British riots

We have been watching these with interest. They seem to have multiple causes some of which have to do with poverty and neglect. lack of aspiration and hope amongst young people.

What are your views on what can be done to help?

My reading of spiritual healing material indicates that we can offer to be instruments and mediums of light and social healing.

Warm regards.

Quiet

I could do no better than to paraphrase Silver Birch: When you divide what you have between the people that you have, you will have a just society.

From that I took it he meant all resources, not merely material wealth.



We have a very long way to go to even get sight of such a society.

Yes, thank you both. I am so glad to hear this.

Quiet wrote:Yes, thank you both. I am so glad to hear this.

I was fortunate enough to sit with Silver Birch.

Here is what Silver Birch repeatedly said at many different sittings:

We will always ensure that your material necessities will be forthcoming. We cannot promise you so called luxuries of earth-life; many of them are far from luxurious in the effect that they have. What we can promise is that, as you serve, so will you be served.

If money is lacking, it will be found. No worthwhile cause is ever lost because the means have not been there. Is that not true? Have you not found the money is available when required? No servant of the spirit will lack the necessities of physical living. We will provide them. They will not go hungry. They will not starve. They will come through.

You cannot want, you cannot go hungry or thirsty once you have adjusted yourself to the laws of eternal supply. You will not receive more than is necessary, but you will receive according to your growth, no more, no less, no higher, no lower. It cannot be any other way.

There is a law which takes care of such matters, that those who serve will never want; their essential needs are always supplied. It is for them to exhibit, as best they can in their lives, the result of what they have experienced. They learn, by doing so, to strengthen the links that bind them to the Great Spirit. The more you strengthen the link, the deeper becomes the channel through which help and power can come to you.

If you have perfect faith and live your lives right, then you are able to participate in the bounty of the Great Spirit. If every person in your world had perfect faith, then he would receive. If a person were hungry and yet had perfect faith, then he would receive the answer.

That is how the Law operates. If you learn to attune yourself to the Law, the results must come. If the results do not come, that only proves that you are not in tune with the Law. We will always give more than we receive from you. That is our duty, to support, to sustain and to ensure that all your fundamental, essential needs will be supplied. The rest is up to you.

We are aware of all your difficulties, your problems and your desires. We know that you live in a material world. We have access to the sources of supply to ensure that those who serve will never go hungry or thirsty. All that is necessary will be provided.

You have the divine potential, the divine armoury on which you can call. If that is not sufficient, call on us. We will not fail you.

I have found this to be so over many years. Silver Birch speaks in truth.

Quiet wrote:We have been watching these with interest. They seem to have multiple causes some of which have to do with poverty and neglect. lack of aspiration and hope amongst young people.

What are your views on what can be done to help?

My reading of spiritual healing material indicates that we can offer to be instruments and mediums of light and social healing.

Warm regards.

Quiet

What we witnessed on our streets was nothing less than downright thuggery and criminality.

People's homes burnt down, businesses destroyed and looting on an unimaginable scale.

Three young lives lost through being deliberately run over by a car.

A pensioner attacked and killed trying to put out a fire near his flat.

Fortunately the perpetrators were caught and are awaiting trial.

While we are lauding 'truth', let's be accurate on the terminology - these riots are in England but not in Wales or Scotland, which have a different political system and so must be termed 'English Riots'

hiorta wrote:While we are lauding 'truth', let's be accurate on the terminology - these riots are in England but not in Wales or Scotland, which have a different political system and so must be termed 'English Riots'

I never suggested otherwise Hiorta.

I have not read much of Silver Birch but these words bring great reassurance. Thank you. I am currently reading 'The Edge of the Etheric' by Arthur Findlay but last night took out 'This is Spiritualism' by Maurice Barbanell, Silver Birch's medium.

I'm not English and was not present during the riots so can only go by what I read. Some of the behaviour was very bad indeed but seems to have happened in the vacuum of lack of real hope for many. I read of the experiences of an Australian teacher who taught in the schools of Tottenham way back when, and she described systemic neglect of children and their families who live in comparative poverty.

From what we have read here, there does seem to be some sort of moral crisis in the British Government and it has existed for many years. I don't wish to lay blame on either political party but there does seem to be something terribly wrong. I wonder whether it is not the consequence of the kind of economy we have and seem to want - that which depends on consumerism as the main goal in life. It is damaging our spirits and our planet. It is a world problem, not just an English one.

Quiet wrote:I have not read much of Silver Birch but these words bring great reassurance. Thank you. I am currently reading 'The Edge of the Etheric' by Arthur Findlay but last night took out 'This is Spiritualism' by Maurice Barbanell, Silver Birch's medium.

I'm not English and was not present during the riots so can only go by what I read. Some of the behaviour was very bad indeed but seems to have happened in the vacuum of lack of real hope for many. I read of the experiences of an Australian teacher who taught in the schools of Tottenham way back when, and she described systemic neglect of children and their families who live in comparative poverty.

From what we have read here, there does seem to be some sort of moral crisis in the British Government and it has existed for many years. I don't wish to lay blame on either political party but there does seem to be something terribly wrong. I wonder whether it is not the consequence of the kind of economy we have and seem to want - that which depends on consumerism as the main goal in life. It is damaging our spirits and our planet. It is a world problem, not just an English one.

'On The Edge of the Etheric' and 'This is Spiritualism' were the first two books on Spiritualism I read over fifty years ago, Quiet.

Nobody lives in poverty here anymore thanks to the Welfare State.

Real poverty exists in Africa as the recent famine has demonstrated.

When the looting took place it was the designer and status goods that were stolen.

Well, I am a child in terms of spiritualist experience then . It has only been three years for me. I took a Silver Birch book with me on the train to work yesterday and found it fascinating. He is more direct than Ramadahn whom I love also.

Every culture has its own version of poverty, I think. There are many in Western urban cultures who experience poverty as serious and desperate in its own way as Third World poverty. One would expect modern urban cultures to offer better spiritual aspirations than they do but they are dominated by the free market and consumerism. For many there are no spiritual aspirations other than materialism. There is little opportunity for good education and useful work so children set forth into adult life in a meaningless vacuum. We see that here as well.

I think the cause of the British riots were probably many but some of them were almost certainly to do with the above. I think we have to reinvent communities and circles of support for families and young people.

Quiet wrote:Well, I am a child in terms of spiritualist experience then . It has only been three years for me. I took a Silver Birch book with me on the train to work yesterday and found it fascinating. He is more direct than Ramadahn whom I love also.

Every culture has its own version of poverty, I think. There are many in Western urban cultures who experience poverty as serious and desperate in its own way as Third World poverty. One would expect modern urban cultures to offer better spiritual aspirations than they do but they are dominated by the free market and consumerism. For many there are no spiritual aspirations other than materialism. There is little opportunity for good education and useful work so children set forth into adult life in a meaningless vacuum. We see that here as well.

I think the cause of the British riots were probably many but some of them were almost certainly to do with the above. I think we have to reinvent communities and circles of support for families and young people.

Ursula Roberts (the medium for Ramadahn) I knew very well. I have also spoken to her a number of times since her passing.

The opportunities are here for all but not everyone seeks to take advantage of them. It is much easier to steal from others.

In general, regarding spiritual aspirations, I agree with you.

However, nothing excuses the mindless violence and looting we recently witnessed.

Hi Quiet,

Welcome someone else who is based in Aus, well the British Riots are a very complex issue indeed. I notice that the daughters of two multi millionaires have been arrested. One because her parents saw her looting a shop and another because she was caught driving a stolen car full of booty with her accomplices.

On my Facebook site I put a link to two newspaper articles in which I found a kernel of truth;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8630533/Riots-the-underclass-lashes-out.html
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100100708/the-moral-decay-of-our-society-is-as-bad-at-the-top-as-the-bottom/

I deliberately chose reports from the Telgraph as it is a staunch Conservative right wing paper although my preference, hardly surprisingly is the Guardian.

I would also draw your attention to the folllowing which is gaining attention. It regards the massive imbalance in financial equality which has occured in the last 20 years through Government policies and the damaging effect it has on the life of all but the rich. We are, it seems, nearly back to the inequality levels of the Great Depression.

http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resource/the-spirit-level

Spiritualism is in truth an equal Religion and we should think hard about these issues.

Jim

Successive Governments have pursued policies of class exclusion for some time. They try to label them with some economic or political tag - 'terrorism' was the classic example - but this is about the discriminatory exploitation of resources.

The current expensive set-up of Monarchy, supported by a decadent Aristocracy and a fawning Religion, has long since ceased to serve the people and their modern set up. Change has been suppressed in favour of 'tradition'.

The State has lost its way Spiritually, financially and democratically and now tries to deny the young the ripening fruits of their ancestors efforts. As was famously said, 'the family silver has been pawned'.



Scotland and Wales are leaving this corrupt set-up, joining the many subserviant countries of the erstwhile Commonwealth in taking control of their own destinies. We have had enough of imposed foreign values, constant war in which our young folk are brutalised, to maintain our oppressors, having meekly stood aside while the self-styled betters have destroyed our industrial base, weakened our Health Service, sold off our valuables, diminished our basic education, blinded the vision of the young by manipulation - a job filling shelves is touted as 'good'. Enough is enough.

How can folk grow spiritually when they are denied the very basics of the artificial civilisation that is now in place. Materialism reigns.



The young are bombarded by must-have trappings that they cannot afford, which results in material thinking, which can lead to crimes like theft, robbery from the elderly, house-breaking. The usual political remedy is to address the effects by more oppression rather than deal with the causes, with the hang 'em, flog 'em compliant press baying their support.



When the ingrained, corrupt favouritism is eventually tackled - although seeing the 'great and the good' slither into their walled and guarded enclaves does not suggest this will be anytime soon - the deeper eternal values will surface once more.

Sadly, it will probably take a French solution to make it so.

Sadly, it will probably take a French solution to make it so..
hiorta

If you believe the French have the solution then you are living in 'cloud cuckoo land'.

Every act of theft is a personal choice. Sometimes it is justifiable. None of the thefts or violence in the situation under discussion was IMHO.

Hello Jim and Petal ................ yes, I am Australian (Melbourne) and yes again, we are very fortunate here but I have known hard times and many are not excluded from hard times. Fortunately we do have a universal health insurance system and quite a good welfare safety net, too. The spiritual malaise affecting western cultures generally shows itself here as well. I work in an area which has one of the highest rates of youth disengagement in Melbourne. There is poverty and inter-generational unemployment.

Hello, Zerdini ......how fortunate you are to have known those wonderful people in the history of mediumship. I love the Ramadahn lectures and have other works by Ursula Roberts. I think that in her own way Mrs Roberts was a social activist as well.

Hello, hiorta. I think my political views are perhaps similar to yours in some ways.

My ancestry, incidentally, lies in Yorkshire, Argyll shire (Scotland) and Cork (Ireland) but my family have been out here since the 1830's (father's side) and 1870's (mother's side).

Through someone's mediumship I received messages from my great grandmother who came from Wetherby. We knew nothing about her before the messages came through and since then, I have discovered a whole new history for our family, including new cousins. It has been quite amazing and I feel much love from my family in spirit.

I deliberately chose reports from the Telgraph as it is a staunch Conservative right wing paper although my preference, hardly surprisingly is the Guardian.

Spiritualism is in truth an equal Religion and we should think hard about these issues.

The editorials and leading articles in all newspapers usually reflect the views of the Editor and his/her team not the views of the general population.

I am surprised you favour the Guardian, Jim, as it is bitterly opposed to Spiritualism and psychics generally, especially by Charlie Brooker (one of its columnists) and those of his ilk.

Ask Robert McLuhan, a London freelance journalist, of the Paranormalia blog.

Spiritualism is more than a religion - it is a science, a philosophy and a way of life.

Silver Birch talking to Spiritualists said:

I am not bothered with these labels. … What you call yourself does not matter. We are concerned with the way you live your life.

You are all privileged to be ambassadors of the Great Spirit. You are representatives of the Great Spirit wherever you labour. It becomes your charge and responsibility to see that your gifts are used in such a fashion that they produce the maximum good wherever you can.

There will be brought to you those whom you can help. They will often be pitiful derelicts, sick, ill, worried, cheerless, full of problems, feeling that life on earth has nothing more to offer them. It becomes your privilege to help them to become aware of themselves, of their true nature, of their inner spirit, the gift of divinity conferred at birth, so that they begin to get a realization of how they should order their lives and derive from them the fullness, richness, beauty, splendour and radiance that should be theirs.

That is your function, to make the power of the spirit available to all who come to you. It is the reason why you have buildings, churches, temples and societies, so that you are accessible. And accessibility is the reason for the existence of all your organizations.

I want you to appreciate that so far as we are concerned, if you help one soul to find itself, to become aware of its latent divinity and to begin to express it, then the whole of your earth life is well worth while. But you will be able to help more than one. You will be able, as a result, to perform this unique service that no others in your world can possibly give because they have made themselves inaccessible to the power of the spirit which is the life-giving essence for the whole cosmos in which we all dwell.

Do not worry if any come to you and after you have done your best you are unable to help them. They have had their chance. You must be sorry because they have not taken it. What you must realize is that until their soul is touched, until they are spiritually ready, there is nothing you can do to help them. What will produce this preparation is not always easy to understand.

It may be an illness. It may be a crisis. It may be anything which brings them to the lowest depths of despair, when they feel there is nothing in the whole of the material world that can produce the answer. Then they should begin to come into their own and you should be able to kindle the divine spark so that it can begin to grow into a lambent flame. That is why you exist in your churches, societies and organizations.

I must also say this. Because of what you are, because this tremendous power, divine in origin flows through you, yours is the greater responsibility to see that you do nothing that in any way lessens the trust that is reposed in you. We are not dictators. We are not your masters. We do not regard you as marionettes who have to dance when the strings are pulled in our world. You are our co-operators. We want to work together. We will always provide whatever is spiritually necessary according to the conditions available at the time.

We will lead. We will guide. We will direct. We will help, but we will not order. We will not compel and we will not dictate. If you hear, supposedly emanating from our life, entities who command you to do this, that and the other, you can be sure that their spiritual status is not very evolved. Co-operation is the law of the spirit. We would win you with love, with common sense and with reason. We would offer you nothing that is an insult to your intelligence or would make your reason revolt. Together we can help the Great Spirit in the eternal processes of evolution and creation.

This is the task on which we are all engaged. This is the opportunity given to all of us to help the Great Spirit so that His children may live a richer, fuller life and not waste all the opportunities earth provides in obtaining the equipment that is necessary when people come to our side of being.

You must expect troubles, difficulties, problems, pitfalls and differences of opinion because you are very human. But if you have compassion, if you are prepared to co-operate, to be democratic, to sink self and let the good of the many prevail, then you will come through. And we will always help you. The trouble is that there are too many people … who are more concerned with themselves than with others. These are the stumbling blocks in the promulgation of any truth. If you will co-operate with us, and forgive my saying this because I mean it most kindly, not demand, but be prepared to receive, you will find that in this atmosphere we can accomplish much together. It is always desirable to have unity in diversity, but not to try to achieve uniformity. You can unite on the fundamentals on which you all agree. There must always be differences of opinion because all the individuals within the ranks of what you might loosely call the Spiritualist movement are at different stages of spiritual and mental growth and evolution. They cannot think alike. …
The great necessity is for toleration. Brotherhood does not mean that you will all agree. It means that you recognize brotherhood in spite of your diversities. That is the only way I can put it. You must try to achieve the ideal. You may not succeed in doing so 100 per cent.

Go on trying to enlist others, because co-operation is part of the law governing the universe. You should always strive to achieve it among yourselves. After all, basically you are agreed on the prime facts. There are differences of interpretation. Respect one another’s viewpoints and combine on what you can agree. This is not easy. But I always say that generals must not expect to be given easy battles to fight.

I want you who are engaged in this task to know always that the power behind you desires to serve you as you serve others.
How I wish that the blinkers were removed from your eyes, so that you could see. How I wish that you could know as I know.
None escapes the Law; particularly, all who have heard the voice of the spirit. If they fail, it is worse for them than for those who have not heard.

When your eyes are opened and your hearts have received the love that comes with the power of the spirit, when your minds have had the revelations of spirit truths, if after that, you fail in service, the greater is the punishment that comes to you, for you have done it with knowledge and not in ignorance. There are many mediums who could be instruments who have sold their gifts for thirty pieces of silver.

obiwan wrote:Every act of theft is a personal choice. Sometimes it is justifiable. None of the thefts or violence in the situation under discussion was IMHO.

I am in complete agreement with you obiwan.

None of the looting, violence and murder can be justified under any circumstances.

Zerdini, I was reading those words from Silver Birch yesterday whilst on the train to work.

We do live in a secular world and we work, have friendships with people who are strangers to beliefs inherent in Spiritualism. I think the best we can often do is to be kind and authentic in our own lives and wait for opportunities where we can talk more directly with others. Sometimes just a smile and kindness can bring light into the lives of others. Once more I am at the stage of asking what service I can do and the quiet voice has suggested silence and absent healing for the moment. I think that I also have to acquire more knowledge.

I also like the Guardian newspaper. It is a non-Murdoch paper and one of the more intelligent newspapers around. It shouldn't matter if it is sometimes a little sceptical of spiritualism (which I have not actually seen yet). Acceptance of spiritualist science might be too much to expect!

Many of is other stories are sensitive, intelligent and well-researched and they are qualities to be valued in a world dominated by media that is generally sensationalist and sometimes quite dishonest. We might have to carry the messages in other ways than through the Guardian.

Quiet,

I am not interested in any particular newspaper as they all have an axe to grind.

As a Spiritualist I am interested when a newspaper seeks to sneer at Spiritualism and is openly hostile to the subject.

I agree with your final sentence.

Thank you for your thoughtful replies.

Z