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March 16th, 2007
Santa Cruz, California
Received by FAB
I am here, Thomas
Paine.
Your mediumship has certainly improved; your prayers were answered.
You will eventually be able to channel dates, names, and other specific
information. Thus, the spirit world will use you to clear up certain
mysteries about the lives of some famous people, for these individuals
will come forward and give you their thoughts. We are all so grateful
for this open door to Earth.
And there will be certain demonstrations of the
authenticity of your mediumship that will give credence
and authority to your work. Once this general respect is
established, the world will more easily trust that what
comes out is our thoughts and not yours. Of course, some
Orthodox Christians will continue to hold to their
prejudice against mediumship, but as time goes by, they
will be generally perceived as antiquated and of the dying
old order. Indeed, there is already a lively interest in
channeling.
You are wondering why I was chosen to write through you
tonight. Well, first of all, I was attracted by your
reading my own work when I was a mortal. I was also
attracted by your passionate patriotism and love for
America, which I, of course, also had.
Let me address a long-standing confusion in your mind. Though you
are completely antiwar and for peace, you realize that our country
was born through war. You are aware that Tories, sympathizers of
England, were tarred and feathered, and otherwise persecuted.
In my heart, I desired justice and liberation. I saw the
English king and government as an oppressive force that
was unjustly affecting the colonists. For me, it was a
matter of benefiting my adopted countrymen.
As you recently channeled, others who instigated war have thought
differently. I am thinking of Oliver Cromwell,
who saw the Irish as literally vermin to be exterminated. He did
not have any values attached to his actions, only a desire to kill.
In my worldview, I wanted to liberate my English
countrymen as well. So I saw my activity as furthering a
revolution that would bring peace and harmony.
It is hard for you to comprehend these sorts of things
because you have always been against violence, in your
personal life and in principle. You are by nature a
nonviolent person, so the idea of taking up arms and
fighting for freedom is alien to you - you couldn't do it
if you tried.
Well, all I can say is that others like me were cut from a
different cloth. And so was your father. He is right
beside me, and is saying that he has radically changed
both his attitude and behavior since becoming a spirit.
I know that what confuses you is that I was literally
advocating violence, and you have learned that militarism
is all wrong. But if this is so, you argue, then America's
birth was spurious, and one can add France and Israel as
well. So where is the truth?
You have read that oppression does not yield without
struggle. So how could justice ever come if militarism is
not a viable option?
Well, the historical fact is that America won the
Revolutionary War and thus became a sovereign nation with
its own government. The fact that so many involved had
high-minded and noble ideas added to the moral balance.
Were certain aspects of the American Revolution unjust?
Yes, of course. There were instances of colonists doing
evil things to the British and their sympathizers, and
there were also examples of the British doing noble
things. I am not saying that the American Revolution was
all good, because it was not.
It's hard for you to be objective about all this. On the
one hand, you love what America represents, and on the
other hand, you realize that this came about through
violence. And it's exactly the same for Israel.
Here is what I wish to say. These things happened. We are
now in different times. Despite what the newspaper
headlines say, war itself is being increasingly
questioned. The total folly of President Bush's proposed
attack on Iran has only highlighted this.
So humanity is not degenerating; one part of humanity is
going backwards, while the rest of humanity goes ever
forward. Yes, there are a lot of "rednecks" in America
who
refuse to see the light. These people can't separate their
own personal frustrations and animosities from their
worldview, and act out their inner failures through
militaristic attitudes and behavior.
But it is not 1776; it is 2007. That fact changes things considerably.
Some will argue that humanity has not changed and will never change,
when the fact remains that humanity has already changed, even though
some have not. There is the wheat and the tares, and those who advocate
violence and war are temporarily in control. But they are actually
a minority even of Americans. Right now, the typical and average
American is not so bellicose. So what is going on here?
What is going on is that many Americans who are sleeping
and straddling the fence need to wake up. And so, as the
government descends into ever greater folly, the starkness
of it all becomes increasingly evident.
Now you are thinking, these people won't become motivated
until a bomb rips their arm off! But it is not so. Many
of them are fundamentally good and not evil. They are just
slow and ignorant, as are people all over the world. This
is humanity. This is the human race.
But the critical mass is gaining in strength, and one day,
these stronger and wiser people will gain ascendancy, and
the advocates of violence will lose their power to do
mischief.
So, to conclude, there is a strong basis for optimism even now.
Hold onto your ideals and dreams, for God will give you the chance
to implement them at the appropriate time.
Thomas Paine (Thetford, England, 29 January 1737 – 8 June
1809, New York City, USA) was a pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical
intellectual, and deist. Born in Great Britain, he lived in America,
having migrated to the American colonies just in time to take part
in the American Revolution, mainly as the author of the powerful,
widely-read pamphlet, Common Sense, advocating independence for
the American Colonies from Great Britain. Paine was a great influence
on the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man as a guide
to the ideas of the Enlightenment. He became notorious with his
book, The Age of Reason, which advocated deism and took issue with
Christian doctrines. In Agrarian Justice, he introduced concepts
similar to socialism. (Source:
Wikipedia)
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