Chasing Smallwood — .33. The challenge of our times

[A book with four interlocking themes:

  • how to communicate with the dead;
  • the life of a 19th-century American;
  • the massive task facing us today, and

the physical world’s place in the scheme of things.]

[Friday, February 17, 2006]

All right. It is 8 a.m., nearly, the start of a cloud-heavy morning. If you’re ready to answer [my brother] Paul’s question – what is the real challenge of our time, what is the equivalent of the Civil War to us – I’m ready to hear it.

You have heard it many times, each time in a slightly different context. You have expressed it many times, enough that it is just another of your beliefs. What is your Iona book about, after all?

Pardon us while we circle around the subject. You know how a dog has to circle before it can lie down and sleep, it is a reassuring habit.

Look at what the crisis can’t be. That will add conviction.

Can it be political? Economic? Ideological? You have already fought those battles, and everyone is sick of them. Can it be religious? Same answer. People have struggled over these questions, and some always will struggle. But they do not define your time.

In the 1500s and 1600s, religious questions – the relation of religious organization to state power and to society and to categories of everyday thought. Once the state monopoly of Catholic thought was broken up, has anyone been proposing to return to it? No, the West moved on to other questions.

In the 1700s and 1800s – again, staying with the West, because that is where the world’s power was – the destruction of the medieval viewpoint and the birth of the industrial viewpoint came in a long series of political and then nationalistic struggles. You have experienced plenty of social upheavals since – but how many fundamentally transforming revolutions? American, French, Russian, in ascending order of fundamental transformation – and of violence. And, the nations expressed themselves. Are there new nations coming forth? Welsh devolution, Scot devolution, the emergence of French Canada, are mere afterthoughts with sometimes slightly comic overtones, in the way that minor actors playing major roles sometimes are.

In the 1900s, ideology. Fascism, Communism, Nazism, and many minor variants not noted. In your day you see the stragglers, your shrill right-wing and left-wing know-it-all podium pounders. Do you imagine that they are the wave of the future rather than the remnants of the shipwrecked past?

What we are saying is that the energy has gone out of all these things. With all the ill-will in the world, with all the cock-sure certainty, no one is going to be another Napoleon riding on revolutionary fervor or nationalism. There are moments of intensity, but it is a fire of straw, quickly flaring up, quickly burning out.

So do not look in old directions for the meaning of your time, or the fundamental challenge. These are shadow puppets that you are projecting against the wall – and scaring yourselves with! And as to partisan politics, we smile. In fact we laugh. The only thing that partisan politics does is to keep people occupied and out of trouble. It keeps lawyers and ad men and activists happy and occupied; it channels vast amounts of otherwise troublesome public emotion; it expresses but does not create public sentiment. This, except very occasionally.

You are fond of quoting Lincoln’s statement about the purpose and nature of politics, which is to create an effect and then fight that effect. Those who understand this have their fingers on the mainspring of things; those who don’t, should ponder the statement. There is a world of practical wisdom there.

But, we say to you – you having asked – politics is not the mover of anything, it is the result. If one of the major parties were to decide to instigate compulsory vegetarianism, say, how far do you think it would get? But if a movement for compulsory vegetarianism were to spring up, how long do you think it would be before one of the parties discovered that compulsory vegetarianism was deeply entwined in its principles? Try not to confuse cause and effect, or perhaps we should say locomotive and caboose.

Neither are the physical and organizational challenges of your day the central crisis of your time. The challenges are very real, and there are a lot of them – and they are all coming to a head just at about the same time. Isn’t that an interesting coincidence?

We smile.

Nothing of your old ways is sustainable in the spirit in which it operates. Does that not tell you something? Your economies, your environment, your animal companions, your social balance – none of it. You are ringed by the desperately poor economically – and by the desperately poor spiritually and mentally. Is it not obvious?

Hopefully this brief circuit is enough to move you from your accustomed thought. If it is not, then either your accustomed thoughts are closer to ours than the average, or we are meeting no response with you. Here is our thesis, and those for whom it is dead should leave it: Not in politics nor ideology nor religious forms, nor social upheaval is your salvation. Not in technology or scientific investigation or social organization and reorganization is your way out. Not in –

Well, no point in continuing; you get the idea or you don’t.

The crisis in your time is the greatest to be faced in recorded history. (Note the adjective.) it needs to be, to provide the energy to propel you – propel us – to the next stage in human development. And here is where we burst categories. That is what a transformative crisis does – it bursts categories. From the far side of the crisis there is no going back, because everything is different. You are different.

We stress this – and we went on that little survey ramble – because it is easier to say something new than to have it be heard as something new. Without new ears to hear, without (in other words) your being at a new place mentally and spiritually, the news will be filtered through your old categories and will seem embarrassingly vapid, or obviously ridiculous, or – favorite thing of the academic habit of mind – “nothing but” that and that comprising element. Why do you think Jesus kept saying “let those of you who have ears, hear.” He was saying “these words will mean one thing to many, but something much more to those who are in a place to really hear them.” So, here. The ears you bring to the message determine what you hear. It can be no other way.

And this, incidentally, explains or should explain why so much that is precious and even vital has not been absorbed. It isn’t that the masters ever wanted to keep it secret! They wanted to give it away freely, but could find only a few ears able and ready to hear. Think of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, whose forthcoming destruction must have been plain to him. “How many times did I try to give you the key,” he said, “and yet you wouldn’t and couldn’t hear me.” And – just for an aside to an aside – we deliberately used “wouldn’t” and “couldn’t” to remind you that Jesus wasn’t speaking English! Revere the spirit, not the form.

What can the defining crisis of your time be but a spiritual one? And yet, to say “spiritual” is to mislead. Again, the crisis will burst categories.

In your time the destruction of the materialist illusion proceeds from all sides. It loses its scientific underpinning. It fails the practical test of providing meaning. It offers no hope of a better future. Each of these sentences is an essay in itself, but for the moment we will not stop to provide them. Thought and meditation will provide them for you.

The death of materialism as an operating principle leaves your time as a loss. The poor cannot look to achieving your American standard of living. Americans living it – and Europeans – know that it isn’t an answer to meaning anyway. And the hypertrophy of concentration of wealth demonstrates in any case that a society’s accumulation of wealth is not necessarily to the benefit of any but a predatory few. (And this is how it always has been in uncontrolled society. Remind us sometime to speak of the models that have succeeded.)

You may have guessed that we had a reason for discussing the Civil War. It is the previous step taken. And Abraham Lincoln played a major role in the history – and future – of the world, as is recognized already but only in a restricted context. As matters play out, his ultimate significance will be seen more clearly.

So many essays and side-trails, and we cannot pause for them!

The struggle in your time is between inclusion and exclusion. Here you will find the key to every specific, for every problem in your time will naturally align itself in the magnetic field of the defining polarity. And so you see that Lincoln’s role was to make a major inclusion – bringing the inclusion of another race into the shared idea that was America. In other words from that time it was no more a dream of one race – even a race of many nations but all European “whites” – but now a totally unprecedented expansion to be more than one race. And once black, then there was no logical barrier to yellow, red, and brown. Of course you are still in the initial stage of working all this out – of living the expanded ideal – but the decision was made, and ratified in blood and military success, and there was no going back for the human race.

Yes, for the human race. The American experiment was unique, and might have been held to one race, and would have failed and could not have been re-created. It was to preserve this over-archingly important pattern that states rights was sacrificed, and much more would cheerfully have been thrown onto the fire from this side as best we could.

The struggle is between two ways of seeing things – inclusive and exclusive; unitary and divided; and this means, ultimately, it is between two forces, Love (attraction and interpenetration) and Fear (repulsion and attempted separation.)

Now, don’t say “oh, that’s only Course in Miracles” or “that’s only” anything! You cannot hear without new ears to hear with. But once you have new ears, of course you will find that it has all been said – but you will understand it perhaps for the first time.

Love versus Fear. Faith versus fear. Courage, joy, life – versus fear.

This is the crisis of your time. But you may ask – how is this a crisis? What is the practical working-out of this?

Those of you who are willing to live in love will find your way by always seeking to include, rather than drawing logical or other distinctions and drawing lines saying “us” versus “them.” Now of course this immediately brings in a paradox, in that we’re saying in effect, “the world must not be divided, so don’t be like those who divide things.” This too can be transcended by realizing that everything may be seen as part of a polarity rather than as opposition. If you are a part of a polarity, you are a necessary part; something had to be playing that part. So it takes you beyond the blaming and the excluding. Hitler, Stalin, played their part. They were not arbitrary occurrences – nothing in life is arbitrary, despite appearances. They were, you might say, the personification of social forces.

You will live in love, and will continuously draw nearer to all people, to all animals and birds and fishes, to all things created, to all things not physically manifest. You will rejoice in what is, and will not fear the future, even as you work to affect that future in what you do and – more vitally – in what you are.

Or – you will express the other side of the polarity and will live in fear, and soon in hatred and despair. You will divide, and divide, and divide, until you whittle away your standing-place and are alone in a howling wilderness.

You will contribute toward the creation of a new consciousness – for that and nothing less is what is at issue here – or you will lose yourself in a wilderness of repelling mirrors behind which (you will fear) are unnamed horrors.

This is the challenge of your times, nothing less. Do you think, now, that environmental cleanup or political triumph or any other issue is at the same level?

And, Frank, do you see why we did not begin this last night or yesterday? This has taken an hour and a quarter and you are already tired at 9:15! How far would we have gotten yesterday afternoon?

Yes, well, as always, my thanks, and presumably the thanks of those with ears to hear. I am tired. I hope I will be able to decipher to transcribe.

17 thoughts on “Chasing Smallwood — .33. The challenge of our times

  1. I am so profoundly moved by this and by what you are that you can receive it. Can it be in your book? It clarifies so much, about the world, about our place in it, about what we’re doing. There are no words for the gratitude I feel for this. You are contributing toward the creation of a new consciousness, “for that and nothing less is what is at issue here.”

  2. Ditto as Subtle Traveler tells above –
    Thank you indeed Frank.
    I do have your book Chasing Smallwood and to recall how absorbed by it to become by its context, when to read your book for the first time.

    Wonder if somebody here to have read Jane Roberts` “The World View of William James?” Subtitled as “The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher.”

    B & B, Inger Lise

    1. Inger Lise–I did read “The World View of William James,” years ago. Frank’s work has made me think of it and also of the Oversoul Seven books.
      We had snow for a few days, and I thought of your last description of your snow and grayness. It’s back to being in the 50s.

    2. P.S…. Hi, and adding a bit more – It is a section in the book; “The world view of William James by Janes` telling about the “atmospheric presence,” which “permeates all existence” – without exception of anything … and Includes every – “thing.”

      LOL, Inger Lise

  3. This is hitting the nail on the head.

    Like Jane Peranteau, I feel there are no words to convey my gratitude for what you share. My, but what a journey: from Seth to Dolores Cannon to Michael Newton to J. Edwin Carter to Law Of One to Changes in Our Sun and Heliosphere back to J. Edwin Carter and then to you. Such a trail of crumbs to follow……however does one’s head manage to hold all of this?? Thankfully it does and seems to expand, starved for more. I am still working my way through your black box series….gems, all!
    : )))

    Thank you and thank you.

  4. Frank,
    I totally agree with Jane about the importance of “what you are that you can receive” this information. It helps me to a better understanding of what Elias says about the depth of this shift in consciousness and the trauma it IS causing in many people.

    Seems the best I can do is help ‘hold the space’, to “contribute toward the creation of a new consciousness” with all the excitement and nervousness one might expect with such a Change. I too am profoundly grateful for the space you provide for ‘folks like us’ … much better than being “alone in a howling wilderness”!! 🙂
    Jim

      1. Well, “everything may be seen as part of a polarity rather than as opposition.”
        I’m still working on that one …

          1. Frank ? I`m with “an ongoing Seth-Class” whom meets online on the webinar twice a month. The mentor is Rick Stark, who as a youngster participated in “the class” of Jane Roberts and her husband.

            BUT, The last webinar session REALLY caught my attention when Rick brought up what Seth telling about PROBABLE Realities and the FLUIDITY of reality.
            Seth also have told Jane Roberts about death: “You are as dead now as you ever will be,” because all probable worlds(and earths)excists simultaneously.

            I have EXPERIENCED some weird dreams(REAL DREAMS) lately. THE EXPERIENCE to live into the mulitidimensional/-probable worlds. Lately “the weird dreams” seems to escalate more lively than ever. What I SEE in the probable realites is to EXPERIENCE other “versions” of THE EARTH. Now I van inderstand the books telling about ” the many “other” Earth`s, or other versions of realities.
            – I can DESCRIBE them as clearly now as sitting here this morning, looking out of the windows in my house early morning.
            When my LIVELY “dreams” arising in a row night after night as they have done in the las week; their “form” changes – nght after night, and therefore it is demanding a balanced mind if not to become confused, and especially “a clear mind” when upon the awakening into my own “ordinary & daily life.” I can see how my dreams and my daily life being intertwined in a new fashion. The challenge of it, is the vividness of the EXPERIENCE upon my mind, without loosing “my feets on the ground.”

            Thanks to you I have learned to accept our reality as FLUID – it is as somehow “the defined realism” cannot be other than none “defined” at all. The fluidness of creation is without definition because it is no limits.

            I will always be grateful to you Frank. … and also for bringing Charles Sides into my life …. INCLUDING all friends here with you. All with the same urge for the knowledge about the life as a whole.

            B & B, Inger Lise.

          2. Sounds like you are entering a magical time. Congratulations. And thanks for so much you have added to our discussions over the years. Is it possible there is a book about Inger Lise’s inner and outer life in the works somewhere? You’d have to write it in Norwegian and have it translated, as Norweglish wouldn’t be adequate to the material, but from the hints you’ve given us from time to time, I for one would love to read such a book.

    1. Jim, I’m still thanking you for introducing me to Elias. I was reading a post this week about the “genuine freedom” that comes from not hiding or denying anything from yourself. This allows you to be your best receiver. This is what we see Frank do. It reminded me that receiving guidance is acknowledging the connection. Alignment is acting on it.
      I’ve also thought about the best I can do is helping ‘hold the space.’ Glad to be doing that in this setting.

  5. Inger Lise–I am in the midst of working to remember dreams, so it was great to read your post on how your dreaming is going. I’m assuming you’re recording all these dreams? You’ll need them for your book!

    1. Frank and Jane, I luv` U dearly (learned how it is spelled by another dear, longtime, U.S friend, one friend from my former Edgar Cayce study group). My friend(she) always wrote “luv` U.” And I luv` U too.

      But I do have dozens of old dream journals hidden somewhere. All of them “weird”…. the dreams showing me how to PAINT the socalled “ALIENS.” The paintings are hidden in plastic bags upon the attic(the loft in english).
      BUT, it is a BIG difference between to go public here in Norway with such “oddities” than in the U.S. that `s for sure – here it is ridiculed if not considered, still, as insane – even among “the New-Age” groupings. I have tried once, many years ago, but obviously THE TIME was not “right.” My husband became “enraged,” and my sons became embarrassed(my sons in their teens).
      And all ending up close, at the edge of it, in becoming a divorce of the marriage.
      Hm, to be honest; I became, with other words, “burned.” The whole effort became “a traumatic experience.” Oh, well, it IS other probable realities anyway.

      A big hug to you both, and thank you very much for the encouragement.

      P.S. It came as a RELIEF in the words by Seths` told by Rick Stark on the webinar this week, and quote Seth once again:
      “Freed from ambitions – go with your joy – your unique way: You do not have to ACHIEVE anything but to be yourself.”

      But ESPECIALLY love this one told by Seth: “You do not have to justify your existence.”
      No more behoove of the “guilty emotions.”

      Always fluid, Inger Lise(smiles).

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