by Mrs. Kelway-Bamber

The following are transmissions as given (in 1916) to his mother from the other side from Claude who had passed recently, a casualty of World War I.

Claude (His Perspective From The Other Side) On Reincarnation

You want to know how it is I now believe in reincarnation, and say that other spirits you find do not? Well, darling, we are still very far from ultimate truth, and people here vary in their opinions and ideas just as they did on earth. We are still learning, Mum; we have only gone a little farther along the road of experience, and have by no means reached the end of the journey. Yes, there is a Heaven, but it is a long way off and has yet to be earned; even our very bodies, which are still fairly material [less refined], will have to become more refined before we are fitted for that.

I am told by friends here, that souls are sometimes reborn, reincarnated, in order to gain further experience, learn more life lessons, or work out past sins and failings. Each earth life leaves its mark on character, and its lessons are forever imprinted on the subconscious mind, which registers everything that has ever happened to the soul from the beginning. This, they say, explains much of the pain and trouble you see on earth. The sufferers are learning lessons which are necessary for their souls’ growth, for man was put into the world to develop the spiritual. They may have lived before, and neglected to learn them, or they may be new souls going through these experiences in one or other of the stages of their existence; it is all on the road of their evolution.

Families, friends, sections of nations in the revolving cycle of time reincarnate together very often, as they require the same experiences.

When you begin to think seriously about the subject and look and study the people about you, you will be able to recognize that some people are old souls and others newer.

Past experiences, though not consciously remembered, tone down crudities of character. Old souls have a sympathy, a strength, taught of pain and discipline, and are therefore considerate for others. When one knows many of the exceptionally gifted young men who have passed over in this war, one realizes they may have been old souls who gained their experience in the past and returned to earth for a culmination in this sacrifice [for others].

I have often heard people ask why God permits wickedness. If it were impossible for man to sin, he would no longer be a free agent but an automaton. As man is on earth to learn his lesson and develop his soul, he must have his mettle proved. There would be no good without evil. Contrasts exist and are necessary; just as day and night, wet and fine, heat and cold, pleasure and pain, are only realized and appreciated through their opposites.

Old souls have learnt also to keep in touch with and draw from the “God-force” the actual Source of Life. Psychically-developed people are especially in contact with it.

The soul has a separate consciousness. Many people’s souls leave their bodies in sleep habitually, or under anesthetics, and travel to various places; some, on awaking, are able to remember the scenes they have visited–and this memory can be cultivated. So you see the difference between sleep and death for some people is not very great after all, nor the passing painful nor difficult. It only means on one occasion they leave their bodies to return no more.

With reference to the discussion in the newspaper on reincarnation,”you say some women think it almost a desecration to believe their babies have lived before and been perhaps even “harlots,” “thieves,” or other undesirable persons. This sounds as if they presupposed themselves to be new souls.

I am told, whatever those babies may have been in previous lives (if they have lived on earth before), their mothers have earned those particular babies.

I mean, souls don’t return promiscuously to anybody, in any family. There is a sequence in their lives that necessitates their coming to one particular environment. It is part of the natural law, and works automatically.

Their mothers may have owed them something–a debt of love they failed to pay in a previous existence, or a trust they betrayed.

If the baby had been a “harlot” in the past, perhaps the mother in those days was the lover who first betrayed her, or even a vain, cruel, careless, or neglectful mother before, who failed in her duty to her child, and was the cause of her downfall.

Perhaps that child or another is sent to her that she may “make good;” it may be her opportunity. People should always do a kindness when they can, even if it is not appreciated or acknowledged, for it may be a chance of repaying a debt.

Souls do not come in the same relationship to each other every time, and not even as the same sex sometimes. A well-developed soul is one that has functioned in both sexes, and so has gained experience.

To look at it another way, it is also equally open to every woman to believe (or hope) if she likes that she and her baby did such good work when they were in the world before, that they have come back to continue it, for this happens too sometimes.

Here we are continually taught that the highest service is to help one another, and this is the best way for some people to do it.

I promised I would tell you all I had learnt of our previous lives together, yours and mine. It is not very much.

My guides showed me a number of pictures in a series of visions illustrating these lives.

There must have been many more than I know anything of, for in the first we were versed in many of the occult mysteries and rites of ancient Egypt. I saw that country thousands of years ago. There were wonderful buildings with huge pillars, and the dazzling sunshine and heat of the East.

We were brother and sister, I was told, and were attached to the court of the Pharaoh, a sort of “lady and gentleman in waiting.” We also had a great deal to do with the temple, and the priests, and religious services. It was probably in this connection we were at the court.

I know we spent much time walking in the temple processions, and I saw you a tall woman, with a good figure and an upright carriage, in a purple robe and overdress trimmed with gold, and a sort of cloak of some skin falling at your back, your forehead bound low down with a broad fillet of gold with hieroglyphics on it. You wore bracelets of gold and other ornaments in the way of earrings and necklaces. (You looked jolly fine, Mum!)

I used to wear on these occasions a sort of tunic trimmed with gold, and sandals laced up to the knee with the same precious metal. I was quite pleased with my appearance, till I discovered that I also wore an enormous wig that stuck out a foot round my head in every direction. It amused me very much. I must have looked a perfect sight! But if that was the fashion at the time, I have no doubt I was very pleased with the effect then. I don’t know what happened, or our subsequent history, on that occasion.

In the next scene we were walking along a dusty Eastern road in Palestine. The country on either side looked sun-baked, and rough, and bare, with a few thorny bushes growing here and there. This time you were a young matron about twenty-two, and were carrying your baby. You were wearing a blue robe embroidered round the edge, and a kind of veil over your head. (You had the face of a Madonna.) You were the wife of a notary, a man known for his goodness and benevolence.

I was about nineteen, a girl too, your bosom friend, and in the scene I describe was walking beside you with my arm round your waist. We were Christians, and it was in the early days of Christianity.

That time I was shown the end of the life story. Some terrible plague, or epidemic, broke out in Jerusalem, and you and I used to go among the sick poor carrying food and medicine. Later, I saw you in a comatose condition at the point of dissolution, while I knelt beside you, stricken too, and praying that death should not divide us. What happened to your husband and the baby I don’t know.

The next scene was, I should imagine, somewhere in the Near East (possibly in the Balkans). This time we were both young men, brothers. We wore picturesque garments (rather like a musical comedy), and seemed to be leaders of a band of fighters, and we appeared to enjoy our rough, wild life thoroughly. What happened to us later I don’t know. Yes! it does seem as if we had not “advanced” much that time. Perhaps we required to be more strenuous, and so were given the opportunity of cultivating what is commonly called “grit!” There are new souls, too, always coming into the world, and I am told much of the sin in it is due to ignorance and inexperience; so, too, is the narrow-mindedness.

When anyone is sure they know everything, or think they understand the limitations of nature, or are bigoted in religious matters, you can believe it is that they have very little soul-experience, for old souls learn the tremendous power of God, and realize how infinitesimal is man.

I have never seen a spirit yet who has seen God, and yet here you know you live because you are just a particle from the Divine….

You say it hurt you to hear that poor woman who spoke through the other medium the other day; she seemed so terribly unhappy and uncomfortable. Well, poor woman, she was so unready to pass out of the world. She was killed suddenly through an accident while in perfect health.

She was a very worldly woman, and could not believe it when she came to herself and found she had left her mortal body. She had no real belief in “life after death,” and felt she was in a dream and a very unhappy one, for, alas for herself, she had in her life on earth laughed her husband out of all belief in it too! And she realized the difficulty she would have in undoing this mistake.

As you make the conditions of your own life after death by your state of spiritual development, you can imagine some people, whose spiritual faculties have dwindled till they have become atrophied, almost a negligible quantity, in fact,–can see no beauty here; in fact, they live under unpleasant conditions.

Some people are earth-bound. All their interests are there, and they return for that contact with men and the old conditions they crave.

I know it is difficult to understand why discarnate souls should still hanker after material and sometimes gross pleasures. It is because while on earth their senses ruled them, and stamped and coarsened the soul, instead of the spirit refining and purifying the body.

As I have already told you, for some time after people come here they continue to feel as if they were still in a mortal body. You can realize this in a small way from what is, alas, a common occurrence nowadays. Any soldier who has had the misfortune to lose a limb will tell you he can feel pain, discomfort, or irritation in it for days after it has been amputated.

In this way spirits continue for some time after they have left, to “feel” their bodies after death, and you know from experience now that the first time a spirit returns through a medium, the death condition is generally reproduced or indicated.

Visiting The Christ Sphere

I know why you are all thinking especially of me today, darling. It’s an anniversary, my birthday into the spirit world, I mean. I am not going to call it the day I was “killed.”

I do truly feel hundreds of years older sometimes. I seem to have learnt so much since I came over, and yet at other times I sit at your feet and rest my head against your knee, and it seems as if I were a little boy again, and all these things had never happened!

Yes, I have seen Christ once, Mummy, and, remembering how awe-inspiring the occasion was, cannot help wondering how any one could imagine at death they would go straight to His kingdom, when most of us have done so little to earn that beatitude!

I was told I should be allowed to see Him, but honestly at the time I did not realize or appreciate the fact. I thought it would probably mean going to a very high church with an elaborate ritual of pomp and ceremony. When the appointed time came, my guides provided me with a plain white robe to wear (you cannot attend the court of an earthly king without suitable garments), and we passed through connecting shafts to the Christ-sphere.

My general impression was that of brightness, almost dazzling; the air scintillated like diamonds–it almost crackled, it was so full of electricity; my feet had not a very firm grip of the ground.

There were bands and processions of people white-robed, all going in one direction. They moved with uplifted faces, singing beautiful music.

We joined the rear of one group, and were almost swept along on a tide of intense feeling.

We came to a building without any walls. It consisted of a roof, which seemed to be composed of interwoven rays of light of different colors, supported by pillars which looked as if they were made of mother-of-pearl.

There were crowds of people all round, and raised above all others stood one glowing, radiant figure. I knew at once it was Christ, and instinctively fell on my knees (though He is not like any picture I have ever seen). I was so conscious of Him that I felt as if He was bending over me. His eyes seemed to penetrate me, and produce a wonderful glow. I felt uplifted in a culminating thrill of ecstasy. He was speaking, but I could not hear the words.

As I knelt there, many events of my life passed in review through my mind. I could visualize them as pictures. My memory seemed stored with records, not alone of the life I had just left, but of others in the far-away past; and as the various scenes presented themselves I seemed to realize the different lessons I had learned through these experiences, and to know that all the events of my life had been leading up to this.

Excerpt from Claude’s Book