance with ends in view too dazzlingly bright for our mental picturing, is restored or created for them and placed on immovable foundations. Of little or no importance! Say rather that, compared with this achievement, few things in life can be so fruitful of happiness, mental poise and inward joy.
The conclusion to which all the foregoing pages have been leading us is very strongly supported by an important series of experiments with the Public Press which my father himself suggested and carried through. These forecasts were primarily intended to provide sound and ample evidence that he was entirely independent of anything in the nature of Telepathy from human minds. This was accomplished by his pre-vision of words, names, or statements which would be found in the
Times, or other named newspaper, on the morrow. My sittings, at which his forecasts were received, always ended some hours before the material for the morrow's Press would have been arranged for printing. No one knew, therefore, just what and where such and such items would be found in the morrow's issue. Thus both clairvoyance and prevision were evident, and no action by human minds could be held accountable for the correct results.
Contents
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