Book Mark The Home Page: InterFarFacing.com  INTRODUCTION  TO CORA L.V. Scott Hatch Tappan RICHMOND  1840 - 1923

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*Ed.  See Book ANTIQUITY UNVEILED that proves from the Spirit world that Apollonius of Tyana was the one called 'Jesus' in the bible;  the bible does not show the full correct life to old age of this historical figure.  In Cora's time up to her passing in 1923  this could not be mentioned; this knowledge was kept very well hidden under orders of the Vatican.  If books were found to be similar to Antiquity Unveiled and Apollonius of Tyana, like Cora's works,  they were destroyed.  See New York's thirty years of heavy book destruction under the  Pornography COMSTOCK POSTAL LAWS.  Books of, and by Thomas Paine and the best Spiritual Mediums were destroyed and their publishers and authors were sent to prison.  From reading this discourse below,  the reader can easily understand why the Vatican and Church had an interest in suppressing this great Light.

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Even as the unfolding rose, or as worlds that blossom 'neath Thy hand in space, so may Thy children find unfolding the pure and perfect light, the inward grace, that leads them ever to Thy love, and makes them one with Thee.

 

The first paragraph quoted from the New Testament indicates man's spiritual state.  The second, "Covet earnestly the best gifts," we would render, seek earnestly, or desire the best gifts; this refers to that which may be bestowed by an outside power, and both are in accord with spiritual unfoldment.

It has been, however, a mistaken supposition in almost every age  of human history, that by some external device, some formula, some outward appliance, man reaches spiritual unfoldment.  So far was this carried among the early Christians that, especially after the formation of the Roman Catholic Church, there were orders of monks, nuns and priests, monasteries and convents were established: it was believed that one could not obtain spiritual unfoldment, or real exaltation in spiritual things, without separation from the world.  How this succeeded in past ages you can well understand.  In many instances there have been spiritual gifts and endowments among those who have withdrawn from the world, as they call it; but the entire system of monastic or conventical life has constituted a denial of the spirit, because if one has a spiritual possession the world cannot interfere with it.

The man of God, [ed:whom you call] Jesus [ed:Apollonius of Tyana was a Nazarene] of Nazareth [ed:of the Nazarene Sect, not place] was "in the world, but not of the world," and he could sit with publicans and sinners.  He could partake of the hospitality of the worldling and not be affected by it, for he was not of the world: His spirituality was from within and not a semblance from without.  His whole life attested it, while those sticklers for formality who, thinking that severity of life was necessary for spiritual unfoldment, complained.  John the Baptist came from the wilderness with baptism,  fasting and with prayer; there were among the ancient Jews those who had established orders of severity of life: to have the Messiah come or claim to come and sit down with the the publicans and sinners was to them a severe shock; but being in the world He was not of it and all the teachings which He gave revealed that the unfoldment of the spirit comes from within.

Among certain orders in the Orient, where severity of life and withdrawal from the world accompanied spiritual gifts, there was something more to be considered than the mere separation from human kind.  That the pursuit of spiritual things,  the exalting of the mind and spirit might not be distracted by earthly considerations caused man to withdraw often from the world; but the double purpose of preserving spiritual gifts, or those endowed with them, free from interruption and persecution, as well as to keep themselves in the proper frame of mind to receive spiritual gifts, may explain the many orders of recluses in the Orient.

In certain lines of spiritual descent which, however, are not now in existence, there were certain expressions of life, which are carried forward now in a different manner; but were presented in the ancient orders when governments persecuted every form of gift not recognized by kings; when men of learning and Inspiration aroused the jealousy of monarchs and rulers, it was needful that they should withdraw from the world, should conceal themselves in caves, should withdraw to mountain fastnesses to pursue the divine inspiration enjoined upon them.  But this was less for spiritual unfoldment in itself than the protection and preservation of those gifts for the benefit of others; for had the ancient discoveries of science through inspiration been at all times accessible to king, or rulers,  to provosts of formulated religions,  they would have been subjected to the same kind of treatment that Galileo endured, that Socrates resolved, that Bruno suffered; the gifts of the spirit would have been blotted out in the expression of their lives, so far as they individually were concerned.

Whatever answers the best purpose of the individual; whatever leads the individual away from that which is enthralling materially to that which is governed spiritually is the best.  If one thinks that living in the world makes him of the world, it may be better to withdraw from it; however, it is not the greatest victory to fly from temptation, no real conquest has ever come to any human being by  seeking a conventical life; it is simply a refuge, but it is not a place of growth; it may be a place of safety from some forms of temptation;  but after all, the real temptation comes from the person.  No amount of formal prayer nor external fasting can keep nuns and monks from the little bickerings and jealousies that grow out of their individual natures even though hedged around with the walls of a monastery.  They do  not have a burning desire for influencing others, may not have the same kind of ambition for conquest in society and worldly ways that comes to those in the outer world; but even that which is worse.  The petty jealousies the narrow and limited ambition the small heart burns and corroding curse of life in a convent are much more likely, if anything can effect spiritual growth, to prevent it, than a greater ambition which leads sooner to a reaction.

You have heard or told of those who have withdrawn from monasteries and convents.  They declare that there sometimes were more bickerings, more heart burnings over the wearing of a collar, the wearing of a string of beads just where the rosary should be suspended or upon the cut of a bonnet than over all the triumphs and disappointments of social life.

You even come to know that though monks are supposed to be consecrated to a life of fasting and prayer, that their sins are proscribed, they are very often engaged in revelry and feasting instead of fasting, in wine drinking (which is sometimes permissible in the church); the real life of a monk is not a life of the consideration of spiritual things so much as a conformity to certain external usages on certain times and occasions; the sound of convent bells would frequently bring them from the wine bottle to the altar;  but that they should be summoned from such indulgences to the outward form of prayer is evidence that the form and not the spirit had taken possession of their lives.

True, there may have been many sacred orders of men and women, among whom asceticism was the result of a genuine conviction; many of  those lives in their severity illustrated the principles which were espoused.  But even those lives could have found nobler expression in the outside world, could have met and conquered more evil, could have encouraged more people to higher ways, could have found expression in assisting others rather than in watching their own individual existence until they became almost corroding and rusting things.

There are many people in the world today who receive the evidences of spiritual presences, to whom spiritual gifts have come with or without their own seeking, who, nevertheless, have not spiritual unfoldment.  This is the subject (spiritual gifts) which is side by side with that of which we wish to speak. "The best gifts" spoken of, when you are commanded to seek earnestly the best gifts, is not that you should seek one gift as greater than another, but the gift that is most desirable for you individually. if one seeks a spiritual gift, one cannot seek earnestly, prayerfully, without knowing that there is a power beyond the individual that must bestow the gift; that power must know better than the individual can what gift is best; so, instead of saying, Oh, I would like to have this or that spiritual gift; I would like to see spirits, or I would like to write, or I would like to be a medium for my own instruction or that of my friends, but I would not like to be a public medium," it would be better to accept cheerfully any gift that is given.

But people go on expressing themselves in different ways as though their liking or not liking can constitute any basis for a genuine spiritual gift.  Though manifestations of spirit power have come to those who not only did not seek them, but did not desire them.  Frequently there has been perpetual strife between the manifesting power and the individual to whom a gift came,  illustrating all the more perfectly that the gift is something outside of the individual wish, beyond the control of the individual thought.  Then others whose minds are in accord with the gift, receiving it gratefully and thankfully, yet who do not in any great degree know the meaning of spiritual unfoldment, but who receive the gifts outwardly, and mentally accepting them as a part of their lives, but not being aware that there is something within themselves which might be correspondingly unfolded, not to the augmentation of spiritual gifts, but to the augmentation of their individual spiritual enjoyment and usefulness.

The line of manifestation from the spirit world to mortals is the line of what is called spiritual gifts in the Bible, and their manifestations come to those who are in the shadow, or in the light: to those who are ignorant or those who have knowledge; to those who have moral infirmity or to those who are morally enlightened, to those who are physically imperfect or to those who are physically healthful: there is no distinction, and no discrimination, and when the gift is given the condition of the individual does not seem to effect the nature, quality nor capability of the expression of the gift.  The bestowment of these gifts is from a distinct outside power using the human organism or mechanism, and if it uses the faculties that are there  it uses them in the direction that they are unfolded.  It does not require anything, it does not claim the individual, it does not bestow anything excepting the gift itself.

In illustration of this the alleged exposure by the Fox sisters, the two younger, Margaret and Katie, were among the first instruments of spiritual manifestations (the oldest sister also being a medium); the lives of those two have not been affected,  their individual unfoldment has not advanced or have they especially sought or received spiritual enlightenment from the manifestations through them, so they being the subjects of the manifestations, but not being endowed with spiritual unfoldment from within, the result has been that when for self interest or other reasons, this power ceases to control their lives through them, their real nature moves in, and if that nature has not been unfolded in spiritual ways, if the outside manifestations have made no improvement on the spirit, if the rappings and other phenomena occurring in their presence have not given them enlightenment of the spirit, and the moral, nature than turned traitor to itself, as in this case and in many other lives, the more external manifestations have not affected the phenomena, they have not been morally responsible.

The same is true with reference to many mediums for physical manifestations; they are no worse or no better than the usual average human beings, than the human beings in the same condition with themselves outwardly or in any other sense; the endowment from spirit life of the gift of physical manifestations may not have aroused within them the desire to do and be better; even the desire to do and be better may not have succeeded in controlling and governing their lives.  The manifestations do not do it.  Many people say: if spirits have a controlling influence on human life,  why do they not prevent such things as have been manifested by the Fox sisters, and manifested in cases of others who have received spiritual gifts.

But the great lesson which is apparent is, that while spirits may guide and teach mortals, they cannot govern them: the moral government of an individual is not entrusted to any spirit, it must be a matter of individual growth, there must be unfoldment and individual responsibility.  If you knew the secret of those lives you would find that not only have they had the advice of every earthly friend, but the advice and guidance of spirit guidance also.  A spirit can prevent a man from drinking, a spirit can prevent a human being from doing anything wrong, but it would be of no moral value to take hold of a man physically or by psychological force and prevent an action; it would not be unfolding him in spirit.  It is not given to any spirit to take charge of man's moral nature; spirits do, sometimes, as do human friends, succeed in preventing a recurrence of a certain tendency in physical life, whether it is that of drinking or whether of other physical habits or vices: the prevention is not the conquering of the cause; the cause can only be overcome by the individual perception of the wrong, and the individual aim and strength to overcome it.  All helps are given in this direction, but, unless man is made to be a moral machine instead of an unfolding spirit and angel, he must win the light of spiritual truth the same as any other growth, from his own inward light and strength.

The appliances which are often sought for the development of mediumship are often mistaken for spiritual unfoldment; many people suppose themselves to be growing spiritually if the hand is controlled to write, or there are other manifestations in the rooms, or if in a little circle any one of the members  is controlled to speak, or see, or think, or do anything that gives evidence of the presence of spirits.  This is not spiritual unfoldment; it may be mediumship, it often is mediumship, but frequently this mediumship, so unfolded, produces no specific results.  Frequently there are slight evidences in the manifestations of spiritual presences: frequently a human being will spend months and years seeking for a mediumship that never goes beyond the mere controlling of the hands to write pages that cannot be read.  We have known instances where men and women have sat, as they called it, for spiritual development, for ten or twelve years, holding a pencil, earnestly desiring their spirit friends to write; nothing but a slight movement of the hand would ensue.  Is this spiritual unfoldment?  Would it not be better if they did as we always advise them to do: Pursue their ordinary occupations; do that which is nearest them to do in life, fulfill the duties each day, and seek for spiritual light from within?  If the spiritual world wishes to make them mediums; if there is any desire for expression to themselves or mortals, be sure spirits will finds a way to do it.  Mediums are developed almost instantly for spiritual work.  Mediums who are not used for spiritual work specifically may, by long continued effort in some external direction, produce or find a small result, but as said before, is this a genuine result? You frequently see advertised in the spiritualistic journals, methods and outward applications for the development of mediumship.  You frequently fly to these, supposing by some subtle power a gift may be bestowed upon you.  In this manner, no doubt a gift will be bestowed--that of wisdom, or experience, or something of the kind, and sometimes it may be true that, by some message received, some letter or token from a distant friend, a psychological condition may be produced on one that will enable one's individual friends to draw near: but mediumship in it's specific nature of being a gift is not developed that way.  Almost as suddenly as the conversion of Paul to Christianity,  when, as Saul, he was seeking rather to persecute the Christians; as suddenly as the endowment of the gifts in past time that came to the disciples while walking with and participating in the teachings of Jesus thus suddenly, sometimes, and nearly always, comes the gift of mediumship.  When it is indicated, when a distinct intelligence is manifested, then the only way is to follow it's guidance; if that guidance leads to a particular method, then the method should be followed.  But the outward appliances which you or any other human being can devise, will in no instance, develop any mediumship whatsoever.  If, however, those who seek mediumship were to have it by any method or device which you have recourse to; if human beings could succeed in producing some manifestation of spirit power, or condition by which that spirit power could be made manifest, then, in the aggregate, it would not be called, by us, spiritual unfoldment.  What the manifestation does in your lives; what the presence of the gift causes to be stirred up and grown within you; what the control of ministering spirits may produce in your daily thought and aspiration; what the gradual unfoldment and the recognition of spiritual powers will do in the world and in the individual lives--this, we denominate spiritual unfoldment.

It is utterly impossible that the majority of mankind, or the average of those who have dominion with the Spirit world, shall be in constant communication with the spiritual presences and not be uplifted thereby. One cannot continue to seek for messages from the Spirit world, especially massages pertaining to spiritual unfoldment, without its wakening enlightenment from within. One cannot be in daily and hourly communication with those who are guardian spirits or ministering attendants without some unfolding of the aspirations that are within--hence there is a perceptible spiritual change in the world; human thought has grown many degrees since the the advent of Modern Spiritualism.  It is not only the palpable demonstration of spirit presence and power which is valuable in an intellectual and physical sense, but there is that which is much greater, which far exceeds in value whatever has outward manifestation; that which is perceptible in the awakened spiritual cognition of all; the recognition of a spiritual atmosphere in the world that people did not confess fifty years ago; substantially the recognition of man's spiritual nature, the recognition of his spiritual powers, and the confession of a higher strata of existence than that which was in the world even a quarter of a century ago.   This spiritual unfoldment, of which the outward and exciting cause is the physical phenomena; the inward and dominating cause is the aspiration and need of the human spirit for greater knowledge of spiritual things.

The only method that can be advised with reference to spiritual unfoldment is the recognition and pursuing of such spiritual light as each individual has.  If you wish for growth or unfoldment in any direction, you turn your thoughts in that direction.  You may seek all human knowledge upon the subject, but you will not have any real growth unless you have it from within.  A great many illustrations might be given that are trite and familiar--if one is not an artist, who may intellectually desire to be one, seeking all information, all knowledge that is possible on the subject of art, he may have the perfect formula of painting a picture correctly, but between that picture and a work of art will be a great difference as between a dead and a living body.  One is a cultivated, external appliance of art, the galvanized or electroplated ware which cannot pass for pure gold; the other is the spirit of it, using all outward appliances for the perfect expression of that which the spirit only feels.  The same is true of music.  There are millions of excellent performers in the world; but the geniuses of music can be counted.  The performers do good work in physical and mental accuracy; but when the genius steps upon the stage the whole world knows the difference.  Between the physical and the functional acquisition and the gift that springs from within is to be found a standard of the difference between outward appliances for spiritual and religious thought and that which is the result of inward growth.

Entering the realm of spiritual growth again, we would simply say: No human being is destitute of the divine that divine spark, that spiritual life which ultimately will unfold.  None that do not somewhere have promise of its expression here; but those who are seeking that expression here and now; those who expect to arrive at the results before they travel all the steps necessary for reaching the results; those who do desire to be spiritually endowed and gifted, as well as to be a medium of spiritual communication, must remember that every step of this unfoldment must be taken from within; that no outward appliance, no benediction or blessing of ministering spirits, no message , however exalting, can make one exalted.  You may aspire until you reach the height: you may be there already:  if you are, it declares you.  Many people mistake periods of exulting inspiration, when by the light of  the spirit they are given glimpses of its surpassing state, for actual growth.  This explains why, pardon us for a few moments, there are so many people in the world who claim greater powers than they possess, who individually desire to be recognized as something greater than they are.    Just think of it--in the forty-eight years of the existence of Modern Spiritualism a great many people have supposed themselves to be its Christ.  There are people outside of Spiritualism who suppose themselves to represent the second coming of Christ.  This is altogether a willful deception; such people are endowed momentarily, or for periods of time, with inspiration: they are intellectually deceived by the exaltation which  they feel.  It is easy, just as easy for the mind to have obliquity in the direction of self, as it is for the body to.  Of course, these people are endowed primarily with sufficient appreciation of themselves, and when, added to that, they feel the light of an exalting  presence, it suddenly resolves itself into an egotism which, taking possession of them, usurps the place of reason and commonsense.  So there are only larger worshippers at their own shine than ordinary mortals.

But this presence which thrills and fills humanity today, not only dispels all such mists from the mind, but ultimately makes human existence a dear sweet and pure expression of humble, beautiful spirituality; a spirituality that does not compare itself with others, that does not claim anything for itself; that does not place itself upon a mountain of exultation and doubt, that to be the point which the world must attain; but in its true and potent humility receives the light and unfolds in its presence as the fragrance of the lilly, as the beauty of the rose, and expresses this light in human life, while others who are aware of it receive its glory and brightness.

Even as the unfolding rose, or as worlds that blossom 'neath Thy hand in space,
so may Thy children find unfolding the pure and perfect light,the inward grace,
 that leads them ever to Thy love, and makes them one with Thee.

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Book Mark .ARCHIVES PAGE.For On-Line Archival Literature By Cora L.V. Richmond

Book Mark The Home Page: InterFarFacing.com  INTRODUCTION  TO CORA L.V. Scott Hatch Tappan RICHMOND  1840 - 1923

Book Mark..The CORA L.V. RICHMOND ARCHIVES On-Line VERY RARE IMPORTANT BOOKS,  DISCOURSES, LECTURES, POEMS, LESSONS & LOST HISTORY  NOTE:  You May  Print Out Any Of  Cora's  Literature For PERSONAL USE ONLY

BOOK STORE   REPRINTS OF ONCE LOST RARE BOOKS THROUGH 30 YEARS OF BOOK DESTRUCTION

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