Introduction to Testimony of Light

 2009 edition cover

 
 

Helen Greaves wrote in the "Biographical Introduction" of Testimony of Light (1969):

The "scripts" in this book have, I believe, been communicated to me by telepathy and inspiration from the surviving mind of Frances Banks, M.A., who left this world on November 2nd, 1965.

In the "Scripts" portion of the book, the commentary encompasses "the Change" from a physical existence on Earth to a new "plane" of existence and there "receiving more Light from the Divine Mind" (or "God Force") to "progress onward"; the "innate oneness with the Source of all Life," "Group Souls" and conditions concerning individual consciousness "units" (or "passing personalities").  One passage mentions —

There is a Band who help and guide me in the selection of incidents to be telepathed to you.  In this, Father Joseph is most helpful, as he had contacted your mind previously; your husband also helped in opening the way and was instrumental in your listening to my mind in the first instance.

There are others in the Band, and I understand that we are merely instruments in this work.  The veil between the worlds must be rent asunder (or dissolved as you suggest).  People living on earth, the erudite, the cultured and clever minds, as well as the devotional and religious minds, and the uneducated, the illiterate and the closed minds, must all be reached.  All need this knowledge to remove fear . . .

When one considers the experiences chronicled in Helen's 1967 autobiography The Dissolving Veil (the topic of the preceding blog articles: 1, 2, 3), there is the realization that 'Frances Banks' is able to communicate from the ascended realm as a 'unit' of an interacting omnipresent spiritual Oneness.

The following excerpts from "Biographical Introduction" provide background information about the life of Francis Banks.  Helen Greaves mentioned her earlier book upon reminding readers that it was completely unexpected when she became gifted in "communications 'between the worlds'" ("telepathy" and "clairaudience").

Frances Banks was an intimate friend of mine.  For the last eight years of her life we worked together psychically and spiritually.  We also explored the deep levels of meditation.

Miss Banks was an outstanding woman in many fields of endeavor.  For twenty-five years she was a Sister in the Anglican Community of the Resurrection in South Africa, and during much of that time she was Principal of the Teachers' Training College in Grahamstown.  She was the author of many books on psychology; one on the education of prisoners, Teach Them to Live (after some years of experience as Tutor-Organizer at Maidstone Jail); and her last book was Frontiers of Revelation, being an account of researches into psychic and mystical phenomena.


Frances had indicated that these "accounts" which are of an inspirational teaching nature should be made public, in the hope that a firsthand report of that next phase of living to which we are all graduating, may be of value.

Helen and Frances were cofounders of a meditation group for 'World Goodwill.'  Helen referred to Frances as "the brains and organizer in our partnership" while Helen at times supplied "the counsel of the 'Inner Voice.'"

In the beginning "The Return" portion of Part One of Testimony of Light, Helen described the last days in the life of Frances Banks when she was ill with cancer.  Helen visited her on the day before "she simply stopped breathing."   At the cremation service, Helen wrote: "I 'saw' her in her nun's habit in company with her beloved Mother Florence, a past Mother Superior of the Order."

After her death I felt cut off from all spiritual contact.  My mind was dry and arid.  For some weeks I found it most difficult to meditate, or even to withdraw into the quietness of the soul at all.

On a Sunday evening around three weeks after Frances' death, there was "a state of deep meditation in which I was conscious of being immersed in light."

I was part of the Light yet the Light issued from beyond me.  I felt a Oneness with all that was highest and best and with the eternal Self within me.  I felt the nearness of spiritual Presences.  I was swept on into a meditation in which Frances and I had participated some years before.  I even heard my mind repeating invocations from that meditation. . . .


It was some days later when I felt Frances' mind impinging on mine, as it had often done in our time together on earth.  Words dropped into my thoughts which did not come from my consciousness.  I knew that her discarnate mind and my incarnate one had linked together again in telepathic communication.


Now that she was evidently restored to consciousness and awareness after the change into her new life, her first burning desire would be to make known all that was happening; to send back at first hand.


I sat down, took my pen and began to write.  Words, thoughts, sentences tumbled out on to the paper.  It was almost as though I took dictation.  Yet this was not automatic writing.  I was perfectly in control.  I could feel that her mind was using mine.

This passage reminded me of some of the comments of Jane Roberts concerning her state of consciousness interacting with the entity known as 'Seth' (1, 2) and also of the circumstances of contemporary channeler Ryuho Okawa (1, 2, 3, 4) who remains conscious during channeling sessions.  Considering whether or not "The Scripts" constitute 'automatic writing' is a matter of semantics.

Helen commented further —

Later, as I became more used to this method, I was even able to ask a question and receive an immediate answer.  I wrote for an hour.  My pen scarcely lifted from the page.  When I read through what I had written, my astonishment grew.  This happened for several days and I became more astounded at the subjects upon which I had written.  I could not, without effort and without definitely searching my limited imagination, have invented such stories as poured through me.

Time after time my pen wrote.  There was hardly a correction made in all the hundreds of words written, though I was never aware of what I was going to write.  Yet my life went on normally enough.  I still saw my friends, enjoyed watching television, read, shopped, drove about the countryside and was not aware of any personal communications from Frances between sessions. It was exactly as though I was simply registering and translating her thoughts at certain times.


I must admit I cringed as I envisaged the publicity to come, for I knew that she intended publication.  Often I wondered how I would face the criticism and possible ridicule such a book would arouse . . .

But Frances' strong will persisted; it was, as ever, the Will-to-Good.


She [during Earth life] trusted implicitly in the survival of mind and personality beyond death and she was reverently aware of the spirit within which urged her on—the Christ-in-You of Christianity.


Her belief was that, through meditation, through retiring into the deep center of oneself and finding the place of the silence of the soul, communion could be established with advanced souls; higher beings, great ones whom we call Saints.  This is the true communion of Saints; a Oneness with the Divine Company of Heaven, resulting in a new intuitive perception of unity and inspiration for radiant living.

This, she felt, was the message for the New Age into which we are now emerging, a greater extension of man's consciousness, so that even during the limitation of earthly life, he can enter the beauty of the spiritual worlds and receive inspiration therefrom.


In the testimony which follows, Frances continues her mission.

Here is an example passage of "The Scripts" — the chapter constituting the major portion of Testimony of Light.

11th March [1966]

You must not think that the Community in which I now sojourn is the same religious community of which I became a member when on earth.  Many of the Sisters are here as of old; there are others also from similar communities.  Many have passed on to greater activities; others are as new and recent as my own arrival.   The term "recent" I am using in a purely metaphorical way for already my experience of earth and time is fading.  I seem to have been here for aeons.  Already the sharp edge to emotions which made certain events stand forth clearly in one's memory, is dissolving in the expiation of the effects of my actions.  I begin to correlate life as a whole now so that different periods dovetail into the Pattern and the Pattern becomes related to the Whole.  This community differs from the earth Community in that we have no creeds, no restrictions, no vows (except that of self-dedication of service to our fellows) and no ranks of seniority.  We are one in service.  We are individual in thought and progress.  Ceremony we still perform, in a fuller and wider sense, for there is ever a need for the upliftment of the soul by dedicated and meaningful action correlated with intense thought and aspiration.

Yet these "ceremonials" are not of the pattern prescribed on earth.  Here our ceremonies spring from an innate oneness with the Source of all Life, an eagerness to participate, a welling upward of the Life Force in us so as to initiate a mingling with one another as well as with the greater Forces.  Here, and in other places, I have taken part in what we call the Ceremony of Light.  This formation of thought, this deep concerted concentration, springs from the deep desire to experience Life and yet more Life, to unite with the Supreme Essence, to realize as far as one's present consciousness will allow that Life is expansion, that Light is but the widening of one's inner perceptions.  Such ceremonies and festivals seems to be for the purpose of breaking down barriers which obstruct those lingering inhibitions of the personality which circumscribe the soul and which have to be consciously dissolved and discarded before Light can truly flow in.  In these Festivals of Light there is a "rising up into" Power and Energy rather than a "pouring down."

As one takes one's place amongst the Community of Souls making this observance of ceremony, one is conscious of a supreme quickening of tempo, a heightening of the action of the dynamo of the Spirit.   There is a distinct feeling of growth; the body seems to expand, to become less gross, to stretch into a new elasticity and ethereal content.  The mind soars to a hitherto unexplored vastness of creative activity.  The Spirit fills all with a dynamic lift of consciousness. New and vast concepts stream into the mind.  The onward Path is illumined with a clarity that surpasses all imagination.

"This is Truth," one whispers, awed yet exhilarated. "This is Light."

These festivals are accompanied, as always in ceremony, with music on a grander scale than anything that is performed on earth.  Yet have I never "seen" instruments such as were necessary for the production of such harmonies on earth.  The notes form and are trilled as though by some unseen performers.  There is no dissonance, but a growing ascendancy of some majestic theme; there is a swelling of harmony until a particular chord or note is reached and held.  That note seems to be the key, the aim, the object of the ceremony.  All movements, all voices raised in unison, all sounds from the Spheres unite in experiment until the ascension of the right note, rather in the manner of a bird chorus at dawn, lifting gently into a grand finale with every bird throat pouring forth its contribution of sound.

Here, the Note, when at last reached and sounded in full, is held and vibrated at a pitch of intensity which sweeps every soul into harmony.  Then Light breaks through into the assembly.  Light surrounds us, lifts us, touches us, awakens us.  One finds oneself expressing, or trying to express, the Note with all of one's mind and all feeling and intensity of which one is capable.  One is singing, and yet not singing, with one voice, as in earthly choirs.  One is singing with the whole organism.

Thought, production, feeling, expression, aspiration and exaltation become united in one vast effort to capture and hold in consciousness that Note, to live in and become the vibration of that Ray of Light expressed through the sounding Note.

It is the ascendancy of the Light.

It is union with the vast Worlds of Spirit.

It is the impregnation of matter with Spiritual Force.

It is the Light Universal, the Light of which Christ spoke when He said: "I am the Light of the World."

It is the Light of all the Worlds . . . of this world, of the physical world as well as of all higher, vaster Worlds. . . .

It is the Light that penetrates and becomes Essence in us.

It is Sound, Harmony and Light in One.

This is the Ceremony of Light!


When I was in the Community on earth, I loved the Ceremony of the Eucharist.  Yet now I realize how pale are the festivals and ceremonies performed with the separated consciousness of the human mind.  Yet these ceremonies are of value for they engender uplifting aspirations.  The value, as I now see it, in ceremony is in the participant's intensity of application; the intent with which the ritual is performed and followed.

On earth I had little ear for music.  I believe that I explained in my book Frontiers of Revelation that all my impressions of other "states" were visual.  I rarely "heard."  More often I saw or was aware of vibration about the physical bodies of my companions.  Here I am learning to achieve both the Eye and the Ear of Light . . . to see the Light as well as to hear the vibrations of the different frequencies of Light.