CHAPTER VI Animals

With regard to the animals, I will try to put together some information on this subject. As you know, life cannot be extinguished, and the life even of a caterpillar that is trodden under foot continues after death. But the caterpillar has not evolved to a sufficiently high state to survive as an individual, so the life principle reverts to what we may call the cosmic melting-pot, when come the living part of all creatures including man.

It is only when you come to the highly developed animal that has learned to love and be loved that individual survival supervenes. After all, man is at the top of the animal creation, however much you may dislike this fact, and he can confer immortality on the lower animals by his love and training. Animals survive up to a point, but they are not found in the higher spheres where the conditions would be unsuitable for them. It is a fact that as we progress, we leave the spheres where there are animals, but this need not worry you, since you can always visit them, and if you were still as devoted to them, it would mean that you would not have evolved to the point of going to the higher sphere.

My contact with the earth plane and my love for the demonstrate clearly that I am not yet ready for a move; moreover, I wish to wait for you. Your earth life is so short that you cannot realise that you may remain hundreds or even thousands of years in the Summerland. To watch even a hundred years of human development is very interesting, and sometimes we see the germ of an idea beginning here and then being passed on to a suitable person on the earth. Even in your short life, you have seen immense changes, and you sometimes wonder what your parents would think of modern developments. Well, you need not wonder, for they watch with great interest, and it will be just as thrilling for you to watch the next century’s evolution when you come over.

As I have already told you, by the time you reach the high spheres, you no longer desire the company of animals. Red Cloud, for instance, is never accompanied by an animal, though in the lower spheres he had his horses with him.

The pet animals that come to the Summerland are always puzzled and distressed because they cannot find their lost masters. It is sad to se them running about looking for their owners, and that is where I come in. I will tell you how I came to start the canine fellowship, a kind of replica of your Canine Defense League. One day with when I was in the animal sphere, I found other animal­loving visitors. They told me that we could take back with us dogs that were grieving for their owners, and keep them for a time at any rate, just as you take strays from a dog’s home. But I found that I should have a vast number if I took all those needing human companionship, se we held a meeting and decided to found a kind of dog’s society. Each member takes himself, or herself, responsible for one or more animals and takes them home for the whole or part of each day. We take it in turn to be in charge of the dog’s home.

You are always asking how we occupy ourselves, and this is one of the many things that we do. Often those who look after the dogs get in touch with their owners, just as I did with you, and help them to understand that their pets are not dead. Then we take the dogs to meet their owners when the latter come over here, and I often take an animal to the rest houses, where they sleep until they have recovered from the shock of physical death. There was an Alsatian that would not make friends with anybody, and snarled at us when we took him to the dog’s home. At last he learned that he could not injure us or any of the other dogs, and now he is polite though distant when I go to take him out. You see, we have to be responsible for these animals, so that they do not make themselves a nuisance to those who do not like dogs, and a clever animal soon learns that he can get through the doors of the kennels by concentrating his attention on so doing.

Then there are other animals such as monkeys, cats, birds and other pets that need care when they come to our sphere. There are certain people who cannot help disliking and fearing animals, so that there has to be a part where animals do not come, a kind of “ out-of­bounds” for them, otherwise even you would not like it if you met a pet rat or snake. My father, for instance, still has a horror of cats, and so he never goes into the region where they live. Dogs, of course, far outnumber the other animals, and there are not many dog-haters. Other animals go to the animal sphere, where there is no quarrelling of fighting. The lion lies down with the lamb and so forth. Sometimes a newcomer, following old instinct, tries to chase a weaker animal, but he soon learns that he cannot harm it, and so peace reigns. At first the lamb may be frightened when he sees the lion, but that, too, passes.

The great majority of the lower animals are simply reabsorbed into the essence of life, the cosmic melting-pot as some call it; this life­essence is drawn upon for new incarnations, so that in the case of the lowly animals their individuality does not persist, although nothing can destroy the life-essence. All the beasts that are slaughtered every day for man’s food and clothing, or for what he calls sport, are not killed in the sense you mean, since the life­essence of the smallest insect is immortal. I used often to visit the animal sphere, but now I have plenty to do with the care of the pet animals in my own sphere.

People when they come over here, are often surprised to find their animals waiting for them: dogs, cats, horses, donkeys, birds, monkeys, etc., and sometimes even so lowly a thing as a tortoise or mouse. It is, of course, necessary that certain animals should be killed on your side by other animals or by men, otherwise they would eat up all your food, and there is naturally no reason why you should not spray fruit trees in order to destroy pests. Rats and rabbits must be kept down, and so long as the method is quick and painless, it is man’s duty to keep down pests. What is wrong and retards the evolution of the individual is cruelty, deliberate cruelty, for which the automatic penalty is severe. The same thing applies to the higher animals, and it is kinder to drown a little of puppies before they have opened their eyes, than to let them grow up and become unwanted strays.

All the animals that come to the Summerland are specially loved pets, but there are many that have been in contact with man that were not pets, domesticated animals, in fact. These go the animal sphere, and we animal-lovers can visit then when we like. Many domestic animals would be entirely at a loss without man’s company, and many soldiers killed in war spend much of their time in the animal sphere with their old equine friends. I know one sergeant who at first went regularly to groom and feed his battery team, and it was some time before he understood that they no longer needed corn. I met him one day wandering about, looking for the forage store.

“ What is it, Sergeant?” I asked, and he told me that he could not find the stores for his team. “ they are in a nice field resting,” he said, “ and they have a shed to sleep in and a running stream, but horses cannot work without their corn.” So I showed him where to get it, and for a time he fed the animals regularly. It was useless explaining that his horses would never have to pull the guns again, but gradually he came to realise that both he and his team had shed their physical bodies. Cows, too, and sheep are often looked after by farm hands, and I remember a particularly savage bull that attacked everybody who came near him. He had killed a farm lad, and was shot while goring his victim. It was quite a long time before he understood that he could not longer injure anybody, and that nobody was afraid of him. Some animals survive in the animal sphere for some considerable time, but eventually they are reabsorbed into the etheric storehouse, whence sooner of later they go to make up other incarnate creatures. The millions of birds, rabbits, fishes, insects, etc., that are killed every day on your side, all pass fairly quickly into the cosmic storehouse.

There is an old man over here (when I say “ old” I mean that he was old when he came over, since nobody is old here) who dislikes animals. He is not really a bad sort, but when we come across him, we animal-lovers usually make ourselves invisible, or else we make the animals invisible. One day he came to my house, and for a moment I forgot his aversions to animals, so that he was greeted by all the dogs jumping up and barking. He was so startled that he fell down unconscious, and it took me all my time to bring him round. Meanwhile, I sent the animals for a run, telling them to keep away until I called them. Then, while he was still unconscious, I suggested to him that he should forget the whole episode. I was not sure whether I should be successful, but it turned out all right, for when he woke he did not even know that he had been unconscious. His fear of dogs is a physical condition persisting from his earth life, and brought about by a subconscious factor, just as you fear rats, mice and snakes.

Your dog looks on while I write; he so much wants to join in, but as we are restricted to this somewhat cumbersome means of communication, poor Lon is left out, except as regards his being often with you, which is his great joy. Had you the power to see, you would know that in all other respects he is equal and free in spirit. After all, what does the mere seeing amount to? You are so anxious to see and hear and touch, and apparently you cannot be satisfied with the knowledge that your dogs are often with you, I think that, without seeing, you will eventually overcome your skepticism, and it is un-necessary for me to warn you against the opposite extreme of superstition, which veils truth and obscures reason.

It is sometimes stated that even plants and minerals have an elementary form of spirit, but to me the existence of the ego, the thing we really love in a human or an animal, is a proof that the physical body Is not the individual. You may love a rose or a ruby, or even a house, but in that case you are attracted solely by the physical image which pleases you owing to its beauty. But you love your dog whether he be handsome or the reverse, and sometimes you love him all the more when he has grown old and ungainly, and to a stranger is perhaps very unattractive. You love his personality behind the physical coat, and this surely shows that an animal’s sprit is entirely different from that attributed to an inanimate object, regarding which the very word “ inanimate” indicates its soullessness.

Let me tell you the story of a dog-owner who came over here recently. She was a very religious woman, and she was convinced that animals have no soul. And so would not believe that the dogs I brought to meet her were real. She insisted that she must be creaming, and that she would soon wake to find herself back on the earth. I was asked to talk to her and try to explain things. You do not realise the harm that is done by false teaching; her thoughts were so firmly fixed on the lines of orthodox Christianity that she could not accept conditions as she found them, and it was not until I found a clergyman who had been over here some time, wand who knew her in her childhood, that she would believer that she passed out of matter.

I brought her dogs to her once more, and instead of rejecting the evidence of her eyes, she realised at last that they were her lost pets. The clergy have a lot to answer for in misleading the people – blind leaders of the blind – and willfully blind because they have had the opportunity of knowing the truth and have rejected it. Instead of being teachers when they arrive here, they mostly have to take their seats in the infant class, and learn the elementary lesson that they are profoundly ignorant. Many reincarnate immediately, because they are unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven. As for your prelates, they are the least enlightened of all, and when they find themselves over here, they are bewildered and ashamed because they had the opportunity of receiving the light, but rejected it contemptuously.

The aftermath of the wrongs suffered on the earth by the animals is shown in the restlessness of the world. As for those brutes that are cruel from a lust for cruelty, and not from ignorance, they will pay the penalty in a new incarnation. This perhaps explains why some people suffer more that others on your side; it is a case of automatic retribution.