Dawn of Another Life

The late 1800s and early 1900s saw a heightened consciousness towards spirituality that included much research and the search for truth. This was evident in the churches through the revival craze, Azusa Street Pentecostalism (which is a form of Spiritualism), Salvation Army, and the great orators and writers within Christianity.

However, this heightened consciousness was not limited to Christianity. This same time period birthed a revival in Theosophy, alternate religions, Socialism, and Spiritualism - or talking with the dead. Many of the great spiritualists have been forgotten through time and history. Part of the demise of Spiritualism was due to the media exposing many frauds and quacks that attached themselves to the movement out of greed for a quick buck.

Christianity is facing the same scenario a hundred years later, as it only seems to beget the quick buck preacher or evangelist, and the movement is rife with fraud and quacks. There also is a dire vacancy in Christianity of intelligent, truthful researchers and scholars that it was blessed with in times past.

This series of books was not compiled for pleasure reading. The authors and compilers indexed every paragraph, thoroughly cross referenced across three books, outlined texts, topical highlights, and more. These do not make for easy reading, but then again their purpose for compiling these books was not for pleasure, but to document every detail in their personal experiences in Spiritualism. These books would never see a best seller's list, so they were not published for any gain or profit.

Some of their contacts in the spirit world would have opened them up to ridicule and scrutiny if their efforts and research were not fully documented. These serious researchers were not in the business of talking to a dead loved one, while fleecing the grieving widow. They were not charlatans - they were truth-seekers. Even Christians have to admit, if they are not hypocrites, that Spiritualism is biblically documented and used by actors in the Bible, and if the Bible is true, then they must accept that Spiritualism is also true.

From the Introduction

THIS BOOK IS WHOLLY WRITTEN BY THE STAR CIRCLE IN FULL FORM MATERIALIZATIONS THROUGH THE MEDIUMSHIP OF WILLIAM W. ABER. THIS WORK IS INTENDED BY US TO BE THE PROMULGATOR OF MEN'S BETTER INSTINCTS AND NOBLER DEEDS.

IN THIS, OUR FOURTH BOOK, WE HAVE SET FORTH PRINCIPLES THAT WILL UNRAVEL MYSTERIES OF HUMAN EXISTENCE AS A WHOLE. IT IS THE SETTING UP OF A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF WHAT LIFE REALLY MEANS AND THE ELEMENTS OF PROGRESS IN THE SPIRIT WORLD, GIVING TO THE WORLD A REALIZATION OF THE HIGHEST AND PUREST PLANES OF LIFE ATTAINABLE IN THE FUTURE EXISTENCE.

There is no system of religion or philosophy, no new theory or science that Spiritualism does not embrace.

It has obtained a foothold among men that no other religion or science has been able to reach in regard to a future life. Like other reformations we have and are building such powerful auxiliaries to the success and growth of Spiritualism that no force can disturb its progress. We hope to make this work plain and comprehensive to its readers. All of this and much more is now easily to be learned by any one who will investigate and study the constantly increasing literature of Spiritualism at the present day.

The short, terse paragraphs and independent sentences contained in the three books, Rending the Vail, Beyond the Vail, and the Guiding Star, have given food to the hungry soul.

This book will be entirely written by us, different than the other three books, being fully satisfied that the thoughts and expressions contained in this book will richly repay for the time consumed in their study, and that they will throw much needed light in what Spiritualism is, and what Spiritualists believe; this book is herewith presented to the public.

Excerpt:

All have the germ of spirituality which is unfolded by compact with spirits. The better you make yourselves the more will you attract to yourselves better elements of the spirit realm. All have spiritual development but while some have fine spirituality, some have it very grossly developed so that it is very hard for them to develop their spiritual conditions. But whatever your spiritual unfoldment, thereever remains a latent spiritual force in order to draw out such forces to manifest itself. You throw or draw around you Spiritual influences which quicken the latent energies into activity; thus developing spirituality and as you invoke those who are on a higher plane by your own higher aspirations higher spirits come into your sphere and better conditions inducing you to become better men and women.

This is what is meant by mortals unfolding spirituality and the process of such unfoldment. But some, by their conduct, exhibit low conditions and thus attract about them spirits of low conditions producing manifestations of crude spirituality. For thousands of years there have been mediums reflecting the various conditions of spirituality that they have attracted about themselves from both sides of life and some were unconscious of the causes of their varied conditions and did not know of them until death carried them into the spirit realm. When you try to live above the petty things which surround you in the physical life, and ever aspire to overcome them all, you unfold as the spring time, as the beautiful flower in its season.

Pattern the sweet innocence of the prattling babe desiring to so live your allotted time on earth; then when your time comes, you lay aside the cares of that world, closing out that life as the tired babe sinks to rest in peaceful slumber you awaken to realize the beauty of this side of life.

So friends, I wish I could so express to you the depth of this theme, that you could realize the power of unfoldment; could you so comprehend as to utilize to your highest advantage this great law you would be able to pass to this side of life in glorious triumph over all low conditions. The character of a man's future, whether for good or ill, whether happy or otherwise, is in a great measure dependent upon himself-at least upon himself and his surroundings. Every man must work out his own salvation. He cannot cast upon others the responsibility which distinctively belongs to him of performing his every duty to the All-wise and Infinite Intelligence, to his neighbor and himself. The body is no more responsible for the evil it does than is the boat for the direction it takes through the water when steered by the helmsman, or driven by the wind.

We say : Let each man in society subordinate his selfhood to the general good ; make sincerity the law of social life, eliminate from toil its vulgarity; from mercantile life its dishonor, from the bench its corruption, from politics its selfish ambition, from the church its bigotry, from capital its greed, and etc. All of these are contrary to our code of ethics. Rise up, ye multitudes of earth and cast away from your world its slimy garments of deceit and lying, begin at once to believe in each other; let eye meet eye in holy truth, and you will surely find the God within yourselves.

Nature in all her grandeur proves to mortals of earth daily how they should order their lives, in order to deserve even a few rays of her beautiful sunlight, or to pluck her laughing flowers. Oh, friends of earth, seek some high mountain top where above the clash and clamor of the greed of men you can teach your souls to speak with angels, and soon I know that you will discover you have been born again. And being born again, simply means the finding of God within you, through concentration of spiritual things, and through deep meditation of all that is beautiful and pure, a thorough comprehension of the great unwritten law. It means in a word, your own personal spiritual advancement.

Lay aside for a few hours the carking cares of homely toil that you may gain more food for your precious souls, if not so much for the flesh. For the flesh is perishable, and some day not long distant, it will effectually drop away, and leave that which is all of you, the spirit, to roam at will! And when that day comes, would you have your spirit-self go out into its new life struggling in the bonds of ignorance and the mire of darkness? Such were pitiful conditions indeed! Rather had you better teach your spirit eyes to see a little glimpse at least of the after glory, train the inner ear to catch a few strains of those rapturous rhapsodies, music of immortality, than to let it go all untutored into the mysterious of the everlasting. Ours is the power handed down to us, to perfectly bestow upon any and every waiting heart the gift of true spirituality, without money and without price, so that you may indeed, when the time of your passing comes, have lain up for yourselves treasures to the realms of spirit!

Out of the darkness of material greed shines forth the Light of The Celestial World when man daily fixes his inner thought on Spiritual things. A constant concentration on the higher Influences will at last send out into the atmosphere from you, wave motions or atomic vibrations which will be caught up by the ever waiting bands of Spirit and given to forces which are of like nature with your own, and in this way a friction or thought vibration is set up between you and your Spirit Band. Then after more or less of your strength, both physical and mental, is absorbed by the Band, they utilize what they have gained from you in building a solid bridge of communication from our World to yours so that you may step thereon daily and receive gradually, the intelligence they are longing to offer you, and at last you will conceive of the firm establishment of your personal unfoldment and spiritual advancement.

As the magnet draws the steel, so does like attract like, therefore if you wish to rest on the firm foundation builded of pure soul strength, strive each hour to fit yourselves for the personal audience of those in spirit who have already climbed the heights and are breathing the supreme atmosphere of perfect peace. No matter how much we desire such communication of intercourse of such quality, we shall never be able to receive it until we have brushed away all the debris and waste of our natures, leaving only that which is pure and inviolate for a dwelling place for those who have long passed the petty cares and jealousies of the lower conditions of existence and now dwell in constant hate of hate and love of love!

The first opening of the real Spiritual life of a person is like the tiny whispering of the birds in Springtime, and the first promise of Spiritual growth is like the first bursting of the tiny, fragrant wild flowers on the gleaming prairies!