Updates

10/23/11

This is Abby, Steve's partner in the astral. I've nudged him this morning that I'd like to try another "Update"--I have something to say, actually, but I have not clued him in on the topic. So he literally doesn't know what I'm going to say at this point. He's a brave fellow!

On a good day, Steve translates the "thought bursts" I send him fairly accurately. Steve is reminded of translators where the person says one or two words, and the translator speaks for five minutes, and you wonder where the heck the extra information came from! It's like that. Each thought-burst from my mind contains, oh, say a paragraph or so. Steve has to flesh it out--one might say I am "reincarnating." (Bad astral humor.)

Hopefully you do understand that when people die, they not only retain (or regain) all their faculties, but they have never felt so alive, and so sharp. Same goes for one's sense of humor. So don't expect me to be ponderous! This is not the Ponderousa over here.

Let's just say that last one was Steve's contribution...( I have told him that he gets me right about 90%. Perhaps that joke was part of the 10%.)

Now. Roll up sleeves and get to business.

(Steve is waiting...)

In our last Update, to which I contributed, we jointly described e-mailing perhaps--no, Steve, it wasn't that many (he tends to over-estimate), about 25 English professors around the United States, and one philosophy professor. We heard back from one, a very respectful "I'm too busy." We--Steve, actually (he is not a masochist and didn't mention my contribution)--wrote them introducing his new book about his past-life personality (my husband), Matthew Franklin Whittier.

What did the others think? Steve thinks that they didn't read the e-mail. I am "telling" him now, they did. They're afraid. Some are afraid for their jobs. Some intuitively feel it's not a hoax, but the whole thing is just too scary. What they tell themselves is another matter, and it's largely irrelevant. I'm talking about what they really felt deep down. And, thus, what actually motivated them not to write back.

I see the scams that Steve gets in e-mail--"Dear Brother or Sister in Christ, I am dying of terminal cancer and have been prayerfully searching the world for a worthy person to donate my millions to." Perhaps they just told themselves it was one of these.

By the way, do you know what happens to these spammers when they come over here? Best not to speak of it. Steve knows from having studied a bit. Imagine that everyone you try to get close to, scams you to this degree--over, and over, and over, for hundreds of years. That sounds fun, doesn't it? "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right..."

I can scan Steve's mind for tidbits that might be useful, just as, if I had his permission and was here physically, I could look through his computer. We also have an "internet" here. Your computers, and your internet, are based on ours. We do everything you can do a hundred times better, with just our minds. We can create "technology" if we want to, but we hardly need it. Sounds like science fiction, doesn't it? Wait until you get here. NO, do not commit suicide!! The suicides have a very difficult time of it. They get help if they merit it and if they are receptive. Even we can't help someone who isn't receptive.

Steve, who is trained as a counselor, is thinking of the joke, "How many counselors does it take to change a light bulb? Only one--but the light bulb has to want to change." So, Steve wants me to try the "how many" joke on astral beings. (As I said, he's a brave fellow.)

So, here goes, then, I promise, I'll get down to business. How many astral beings does it take to change a light bulb? None, because everything here is its own light bulb, and it's constantly changing all by itself.

No applause, please, and for God's sake, don't throw any money!

Steve wants to add that he literally doesn't know what I'm going to say. Yes, dear.

You see, we both say "Yes, dear." That's how marriage works. It's simple. If Steve wants me to repeat his favorite joke, "It's a no-brainer," then I say (somewhat tiredly), "Yes, dear." He, also, says "Yes, dear," as when he woke up this morning feeling that I wanted to write this Update. In this way, marriage can flourish even across the seemingly impassable gulf of death itself. All it takes is love, and two words. Well, five words. You can guess the other three.

By the way, before I start, those of you who are sensitive, can you get a feeling of the vibration I'm expressing, my personality "vibrational key"? Can you sense that it's different from Steve's?

I want to describe myself in my last incarnation, and Steve is hesitating, and we are stuck there. He is always afraid I'll "say" something that is proved incorrect by recorded history. Even though I have an excellent track record so far. Well, I'll make it brief.

Some of this is known in the history--but not very much. I was raised in a wealthy family, but a decidedly mixed one. My father was a playboy, basically--descended from French nobility. He had so much money he just sort of played at life, and he was a lot of fun. He was the life of the party--as he is described in the history--but he wanted things his own way (as is hinted at in the history). He was more-or-less an absentee father, being so much involved in his "pursuits," dabbling in local politics, hanging out with the guys (i.e., the important ones), and so-on. He was, in short, a big fish in a small pond, and he enjoyed it thoroughly!

My mother, on the other hand, was an intuitive, and very progressive. She helped form the Christian Science movement (there are always people who build up the foundation for such movements, and she was one of them--whether any formal affiliation is ever found, or not). How these two--an ultra-conservative, and a spiritual liberal--ever found each other, I don't know. How they stayed together, I do--he had his world, and she had hers. She had the ways and means to pursue her world, and she ran the house. He was free to live in his masculine "gentleman's" world. And that was the bargain struck, and they did love each other within the confines of that arrangement. Their lives intersected, as it were, and they loved each other at those intersections.

I was the "ugly duckling," meaning, I didn't fit in. That story describes me perfectly, actually. I looked different, and was mercilessly teased at school and in the community for it. I questioned my own identity--was I adopted from gypsies? Did I more strongly favor the French side of the family? Steve has some theories about this, which are in the book.

Anyway, the result of this was that, gradually, I developed a "sociologist's eye." I stepped back (not belonging anywhere), and analyzed society. I was plenty smart; I could have anything I wanted by batting my eyes at my father (if I was willing to beg that way); I was, literally, descended from nobility. And I look like it, too. (You will have to buy the book, some day, if we can ever get it printed, to see the portrait Steve feels is me, and which I have confirmed to him was me.) The odds of Matthew's cousin, Ruth Whittier Shute, painting more than one person who looks like French nobility are one in a million. We only have a handful of her paintings now, including perhaps five portraits of young women. If you don't have any inner sight, never mind how someone who does, can see such things. Just trust me.

So, I was the odd girl out. But I began to grow from an awkward, skinny tomboy, into a rather ethereal beauty--and I managed to catch Matthew's eye. He had already caught my eye quite a long time ago, being four years older. I saw him joking with the older girls, and secretly wished I could be in their place, but despaired of it.

But Matthew was just like me in many respects. He was nobility, too, but from past lives. But it showed on his face, and I intuitively felt it. He, also, didn't fit in. We were two misfits in early 19th century New England, looking at society from the outside-in. We were made for each other--and though he was quite a bit taller than me, we fit together quite perfectly in every way. Nor did we care for social propriety.

Now, that's enough of an introduction. Steve is secretly relieved. I haven't said anything too outrageous! But he might not want to relax about that just yet.

Matthew and I had a wonderful time, that five years before I died. Society shunned us; Matthew, amazingly talented given his farm boy origins, couldn't get work that nearly matched his abilities. At first, like most newly-weds, we didn't care. We could skip meals--there were other things to do ;-). But once we had children, poverty was not kind. And shunning is just slow violence. You know how one plant can come over and choke the life out of its neighbor? Plants (on earth, at any rate) can be vicious. Well, social shunning is like that. And it is done by people who convince themselves they are upholding the highest standards of righteousness and decency! They might as well have used knives and torches, and gotten it over with.

So, through shunning, society killed our two young children, one after the other, and then me, in five short years.

But in those five years, we had shared a great delight in poking fun at society. Some five years later, after my passing, Matthew began writing faux letters to the editor from one "Ethan Spike."

And do you know where that name originated? I mean, Matthew's pseudonym. The "Ethan Spike" column became quite popular. It was eagerly looked forward to, and it only appeared at monthly intervals, and sometimes less frequently. Men would excitedly shout to their wives, "Look, Ethan Spike has written again!" And all would gather 'round. Even the great Samuel Clemens is on record, in one of his published letters, as sending a copy for a friend. But who has heard, today, of Ethan Spike?"

Actually, everyone has--only, his name, in the modern era, was "Archie Bunker." Archie came from his British predecessor (and here Steve is collaborating with me, and must look it up), Alf Garnett. There is a direct connection between Alf and Ethan Spike, but I can't tell Steve such things--he has to find them for himself, otherwise the thing is spoilt. Steve thinks maybe the writer of "Alf" was a reincarnated admirer and imitator of Matthew. They do look similar. If true, this would mean that the original idea for the hit series, "Archie Bunker," came from Matthew's work, and was brought to fruition in the 20th century by Matthew's reincarnated admirer. This, too, is mentioned in the book.

But where did Matthew get the name "Ethan Spike" from? Well, Ethan, if you look it up, means "firm, or hard." Are you married? Do you have pet names for your respectives? We did, or I did--Matthew's being rather remarkable--and so "Ethan Spike" was born. Steve seems to remember an incident--I can't confirm or deny it, but it certainly sounds like Matthew's sense of humor--that we were looking through a list of baby names (they did have them--it wasn't that long ago), and I said, "How about 'Ethan'?" Matthew quips, "It was that 'Ethan' fellow who caused all the trouble in the first place!" And so "that fellow" was "Ethan" from that day on.

The reason I tell this story is to show you how Matthew kept our relationship alive, secretly, through his entire life to age 70, and through two more marriages. Those marriages were typical "arrangements," and Steve has gone into them in the book, so I won't comment on that, here. But every time Matthew wrote an "Ethan Spike" letter to the editor, he did it in collaboration with me--unknowingly--and knowingly, he did it in my honor. It was our humor, together. It was what we had been secretly enjoying, together, for that wonderful five years.

And my purpose in bringing up Ethan Spike (no pun intended), is to show you that nobody, but nobody has ever guessed these things. No scholar has ever written a paper suggesting this origin of "Ethan Spike." Nobody cares, seemingly. This man wrote rings around Samuel Clemens, and today, nobody cares. But more importantly, there is no way on earth (at least) that anyone would ever know this about "Ethan Spike." Some of it is, however, in the history if you dig deep enough--and more will surface.

It is the "more will surface" part that is especially interesting--because when it does, reincarnation will be proven to a sterling standard. Then, it will be simply a matter of society taking its head out of the sand (last Update I commented on what results from that), and becoming receptive to the obvious.

Receptivity to the obvious...this is really the whole problem. Reincarnation, and the other facets of the life/death dynamic, are obvious. Have you ever seen a cicada shell (Steve asks), still clinging to pine bark? The insect has left, and is presumably flying around somewhere. The shell is not "dead." How can you call the shell, "dead"? Was the shell ever alive? In what sense was it alive?

In the same way, the body is not alive, and so how can it die? It is merely "animated," and something being animated does not equate with life.

Case closed. Obvious. So why do we treat death as though it were extinction of the inner person? Why is it so very difficult to get anyone to pay attention when you tell them?

That's not a rhetorical question. It's a plea for dialogue and discussion. But if society refuses to even look at a topic, how can you get them to engage in a serious discussion about it?

So one is forced to see society as ignorant children. I have given Steve the following image before, and I give it to him again, and then I will close.

Suppose a child has picked up rat bait. This is a toddler--walking, stumbling around, and, as you know, everything goes straight in the mouth! Now, you want to get that rat bait out of the baby's hand, but he is, shall we say, standing some 20 feet away. If you don't do something, it will very soon go in the mouth. If you yell, or rush to take it away, in defiance, the child will immediately stuff it in. You know this.

So, what to do? Perhaps you offer something even nicer, a favorite treat--if you can get one in time. Perhaps you try to distract. Perhaps you try to explain--but can a child understand?

I don't have the answers. I am presenting the dilemma. This child is modern society, and the rat bait is materialism.

You take it from there.

My best wishes to all,

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