20. The Childrens’ Spheres

A Realm in Itself

Rescuing Newly-Transitioned Children

There is a very big organization here for tracking down newly-arrived children. It is a favourite form of service, especially among women who come over. (Philip Gilbert in PTS, 37.)

The ruler of the realm acts, in a general sense, in loco parentis (1) and all the children, indeed, look upon him as a father. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 161.)

(1) As the parent in lieu of the parent.

“The Nursery of Heaven”

There is a place here for children and anyone who dies young. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 64.)

Often-forgotten children in these realms … are being directed and guided into maturity in the Nurseries of Paradise. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 94)

This children’s realm has been called the ‘nursery of heaven’ and surely anyone who has been fortunate enough to have seen it will say that a more apposite term could not be found. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 157.)

The land of the children has indeed been made for them by the loving thoughts of more advanced spiritual beings. (Ethel McLean in LFM, 70.)

The children chiefly dwell in their own special domain, almost a little world of their own, where places of learning, religion and love abound, as well as the beauteous gardens and playing grounds of Paradise…. There are endless methods of teaching, learning, and happiness evolved for the spiritual advancement of the children.

The young child, whose mind is not yet fully formed, is / uncontaminated by earthly contacts and on passing into the spirit world it finds itself in a realm of great beauty, presided over by souls of equal beauty. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 156-7.)

The children’s realm is a township in itself, containing everything that great minds, inspired by the greatest Mind, could possibly provide for the welfare, comfort, and education, and the pleasure and happiness, of its youthful inhabitants. The halls of learning are as fully equipped as are those larger establishments in our own sphere. Indeed, in many respects, they are more so since they have all the equipment for the diffusion of knowledge and learning to those who are possessed of neither in the slightest degree and who must therefore start at the very beginning, as they would have done had they remained upon the earth-plane.

This concerns those children who have passed into the spirit world in their extreme infancy. Children who leave the earth world in their early years will continue their studies from where they left off eliminating from the latter all that are of no further use and adding those that are spiritualistically essential. As soon as they reach a suitable age the children can choose their future work and study for it accordingly. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 162-3.)

The Children’s Plane has a Walt Disney quality that is utterly fascinating, with a wealth of the most beautiful flowers, shrubs, trees and lawns that you could possibly imagine. It is a real fairy land, where children, animals, and birds all play happily together.

This is indeed a spot where “the lion and the lamb lie down together.” I actually saw a little golden-haired toddler, hugging a wooly lamb in her arms, leaning confidently against a shaggy lion which was resting in the shade of the tree, Phyllis tells me that this particular / lion had been someone’s pet on the earth plane, but had been destroyed, as it became dangerous as it grew older. The owners were sad at the necessity for taking its life, as they were very fond of it. It is this bond of affection which holds it here.

There are vast numbers of animals of every description, all dear to the hearts of the children and each plays its part in their development and contributes to their happiness and contentment. If the mothers on earth could but glimpse the beauty and perfection of these realms, how comforted they would be. (Ethel McLean in LFM, 36-7.)

The “First Sphere”

The Children’s Sphere is divided. Part of it is for the reception of those that have actually lived on earth and part for those that have gathered around them the physical structure of an earth body, but have never used it for soul expression. These latter souls are equally alive in the world of spirit, yet the development of their consciousness is fostered in a different way to those who have actually lived in flesh.

Just as your hospitals on earth have devised a means of incubating premature babies to protect their bodies until fully developed, so we too have protective housing for the little ones who have not achieved full development and have returned to those realms prematurely.

There are many devoted workers who undertake the loving care of these little ones until they are ready to take their place on the second sphere with their more boisterous brothers and sisters, who have experienced some measure of life on earth. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 87.)

The “Second Sphere”

I have been asked by the beloved Masters from the higher spheres to give you … details [of the Children’s Sphere]. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 87.)

Although there are no actual barriers or demarcations from sphere to sphere, there are degrees of consciousness that give rise to the illusion of separation; but as I can devise no means of conveying the reality to your mind, I must use the phrase and say that the Children’s Sphere is divided. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 87.)

The second sphere, as I have termed it, (1) receives the children who have enjoyed an established life on earth. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 88.)

(1) I have no way of knowing if the children’s “second sphere” corresponds to the “second sphere” as others would talk about it. In some schemes, the second sphere would be the Stony Plane, but no children q\are known to go to the Stony Plane.

The “Third Sphere”

You remember at first you were quite surprised when I described your [deceased] brother John to you, and did not recognize him when I told you he was a grown-up man; you had always thought of him as still remaining a little child.

He looks only about my age: of course in earth-life he would have been over forty. …. These children grow in soul and mind and body. … / While on the third sphere (1) they return to earth to play with children there. (Claude Kelway-Bamber in CB, 54-5.)

(1) Again, there is no way to know what the “third sphere” in the children’s realm comprises.

Infants who Transition

What of the souls who pass over as children; indeed, what of those, even, who pass into the spirit world at birth?

The answer is that they grow as they would have grown upon the earth-plane. But the children here – of all ages – are given such treatment and care as would never be possible in the earth world. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 156.)

The children who die young sleep for a long time. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 66.)

When a new-born babe passes over, consciousness has hardly begun on earth. It is really born into this world rather than into yours. It has had no earth-experience, no memory of this side. (Julia Ames, AD, 161.)

Q: When an infant dies young, what does this mean?

A: This is merely a lesson for those around the infant and it always means that the child is a very old soul being born to the parents, giving them the God love, the Christ-radiation, influencing their lives. These children are gifts to the parents, bringing with them a lesson. (Unnamed spirit teacher through Betty Bethards, TIND, 45.)

My field of service lay on the Children’s Sphere, but first it was necessary to experience the warmth of an earthly body and gain an insight into the minds of children on earth. I had to feel the love of a mother and the pride of a father in their unborn child.

This I was able to experience in full measure for I was a child born of love in a united family group. There was none of the tension experienced by an unwanted child. Although I was the seventh child, there was no dismay at the thought of my arrival. Nothing but genuine disappointment when I was “born dead,” as you phrase it on earth.

In reality my physical body had served its purpose of introducing me to the world of matter. I had acquired a family on earth and was soon taught to use this link to the fullest advantage. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 86.)

I have always longed to be recognized as one of the family. I have followed the progress of your earthly lives with eagerness and I have shared in your happiness. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 92.)

It was not until father came to this side that I was able to make a firm contact and take my rightful place in the family group. He had attained great heights of spiritual awareness while yet on earth and found no difficulty accepting me. I was then able to prove my relationship to Douglas and Clifford (1) as well. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 93.)

(1) Phyllis’s brothers.

Dear mother still gets teased by them for resisting the idea, in the shock of the first contact, that she had a daughter named Phyllis on this side. I was grateful to you (1) for remembering that father had, indeed, given me a baptismal name before my earth body was laid to rest. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 93.)

(1) Phyllis’s sister Lesley. Who is the automatic writer.

Whatever doubts mother may have had, they were soon dispelled when she came over here. So I am greatly rewarded by her love. It is a wonderful experience for me to enjoy the close companionship of my own mother and father and brothers in the beautiful surroundings of these realms. These I have waited so patiently to show them. I find I have a great many ideas in common, which are family characteristics.

I find mother a delightful companion. Everyone says we are more like sisters than mother and daughter. She has such a wonderful zest for life and such an inquiring mind. I have visited many places in her company that were beyond the range of my ambition or interest until her arrival. She has opened up many new vistas of thought and understanding for me and I have been privileged to impart to her the knowledge gained form my own / experiences. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 93.)

Children who Transition

Very young children do not suffer from shock at their transition for they are still attuned to the world of spirit. For the first seven years of earth life, the spiritual body is very loosely attached to the physical and happy children enjoy the best of two worlds. They are in fact undergoing a period of adjustment to their physical bodies. Spiritually they are not as yet firmly established on the earth sphere. If their earth life terminates during this period, they have no difficulty in accepting their return to spiritual realms, which are more familiar to them than their earthly surroundings. There they are kept in contact with their earthly family and continue to enjoy the love of both realms. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 88.)

It is interesting about the children. I have not had time yet to observe all these things for myself; but one of the League (1) workers tells me that it is easier for children to adjust themselves to the changed life than it is for grown persons. Very old people are inclined to sleep a good deal, while children come out with great energy, and bring with them the same curiosity that they had in earth life. There are no violent changes. The little ones grow up, it is said, about as gradually and imperceptibly as they would have grown on earth. The tendency is to fulfil the normal rhythm, though there are instances where the soul goes back very soon, with little rest. That would be a soul with great curiosity and strong desires. (Judge David P. Hatch, LLDM, Letter XI.)

(1) A spirit organization dedicated to transition work.

Q: Are those who die young the lucky ones?

A: In many respects they are because they have finished their work and should not be forced to stay on the earth plane after their lessons are gained. The longer you stay the more lessons that have to be accomplished before you can go home. Those who are free to go should go and not be held back, any more than you would hold your child back from graduating from high school. (Unnamed spirit teacher through Betty Bethards, TIND, 44-5.)

Children arrive here sparkling with wonderment and joy. They do not require the period of sleep that is necessary to older persons who have spent much time on earth. (1) Children accept this change quite naturally. (Ethel McLean in LFM, 69.)

(1) Note the difference of opinion between child Elizabeth B, above, and Ethel McLean on the matter of young children requiring or not requiring sleep after transition.

As my earth life was to be of such short duration, (1) I was allowed some advance knowledge of that fact and, in a childish way, tried to convey to you that I would not be with you for long, although I myself did not fully understand the feeling I had that there was an urgency to complete my small affairs and leave a small mark on the tapestry of earth by which I would be remembered. (Donald McLean in LFM, 50.)

(1) Donald passed over at age seven.

I do not remember suffering any pain whatsoever as a result of the accident. I just felt drowsy and, as I told you, I wanted to go to sleep. I simply fell asleep and woke up on this side. (Donald McLean in LFM, 50.)

Impact of Grief on Children

When you continue to grieve for the child you feel you have lost, those tears are … felt with acute intensity by the child here. He attempts to comfort his parents, to assure them that all is well with him, but to no avail. The waves of their hopeless emotion impinge on his consciousness, affect his untrammelled joy and darken the brightness of the new world of love and joy.

He wishes to share his new freedom with his earthly parents because his love remains unchanged. He feels excluded, cut off, forgotten by their leaden mourning and he awaits, with pathetic daily hope, their recognition of him, alive and vibrant. /

This recognition seldom, if ever, comes to those left behind, unless their kinds are opened to new truth and new teaching. (Ethel McLean in LFM, 69-70.)

Advantages of an Early Transition?

Love and knowledge help on the soul. The child may have the one qualification; it cannot have the other save by education, which is frequently gained by its … living over the earth-life again. But many a child-spirit leaves the earth-life pure and unsullied who would have been exposed to temptation and grievous trial; and so it gains in purity what it has lost in knowledge. (Spirit leader Imperator in Moses, ST, 33-4.)

Now I know why it has all been. If I had lived, I think something bad would have happened, so they took me away to save me from being unhappy. They thought I could learn better here without being hurt. If I had lived a long time on earth, I should have met with some unhappiness that couldn’t have been kept from me. That was in front of me, they tell me, so I escaped it by coming here when I was only a girl. If Mummy thinks of that, she will see why I was taken from her. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 64.)

Stainton Moses: Do children pass at once to a higher sphere?

No, the experience of the earth-life cannot be so dispensed with. The absence of contamination ensures a rapid passage through the spheres of purification, but the absence of experience and knowledge requires to be remedied by training and education, by spirits whose special care it is to train these tender souls, and supply them that which they have missed.

It is not a gain to be removed from earth-life, save in one way – that misuse of opportunities might have entailed greater loss and have more retarded progress. (Spirit leader Imperator in Moses, ST, 33.)

Rejected Children who Transition

Little ones who have been rejected on earth never lack / for love and attention here. All are given their rightful opportunity for expansion and development. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 88.)

Maturation in the World of Spirit

Some children at once evolve, soon after death, into fully developed spirits if they have lived before. (Philip Gilbert in PTW, 136.)

If you have not gone through the complete earth cycle to maturity – 21 – you have not a fully matured astral body either – unless you are re-incarnated. The astral body continues to grow. (Philip Gilbert in PTW, 230.)

The business of staying children is much exaggerated by the spiritualists. You are a child for a while, growing an astral body, if you were a “new” individuality on your first earth-trip and died young. If you are re-incarnated and have built an astral body, you soon pass into your real self if you die young, yet, to an extent, once into incarnation, the etheric body has to pass through the whole process of growth, even if the physical vehicle is destroyed. (Ethel McLean in LFM, 36.)

You want to know something further about the / children who come over? You remember at first you were quite surprised when I described your [deceased] brother John to you, and did not recognize him when I told you he was a grown-up man; you had always thought of him as still remaining a little child.

He looks only about my age: of course in earth-life he would have been over forty. Here little ones grow up but never become old, for they have no cares and worries nor the pains of a material body to trouble them. Many women here care for these little ones. Some have left children on earth they loved; others, the childless, who love children, look after them. Every child, even if unwanted on earth, can find a loving mother here.

Many an earth-mother comes over at night when her body sleeps to see her baby, and though with her limited conscious mind she may think of it as an infant always, her spirit-mind knows the facts, as she will recognize when she herself comes here permanently.

These children grow in soul and mind and body, which is just as strong and more substantial than an earth-body, for it is indestructible. They are all beautiful in varying degrees. They learn very quickly, for their minds are open: they / have no consciousness that evil exists, so more readily absorb all they are taught here, and they very soon go on to the higher planes.

While on the third sphere they return to earth to play with children there. It is part of their education, and enables them to understand, and so later to help others still in the mortal body. As many children in the world are clairvoyant they often see these spirit playfellows, and if they could keep this consciousness it would often be a help to them in later life.

Unfortunately, many grown-up people who do not understand these facts discourage the idea, and so in time the child loses this consciousness. (Claude Kelway-Bamber in CB, 53-5.)

Speed of Return to an Earthly Body

They sometimes, if they are very young, slip back again into bodies and grow up and become men and women. A great many don’t. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 66.)

The children are so charming! One young boy is with me often; he calls me Father, and seems to enjoy my society. He would be, I should think, about thirteen years old, and he has been out here some time. He could not tell me just how long, but I will ask him if he remembers the year, the calendar year, in which he came out. …

He is all interest in regard to certain things I have told him about the earth, – especially aeroplanes, which were not yet very practicable when he came out. He wants to go back and fly in an aeroplane. I tell him that he can fly here without one, but that does not seem to be the same thing to him. He wants to get his fingers on machinery. (Judge David P. Hatch, LLDM, Letter XI.)

Case Study: Two Sisters who Grew up in Spirit

[Charlotte Dresser:] We inquired concerning two who went over as infants, and were told:

[Mary Bosworth:] “They are not pure spirits yet, for then they would belong to the angelic host. They came as infants, but they possessed the immortal spirit, and they differ only in the fact that they have never known sin nor earthly life – material life I should say.”

[Dresser:] ‘What do you have that they do not?’

[Bosworth:] “We have the knowledge of good and evil, and the power of choice, and the education through this to help others who are still in a world of good and evil. But there are many other ways in which they can serve.”

[Dresser:] These infant spirits are infants no longer, for they have been there many years. They wrote one evening:

[Children:] “We think it interesting to watch these messages to and fro. Can you give us a thought from earth now?”

[Dresser:] I don’t know that this should have surprised us, but it did. We all at once realized that they knew nothing of earth or material things by experience any more than we knew spirit life by experience. Sis asked if they could not see material things.

[Bosworth:] “They are untrained in that respect. What they would like to know is how you manage to live with all those earthly impediments they hear about.”

[Dresser:] I asked if they had ever been brought in contact with evil on that side.

[Bosworth:] “Not much. They could not become teachers, for they have no earthly experience. Their work is along other lines. They are trying hard to understand earth life, but many of its phases seem unbelievable to them. The crime and cruelty they only know by descriptions, but they look at it as an almost unbelievable fiction. “They do not fully realize it any more than you fully realize this life. They have been taught and believe it as you believe some / far away facts of ancient history. Perhaps that is not a good comparison either; for you have at least some other earthly happenings to compare it with. But they have not; so it is hard for them to understand.”

[Dresser:] Many months later we were talking with them again and the following was written:

[Children:] “We are learning the earth language and often listen to the conversations between you and the circle. It seems very wonderful to us, very wonderful that people on earth are willing to live in the midst of such sin, misery, sickness, ignorance, and poverty, and all the other ills we hear you describe.”

[Dresser:] ‘Do you not see the ignorant and criminal ones who come over there?’

[Children:] “We are not really in touch with them, for we do not try to influence the earthborn mortals when they first come over. Our work with them is afterward in trying to help them to the various occupations here.”

[Dresser:] ‘You seem to come together; are you together all the time?’

“Mary [Bosworth] says: They came over so young that they received most of their education together and they grew into a companionship that has become a habit as well as a joy. They are alike in temperament, so that naturally they grew into intimate companionship.”

[Dresser:] I asked if such infants reached maturity earlier there than here.

[Bosworth:] “Yes, because they learn more rapidly. One of them came over several years before the other, as you know. He was far more mature than if he had remained on earth for that time. He met his little brother and was his helper for a long time, and his father taught him to love the family tie wherever congeniality existed. Then / they took up studies together because both were interested in the same things.”

[Dresser:] ‘Having no sin nor selfishness to overcome, I should have thought they would be on a higher plane by this time?’

[Bosworth:] “They could go at any time, and they are connected with circles who are studying higher things; but their father preferred to remain near the earth plane, and they have loved him and stayed with him.”

[Dresser:] ‘How does the earth appear to them?’

“Mary says: They look upon it as a mystery and –

“Will you listen to them?”

[Children:] “We are not able to comprehend many things. We hear of the mechanical devices there and wonder much about them. We move in a flash of time. You are studying ways of getting about upon the surface of the earth, in the air, on the water, or maybe under the water. We have heard of your submarines and airplanes, automobiles and railroad trains. It all seems so slow, so difficult, so unnecessary! How do you ever find time to move from one place to another! Then you have to spend so much time in sleep; and Mary tells us that you have to spend time and strength and money in providing things to eat and drink. How can you be patient with it all?”

[Dresser:] ‘Have you studied the earth enough to be able to sense or understand material things as compared with your spiritual objects?’

The reply seems to us to show that they do not fully understand, for they still refer to actions rather than to things.

[Children:] “We try to understand. We try to move as slowly as your fastest travel and we grow impatient. We can have some sensation of taste, but we cannot understand / how people would ever be willing to spend much time at it. We have tried our best to sleep, but we could not succeed, and can only guess how that is accomplished. You see we are handicapped when we try to help earth-born persons when they first arrive here.” (Two children who passed to spirit life as infants and Mary Bosworth to Charlotte Dresser, SWSL, 213-6.)

Much later, we were talking again and asked Mary about them.

[Mary Bosworth:] “They are here, and are talking among themselves about earth affairs. They are as much interested about the earth as you are to hear about us.”

[Dresser:] ‘Have they just become interested since we began to write?’

[Bosworth:] “They did not know much about it before that. They were not drawn to it in any way, and simply lived the spirit life as it manifested itself here.”

[Dresser:] ‘What are they interested in? What do they wish to know?’ “About the daily life, the work and the pleasures and the conditions generally.”

‘I do not suppose they understand how it seems to get tired, so weary that it seems almost impossible to move?’

[Bosworth:] “Not at all. They do not know the sensations of weariness. They want you to tell them how it feels?”

Sis [Charlotte’s sister, Dee, one of the two spirit controls, with Mary] tried to picture such a condition.

[Dee:] “That, they think, must spoil life entirely!”

Then they themselves asked: – “How do you get over it?” Sis described how rest was taken. “Well, what next?” [Dresser:] ‘We also recuperate our powers by eating. That you do not know much about?’

[Children:] “No, not from necessity. We have tasted fruit here and think it good, only we forget to eat it as a rule.”

‘You do not know hunger then?’

“No. How does it feel?”

After that was described, they remarked: –

“What a bother! We are glad we do not live there. How do you get about?”

‘I suppose you do not know much about our methods of travel?’

“No, only as you have told us.”

‘Do you have horses there?’

“Not that we have seen. I have heard about them.”

We then tried to tell them the speed of the trains, saying that it was about a mile a minute. But as they knew nothing of either a mile or a minute, that did not mean anything to them. We then said that perhaps they had some idea of the length of a day because that was the time between one time of our writing and the next.

“That tells us a little. But we do lots of things between times. And we can travel, oh, so far! How far would it be in miles?” (Spirit Control Mary Bosworth and two unnamed children to Charlotte E. Dresser, LHH, 72-3.)

Settling in

Seeing to the Child’s Immediate Needs

Now, with little children and adults likewise who are children in spiritual things, a semblance of eating as on earth is sometimes desirable and may be indulged in with great benefit. These folk – little children and children of a larger growth – who can conceive of no satisfactory existence without receiving food through their mouths, find means to gratify their imaginary needs. (Abbe Henry Bolo in SRE, 78.)

Overcoming a Child’s Earthly Conditioning

The children on the second sphere look forward to the arrival of these newcomers, just as earth children do when they are told that they are to have a new brother or sister. For family life is fostered in their minds and a thread of continuity is maintained between the realms of earth and spirit. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 87.)

Children have a wonderful capacity for cosmic love for sympathy and understanding of others, and vie with each other in their efforts to make newcomers feel happy and at ease in their new surroundings. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 89.)

Please do not entertain the idea that children are immediately transformed to the status of angelic beings on arrival into these realms. There are many who have suffered conditions of conflict, hatred, and fear in their earthly lives and have built up mental barriers of mistrust that must be gently broken down and dispersed before they can become adjusted to happy conditions. The ill treatment of children on the earth is a matter of great sorrow to workers in the realm of spirit.

Happily-adjusted children play a large part in the rehabilitation of the maladjusted, for they have great capacity for expressing loving compassion; they yearn to dispel the darkness of fear. They are aided and encouraged in their endeavours by advanced beings from the Spheres of Light. They are protected as well because, often, their efforts are viciously rejected, being regarded with mistrust by these unfortunate ones who have been conditioned in cruelty and hate and seek revenge.

The process of winning newcomers over to happier conditions is often slow, for they are suspicious and doubtful of the intentions of the children that approach them. But love and truth prevail in the end and there is great rejoicing amongst other children when the task is accomplished.

This is one of the most rewarding fields of service in which the children engage, for it is thus that they gain an insight into the minds of others and another petal of the flower of understanding unfolds. For it is necessary for their development that they should be brought in / contact with conditions of which they have had no previous experience. Thus they learn to dispel darkness by the brightness of their own light. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 90-1.)

But, unfortunately, the law of “thought-ruts” operates for children, too: if they have been subjected to terrible mental experiences, they are affected here for a while, but we do all we can. (Philip Gilbert in PTS, 37.)

This is the biggest problem that I have to handle here. The young were born into your world with clean, clear eyes from these golden planes and they found themselves in a world where the behaviour of their fellow men was hypocritical and craven. They came into your world seeking love, truth and brotherhood; instead they found fraud and oppression. (Mike Swain, FMW, 63.)

I always have a great deal to discuss with the young souls after their transition to this plane. I often have to ease them out of the beliefs that we bashed into them while they were still in your world, usually by members of your generation. I omit you and Clarice from that generalization because you allowed me to make most of my decisions myself. But too many youngsters in your world are forced to attend Sunday school at gunpoint in order to learn what Christianity is all about and when they are finally confirmed in the Christian Church, they aren’t allowed to question those beliefs in any manner, shape, or form – unless they want to suffer the disapproval of society in general. (Mike Swain, FMW, 62.)

Children of all Races Mix Happily Together

Children of all races play happily together, introducing the ideas and customs of their earth lives to others. An example of this recently took place when there was an influx of Japanese children. All the little girls in the group of which I am in charge assumed the graceful kimono style of dress and chrysanthemums became the popular garden flower. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 89.)

A Child on “Sin”

You know, a great many of the sins of people on earth were the fault of their bodies; as soon as they get bodies here that seem made out of air, they are so light and easy to use, people don’t feel the wish to do cruel and nasty things.

There isn’t any need to tell a fib when everybody understands and is kind. There isn’t any need to steal when the air and light are food. There isn’t any need for fights when people have everything they want. Besides, you see, the stupid old earth bodies were made to make people want things dreadfully [that] they couldn’t have. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 74.)

Teenagers who Transition after Drug Overdose

More and more, Heather and I are being called on to help teenagers who pass over under the most negative circumstances. I am referring to … kids who get hooked on drugs. /

Too many adolescent deaths occur as a result of drugs; some because of the rank poison in the drug itself and others because their normal instinct for self-preservation had been blotted out by their senseless addiction to narcotics. These kids abruptly terminate their life-spans because they could find no other logical way out of the snarl-ups. Drugs can cause fatal malfunctions of the brain at many different levels of consciousness. …

Reality never imprints itself on the memory of a drug addict because the mind had ceased to function normally. Therefore these kids have no idea how they got here when they wake up in our world. They not only have no memory of the drug they have taken; they cannot recall what happened to them while they were under its influence.

Therefore our first job is to reconstruct the damaged memory so they can recall how they felt while they were still “high” on that particular type of drug. Having re-created its effect in their minds, we can then re-create the memory of their passing.

Then we gradually lighten their sleep until they can remember “a dream” in which they died. Not until they have regained consciousness do they realize that the dream was not a dream, but their actual passing over.

Once they have accepted that, there is nothing to stop them joining their families and taking their rightful place on these golden planes.

We are particularly careful to ensure that there are no negative after-effects, no guilt. We never allow pain or suffering to accompany the passing over of the soul. (Mike Swain to his father, Japser, in FMW, 57-8.)

The Child’s Educational Development

The Child’s Schools

There are great schools to teach the spirit children. Besides learning all about the universe and other worlds, about their kingdoms under God’s rule, they are taught lessons of unselfishness and truth and honour. Those who have learned first as / spirit-children, if they should come into your world, make the finer characters. (Unnamed spirit communicator in SRE, 53-4.)

Naturally that which would occupy [children’s] youthful energies would be of an educational nature so there are to be found everywhere – for these dear little souls – schools of a kindergarten character where they are taught and their growing faculties trained.

In one respect these younger lives have an advantage over those who come across death in their senior years because they have not so much to unlearn. The care, training and instruction of this young life provides delightful occupation to a very large number of grown folk and it is with them always a self-imposed labour of love and each concentrates upon some particular phase in the education of the little ones.

They are all taught to develop from infancy the thinking and reasoning faculties and even from babyhood self-mastery and thought for others is a dominant note in the celestial curriculum. Systematized play and joyous games are necessary to the young life. Here, as on earth, / “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” and the happy little youngsters in the playing fields are indeed a sight to be seen. (Abbe Henry Bolo in SRE, 90-2.)

The Child’s Teachers

There are people here who are good and kind to us. They make their own shapes with their minds and come in them so we shouldn’t be frightened. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 67.)

I have been learning all this properly lately. … A nice man has told me a lot. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 75.)

“There are many who receive them, and they are very tenderly cared for until they awaken; that is, begin to see and hear by spirit means. We have watchers for them, like nurses in a hospital. And when it is noticed that one begins to show signs of wonder or curiosity, this one is taken to another place where experienced teachers look after them until they can understand that love surrounds them. This applies to those who were old enough on earth to have learned some things there.”

“When they are awakened enough and experienced enough to understand the loving thoughts that are sent to their minds, they are examined carefully as to their different characteristics and as to their real mental ability; for we have learned that these manifest at a very early stage. No doubt this is much easier for us than for you, because we can usually read their thoughts quite readily.”

“When they have been studied and cared for in this manner for a time, they are placed in groups under such teachers as will be best fitted for their special characteristics. We have found that we make astonishing progress in their education by following this procedure, and we have wondered why it is not more understood on earth.”

‘Is this Dee writing?’

“Yes, You know I have been teaching children nearly ever since I came. I have served in nearly all the various grades or wards. My classes have usually been those who were musically inclined, and it has been one of my greatest delights to see how readily many of them grasp the necessary ideas for a musical education. We have other teachers who are best fitted to teach those who seem destined for the loving: missionary work; and others who know how to encourage any scientific tendencies that may appear. We are often astonished at the precocity of some youngster in the way of mathematics. But possibly this astonishes me more than it would some because I was always so backward in that way.”

“With the younger children there is of course more time spent in the earlier care, while their little minds are developing sufficiently to receive impressions. But even this time is much shorter than it is on earth, and a tiny babe is sometimes in the study class with marvellous quickness.”

“It is such dear work that it attracts a very loving class of workers, and, if mothers on earth only knew what tender care they always have, there would certainly be less grief over the loss.”

‘Does a babe that dies before birth continue to live there.’

“Yes, it lives, of course, and is cared for as tenderly as if years older. What difference does it make whether it is a few weeks old or many months old? It is a human being started on an immortal journey, which is only slightly interrupted no matter at what stage death may occur.” (Spirit control Dee to Charlotte E. Dresser, LHH, 119-20.)

Methods of Instruction

The education of children is conducted on lines of self-expression and service. If this method were to be used on earth, there would be far fewer cases of maladjustment. Your problem of juvenile delinquency would fall away. It is important to establish the knowledge that each soul is an individual idea of the Great Spirit of Creation; one who has been granted the gift of self-expression in his service and thus has a responsibility to God and his entire creation which can only be completed by the individual. / This is achieved with greater rapidity on this sphere, as children are not restricted by hampering endeavours of their teachers to make them conform to a pattern, as unfortunately is the case in your schools. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 89-90.)

Now, while we waited for the mother who was talking with her son, we wandered over the grounds and looked at the various appliances for teaching children. One especially engaged my attention. It was a large globe of glass, about six or seven feet in diameter. It stood at the crossing of two paths, and reflected them. But as you looked into the globe you could see not only the flowers and trees and plants which grew there, but also the different orders from which they had been derived in time past. It was / very much like a lesson in progressive botany, such as might be given on earth and deduced from the fossil plants of geology. But here we saw the same plants alive and growing, and all the species of them from the original parent down to the present representative of the same family.

We learned that the task set for the children was: to consider this progression up to this particular plant or tree or flower actually growing in that garden and reflected in the globe, and then to try to construct in their minds the further and future development of that same species. This is excellent training for their mental faculties, but the results are usually amusing. It is the same study which full-grown students are also at work upon in other departments here, and is put by them to a practical end. One of them thought it would be a useful method to help the children to use their own minds, and so constructed the ball for their especial use. When they have thought out their conclusion, they have to make a model of the plant as it will appear after another period of evolution, and fearful and wonderful some of those models are, and as impossible as they are strange. (G. Vale Owen’s mother in LBV1, 92-3.)

Unless there is a special need, you don’t learn languages! (Philip Gilbert in PTW, 230.)

Fostering Individuality

The children … are encouraged to develop their individuality and take great pride in the creation of their own little houses and gardens. These remain in being just as long as they give satisfaction. But they are constantly replaced or altered, according to the desire of their creators. Thus we have an ever-shifting scene of kaleidoscopic colour for children quickly tire of their creations and are eager to replaced them with others.

Just as on earth, children are eager to imitate the ideas of others, so for a time it may become the craze to live in wigwams and smoke pipes of peace. Accordingly the children devise appropriate costumes and head-dresses and games in pursuit of this idea, the woods being dotted with little Red Indian settlements and whooping bands. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 88.)

[Children] are not influenced by the selfish desires of others to force them onto an uncongenial path, as so often happens on earth, when parents or guardians often endeavour to fulfil their own ambitions or retrieve lost opportunities through the lives of others. Here, the individuality of the soul is recognized and children are encouraged to make their own decisions. In this way, they achieve fuller development because they open their minds to the forces of inspiration without becoming clouded, / of confused by the conflicting desires and emotions of others. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 91-2.)

Learning Abilities

Education is not the tedious affair it is on earth. Knowledge is absorbed without undue effort. The mind retains the impression it has received. You would be amazed at the extent of the knowledge of quite small children on this sphere. Yet they are in no way precocious. Laughter and happiness are the keynote of this life for the children are one with the spiritual forces of nature, which they know and understand. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 92.)

The mental and physical growth of the child in the spirit world is much more rapid than in the earth world. You will recall what I told you about the absolute retentiveness of the memory here. The retentiveness begins as soon as the mind is capable of grasping anything at all and that is very early. This seeming precocity is perfectly natural here because the young mind absorbs knowledge evenly. The temperament is carefully guided along purely spirit lines so that the possession of knowledge in one so young never takes upon it the obnoxiousness of earthly precociousness. The children are trained in strictly spirit matters first, and then they are usually taught about the earth world, if they have not already lived in it or if their earthly lives were very brief. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 161.)

Amn’t I awfully wise? I wanted you to see I’m not a dunce now. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 65.)

I expect I have explained badly, but we have to be ourselves when we talk to you. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 64.)

Their creative ability far surpasses that of adults for they have the necessary faith in their creations and require very little help or direction in their moulding of spiritual matter. The result may not always be perfect, according to architectural standards, but it is certainly picturesque and colourful. Towers and turrets are popular on houses. These are often placed at precarious angles, but that does nothing to detract from their beauty. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 89.)

The Child’s Spiritual Development

The Child’s Understanding of Thought Manifestation

Now I am learning how to make myself change and grow and how to make, with the others, the place we live in. We don’t learn out of books here, we learn out of ourselves. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 64.)

After [the children who die young] have slept they are taken by the people to what looks like houses and country. They are told these aren’t the same as in the world, they aren’t really there, but are real just the same. We have thought them so you see them.

We see each other as children because we think the figures of children and so you appear to each other to look just like children. Your bodies aren’t made of anything the earth people would call solid. They are simply made out of something lighter and finer than air. This something can take the (picture) of anything we like to print on it.

We have wished to print the picture around your mind of your bodies and we have done so because we know how to think. You will, when you have got the wish for it, learn how to do the same over here. You will learn how to make a picture in your mind of a house and a house will spring up about you.

The fairy stories are the only really true stories. The wand that turns an old woman into a young girl and the magic carpet that carries you where you want to go are all just wishes in the mind that haven’t anybody to stop them from practicing their magic. I know you will think I am talking silly rubbish, but it is really and truly what happens.

The children are too young, when they come to the other side of death, to know how to use their wishing caps, their minds. They just see again pretty country and nice people and houses that are all picture books – not really in any way the same as what we are used to on earth. But they’d be so lonely they couldn’t bear it if they didn’t find people and things they were used to.

Of course, after a while, they begin to feel their own minds’ strength. They want to give up playing. Then the first thing they are taught is how to think the place you want to have about you. You’d be awfully amused at the funny things they do to start building.

At first they come just in little bits. It was lovely when I was able for the first time to think a horse and then to see it there in front of me. Daddy even couldn’t do that.

Some children are so silly, they think such stupid pictures. One boy wanted a jungle and a prairie; he was clever and he got them. But he didn’t like them a bit when they were about him. They frightened him so, being all alone and all that. I can tell you he worked hard to get rid of that silly, dark jungle and its snakes and he made a cozy den of his mind as soon as he could.

We live, you see, for a time in a way that is quite like living at home. Only there is a really big difference. It is that home is made for us when we come here first, by older minds, but we are soon taught how to change it, how to make it; not with hands and muscles but by seeing the picture of what one wants in one’s mind and then believing it is really there. I had to make-believe lots before anything came at all.

The bad people when they come here believe in just what is nasty and so they get it about them. But usually children have an awfully good time because they know what they want to believe in and, when they are sure of finding a home, they find it of course.

There’s one thing that we can’t make with our minds and that’s people. I can’t make Mummy or Daddy. They say it’s because no one can make what is called spirit. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 66-7.)

[These pictures] stay if we keep working to make them stay. They are made for us at first by these older people. When we know how to make them we must for a while at least do this picture thinking. I have done more than make my home in this way and pretty country. I and a girl called Ruth have just learnt how to travel on the thing out of which we make our world. It is, in a way, like air. It has, we have found, lots of colours and we float off on those colours, going as quickly as a train, as quickly as wind. It is simply splendid. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 67.)

I have been living in a lovely place where there is a spring garden and it changes just as the year does on earth. The people here taught me to set that garden by the time of the earth. Everything in it is meant to remind me of Mumbo, Jane, Daddy and everybody.

The garden is made by us out of what we can remember. It isn’t solid like the earth and yet it seems the same because we think so as to make it; and we want it to seem like something we know. But if we didn’t – with the help of all the nice people here – make this out of our thinking, there would be nothing but light all around us.

We build it all up just as children build houses of bricks, only we are taught to make the bricks too; but if you came along to my lovely garden, you wouldn’t see anything. It would seem air to you. Isn’t that funny? (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 73.)

The Child’s Understanding of Subdivided Consciousness

I know lots of things you don’t know now. I have to learnt how to think twice at the same time. … I would like to explain if I could. I want to be making something I remember and I want to be playing too. If I want hard enough I find I can work and play at the same time. And, when I have finished, both myself and the other me meet and tell each other what we have been doing and I am behind both and I laugh. (1) It is such fun to do two things at the same time. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 67.)

(1) Compare with Frederic Myers: “I have to concentrate my thought for what you might call a moment and I can build up a likeness of myself, send that likeness speeding … to a friend, to one who is in tune with me. Instantly I appear before that friend, though I am remote from him, and my likeness holds speech – in thought, remember, not words – with this friend. Yet all the time I control it …. And as soon as the interview is concluded I withdraw the life of my thought from that image of myself and it vanishes.” (Myers in Paul Beard, 69.) Note also Nikola Tesla’s comment: “That is not the common phenomenon known as bilocation, by the way. It’s something else and requires a well-developed mind.” (NTR, 60.)

The Child’s Understanding of Spirit Truths

The children here all see Christ: they seem to instinctively understand Him and His Mother. Having occupied a mortal body such a short time they easily go back to the things of the Spirit. (Claude Kelway-Bamber in CB, 55.)

I was rather stupid when I was alive. I couldn’t learn things quickly, but I’ve been quite bright since I came here. You see, I’ve found the rest of myself here – everyone does. There’s a only a small bit of you alive now, there’s a lot of you over here.

Often the nice part is over here, that is why you can never know a person who is alive. They sometimes seem to change so awfully. It’s simply because another bit of them has come to live in the body and the first bit has left to join the bigger part over here.

It’s like a first cousin or an uncle coming to be you instead of yourself. I don’t mean a first cousin or an uncle ever does. I simply mean that there is a great deal more of you than you think and it’s divided and joined at the roots only.

So sometimes several people come and go in one body in a life, but they are all like each other as cousins are alike, so you don’t notice it as much as you might. You just fancy this person has changed a lot, that’s all. I wanted to tell you this to show you I do know something and I have learnt things that even an old person like you doesn’t know. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 64-5.)

When I go back (1) I go to a much older part of myself. You know, when you’re born, there’s an old, quite grown-up part outside you that often stays outside, living your life till you die and then joining it. That sounds like fairy stories, p’raps you would say, but it’s quite true. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 65.)

(1) When Elizabeth B. goes back to her astral residence, that is, rather than speaking to E.B. Gibbes on the earth plane.

It’s like playing with dolls to come back and put on my old self again. That’s what I do. It’s such fun. I am really just a bit of myself when I talk to you in this way. I feel it is quite a nice, silly bit of me. You know there is only a bit of Mummy alive too. There’s a lot of her waiting for her to come out of her body. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 66.)

A Child’s Precognition

I have a secret. Somebody will die and leave Mumbo a little money. At least I saw that. I can’t tell you when. But it will be a great help. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 74.)

Fostering Memory

O you parents of earth, … be assured that your darling is in the safe-keeping of Love and Wisdom and that the memory of a dear mother is religiously fostered. (Abbe Henry Bolo in SRE, 90-2.)

Another point of interest and comfort, friend, is that the children are never allowed to forget or lose their love for their earthly parents. Often and often they are brought to meet them in the appointed meeting-place where many separated souls are re-united – during the hours of sleep. (Unnamed spirit communicator in SRE, 49.)

The bond of love is never severed and the silver thread of memory is woven into the pattern of God’s perfect tapestry that transcends all time and space, until the picture is complete. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 91)

Reunion of Parent and Child

There is always one question that arises in the minds of earth people in connection with children who have passed on: Shall we be able to recognize our children when we ourselves arrive in the spirit world? The answer is, most emphatically, yes, beyond all shadow of doubt. But how, if they have grown up in the spirit world and out of our sight, can that possibly be? To answer that, it is necessary to know a little more about one’s self. /

You must know that, when the physical body sleeps, the spirit body temporarily withdraws from it while still remaining connected to it by a magnetic cord. The cord is the veritable lifeline between the spirit body and the earth body. The spirit thus situated will either remain in the vicinity of the earth body or it will gravitate to that sphere which its earthly life, so far, has entitled it to enter. The spirit body will this spend part of the lifetime of the earthly body in spirit lands.

And it is upon these visits that one meets relatives and friends who have passed on before and it is similarly upon these visits that parents can meet their children and thus watch their growth. In the majority of cases the parents are not allowed within the children’s own sphere but there are plenty of places where such meetings can take place. Remembering what I have said about the retentiveness of the subconscious mind, you will see that, in such cases, the problem of recognizing a child does not arise because the parent has seen the child and observed its growth throughout the whole of the intervening years in just the same way the parent would have done if the child had remained in the earth world.

There must be, of course, a sufficient bond of attachment between the parent and the child or else this law will not come into operation. Where such does not exist the conclusion is obvious. That link of affection or kindly interest must also exist between all human relationships in the spirit world, whether it be with husband and wife, parent and child, or between friends. Without that interest or affection it is problematical whether there would ever be any meeting at all, except fortuitously. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 161-2.)

Some children who die before they have reached adolescence do not meet their parents in the world between. They had only a fleeting, physical connection with them; they were strangers to each other’s souls; they were not bound to each other through the comradeship of the Group. This being so, desire fades rapidly and, after death, such parents are not united to the children who went before them at an earlier time. (F.W.H., Myers, BHP, n.p.)

I must put on the dress I wore when I was alive when I come to you. I mean, not a dress you would wear, but just the dress that was all I was when Mummy knew me. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 64.)

Mummy mustn’t be frightened and think she will meet an old grown-up person, someone as old as an aunt. She will find me (and I want her [to]) just as I used [to be]. … Some people lose their mothers and fathers. It’s just because they don’t want them much. It’s all if you want or don’t want and what you expect you will get. (Child Elizabeth B. to E.B. Gibbes in Geraldine Cummins, TS, 65.)

The child grows up naturally here as it would upon earth; but if, as is frequently the case when one of another of their beloved ones come here, they expect and desire to see once again the little ones they loved and lost, … / then that child is permitted, by power of thought, to show itself as of old to its mother or father. Just as in a reverse case, one who came here old and wrinkled, as seems to earthly eyes, would, for purposes of recognition alone, appear again the same – although as we state there is no “old age” here. (Unnamed spirit communicator in SRE, 48-9.)

The Masters Behind the Children’s Sphere

Jesus

The Children’s Sphere (1) is under the direct supervision of the Master Jesus, whose compassionate love the children at all times strive to emulate. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 91.)

(1) At least the children’s sphere in Christian circles. Since familiarity is striven for on the Astral Plane, it seems reasonable to assume that other spiritual masters would supervise the children’s sphere in locales where Jesus not worshipped and is little known.

We need not tell you that the Master Himself, Who so loved the little ones, is constantly present there, too. (Unnamed spirit communicator in SRE, 49.)

Other Masters from the “Spheres of Light”

They readily accept visitors from the high spheres and are often rewarded for special merit by expeditions to more advanced planes. (Phyllis McLean in LFM, 91.)

Difficulties of Embodying

Embodied Children Adjusting to Earth Life

[My Teacher] is very fond of children, and one day when I was sitting unseen in the house of a friend of mine on earth, and the little son of the house fell down and hurt himself and wept bitterly, my great Teacher, whom I have seen command literally “legions of angels,” bent down in his tenuous form, which he was then wearing, and soothed and comforted the child.

When I asked him about it afterwards, he said that he remembered many childhoods of his own, in other lands, and that he could still feel in memory the sting of physical pain and the shock of a physical fall.

He told me that children suffer more than their elders realise, that the bewilderment felt in gradually adjusting to a new and frail and growing body is often the cause of intense suffering.

He said that the constant crying of some small babies is caused by their half-discouragement at the herculean task before them – the task of moulding a body through which their spirit can work. (Judge David P. Hatch, LLDM, Letter XLVI.)

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The Afterlife – New Maps of Heaven » 20. The Childrens’ Spheres