The Wheel of Eternity: How the Witness Learned about Her Task

Disney Haunted Mansion publicity photo

The Wheel of Eternity is a nonfiction case study that offers readers an opportunity to consider such subjects as 'ghosts,' 'extra-sensory perception' and an intermediary "divine Creative Force" from the perspective of a psychic who wrote several books about her strange experiences.

Helen Greaves wrote in the Preface of The Wheel of Eternity (1974) that the book "may be read as an allegory, as an imaginary tale, as inspiration, as a thesis on archetypes in man, or as a telepathic record from Mind to mind of an actual happening out of time and space."  To the author, "this last statement is fact" because in every chapter Helen "participated, not only as recorder, but as one with those who were living through their deep emotional experiences."  She was referring to three people who'd previously lived in the locality of her new home and now inhabited the ascended realm of existence.  This article profiles the incidents recounted by Helen in the first five chapters of the book.  The case study offers evidence that there is a "force of Love which acts as the God-Power to bring all souls into peace, progress and Light."

In Autumn 1971, Helen moved into a 16th Century cottage of a village in Sussex, England.  Within a few weeks of settling in, she was reading near the electric fireplace when her "attention was drawn from my book by a strange feeling of apprehension" —

Startled, I looked up.  Immediately, I became 'aware' of an old woman.  She was sitting in the armchair opposite, and she was staring at me with curiosity and interest.

Helen first asked herself if she was seeing a ghost.  She commented about her previous psychic experiences: "Always I had been aware of the appearance of a departed spirit, but that had always been an inner seeing."  The old woman wore an antique dress with a white apron over the front.  Helen learned that her name was 'Nan.'

Then she explained her right to be in the cottage.  This had been her "very own" home, she communicated through the mind; she had lived here by herself, "since my Mistress died," which I gathered was some years before.


She had been a servant for years, she told me, in a large house not far away . . .

Then: ". . . the old woman was gone."

There was another "visit from my fellow-occupant" in early December with another encounter the following night.  Nan spoke about her wealthy Mistress who always wore a "real silver" chain with a "great locket."  Helen began learning details of the Earth lives of the old woman and her Mistress, whose son was a teenager when he drowned in a nearby pond.

I was often conscious of the old woman in my sitting room.


Whether she thought or not, I had no way of discovering, but at times I would pick up an idea from her mind.


It is a strange, almost eerie, experience to be hearing the secret thoughts of another individual, especially when I was quite aware that this was a disembodied spirit, locked up and earthbound in her own world of illusion.

What Helen learned stunned her —

"Not that the old Master knew much.  'E was too easy-going with 'er, and she knew 'ow to get round him.


. . . the Boy weren't 'is own flesh and blood . . . a fly-by-night, a romp-in-the-'ay child of an 'andsome gardener wot come to work for us for a while.  Oh, the Mistress was proud and self-willed.

In the third chapter "The Vision," Helen described what she experienced and learned "One Sunday morning in January, after a relaxed and gentle meditation."  She was "swept into another state of consciousness, indeed a new world."

This was a state in which I heard, I saw, I knew.  I found myself a part of a living tableau, deeply involved with it, as the tableau was broken up into varied scenes, and the scenes into a dramatic drama.

For nearly two hours (checked later by the clock), I remained in this extended consciousness.  I seemed to be a living sentient Mind, separated from the body.  There was no time; past, present and future were all one, for I lived in past actions, forgotten dramas, which were all strange to me, as well as 'taking part' in pre-cognitive future happenings.


As I lay with my eyes closed, utterly engrossed, the drama unfolded and, as in a play, one act led on to another and finally to the climax.  It was all tightly knit, and entirely plausible.  The actors pulsated with life, and human passion rang through it all . . . and in a strange way I felt myself a part of it . . . as indeed I was to be, yet at that time I had no notion of such a possibility.  But as days and weeks passed, and other 'visitors' from a future life communicated with me, this painful saga of three lives resolved itself into such a tremendous Purpose as to stir my very soul to its depths.


Soon I realised that the appearance of the old serving woman in the cottage had been the curtain raiser to a new consciousness and a task which I could not refuse.  Later, when I was able to bring my reasoning mind into the examination of this phenomenon, I was able to sift this vital interplay between mind and Mind, and mind and matter.  It was all part of the same Power, the Alpha and Omega of existence . . . Spirit.

Helen wrote that during the long January evenings she was often aware of the old servant with information imparted "about her life as a maid in the big house."  There were also "the scenes in the vision" to consider.

The mistress, it appeared, did not marry until in her late twenties, which was surprising, as she was both rich and handsome.  Then she took for husband a man much older than she, and he seemed to be under her thumb from the very beginning.


There were no children, until the boy arrived some years after the marriage, when his mother was in her middle thirties.


Suffice it that the wandering gardener was evidently seduced by a passion-hungry woman, and there was a short-lived intense affair between them, of which the complacent husband appeared completely unaware.


Later, the mistress' son was born, an unwanted child who soon showed signs of a maladjusted mind and an uncontrolled body.

The boy's mother could not bear him near her; he was both an embarrassment and an intrusion into her ordered life.  She abandoned him to the care of the servants, so that my visitor assumed the role of confidante and protector.


. . . it was his love for the birds which caused his death.  He was fifteen at the time, a big gangling youth with good features but a vacant expression.


It appears that a blackbird with a broken wing had taken refuge on a branch of a tree overhanging the pond.  The boy caught sight of it, as it fluttered down on to the water, and lay there helpless.  He, innocent of danger, waded out to help it and stepped into a deep hole.  He could not swim and by the time the gardener saw him his body was floating face downwards and his half-life was over.  My old woman had never completely forgiven herself for not having been beside him to raise the alarm.

But it was the mother's attitude which riled her.  The mistress took it calmly . . . "never shed a tear, she didn't," and after the funeral gave orders for everything of her son's to be removed and destroyed.


She [the Mistress]  was then about fifty years old and her husband much older.  The winter following the tragedy, the husband caught pneumonia and died and she was left alone, except for the servants, in the big house.  After that, according to her maid, she became tyrannical, resentful, and her health deteriorated.  For the last ten years of her life she was practically an invalid, with heart trouble and other maladies.  She died alone and with an expression of terror on her face that seemed to have burnt itself into the memory of the old servant.

When relatives took over the house, old Nan was offered the tiny cottage as a home.  Helen had become familiar with "the mind and memories of this poor earthbound soul."

One evening in late January, Helen experienced "a heightening (I use this word for want of a better) of the vibrations."

On to my inner sight flashed the figures of two Visitors from another World.  It was quite obvious to me that I could never have seen them with my physical eyes, so different were they from the poor earthbound entity who thought she shared my cottage.

They shone.  I can explain it no other way.  To me, the room was filled with Light and pervaded with such a sweetness and love that I was aware of tears in my eyes.


They were young men, though one appeared little more than a youth, and the other gave the impression of wisdom and experience which came from age, yet had nothing to do with our material measurement of years. 

Helen mentioned that the one who gave the impression of wisdom had an expression of beauty and serenity.  "His robe, which was white, gleamed as though light flowed through it."

At last my attention was caught by the younger man.  His face had a chiselled look, almost as if he was carved in marble, so perfect were his features.  Yet he did not glow, as his companion did.  I found myself puzzling about this, when I was interrupted by a startling thought that was shot into my mind, like a firework exploding in my consciousness.

"The Boy."  Just those two words.  "The Boy."

I was silenced.  Was this an hallucination?  Immediately, my physical mind interrupted, reasoning that the Boy, of whom I had learned from the old servant, had been weak in intellect.  This youth, I felt, was a soul advanced in wisdom.  I must have been mistaken.

But presently I knew that the mind of this young man was communicating with mine.  Quickly I caught up pad and pen.  This, I knew, must be recorded.

Here are some excerpts of the discourse quoted by Helen.

"I am the Boy, of whom you have heard," came the words.  "The poor creature who once lived in this neighbourhood where you now dwell.  Yes, I recall that I passed from earthlife by drowning.  You cannot 'see' me as yet, but your Self is aware of the contact, and this has come as a surprise to you.  Yes, I am the Boy, of whom the earthbound woman spoke, the son of the Mistress she served.  I was a soul drawn to earth-life in a body of flesh created by the lowest physical emotions of lust and not by love.  You have not, perhaps, realised that a love-body, i.e. cells joined and fused in the physical union of two who love each other, is often of superior quality to the flesh formation of a casual coupling unhallowed by tenderness?"


"This Brother of Light, who stands beside me, is a starry Point in the Group to which I, as a lowly aspiring soul, belong.  It was by his protection and love that I was able to endure the mind-prison of a defective brain in your earth-life, an incarnation which I had chosen for a special experience.  Our souls were so united by love and purpose, that strength was often afforded me as by a miracle.  In sleep I knew his comfort and care; in sleep I beheld his radiance, as a guardian Angel, yet my deficient mind could not retain or express this awareness.  Only in the contact with birds and flowers and trees could I dimly apprehend the Love and Creative Intelligence of Divinity.  I was almost mute, dumb in the physical expression of what my soul knew—I suffered.  My friend, if you wish confirmation of my statements, look with perception into the eyes of a retarded child; there you will often perceive the imprisoned soul, longing for yet incapable of, and therefore denied, expression.

"And so with me.  My mother had no natural love for me.  I was both a reproach and an incubus.  But the serving woman, whom you know as the 'old woman of the cottage,' simple, earthbound, unenlightened, loved me.  She gave me the devotion of her soul and the work of her body.  For such comfort, for such compassion, come We now to bring her Light; to free her from the dark unconsciousness and fear which have clouded her soul for some space of your earth time.

"I myself could accomplish little.  But the power and wisdom of my Brother's consciousness (for he is a most advanced soul), is closer to awareness of the Christ . . ."


"In this release of an imprisoned soul we trust you will play your part as the scribe, the listener, the go-between 'twixt earth consciousness and soul-awareness; and as a catalyst, who is used to trigger recollection from the chain of events."


"Therefore, 'Mind-Catalyst,' before we withdraw our consciousness from yours, My Brother of Light bids you hold your 'fellow-lodger' in the Light of prayerful thought, that of her own accord, she may confide in you those memories and fears that blot her conscience, and hold her to earth.  Farewell."

Helen then wrote:

I put aside the pen and pad.  The session was over. 

The vision which had uplifted my consciousness and had illustrated this story of the Mistress, the Boy and the woman who served them, had in vague references indicated that the story had not ended.

Helen appraised her predicament:

I was a mere cog in the wheel, yet a cog must perform its function.


Before I went to bed, I knew that I was blessed indeed to be allowed to be entrusted even with this humble service.  I felt that my soul had accepted this, long before my rebellious personality had received the smallest inkling concerning the work.

There soon would be another session involving 'the Boy' and at the end of January an encounter with 'the Brother of Light.'  One of the things Helen learned when "the mind of this young man ['the Boy'] was communicating with mine" was:

"My Brother has instructed me concerning those Astral Worlds which I passed.  He insists that, although this may not be a part of the death drama for others, yet for me, it was entirely necessary, for when I had attained sufficient spiritual progress I would be joining the Band of Light Brothers, whose work is to release souls held fast in the illusions of the Astral Plane (as is the maid I knew, now the old woman in your cottage)."

Helen explained about the 'Brother of Light':
 

I could not see him with my physical sight, as I had sometimes seen the old lady in the cottage.  I could only sense his presence and build up in my mind's eye what, to me, was his appearance.  I 'saw' him as a humble monk, for he had assumed the brown cassock and the waist-cord of a young Franciscan friar.

The Brother of Light sent his thoughts to me . . .

Here are some passages from the recorded thoughts of the Brother of Light.

"Our duty and service is to aid them to progress from the half-life of these drab abodes into the light and beauty of the higher planes of the Astral World.  To do this we employ all possible means of changing their thought patterns, of dissolving fear and hatred by hope and love.


We observed you, we touched our thoughts with yours during your times of meditation.  We became satisfied that we had discovered a useful channel.  We wished to work with you.


"From your cottage 'lodger' you had learned the story of the Boy and his mother.  He, an advanced soul in a stage of initiation which is incomprehensible to you; she, a young soul, inexperienced and stumbling in its progress.  To your mind was imparted the joy of the fulfilment of one and the tragedy of the failure of another.  Failure, I repeat, which has been brought over to this next stage of life.  I refer, of course, to the mother, whose bitterness has held her chained to the drab Shadow Lands, a soul refusing Light and Love, blinding herself to any opportunity of evolving, hating her present state yet rejecting the idea of any responsibility for it.  She too must be awakened, my Friend; hers is a soul that loved beauty, yet loved it selfishly.  Love itself for others, or even from others, cannot, it seems, reach her.  Self, in its lowest, most limiting form, still imprisons her.  She has no spiritual understanding, no belief and little hope.  Neither her son, nor I, can penetrate through the black despair of her mind.  If, as mankind has pictured for so long, there is a state of hell, then this must be it.  Yet no soul remains in hell for eternity.  God is Love.  Love forgives, Love dissolves hatred.  Love progresses into Light and Beauty.  Love is the Law.  Here we have an example of the lost sheep, for which the Shepherd returns again and again, to retrieve it from its wanderings.  This is evolution; this is progress; and this is the Law of the Creator for all life.

"For this reason, your co-operation is needed.  We can now bring her to you.  You, who live in the material world, and thus are cognisant of its allures, its dangers, its tragedies, can act as a go-between in the service of rescue of this poor benighted creature.  Your mind, inspired by us, might reach hers and implant the certainty of greater Beauty before her, when she sees her mistake and is purged of its bitterness.  This service could prepare her for shock of her shut-in anger, or what she considered was the unfairness of the fate dealt out to her, partly by the fact of her child being 'retarded' and partly by her own inability to redeem her self-centredness by loving.

"This is a Service We offer you.  But it can only be accomplished with your willing assent and co-operation. . . ."

Helen reacted: "The words ceased flowing into my brain.  I stopped writing.  I sat, almost numbed with this new sense of responsibility . . . I must await future happenings and be prepared for new turns in this most amazing astral drama!"

Testimony of Light

Link to Instrumental Transcommunication video clip showing a landscape in the ascended realm of existence.  (1, 2)

"The late Frances Banks, M.A.

(formerly Sister Frances Mary of the Community of the Resurrection, Grahamstown, South Africa)"

 

Most of Testimony of Light (1969) by Helen Greaves consists of communicated "Scripts" expressing the perspective of Frances Banks in the ascended dimension of life.  Frances had lived as a nun and participated in a meditation group with Helen.  Following the introductory article about the book, this article presents excerpts of the "extra-sensory perceptions of clairaudience and telepathy" experienced by Helen upon finding herself a 'channel' for the "Scripts" following her friend's passing from cancer.  
 
After the memorial service for Frances, Helen experienced a euphoric Sunday evening that she expressed as being an occasion when she was "not only in touch with my own immortal soul but also with the soul of Frances Banks."
 
In the 2009 edition of Testimony of Light, there are 125 pages of "The Scripts" dating between December 5, 1965 and April 16, 1966.  Helen explained there was a period of nearly 17 months before another, briefer interim of communication.  The 18 pages of the "Second Series of Scripts" are dated between September 3 and December 10, 1967.

Among these scripts are descriptions of people encountered by Frances while she was becoming acquainted with the nature of the new plane of existence.  There are renewed associations first made during earthly life, including Mother Florence and Father Joseph.  Among the numerous new contacts was 'Mr. M,' a scientist who professed that his research always indicated "a certain X factor which was beyond man's conception, the perfect Creative Factor, a Supreme Mind"; while 'Dr. X' was a surgeon who became aware of  an inner "all-knowing, all-perfect someone who, when I stood aside and let Him take over, performed miracles of surgery through my brain and hands."  
 
There was also a Nazi leader (not Hitler) who'd committed suicide after the downfall of Germany: "He was conscious of his terrible cruelty and filled with remorse . . . His besetting sin, which blacked out all else, was love of power; it swelled into viciousness against another race, even causing him to put to death men, women and children of that race . . ."  After 20 Earth years he had been rescued and would soon be confronted by another 'patient' in the new 'Home' of Frances — a young Jewish mother who was one of his victims. 

A 'Great Physician' was the 'Leader' of a team of doctors within a "medical circle" on the "higher Planes": "One was there who had been a great physician, a beloved physician, when on earth; a soul whose countenance was beautiful beyond any description of mine.  He radiated spiritual love and beauty."

There is an encounter with Pierre Curie: "I was able to have a word or two with Pierre Curie, even though on earth he was a Frenchman . . . Language affords no difficulty over here . . ."  The conversation brings Frances an insight about how mankind may evolve: ". . . do away with the dread and fear of death and teach the eternal Oneness of life."  Pierre Curie is quoted: "We are perhaps employed on the palliative side; to relieve and cure that which misapplied thought and energy and ignorance have crystallized." 

A patient in Frances's 'Home' was 'the man on a bicycle' — a bicycle-riding laborer who "made an art of stealing" while on Earth and continued to have moral "stumbling blocks" preventing him from adapting himself to the new conditions of life.

There was an 'arrival' who had been a missionary nurse put to death by natives.  She was accompanied by 'Laki,' a small native boy she'd befriended.  "They had arrived here together, for it seemed that even in the period of transition to this plane she had held the child to her with love . . . She had lived what so many of us had talked about."  This 'arrival' soon went to her "rightful Place": "Love had been translated to Higher Spheres, you see, long before intellect, as in the scientist, or skill, as with Dr. X, had been ready to ascend."

Another resident of the Home was an ex-policeman feeling anguish about his troubled daughter on the earth plane: "He no longer feels shame or anger, only a great desire to express his love for her and to help her redeem herself from the life she is leading."

A pretty child named Jeannie had lived to be nearly 12 years old on Earth.  Her ambition had been to become a dancer until contracting polio and undergoing several operations.  In her new life, she resumed her plans to be a dancer.  Jeannie told Frances: "I've got to be perfect at dancing . . . Before I go back to the earth again . . . really to be a dancer."

There was also encountered "a Frenchman" who on Earth was "a painter of promise, who dissipated the gift . . . indulging in drink and drugs . . ."  During a night brawl "he killed a fellow artist, and himself received a knife wound from which he later died."  His current habitat was "a dreary little 'room' in a dark and crooked street in Shadow Land"; however, he "still  cherished in his soul some remembrances of beauty."  Frances told him: "There is a way out."

Excerpts from "The Scripts"

After the Change was over and I was free of my earthly "covering" I "woke up" here in this hospital of the Rest Home.  My room had no walls and the sunlight seemed to flow over one all the time.  I opened my eyes . . . or I came back to consciousness . . . and there was Mother Florence just as she used to be and as I had remembered her for so many years.


Some of our patients here have got "stuck."  And that is where I, who myself am undergoing this kind of mental and spiritual "psychiatry" am able to help them.


Because this plane is only a few rungs or so higher than the earth plane, there are the same conditions, hospitals, as with your civilizations, and prisons, only here they are self-made.


It has been a wonderful experience, discussion with this man [Mr. M].  He sees now that consciousness is the expanding X Factor which goes on becoming stronger and more able to lighten matter; and that before him lies a glorious conception of a Universe of ever-increasing Light and, therefore, ever-lightening matter with which to experiment.

Now he is absorbed in the wonder, not only that he himself is a unit of consciousness, but also because of his transition from the body, the pattern of his own energy ratio has changed, has become less dense, so that he is now able to work at a stepped-up intensity, using a wider field of magnetic force.

What a lot I have learned from him!

Here are two of us conferring; he with his great knowledge of atomic reactions in matter and I, with my inherent conviction that the Spirit is the Light (the X Factor) which is the focus, the power and motive of and for all.

You can understand how thrilling and exciting this is.

My friend (I will call him Mr. M.) will not be here in this Rest Home much longer . . . (I could say "unfortunately" for I shall miss our sessions).  He will be going on to join a group of scientists working on the higher Planes.  But he says that he will still make contact with me, even though I elect to stay on here for a while.  And, of course, there is telepathy of the mind for us to radio ideas to each other.


[Dr. X quoted:]  "Since I was a young man I had always known that the 'Surgeon' was within me . . ."


[Dr. X quoted:] "I had made it a practice to keep quiet and be alone for a while on the days when such skill was required in the course of my work, so as to contact Him.  I was never a religious man.  I don't think I regarded Him as God or Christ.  But He was the strength and the cunning of my hands.  His was the inspiration which guided and governed my brain.  I was perfectly sure and certain of that, although I never spoke of it to others.  Without Him and His judgment, skill and serenity, I was as nothing.  And when each operation was over and I went to the tap to wash up, I used to feel physically sick at the possibility that, one day, I might lose touch with Him. . . . I recall I always said 'thank you' after each extended session in the operating theater.

"But on this particular day when the accident occurred, I had rushed to the hospital after an emotional row with the woman I thought I loved.  There had been no time for quiet, or for recollection of my 'Celestial Surgeon,' if I may call Him this.  I was in an emotional turmoil."


[Dr. X quoted:]  "Had I realized then that He is (as Christ instructed us) ever ready to be contacted, I might have had strength to go on without making the muddle I did of my life. . . ."


Suddenly, without preamble, this blue vista broke up, and became a cinema or television screen.  Pictures began to emerge on it.  They were not superimposed as in a cinema, but seemed to "grow into it" from the very ether itself.  These pictures appeared to form themselves.

They showed moments of stress, moments of triumph, moments of failure in the earth life of Doctor X.  We saw patients; we watched him in his diagnoses; we followed him to the theater and witnessed his operations, and as we watched, we became conscious (as he did) of the great Light that enfolded him as he worked.


Jesus came to show and demonstrate that man lived on after leaving the earth plane.  He taught that this God Force, this Life is truly within every one of us, dimmed yet unextinguishable.


The saying on earth "As a man thinks, so is he" is true in essence, truer than our ideas can conceive.  By man's thoughts and inspirations he weaves for himself his future place in this dimension.  This is logical Law.  In the earth life he can build a facade about himself.  Here he has no such mask.  He is known for what he is, and for what his inner subjective life has made him.


A Messenger arrived with a guide, and little Laki went on to his rightful place.  His foster-mother was overjoyed for she knew that she would be able to visit him and help him as she had done when in the physical body.  Here I must say a word about the boy.  A child is so much nearer to the soul-life.  Even this child's few short years on earth, six I believe, had scarcely separated him from his before-birth contact with Divine Love.  This Love had been continued for him by his missionary "mother."  He accepted our new life with a quiet wonder and yet a fulfilled joy.  He loved us all, and once he told Mother Florence of a great angel whom, he said, he had seen with us in the home.  For me it has been a precious and wonderful experience to have witnessed the rebirth here of such innocence; the soul of this child, unpolluted, untainted by the materialism and separation of earth beliefs, was so ready for the heaven world.  I can express it best by saying it was like a bud opening into flower here.


"Prayers and good thoughts," he [Father Joseph] told me, "for those who have left the earth life, by their fellows still in incarnation, are a great aid to our work here.  The prayer forms, and the potency of good thoughts, cause a quickened vibration to reach the one prayed for.  As he is generally closely connected with his former life by interests and affections and memories, he is able to respond to such vibrations; thus he is much helped.  Such petitions and meditations could be likened to a draft of healing water for the newly transmitted soul."


I have met my family, and visited my father, mother, sister and brother.  But as this is a private affair and not relevant to the purpose of these communications, I shall not write about it. . . .


[concerning cancer]  Doctor X spoke of the use of a pure Light Ray, and I understood him to be referring to the Laser.  In the future, he asserts, such a Ray will be used more extensively and will project its light onto these rogue cells.  Later, he says, the Band will help to impress the minds of researchers with the realization that, apart from its cutting power, this Ray, or rather a variation of it in modified form, can be used as a sort of catalyst to reform the cellular pattern which has gone awry.


Here we are mind (stepped down to our individual potency, I grant), but still mind, untrammelled by the destructive and apparent reality of matter. . . . Therefore, by thought and will, we can travel far out beyond what constitutes our immediate circumstances, if we wish.

As I think I have stressed before, this stretching out into Light and Life can appear as a dream-extension.  Yet, conversely, it is true and real to the dreamer!  Perhaps it is Reality itself . . . at my present stage I cannot know.


I was conscious of being in a great "atmosphere" of learning.


The "buildings" appeared Grecian in character, clean of line and symmetrical.


There were outer courts and beautiful vistas of gardens, where fountains of Light played.  Here there were many souls, groups of students, sometimes surrounding One who appeared to be a Teacher, intent upon His discourse, or composed in deep meditation with Him; sometimes in clusters eagerly discussing together, and sometimes a student alone and apart in contemplation.  These here were of all types and from all nations.


There are Stations on this plane where communication with the earth plane is possible.  (I always had an idea of this but now I know it is a fact.)  In these Stations there are helpers and servers who have dedicated their knowledge and service to helping those who long to send messages to loved ones still on earth.  The technique employed, I understand, is quite "special" and very difficult at first to follow, even by those who desire to use it.  But there are Stations, there are Directors for this work, there are administrators and (in a sense) technicians to run them.


After talking with savants I have been privileged to meet here there seems no reason for me to change my earthly acceptance of the fact of repeated lives, and therefore of a possibility of previewing the presentable future, even when in a material body.  When a soul (or that portion of a soul which seeks enlargement of experience) reincarnates, it is at a certain stage in its Divine Blueprint.  It will seek a trial of strength in some experiences, a leading role in human affairs in others, an emotional compensation in personal relationships and so forth.


Our "patients" stay with us until they have adjusted to this new life and are ready to join their dear ones or their special Groups.


Mother Florence, two other Sisters and I made our journey into what you would call the Underworld.  Here we prefer the description Shadow Land, for this is indeed a Land of Shadows.  The journey to this place is difficult and wearying for we have, by concentrated thought power, to "slow down" our vibrations so that our "bodies" will be enabled to endure the physical conditions pertaining therein.  The Sisters never go without the special Messengers who guide them there and conduct them to the various stations on the way.


I live mostly now in an astral body and that gives a measure of greater freedom than a dense physical body, but I am very aware of my Higher Body, or if you wish, my inner self, much more aware of it than when in incarnation in the physical plane of matter.  I am now learning, and achieving, I trust, a higher balance of living.  By this I mean that I am becoming aware of my Spiritual Body and in so doing I am enabled to absent myself from this plane of thought, the astral or emotional, and slip away in consciousness to the higher Mental and Spiritual planes of thought.


I am trying to function more and more in this Body of Light.  I cannot sustain it for long yet, but I have the joy and bliss of the certainty of a further expansion which is available to us all.  This is the next step in progression, the stepping out of illusion into the consciousness of the functioning of the Higher Self, an emergence into a wider consciousness and an awareness of Spiritual Beings and of Forces from the All-Creative Mind of God.

Introduction to Testimony of Light

 2009 edition cover

Helen Greaves wrote in the "Biographical Introduction" of Testimony of Light (1969):

The "scripts" in this book have, I believe, been communicated to me by telepathy and inspiration from the surviving mind of Frances Banks, M.A., who left this world on November 2nd, 1965.

In the "Scripts" portion of the book, the commentary encompasses "the Change" from a physical existence on Earth to a new "plane" of existence and there "receiving more Light from the Divine Mind" (or "God Force") to "progress onward"; the "innate oneness with the Source of all Life," "Group Souls" and conditions concerning individual consciousness "units" (or "passing personalities").  One passage mentions —

There is a Band who help and guide me in the selection of incidents to be telepathed to you.  In this, Father Joseph is most helpful, as he had contacted your mind previously; your husband also helped in opening the way and was instrumental in your listening to my mind in the first instance.

There are others in the Band, and I understand that we are merely instruments in this work.  The veil between the worlds must be rent asunder (or dissolved as you suggest).  People living on earth, the erudite, the cultured and clever minds, as well as the devotional and religious minds, and the uneducated, the illiterate and the closed minds, must all be reached.  All need this knowledge to remove fear . . .

When one considers the experiences chronicled in Helen's 1967 autobiography The Dissolving Veil (the topic of the preceding blog articles: 1, 2, 3), there is the realization that 'Frances Banks' is able to communicate from the ascended realm as a 'unit' of an interacting omnipresent spiritual Oneness.

The following excerpts from "Biographical Introduction" provide background information about the life of Francis Banks.  Helen Greaves mentioned her earlier book upon reminding readers that it was completely unexpected when she became gifted in "communications 'between the worlds'" ("telepathy" and "clairaudience").

Frances Banks was an intimate friend of mine.  For the last eight years of her life we worked together psychically and spiritually.  We also explored the deep levels of meditation.

Miss Banks was an outstanding woman in many fields of endeavor.  For twenty-five years she was a Sister in the Anglican Community of the Resurrection in South Africa, and during much of that time she was Principal of the Teachers' Training College in Grahamstown.  She was the author of many books on psychology; one on the education of prisoners, Teach Them to Live (after some years of experience as Tutor-Organizer at Maidstone Jail); and her last book was Frontiers of Revelation, being an account of researches into psychic and mystical phenomena.


Frances had indicated that these "accounts" which are of an inspirational teaching nature should be made public, in the hope that a firsthand report of that next phase of living to which we are all graduating, may be of value.

Helen and Frances were cofounders of a meditation group for 'World Goodwill.'  Helen referred to Frances as "the brains and organizer in our partnership" while Helen at times supplied "the counsel of the 'Inner Voice.'"

In the beginning "The Return" portion of Part One of Testimony of Light, Helen described the last days in the life of Frances Banks when she was ill with cancer.  Helen visited her on the day before "she simply stopped breathing."   At the cremation service, Helen wrote: "I 'saw' her in her nun's habit in company with her beloved Mother Florence, a past Mother Superior of the Order."

After her death I felt cut off from all spiritual contact.  My mind was dry and arid.  For some weeks I found it most difficult to meditate, or even to withdraw into the quietness of the soul at all.

On a Sunday evening around three weeks after Frances' death, there was "a state of deep meditation in which I was conscious of being immersed in light."

I was part of the Light yet the Light issued from beyond me.  I felt a Oneness with all that was highest and best and with the eternal Self within me.  I felt the nearness of spiritual Presences.  I was swept on into a meditation in which Frances and I had participated some years before.  I even heard my mind repeating invocations from that meditation. . . .


It was some days later when I felt Frances' mind impinging on mine, as it had often done in our time together on earth.  Words dropped into my thoughts which did not come from my consciousness.  I knew that her discarnate mind and my incarnate one had linked together again in telepathic communication.


Now that she was evidently restored to consciousness and awareness after the change into her new life, her first burning desire would be to make known all that was happening; to send back at first hand.


I sat down, took my pen and began to write.  Words, thoughts, sentences tumbled out on to the paper.  It was almost as though I took dictation.  Yet this was not automatic writing.  I was perfectly in control.  I could feel that her mind was using mine.

This passage reminded me of some of the comments of Jane Roberts concerning her state of consciousness interacting with the entity known as 'Seth' (1, 2) and also of the circumstances of contemporary channeler Ryuho Okawa (1, 2, 3, 4) who remains conscious during channeling sessions.  Considering whether or not "The Scripts" constitute 'automatic writing' is a matter of semantics.

Helen commented further —

Later, as I became more used to this method, I was even able to ask a question and receive an immediate answer.  I wrote for an hour.  My pen scarcely lifted from the page.  When I read through what I had written, my astonishment grew.  This happened for several days and I became more astounded at the subjects upon which I had written.  I could not, without effort and without definitely searching my limited imagination, have invented such stories as poured through me.

Time after time my pen wrote.  There was hardly a correction made in all the hundreds of words written, though I was never aware of what I was going to write.  Yet my life went on normally enough.  I still saw my friends, enjoyed watching television, read, shopped, drove about the countryside and was not aware of any personal communications from Frances between sessions. It was exactly as though I was simply registering and translating her thoughts at certain times.


I must admit I cringed as I envisaged the publicity to come, for I knew that she intended publication.  Often I wondered how I would face the criticism and possible ridicule such a book would arouse . . .

But Frances' strong will persisted; it was, as ever, the Will-to-Good.


She [during Earth life] trusted implicitly in the survival of mind and personality beyond death and she was reverently aware of the spirit within which urged her on—the Christ-in-You of Christianity.


Her belief was that, through meditation, through retiring into the deep center of oneself and finding the place of the silence of the soul, communion could be established with advanced souls; higher beings, great ones whom we call Saints.  This is the true communion of Saints; a Oneness with the Divine Company of Heaven, resulting in a new intuitive perception of unity and inspiration for radiant living.

This, she felt, was the message for the New Age into which we are now emerging, a greater extension of man's consciousness, so that even during the limitation of earthly life, he can enter the beauty of the spiritual worlds and receive inspiration therefrom.


In the testimony which follows, Frances continues her mission.

Here is an example passage of "The Scripts" — the chapter constituting the major portion of Testimony of Light.

11th March [1966]

You must not think that the Community in which I now sojourn is the same religious community of which I became a member when on earth.  Many of the Sisters are here as of old; there are others also from similar communities.  Many have passed on to greater activities; others are as new and recent as my own arrival.   The term "recent" I am using in a purely metaphorical way for already my experience of earth and time is fading.  I seem to have been here for aeons.  Already the sharp edge to emotions which made certain events stand forth clearly in one's memory, is dissolving in the expiation of the effects of my actions.  I begin to correlate life as a whole now so that different periods dovetail into the Pattern and the Pattern becomes related to the Whole.  This community differs from the earth Community in that we have no creeds, no restrictions, no vows (except that of self-dedication of service to our fellows) and no ranks of seniority.  We are one in service.  We are individual in thought and progress.  Ceremony we still perform, in a fuller and wider sense, for there is ever a need for the upliftment of the soul by dedicated and meaningful action correlated with intense thought and aspiration.

Yet these "ceremonials" are not of the pattern prescribed on earth.  Here our ceremonies spring from an innate oneness with the Source of all Life, an eagerness to participate, a welling upward of the Life Force in us so as to initiate a mingling with one another as well as with the greater Forces.  Here, and in other places, I have taken part in what we call the Ceremony of Light.  This formation of thought, this deep concerted concentration, springs from the deep desire to experience Life and yet more Life, to unite with the Supreme Essence, to realize as far as one's present consciousness will allow that Life is expansion, that Light is but the widening of one's inner perceptions.  Such ceremonies and festivals seems to be for the purpose of breaking down barriers which obstruct those lingering inhibitions of the personality which circumscribe the soul and which have to be consciously dissolved and discarded before Light can truly flow in.  In these Festivals of Light there is a "rising up into" Power and Energy rather than a "pouring down."

As one takes one's place amongst the Community of Souls making this observance of ceremony, one is conscious of a supreme quickening of tempo, a heightening of the action of the dynamo of the Spirit.   There is a distinct feeling of growth; the body seems to expand, to become less gross, to stretch into a new elasticity and ethereal content.  The mind soars to a hitherto unexplored vastness of creative activity.  The Spirit fills all with a dynamic lift of consciousness. New and vast concepts stream into the mind.  The onward Path is illumined with a clarity that surpasses all imagination.

"This is Truth," one whispers, awed yet exhilarated. "This is Light."

These festivals are accompanied, as always in ceremony, with music on a grander scale than anything that is performed on earth.  Yet have I never "seen" instruments such as were necessary for the production of such harmonies on earth.  The notes form and are trilled as though by some unseen performers.  There is no dissonance, but a growing ascendancy of some majestic theme; there is a swelling of harmony until a particular chord or note is reached and held.  That note seems to be the key, the aim, the object of the ceremony.  All movements, all voices raised in unison, all sounds from the Spheres unite in experiment until the ascension of the right note, rather in the manner of a bird chorus at dawn, lifting gently into a grand finale with every bird throat pouring forth its contribution of sound.

Here, the Note, when at last reached and sounded in full, is held and vibrated at a pitch of intensity which sweeps every soul into harmony.  Then Light breaks through into the assembly.  Light surrounds us, lifts us, touches us, awakens us.  One finds oneself expressing, or trying to express, the Note with all of one's mind and all feeling and intensity of which one is capable.  One is singing, and yet not singing, with one voice, as in earthly choirs.  One is singing with the whole organism.

Thought, production, feeling, expression, aspiration and exaltation become united in one vast effort to capture and hold in consciousness that Note, to live in and become the vibration of that Ray of Light expressed through the sounding Note.

It is the ascendancy of the Light.

It is union with the vast Worlds of Spirit.

It is the impregnation of matter with Spiritual Force.

It is the Light Universal, the Light of which Christ spoke when He said: "I am the Light of the World."

It is the Light of all the Worlds . . . of this world, of the physical world as well as of all higher, vaster Worlds. . . .

It is the Light that penetrates and becomes Essence in us.

It is Sound, Harmony and Light in One.

This is the Ceremony of Light!


When I was in the Community on earth, I loved the Ceremony of the Eucharist.  Yet now I realize how pale are the festivals and ceremonies performed with the separated consciousness of the human mind.  Yet these ceremonies are of value for they engender uplifting aspirations.  The value, as I now see it, in ceremony is in the participant's intensity of application; the intent with which the ritual is performed and followed.

On earth I had little ear for music.  I believe that I explained in my book Frontiers of Revelation that all my impressions of other "states" were visual.  I rarely "heard."  More often I saw or was aware of vibration about the physical bodies of my companions.  Here I am learning to achieve both the Eye and the Ear of Light . . . to see the Light as well as to hear the vibrations of the different frequencies of Light.