Laws of Rapport and Communication Between Spirits and Humans
This mediated message deals with laws of rapport and communication between spirits and humans. It shows that communication of higher spiritual truths is only possible when the soul of the human is spiritually developed. For related information, go to this page and the related articles.
The Higher Truths of the Father Can Only Be Transmitted by the Celestial Spirits Through a Mortal
Who Has Been Prepared by the Father’s Divine Love.
(JOHN, THE APOSTLE)
(January 4th, 1918 | Received by James Padgett)
I AM HERE. John, the Apostle.
I desire to write for a short time tonight upon a subject that I consider important and you may consider interesting.
As you may know, it has been some time since I wrote anything of a formal character, and I regret very much that so much time has gone by without my being able to communicate some of the spiritual Truths. I also regret that your condition has been such that I was unable to make the rapport with you that is necessary in order that I may deliver these messages to you of the nature mentioned.
Well, you have not been in that condition of mind that has enabled me to make the necessary rapport with you. We must have a mind that is filled with thoughts of the higher things of Truth, even though we do not use those thoughts. Our thoughts are all spiritual, and our Truths can be received only by a mind in a spiritual condition. And, lately, you have not had so much of this spiritual mind as formerly. Our contact has not been so close, and the rapport necessary to enable us to express these spiritual Truths through your mind has not been so perfect. And when I say “mind,” I merely mean the organs of the brain as influenced by the thoughts of the mind. For I will tell you what you may not know: that these component organs of the brain are not always and under all conditions receptive of the same control by the minds of spirits. You may receive a long and profound message of things pertaining to what you may call the material through your brain; yet, under similar conditions of these organs, you will not be able to receive messages of the higher Truths. The conditions of these brain organs are caused by the condition of the soul in possession of spiritual things.
It is difficult for me to express just what I intend to convey, but this you will understand: that the capacity of the human brain to receive various kinds of messages depends upon the soul’s development and possession of spiritual things. A medium who is merely intellectual and morally good cannot receive those messages of the higher Truths, because there can be no rapport between the brain of such a medium and the mind of the higher spirit who may desire to communicate. And, thus, you will understand why it is that the messages from the earthbound spirits, or from those who have merely the intellectual development, are so vastly and more frequently received by mediums than messages from spirits of the soul development.
A spiritual thought—I mean a thought which can come only from a spirit who has the development of the soul that makes the soul divine—cannot possibly pass through a human brain which has never been developed by a soul in which the Divine Love has entered and worked Its regenerating powers. Material thoughts may be conveyed through a brain that is purely material, moral thoughts through a brain which has been influenced by moral truths, and spiritual thoughts through a brain which has assimilated those Truths that come only with the development of the soul by the Divine Love. This is the Law of Rapport and Communication.
And this Law of Rapport and Communication, if you will try to understand it, will enable you to comprehend the reason why we have not been able to communicate these higher Truths.
It may seem to you that if we control your brain and not use or transmit your thoughts, but only the thoughts which come from our minds, it would be immaterial what the nature of our thoughts might be; and that, as your brain is used by us as a mere instrument, we, having possession of your brain, would have the power to write anything we might desire. And, upon a mere superficial glance at the assertion, this could be reasonably supposed to be true.
But, as we have told you before, rapport and our ability to use your brain are governed by laws. And one of these laws is that a high thought cannot be transmitted through a human brain which is not in the condition that qualifies it to receive the thought—just as the brain, in matters pertaining to mere material knowledge, cannot receive a conception or comprehension of some intellectual truth with which it has not had acquaintance and transmit it. A brain cannot be used by the mind of a human to make known a problem in geometry when the brain has never been used by that mind to acquire an acquaintance with, or knowledge of, the principles of geometry. This is an incomplete analogy, but it may serve to illustrate what I mean.
In the conception by the human mind of a truth, material or spiritual, the brain must be used in order to manifest or make known that conception. This is absolutely true where the idea or thought originates in the mind of the man who is using his own brain to formulate or manifest that idea or thought. The mind may have the thought or knowledge of some branch of learning; yet, when it has never used the brain to put that thought or knowledge into concrete form, the brain cannot manifest or transmit it. This law applies specifically to the capabilities of the brain where the man’s own mind attempts to use or control it. And you will see from this that it is possible for the human mind to have thought and knowledge of things which the brain cannot express—at least not immediately.
In many of your material things of life, such as with great inventions, the knowledge of these inventions is dormant in the mind. And it may be a long time before this knowledge is formulated and expressed by the brain. Sometimes, it never gets through the brain at all. The mind and the brain are not one and equivalent things. The one is the operator, and the other is the thing used to operate with so that the possessions of the operator may become manifested to others.
But this law, applying to and controlling the relationship of the mind and brain possessed by the same man, does not so absolutely apply to and control the relationship of mind and brain where the mind is that of a spirit and the brain is that of a mortal. For, in such case, the spirit mind may take such complete control of the mortal brain that the former’s manifestations are not governed or limited by the special experiences or want of experiences which the mortal brain may have had in its use by the mortal mind along specific lines of expression or manifestation. Thus, as you may know, and as it has been demonstrated by the work and experience of many human mediums, the minds of spirits have controlled the brains of these mediums so that such brains have transmitted the spirits’ expressions of various kinds of languages and mathematical truths with which such mortal brains have never had any acquaintance, or have never assimilated and expressed on their own before. But, in these instances, the brain is used merely in the sphere of intellect.
And the spirit who takes possession of a mortal brain, and uses it to express and make known the knowledge of his own spirit mind, is doing no different thing, in essentials, than what the human mind, controlling its own brain, could have done had the brain been exercised in those directions. The capacity of the brain, whether exercised or not by the human mind, limits the power of the spirit to control it in the manner and for the intellectual purposes mentioned.
But this law has a further phase, and that is: The greater the general experience of the brain in its exercise by the human mind, the more perfectly can the spirit mind control it. All this is dependent upon facts which I cannot linger here to explain, such as the mediumistic qualities and susceptibilities of the human whose brain the spirit is attempting to control.
And the same laws apply to the disclosure of truth and principles along the moral planes. A spirit cannot possibly use the brain of a mortal to convey, or transmit through it, moral precepts or truths that that brain is not capable of receiving. And I do not mean by this that the brain must have had acquaintance with any or many particular moral truths, or must have been used by the human for the purpose of receiving or imparting these precepts. But, in its essential capacity, the brain must be potentially able to transmit and receive these truths. And, so, the relative capacity of the brain to receive and transmit these moral truths necessarily limits the control of the spirit to express such truths through it.
The rapport of the spirit with the human is determined by the development of the brain and the moral qualities of the human at the time the rapport is attempted. And this means the actual development of these conditions, and not what they may appear to be to other humans, or even to the individual, himself. And, to a large extent, this development determines the power of the spirit to use the mortal brain to disclose the truths, either intellectual or moral.
A medium can receive only such truths as his inner development permits. And a spirit can form a rapport with a medium only according to the extent and nature of the truths the medium possesses. The possibility of rapport, and the kind thereof, lie at the foundation of mediumship. And these stated variables are what determine and limit both the power of the spirit to convey its thoughts and the capacity of the mortal to receive them.
The spirit who attempts to write through a medium can form a rapport when the medium’s condition harmonizes with his own. Unless this harmony exists, it is impossible for the spirit to write those things which require a greater degree of development than the medium possesses at that time. Hence, you will understand in a way why so few of the higher spiritual Truths have ever been delivered to the world through the mediumship of any mortal who has been possessed of gifts of either automatic writing, as it is called, or clairvoyance or inspirational powers.
As to those truths which did not require a higher degree of development than was possessed by the medium, there arose no difficulty in transmitting the same. And many mediums have been very successful in receiving the truth suited to their condition. And this fact, and law also, will explain to you why the same spirit may communicate through several mediums and, yet, the communications are of a dissimilar character. That is, the communications through one medium contain a higher or lower character of truth than those transmitted through some other medium, with the result that those mortals who have heard or read these different communications, especially when critical, have been prone to believe that the same spirit was not making both communications. But this is not a just conclusion. For while the spirit was in the same condition—possessing the same knowledge—at the time of both communications, yet, the mediums, because of their difference in development, were unable to receive the same character of messages.
YOU MAY SEARCH THE WHOLE HISTORY OF SPIRIT COMMUNICATION AND OF MEDIUMSHIP, AND YOU WILL NOT FIND ANY MESSAGES OF THE CHARACTER OF THOSE THAT HAVE BEEN TRANSMITTED THROUGH YOU, AND FOR THE REASONS THAT I HAVE STATED.
Swedenborg was the last and nearer perfect instrument for receiving these higher Truths. And, yet, he, because of his want of soul development and his being bound more or less by his orthodox beliefs and scientific knowledge (that caused him to coordinate and fit in these Truths with his ideas of correspondence and such like conceptions) was a failure. And he could not be used successfully to transmit these Truths which we have been communicating through you. And, after him, other gifted and, in some respects, successful mediums were used by spirits of the higher knowledge and progression to convey Truths. But their conditions were such that, under the workings of the laws governing rapport, these mediums could receive only those truths which their conditions of development permitted them to receive. The workings of this limitation were not dependent upon the condition and ability of the spirits to impart these higher Truths, but upon the capacity of the mediums to receive them.
You, yourself, have had experience as to how this law works and controls spirit communication and rapport. For, as you know, it has been a long time since you were able to receive any spirit messages of these higher Truths, although the spirits have been present with you many times, ready and anxious to make the rapport and deliver their messages. And you have been willing, intellectually, to receive them. But because of your condition, or want of condition, the spirits could not deliver them, and were compelled to wait until you got into the necessary condition.
From all this, you will comprehend why so very few messages containing high spiritual Truths, or even moral truths, come through mediums. The mediums, mostly, are so developed that they can receive only messages dealing with the material affairs of life. These kinds of messages, I am compelled to (and can truthfully) say, are those that are largely desired by mortals seeking information from the spirit world.
Again, in your reading of spiritual literature, you may have observed the great diversity of opinions of spirits upon the same subject, and sometimes contradictory opinions, thus causing doubt on the part of mortals as to what are the facts existing in the spirit world regarding the subject of inquiry. Well, this is due very largely to the conditions of the mediums, and also to the knowledge of the spirits who attempt to communicate. For the knowledge of spirits is limited by the extent of their progress and development.
Many spirits believe that what they have learned is true, and so give authoritative expression to the facts of this knowledge. And they often believe that what they know is all that may be known about the subject upon which they communicate. And these spirits are mostly honest in their beliefs, and truthful, as they think, in their messages. And, thus, it is well for mortals to understand that everything written or spoken by spirits is not to be accepted as the finality of truth at all times. On the other hand, apparently contradictory statements should not be taken as fraudulent merely because they are contradictory. A spirit with greater knowledge, using a medium in harmony with itself, can convey to men the more exact and greater extent of truth than can a spirit with less knowledge and development who uses a medium in harmony with itself.
Now, from what I have written, it is apparent that, in order to get the greater Truth and more extended knowledge of the spirit world, mediums should make the effort to obtain larger and more intensive development of their spiritual natures, as well as of their intellectual capacities. This acquirement is absolutely necessary to the reception of the higher Truths which are so vital to mankind.
So, you see, communication and rapport depend upon the condition of both spirits and mortals working in unison, though more, I may say, upon the condition of the mortal. For if the medium is in the proper state of development, there always being many spirits present with that medium in condition and readiness, a rapport can be made.
The Master is here tonight and has heard my communication and unites with me in saying: “Have faith and seek with all your soul for this Love!” Believe that I am your special angel friend.
Your brother in Christ,
JOHN.
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