March 1968
To weave the raw material into the skein and now the skein is ready, and we must wind it into a ball. When the material is wound into the ball we shall begin to produce the garment or the pattern, call it what you will. It seems to you that now, at the end of your life, in the twilight of your years, that this is the so-called thin edge of the wedge, and there is not much going on concerning the things that you do, that you enjoy doing, and the people with whom you come into contact. You often think that there are so many you would like to see, you would like to talk to, you would like to discuss the great truths with, but once again we stress this all important point, and truth indeed it is, thou art just beginning, just beginning your true work.
Now that the etheric body is becoming more unattached from the physical, more, shall we say, loose, able to go here and there without the strong ties of the physical, we would tell you, and explain to you, one of the very important tasks you are able to perform in this particular state of being, when the physical ties are getting weaker and weaker and the etheric body is getting stronger and stronger and more capable of working on its own without the pull of the very busy body and brain.
There are many who die, as you call it, who come hence, who have never thought about the Spirit world, who have never believed that anything afterward is there at all. They have lived for the day and could not imagine, could not even think of anything after the body had been laid to rest, as they say.
Now these souls are lost, and although they can see after a time, because there is always someone there to meet them, unless, of course they are very evil and have been truly, truly alien to all the laws of the Father.
Most of these were ordinary folk who lead very decent lives considering they know not the truth of the spirit. And yet, when they come hence and they see and feel that we are near, trying to help, or the particular helpers which have been allotted to do this work, they feel and sense the strangeness. They are not at home. They feel lost and bewildered and crave for those they have left behind, who they are at home with. Now because most of the helpers, because of their necessary training and because they have all progressed to a certain extent, they have to progress spiritually before they can meet these bewildered souls, and because of their higher and lighter condition, because of the texture and substance of their bodies, they find it very, very difficult, sometimes impossible, to go right back and and associate, and get into the aura of the ordinary, everyday soul who has not even started to think, or not searched seriously for truth. In other words, the fearful and the ignorant.
And yet, these are the very ones that the departed one, in the same state prays to be back with, craven for these conditions and sensations to which he is accustomed. He knows himself to be still alive, craves, and can only think of life in this state, with these folk on this vibration.
Now, Mary, this is where a seeker after truth in your state, coming to the end of the Earth life is of invaluable, invaluable assistance. Because you are still on the Earth vibration and because you are attached to the grosser bulk of body, of matter, we can bring, when you are asleep or when you are just sitting thinking in the quiet by your own fireside, and especially when you are in this hut, we can bring these little ones and they can see you and sense the so-called Earthliness of the body. And when sleep holds you, we can bring them to your etheric or Spirit body, and you can talk with then on this heavier level and because you are not a so-called 'dead-un', they are not afraid, they do not feel out of touch, they know that you are actually going back to their beloved world, and in turn you talk to them.
And remember this, that you actually long to be in a world of spirit, and they are more and more bewildered, and you explain to them why and you make them understand the perishable, decaying world they have left behind.
We hope these words will comfort you and make you realise also that elderly or old, call it what you will, people who have searched and who are not craving for their youth, who are not craving to be young again, who are not craving to compete, who are not always decrying their fate, who are not always craving for this or that, these are the ones who accept the natural love, who accept things as they are, and in their quiet, peaceful times the etheric body is loose and more able to come here and to do what we would have it do.
So you see, instead of being useless you are more use to us than you will ever know -until you yourself are over here going back with those lost souls to a person in the same state that you are now. Then you will realise, then you will see, and then you will thank God for this period of usefulness.
This transcript addresses a real and painful feeling directly — that old age, with its narrowing circle of activity and company, is "the thin edge of the wedge," an ending rather than a beginning. Its answer is unusually concrete rather than merely consoling: age is the very condition that makes a particular, needed work possible. As the physical body weakens, the etheric body is described as loosening its ties, "getting stronger and stronger" in its ability to move independently — the same decline that feels like diminishment is, on this account, the mechanism of an entirely new capability.
That capability is given a specific purpose: helping the newly dead who never believed in an afterlife at all, and who, on dying, find themselves lost and bewildered, craving the ordinary Earth life they knew rather than the unfamiliar spirit world around them. Fully-progressed helpers, this transcript says candidly, often can't reach these souls — their own higher, lighter state makes it hard to get close enough to be recognised or trusted. Someone still tied to the body, but who already longs for the spirit world, occupies a unique middle position: close enough to be recognisable to the newly lost, advanced enough to explain to them where they actually are.
Its closing reassurance turns the usual measure of usefulness upside down: not youth, competitiveness, or busyness, but precisely the acceptance of one's own natural decline — no craving to be young again, no resentment of one's fate — is what frees the etheric body for this work. What looks, from the outside, like a person becoming less useful is described here as someone quietly becoming more useful than they've ever been, in a form of service the person themselves may not fully register until they've crossed over and can look back and recognise what the quiet years were actually doing.