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Guided Meditation and The Teaching of Jesus is published and distributed by Element Books.
Culbone A Spiritual History was first published in 1977 by Georjan Studio and first printed by Hammetts of Taunton
Copyright © Joan Cooper 1977
The Door Within Some Meditations On Illness, Pain, Ageing, And Death was first published in 1979 by Regency Press (London and New York) Ltd. 43 New Oxford Street, London, WC1A 1BH (hardback); the paperback edition was first printed by Wincanton Litho, Wincanton, Somerset.
Copyright © Joan Cooper 1979
Corner Stones Of The Spiritual World was first published in 1981 and first printed by Hammetts of Taunton.
Copyright © Joan Cooper 1981
drawings by Hope Messenger
These books are copyrighted under the Berne Convention and no portion may be reproduced by any process without the copyright holder's written permission except for the purposes of reviewing or criticism, as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1956.
Joan D'Arcy Cooper was a student of Yoga for about thirty years, and used her own methods to teach yoga, relaxation, and meditation in Devon, and for West Somerset Community Education. She was born in California in 1927, obtained a degree in International Law there at Pomona College, studied for some time in Geneva, and then read Psychology for her Doctorate in Berlin, before settling in the small hamlet of Culbone on the Exmoor Coast, where she lived for over twenty years, writing, and working as a part-time free-lance psychologist. She was married to a potter, played the harmonium in the smallest church in England and Wales, was for many years a licensed Reader in the diocese of Bath and Wells, and also a much sought after spiritual healer. She died in June 1982, lies buried in Culbone churchyard, and has been identified as an Ascended Mistress of the Rainbow Programme.
Culbone valley is forty minutes' walk to the West of Porlock Weir (where a car may be parked); from its northern beach 450ft. below, the surrounding hills rise to a height of 1,300ft. Oak, chestnut, fir and mountain-ash are the main trees growing here, oak-felling having at one time been a main source of revenue. Culbone is a place where red deer still gather; until about 1930 feral goats were also common. On the top of Culbone Hill an almost straight row of twenty unevenly spaced, knee-high, single, prehistoric, grey-brown stones, forming a 400-yards-long West-East line was re-discovered shortly before Joan Cooper's death. Seventy paces South-West of the western end of this row the long famous 6th or 7th century A.D. Culbone wheeled-cross stone is positioned North-East to South-West, and slightly askew, so that the 4 o'clock incised line on its South-East face now also serves to point the way down to Culbone church, which is one of the smallest in Britain - it can accommodate 33 persons at a squeeze, about 24 comfortably.
The seven Welsh monks and/or nuns, who, allegedly led by Saint Columbanus or Bueno, arrived here by boat in 430, called it Kitnor - from Cyta ore: cave by the sea, or hill-slope frequented by kites; it was also sometimes known as Kit Beun or Cattenor. Although the sandstone window with two lights separated by a faintly carved column with a low-relief boar's-head capital may have been all carved out of one single slab, perhaps by these monks or nuns, it possibly dates from much earlier ‘pagan’ times. Even after King Ine of Wessex had established his court at Taunton in 710, Culbone did not become a residential centre. We know, however, that Osmund held land at Culbone before 1066. Also, James Hadley of Withycombe left threepence in his will to Saint Culbone in 1532. The custom of unmarried women scattering hempseed in Culbone churchyard at midsummer may date from 1770-1850, as may that of the playing of clarinets and flutes in the so called minstrels' gallery.
Dorothy and William Wordsworth visited Culbone in November 1797, and were so taken with the place that they came back with Cottle in May 1798. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Hazlitt also visited Culbone in May 1798, and Dorothy Wordsworth's diary records that it was in the course of a dark and cloudy evening walk that William Wordsworth and Coleridge conceived and planned together The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a poem that Coleridge then actually wrote alone. Kubla Khan was also the result of a dream Coleridge had at Culbone, where there were only 44 parishioners in 1818.
Since Joan Cooper's death in June 1982, both the small cottage and the Lodge have provided a home for the Culbone Community Trust, a Christian foundation, who keep a small unattended hut replenished with a supply of spring-water from the Brecon Hills, as well as coffee, soft drinks and biscuits, and also books and postcards, to which visitors are encouraged to help themselves in return for a suitable donation. Details of group pilgrimages in the third millennium are currently under review. Ordnance Survey reference: 843483.
Author's Preface
Chapter One - The Spiritual Preparation Of Culbone
Chapter Two - The Early History Of Culbone
Chapter Three - The Visit Of Christ To K'SH'B'H
Chapter Four - Kitnor And Christianity
Chapter Five - Kitnor - A Place Of Banishment Or Refuge
Chapter Six - The Last Two Hundred Years In Culbone
List Of The Illustrations In The Origiinal Printed Book:
Author's Preface
Chapter 1. - The Door Within
Chapter 2. - “Guardian Angels”
Chapter 3. - Illness And Pain
Chapter 4. - Ageing
Chapter 5. - Preparation For Death
Chapter 6. - Fear Of Death
Chapter 7. - The Moment Of Death And Afterwards
Chapter 8. - The Feeling Of “I”
Chapter 9. - Grief
Chapter 10. - Services of Commemoration
Chapter 11. - Animals
Chapter 12. - What Is Life?
Illustrations reproduced in the printed text as drawn by Iris Heaton & Hope Messenger :
Introduction + Lesson One + Lesson Two + Lesson Three + Lesson Four + Lesson Five + Lesson Six
Lesson Seven + Lesson Eight + Lesson Nine + Lesson Ten + Lesson + Lesson Twelve + Lesson Thirteen
All religions, and most philosophies or teachings, posit the existence of objective knowledge: of a place where such knowledge exists or of a time or conditions when it is accessible to men. And there is much evidence in the history of human thought, both written and moral, and of all ages and peoples, to show that such knowledge of an objective order may become available to man NOW. If the data or facts relating to our earth lives vanished into oblivion and if there were no possibility of an in-gathering of knowledge, on personal or collective scale - for the individual person or for mankind generally, then human life on Earth could indeed be considered a travesty or a mockery…
As I look back over my own life, I see that the kind of perception which has led to the writing of this book has existed in a rudimentary sense since childhood, but has slowly clarified over the past few years. There were many stages in its development before I could accept it as an instrument capable of recording truth about the invisible spiritual structure underlying man's physical life on Earth. Before that time, I tested my “instrument of perception” in numerous ways - for my early training had been academic and scientific. I tested it on myself, with regard to personal health and various kinds of facts relating to my practical daily life; I tested it with detailed directions for the healing of another person; I tested it on knowledge about the physical and psychological states of other people, which knowledge could not have been accessible to me in any other way… In these and many other ways of testing I found I was given wholly reliable information which I could trust implicitly. As my trust increased, I was shown that other kinds of data were accessible, and entirely different spiritual spheres of knowledge could be recorded in this way. In time, it became necessary for me to undertake the task of recording the history of that place called Culbone, where I had lived for a number of years - that is, recording the spiritual history that underlies the external stream of events and the people behind that history, which was intended to be expressed there.
I offer the information and knowledge recorded here to all who read it in the hope that new vision and new qualities of perception may be awakened.
Culbone, 24 December, 1976.
The Light was built into Culbone in the beginning; the darkness which has overlaid it was made by man's own ignorance and wilfulness. The Light, which was built into Culbone long before the time of Christ, was constructed first of all in the form of an invisible spiritual temple by spiritual beings, under G-d's direction. It was not in the first place a physical temple or church, built by physical man; it was spiritual in nature, and built up over what would be, for us, a long period of time.
Although it is not always true that places where material churches are eventually to be built are first of all created as spiritual sanctuaries, there are, nevertheless, many such places of spiritual power in all parts of the Earth. There are a number of these spiritual temples in England, of which Culbone is one. There is something of this nature in every country, that can be used as a focus for spiritual forces.
Spiritual sanctuaries or temples were created in the invisible etheric membrance around the Earth about 9,000 B.C., after the fall of Atlantis, and before the rise of the civilizations known to historians. Different kinds of temples were created, having different functions, and giving out different kinds of power. But, as all spiritual power is, in essence, G-d's Love, so these were not so much different kinds of power, as different forms of the expression of G-d's Love, centred in different places.
These places of concentrated spiritual Light and Power were created in order that mankind would not fall again, and so that the spiritual realm would have a definite point of contact with individual men, through which it could work for the regeneration of mankind. The places where spiritual sanctuaries have been built also permit a greater build-up of darkness than other places, because of the focus of power centred in them. Such power can be used to increase man's wilfulness, if its Divine purpose is not understood or connected with. The same power can both elevate and spiritualize, or it can be used selfishly by physical man - or spiritual beings - attracted solely by the desire for personal power. Through man's own self-will and the self-will of spiritual beings still existing in a state of darkness (in the darkness of their own ignorance and wilfulness, which carry on beyond this life), the power that comes from Light can be used to obstruct or cover that Light. And what should be a place of Light can become a place of darkness: of ignorance and wilfulness, arrogance and fear.
In its time of spiritual origin Culbone was created as a place of PEACE - a place where men could find rest for their physical beings and stillness for their bodies. This power of PEACE was built into the ground, the rocks, the trees, and into all vegetation.
PEACE is the vibration of an actual spiritual substance.
After a person has walked a distance over a rough track that winds and climbs along a cliff, there is the physical need for rest. As he sits, this substance of PEACE flows into him in answer to need, and he begins to experience its subtle penetration of the whole of his body and physical mind. For a moment - however brief - that person is no longer restless or striving, no longer engaged in ceaseless activity and desire; he begins to feel whole and “of one piece”, as if his life were flowing from an invisible centre of which he had long been unaware. This is the commencement of a state of peace, the feeling of “being at peace”. If this state deepens, the person begins to realize that there is no longer anywhere to go because he is already there, in the one place where everything IS that truly belongs to his life. In this place he is sure, confident, safe, and at rest, even in the midst of activity.
These are states which can develop from the initial experience of climbing the footpath, needing physical rest, and discovering an inflowing of peace and stillness. This is the purpose for which Culbone was created spiritually: that everyone who comes into this place should have the possibility of an experience of peace, and that some should seek further, and find an inner tranquillity, in which there is the “peace which passeth all understanding”.
The spiritual sanctuary in Culbone was built on the etheric or invisible plane as a definite structure - not the kind usually found in churches or temples, but a spiritual building with separate yet inter- connecting areas, which could be looked after by different spiritual beings. All the rooms in this spiritual temple were originally constructed for the primary purpose of ministering to spiritual beings in need of healing, but were intended also to shed light onto the physical plane to minister to physical man. All the rooms were created spiritually equal; there was no special sanctuary or “holy of holies” in this spiritual temple. The whole valley of Culbone is contained within the influence of this invisible spiritual temple, which, from the time of its creation, rested high above Culbone, and shed light upon it continuously.
It is not possible for a spiritual structure to be effective on the physical plane without its translation into physical terms. There have to be physical media in order to transmit a spiritual substance. (Although spiritual beings can directly inspire physical beings through their own spirits.)
Although the Beings who created the spiritual temple above Culbone did not foresee the need for an exact physical counterpart, they knew that some sort of physical structure would be required. A dwelling or dwellings were contemplated - not necessarily a church or temple - where a person or a community of people could live, leading simple lives and teaching the ONE truth, which would be learned through direct intuition. A simple communal life was visualized for Culbone thousands of years before human beings actually dwelt in its valley. It was to be a spiritual community, not contemplative or withdrawn from contact with the world, but one in which individual meditation and inspiration would lead to drawing in and teaching others how to listen to, and act from, their own inner beings.
The Beings who created the spiritual temple above Culbone intended that the vibration of PEACE should be contained, not in the stones of the buildings constructed by men, but in the earth itself, and in the trees and vegetation which grew out of the earth, so that there would be continuity in the emanation of PEACE, independent of the human life being lived in the valley. They hoped that this vibration would extend outwards from Culbone, like light radiating from a centre, to cast its influence over the surrounding countryside.
It was also intended that the men who dwelt in Culbone should carve or create in stone symbols that would be inspired and represent the eternal truths which give life to the whole of creation. In order to imprint the vibrations of PEACE onto matter, they have literally to be built into the atomic structure of the earth by an Intelligence that understands the operation of the laws governing the formation of atoms. Physical man could, but never has to date built vibrations into the atomic structure. This latent ability exists, but its expression depends upon the development of greater understanding and higher consciousness in man. It can only be done from a higher spiritual reality.
What happens is that the nuclei of the atoms which make up the natural object are “imprinted” with something akin to the electrical charge given off by the electrons. This does not alter the structure of the atoms - in other words, they continue to behave like all other similar atoms - but it enables them to emit the extra vibration “imprinted” on them. All the atoms that make up a given geological segment are “imprinted” with a specific vibration in this manner. In this way the vibration of PEACE was “imprinted” on all the atoms that make up the geological substratum in the valley of Culbone. This substance has never diminished, but continues to vibrate - and will go on vibrating for ever - and is transmitted to all natural objects that grow in Culbone.
This was the period of spiritual preparation in Culbone. Nothing happened instantaneously. It required considerable Earth-time to accomplish, for the spiritual preparation took place over a period of more than three thousand years. First of all the spiritual temple was created before there was any civilization in Britain, when the area around Culbone was generally unpopulated. After the building of the spiritual temple, the vibration of PEACE was worked into the geology of Culbone, which from that time on differentiated it from the geology of the entire surrounding countryside. These preparations in the geological period in Culbone were completed about 5,000 B.C.
The period from about 4,000 B.C. onwards manifested a high degree of civilization in Britain, which is still relatively unknown to either historians or archæologists.
Before the fall of Atlantis wise men, who recognized its impending destruction and the reasons for it, went out to found new cradles of civilization; from these sources derived the Sumerian, Chaldean, Egyptian, and Indian civilizations (but not the Chinese). The flowering of the earliest culture in Britain was contemporaneous with the Egyptian, both of them deriving from what may be called the “Sumerian”, and existing in Britain between approximately 3,300 B.C. and 2,000 B.C., after which it began to decline. Ruins from this high point may be seen at Avebury and Stonehenge; Ham Hill in Somerset has ruins contemporaneous with those at Avebury, but they have never been excavated; Glastonbury was important from 3,800 B.C. as the earliest “power centre” in Europe.
Several hundred years before this period of the earliest cultural flowering in Britain, the first person came to live in Culbone. He was a sage and teacher who came from what was then called “Sumeria”, as one of many such “wise men” who were sent out from the Sumerian “schools of learning” to every part of the known world to plant seeds of knowledge about man and his spiritual evolution. The sage was directed to Culbone to set up a school of knowledge for the West of Britain, to teach men who were ready for such teaching about themselves, the nature of the world, and the reasons for their existence on Earth, and to awaken and encourage in them the desire to become whole, and to grow spiritually. The teaching which every “wise man” was sent out to teach at that time gave practical - not theoretical - instruction in how to live physically and mentally in a state of awareness; how to step back from total involvement in the activities of life, and find interior silence or a centre of repose; how to listen to an inner Voice and to follow directions or guidance from within. This earliest form of spiritual teaching may be called “yoga”, which means: bringing together, healing, making whole.
The teaching brought by the Sumerian sage to Culbone, in the early part of the fourth millennium B.C., was neither doctrinaire belief nor an organized system of thought. It was revealed truth: truth about the nature of man and the universe, which was received through intuitive experience. All revealed truth and direct knowledge was received in this way by the “wise men” of that time and their teachers before them. This was not an “esoteric” teaching, nor did it lead men to secret initiations; what the sage taught in Culbone was what “wise men” who were able to receive revealed truth were teaching all over the world at that time, in which there was nothing mysterious or arcane.
The sage who was inspired to come to Culbone dwelled alone - but not as a hermit, for he was a teacher, and had many pupils, and was visited by people from all over Britain, many of whom came from long distances. “Culbone” was not the name of the valley at this time. The sage was inspired to call it by a name which explained its spiritual purpose. This name was K'SH'B'H.
“K'SH'B'H” was a Sumerian word, usually written without vowels; today it would be written “Kashebah”. It meant “the working of the Divine Triad” or “the Trinity of Holy Action”. This “name” was in use at that time and referred to all special places - like Culbone - where this “Trinity of Holy Action” was at work. It only referred to such places where there was this kind of underlying spiritual activity of a Divine nature. The word was never used as a “place name”.
The work of this first sage in K'SH'B'H was to give knowledge to all who came to him, and to guide their lives, in accordance with the direct intuition he received, into those paths where they would be able to receive guidance from within for themselves - each one according to the nature and state of his own being. When the sage passed on from this life, a pupil of his carried on the same teaching in K'SH'B'H; but, after the death of the second teacher, there was no successor. The entire period of teaching lasted approximately fifty years. No material evidence remains from that period, because even the dwellings were impermanent, and not built of stone.
After this there was a gap in the history of K'SH'B'H, during which time it was uninhabited for about seven hundred and fifty years.
About the beginning of the third millennium B.C. some primitive people came to K'SH'B'H who were totally uninfluenced by the relatively high degree of civilization flourishing in Britain at that time. These people were woodsmen who passed in and out of K'SH'B'H, living the life of itinerants, pursuing their simple occupation, and establishing no stable settlement or dwellings for themselves. For another seven hundred and fifty years there was no permanent occupation of K'SH'B'H.
During the whole of this period K'SH'B'H was densely forested with oak and mixed woods, and the climate was warmer than it is now, until approximately 1,000 B.C. The only access to the valley was a path which came up from the newly-formed “channel” into K'SH'B'H over a long, gently sloping shore that had not yet been submerged by the slowly rising water-level. There was no inland track into K'SH'B'H at that time.
Meanwhile, after the relatively uneventful fifteen hundred years already mentioned - around 2,250 B.C., K'SH'B'H was once again settled permanently by people who came from the centre of the civilization in Britain which was, by then, beginning to decline. (This civilization was centred on southern England, in the counties of “Wiltshire” and “Dorset” - as they are known today, and “Somerset” was on its western-most fringe.)
Seven men, consisting of one teacher and six pupils, came from this centre, having been inspired to settle in K'SH'B'H for the same reasons that had moved the Sumerian sage to create a school of teaching there, over fifteen hundred years before. They came in part to continue their own studies in a place of isolation; but their work consisted primarily in teaching all who came to them, seeking knowledge and instruction.
There was at that time a community of people in the area around K'SH'B'H, from which a few came to listen to the talks and learn from the teachers; but many more came - and in great numbers - from considerable distances, for K'SH'B'H was the principal teaching-centre for the whole of the West of Britain.
The seven men lived freely, and not under any rigid organization or autocratic structure of authority; the teacher was rather a primus inter pares: a first among equals. Decisions were made jointly where possible, and each man always acted from inner direction, under the guidance of his own “inner teacher”, whom the Christian teaching might have called his “guardian angel” several thousand years later. This relationship with the “inner teacher” was the essential experience in their lives, from which flowed the teaching they imparted to others.
When the principal teacher died, one of the six succeeded him; but after the passing of the second teacher, this period of teaching in K'SH'B'H, which had lasted approximately seventy-five years, came to an end.
Although their dwellings were not permanent - for they did not build in stone, there exists material evidence from this second period of teaching in K'SH'B'H which has not yet been discovered. Each of the six pupils, during the early period of their work, carved a small hand-size symbol in greenish stone. This stone, which was a form of jade, came from somewhere on the African continent, and does not exist naturally in Britain. The six symbols represented certain truths which were an integral part of their teaching.
All six carvings were dispersed, and became buried, in the course of time, within the area which at present constitutes “Culbone churchyard”. One is buried on the West side of the path that leads through the churchyard, and three are embedded in the earth on the East side of the same path; the other two are buried under the North wall of the churchyard. The first four are likely to be uncovered at some future time.
When only one teacher was left in K'SH'B'H, and he became too old to look after himself and cultivate the land, a large group of his distant relatives moved in, and occupied the huts left by the other teachers, cultivated the land, and, with a certain amount of indifference, looked after him, until he passed on.
This large clan of people who now inhabited the valley had been marginally influenced by the civilization then existing in Britain and its ethos, but were not really part of it. They lived in poverty, and cultivated the land as best they could. They remained in K'SH'B'H only fifteen years after the death of the last teacher.
This family was eventually pushed out by the entrance into K'SH'B'H of another large family unit, consisting of approximately forty people, from a less civilized tribe, which was moving into the area at that time. These people had been in no way influenced by the civilization in Britain. They were as primitive as the earlier woodsmen had been, but they were not itinerants, and derived a living of sorts from the cultivation of the land. They and their descendants lived in K'SH'B'H for approximately five hundred years, building no shelters for themselves at all, but dwelling in caves.
When this clan left, K'SH'B'H was again deserted for about one hundred and thirty years.
About the year 1,515 B.C. a person belonging to a school of knowledge in another part of southern Britain was inspired to move to K'SH'B'H. He came without followers, pupils, or friends with the intention of living a secluded life, in order to carry out certain spiritual tasks he had taken on. These tasks had the purpose of cleansing K'SH'B'H from every form of ignorance, misunderstanding, or violence, which had accumulated over two and a half thousand years, and partially covered over the substance of PEACE. His work was based on precise knowledge about the invisible structure of the universe; he studied continuously to learn more, and to use the power at his command solely to accomplish the tasks he had chosen to undertake.
This man lived in K'SH'B'H for approximately thirty years. He built a permanent dwelling for himself out of stone - which was the first stone building in K'SH'B'H - and also cultivated the land, as had been done previously. During the whole of this period he lived alone, and took no pupils, although visitors came from time to time to learn from him. No material evidence remains from his existence in K'SH'B'H.
From approximately 1,485 to 1,315 B.C. K'SH'B'H was deserted. The stone dwelling of the “priest” fell into decay, and only slight evidence of cultivation remained to show that the place had once been inhabited.
After being deserted for about one hundred and seventy years, K'SH'B'H was again inhabited around 1,315 B.C. by a large clan of indigenous people. They were not as primitive as the previous ones, but had been influenced to a certain extent by the civilization in Britain, and lived a simple yet structured life from cultivating the land. They built their houses of wood, wattle, and mud. They lived in K'SH'B'H for approximately seventy-five years.
After that, from about 1,240 B.C. onwards for well over a thousand years, primitive people living in caves were the only inhabitants of K'SH'B'H. And from 140 to 65 B.C. K'SH'B'H was again deserted.
In about the year 65 B.C. a man from what would now be called “West Somerset” was inspired to move to K'SH'B'H for a purpose similar to the one with which the previous sage had been inspired nearly fifteen hundred years before him. He moved to K'SH'B'H in order to cleanse and prepare the valley for a new spiritual expression. Although this sage did not come from a “school” of spiritual knowledge, he drew on a body of knowledge similar to that with which his predecessor was familiar, and which was still being kept alive in Britain. This sage also lived the life of a recluse in K'SH'B'H, with neither pupils nor followers - nor even an occasional visitor. He lived in a stone hut which he built for himself, but he had a servant to cultivate the land and come in to K'SH'B'H each day to look after him. The sage lived there for fifty years, spending his time in study and in applying the knowledge he acquired to the preparation of the valley for a new expression of spiritual power.
Before his death, a successor was invited to K'SH'B'H. The sage was guided in his choice of successor by the same intuitive knowledge which had originally led him to K'SH'B'H, and which had inspired his work there. His successor was a man from a similar background of spiritual knowledge, but it manifested differently, because he had a different mission to perform. The new sage was a teacher.
The new teacher, like all his predecessors, came from the same general “school” of teaching, which had been kept alive in Britain in some form for nearly four thousand years, despite many and varied cultural changes. The same kind of spiritual understanding structured their minds, and they shared the same aim of working to encourage in every way the spiritual evolution of individual people.
One of the principal tasks which the new teacher was inspired to carry out was to prepare people for the coming of Christ, and to link His coming with the old teaching. He received many pupils who came to him from the community around K'SH'B'H, as well as from considerable distances throughout the West of Britain. They stayed for only short periods of time, for the teacher had no pupils in permanent residence. The teacher also gave talks from time to time on the spiritual nature of man, to which interested people in the community came.
The teacher also carried on the work of the sage in cleansing and preparing the valley for the visit of Christ. Between 1,485 and 65 B.C. K'SH'B'H had been either deserted or else inhabited by primitive or simple people, who may have been ignorant, but were not motivated by greed or self-seeking, so there was no darkness or disharmony to clear away; nonetheless, preparations of a spiritual nature had to be made for the coming of Christ.
Knowledge of Christ's coming to Earth, and of his pending visit to K'SH'B'H had been given to both the sage and the teacher through intuition. Every sage and teacher who lived in K'SH'B'H had received knowledge in this way, that is, by way of direct inspiration through their spiritual minds. The personal qualities which enabled these men to receive such knowledge directly, and to use the power it gave them for spiritual purposes, were qualities of being which reflected the state of being to which they had attained in their personal lives. Because they no longer desired - or needed - power for themselves, so they could safely be entrusted with special knowledge, and with the mission of imparting its truths to mankind.
The teacher lived in K'SH'B'H for forty-five years, that is, until about the year A.D. 30.
Christ visited K'SH'B'H in the early winter of the year 25. This was part of a spiritualizing and teaching mission to Britain, before He began His active ministry in Palestine. Christ has not been to Britain before this time - although there are many legends about His having visited Britain as a child. But in the year 25 He came with His uncle, and visited sanctuaries and holy places in the West of Britain, which had been established for several thousand years, and were prepared for His coming. He did not go further East than Glastonbury.
Christ remained eight days with the teacher in K'SH'B'H, teaching, healing physically the people who arrived in need, and carrying out a special mission on the invisible or spiritual plane which He alone could perform.
The purpose of His teaching - brief though it was for the many people who came to K'SH'B'H - was the renewal and fulfilment of the older teaching. Indeed, this was the purpose of His teaching everywhere; to show in words, and as a living example, the real direction and aim of all true teaching.
All true teaching is about the spiritual evolution of individual men and women, about their gorwth of being, and about the “new man” which is ultimately possible for each person. The older teachings, which had been taught from the beginning of the fourth millennium onwards, gave man knowledge about the structure of himself and the world, and provided instruction for the evolution of his natural being to its greatest possible fulfilment. For the transcendence of this “natural being” or “natural man”, something else was necessary: a new impetus or purpose, a new flame or light to be implanted within the very beings of people. Christ brought the teaching which transcended the “natural man”. He brought in His own being the flame of caring, as it may be called, to be enkindled within the beings of men who were prepared and ready for the birth of the New Man.
Caring is not the love which the “natural man” experiences and expresses; it is not anything to which the “natural man” can aspire, or which he can acquire by his own efforts: by any act of will, or even by any form of spiritual preparation. (And yet it can only be received when the person has reached a certain stage in his own spiritual growth.) Caring is a force or power which comes from a higher level, beyond the Earth sphere altogether, which is only at work in the Earth sphere through persons who have received it directly from other persons. For, flame-like, it can only be passed on from person to person. It was first brought onto the physical Earth by Christ.
When Christ had taught people about the light of caring which, like a heart in the centre of the universe, gives purpose and direction to all life, He performed a ceremony of empowerment or “initiation”. In this ceremony, Christ planted the seed-form of caring in the teacher, which would enable him to carry on the teaching in a new way, with new understanding and from a new centre of gravity in himself, and, ultimately, to pass on the flame of caring to his successor.
Christ spoke also about the Temple of Light which was to be built in the etheric sphere above K'SH'B'H and whose foundation he was to lay spiritually. The plan for this Temple of Light was first formed and laid out about nine thousand years before the coming of Christ. It was originally designed for the purpose of making man whole as an etheric being, that is, the healing of people in etheric bodies for the continuation of their spiritual evolution. But with the coming of Christ, this purpose was altered to include the possibility of healing physical mankind as well, in the future. This would require the fulfilment of a number of conditions to make possible the descent of the Temple of Light at a later time, so that it rested on the Earth - although still in the etheric sphere and invisible to physical sight. (It was not until about a thousand years after the physical time of Christ that the construction of the spiritual Temple was complete, and it could begin to function in terms of its original purpose. And it was not until nearly another thousand years had passed, that the conditions were right for the Temple to commence its descent onto what was by then called Culbone.)
In explaining about the spiritual Temple of Light, Christ taught people about the inter-relatedness of the physical and spiritual worlds, and physical man's dependence upon spiritual beings, in particular, each one's own guardian-angel, to protect, and guide, and instruct him, if he was to fulfil his Divine purpose on Earth, and evolve spiritually.
Christ's teaching to the people who gathered in K'SH'B'H was centred in caring; this was the unique expression of His teaching for all people. It meant the reversal of man's ordinary thinking that his life - and all life - is based on having: having possessions, or even having spirituality. Christ showed that all life in G-d, in the Kingdom of Heaven, is based not on having, but on giving. Giving is always first, and a man is in the Kingdom only through giving - giving all he has, giving himself. It also means giving freely, out of caring, without any motive other than the desire to care, and respond to real need, as revealed in the light of caring; for to give from sentimentality, or from personal desire, or to give in order to receive - even gratitude - is not the quality of giving which Christ meant when He taught men about the flame of caring.
When Christ had taught the teacher and his followers, and the many visitors to K'SH'B'H, there was born in all of them the desire to re-think, and reconstruct the ancient teaching from their experience of Christ and the flame of caring, which they now understood to be truly the next stage in their spiritual journey. Christ needed to give them no external instructions on how to do this, for their experience of Him, and the understanding which flowed from the experience of each man, made instructions unnecessary. For, in however slight a measure, according to the nature of his being, each person had some experience of caring - some taste of the goal towards which his life was evolving, and which would one day in-form and trans-form the whole of his life.
Before the teacher died in the year 30, he passed on the flame of caring to his successor, and he, likewise, initiated his successor, and so on for three generations of teachers. For one hundred and seventy years the continuity of teaching in K'SH'B'H was unbroken.
With the death of the last teacher in 105, K'SH'B'H ceased to be occupied permanently. From then on, itinerant woodhewers camped there from time to time, using whatever they could find as shelter. And so the situation remained for a period of approximately three hundred and twenty-five years.
In the year 430 seven monks from the Celtic monastic tradition in Wales arrived in Kitnor with the idea of Christianizing the inhabitants in the area. They came by boat from Wales, landed on the coast, and came to Kitnor along a narrow track that led up from the sea.
For nearly four thousand years, K'SH'B'H had been the name by which this valley was known, but, by the time the monks came, this name had been forgotten, and they called it Kitnor, meaning: place of the cave.
The monks cleared the centre of the valley of all that had grown up in over three hundred years, and built stone dwellings for themselves in the form of cells, six in a circle around the central cell of the senior monk. This central cell was divided in two, so that there could be a place for communal activity and worship. The monks regarded all their activities as aspects of worship, and they needed no separate chapel; eating, study and teaching, prayer and chanting took place in one room. They also cultivated the land to grow their food.
They belonged to an order of monks which no longer exists, or is even known of now. They were not as strictly organized or structured as later monastic orders; each monk had a greater sense of responsibility towards his own individual conscience, which took precedence over the Rules of Obedience towards the Order and group. The senior monk did not exercise the rôle of “superior”, with all the authority devolving upon it, as in later monastic orders.
Their way of life differed in some respects from later monastic communities. All the brothers engaged in every activity, whether it was cultivation of the garden, preparation of food, teaching, or periods of meditation and stillness. There was no reading. Study consisted of the recitation of Scripture, preparation for teaching, or silent meditation. There were no set periods for prayer - except on Sunday, and the day was not divided into Offices (as in later times), but all activities throughout the day were preceded by communal prayer, and sometimes chanting or singing. All prayers were formal: there was no place for extemporaneous prayer. The Sacraments also differed from those developed by the later Orders and the Church; even the Holy Eucharist was not celebrated as it was in later times. The breaking of their daily bread was considered to be a sacrament in itself. The principal task of the monks was to teach, and many people came daily to Kitnor to receive instruction of a rudimentary sort in reading and writing, and in Christian doctrine.
Sunday was different from the other days of the week, because the usual occupations were not engaged in; there was no teaching, and no work in the garden; but neither was there any special Office or liturgy. Sunday was a day of stillness and meditation, and the same forms of prayer and chanting of the other days, which preceded each change in activity, also punctuated the less active rhythm of Sunday. But there were longer and set periods for prayer on Sunday.
From 3,800 B.C. to A.D. 105 - a period of nearly four thousand years - the same teaching had been taught in K'SH'B'H - not consistently, for there were long periods of interruption; but the teaching, when it returned, was always the same. There was no change in the inner structure of the teaching, even after Christ visited K'SH'B'H in A.D. 25. It was fulfilled and spiritualized, for men to learn that spiritual growth did not mean the acquisition of spirituality as an end in itself, but as a preparation to receive a New Birth, through the flame of caring. But with the coming of the Christian monks to Kitnor, a fundamental alteration in the teaching took place, and the original teaching was lost altogether - as far as this particular place was concerned. For the monks who came to Kitnor in 430 knew nothing of the older teaching. They came from a stratum of society and a culture that had been influenced only marginally by the old teaching - only to the extent of it having had a slightly civilizing effect on the people who comprised that segment of society. The monks were ignorant of the principles and truths which had given rise to the culture of whose ethical standards they were vaguely cognizant.
The Church as an institution knew about the older teaching only in part, and was ignorant of the real truths underlying it. It saw every manifestation of the older teaching as a challenge to its own newly acquired consciousness of power. And in order to make sure that any power or influence the older teaching might still have was destroyed, it was discredited in every possible way.
When one monk died, so another monk was always found to replace him, and the seven-monk community remained in Kitnor for approximately one hundred years. No church was built in Kitnor during the time of this early community, but the monks left behind one relic as material witness of their sojourn there. This was a stone window with two lights, a faintly carved column between them, and a capital in low relief, depicting a boar's head. (There were wild board in the woods in those days.) The head was carved by one of the monks around the year 500, and the window was placed in one of their cells.
In 518 the monks finally left Kitnor. It was settled, more or less permanently, by primitive people who had not been influenced by any particular culture. Several families occupied the dwellings which the monks had vacated. They were principally woodsmen, but cultivated the land a little as well. There were about thirty people altogether, living an isolated yet self-contained existence. The people remained in Kitnor approximately thirty years, after which they tired of the place, and moved on elsewhere.
From 560 to 635 Kitnor was without inhabitants.
About the year 635 the idea was formed of building a church in Kitnor. The project was formulated solely by local priests who desired to obtain more power for the Church locally, and planned to build a number of chapels throughout the area.
The first church was built on the site of the present church. (There is no basis of truth in the legend that they first attempted to build the church further up the valley, or elsewhere.) It was a rectangular building of stone, 10 feet wide, 18' 6" long, and 10' 6" high, incorporating nave and chancel in one. The roof was thatched, and there was no spire or tower. The stone window with two lights, whose capital had been carved by a monk many years before, was placed in this first church.
There were no other buildings in Kitnor at this time apart from the church. Services were nonetheless held in the church from time to time, although not regularly. There were no parishes as such at that time, and the priests were peripatetic, walking from place to place, and conducting services in their widely-separated chapels, over a fairly large area. Sometimes the priest brought people with him, when he took a service in Kitnor; sometimes he read the order of service alone.
For approximately one hundred and fifty years, to about 785, Kitnor church was in spasmodic use. In the year 810 it was destroyed by fire, so that only a shell of stone walls remained. For the next hundred years the church remained a ruin, and Kitnor unoccupied.
Around the beginning of the tenth century the Order of Benedictines established a house in the area between what is now known as Porlock Weir and Worthy, and made themselves responsible for the religious life of the area. Among their activities they undertook the rebuilding of many partially-destroyed or derelict churches. Kitnor church was among these.
It was rebuilt in the year 910. The walls of the old church were torn down, but the original foundation was left as a base for the new foundation, and slightly enlarged. The dimensions of the second church were 11' 8" wide, 22' 6" long, and 14' 6" high. Some of the old charred timbers from the first church were used in the building of the second, and the stone window with two lights was again built into the new church. A porch was added on the south-west side of the church with entrance, stone seats, and Holy Water stoup - looking at that time very much as it was to look over a thousand years later. The roof was again thatched.
For one hundred and eighty years this second church in Kitnor was used from time to time. About 1090 it was abandoned - at the same time as the monastic establishment in the area was abandoned, due to external troubles - and was not used again for one hundred and seventy-five years. During this time it decayed, although the walls remained partly intact.
Up to the year 1,265 Kitnor was deserted. In that year, however, it became a place to which a group of people were banished, whom priests in the local Church considered a nuisance in society: dis-believers, practicers of magic, the mentally insane, and so on. About forty people - men, women, and children - whom the priests wished to be rid of, were removed to Kitnor with all their personal belongings, and left to fend for themselves. Nothing was provided for them; the church building was in ruins, and there were no other buildings in the valley at that time; the place had not been cultivated for seven hundred years. No one was allowed to visit them. From time to time a priest came to make sure they were still in Kitnor.
The people were fortunately strong in mind and body, and able to help themselves. They roofed over and mended part of the derelict church, which served as a temporary shelter. Later, they built stone huts, and began to cultivate the land.
It was a group of people with the most varied backgrounds, temperaments, and interests. They were “outcasts” from society for a variety of reasons, yet they lived together - not unhappily - tending one another's needs. They grew food, made their own clothes, nursed the sick, and some of them taught the children. They acted in a spirit of love and understanding towards one another.
For approximately forty years these people lived in Kitnor. They had no relationship with the outside community. Most of them spent the remainder of their lives in Kitnor; only a few of those who had been sent there, either as adults or children, ever left alive. The majority lived and died in Kitnor - and were buried there.
(The burial ground was as old as the human history of Kitnor. It went back to the first church in 635, to the monks who were buried there before that, to the community of teachers at the time of Christ, and even to 3,800 B.C., when the first sage came to Kitnor, spent his life, and was ultimately buried there. For over five thousand years - throughout the entire history of man in the valley - there has been a burial ground in this place.)
The church in Kitnor was rebuilt for the third time in 1,305 when the “outcasts” had gone. It was a period of great church building in Britain, and the Church was powerful. There was considerable building activity throughout the whole area of Exmoor, and Kitnor church was one of the projects. It was rebuilt with local labour, as had been the other two churches, and was paid for indirectly by the tithes of the people.
The third church was built on the foundations of the first and second ones, the length being identical with that of the second; it was constructed 12' 6" wise - only ten inches wider than the previous one. The walls of the main building were entirely reconstructed; the porch was not completely rebuilt, but only repaired, in order to support a new roof. The slightly charred beams from the fire of 810, which had been used in the second church, were again used in the construction of the third. The height of the building was increased to 15' 9" at the ridge, and the roof was thatched over once more. There were two windows on the South side, none on the North or West, and a window behind the altar on the East. One of the windows on the South wall was the small stone window with two lights.
Services were held regularly once a month in Kitnor after the reconstruction of the church; sometimes there was a small congregation drawn from the community around Kitnor, but frequently the priest was the only one present.
Prior to the time of building the third church in Kitnor, a large house - large for the times and place - was built up Withycombe from Kitnor and slightly to the West, where there is now a flat, partly-fenced field, and a gate across the public footpath. It was built by people who had acquired possession of this and other lands, in and around Kitnor, from the King's agents, for services they had rendered. They took the name of “Kitnor” themselves. There were no other dwellings in the immediate area at that time.
(The family that called itself Kitnor occupied the house in Withycombe for about sixty-seven years; they then moved elsewhere, and the house was unoccupied until it burned down about 1,430.)
In 1,385, about eighty years after the first group of social outcasts had either died or left Kitnor, it again became a place of banishment as a temporary gaol for offenders in the community, who were sentenced to short but varying periods of isolation for their offences. As the sentencing agents were both civil and ecclesiastical, the crimes, for which these people were committed, were either of a civil nature (such as theft), or a moral one (such as adultery). The sentences ranged from a few months to five and a half years.
The people sent to Kitnor on this occasion were only men. Once there, they were treated with complete indifference, having been brought to Kitnor, and left to find food and shelter as best they could. They were allowed to bring nothing with them except the clothes on their backs. Little remained of the stone huts which the first outcasts had built for themselves, but they provided a primitive kind of protection. Whatever food was needed, the men had to grow themselves. They were completely isolated from the community. Someone visited them occasionally to make sure they were still in Kitnor and had not escaped, and they were forced to attend the monthly service held in the church: these were their only contacts with the outside world.
These men were much more embittered than people had been in the previous group of outcasts. They were separated from their families, and, having no women or children with them, they had less moral ability to look after themselves, or be responsible for one another. Some of the men went mad, or killed themselves in despair. The numbers varied from time to time, but there were never more than twenty men in Kitnor at any one time. It continued in its use as a gaol for ninety-three years.
In 1,478 Kitnor ceased to be used as a dumping round for civil and Church offenders, because there were then other means - and other places - for dealing with them. The whole area around Kitnor became uninhabited; the infrequent services in the church ceased altogether from this time, and the building gradually began to decay. In 1,499 Kitnor church was repaired with the intention of using it again, but there was still no one living in or around Kitnor, and the church continued unused. It again began to deteriorate, and remained in a state of disrepair until the middle of the sixteenth century.
In 1,544 it was decided by Church and civil authorities to use Kitnor as a site for a leper colony, there being considerable fear at the time that the disease was beginning to spread in England. About forty-five men, women, and children suffering from the disease were sent to Kitnor. As in the case of the earlier social outcasts and the petty criminals, so these sick people were treated as outcasts in the same way, and placed in isolation from the society that feared them, with no one to care for or look after them. They were given no help of any kind with shelter, or food, or nursing - although nothing could be done medically for leprosy at that time. The old stone huts were again in ruins, and the lepers had to make them good by themselves, in order to have shelter of some kind. They foraged for food, and learned to cultivate the land, as best they could, having been given seed - but no implements.
Despite their privations and sufferings, and the unconcern of their society, they lived with simple dignity, and at peace with one another, caring for each other, teaching and nursing the children, and without bitterness towards G-d or man.
Kitnor was used as a leper colony for seventy-eight years.
Kitnor church was rebuilt for the fourth time, when the leper colony moved into the valley. It was not rebuilt from its foundations, but the existing walls were used, and merely rebuilt where necessary. The North and South walls were altered, to include new and larger windows. In the North wall, a tiny “leper window” was also constructed. On the West side, the wall was reconstructed exactly as it had been before. At the East end, the church was extended, and a separate chapel built, with a new East Window - smaller than the one which exists at the present time. A small window was set into the South wall of the new chancel, and the old stone window with two lights was placed in the North wall of the chancel.
A door was built in the North wall of the chancel, between the old stone window and the leper window, leading into a small, priest's cell, where a hermit/priest intened to live out the remainder of his days in total isolation from the world. (The hermit never took services in the church - this was done by anothe priest, who came to Kitnor especially for the purpose - nor did he care in any way for the lepers; he was scarcely conscious of their presence. He looked after himself, and spent his time solely in prayer for approximately fifteen years, until he died.)
The rood-screen was carved locally in 1,544, and placed between the nave and chancel; it had a rood-loft at that time.
The “leper window” was placed in the church by the Church authorities for reasons of tradition. The lepers in fact watched the service through all three windows, which were at eye-level; they never received the Eucharist.
A wall painting on the North wall, to the West of the window and opposite the door, was executed at this time by a local painter. It was a painting of Adam and Eve, with a tree and apples. (Parts of the painting would still be visible, if the subsequent layers of lime and paint were carefully removed.)
A new stone font was placed in the church, opposite the altar and against the West wall.
Some of the original charred timbers were used again in the reconstruction of the roof, and the roof itself was thatched. The carvings on the long joists, that still form the junction between the North/South walls and the roof, date from this time. The heavy oak door, which was used in the sixteenth century church, dated from the second church of 910.
The last leper died in 1,622, which marked the end of the leper colony in Kitnor. After that, it remained uninhabited for nearly a hundred years, until 1,715. During the early part of this period, smugglers, who came up from the coast, sometimes used the stone huts left by the lepers. But by the second half of the seventeenth century smuggling in this area had died out, and Kitnor was completely deserted. No one lived even on the perimeter of Kitnor. Nevertheless, a service contined to be held once a year in the church, during the Easter period; but no one except the priest was ever present. No one even travelled through Kitnor at this time. As no track led through it to other dwellings, hamlets, or villages, it was completely cut off.
For the fourth time Kitnor became a home for people in exile from their contemporary society, but on this occasion the banishment was freely chosen and self imposed.
In 1,715 a group of families living in Somerset heard about the isolated valley of Kitnor, and decided to settle there. (The ownership of Kitnor was vague at that time.) These were people who, inspired with an image of how life could be lived in a shared way, decided to pool their limited resources, and try to live the kind of life they visualized. They were hard-working, industrious people, who had read fairly widely, although they were not well-educated, and were simple in their tastes.
They built eight simple stone dwellings in Kitnor, furnishing them with the household belongings they had brought with them. They tilled the ground, and grew their own food; they educated their children themselves. They had a certain relationship with the church in Kitnor, insofar as they attended the services held there once a month, but they also had their own daily prayers and communal worship.
After fifteen years of community life, the families were grown up, and the original settlers, having become older, decided to leave Kitnor. Their decision was encouraged by the knowledge that others were wanting to use the valley for another purpose.
(The community knew the valley by the name of “Kitnor”, but the name of “Culbone” had begun to come into use towards the end of the seventeenth century, during the period of isolation, and for some time both names were in concurrent usage.)
The fifth and last group of people to have been banished to Culbone was a group of East Indians, who had been taken prisoner by the British in India, used as servants, and eventually brought back to England. No longer needed as servants, thirty-eight of them were sent to Culbone, to work as charcoal burners for a period of twenty-one years, after which time they were allowed their freedom.
The men sent to Culbone lived in the cottages vacated by the community, and burned their charcoal in the woods. As they had no women to care for them, they looked after themselves, and grew their own food, as best they could. Small boats came up the coast from time to time, taking away the charcoal, in exchange for which the Indians were given commodities, such as tea, sugar, and so on. They spoke very little English, and were not happy in Culbone. At the end of their twenty-one year period, twenty-three of them were still alive to go free, but none of them was ever able to return to India.
After the community left Culbone and the Indian charcoal burners arrived, services ceased to be held in the church. After a while, the charcoal burners moved in, and used the church themselves as a communal dwelling, for cooking and eating. When the roof began to deteriorate, as it quickly did, the Indians mended it. It was used by them in this way to the end of their sojourn in Culbone, in 1,751.
During this period, no one else lived in or around Culbone.
After the Indian charcoal burners were allowed to leave Culbone, and became dispersed throughout England, local men moved in to continue the work of charcoal burning, which had by then become a flourishing trade with Wales. They worked in groups of four to a kiln, two working at a time and two away, so that the kiln could be kept in continuous operation. They built one-room stone huts beside their kilns, living rough in the woods while working, and returning to their families periodically. They continued charcoal burning in the woods for about seventy years, until, around 1,821, the demand for charcoal gradually died out, and the burning of it in Culbone came to an end.
At the same time as local charcoal burners took over the trade from the Indians in 1,751, four local families moved into Culbone itself to occupy four of the six remaining cottages in the valley. At that time, ownership of the land was not clearly defined, because the owner of Culbone had not taken possession of his lands, and it was possible for people merely to occupy the empty cottages there. Within fifteen years, however, their possession was challenged by the owner asserting his rights of ownership, and the cottages then became tied cottages, for which the cottagers were required to give a portion of their labour to the owner.
The new owner of the Culbone lands, farms, and woodland - whose family had owned Culbone and the immediate area for some time, but had never taken possession of it - inherited and took possession of his property in 1,765. He lived at Ash Farm, and had Parsonage and Withycombe farms, which he also owned, tenanted. (Withycombe farm was at the head of the combe leading South-West out of Culbone. This farm comprised land now used by Silcombe farm, which did not exist at that time.)
At the time when the new owner was taking possession of his lands, two other local families came to occupy the remaining two tied cottages in Culbone.
The “tied” relationship was not as rigid as it became later, the cottagers worked only part of their time on the farms, or in the woodland, and otherwise were free to work as they wished. All the cottagers had an independence of spirit, which, under later conditions, would become impossible to express.
Culbone church remained in a state of disrepair from 1,751, when the Indians left, until 1,768; it hadn't been used for the services since 1,730. Two factors combined to bring it into use again. The new owner, who took possession of his lands around Culbone in 1,765, was interested in seeing the church renovated, and in becoming a patron of the church himself; and the Church authorities had considerable interest themselves in reactivating churches where they could in a West Country which had lately been swept by the revivalist teachings of John and Charles Wesley.
The renovation of Culbone church, undertaken in 1,768, involved only three alterations: the roof was slated instead of being re-thatched; a small square family pew was added for the family at Ash, on the South wall; and the hermit's cell was dismantled, and the door into it, through the North wall of the church, was sealed up. By 1,770 services were again being held regularly in the church every Sunday.
It was also at this time, 1,770, that a market-cross was set up in the churchyard as a gift of the family at Ash. The cross itself was made of iron, and set into a small quadrilateral plinth, which was one hundred and sixty-five years old, and had been brought from another part of the country. The whole was set onto a much larger double plinth, which was built especially for this purpose at the time.
The setting up of a market-cross in the churchyard introduced a new custom of open-air markets into Culbone, which began to be held once a month in the spring, summer, and autumn (not in winter) after the Sunday service. Foodstuffs were bought and sold under the protection of the cross - to guarantee, as it was thought, the integrity of buyer and seller. After the buying and selling of the market, there was eating, drinking, and jollification. People came from the countryside around Culbone, and many stories were passed down to later generations regarding the simple pleasures of these “good old times”. The markets continued until about 1,850.
From about 1,765 onwards - from the time when Culbone began to exist as a hamlet - a footpath linked it with Porlock Weir, and footpaths out of Culbone, in a southerly direction, linked it with the farms, Ash, Parsonage, and Withycombe. Culbone was never, at any time, on the main packhorse track from Porlock to Lynmouth; but it was linked with that main track, and, as a result, considerable traffic went through the small hamlet. These “tracks” were only footpaths, at most suitable for ponies. It wasn't until after 1,850 that they were widened to enable them to take a cart or pony-and-trap.
In 1,821 one of the six cottages in Culbone began to be used as a public-house, and called itself the “Fox and Hounds”. It existed until about 1,875.
Until 1,850 life in the small hamlet of Culbone continued unchanged, as did life on the three farms behind it. The ownership remained the same, and, because there was no motivation of ambition, life for everyone concerned was seemingly peaceful and relaxed.
In 1,850 the family that had lived at Ash, and farmed and cared for the Culbone lands for eighty-five years, died out, and new, unrelated owners came into possession of this and an enlarged area of farm and woodland.
The new owners built a large house for themselves on the site of an old cottage. This house was called Ashley Combe. After the building of their house, another farmhouse was built to the West of the, by then, ruined Withycombe. (Withycombe farm suffered devastation in a violent storm that occurred around the turn of the century; it was never rebuilt.) The new farm was called Sil-Combe. A little later, Yearnor farmhouse was built to the East of Ash. All the farms had tenant farmers, and the woods were regarded as potential plantation or parkland for Ashley Combe; Culbone became a collection of labourers' cottages. For the whole was conceived of and worked as an integrated estate, and all life on it began to flow in relation to the ownership at the centre.
From 1,850 onwards life in the hamlet slowly began to change, and the lives of the cottagers became less independent, and increasingly oriented towards the wishes and whims of the new owners. A tied cottage meant that all labour was given to the Estate, not - as heretofore - part of the cottager's labour in exchange for his cottage. The life of the hamlet was no longer that of a distinctive social organism, with its own activities and customs, but was gradually broken down by the removal to Ashley Combe of all initiating activity. The monthly open-air markets ceased abruptly with the coming of the new owners, and the reorganization of the Estate in the 1,850's.
After 1,850 the church continued much as before, except that the new owners became its new patrons. Services continued to be held weekly.
The year 1,875 was another milestone in the gradual deterioration of village life in Culbone. Up to that time alterations in the character of life there had been more subtle; now there were more fundamental changes. Several of the cottagers died, and the vacant cottages went to outsiders, selected by the owners of the Estate, rather than to local people. Strangers came to live in Culbone, who were neither familiar with the ways and customs of the area and hamlet, nor did they possess the independence of character which belonged to the older generation of local inhabitants.
The cottage-cum-public-house fell vacant when the cottager died, and the new tenants - again the choice of Ashley Combe - were not interested in keeping it going, nor would have been permitted to do so, if they had desired it. In this way, another tradition died - as well as what had been a focal point of village life. “Culbone Lodge” was rebuilt as a “keeper's lodge” when the old tenant died, and a game-keeper procured who was also a stranger to the area, and completely dependent upon the Estate for his living.
In this way, the integrated life of the village was broken up; strangers were moved in, who had no relationships with one another, and owed their loyalty entirely to the Estate and its owners, rather than to each other and their community. Seeds of potential distrust and jealousy were sown, which divided the cottagers from one another more and more, as time went on.
So the hamlet of Culbone died, and was wholly replaced by an estate and the structure of life which such an estate with tenant farms, tied cottages, and park, or woodland implied in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
In 1,897 certain improvements were undertaken in Culbone church. The East end of the church was enlarged slightly, and rebuilt with a new and larger window; the woodwork of the roof and interior furnishings of the chancel were renewed, and a new reredos was made. The loft of the rood-screen was removed, so there would be more light, and the family pew was enlarged, and reconstructed. Another font was obtained to replace the one already in the church, and a plinth was constructed for it in the south-west corner of the church, beside the door. This “new” font was bought, and brought to Culbone from Sussex, where it had been carved in 1,089. The principal external alteration was the addition of a bell-tower, with two bells. An harmonium was also given to the church; it was the first permanent instrument in Culbone church.
Life in Culbone remained very much the same from 1,895 onwards. There were some outwards changes, commencing after the First World War, that slowly affected rural life in general, as increased mobility and mechanization came about. After the Second World War, even greater changes occurred, through the new telecommunications of Radio and TV, and, especially for Culbone, the sudden increase in the number of summer visitors to the South-West. The farmer no longer jogged through Culbone on his pony, market-bound, but hundreds of visitors a day in summer found their way up a narrow cliff path…
For a short time - from a little before the First World War to the end of the twenties - Culbone church had a clergyman who was attuned in some measure to the underlying spiritual purpose which Culbone was intended to express. And from the mid-thirties to the end of the Second World War, there was again a clergyman in Culbone who was in attunement with its hidden spiritual mission…
Varied spiritual levels have continued to exist contemporaneously in Culbone, representing nearly six thousand years of human history.
Many of those who suffered throughout that history from the blindness or greed of others have lingered on spiritually in the states of bitterness or misery, which they had experienced in their physical lives in Culbone. And many who caused that suffering, or who were impervious to it, continued to exist in their own forms of spiritual ignorance. The life-experiences which centred these people on Culbone held them spiritually bound to the same place, in greater or lesser degree, for a long time afterwards, and unable truly to inhabit the greater freedom of the spirit world, into which they had passed.
At the same time, the vibration of Light continued to radiate through all life in the valley, and the ones in whom it had manifested during their physical lifetimes in that place, continued to work for its full expression, and for the cleansing of Culbone from all darkness and distortion, so that the mission could be fulfilled which had been intended from the beginning.
The completion of this long work of cleansing and making whole the spiritual lives of people, and the place where darkness had existed in so many forms over long periods of time, awaits this written revelation of the spiritual history of Culbone. For the process of cleansing and healing can only be completed, when the sufferings of some people are made known, and the ignorance and wilfulness of other people are exposed - and when the expression of the true Light is uncovered, which has for so long been hidden. Then only will the spiritual purpose of Culbone be completely revealed, and the Temple of Light can descend upon a place that is wholly cleansed of darkness, and shine forth perpetually.
The Temple of Light was so structured by Christ that it might reveal to people the spiritual direction and purpose implicit in each individual life; that it might restore to people a feeling of their inner or spiritual identity, by which they know who they are as individuals, apart from their personality and the particular society or culture or times in relation to which it exists; that there might be healing of all forms of distortion and spiritual disability; that the spiritually sick and the sick in mind might be cured; that Light might be brought into all forms of darkness on Earth, and in the spiritual realms; and that every form of evil might be confronted with Light through the agency of ministering Angels. such is the conception from which all Temples of Light were created, in order that the spiritual evolution of mankind may proceed.
The Door Within is an expression not only of the author's own experiences of pain and suffering, but also of her work as a psychologist-teacher in hospital, homes for the elderly, further education classes, and with individuals in every state of physical or mental distress. The book presents her conclusions about the nature of experiences everyone has to face at one time or another: growing old, pain, bereavement - even one's own death. It includes different exercises for physical relaxation and meditation which the author has used to help her students relate to anxiety, resentment, fear, depression, ageing, dying. These exercises are presented in such a way that the reader can easily understand and try them himself. The book is also full of hope. Joan Cooper is convinced that every experience can become not only a challenge, but a door for the individual person into a new or deeper conception of himself, his own life, and his relationship to eternity.
Author's #Preface
Chapter #1. - The Door Within
Chapter #2. - “Guardian Angels”
Chapter #3. - Illness And Pain
Chapter #4. - Ageing
Chapter #5. - Preparation For Death
Chapter #6. - Fear Of Death
Chapter #7. - The Moment Of Death And Afterwards
Chapter #8. - The Feeling Of “I”
Chapter #9. - Grief
Chapter #10. - Services of Commemoration
Chapter #11. - Animals
Chapter #12. - What Is Life?
Illustrations reproduced in the printed text as drawn by Iris Heaton & Hope Messenger :
Although I had long been aware of a Presence beside me at times of crisis, or occasionally when I was unwell - and especially in rare moments of spiritual illumination, the real awakening came unexpectedly one morning, when I suddenly knew that I was in touch with an actual person of whom I could ask any question, and receive an answer of the highest spiritual order. This person was invisible, and inaudible to my physical senses, but there was, nonetheless, the feeling - even the sensation - of a real presence, which was unmistakable, and utterly convincing. At this moment in time I was gripped by the certainty that I was not alone. This certainty has never left me.
From this experience I have looked back over my life through all its stages into that special penumbra of consciousness which characterizes earliest childhood, to discover that I was in fact never alone. When I was very young, I conversed with this person as a childhood companion. He was visible to me, although apparently not to anyone else, and I had a name for him. Later, when I was often ill, I sometimes saw him in the doorway of my room. Later still, when I was in my teens, he suggested ideas to my mind that protected me from many false turnings and pitfalls. I see now, with truer perspective, how he guided me into fruitful channels, and instructed me at each stage with relevant spiritual knowledge which could have come to me in no other way. This same person who was my earliest companion is now my spiritual teacher, of whose presence I am always aware. Some people might call him my “guardian angel”.
Since that clear moment of conscious illumination a number of years ago, I have continuously sought answers, and received explanations, which lie beyond the limits of my own knowledge and experience. This relationship to my teacher has given me the courage to let personal limitations recede, and allow new growth of being to take place. Without this relationship there could have been no real spiritual growth.
This book is a record of some of my own experiences on that path of spiritual growth. These include experiences of pain and illness, grief and fear - and also my knowledge of other people's encounters with suffering and even with death. It is a record of knowledge given me at such times by my teacher, and of meditations which I have practised, and taught others to practise, so that such experiences might become fruitful, rather than self-desructive, and provide a doorway leading into another dimension of one's within-ness.
Culbone, 1979.
Pain and illness are experiences which everyone on Earth has at one time or another. Many people look forward to them with apprehension and dread, endure them blindly, and try to forget them as soon as possible. Death is also a common denominator. We experience it in others first of all: our grandparents, parents, elderly relatives, and friends. Another person's death usually fills us with fear as well as sorrow, for it reminds us of our own frailness and mortality. And yet, there must be another way of relating to these experiences, which are so integral a part of our lives, that is positive and illuminating. There must be a way of using the experience of pain, or illness, or even death, as a door into another kind of perception or understanding - even into another part of ourselves.
We live for the most part in an imaginary world which excludes from our consciousness every idea of pain, illness, or death, until it is actually forced upon us. We live as if they did not exist, but intrude, unasked, into the structure of our lives. We dislike such intrusions, and seek to return as rapidly as possible to what we were doing before the interruption occurred. We often endure illness with an obstinate determination to persevere with our way of life in spite of it. And yet, most illnesses are the expression of a need to stop, rest, and think again about this way of life, its activities, its direction. In the same way that pain indicates some form of physical disequilibrium, so illnesses often point to a weakness or failure in our pattern of living, or in our attitudes to life. Both pain and illness are evidence of a certain state of body and mind of which we are unaware. We have to learn to read these signs.
The pattern we have made for our lives is circumscribed; it has its own logic and momentum that tend to carry on indefinitely, mechanically, unless they are broken in upon by illness, or disability, which challenges us to “take stock”, and think again. Even brief periods of indisposition, of which everyone has some experience, offer us a space in which to find stillness, and opportunity for thought.
When we are feeling weak or unwell, and the tight, set habits through which we live are temporarily broken up, we may become aware of other dimensions or new possibilities. We may see some aspects of our life in a different light, or discover that certain attitudes or forms of thought are no longer necessary. What was previously confused may become clear, and what is of less importance can simply fall away. For, when we are ill, and have little energy to spend, our vision of ourselves may gain in clarity and perspective.
Illnesses are nearly always a reflection of even deeper needs than the body's need for rest or relaxation, and the mind's need to release its tension and find repose. These are the hidden needs of our inner beings. Any pause in our way of life brought about by illness can reveal a door. This door opens into our within-ness.
While we are immersed in our ordinary pattern of living, we are seldom aware of this door,or of the place into which it opens, for there are few pauses in our activity, and seldom times of stillness. Only slight intimations of our spiritual needs reach us through the noise of daily life. These needs may exist for a long time without finding expression - without our even being aware of their existence, until through illness, or the shock of someone's death, they come to our attention. So, times of illness may be thought of as essential to our lives, for they give us the chance to discover another dimension of ourselves, which, without the illness, we might never have discovered.
Why do we need to discover this other dimension of ourselves, this inner being? Partly, because it will go on causing tension and states of illness in us, until we become aware of its existence. Even more important, we have to learn that it is because of this inner being that we have any physical life at all. The inner being which exists on the other side of the “door within” is our essential self, the unique spark of Life called by our own name. Its life is our real life, the life which exists and evolves through all Eternity. It is the part of us which learns, and grows, and distils from every experience we have, the knowledge or understanding of which it is capable. It is the part of us which can listen, and receive guidance as to the way in which our lives need to develop in order to grow, and it is the part of us which can act with courage and insight from that guidance. All meaning or purpose intrinsic to our lives resides in this, our innermost being. But until we become aware of its existence, it cannot inform or inspire the outward expression of our daily activity and thought.
The mental and physical suffering we experience in illness or dying (our own, or in closeness to someone else) cannot be avoided by anyone; but it can be useless suffering, which leads nowhere except into its own misery, or it can be useful suffering. In suffering, we experience our own physical weakness and helplessness, we experience the natural deterioration and decay of all things physical. It is a sifting experience. Through it, however, as we offer this vulnerability and suffering to the One whom we, individually, understand by “G-d”, comes an experience of the true, eternal, and underlying Reality of which we all partake, and which we express for ever in our uniquely individual ways. Once experienced, the certainty of our eternal existence will never leave us.
We are never alone. Our individual “guardian angel” accompanies us throughout our life on Earth… and even beyond. He is with us from the moment of birth, and never leaves us, until we pass out of this life into that state of sleep or rest, which precedes our next phase of existence. Throughout the whole of our physical life, our own “guardian angel” protects us from harm, as far as he can; he guides us, and instructs us - if we allow him to do so.
We are never alone. We know this is true, for, if we look back over our lives, we can recall a number of experiences in which we were dimly aware of his presence. Some of us may recall a time in early childhood, when we “talked with angels”, or had a companion who was invisible to adult eyes. We may remember accidents which might have befallen us, but didn't, as if an unseen hand had constrained our impetuous movement. If we look more closely, we see at every crucial point in our lives some evidence of an unseen guide or protector; intuition that made decisions possible which were only known to be right much later on; physical or moral strength which came from some unseen source, and, raising us out of the depths, set us on our way again. Throughout our life, by actual voice or (on rare occasions) appearances, by restraining hand, or encouragement, or comfort, this invisible companion has participated in our activities and thoughts, and helped to set the direction and hidden pattern of our lives.
Sometimes examples of his “intervention” are momentous and unmistakable, as when a “guide” appeared out of the ether to a climber lost at night in a blizzard on the Alps, led him and his companion to safety, and then disappeared. A man heard someone shout “Stop!” to him on a windy night in Devon, when a tree had blown down around the next bend in the road along which he was driving. A suicide knew that some unseen presence took her from the sea, and guided and supported her up 700 feet of cliff, until she was brought safely to where she could be given help… Each of our memories can supply us with some incident - although maybe not so dramatic as these - that gives us the assurance we are not alone.
We do not always realize that the rôle of this invisible companion or “guardian angel” is not merely to keep us from harm, but to instruct and teach us as well, when we are ready to be taught. He is the one who gives us knowledge about Eternal Life; his is the voice that ultimately brings us out of sorrow into the light of knowing that the true inner life of each individual person carries on through all eternity. When we are in that peculiar no-man's land of grief, or when we feel ourselves to be nowhere - in no recognizable “country” of our own, his is the gentle yet insistent finger which directs our attention to the plane of real life. “Why do you weep for the empty tomb and the pile of clothes?” the Angel says in the Gospel. “Turn around and look! He lives!”
We are never alone. When all goes well with us, we can be blind and deaf to any experience of Presence, in the same way that we ignore our inner needs. When there is a crisis in our lives - accident, illness, death - our awareness is sharpened and extended; we know our spiritual need, and our eyes and ears are opened. In the midst of grief our invisible companion brings to us personally all the Divine Comfort we need in the form of knowledge, which can convert our sorrow, and bring us into a state of tranquillity.
Illness is a manifestation of some kind of disharmony or weakness in our being - physical, or mental, or spiritual. It is often more greatly feared than death. For the pain which accompanies illness is a great leveller, and sifts us deeply. Our pain may be compounded with attitudes that prevent our learning from it. We may deeply resent our illness, as well as fear it, saying, “Why is it happening to me?” or, “How can G-d allow pain?”
At its simplest, pain is a physiological reaction of the body to its own injury or illness. The fact that physiological reactions differ between people is due, in part, to the varying sensitivity of our nervous systems. The kind of mind we have also affects the intensity of our pain, and the way in which we experience it.
There are different ways in which we can relate to pain, but a positive relationship to pain begins with an acceptance of it - free from imagination and the imaginings which add to, or distort it. This is a first step which enables us to read from pain the state of our physical body, and to discern, deeper still, the underlying weaknesses of mind or spirit that are manifested through illness.
This is not our usual approach to illness, for an attitude seems to prevail in our society, which encourages us to tinker with the body's machine over the least disability, and to drug every twinge of pain or suggestion of weakness. We do not take time to look for signs in pain or illness. In other societies perhaps - or in other ages - there was less tinkering and more acceptance, because the physical body was seen in a spiritual context. People had more tolerance of illness and suffering. We tend to apply the model of the machine to everything: our lives, ourselves, our bodies. We give much thought, and time, and money, to keep them running smoothly. Mechanical soundness is the aim and the criterion: a quick repair, and get the body on the road again! To listen to the evidence which pain provides, and learn why illnesses exist, and what they might have to teach us in more subtle ways takes time and patience - and a very different kind of approach.
Yet, illnesses are the material with which we have to work, if we are to grow, mentally and spiritually. Often they are the result of bad body habits or wrong habits of mind, such as habitual resentment, or self-pity, or even jealousy. From our own inner weaknesses and our wills, from our tensions or rigidity of body and mind, we can inflict illness on ourselves. So, both pain - which indicates the presence of some physical imbalance - and the particular illness can be doors into our within-ness.
When we ask querulously, “Why doesn't G-d stop pain?” we ask in ignorance of the meaning of pain, and of our need for it, if we are to grow, and fulfil the ultimate purpose of our life on Earth. Our weaknesses and disabilities are our growing points: the points where we can change, the place where we know we need help, and where Help can reach us.
Not everything is caused by ourselves. There are accidents, and we are vulnerable to other people's actions and states of mind. We are intimately connected with one another, and the healing of everyone's body, mind, and inner being is very much our own concern. “Innocent people” and children do suffer through the weaknesses of others, and through forms of distortion and violence which our societies express or allow. It is important to understand this, for it is a fact that we are all interrelated, and the only real answer to suffering which is inflicted on the “innocent” lies in the ultimate spiritual growth of everyone.
Harder to bear even than our own pain is the pain of someone we are close to, for we feel so helpless. We are not as helpless, in fact, as we imagine, for most people have the ability to soothe - if not actually to heal or remove pain altogether. The laying-on-of-hands is a natural instinct in a mother; it is also natural to extend it beyond caring for the family.
We also fear the indignities of suffering and disease, especially with people close to us, and yet we observe that even in so-called “terminal illness” our friends do not necessarily lose their dignity. Dignity belongs to the inner being of a person, and can endure through pain, and irradiate any physical grotesqueness. Our characters may even achieve greater refinement and clarity through the experience of physical deterioration, if it is understood to be the “Refiner's Fire” that transmutes base metal into gold. Do we not know people who never lose their sense of humour and balance during illness, or who acquired new expressions of dignity to illumine their physical end?
We can relate positively to pain, and help others to relate to it in a similar way. There are five steps we may follow to help ourselves. First of all, we have to accept the fact of pain, and not hide from it, or fight it. Secondly, we need to accept - and gain some insight into - both the physical cause of our pain, and also the other levels of cause which exist in our minds. Thirdly, we have to become aware of the fear in ourselves associated with pain, and see the different tensions produced by this fear, which affect our nervous system and body generally. Then, fourthly, it becomes possible for us to begin to make positive efforts to relax the body, which means releasing the tensions caused by pain and fear.
There are two fairly simple methods. One is by stretching, preferably lying down, and becoming more aware of the muscle structure of the body, and then relaxing the muscles, one at a time. Conscious stretching - or conscious contraction of muscles - is necessary before complete relaxation can be achieved. The other method, which needs to be followed if pain is recurring or intermittent (as in childbirth contractions), involves using the rhythm or pattern of pain. Here, the person stretches his or her muscles before the spasm of pain occurs, and relaxes into the pain. This can be a very effective means of relating to and diminishing pain, but it must be carried out regularly under the conscious direction of the mind.
If a person is unable for one reason or another to follow either of these methods, a simple breathing exercise will achieve similar results. First of all, he or she focuses attention on the rhythm of breathing, watching the breath being drawn into and then exhaled from the lungs. When he is able to concentrate his mind sufficiently, he gradually slows his breathing down, until it is relaxed, and this state of relaxation spreads throughout his body.
This brings the person to the fifth stage, which is concerned with relaxation of the mind. Some mental relaxation has already been achieved through stretching and relaxing the body, or through slowing down the rhythm of breathing. This can now be extended by concentrating on the arms, neck, face, and head, and relaxing them in detail. It is with these parts of the body that our sense of identity is most closely associated, and to relax the muscles around our eyes, or across our cheekbones, opens the way for a more complete relaxation of our minds. As the person tries to relax the different sets of muscles in his neck or face, he should allow his thoughts to drift away as well, and the mind to become gradually unfocused.
All the above methods have to do with what we can do personally to release pain in ourselves, or to help someone else. Only after we have done all that is possible for ourselves, do we need to turn to a higher Source of power through what we call “prayer”, for we are then in a physical and mental state where we can best receive Help.
If our first reaction to pain or illness were merely a cry for Divine help, it would come from our fears and tensions and confused desires. We would not be in a receptive state to receive such help. We need to prepare through stages of acceptance, relaxation, and meditation, so that we are able to receive the kind of Help we ultimately need. When we are ready, this need will be answered, for there is a Power available beyond our own means, and this Power works to heal us spiritually and mentally - and sometimes physically as well. It can remove a portion of our pain - but not always all of it.
G-d is not an arbitrary Being, to be petitioned in humility or servitude, as if He withheld as easily as He gave. But our ability to receive His Help depends upon what we are able to release of ourselves: our tensions, our fears, and our various forms of withholding. This Power of G-d can take what we are able to release, and give us in return new understanding, new vision, and new hope - and, where possible, new life for the physical body.
The process of ageing - unlike our brief and passing experiences of illness - usually makes up a large part of our lives. Its physical manifestations commence in the middle years with greying hair, alterations in skin texture and pigmentation, and changes in the gland and energy structures. These are signs of a slowing down of our body machine, which we often try to hide from ourselves, as well as from others, and secretly resent. At last, and still resisting, we can allow ourselves to be overtaken by physical and mental diminishment, and our lives draw to a close in a pathetic state of withdrawal or resentment, without our having been able to use these years positively and wisely. For this time could be the most important time of learning in our lives.
What is the spiritual meaning of this process of “growing old”, this slowing down of body and mind? What do we, in fact, have to learn from the experience of diminishment which attacks even our most intimate feeling of identity? Why should we not die in health and vigour, fully possessed of our senses, and in the midst of our active lives?
Let us see what a “slowing down” could mean for our lives. First of all, it allows us to have a natural space in which to pause in our on-rushing daily activity, to breathe, to “stand and stare”. Until we reach the middle years, our lives - our bodies and our minds - are never still, for there are jobs, homes, children, making continuous demands on us. We are building up and expressing our lives. This intensity begins to abate about the time our bodies and minds start to alter, and spaces occur naturally. This is a new and often shattering experience, for we are usually unprepared for this kind of change, and have not sought space - or stillness - before, at an earlier stage. What can we do with space?
It can be used for relaxation. For the most part, we do not know how to relax physically, or mentally, and need to learn through simple exercises or yoga - and maybe by going to a class in relaxation. We could enjoy some open-ended space from time to time, and sit in the garden, or walk along the seashore, without feeling we had to weed, or walk the dog! We could learn to use our physical senses again, like children, as a means of relating to the world about us: smelling, touching, tasting, looking, listening - without any desire to exploit or possess.
This making of space must include our minds as well as our bodies, otherwise they will continue to dictate every moment of our day, and fill it with some kind of activity, however trivial. Chatter, planning, idle thoughts create a continuous noise in our heads. Mind-space may be frightening, because we are unaccustomed to it, but, if we persevere - with a sense of adventure, we will quickly discover new places in our minds we had not noticed before. They are like other rooms in this house of ourselves which we have been too busy to discover - much less occupy.
As we become used to more space in our lives, and accept these non-active areas in our minds, new aspects of our own beings can slowly unfold. We may find new ways of thinking, new thoughts, a release of emotions or feelings, and glimmers of new understanding of ourselves and other people. We may uncover abilities of which we were not aware, and which we can now express or develop. Eventually, our own sense of identity can expand or change, as it begins to include more of ourselves - the more which had previously been hidden from our consciousness.
What we think of as diminishment makes space on one level of our beings, and allows new possible developments on another level. Our active, outward-facing life becomes less frenetic, but new growth springs up from within ourselves, mentally and spiritually. So, also, any form of physical diminishment which occurs can be used as an incentive to develop an inner counterpart. If there is diminished sight or hearing, we can begin to discover the inner ear, the truly seeing eye, and allow an inner awareness and perception to grow in us, which can pick up the hidden needs in other people.
So long as the active mind - the organizing, planning mind - is able to dominate our thinking and our perceptions, we do not seek to develop the passive or receptive or intuitive mind. We may not even know of its existence. But when we reach the limit of what is possible for this active mind - the mind of perpetual motion, and when our lives become less strained with activity, we can allow the passive mind to make itself felt. This is the possibility - and the challenge - offered us by the experience of ageing. The process of ageing may curtail the energy supply to our active mind, and limit its ability to think logically, and even to remember facts in the old way, but it can also provide an opportunity to change the focus of our attention to our within-ness, and develop the inner, more passive mind. With this mind we can learn to listen in a receptive way, to see passively; we can allow ourselves to be taught from within, by all we hear and see. It is only through the passive or receptive mind that we can gain new understanding of ourselves and other people.
Philosophers in some older cultures have written that the life of a man over the age of fifty is the most important time, for the intensely active and outgoing phase is over, and his task is now to devote himself to the learning process, by meditation and contemplation. This is not a conception which fits easily into contemporary thought, but, nonetheless, it has relevance for the twentieth century, as well as for classical Greece or ancient China. At this period in our lives, we need to have regular times for the practice of meditation - which is the practice of inner and outer awareness. And it is important to begin at about the age of fifty - if not earlier - in order to set the pattern for the later years of our life.
We also need to bring to our minds, from time to time, different experiences we have had in the past, and see them within our present context, observing the structure and recurring patterns in our lives - but without sentimentality or criticism. We need to become more conscious of the direction in which our activities have taken us, and to regain contact with those moments of inner illumination which we have occasionally experienced throughout our lives. We need to gather together these moments which are our certain knowledge and understanding. These inner certainties of perception and the experiences which have cast light in our lives, small as they may have been, constitute our real treasure.
This time of slowing down and growing older is, above all, a time for gathering together our treasure, the treasure which is uniquely our own, and which we can take with us through the door of death into our next life.
This is a space and a time which are built into our lifetime on Earth by the process of physical and mental ageing for a spiritual reason. It has, as its ultimate purpose, the preparation we need to make for going on: the gaining of insights, the learning, the making of rough places smooth, the letting go of all that has tied us to our activities, and to the image we tend to have of ourselves as a perennially active person. The essence of this preparation lies in gathering together our treasure of experience and understanding, which, alone of everything in our lives, we can take with us on our journey into the Beyond.
Preparation for death may commence many years - or even decades - before we are likely to experience our own passing, but the main time of preparation lies in the days or weeks immediately prior to the moment of death. This period of dying is essential for a person's spiritual growth, and for his or her ability to die in peace, to rest, and to re-awaken naturally and easily into the new conditions of existence. There is no period of time more important for a person in the whole of his life than this time before death. We need to remember this, and never seek to rush a dying person, nor regret the time which often seems to pass so slowly.
There are three kinds of preparation a person can make in this period of dying. The first is most important, and one which many of us do from time to time, long before the moment of departure comes. It is a re-assessment of our life, and what we have done with it. It may be a sort of tidying up process which commences outwardly, with material objects, papers, possessions, but then proceeds to a more interior plane of thoughts, attitudes, and relationships. From time to time, and at intervals throughout our lives, there is an inner compulsion to tidy up, to re-assess, to cast off the useless or redundant on every plane.
The dying person prepares for death by gently “letting go”. Interest in people may continue to be expressed, but only to people with whom there is a real connection; concern with things fades as the life-force dwindles. It is important to encourage this process of gentle detachment, and not attempt to re-awaken interest, or bring the person back to his activities or possessions, for we need to go on without luggage, as far as possible, and without the burden of attachments, which could side-track or distract us.
The dying person often has a clear picture of his own weaknesses and failings, and sometimes seeks to apologize or “make amends” by some physical gesture. He may be sorry, but does not usually cling to feelings of guilt, for he sees the balance of failures and blessings.
This is a time which is out of time in a way, when change of being becomes possible for many people. Essential changes can take place which are the result of new perceptions or new insight. It is not merely a dropping away of what is superficial, or the discarding of possessions which no longer have the power to charm. The possibility exists for real change in the inner being of a person during this period of preparation for death, and for spiritual growth or a transformation to take place, from which there can be a new beginning before the physical life is over, and the new conditions of existence entered into.
The second way in which a person prepares for death is by experiencing the new conditions of life before he in fact dies. During times of sleep or in a semi-conscious state, the person's mind may extend to the next phase of existence. Many people “meet” relatives or friends who have already passed on; sometimes they “see” one of the Higher Beings, read about or worshipped, Who gives them reassurance and love. The dying person's mind may also begin to explore some of the conditions of life in this spiritual sphere, and bring back into his waking state memories of beauty and peace.
Those of us who look on, as a nurse or friend, are often given evidence of these travels or experiences in the elliptical allusions the person makes to something of which we personally have no direct knowledge. He may talk about people he has known in the past, or about deceased members of his family, as if they were present; he may even hold conversations in a fully conscious state with someone standing by the bed - visible to him, but invisible to us. There may be “new” relationships with “strangers” or ministering “angels”. It is important for us to understand that this is seldom hallucination or senility, but rather an extension of the person's awareness beyond the limitations of our physical world.
How vital it is, therefore, to let the person drift, and have these experiences, which build the bridge between this life and the next, over which he is soon to walk. These new perceptions are invaluable. The renewal of former relationships can relax and release all fear for him - and for us - confirming in the best of all possible ways, that is, empirically, through experience, that everything essential and real in life has continuity and reality beyond the illusion of the grave.
The third way in which a person can prepare for death is to learn as much as he can about the structure and meaning of Life - whatever its manifestation, whether physical or spiritual. The experience of dying instructs us in the meaning of Life more clearly and comprehensively than any other experience we might have. Those of us who have gone to that frontier which separates this life from the next - and returned - know this to be true. But we need spiritual knowledge to interpret the experience of almost dying, for this indicates another dimension of which we have hitherto been only vaguely aware.
Knowledge exists, and is accessible - but often in unexpected places. There is the possibility of new understanding which derives from our own direct experience, and from the knowledge imparted intuitively by spiritual beings higher than ourselves. This possibility exists for everyone, in some measure, according to each person's nature and desire. But before spiritual knowledge can be acquired, the person has to be open to receive it. This means accepting the fact of death: not merely the idea of death, but the fact of a loved one's dying, the fact of his own death… Knowledge comes or is given, in one form or another, when the person who is dying is able to face his or her own death, and when the ones around him can do so likewise; this is an opportunity to learn together. There is no more meaningful time of sharing than this.
There are also simple forms of meditation which we can use at any time in our lives to prepare ourselves for dying, but we should practise them only occasionally. The purpose of the first meditation is to help us perceive something of the true nature of our life.
The person assumes a comfortable and preferably seated position, closes his eyes, and relaxes his body and mind as far as possible. When he has achieved the maximum degree of repose possible for him, he visualizes a large book. He opens the book, and finds it contains photographs of himself, often with different people who have belonged to his life at various stages, from childhood onwards. As the person turns the pages of the book in his mind, he lets each picture recall a set of circumstances, or reveal particular situations, or relationships - but without analysis or criticism. After a maximum of ten minutes, he should close the book, and relax out of the meditation.
The purpose of the second form of meditation is to help a person to separate his feeling of “I” from the physical body, and withdraw his sense of identity from the more external manifestations of himself. In this meditation the person starts from the same relaxed position of body and mind. He then visualizes his own body, as if it were the shell of a nut which slowly opens, and very slowly drops away from him. This requires a considerable degree of concentration, and needs to be attempted from time to time, but not for longer than five minutes at any one time, because its simplicity is deceptive. Every effort a person makes with this meditation, and the cumulative effect of his efforts, is rewarding, and can enable him to experience in an essential, non-verbal way, the depth and continuity of his own life.
The aim of the third meditation is to assist the opening of the conscious mind to the plane of spiritual reality. Again, in a state of maximum relaxation - preferably in a seated position, the person closes his eyes, and visualizes two hands upon his forehead. The hands move slowly upwards, over the top of his head, and down to his neck. Several times the hands move soothingly in this way, from the forehead upwards, over the head, and down to the neck. The person allows his thoughts to travel with the hands, and gently drop away; then his mind follows the same pattern of movement, and, gradually, he finds his mind moving slowly away from its confinement within his physical body.
The fourth meditation is a peace prayer which can help bring repose to anyone - but especially to the person who is dying. This is not “prayer” in the accepted sense, but another form of meditation. (It is necessary, first of all, to realize that peace is an actual spiritual substance, which exists in the invisible world around us, and can be drawn into our being when necessary.) The person assumes a relaxed position, either lying or sitting, and focuses attention on his solar-plexus (immediately below the diaphragm). On every in-breath he visualizes drawing peace into his solar-plexus, and on every out-breath exhaling it to all parts of his body. He continues the gentle rhythm of breathing-in and exhaling peace for a period of five minutes.
All these suggested meditations, and every form of preparation a person makes, help him to face death with tranquillity. They help him to experience another quality of life, which is independent of physical conditions, and they give him a strength which derives both from the fact of being able to help himself, and from the experience of not being alone in the efforts he makes. Every effort we make brings us in contact with the ones who work on the spiritual plane, and who will eventually take us safely through the doorway into our new life.
We can all make preparation, at whatever stage of life, and every preparation for death clarifies the meaning of our life now, and sharpens our understanding of its nature and purpose.
Fear of death exists in everyone, whether we recognize it for what it is or not. It may be disguised, so that we experience it only as a feeling of nausea, or a moment of panic. It can be evoked by the sight of a corpse, or even at the thought of death - but it need not be. It is often present when we are sitting with someone who is dying. Fear of death is sometimes experienced most acutely when animals die, and we are literally sickened by what we see or hear.
Fear of death is a physical fear which belongs to our physical being, and is natural to everyone; it is not an emotion, nor an expression of our minds. It is an expression of the physical self, which desires above all else to preserve its own identity; fear is an experience of not-being, a foretaste of the physical body's ultimate non-existence.
Every experience of death reminds the physical being of its limitations; every illness we experience ourselves, or in someone close to us, suggests deterioration, and the ultimate demise of our own body. So the fear of death cannot be avoided, and it never wholly leaves us, although we may disguise it from ourselves in one way or another. If we hide this fear from ourselves too long, it may be expressed in invisible tensions, which cause damage either to our bodies or our minds.
But the experience of fear can be overcome in the moment - and every time it occurs - through a certain form of meditation in which both body and mind participate. This must begin with an acceptance of the fact of fear, and with a partial relaxation of the mental tensions caused by the avoidance of fear-producing situations, or the kind of defensiveness with which the mind endeavours to cope with fear. Rlaxation occurs to a certain extent naturally, if we face our fears, instead of avoiding them. This must be followed by relaxation of the body, which can best be achieved through simple forms of stretching, or the performance of certain exercises, such as the slow spine- and limb-stretching postures taught in some kinds of yoga. Again, the breathing technique discussed in Chapter Three is helpful for anyone who cannot perform the stretching exercises. When the body and mind are as relaxed as possible (the two kinds of tension are interwoven, and reinforce one another), then the simple meditation consists in visualizing this fear as separate from ourselves, and holding it out to Whomsoever we understand or experience as “G-d” for us. Fear is a kind of physical and mental cramp; it can be released in this way - just as the most ordinary muscle cramp can be released, through relaxation, and by offering it to a higher Power to dissolve.
I must write about the moment of death from personal experience, because we cannot know with certainty, unless our own spirit has hovered on the threshold.
Twelve years ago, when I was ill with cancer, and lay in great pain, day after day, I learned many things. I took no drugs, and my consciousness was acutely sensitive to what would normally have been beyond my vision. I became aware of people with me whom I had known in childhood and thought were “dead”. I experienced the presence of that special person - my “guardian angel” - who taught me, through interior apprehension, many things about the meeting-point of life and death, and showed me how we are taken on by special angels, when the moment comes to go. I experienced also, with his help, the actual place to which we go, and where we receive gentle ministerings.
Then I felt my own time had come to go, and I found it easy to drift away from pain and the physical body… and could have drifted further towards the place of stillness and peace. I experienced no dark tunnel or discordant sounds… and no aloneness. The separation from things physical, as well as from my body, was easy, because of an intense awareness of spiritual reality. However, it was not my time…
Later, when my spirit had once more firmly anchored itself in my physical body, personal knowledge about the moment of death was confirmed by the experiences of other people. A dying friend both saw and heard his long “dead” mother beside him, in the weeks before he died, and experienced the presence of spiritual beings who were preparing to lead him over. It is on the basis of these experiences that I write about this most important journey we make at death.
As the times comes for the person who is dying to cast off the old physical form and go forth in his etheric (or spiritual) body, four “angels” [ These are spiritual beings who have lived a physical life on Earth, and gone through the experience of death themselves. They are people who have evolved spiritually to the point where they can assist and guide the one who is dying.] gather round, one of whom is his own “guardian angel”. In every instance, except where there is sudden or unexpected death, the four angels are with the person for about six hours before the moment of departure. But even where there is some form of sudden death, angels are drawn instantly to that person, and remain with him throughout his entire experience of passing over. No one is ever alone at the moment of death.
No one is ever alone in another sense as well, especially in the stage leading up to the moment of death. The person who is dying frequently sees, and even converses with people he has known who have already passed on. These people bring comfort and assurance - and knowledge, because they are seen and experienced. Sometimes a very ill or dying person communicates audibly with someone whom the onlooker cannot see. It is important to remember it is not his “imagination”.
As soon as the moment comes for the severance of all connection with the physical body, the consciousness of the person enters his etheric body, which moves a little distance away from the now lifeless physical body. This movement of the person in his etheric body, and the actual appearance of that body (which resembles the old body in feature and structure), is often visible to people who have spiritual sight. At this moment, when the cast-off physical body looks careworn or sick in feature, the etheric body may appear youthful and full of vitality. The four angels pause with the person, while he gazes on his old body, the room, his “belongings”, and gathers himself for his journey. When he is ready - and the angels often gently assist his readiness to move - he goes forth from the place of his earth-dwelling, the angels guiding him.
These angel-people have the special task of bringing people who are about to die safely out of their physical state into the spiritual sphere. They minister to them by soothing, healing, and, as far as possible, repairing damage caused to their inner beings during their life on Earth. This ministering takes place in an initial period of approximately three days, after which people are passed on to others (in the spiritual sphere) who continue the second stage of ministration.
During both stages the person who has died is in a place of rest, the nature of which depends upon his or her own particular needs. Here, he sleeps or rests for a period of time, for everyone's spiritual body needs some form of rest or healing, depending upon what has been inflicted on it during the physical lifetime. With some people this means a few days or weeks, and for others it can be a much longer period of time. Again, the person is never alone, and he or she receives every form of help he needs, and is willing to receive.
For the whole of this period, while he is being ministered to, the person dozes; but from time to time he experiences colour and sound and smell vibrations from the spiritual world of nature around him. These vibrations are interwoven with one another, and give a different quality of sense experience to the ones possible on the physical plane. This aids the healing process, and helps the person become acclimatized to the new state of existence he has entered upon.
Some people not only find it difficult to accept the reality of death when they are alive in physical bodies, but cannot accept the fact of their passing. They may be stuck to some aspect of their lives, which inhibits full acceptance of the new form of existence; there may be unfulfilled or even distorted relationships which hold the person back, mentally and emotionally. Whatever the nature of the difficulty a person may experience after passing out of this life into the next, help is always available. There are people in physical bodies, as well as those in spirit form, who are engaged in the “rescue” or “release” work which frees the person, and makes possible the healing which his being requires.
During the entire period of rest and recovery - and even before this period commences, if the person is immobilized by attitudes or emotional states, no one is ever alone; spiritual beings remain with each person until he or she is ready to commence a new form of active life, in whatever place corresponds to his own stage of being. From this point, new experiences begin for him, and the spiritual beings who work as ministering angels are no longer necessary to these new conditions of life. Another phase of learning has begun.
We say “I” so often: “I want”, “I think”, “I feel”, “I am”… but we rarely stop to consider what we mean by “I”. We examine the object: the desire, the thought, the feeling, but we seldom consider who am “I”. Yet we assume the existence of “I”, and not merely as some abstraction, but as a solid, clearly definable object. Most of us, most of the time, think of our physical body as “I”. This solid and tangible object is the starting-point for our feeling of ourselves.
Because we think of ourselves as our bodies, in a very simple way, so we are especially vulnerable when confronted with illness - vulnerable spiritually, not only in a physical sense. For our very feeling of ourselves becomes threatened, and the worse the illness, the more shaky becomes the foundation upon which our sense of identity depends. Accident and illness - even a so called “cold”, but especially surgery - are attacks upon the person himself (or herself) that cause the feeling of “I” to shrink, and become diminished.
Around this primitive identification with the physical body, many other forms of identification evolve, which, by the time we have reached the middle years, form a complex strucure in relation to which we feel “I”; our sense of security depends upon this structure. It consists in part of certain mental attitude or habits of thought, which have persisted so long that they have become us. We cannot conceive of ourselves without them. All habits form part of this structure, especially our relationships to certain people, such as mother or father, husband or wife. Our feelings of ourselves depend very much upon either or both of these relationships. When a husband or wife dies, a large part of our grief is due to diminishment in our feelings of ourselves. We no longer know quite who we are. How can we feel “I” without our mother? or husband? And our inability to cope with grief comes about, in part, because we are not ourselves - the “self” we know. We are helpless without him - even if the relationship had been one of tension and disharmony, for the structure of “I” may depend upon any kind of habit.
Change of all kinds is unsettling. Death causes the greatest possible change: a sudden gap in the fabric of our lives, and in the feeling of ourselves. Illness reminds us of the possibility of death, loss, change; it shakes our foundations. The prospect of it is frightening, the reality can cause us to lose entirely, and for a considerable time, our feeling of who we are.
We need to see now, as far as we can, our own “I” and the structure upon which it depends. We need to learn to become more flexible, and respond to changes of all kinds, for it is in the very nature of life. Change belongs to all manifestations of life, spiritual as well as physical; but our real “I” is greater than any particular expression of life. It is life, the very essence of our own individual life now - and for all eternity.
The more our feeling of “I” depends upon rigid attitudes or set habits of living, and the less we continue to develop as individuals, the more vulnerable we are to fears about dying. On the other hand, the more we evolve individual forms of expression from within ourselves - especially, the more we learn to listen, and develop states of inner awareness and sensitivity, the less vulnerable we are.
There are two kinds of sensitivity. Sensitivity to both sorrow and joy in daily life springs from a deeper state of interior awareness; it also makes us vulnerable. But this kind of vulnerability is essential to our spiritual growth as men and women. It is always gently directed from within. The other kind of sensitivity derives from our identification with outer things, with habits, attitudes, relationships. We are vulnerable to any change, and helpless to respond, because we have no inner centre of gravity or levity!. This kind of vulnerability can only be overcome - or transformed - by increasing our awareness of ourselves and other people. Then we become receptive to inner direction and forms of Help from beyond ourselves.
Grief, like fear of death, is an instinctive emotion, belonging to the physical body, and is natural to everyone. It is caused by loss or pending separation from someone loved. Grief is physical: the reaction of the physical body, expressed as a kind of convulsion or spasm. The convulsions of grief arise from deeply within, and shake us with emotion or weeping. It is always personal: the reaction we have, when someone belonging to us departs out of the very fabric of our lives - someone who was an intimate part of our feeling of self.
When we experience these spasms of grief, at a time of loss, separation, death, our first reaction is often to withdraw. We withdraw first of all from ourselves and the experience of grief. Then we withdraw from other people, for they remind us of our own loss, and their solicitude revives our grief. Our bodies tense against the convulsions of grief, and against ourselves and other people. Through our tension we cling to our grief the more - although often denying it an expression. Even in our prayers we may be closed to comfort and relief, especially if our prayers are confused with accusations or bitterness; we can withhold ourselves from the One we call “G-d”.
Grief may also drive us into excessive activity, as we seek forgetfulness. It is often unnecessary or marginal jobs of spring-cleaning, decorating, digging the garden, which occupy - and tire - us. We seek fatigue, as we seek forgetfulness, in order to bury our grief or loss, without facing or accepting it, or desiring its catharsis. It is impossible to be released from grief - or even to desire its release - unless we have first of all accepted it. But these explosions of physical activity always tire us, and make effort of a spiritual kind even more difficult. This pattern of tension, repression, intense activity, may even lead to a temporary breakdown in our ability to function in daily life.
Sometimes we desire to perpetuate our grief, when it could diminish. Grief is the pole around which our life temporarily revolves, and gives it a sense of reality. We may even think it “wrong” to let grief go - and it is, therefore, “wrong” to seek solace or help.
Grief is primarily physical, and not mental. Mental anguish is quite different from physical grief, and the nature of this difference needs to be understood.
Mental anguish is created by our minds, in particular by that part of the mind which can only suggest morbidity, horror, distortion, deterioration, death. It knows no relief - and seeks none. It is this part of the mind which harrows us with pictures of suffering, and which recalls past experiences in a present context of natural grief, to increase our suffering. It seeks deliberately to exaggerate our grief, feeding us with morbidity, so that our minds, as well as our bodies, are never at rest - never still enough to receive comfort. The morbid mind desires no comfort.
People who are dying are often at peace in themselves - or could be if their surroundings were peaceful. They are more patient than we are with the process of dying. It is our morbid mind which fastens on to the physical condition alone, and fills our thinking with descriptions of deterioration and decay. Decay is natural to all physical life; it is part of the process of life, which includes growth and flowering, as well as deterioration and decay. By concentrating solely on the latter, our minds prevent us from being aware of the inner life, and the spiritual aliveness of the person who is dying. For the inner being of that person can burn brightly during the process of dying, and we could recognize this, if our eyes were open. But to become sensitive to it, we must be still, and still our minds.
Until we deal with our minds and the mental anguish to which morbidity gives rise, we cannot learn from the experience of our real grief - or obtain release from it. We can only begin to do this, when we see quite clearly that mental anguish is not the same as physical grief, but a kind of false suffering created by our minds, and added to the real grief. How do we tell the difference?
Every form of suffering or grief which is formulated in words, or called forth by words, belongs to the mind; all thoughts about grief, and every reference to memory or past experience, call up mental anguish. Mental anguish is full of self-pity, and is centred in the head. Physical grief, on the other hand, is a physical experience of emptiness now, and is centred in either the chest or the stomach.
There is also a climate of opinion around us, and certain accepted attitudes towards mental suffering in our culture, which maintain that it is requisite, and should be encouraged, rather than relinquished. If we do not torture ourselves with pitiful and morbid thoughts, we tend to feel guilty, imagining that our mental anguish is required of us. We need courage to see things as they are, and to distinguish the sick overlay of mental suffering, that distorts our experience of real suffering, which it is right and necessary to express. We must then seal off this part of our mind, so that it does not influence us.
There is an ancient mental exercise which is helpful, but it needs to be practised every time the mind starts to suggest morbidity, and before it gets a grip on the emotions. This exercise consists in visualizing the person who is dying, or who has died, and surrounding this image with light. The whole mind becomes concentrated on visualizing both the person and some form of light. When the image is clear, then the mind visualizes another body (the etheric being) rising out of the old, physical body of the person, and moving upwards through the light. This second body is whole, and perfect in form.
If we endeavour to practise this exercise, however indifferent our act of visualization, and use it to replace the thoughts and images created by the morbid mind, then we will gradually become free of our mental anguish.
Our real grief is physical, and the reaction of our entire physical being. There is no mental exercise by which we may resolve it, but there is Help of a higher order, through prayer, which can release it little by little. (A residue of grief remains, because our arms are empty. Loss is never entirely healed, but it can become bearable.)
Most of our praying is active, and full of the tension of wanting. We have a passive side to our nature, which we need to develop, if our prayer is to become whole, and if we are going to receive that for which we ask. To become receptive in prayer, we need to be physically relaxed. The waves of grief which overwhelm us, cause tension in us, partly because we resist them; but even if we give way completely to grief, exhaustion follows - not relaxation. The first stage in developing the passive side of prayer consists in becoming aware of tension: of cramped muscles, nerve tension, tautness in the solar plexus, head, neck, shoulders, arms. To ease this tension, we need to stretch a lot, and slowly relax - and stretch again, every part of the body. Then it is helpful to practise slow and deep breathing, for the quality of our breathing is connected with the emotions, and slow rhythmical breathing can release tension in the chest area, and quieten our spasms of grief.
As we relax our bodies and our breathing, so we begin to relax our minds, and open them to the prayer we desire to pray, and to the One to Whom we have turned for Help. As we relax physically, and consciously breathe, so we open ourselves to both the acceptance of suffering, and the acceptance of Help. Then the rhythm of our in-breathing and out-breathing becomes a form of meditation. G-d can enter into this structure of meditation and stillness, and create what we will experience as a kind of membrane of protection, that surrounds us, and within which there is peace. Although we may experience these moments only briefly, they form a new beginning for us, from which, in time, new life can grow.
Every human society known to us has developed simple or complex forms of ritual associated with the principal nodal points in human life, namely, birth and death. Our entrance into physical life is celebrated according to the fashion of our time, and the forms prevailing in any given society; equally, our exit from physical life is marked by another kind of social occasion or ceremonial - not so much for ourselves, as to help the ones who mourn our passing.
Complex rituals to celebrate the passing on of a human spirit have evolved in connection with certain religions and their beliefs about the nature of life after death. For example, vivid pictorial and verbal imagery has grown out of Buddhist, Egyptian, and American Indian beliefs; these are often descriptive of the journey which a person makes immdiately after he has left the physical body. The deaths of King Arthur and Hiawatha are pictured in terms of their entrance into a boat, which moves away from the shore of human experience, into the waters of the unknown; this is also reminiscent of very ancient Sumerian tradition. Many images and traditions have survived thousands of years into our modern non-religious society, where even the more sceptical of us look to them for some answer to allay our inner fears of death.
The conception of a journey which the person makes after leaving his physical body has been integral to most religions, except those which are Semitic in origin. For these non-Semitic religions, the purpose of the ritual for the dead lies, or lay, in the belief that the person needed to be accompanied on the first stage of his journey into the next life. We may now think of these rituals as symbolic, but orginally they were based on the assumption that the person's spirit could actually be accompanied to the borders of the Beyond.
All rituals for the dead have existed in large part for the ones who mourn - not for the one who has passed on. They have always encouraged - and should still encourage - the collective expression of grief through the particular established forms, and make possible a certain catharsis of individual grief. The structure and formality of ritual - whichever ritual - is important for the support it gives, and the support it enables friends and acquaintances to give to the immediate mourners. From ancient times ceremonies for the dead have incorporated singing, chanting, movement, and voiced prayer within their liturgies. In more recent times, there has tended to be less direct participation - and in the Christian churches no physical movement, but there is evidence of change in some places. There is deep need at such times for a complete physical expression, not by voice alone, but through rhythmical body-movement as well, so that the vibrations of grief may be fully expressed, and then find relief.
Apart from the individual expression of grief encouraged and directed within the structure of such rituals, there is another equally important aspect of the ceremony for the dead. This is a recital of the beliefs of the particular society and culture regarding the purpose of life and death; for it is an occasion when people should remind themselves of the intrinsic meaning of their lives on Earth. The spiritual and physical planes are especially close and inter-penetrating at these times for people who are experiencing personal bereavement, and who are, therefore, open to new understanding, and new vision. The purpose of this recital of beliefs is to affirm the spiritual nature of all life, and its continuity beyond physical death. Knowledge has always been available, throughout all human history, that physical death does not mean death of the spirit - or mind, or even personality - of the person. This knowledge should be re-affirmed at every ceremony for the dead, so that the living may go forth without fear.
We must talk about our animals, because, for many of us, it is as hard to bear the pain or dying moments of a pet as of a fellow human being. Often we opt out altogether, and have our pet “put down”, as it were; it is a clinical answer for the age in which we live. Why are we so frightened of what is part of the natural order of life - all life: plant, animal, human - on this planet?
It is partly the eyes. Animal eyes look at us - follow us - with such trust, patience, adoration, and helplessness. These are our words - not theirs! And the “helplessness”, too, is ours, for this is precisely what we feel. Helpless to offer comfort - or so we think, because we fail to understand that comfort does not lie in words. We stand accused by those patient affectionate eyes; we are not worthy of such love, and how can we explain to them, or remove their suffering?
But we can - especially the discomfort which is more usual than actual pain. The instinctive movement of a mother's hand, and ours, towards the sick child, can move equally towards the sick or dying animal, and, equally, give reassurance, and the lessening of discomfort. Many people also have the ability to remove pain altogether through this simple “laying on of hands”.
Furthermore, the animal is in itself. It does not think: “This is pain, I am having difficulty in breathing, I am dying.” Discomfort is not thought about, it simply is. Much of our own suffering comes from the mind, the words of the mind, and the tensions and fears of the mind; the animal does not have our mind. If the animal is surrounded by love, it has little fear, and no awareness of death such as ours.
Much of what we attribute to our animals is created by our own minds; we can imagine the “patient suffering” look, while the animal may be drifting, and only partly conscious of us, before it leaves its physical body.
An important ingredient of our own fear and grief for the animal is the belief that there is no new body, and no life after its death. Our pet ceased to exist before our eyes. “Putting to sleep” keeps us from having to witness this last moment of demise. But this is not all that we witness, if we have the courage to keep our beloved animal beside us, while he goes. We suffer physically, but we may also witness something else. We may see the real character of our pet continue in its essential individuality, quite apart from the decaying body. At the last we may witness not the disintegration of its character, but rather a kind of falling asleep within another body, which, sometimes even visible to our eyes, slowly moves away from the old physical body. For a time, the animal's other body remains a few inches above the old body; if they are sensitive enough, our hands may touch, and feel, the outline of this new body. The old body beats and breathes very slowly, mechanically, until, at last, the invisible “cord” that links the two is severed, and the new body is free.
If we have the courage to accept, and sometimes witness, the death of our animals, we can have an experience of the continuity of life. If we can find the courage, these occasions are also a preparation for us and our own eventual death, because we gain an assurance, which no one can take from us, that death of the physical body - even for an animal - has no dominion.
Our pets live on in their etheric bodies, quite distinct, and with their own unique characteristics. People often see their pets again in these etheric bodies. In many cases this body is a little larger, and more perfect than the original physical body, for the physical body may have been distorted by the conditions under which the animal lived, or through biological weakness.
We also inflict upon our animals our own forms of distress, or violence, or even cruelty - often indirectly - and these affect their etheric bodies to such a degree, that many months of healing may be required after death, before that body is again perfect. Fear also lodges in the etheric body of the animal - fear inflicted by us, unintentionally or intentionally; this fear and its manifestations must be eradicated, when the animal has passed out of its physical existence. It can require long and intense work on the part of the spiritual beings who are responsible for animal forms of life. Where the animal has received love and personal care, even if it has been raised for food, there is less fear, a more gentle death, and little mark left upon the etheric body.
At last, the animal is free of everything it may have suffered during its physical life, and free to express for all time the intrinsic life, which it was created to express. But no animal ever loses a strong attachment it once had to those who cared for it.
Our animals may be around us now at times, although invisible to most people; they will rejoice, and greet us with all the feeling of which they are capable, when we, too, pass on into the same etheric sphere.
It is through experiences of sickness that we learn to value our health, and it is through dying that we learn about the meaning of life. In the transient clarity which comes with mourning, we learn, first of all, that life - all life, always moves on into new forms, casting off the old worn-out forms. Human forms: all the equations of human relationship, are always changing; they exist for only a fleeting moment of time, and then are gone. “Existential sadness” is a sub-conscious awareness of this fact; both the clown and the tragedian exist in each of us, responding to the same fact: the impermanence of existence.
Not only the forms of life, but life itself - the essential irreducible spark of life, which lights up each separate form, and makes it unique - is changing and unresting. Everything is dynamic, moving; all human life is evolving. This is the substance of our experience of death and dying, or of illness and pain. It is the reality which breaks in upon us at such moments, and, temporarily at least, shakes us free from the forms with which we have protectively surrounded our lives, and through which we feel ourselves.
Although an overwhelming sense of the impermanence of earthly existence breaks in upon us at these moments of crisis or loss, a door may also be opened for us into another kind of perception. This is the perception of a further dimension of life, of which we have hitherto not been aware. We may become conscious of the fact that in such experiences of suffering, we are never alone. We may also become conscious of the existence of a more permanent level of relationship with other people, which continues beyond all changing forms, and even beyond death itself. The invisible cords which relate us to one another are like elastic, they stretch and move, but they do not break. We never lose the ones we have loved, or the ones with whom we are truly linked.
We may also become away, in a more subtle way, of the eternity of life itself - our innermost spark of life, and the spark which makes the person we love uniquely himself, and no one else. But this eternity is not, as we had previously imagined it to be, an unchanging, permanent reality. It is the open-ended possibility for the growth and spiritual evolution of every individual person. Everyone evolves through many stages and times of expression and fulfilment, but it is always the same individual spark, the same substance of spirit or being, who evolves. And it is our own essential spirit, the innermost being in ourselves, who knows the continuity of Guidance and Protection, and rejoices in the eternity of relationships, which always exist, amidst passing forms and shapes.
We need many different experiences of pain or illness or grief, to learn these truths for ourselves, for it is only knowledge distilled out of personal experience which is our own for ever.
- Shalom & Welcome! - 
© The Neith Network Library 2002
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Updated 20:34 4/11/2002.