Helen Greaves: Reflections about 'Spiritual Inter-Communication'

 

Helen Greaves wrote in The Dissolving Veil (1967) about "the discovery of this faculty of hearing a Voice within me which is not my voice."  She described instances when she misinterpreted the precise meaning of a transcendental message; for example, that a friend's son would change his impetuous behavior at the age of forty.  Instead, the result was that "almost on the eve of his fortieth birthday, the young man died suddenly and unexpectedly of a cerebral haemorrhage."

This manner of overlooking the possibility of an individual's physical demise when interpreting a message became a pattern noticed by Helen, who acknowledged: ". . . how wary we must be about our interpretations.  For when we enter these realms of the spirit, we find ourselves in a new set of values; we cannot measure spiritual progress by the yardstick of material values."

Helen attempted to articulate what she had learned about transcendental messages and interpreting them, commenting about the Voice within her, "neither is it an imaginary conversation with myself, but is an outside intelligence broadcasting to me as a receiver (and moreover, broadcasting information which is foreign to me) . . . For I have discovered that the 'experience' and the 'interpretation' are enacted by two distinct parts of myself."

She explained:

The part of me which hears, which experiences, which is able to make that 'switch in consciousness' so that I am, as it were, describing from the inside, is an entirely separate part of me from that which latter attempts to analyse, translate or establish what I have experienced!

When my reasoning mind steps in to translate, then limitation arises.  I appear to be floundering around in a strange and difficult medium.  A shutter has been drawn in myself, and I find that I am as it were, describing from the outside.


When I am relaying that which I hear from 'other' sources, I am part of it, living the message, understanding the character of the entity who is broadcasting to me, feeling his intensity; but when this sharing is over, and I try to think back to the meaning of the message, I find myself in a quandary.  Often I cannot relate promises and prophecies to the world of  human relations at all; and never, by reasoning, can I get any light on the subject of the communication.  Indeed, I regret to say that attempts at interpretation in this cold clinical climate are more often than not, completely wide of the mark.  That is where, I venture to suggest, the difficulty of scientific study of these faculties of the mind lies.


It is, I believe, this difficulty of translation which in many cases has brought criticism, even ridicule, upon the phenomena of clairvoyance, clairaudience, pre-cognition, and the whole range of these puzzling manifestations . . .


Today, however, scientific minds are intrigued with the sensory equipment of the ordinary human being.


. . . scholars are now cautiously acknowledging the infinite sweep and stretch of the mind.


We are beginning to be intrigued by the worlds around us which we cannot see or touch with our limited physical senses; the worlds, not only of those who are so-called dead, but the worlds of the Spirit, the angelic worlds, the Realms of great Beings who work the Will of the Supreme Creator.

Helen attested in another chapter —

During the years, I have stored up many stories of spiritual help, factual stories, some stranger than fiction, some tender, some sad, some terrible, but all with a meaning and purpose.  For the stories that I can relate here, I have of course, changed names and some of the details, so as not to distress or embarrass those concerned.

Once when Helen was listening to a university lecturer, she had the impression that "his own private emotions protruded into his talk . . . He had an unsolved problem."  She described her psychic perceptions concerning him —

The faculty of 'switching off' mental concentration from the speaker on the outer planes to the Speaker within is something that has developed in me during the years.  Sometimes the 'inner voice' becomes insistent, and I completely lose the thread of the discourse to which I am listening; sometimes the switch over from outer to inner discernment is made with intent by my conscious mind.

This time it was an intentional switch.  I was interested and arrested by this anomaly in the speaker's character.

Emotionally upset, ran my thoughts, obviously on the edge of a breakdown.  Pushing himself.  Now I began to concentrate on him.  He was the usual scholar type, the true academic, his speech flowing smoothly from the rich reserves of his mind . . . and yet the haunted look in his eyes was unmistakable.  Emotionally he was unstable.

Nothing one can do, I decided, not wishing to intrude on his affairs.  Maybe things aren't right in his home. . . .

"But there is something . . . there is!" suggested the voice within me, "We can help him—if you would get in touch. . . ."

We?

The certainty was flashed immediately into my mind.

His mother.

"I'm so proud of my boy," I seemed to hear.  "So proud, and I understand.  Help me to help him. . . ."

After the lecture, Helen spoke a few casual words to the lecturer and in the following weeks felt uneasy about not having done more to help him.  Some time later, when she attended another conference he sat opposite her at lunch.  Helen used the opportunity so that another consciousness "got through" — "Now the old lady seemed to have taken charge and was putting the words into my mouth."  The encounter resulted with the man being able "to grasp at once the import of the whole situation which had eluded him whilst self-pity and resentment had clouded his judgment."

Some of Helen's reflections about life encompassed her experiences as a psychic medium, such as this passage —

Every gift with which we have been blessed, whether it is of making music, writing poems or plays or books, teaching children, designing or making dresses, creating happy homes, or of responding to the 'calls' of those in the next world of existence, either for help for themselves, or for others . . . all our talents are given us to glorify the Work of the Divine Creator.  Somebody once said that life has only been worthwhile when we have put into it more than we have taken out.  Perhaps that is what we judge in our experiences when we look back from the Spirit World.  Often in my contacts with discarnate spirits, I have found that it is the regret for what they did not do—the sins of omission—which is more potent in them.

The three appendices of the book provide data corroborating an incident referred to by Helen as 'The Case of the Girl in the Blue Dress.'  A person to whom Helen passed on psychic 'messages' was 'Grannie Bent' and one afternoon while they were together Helen became aware of "the mind of a young airman who had left this plane of existence."

. . . he gave his name as 'John,' and described how he had crashed when on a training flight.


Later, he came again, and this time he kept repeating that he wanted to find his young wife, and gave the name, (as I recall) of Moya.


"John wants to prove that he really is Moya's husband," I told Grannie Bent . . .


"He wants you to remind her of the blue dress that she wore at the wedding."


"He says 'She will remember the mark on the blue dress!  Moya made the dress especially for the wedding we were going to, and when it was ready, I put on the kettle to make a cup of tea for her.  And coming into the room, I bumped the dirty kettle against her pretty blue dress. And I made a black stain on it!'"

Grannie Bent wrote a letter to John's mother, who confirmed that everything John said was correct.  Many years later and prior to publication of the book, Helen was asked for possible corroboration of the blue dress anecdote.  At the time, Helen thought it remarkable that she had herself recently received a letter from the woman named Moya.  A meeting was arranged and they discussed the sequence of events yet Helen was startled when Moya mentioned that she had no memory of a stain on the blue dress.  Later, Moya telephoned Helen again upon receiving from her first mother-in-law a letter Moya herself had written in 1940 that mentioned the stain on the dress and how it got there.  Helen realized with amazement: "John's voice had told me that fact about the kettle . . . when the girl herself had completely forgotten the incident, and even denied that it had occurred . . ."  The complexity of the sequence of events compelled Helen to consider the case to offer an answer to the question "Does love persist after death?" — "Can we doubt it when such experiences as these have come from the future world, unsought?"
 
An anecdote about "a young man who had taken his life in tragic circumstances" is among the recalled experiences that have convinced Helen of "the effectiveness of prayer from people on earth" and this insight would be further illuminated in her books published in later years.  She wrote: "I firmly believe that prayers for the dead are helpful, and often potent in their results . . . and service . . . is often used by advanced souls for the re-habilitation, so to speak, for those who are trying to make amends for past errors."
 

I had been invited to this afternoon tea to honour a visitor from London, and there were about seven women present.  We had the usual conversation about absent friends, about present events in which we were all interested, and the usual gossipy bits of news with which women usually regale themselves when they get together.
 
There had been no talk of things 'psychic,' or supernatural.  Indeed, I try to avoid such references to these subjects as much as possible in my everyday affairs.
 

Whilst we were all laughing and talking, I felt the presence of some depressed and unhappy soul in our midst.  For a time, I pushed the impression away from me.  But it persisted.  Here was a 'lost soul' asking for help.
 
Then, 'out of the blue,' I heard myself asking one of the company if she knew a young man who had committed suicide.  She admitted she did; he was a relation of her husband.  I cannot exactly remember the number of the years she mentioned since the sad event of the man's self-imposed death.  But I do recall that the 'entity' immediately challenged her on the number.  (Afterwards the young lady told me that her husband agreed that the second statement was correct!)

This young man then gave the circumstances of his death and the events that had led up to them.  He went on to say that he had been 'earth-bound' during these years; that he couldn't get away from his old home; that existence was dark and dreary where he was, and that he wanted to find his Way.  Could they help him?
 
This young woman verified the fact that the home where his aged mother and father still lived was a dismal and unhappy place, and she agreed that as far as she knew, the circumstances of his death were all correctly described.
 
Again he pleaded to be helped to find his Way, and the assembled party offered to do what they could to assist him.  The episode then closed; it had cast a slight gloom over us all; but soon the vibrations lightened and we went on to other matters.
 
The next morning, as I was eating my breakfast, I became 'aware' of this same entity.  He said that he wanted to express his great thanks for what had been done for him.  He was no longer 'lost.'  He said he had found his Way; that he had been lifted out of his darkness for ever, and could now progress.  He had left his old earthly home for ever.  Would I tell the kind ladies who had 'helped' him to do this?
 
After I agreed to relay his message, the communications closed down.
 
But the explanation is arresting!
 
That evening, after I had left, three of the women and another neighbour discussed the plight of this poor 'spirit.'  They are good people who believe in the potency of prayer.  For some while they sat in silence praying for this 'earth-bound spirit.'  They asked that God would send His angels and help this pour soul caught, as it were, between heaven and earth.  They spoke his name, and prayed earnestly for him.  I was not present, and I had not known of their intentions.
 
Yet the 'spirit' was able to communicate with me, and to tell me of the marvellous results of those prayers; and that by their intercession he had been released from his bondage!

Helen wrote in the concluding chapter of the book: "For too long this subject of the survival of the so-called dead has been mixed with sensationalism" including superstitious orientations arising from "dramatic play-acting, phony trances, and the like."  Helen observed about "the naturalness of true spiritual communication": "It is true that some personalities possess more developed senses of hearing, or seeing or awareness than the majority.  But this faculty is in us all, though in some it is nearer to the surface consciousness."  She also advised: "This contact with the astral world is only the beginning of the spiritual quest, and should never be regarded as the end, as has often happened."

It seems that many readers overlook that books chronicling transcendental communication such as The Dissolving Veil can be of profound importance in relation to an individual expanding one's spiritual awareness.  The phenomenon of the clairaudient voice isn't restricted to any particular religious tradition.  Along with describing the experiences of diverse psychics and mediums, previous blog articles have considered voice hearing in the lives of such famous people as Socrates, Muhammad, Joan of Arc and Martin Luther King.

 

The original publisher of The Dissolving Veil was the Churches' Fellowship for Psychical & Spiritual Studies.