The Wheel of Eternity: The Purpose Fulfilled

 
Outside her cottage one evening, psychic Helen Greaves was watering her garden when the bells of the nearby church began to ring.  This became a remarkable event when she suddenly became aware of the "earthbound woman" who had recently been manifesting.  Helen reported having 'heard' her words: "Them bells are lovely!  Haven't heard them for years."

Helen wondered: "Does that mean that at last she is awakening?"  Helen was cooperating with the 'Brother of Light' in an "operation of release" for the old woman named 'Nan' while on separate occasions the goal was to help the 'Mistress' for whom Nan had once worked as a servant caring for the lady's mentally disabled son ('the Boy') and trying to "make up to 'im for his mother."  From Helen's perspective, during these times the Mistress was brought by thought to the cottage from the 'Shadow Lands' of what Helen called the 'Astral World.'  The Mistress had lived a loveless life despite all the advantages she had been given when living on the Earth plane, while in the ascended realm the Boy was 'an advanced soul.'  
 
This article presents excerpts from Chapter Six through Chapter Nine of psychic Helen Greaves's autobiographical book The Wheel of Eternity (1974).  Earlier chapters are profiled in two preceding blog articles (1, 2).

Continuing to maintain a journal presenting her perceptions concerning the gamut of psychic phenomena that commenced soon after she moved into a 16th Century cottage of a village in Sussex, England, Helen wrote about what happened on August 16, 1972, the day when Nan expressed her awareness of hearing the bells —

But it was not until later, when I was relaxing in the cottage, that I again became cognisant of the old woman.  She seemed to be definitely tapping at my mind, so after a while I found myself laying aside the daily paper, and reaching for pen and note-book.

Thoughts were exchanged about the old woman's circumstances.  "Her state of imprisonment in her own thought world had to be made clear to her somehow."  Helen spoke inwardly to communicate with her: "No doctors in this village? . . . But where do you buy all your food? . . . Perhaps your neighbors are all dead? . . .You see . . . I live here, too, and I can see the neighbours and the shops . . . and find a doctor."

Presently, questions seeped out from her.  "Why don't I?  Tell me that.  Why don't I see them?"

"Maybe because you are not living like once you did."

The result is that the old woman decided about Helen: "You must be a ghost."

"No, my dear," I kept my thought as gentle as possible.  "It could be . . . the other way round."

The interlude was over as contact with the old woman was then lost.

On August 18, 1972, Helen gathered pen and notebook when she began discerning the Boy's thoughts.

"Progress has been made," came the Boy's communication.  "We are joyful.  The dear soul has for so long closed herself into a thought world of her own which has no reality and no substance."


"She has no conception of survival after death, nor of a world of thought, though paradoxically she has created such a 'world'; a cosy illusion of escaping from all bonds of service . . ."


"Now, at last, she is beginning to doubt that 'world.'  This is healthy and it must be so."


"And yet we wait in Love and Light to meet her."


"As yet, she cannot see me, nor can she visualise the beloved Brother who pours the Light of Spirit over her.  She can and will only concentrate on what she considers the loss of her ‘freedom’ and the collapse of her ‘world.’  But you, she can both see and be in communication with, as you have already proved.  Already your thoughts transferred to her mind have set in motion a reversal of ideas."


"We are indeed asking much of you."  His thoughts penetrated like arrows into my mind.  "But, remember that you have the Open Ear, a gift of the Spirit; and that, from those to whom much is given, much is expected."


"You are not working alone, dear Friend," the Boy continued.  "We will always be near to guide your thoughts, to influence your choice of language.  Always, we will pour the Light of understanding about you both as you converse, to mitigate her 'fear of the unknown.'  Through us will pour the love and the power of the Christ for his 'lost lamb'; but you must constitute the 'channel' from us to her."

One afternoon late in August, Helen wrote: "I looked up from the book I was reading and saw that I had a visitor.  The old servant was back . . . Her thoughts flowed out to me.  I reached for my notebook and prepared to listen and record."

"I'm not frightened any more"; telepathy now took over quite simply.  "If you're a ghost, you look real enough."

"I'm not a ghost.  I am real," I contradicted gently.

Helen went on to say: ". . . you see I don't come from hell . . . Hell can be a Land of Shadows."

"Land of Shadows?  Why?"

"Because it is dark there.  And dingy.  The souls there live in shabby streets, in misery, with no love and no joy.  They are unhappy people.  They lived selfish and often cruel lives on earth.  Or else they committed some crime against their fellows."


"I am told that your Mistress is in the Land of the Shadows."

I could almost have described the change that filled her.  The chuckle of satisfaction was as human as ever.  "She deserves to be!  Cruel to 'im, she was, and hoity-toity to me.  Mean, too.  And suspicious of what I knew about her.  Never give me as much as a 'thank you' for looking after the Boy, nor nothin' extra neither.  Nor no days off.  Oh, she was a beauty, she was!  Treated us as slaves and 'im as a burden."


". . . Lost in the Shadows, eh?  For ever?"

"No, not for ever."  I refuted this.  "Only until she has learned to be sorry for what she did.  And until she forgives and learns to forgive others."

Helen wrote that "autumn was a long period of pain and depression for me.  The pain of an arthritic hip as well as emotional suffering from a personal sorrow prevented any possibilities in me of renewed sensitivity.  It was an utterly sterile period . . . with the help of good friends and good counsel, I was enabled to climb out of this slough of despond.  I began to think again of the work that had been laid upon me to do, and the parlous state of those poor entities . . ."

One evening in November, Helen experienced an urge to play operatic records on her new record player.  As she listened to the music, "across my concentration cut the vibration of a presence."  There occurred another interlude with the 'Mistress,' whose communication was more congenial on this occasion.  She now found Helen's cottage home "pretty" and "charming."  The Mistress reflected about her time on Earth: "I wish I'd known then all that I know now."  Helen asked why.

"I suppose because I would have lived differently.  I mean I would have been kinder.  How was I to know that I would go to such a terrible place, be amongst such horrible people, live in such sordid surroundings?  I've suffered," she could scarcely control her emotions.  "But now, I've been allowed to come here again.  They said that was just the beginning."

"They?" I echoed.

She seemed surprised that I did not know about Them.

"They are Helpers and Teachers," she volunteered.  "And They are kind.  For a long time, I thought they were Church visitors and I could not see what they had to do with me.  We used to have Church visitors for the poor; and I never thought of myself as poor.  At least not until I learned that I was to stay in that hovel, that it was my home.  I was told that I was 'poor in spirit.'"

Before she "slipped away" again, the Mistress related how in the astral world she had been told by a "sweet-faced woman" visitor that she could come again to Helen's cottage home to hear the music if she would accept her present place.  Helen asked "And you have?" with the reply "I am trying . . . They are not my type of people.  At least I thought they were not."  Helen observed after the interlude: ". . . this time she left a warmth and an aura of pleasure which I would never before have associated with the Mistress.  She was, indeed, changing."

When the Mistress manifested again several days later, Helen learned that the "sweet-faced sister" had visited her once more in the Shadow Lands, bringing with her an 'angel-man' whose "whole figure shone."  Thoughts were again exchanged and Helen quoted the Mistress about her present state of existence:

"He said that I had starved my soul.  He said that I had fed only the emotions and desires of my personality!  Terrible, terrible words."


"The sister stayed with me.  We talked together . . ."


"I was, she said, exactly what I had been.  Because of my failures on earth, I was in this predicament.  She even quoted the Bible at me.  Once I would have been extremely angry at anyone taking such a liberty, but now was different.  She was in authority.  I had to listen.  'As ye sow, so shall ye reap,' she quoted.  I looked at her calm face.  'So I am reaping,' I asked her, though I knew.  Her answer was as I had expected.  'You did not sow love or harmony; you withheld compassion from your son; you scorned your husband; you treated your maidservants harshly.'  I couldn't bear any more.  'Stop!' I begged her.  "Are you then an avenging angel?"  She shook her head and smiled, 'No, I am but like you . . . a pilgrim on the Way."


"She asked me if I had ever loved anything.  And, oh joy!  I could answer her truly.  I had the feeling that I was calling out, 'Yes, yes, I did love.  I loved beauty, I loved flowers and colour and music.'"


"And I shall never forget what she said.  'God is Beauty.  So you loved God, though you never knew.  Dear Soul, thus you have His Passport.  It will take you from here and darkness into Light and Beauty.'  I could have knelt at her feet.  'But now,' she charged me, 'you must learn to love creatures, your fellows, your companions, your son.'"


"I knew then that it was going to be a grim lesson, but I must not fail."

Helen wrote that about 14 days later there were two successive interludes with Nan.  On the first of these occasions, after having lunch "my 'superconscious' mind became aware" of her.  Nan was quoted about the realization of her present condition: "I found out, you're on earth, like I used to be, and I am . . . well, I don't rightly know where I am, but I ain't livin', least, not like I used to be."  Her last memory was being in the hospital after falling down in the cottage.  Helen tried to cheer her:

"You've got a new body now.  You're going to live in some pleasant place."


When I recollected my thoughts and consciousness, I discovered that the old woman had gone.  But where?  I could only send out a prayer for guidance for her.  At least, she was now awake.  What must follow?

Several days later, Helen suddenly discovered that the old woman had again been brought back to the cottage.  She was sitting and smiling.  Helen learned what happened to Nan following their previous interlude: "I started to wander about, an' I didn't know where I was, or which way to go."  Then she saw a little old man sitting on the side of a hill.  She eventually asked him how to get to Heaven and discovered that he seemed to know all about her.  He recommended her to pray: "Your Mam taught you Gentle Jesus, an' Our Father."  After they prayed together, Nan was quoted: ". . . he'd gone.  An' there was my Dad, my old Dad just like 'e used to be."  Nan's account continued —

"I says, 'Dad?  Oh, Dad, are you dead, too?'  An' e' laughed.  My old Dad, 'e laughed.  'I been dead a long time, my girl,' he says.  'So 'ave you.  We been waitin' a long time, my girl,' he says.  'So 'ave you.  We been waitin' for you to wake up.  We been waitin', your Mam an' me.'"

Helen commented about Nan: "She was still in her servant's dress, only now she looked different, taller somehow and serene."  Nan told Helen: "It was you tellin' me about bein' dead an' death, an' about getting a doctor.  That made me think.  Oh, I'm so glad you did, now, an' I'm happy with my Mam an' Dad, an' the others."

The chronicle continued as Helen professed periods of awareness of "concentrated thoughts" of the Boy, the 'Brother of Light,' the Mistress and Nan.  There was an unprecedented experience when: "I heard myself speaking aloud a conversation, and with my visitor from the Shadow Lands! [the 'Mistress']"  Helen continued:

I grabbed pen and book, and let the words flow through me.  This was a new development, for at first I was not aware of a visitor.  But I could 'hear' and answer the thoughts; and there was such an urgency about them, that I could scarcely write fast enough to keep up.

I wrote almost under dictation, rather as the Testimony of Light scripts had been transcribed.

At first, the topic was reunions in "this dreary place."  The Mistress was told by the Sister "that if I progressed in compassion and service towards my fellows here, I would move on towards the Light."  When Helen sent the thought question about the Mistress wanting to see her son again, the response given was "No, I do not."

As the encounter continued, the Mistress was quoted: "My son was an idiot.  He could not think clearly and scarcely could he speak two words intelligently."

Helen responded: "'Poor boy!'  I sent forth the pity, yet as I did so, I could only think of the bright spirit of the advanced soul that she scorned."  Helen continued to focus on the Boy:  'How terrible for him! . . . it was only his brain that was defective, not his soul.'" 

The following passages are excerpts of the ensuing conversation recorded in the transcript.
 

"You mean to imply" (she was venturing gingerly into such an untried idea) "that my son could now be sane?"

"I do indeed," emphasising the point.  "As sane as you or I.  Why not?"

"She was very still.  "Sane, you said?  You mean able to think?"

"Yes, of course.  Able to think, to reason, and (deliberately) to remember."


"He might remember his mother, me?"


"Of course he would remember you."  I hastened to assure her.  "He loved you."


. . . emotion broke in her.  "Supposing it is true?  Supposing he knows now?  I mean, knows about me, about everything."  Her hands were raised to hide her face, no longer masked by arrogance and pride.  "Oh, God, don't let this happen!  I am only just coming through one trial.  Do not face me with another!  Not my son!  Not yet, oh, not yet.  Have mercy. . . ."

Helen's next experience of the thoughts of the Mistress confronted her with feelings expressed of grief and shame.
 

"He knows!  My son knows!"

"For my Shining Sister has already told me we shall meet!  And he is no longer deranged.  He is whole and sane and in the light, whilst I am in the darkness."


"If only I had known.  Dear God, if I could have known that Thy Law excepts no-one.  If only I had had compassion."

Helen then became conscious of the presence of the Boy and his thoughts although the Mistress could not see him.  

The passage that followed in the book is a cautionary discourse of the Brother of Light that is apparently influenced by Helen's own fears of 'lower-astral entities.'  The concluding remark is: "Take heed and be prepared and protected by the inner life of prayer and contemplation of the Creative Divine Spirit, aligning yourselves and your efforts within the Light of the Christ."

The next evening, there was a new visit from the old woman, whose thoughts continued to be known by Helen.
 

"I've met him.  Our Boy!"


"Why, 'es a prince!  That's what 'e is.  A prince!  And beautiful.  Ah, an' he thinks and talks like you and' me!"


"He told me 'e knew that I loved 'im and looked after 'im . . ."

"An' he knows all about the Mistress, 'is mother.  'E knows she's been in the Shadows.  And, Madam, 'e's sorry for her . . . 'is mother wot 'ated him.  It could 'ave knocked me down, hearin' that."

The old servant grew solemn.  "D'you know wot?  He loves 'er, and after all she did to 'im.  Loves 'er!  Think of that!"

"And wot d'you think he told me?  That I 'ad to forgive 'er, too.  Me?  He said it would help 'er to 'go on,' and me too!"

"That's wot's queer about bein' dead.  You got to forgive folks."

"And you will try to be kind to her?" I asked.

Her decision came slowly, almost reluctantly.  "I'll try, Madam.  I told Boy that.  I said I'd try."  Then with the faintest of grins, she added: "After all, I ain't got to do wot she says anymore!"

"And you will help her?"

This took her by surprise.  "Me?  Help her?  Wot can I do for her?"

"It ain't goin' to be easy,' she admitted truthfully.  "But I'll try, Madam.  I got to do that for our Boy's sake."

There was a hiatus to Helen's psychic experiences in January of 1973 due to an operation on her hip.  She was in a hospital and then a nursing home for nearly six weeks.  Then Helen wrote that one evening late in March she found "the high soul whom I recognised as a 'Brother of Light' was contacting my mind."  She recorded his thoughts in a notebook, including:
 

"All has proceeded in order.  With returning physical strength and mental confidence, you will be enabled to take up the work again and to record as before.  Only now, perhaps, after your own sufferings, you will do so with a deeper awareness, a clearer sense of dedication and a greater understanding of the use and purpose of the channel."

It was Easter Monday when there was another encounter with the 'visitor' Helen knew as 'the Mistress.'  "She was sitting in the armchair opposite me, a very different apparition from the distraught entity who had knelt with me, and wept her remorse, on that memorable morning in January."  Her silk dress no longer appeared black and instead was a "deep midnight blue, which shimmered, as though shot with gold, when she moved.  She is very beautiful, I thought, sensing a subtle change about her . . . she began to transmit thought to me."

 

"I have been brought to see you," she began, and the arrogance had left her thought.  "I am told that you will understand."

"I will understand," I flashed back, "for I, too, have been through trouble and through a cleansing."


The Brother of Light was now conscious to my inner sight, as he stood beyond the Mistress.  Yet she was quite obviously unaware of any other presence in the room, even though the light from him rayed out to her form.

The Mistress expressed "Acceptance of that which I have done, during the time I was on earth . . . Acceptance of my own guilt.  Acknowledgement that I have hurt others terribly."  
 

At last I sent forth, "And you received an answer from God?"

She shook her head.  "I do not know whence the answer came."

"He sent a Sister of Light to you, even when you thought yourself in hell?"

Now she wept.  "It is true.  The lovely Sister came.  She gave me hope, after I had almost lost all."


"Then I met a Brother."

"Could they have been God's answer?"

I pondered for a while, awaiting inspiration from the Brother of Light.  "They must have come from some loving Father to help you," I suggested.  "But you needed love and correction.  Could we not say that they held up a mirror that you might see yourself as you truly were, that you might be inspired to change that image?"

She shuddered.  "That is just what they did!  It was hell itself.  I went through a hell of remorse!  Never again, never again, please God, such a hell, such an agony of unmasking."


"Oh, Christ of mercy," she moaned, "forgive me for what I did to my poor demented son."

The next day, Helen "became startlingly aware of the presence of the Boy."  This time she could not see him yet "The words of his message seemed to steal gently into my mind."  It was revealed that the Boy knew about his mother's progress and the conditions of life in the ascended realm.  The communication was sometimes metaphorical.

"Already she has felt remorse concerning her treatment of the child I was when on earth.  Remorse and acceptance!  Yes, my friend, powerful kindling for this fire of Love."


"You will witness how Love heals the wounds even as it burns away the memories of dark emotions."

Helen then described the visitation that took place in May.  She wrote as it began: "I knew that my inner self was opened and already that I was functioning out of time and space.  Immediately, words poured into my consciousness, snatches of conversation and, with the recognition of this switch of awareness, I was back in my seat, pen and pad in readiness . . ."

The Mistress was seated in the chair opposite Helen, who observed: "For the first time, I was aware of an aura of gentleness about her."  The Mistress wasn't aware that beyond her, standing near the wall, was her son, the Boy.  "He wore the dark rough habit of a friar, with a band of white about his waist.  From within and about him shone a light that was pure and white and shimmering."  A flicker of movement across the room made Helen aware that also present was the little old servant woman.  "She seemed quite at ease, and, except that she no longer wore her apron (and I concluded that this must be by her own choice), she was the same neat little figure in her long-skirted dress, only now she no longer fidgeted with her hands but remained relaxed and at peace."
 

The Mistress, turning as she caught the movement of another form, faced her one-time maid, the girl who, from adolescence, she had bullied and enslaved, now an old woman and evidently in the similar predicament, that is, dead to the world of matter.

"You?" thought flew from her like sparks.  "What are you doing here?"

"I used to live here, Madam."

"You lived here?"  The Mistress stared aghast.  "Here?"

"Yes, Madam, for a long time."  The servant was now more controlled; "I came 'ere, if you remember after . . . after you . . . died!"


"Did you die also?"


"I . . . didn't go to 'ell, Madam?"  Was there a certain satisfaction in expressing her position to one whom she knew had been in hell?  I could not tell.


"I stayed 'ere for a very long time, so they told me; years an' years.  I was lost, Madam.  Lost."

A gleam seemed to be reflected in the countenance of the Mistress.

"I'm not surprised at that.  You were never very bright, I recall."  To me, watching, a light seemed to flash from the Boy in the corner of the room; it encircled the spirit form of his mother, and remained stationery about her.  She paused.  Perhaps she was recollecting her own position.  She shuddered.  "But, at least, you have never known the sheer horror of what I have been through."

"No, Madam."  Now there was open sympathy in the face of the old woman.  "I did 'ear you were in the Shadow Lands."

Resentment and arrogance flared again in the younger woman, her foot tapping impatiently.  "Shadow Lands?  Is that what you call them?  It was hell.  I tell you, hell!"


In a burst of remorse, she [the Mistress] flung out, "Was I really that bad?  Did I deserve such a fate?  Tell me, did I?"


"You weren't that bad. Madam.  Least, it don't seem so bad, now."

The Mistress was silent, mulling this over in her mind.

"Perhaps it doesn't, now that we're dead."  Then she swung round, avoiding the servant's watchful eyes.  "But you hated me, didn't you?  I was cruel to you.  I loved power over people, and you were always so afraid of me."


"I don't 'ate you now, Madam," she sent out, and I was astonished at the new serenity in her.  "I'll never 'ate you no more, Madam."

The Mistress sobbed unrestrainedly.  Presently, she raised her head.  Slowly, she turned and looked at her old servant.

"Why?" she asked, wondering.  "Why won't you hate me?"

My old lodger woman looked puzzled.  "I don't rightly know, Madam, not rightly, I don't.  Only, only, it don't seem to matter no more.  I mean . . . now I found my way."

"Your way?"  Her Mistress seemed utterly overcome.  "Where?"

"My way to my Dad and Mam, Madam.  I'm with them now.  It's a kind of 'eaven, it is.  So beautiful, flowers and trees and . . . and light." 


"Look, I'll say I'm sorry I hated you once, because I did.  But that's all over now.  We've left it behind us, ain't we?  I mean, now we're dead."

The Mistress shook her head.  "I have not left it behind me.  You may have done.  I have to live amongst it; be with others who are coarse and cruel and who still hate."


"But you don't 'ave to stay there, Madam, not if you really don't want to."


"You have to [learn to] think different over 'ere, Madam.  I mean about your husband, the Master, and . . . your son."


"My son?  That poor fool?"


"'E ain't a poor fool, Madam.  That Boy's an angel.  He's beautiful, an' he loves you."


"See for yourself, Madam.  He's 'ere.  Your son's 'ere.  He's 'ere now."  She pointed to the corner of the room, where the light glowed in unearthly brilliance.


"Here?" it was a mental cry of fear, and yet hope.  "Here . . . now?"  She stared for a long time, then, as if her sight had suddenly cleared, and she could scarcely bear it, she put her hands up to her face, and covered her eyes.  "That is my son?  But that is an angel, an angel of Light."


"Mother!"  The Boy stretched out his hands, and light enveloped them both, as the woman gazed at him in awe and remorse.

There was absolute silence and stillness, and power filled the cottage room, the power of the Spirit.  Slowly, the woman slipped to her knees before the light bearer who had been her earthly son, despised and rejected.  She closed her eyes and clasped her hands, in the fervour of the first prayer she had ever purposefully uttered.


I could scarcely breathe.  The room was so still; it seemed filled with a translucent light.  I, too, was moved to tears.  The Boy stepped forward and took the clasped hands between his own, as the old servant with a loving gesture, gently touched the bowed shoulders.  Then she moved to the door and somehow she was gone.


When, at length, I returned to consciousness of the material world in which I had my habitation, I saw that the room was empty; my visitors from beyond death had gone.

The next day, the Brother of Light articulated the significance of the things witnessed by Helen.

"In this drama, you have been shown how two entities after their souls had left their physical bodies, remained closed in the thought-forms they had created.  And for as long as they persisted in holding to these forms of thought, so were they aliens to the new state of consciousness required for true living here; and thus they were unable to progress onward."


"If readers apprehend the lessons to be gathered from these examples of thought-form prisoners, this story will not have been in vain.  Man is body, soul and spirit.  Body, with all its selfish emotions, cannot exist here, where progress is carried on in the mind towards re-union with the soul.  The time to shatter those illusions of earth-life, of separativeness, to overcome disharmony of thought and emotion, is during the sojourn on the planet earth, not after the transition to the Astral and Spiritual worlds brought about by what you call death."

Among Helen's concluding remarks, she commented: "It has taken a year and a half in earth time to listen to, to record, and to live with these entities; and during that space of time it has made powerful demands on my emotional and spiritual life."  The final statement in the book is Helen's declaration of the reality of spiritual "One-ness; unity with all here on this earth, and in the worlds to come; whether in the Land of the Shadows, in the World of Astral Consciousness, or in the shining Realms of the Spirit."