Messages 2005
Mental Illness and Music in the Spirit World.
January 9, 2005
Santa Cruz, California
Received by F.A.B.
I am here, Stephen Foster.
It is I, America’s first professional songwriter. I have been meaning to write you for some time now, and it was felt that tonight was appropriate.
Let me start by thanking you for sharing my music with the world. I experienced mental illness. I suffered mostly depression. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It paralyzed my life. When I came over here, I found that this depression left me, and enabled me to work out my destiny free of this great and heavy burden. You must understand that troubles of this sort do not pass with the mortal into spirit. I know you received a message that said that anxiety is not a chemical imbalance, but an attitudinal choice. Well, as you well know, there is a type of mental pain that is truly caused by chemical imbalance. The proof of this is that medication has helped so many mortals. I wish I had had the benefit of medication. But that is all over in the past.
As you can well understand, music was always supremely important to me, and it continues to mean so much to me over here. But music in the spirit world is really such a different phenomenon. On earth, of course, music is produced by fingers and/or the vocal cords. Over here, our inner thoughts and feelings produce music. We do have instruments, but they bond with us. On earth, you use your fingers or your vocal cords to activate instrumental sound. Over here, it is our meditative perceptions that activate the sound. I know you have no comprehension of this concept. Indeed, how could you?
A mortal violinist loves his or her violin. It is a treasured possession. Over here, our instruments become more intimately a part of our lives. We become one with them.
You know that a great mortal musician also becomes one with his or her instrument or voice. Well, the same principle applies over here, only greatly amplified. In the higher spheres, and certainly in the Celestial Spheres, a musician exemplifies the concept that “music is a form of communication.” When you hear great mortal music that is superbly performed, you have that exalted sense of being in the presence of something unearthly and divine. Well, magnify that a million times and you will understand the utter joy music is to us here. Of course you can’t comprehend it!
I will say, paradoxically, that the circumstances of some mortal concerts are such that they far surpass experience in the lower spheres. That is, the conjunction of a great composer, great musicians, and a deeply sensitive and appreciative mortal audience, often creates a very significant experience for many lower spirits. And these lower spirits who attend are often benefited to believe there is a higher life, though they do not know what this higher life consists of nor how to attain it.
As Beethoven wrote you, some of us Celestial Angels (for I am one of them) are fairly consumed with music. I am one of them. When I wrote my songs, I often had the sense of a higher presence watching over me. It was during this activity that I felt most alive, and closest to my life’s purpose and the meaning of my life.
I had just finished working on “Beautiful Dreamer” when I got sick. I died shortly after.
My earth life has meaning by the word “yearning.” There was what you might call a burning yearning in my soul, which you can hear in my songs. I knew that these songs I wrote would remain and be loved - I just knew it. I know you have channeled some composers who said they did not realize their greatness. Well, I did. My fame, though brief, nurtured this feeling. I knew, as you say, that “I was on to something.”
Well, I will end here. Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts with you.
Love, Stephen Foster.