I am here, Jesus:
I would like to write about a subject which you and the Doctor* have been waiting for some time to obtain from me or a Celestial Spirit on the subject of the "Oahspe Bible," and what its importance might be to mankind with respect to the truths which I have given through Mr. Padgett. **
This Bible is important in several aspects, and the first is that it comes directly from the Spirit World, and reveals the conditions of the spirits themselves through the way in which they write. They give evidence of a great world of spirits inhabited by beings who in former times were mortals in the flesh and who today, though bereft of their mortal trappings, are still very much alive -- in fact, more so than when they lived on earth. They have the power of telling man about conditions on earth at the time, or before, they lived, and to impart their information in the terms, images and even false notions which they harbored when in the flesh and which, despite the elapse of centuries, they still cling to in the Spirit World. If one wants proof of the existence of the world of spirits, he need but turn to this massive volume of information and misinformation curiously jumbled together that came to this world through the mediumship of an Anglosaxon of the past century.
This Oahspe Bible is also important because it is a vast repository of those intellectual ideas and moral laws which were in formation for many centuries before the dawn of what we call our civilization, and which show a steady growth towards a standard of conduct to be maintained by human beings of many diversified societies and centers of civilization and culture; and they all exhibit the same adherence to the laws of God which govern the development of the natural human love and lead in its pure state to the Paradise of the Hebrews. Basically, among all peoples of divergent races, climes, and ages, man has striven consciously or unconsciously towards the expression and fulfillment of these laws of conduct which were given to man when God implanted into him his soul. The Oahspe Bible evidences this slow development through many ages and peoples and manifestations towards a greater consciousness of and obedience to these commandments of God, up to the time when God in His supreme understanding felt that the time had come to make available His Divine Love to His greatest creation, man, and sent me to the Hebrews to proclaim the glad tidings that this Love, which gives immortality to man through At-onement with the Father, was obtainable by whomsoever might seek it in the way prescribed. The Oahspe Bible, then, because of the very antiquity of the subjects treated and the spiritual patterns which it uncovers, deals only with that great phase of man's slow and arduous turning to the knowledge of the true God and the obedience to His laws, which He laid down for their happiness and salvation as souls created in His image; but they do not touch upon nor even conceive of, in any way, the advent of the new and most important law of all -- the Father's Love. Only in the Old Testament of the Hebrews, a work of man attuned to the voice of God through His angels, contains the spiritual message that foretold my coming and my teachings; and I would like to emphasize that nowhere in all the Oahspe Bible, given as it was directly to man by spirits of the Spirit World, will one find the intensity of that spiritual feeling, evoking the love of man for God and foreshadowing God's Love for man, that characterizes the Old Testament of the Hebrews.
The Oahspe Bible, though, by showing that the Old Testament version of Genesis is merely symbolic and not to be taken literally, as many still do, is also of importance in that it gives an account of the vast ages through which the earth had to pass before it was in a condition to be inhabited by living creatures and to provide sustenance for them; and some of these spirits who wrote the Bible are of great antiquity and have since their passing over devoted their efforts to the history of the earth in its relationship to the outer space of the universe.
There are many truths therein contained which deal with the experiences and stages undergone by the earth during the vast ages of its existence, as understood by man; and here the spirits, dealing as they do with objective phenomena, have been much better able to provide an account of the life of the earth man to inform mankind of the life and doings of spirits in their spirit existence, for this is conditioned by sundry preconceived notions and experiences of a subjective nature brought with them from their earth lives. And as many of them remained and have remained for long centuries in the lower planes and have retained the beliefs and superstitions and erroneous concepts which they possessed on entering the spirit world, and which, because of their rooted convictions, they are unable to rid themselves of, and persist even when these spirits have progressed intellectually and in their moral natures to higher spheres.
The account of the strife among the spirits, showing the deplorable state in which they were, or are, is full of gross inaccuracies which simply reflect the profound condition of illusionment to which they are subject, and many of them still believe that they are pursuing the life of warfare and conquest which they engaged in as mortals. This is a great mistake and does not conform to the realities of the spirit world, for there is no warfare in the spirit world between the different spheres, for they are distince and separate from each other, and those on the lower spheres cannot enter the higher ones, nor do those on the higher planes, as it is claimed in the Oahspe Bible, try to conquer and enslave the inhabitants of the lower planes, for this is contrary to the law of the spirit world whereby those on the higher levels seek to help those immediately below them.
So you see that these spirits who talk of war and conquest are talking from their own sorry state of illusion in which they have been stagnating for many, many centuries. The real warfare in which they are or will be engaged is in that between their memories and their conscience, which, when awakened, causes them to lose these illusions of still living the mortal life and forces them to face the hard realities of a soul condition in spirit life susceptible to the torments of the inexorable law of compensation in its work of purification. The only exception which permits enslavement, so to speak, is that which permits earth bound spirits to obsess and work evil on mortals, but as these evil ones are in the fullness of time awakened to the law of compensation and undergo those penalties which their memories compel them to suffer, they relax their hold on mortals and later may even seek to help those whom they first attempted to hurt.
In the ages in which the spirits of the Oahspe Bible lived as mortals, conditions of a moral and intellectual nature, especially those of the earlier periods, were what you would call frightful and many of them even to this day, surprising as that may seem, cannot shake off these horrible conditions which poisoned their earth life, and they have not progressed in their concept of what the true spirit life of the soul means. These spirits of the higher intellectual and moral planes have written in great detail concerning the religious phases of man's life at the time they lived, yet even they are permeated with their own particular narrow cult and sect, and numerous and gross indeed are the inexactitudes present throughout.
I cannot in this message write you on all these falsities nor would it be profitable that I should do so, but I simply refer to that part of the "Oahspe Bible" which erroneously describes as having been stoned to death like Stephen, and also to the absurdity which has the spirits of the Transfiguration come down from heaven to meet me in an Egyptian sky boat. In truth, locomotion by spirits is a matter of will, and not of conveyances, material or spiritual. It is interesting for you and whomsoever may read this message that the spirit who wrote of this event, still imbued with the peculiar concepts of his cult, injected these impossible beliefs into describing an event which took place many centuries after his passing into the spirit world, and from which he had been unable at thc time to divest himself.
I think I have written enough on the subject of the "Oahspe Bible" and it was fitting that I should do so, if it were merely to indicate some of the errors which are manifest throughout, as well as to indicate its relative importance, and I urge you not to devote your time to reading this voluminous work, for it does not, as I have explained, lead to the Father's Love through soul longings and prayer. That is the important thing to be obtained and that is what I urge you earnestly to keep seeking for -- the Father's Love and At-onement with Him. So with my love to you and the Doctor*, I shall close and sign myself,
Jesus of the Bible
and
Master of the Celestial Heavens
___________________________________
*Dr. Leslie R. Stone
**Mr. James E. Padgett received through automatic writings Messages from Jesus and many celestial Spirits which is now printed in two volumes.