An address given by the Christ messenger Zodiac through the deep trance mediumship of Miss Winifred Moyes,
at the Zodiac Circle, 15 Nightingale Square, London, SW12, on Sunday, 11th May, 1924.
"Father, Christ, we ask Thy blessing - Thy blessing to descend upon us all, giving to each one just what they need the most, and enshrining in our hearts and minds some of the love which comes from Thee.
"O God, we ask Thee to lift us up again and again, to separate us from the details of physical life, and to make it possible when thus we meet to forget everything except those things relating to the Spirit, so that the greater self within may throw off the garment of the body and be free, free even as their dear ones are free - those who are waiting to give their messages of hope, of cheer and of comfort. Only by Thy mercy and Thy grace, can the children of earth meet and be, during these sacred hours, as the children of the Spirit.
"O God, link us more closely, grant that the cords may be stronger and stronger yet, make it possible that the tie so knit together may indeed for ever cast aside that sense of separation, of different conditions, and of barriers made by the physical; grant that the body may not intervene, and that spirit may meet spirit, as Thou hast promised and as Thou hast willed.
"O Father, we thank Thee, thank Thee for the gifts which we can see, and still more so for the multitude which are hidden from us; we thank Thee for Thy generosity and above all for Thy love, without which we could not be, and without which everything would be void and meaningless.
"Bless us with peace, with understanding, with faith and with courage - bless us with these, because we are Thy children and Thou art our Father...
"...Good evening, my children. I want you to try tonight and throw off the shackles of the physical world, even as I have thrown off that which bound my child too closely (jersey). Sometimes the details of every-day life have that oppressive effect upon the bigger you with which heavy clothing has upon the physical body - it gives a sense of restriction, of captivity of weight and of burden, and you long to cast it from you and be free.
"But when it is a question of the spiritual you and the physical you, it is not easy, so you think. It seems indeed that the world in which you live, your surroundings, your environment - everything is so part of yourself that it is almost as a second skin, and you cannot be separated from it, you feel, until the body itself is laid aside. That brings my children a sense of irritation - yes, and also a feeling that somehow or other things are not quite fair.
"It is a sensation of being restrained - held by something which is agonistic to your real self, and something which you never wanted to be there or to have.
"When you join us here you will know all about it, but I quite anticipate the comment that, after all, the fact that years hence a thing will be made plain and clear does not provide very much satisfaction for the present discomforts. It is a reasonable remark to make and I am not quarrelling with you over it.
"Tonight, I want to speak to you a little about the imprisonment, apparently, of the soul within a very limited space; not only as regards breadth and height and depth in a physical sense, but also in a very limited space both mentally and spiritually - and of course, the latter is far harder to reconcile yourself to than the purely physical restrictions to which I have referred.
"After all, the physical mind is adaptable - in a surprisingly short time it is able to settle down in conditions which a little while back seemed impossible. You have illustrations of that over and over again because life is, as you say, full of ups and downs, of changes and swift-moving developments. Now, even here, my children, you get an illustration of what is very much the case in regard to the soul-part of you.
"And then we come to a most important point, and that is in regard to the formation of habits. I suppose there isn't one who has not struggled against a habit formed quite unconsciously during an earlier period of their life. When your view point changes, you would like to drop that habit or this and take on others - prettier ones, let us say - and habits that you think would be more becoming altogether.
"It is not easy - in regard to habits - to change; but it is easy for the physical mind to adapt itself to outward changes of environment and surroundings. You see my point? Do not confuse the outward with the inward. More often than not they work on totally opposite lines, and there you have a great spiritual truth illustrated to ponder over.
"In regard to habits, I want to tell you this, and some of you have sensed it already:
"There are habits and habits. There are those which belong entirely to the physical mind and will be left behind with the body when the real you passes on. A multitude are gathered in under that heading, and it should not be necessary to enumerate them because your common-sense will tell you that in changed conditions those habits will have no place - they will never be able to put in an appearance because the conditions which called them forth in the physical are absent.
"And then we pass on to the other kind, and in regard to these, I think people sometimes rename their desire and call it by the very harmless one - of habit. They say: 'It is just a habit of mine', implying that at will they can toss it aside. But that is a mistake - a very great mistake, because in reality, the basis of that habit is desire, and when that desire is not such as the spirit would pass, it holds one back.
"Do not misunderstand me. I am not inferring that these habits are crimes or sins in the sight of Almighty God, but I do say most definitely that they are injuries to yourself.
"I want all who read these records to go through their own minds and to put their finger on the weak spots and to set about strengthening that which at present is not up to standard.
"My little children, it is entirely for your own sakes that I entreat you to curb and, finally, to throw overboard habits of this kind. Let the spirit within decide - don't weight the scales on the side of the physical. Justice means, in your world, that the 'for' and the 'against' are equal. But, unfortunately, with the vast majority - unconsciously perhaps - the extra weight that tells is put upon the physical side. I do not speak to one more than to another - I speak to all and to the many more who, in the future, will be gathered in as my children and children of the Light - the Light of the World.
"When you join us here, you will find that those little flaws in your armour will cause you grief - in some cases, very serious grief - because it was a matter of a little less and how much more could have been brought to the soul.
"Be watchful, dear children. Those who are out to hold you back have many specious arguments with which to make you tarry. They tell you it doesn't matter - that, after all, it is such a little thing and it doesn't affect anyone but yourself. Not from your point of view perhaps, but in reality it affects the world at large.
"Don't you see, my children, that even when you think weak thoughts - and how much more so when you allow yourself to do weak actions - that even when you think weak thoughts, you are sending out weakness which may attach itself to those who are not yet strong enough to fight against it?
"You are none of you independent; there is not one who can say over any indulgence - however trivial it may be - there is not one who can say: 'This only concerns me', because it is not a fact. Will you do this - I am speaking to my children at large - will you try by prayer, by watchfulness, and by self-discipline, to weed out these things from your daily life - to leave a clear field so that the spirit can stretch itself and grow.
"Let nothing hinder its growth, for it is of such importance that I cannot put it into words. It is so important that you should stand erect spiritually - stand erect and throw your props aside. You have reached that stage now when all you need is Christ, and if only you are strong in courage and in faith, you shall never feel again the lack of that which you have thrown from you.
"Spiritual growth, dear children, is a very delicate thing. In your world you are used to the cruder side. It is not easy for you to understand the extreme fineness of everything that appertains to the spirit, and I cannot explain to you the nature of this fineness because you have no parallel at all. I can only impress upon you that the growth of the spirit is a very delicate thing, inasmuch as the trivial can retard that growth as well as the dynamic forces of evil which are thrown against it. And you are here to grow - to grow in the likeness of God your Father. You are here to make the most of the opportunity provided by Love. You are here to guard the treasure within because hereafter any neglect will cause you anguish from which we shall not be able to extricate you, because the cry is always the same: 'I did it myself!'
"And then I come back to my first point, and that is in regard to adaptability.
"Although to your mind the conditions in the Realms of the Spirit differ in many respects from those of the physical, you would be surprised dear children, to see how soon people feel at home. Of course, it is not surprising really, to see how soon people feel at home, because of the time they spend in those conditions during the sleep state but, after all, the sleep state is not quite the same as when the body is discarded altogether.
"You see, during sleep that is your time of recuperation in order to fit you to carry on the duties that you have imposed upon yourself. It is quite different in that sense from being out of the physical altogether, so far as the body is concerned. It is just the same as taking a holiday. During that time you feel you are at liberty to get as much sunshine and rest and happiness as is possible, because you have got the long strain of the autumn and the winter before you.
"Somewhat on those lines do we regard the sleep state - it is a time of healing up the wounds and of recharging you with courage and with strength, in order to continue the campaign. When you come here - no longer as guests in the way I have indicated - but when you come home, you soon settle down to work again.
"I rather want to stress this point because there are a lot of people, very, very good people too, who have an extraordinary idea to the cessation of activity when death closes in. It makes us smile really because it is so absolutely against temperament and common-sense. Those people upon earth always want to be doing; they could not what you call 'slack' if they had unlimited opportunity - it would fret them to death, as the saying is. And yet such as these are able to rule out of being their characters, their temperaments, their likes and dislikes, and to throw over them all a thick, impenetrable covering called 'death', which is able to smother everything that they had ever been.
"Perhaps I have rather exaggerated, but on rough and ready lines this is the truth. It is a curious attitude to adopt apart from the absolute waste of the gifts they have developed by so much pain and industry.
"I do want these people to think it over again; to ask themselves: 'Is it reasonable and is it in accordance with the plans of God as worked out in nature?' I have to fall back upon nature over and over again because it is really the only simile that offers a variety of illustrations of the facts I am trying to convey; and in nature you can find your key to many a great spiritual truth, if only you seek for it with the mind of the spirit and not with the mind of the body.
"I tell these people - these hard-working, energetic people who have so disciplined their wills that they respond at an instant to their bidding - I tell these, that in front of them is labour, is effort, is struggle of a kind impossible for them to imagine. But in all this output of energy there is this great compensation - you see what it is producing, and that takes away all the weariness, all the disappointment, and all the sense of strain, with which these words are associated upon earth.
"These energetic ones are not energetic now for nothing - it is the preparation for the by-and-by - it is essential there should be some who will work and work and work, often forcing their minds and bodies to do that from which they shrink out of pure fatigue. You have been told that it is not wise to take liberties with nature in this way while still bound by the physical, but I say to those, for their comfort, that not one effort they have put forth, not one wish for ease which they have suppressed, shall not bring them hereafter a power and a force which nothing else can supply.
"Oh, widen your borders - get the God view more and more, be certain that they who toil - if that toil be not for self - that they shall indeed work in the fields of the Lord, and by their efforts produce such a harvest that no words can express.
"Built up during the physical stages by suffering, by the murmuring of the body, by goading the physical on, that which represents dust and ashes upon earth shall produce the fruits of the Spirit in the garden of the Lord...
"I seem tonight to have gone a very long way round. And yet, in so doing, I have enabled you to throw off the garment of the physical which I asked might be possible in the beginning. You see, a twofold purpose has been served. For the time being you have got beyond self as represented by the body and its restrictions, and also you have learned a little more about the truth - and that is the wonderful part in regard to truth, that however much you learn, you know there is a little more to know in the next stage and the next stage still, and that goes on right through Eternity - unending, because it is of God Himself.
"Little by little the door is opened, and little by little the Light beyond is revealed, and I want you always to take my remarks in this way; not as dictating to you what you ought to do - certainly not that - but just trying, because of the Love of God which is in my heart, trying to save you steps.
"You know when one is rather weary, it is a help to have someone more experienced to point out how that rather dreary stretch can be avoided; and that that's the nearest way to reach what they have in mind. When children have a long way to go - and it always seems long to the young - when they are out on this big journey of the Spirit, it is a comfort to know which is the most direct and which is the certain way to take them nearer to God.
"This is the basis of all I say. I want to help you now, but still more do I want you to feel when you come here that, after all, taking everything into consideration, you did not go so far out of the way which the spirit within you - which is of God, remember - which the spirit within you intended.
"Many are sorrowful when they come here, far more sorrowful than they were upon earth, and it is always over the same thing which is, as you know full well, the wasted opportunities, the little details which, after all, would have meant so little more to make the big, big difference. I think it is the little things always which cause the most grief because in many cases they only just missed being of God and not of the earth.
"There is much I want to tell you, but I must not take up too much time this evening, and those points which I have had to pass over will be treated on another occasion; and you will find then, dear children, that having absorbed what I have said tonight, you will be more receptive for that which is not withheld, but only postponed for another opportunity. I will leave you now although it is not easy from my side, and I am glad to think that very often my little children would keep me too. But God's ways are best, as you shall see in time to come..."
(Others then spoke...)
GENERAL BOOTH...
"...It is not easy for me to speak tonight and yet I don't know why. It seems to me that I belong here in a most curious way - so curious that I don't attempt to unravel it. I must leave it knowing that presently both you and I are going to understand a lot; we are going to look at things under the light which shines from God's Love and then all will be plain and clear...
"I want to give this message quite on my own and I haven't told Winnie (trance medium) yet who it is. I want to be quite free, in this sense, that hereafter you may all be able to say that what was said came straight from the 'Other Side', and the identity was hidden until the last.
"It is a big thing to attempt, but it is only the beginning of the big things that are going to be attempted and are going to be carried through in the Name of Christ.
"Tonight is my opportunity to speak to you all - to speak to all those that I loved, that I worked for, and prayed for - to tell them that life goes on forever, that there is no judgment in the sense of judgment, no division of the sheep from the goats - casting one outside and gathering the other in - nothing of that... Many, as well as I, have made this great mistake. Loving God as I did - and I loved God with all my heart and soul and strength - loving God, yet was I blind to what that word implied.
"Oh, that I could make my voice heard among the countless thousands - could go back on my tracks and preach not only salvation, but the hope and the promise which is in us all. Nothing so dwarfed as my ideals have I found here - searching on either side, nothing that could give rise to the strange thoughts and theories and beliefs that I worked for and prayed over for so long...
"My friends, my sisters, do not misunderstand. You have been told that with those who try to get as close to God as the physical mind allows, that that which was not of God in their theories is turned by His Love and Power into what it would have been, had they known better. My work lies all around, and I thank God again and again, that what I did has produced so marvellous a result - not man's handiwork, but God's. When I think of it, I realise all the underlying meaning and truth of those words: 'God Is Love' - 'God Is Love!'
"One day the light will break through, but it is not easy when you have been training a people of all temperaments and kinds and creeds to believe in certain hard and fast rules - it is not easy for the fuller light to shine in. And yet, since I came here I have continued my work, working - working with those of my own who are with me, and seeking to influence those that are upon earth who come within my radius.
"My chief work, however, is on this side now, because I have to explain to those who find it rather difficult to reconcile things as they are, with those which were supposed to be. I find my hands full, and this perhaps may surprise you - that I, who taught them thus, am free in that sense from the restriction, the mental restrictions, by which they are bound, and there you get the miracle. Taking my wish for service, my love for God, even as I crossed over, the Door was opened and revelation was mine...
"Be patient with me yet... I want you to understand something of the change which is coming over the face of the world, but it cannot be unduly hurried. I want you to know that although the forces of evil may be great - and I never underestimate the power of the devil - that although those forces are great, God is guiding the world and shaping it, all unconsciously to themselves, shaping the minds of men and women, and in the days to come, the Holy Spirit will be shown in their midst, dominating, controlling, forcing them to look at the Truth. And that is the beginning.
"To you here tonight, strangers all, I give my message. In time to come, that message will be passed on to the world, but not yet. I come to testify that in God's sight we are His children, and that the only hell is the sense of our own unworthiness... hell indeed is that for some - a hell that burns and tortures the mind, but round them - even the very lowest - in their extremity is God and His angels...
"I will go but let me come again... This child and I are linked together in a curious way, but she will be able to send her mind back over the years and there, in a rough barrack, amongst the poor, the link was made...they called me General Booth... Goodnight... "
(After all had spoken, Zodiac returned and continued)...
"...Well, my children, I think we had better close now and not force things too far, for although the conditions are very good, still there is tomorrow to be thought of, and I do not wish my child to feel anything but happiness and brightness in the days to come.
"It is difficult to speak with clearness just now about the future and all that the future holds, but I want you all to trust me implicitly, and to be certain that everything has been thought of and that God's Hand is upon it all. I want you not to ask questions of yourselves, but to leave it, leave everything in the care of the Saviour. There is so much coming to pass which will require the resources of your minds, and a mind that is worried does not think clearly.
"I want to say a word or two about mind control, because it is a very important thing to bring into use, so far as you are able. It is like this: To carry on my remarks in regard to habits - you will find it a useful weapon on this side if you have tried to get the upper hand of your thoughts and your mind generally. You see, dear children, careless thinking is not the sole commodity of people upon earth - it would be much better if it were. Unfortunately, a great many people on this side are very prone to it too. They allow their minds to run them, and although the physical mind is laid aside, yet the memory of that physical mind remains, and so the effect is almost the same.
"I want you to harness your thoughts, to get into the way of keeping a tight hold on the reins - in fact, to be master. You will find it a bit of a struggle at first. Spirited horses who have a will of their own don't like to run in an orderly and restrained manner - they prefer to take the bit in their teeth. It's just the same with you, and with a great many on this side if a firm hand is not there.
"'Thinking', dear children, is a gift, but you can abuse even a gift direct from God unless there is that steady anchorage to Him which makes all other precautions unnecessary... You see, I hesitated there and the explanation of that is this: That it is when your thoughts are allowed to wander on their own that the shadows get a better chance of interposing, and because I was putting you on your guard I found very real resistance, and had to wait in order to do God's will.
"You see, it is no use saying that this one or that is susceptible or more easily assailed by the shadows. The only protection that we all have is Christ, and those who want to get closest to Him immediately attract the strongest forces of evil.
"These closing words may seem rather beside the point to you but they are not. I want you to conserve your energies, to harvest your resources, which does not mean to shut them up or to hold them unto yourselves only; but it does mean that with your thoughts, your energies - with all those things which make up your physical life, I want you to keep ever before you the WORK.
"Now it is not a question of forsaking one duty for another; they all have their place in your daily life, but the more you develop that mind control, so will you find that you have more energy and vitality to devote to the service which you have taken on for Christ.
"Be happy, my children, yes, be happy in the thought that you have been chosen to work for God. What this means you cannot grasp, but even that loss will be made good in such a wonderful way that only your Creator could have devised.
"Let not your hearts be troubled ever again. Just think of sunshine, of beauty, and of promise - and be certain that as you think, these are taking permanent shape, and that you are indeed blessed by your Father, and although He will call upon you again and again to do this and that, yet in the doing shall the rejoicing come and, as you go on, not only rejoicing, but that inward peace and unity with the Spirit, which is the last and greatest gift of all.
"God be with you, God is with you, and God shall be with you for evermore... Goodnight."
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