Silver Birch
Silver Birch is a spirit guide known to millions around the world, who spoke through Maurice Barbanell for 61 years before Barbanell transitioned and joined his inspirer in 1981.
I could say that Silver Birch was my earliest teacher in spirituality since my first incursions into spirituality were through British Spiritualism.
I sat in a British Spiritualist circle in 1977-79 and actually was told that my contribution would be through what they call “inspired address.” Writing New Maps of Heaven was a promise I made to myself then and only got to around 2006.
From British Spiritualism, I went to India and from India into all the world’s religions. I still read Silver Birch and my wife at this moment is reading him. He never fails to inspire and yet is intensely practical. He also sees as clearly as Matthew, SaLuSa and Saul, though he spoke to another age.
Silver Birch himself was what we might call a step-down transformer for higher spirits who spoke through him on the spirit side exactly as he spoke through Barbanell on the physical side. I think Matthew Ward has said this about himself on occasion. I think it would be accurate to say that all spirits who address humanity do so in concert with others from higher levels than themselves. Of his situation, Silver Birch once said:
Like “Imperator” and Beinsa Douno, Silver Birch predicted the New Age that is to come and had much to say about it. Here is a selection of his teachings on the subject.
Silver Birch on the New World
You are now in the midst of the crisis. As always happens before there is a birth, there is much pain. The birth of the new order means much pain. Even when the new order comes, there will be growing pains.
But there has been planted in your world a seed that will grow and the efforts of those in high places to destroy the seed will fail. It was said, a long time ago, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” That is going to happen.
There will be many big changes. There will be break-ups and there will be many upheavals. There will be what you think is darkness and difficulty. You will say, “Things are worse.” But, all the time, there is behind it all a power which is making for the progress of the world.
There are many of us who have been allowed by those who are higher and above us to see your world as it will be one day. That conception we try to transmit to those who are receptive, to inspire them to go on with their w0rk. The pictures I have seen make your present world more ugly than it is. I see what it could be like – and what it must be like. It is only a question of time.
One day, there will arise a new race that will recognize that all politics, religion, science and knowledge are part of one thing. Then pain, sorrow, fear, mourning and unhappiness will be banished and your world will be a place of smiles and happy laughter. …
You have tried to build a world where, when one man has something, instead of using it to help the others, he tries to keep it for himself, with the result that in time he makes a system that must collapse because its foundations are wrong.
When you have people who develop their gifts, which all come from the Great Spirit, and use them for the benefit of all the others, then there will be built a system founded on that which is eternal. (2)
You are witnessing the birth of a new order and all around you are the signs that the old world, founded on selfishness, materialism, greed, avarice and cruelty, is dying. You who call yourselves Spiritualists are the custodians of a great truth, for you are the sentries guarding the outposts, helping to forge the new era.
Think of yourselves as soldiers of the Great Spirit, fighting the greatest fight of all, for you are helping to vanquish all the forces that belong to the darkness of man’s ignorance and brought war, misery, chaos and bankruptcy to your world.
You are helping to shape a new world in which all the children of the Great Spirit will share to fulfil the richness of the bounty He has freely given. (3)
I do not care by what name you call the dawn of the new world, but it is the world of the Great Spirit coming into fulfillment, accompanied by His power, and the service of all faithful hearts who seek but to bring new joy, new life, new happiness into the world of matter, so that there shall cease coming into our world the wrecks of yours. (4)
We strive always to reveal the religious significance of spiritual truth for, when your world understands its spiritual import, there will be a revolution mightier than all the revolutions of war and blood.
It will be a revolution of the soul and, all over the world, people will claim what is their due – the right to enjoy to the full the liberties of the spirit. Away will go every restriction which has put fetters on them. (5)
The tide of victory rolls on. The old order dies, giving place to the new. The new world is coming. But do not think that, because of this victory, there will be no more dark places. There will still be much shedding of tears. There will be many aching hearts. There is great sacrifice to be made. (6)
But after the storms and the wind have blown through the world there always comes the new life of the spring. When the snow lies on the ground and all looks very bleak, you are not able to see the freshness of the spring. But it comes.
And gradually, as the great sun of life moves through the heavens of the Great Spirit, so the majesty of life comes to its fullest. Throughout the whole world of matter there is a great cloud of discontent. There will come the spring of dreams and the summer of fulfilment. (7)
Like many others, I have come nearer to the earth vibrations to help push forward that great new world which waits just round the corner. I come to teach you the laws of the Great Spirit and to show you how, if you live according to them, the bounty of the Great Spirit can be poured into your hearts and minds. (8)
The New World is born, born in agony of birth, with a baptism of tears and misery and sadness. But the New World is here. Its rays are beginning to pierce the fog of your world. But even in this New World all will not have been achieved. There will be plenty to remedy, to improve, to strengthen. There will still be weakness to be overcome, there will still be troubles to be eradicated. But there will be a new basis for life. Much of the needless misery, much of the needless deprivation, much of the needless starvation and sadness will have gone. The basis of life will be changed, for gradually selfishness will be overthrown and service will reign in its place.
The New World will come more quickly or more slowly, as more of you help us or hinder us in our efforts to co-operate with you. You will not get more than you deserve or less than you deserve, for so perfect is natural law in its expression that its scales are always evenly balanced. They are weighted down neither on one side nor the other.
I tell you of conditions that are operating and, as they continue to operate, what will be changed. Do not forget that you will reap in your world the harvest of countless generations of labour wrought by many pioneers, idealists and reformers, who made sacrifices to advance the lot of mankind. (9)
We are striving always to teach the children of matter how to be free and how to bask in the sunlight of spiritual truth, how to cast off the serfdom of creedal slavery. That is not an easy task, for once the trappings of religion have mastered you, it takes a long time for spiritual truth to penetrate that thick wall of superstition.
We strive always to reveal the religious significance of spiritual truth, for when your world understands its / spiritual import there will be a revolution mightier than all the revolutions of war and blood.
It will be a revolution of the soul and, all over the world, people will claim what is their due – the right to enjoy to the full the liberties of the spirit. Away will go every restriction which has put fetters on them.
Our allegiance is not to a Creed, not to a Book, not to a Church, but to the Great Spirit of life and to His eternal natural laws.
A great power of the spirit will descend into your world of matter. In all its countries a mighty force of the spirit will be felt, for there is a great work to be done to counteract the selfishness and the ignorance of your world. In time it will conquer, but, in the process, there will be much travail.
Plenty of workers have come to take their stand at your side. There are those who are known to you, those who are bound to you with ties of blood and others who are attracted to serve you out of the love that they bear for you. When you think of those whose names you know, try to realise the countless host of the unknown, who serve without any desire to be known or recognised but who give their power to be used.
The world will not be converted in a blinding flash like Saul on the road to Damascus. Gradually, the light of spiritual truths will break through, as more people become aware of the great knowledge and more instruments are available for the power of the Great White Spirit to use. You must remember that the things of the spirit require careful nurture and progress. Sudden conversions would not be enduring, and our work is intended to be permanent.
Each soul that becomes an instrument for the Great Spirit, each soul that moves out of darkness into the light, out of ignorance into knowledge, out of superstition into truth, is helping to advance the world, for each one of these is a nail that is driven into the coffin of the world’s materialism. (10)
Footnotes
(1) Silver Birch, Silver Birch Anthology. Ed. Wm. Naylor. London: Spiritualist Press, 1974; c1955, 130. (Hereafter SBA.) For more of Silver Birch, “Silver Birch’s ‘New World,'” see https://goldenageofgaia.com/2012-history-4/silver-birchs-new-world-2/
(2) Silver Birch, Teachings of Silver Birch. Wisdom from the World Beyond. Ed. A.W. Austen. London: Spiritualist Press, 1962; c1938, 42-3. (Hereafter TSB.)
(3) Silver Birch, Silver Birch’s Teachings. Located at https:/www.angelfire.com/ok/SilverBirch/Tcon.html, n.p. (Hereafter SBT.)
(4) Silver Birch, TSB, 44.
(5) Silver Birch, TSB, 26.
(6) Silver Birch, TSB, 38.
(7) Silver Birch, SBA, 51.
(8) Silver Birch, Philosophy of Silver Birch. London: Spiritualist Press, 1975; c1969, 27.
(9) Silver Birch, SBT, n.p.
(10) Silver Birch, SBA, 39-41.