Messages 2007
A discussion of the medium and war.
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)