June 8th 1969
It is very very pleasant, my friends, and I am delighted to be able to talk to you in this way. I have been with the guide of Mary, the keeper of the stone, who kindly consented to bring me here and to make this talk possible.
I feel honoured to have met this Spirit, this great but humble soul, we have met before. I thought I was a pretty learned man whilst upon the Earth, but I have seen records this day which reveal secrets the nature of which I had never dreamed, and in very truth, there are indeed more things in Heaven and Earth than man ever dreams. And I feel, that rather than teach, I would rather just converse and talk about general things, because, in so many ways, you know so many things of which I was ignorant whilst upon the Earth plane.
First of all I would like to say how I admire you, Mary, for the acceptance of the tribulations of the body. And I am very pleased to see that you see these things in their right perspective. That you judge not, that you complain not, and that you put the blame not on any other person, being, or circumstance. And this is indeed, a laying down, a laying down, or if you prefer it, giving up, as it were, giving up the ghost gradually, quietly, and thankfully. And because of these things, and because of the way you accept the natural course of events, because of this, your mind and brain are able to remain reasonably clear, and responsive and receptive to the Spirit influences which are continually around you. And it is true that the greater the frustration and the tribulation, when one is thinking, the nearer the Spirit friends are to you. For a time in my Earthly life, I was practically blind, and yet, during that time of not seeing with my physical eyes, I saw so much of the real world, and gleaned through my enforced darkness, more Spiritual truth than I could have achieved through numerous books, through the spoken word of others, even if I had been able.
You call me Aldous Huxley, and you have admired, and I thank you, my work, and the philosophy which I gathered together, for your pleasure. But I need not tell you that this kind of work does not appeal to everyone. But to those to whom it has an appeal, I am naturally drawn.
And because of your enforced, what you would call, idleness, because you have to sit more, and be more quiet, I often come and keep you company. When you sit thinking on the deeper things of life. When you think of the essence, and the life force, and the Spirit, I am there also because I am still thinking, there is still so much that I would know, but I do want to emphasise this one point, the man of the world, the so-called unregenerate man, is a mixture of happiness and pain, and sorrow, apprehension, anxiety, and then comes the fleeting excitement of this thing, this desire, this achievement, can come about.
But it is very difficult to explain but you are one of the Spirits who came to Earth very, very, very reluctantly. And we have to be very careful, so I am told, the guides of this world who I speak to now and whose knowledge I seek, and whose wisdom and understanding is the very food of my soul, tell me that when a very reluctant Spirit comes back to Earth, because they know that this must be for their Spiritual progress, there is always a certain amount of doubt, not of the ultimate end product, which is perfection, but there always is the possibility that this one will tend towards the morbid because of the reluctance and the despairing because the Spirit, being encased in an Earthly body, must needs take, as it were, a back seat because the body must adjust itself to the physical, carnal, human, world. And yet, the lesson must be learned.
To recognise, to acknowledge, the Spirit as the self, and if this, through hereditary traits, temperament, environment, natural background, parentage, if these things cause too strong a barrier, then the Spirit indeed has to fight for its freedom whilst in the flesh. If it cannot find itself through the brain of the physical body and make itself known through the arduous search, through the seeking, the knocking, the asking, the suffering, the frustration, then it will pass on, and there will be terrific disappointment and another coming forth through the womb of woman. Back into the walls of flesh.
And so you see the guides always have, although they promise you before entering again into the physical life, that they will never leave you, that they will do their part, and of this you are absolutely sure before you come, otherwise you would not make the journey. But there is great rejoicing when the guide and charge and ward are known to each other, come together, as it were, face to face.
Now I would like to let you into a little secret. You could have been born with the psychic faculties and the mediumistic power. But this is an advantage which you refused. And you promised that you would 'Go it alone' until you had overcome and accepted. And of course, you and the Medium, the instrument, your little friend, met before and the arrangements were made. But you could not have come together if you had not found yourself first, because this was your own wish.
And so, we were listening with amusement, your guide and I, to your conversation as you entered the hut, concerning, 'Perhaps we shall get nothing, because I am tired, I am this I am that.' How foolish. We are always waiting with love, with compassion, but with great joy, because, we can see, in the very near future, a laying down of terrific burdens, and the coming home to peace. Work, yes work, but peace, and the knowledge of a job well done. It has been wonderful talking to you and I await with pleasure our meeting on this side of the veil.
This transcript is unusually conversational rather than instructive — Huxley himself says as much, preferring "to converse and talk about general things" rather than teach, since he's discovered how much he still doesn't know. His warmest observation is about Mary's own acceptance of physical decline: judging nothing, blaming no one, "a laying down... quietly, and thankfully" — and he notes, from his own experience of blindness in life, that enforced limitation often opens a clearer channel to spirit than active searching ever could: "I saw so much of the real world... through my enforced darkness" that years of books and conversation hadn't given him.
Its most personal disclosure concerns Mary's own reluctance to return to Earth life at all, and a choice made before incarnation that she herself doesn't consciously remember — refusing psychic and mediumistic ability outright, choosing instead to "go it alone" and find her own way before finally being brought together with the medium she'd need. The stakes of that reluctance are described plainly: a spirit too resistant to its own incarnation risks becoming morbid or despairing rather than simply cautious, and if it fails to find itself through "the arduous search... the suffering, the frustration," it must be born again and try once more.
The transcript closes gently teasing her own doubt — overhearing her worry, on entering the hut, that "perhaps we shall get nothing, because I am tired" — met not with correction but affectionate amusement, and the promise of "a laying down of terrific burdens, and the coming home to peace" drawing steadily nearer.