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I AM HERE. Your Grandmother, (Ann Rollins, Celestial Spirit)
I come to resume my discourse if you think that you are in condition to receive the same. Well we will try, and if I find that you are not, I will stop until later.
As I was saying, God is not in man or material things as regards His personality, but only those attributes of His, which men generally consider to be God, are manifested in the material things.
As I have said, God is not the creator of all things that appear to have an existence, for many things which control and govern the conduct of men are entirely the creatures of man, and are not in harmony with the laws of God or with His will. And hence, when it is realized that there exists in the souls and minds of men evil thoughts and desires and conceptions that are not in harmony with God's creations, you can readily see that God cannot be and is not in such souls and minds, nor are His attributes, because, as is said in the laws of physical philosophy, two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time, so we may say as regards spiritual philosophy two things cannot occupy the same soul or mind at the same time, especially when they be antagnostic or opposed to each other in their qualities or fundamentals. Until the one vacates its occupancy the other cannot come in, and this is invariably true of the creatures of God and the creatures of man, for they are always and under all circumstances opposed to each other.
But it must be understood that when I speak of the creatures of God my meaning must not be taken as including God, for He as the Creator is altogether different from His creatures; and while His creatures or certain attributes may find a lodgment and habitation in the souls of men and the minds of men and in the existence of material things, yet He, God, never finds such lodgment, and is never a part of such existences. He is as distinct from the creatures, or better probably, emanations of His, as are the thoughts and desires of man distinct from the man himself.
GOD IS IN HIS HEAVENS, AND THOSE HEAVENS HAVE A LOCALITY, JUST AS THE DIFFERENT SPHERES OF THE SPIRIT WORLD, IN WHICH SPIRITS HAVE THEIR HOMES, HAVE LOCALITIES; AND HIS LOCALITY IS WAY BEYOND THE HIGHEST CELESTIAL SPHERES KNOWN TO THE HIGHEST SPIRIT, AND TOWARDS WHICH SPIRITS ARE ALWAYS PROGRESSING, AND AS THEY PROGRESS, THE MORE AND CLOSER THEY COME IN CONTACT WITH THESE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD, WHICH ARE CONSTANTLY FLOWING FROM HIM.
Even Jesus, who, as you know, is the brightest of all the spirits and the one possessing more of these attributes of the Father than any other spirit, has never seen God except through the soul perception, nor ever realized that God is in him or forms a part of him; and mistaken and deceived are men when they say or believe that God is in them or that in Him they live and move and have their being.
To believe this as true, God can only be a kind of nebulous something--inconsistent as the air--and, as many of the spiritualists say, merely a force permeating the whole universe, divided into many and infinitesmal manifestations, seen and felt today and tomorrow having no existence. A something less substantial than man--weak at once and powerful at the same time--a contradiction beyond conception or explanation.
Such is not God; but all these manifestations are merely evidence of the existence of a substantial and, I may say, never varying, Self Existing Being, who is not the creature of man's mind or of man's necessities or desires, but the Creator of all, even of these wise men who cannot conceive of any God, but nature, the mere creature of His being and wisdom and power.
The human mind, when left to itself, that is to its own evolution as your scientists say, and not influenced by the revelations of spiritual truths or the suggestions of spirits who have advanced in knowledge of things beyond the material, has not improved much since the days when they lived and died the sun worshipers, and the worshipers of the sacred cats, and bulls and elephants, and of the storms, and thunders and lightnings. God was in all these manifestations, immanent and real, to be appeased or loved as necessity required; and today among your civilized nations, and the wise men of these nations, who can see no God in the spiritual, the aggregate of all these material things is the God, which they must worship, if they worship at all.
Nature is God to them, and you see, that the only improvement, if any there be, that their minds have over the minds of the worshipers of the Sun and in animals etc., that I have mentioned, is that those minds are not satisfied to see God in a single manifestation, but there must be a combination of all these manifestations, which they call Nature. You see, it is only a difference in degree, and the scientist of today who refuses to accept or believe in any God, who may be of a spiritual nature, is exactly the counterpart of his so-called barbarian brother who could see Him only in the Sun, etc., in everything, except that he demands a larger God, who must be in the lowest form of mineral existence as well as in the highest form of solar excellence and even in man, for with some, man is his own and only God.
And it is questionable whether these wise men are not more limited in their conception and acceptance of a God, than were the earlier uncivilized brothers, because many of the latter saw beyond and behind their Sun God and God of thunders, etc., another and greater God whom they could not see, but could feel and in their souls realized His existence.
But the wise men of civilizations have so evolved their intellects that they have lost their soul perceptions, and no God beyond the horizon of their intellectual perceptions can exist, and, hence, as they think they know nature, nature as all of the creation, and there can be no other God than nature.
But, Oh, the terrible mistake!
GOD THEN, AS I HAVE SAID, IS A BEING--A SOUL--WITH A PERSONALITY THAT HAS A LOCATION, HIGH UP IN THE HEAVENS, TOWARDS WHOM ALL SPIRITS OF THE CELESTIAL AND MANY OF THE SPIRITUAL SPHERES ARE STRIVING TO APPROACH IN GREATER AND GREATER NEARNESS; AND AS THEY APPROACH THEY REALIZE AND KNOW THE INCREASED LOVE AND LIFE AND LIGHT THAT EMANATES FROM THE FOUNTAINHEAD OF THESE ATTRIBUTES OF PERFECTION.
AND SO I REPEAT, GOD IS NOT IN MAN OR BEAST OR PLANT OR MINERAL, BUT ONLY ARE HIS ATTRIBUTES AS HE SEES THE NECESSITY FOR THEIR WORKINGS, AND MAN DOES NOT LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE HIS BEING IN GOD.
Well, my son, I have in my imperfect way, given you some idea of Who and What God is, and my explanation is in substance the concensus of the knowledge of the Celestial spirits, whose knowledge is based upon the truths that no mortal or all the mortals combined can possibly learn with their finite minds.
I think that you have received my ideas and words quite correctly, and I hope the truths which I have written may prove beneficial to all mankind.
I am very happy and will come again soon, and write you some other truths, which may interest you.
I must stop now.
With all my love and blessings, I am
Your own loving Grandmother,ANN ROLLINSVol. I, p. 66
