A message from Silver Birch -

"Man is an expression of consciousness, and consciousness is the all-important thing. Consciousness is individual life; individual life is consciousness. Wherever there is consciousness there is an individual spirit; and wherever there is an individual spirit there is consciousness. You are not aware of the fullness of your consciousness in the physical world in which you live because your consciousness is much larger - to use a term that you will understand - than the physical body through which it is trying to express itself. The smaller cannot contain the larger; the lesser cannot hold the greater.

"And so throughout all your earthly life you express but a mere fraction of that larger consciousness -  a consciousness which you will come to recognise in the days after you have passed through the gate of death. Even then you will not immediately become aware of ALL your consciousness, for it is only through evolution, even in our world, that more and more of the consciousness can be registered through its vehicle.

"Your mind, which is the director of your intelligence, the controller of all your individual life, does not actively and consciously control every requirement of your physical body. Many of the functions which are necessary for your life in this world are automatic and mechanical. Once the consciousness has arranged the muscles or the nerves, or the cells, or the tissues, and their co-ordination necessary to perform that task, it relegates their repetition to the subconscious part of your mind.

"For example, when you eat you automatically open your mouth, which means the interplay of many nerves and forces before the jaws can move. Nervous impulses have to be sent from the brain, which is the physical counterpart of the mind, and then your teeth have to open and similar instructions have to be given by the brain. You do them automatically; the subconscious mind does them for you. When you were a baby you had to learn them all one by one; now it is done unthinkingly; purely mechanically.

"You will find that most of the control, therefore, of your bodily and mental functions have been relegated to the subconscious mind, which is a department, the basement, of your conscious mind. You read a book and you stop and ask yourself what you think of it, and the reply automatically is flashed into your mind. It is your subconscious mind which registers the answer for you, having learned through association with your consciousness the reason that you employ.

"When, however, you are confronted with problems outside of your ordinary experience, which have not been performed or solved before by the subconscious mind, then your consciousness has to start work, because a new track is involved. Most of your life is relegated to your subconscious mind. It acts as storekeeper; it takes charge of all the records of your memory; it controls most of your living processes; and therefore, from many aspects, it is the most important part of you.

"When it comes to mediumship, it stands to reason that where an intelligence has to function which is foreign to the intelligence which has expressed itself through the bodily organism, it is easier for it to take control of the subconscious mind, which is already accustomed to acting on the directions from the conscious mind. The subconscious is used to taking orders; it is used to having tasks assigned to it and performing them without interruption, unless something may go wrong.

"Nearly all forms of mediumship involve the use of the medium's subconscious mind, for that is the secret of his personality. There, embedded in its storehouse, are all the facets of his individuality. In trance mediumship, what the guide has to learn to avoid is the usual automatic responses of the medium when his consciousness calls on his subconsciousness. That is the whole keynote.

"The guide has to harmonise his personality with the medium's, superimposes his own thought in  co-operation with the medium.
"Because the guide is dealing with a living being, an individual with ideas of his own, with prejudices, likes and dislikes, the guide is bound to get some aspects of the medium. It is impossible, as I have told you, to ever entirely to eliminate the medium. The degree of elimination is dependent on the success in blending the guide's personality with that of his instrument. If it were possible to effect a perfect fusion, then there would be no subconscious interference by the subconscious.

"It is not that you eliminate the medium - you cannot do that - but you have to blend. That is what development of mediumship is. That is why you sit in circles. That is why you have séances, so that the power that is gathered from all those who assemble is used to aid the blending. That is why harmony is essential. The more proficient the guide, the more exprienced, the greater the state of harmony between him and his instrument, and the less will be the subconscious interference."

You must remember that even in our world, we do not agree on every detail in the processes involved in communication.

"There are some who say that more success is achieved by using an ignorant medium, one who knows so little that his subconsciousness can present no barrier. To that, others reply that his mere ignorance is a barrier because it creates a wall which has to be broken down. The same school argues that where you have a well-filled mind you have a better instrument on which to play, for greater music is possible from an instument created by craftsmanship than an instument that you purchase for a few pence in your world.

"Character is a separate issue which involves other factors.  A violinist will obtain better results from a Stradivarius than he will from an ordinary fiddle because the beauty and quality of that instrument enable him to produce clearer results. The other is a limitation to him.

"The character of the medium has a great effect on the quality of the communicator who can register through him, and, in physical manifestations, on the quality of the results obtained. The lower the character - and I am using these words only in terms of comparison - of the physical medium, the poorer, for example, is the ectoplasm that is used, not poorer physically but from a spiritual point of view. Character determines the quality of the power of attraction between the spirit and the medium. It would be impossible, for example, for the ones you recognise as saints, because of their high spiritual status, to manifest through a medium of very low character, because there is no point of contact.

"The focal point of every séance is the medium. You are not using a telephone, you are using a living instrument, and the qualities of his life impregnate the communications.

"It is well that it is so. If it were possible, which is is not, to reduce all communication between these two states of life to a purely mechanical apparatus, most of the beauty and sacredness would be lost. At every séance the medium is the focal point. You cannot eliminate him. It is all his qualities that are being used. Whatever qualities the medium possesses, in some form or another they are conveyed in the results of the séance."

Self Mastery of Thought
The fifth dimension has not the safeguard of the time lag. Therefore one must be masters of their thoughts before safely stepping into the fifth dimension. Now is the time of Mastery of Self. Start with your thoughts and beliefs. Do not look for things to release, simply be ready to release what your heart tells you.