Messages 2008
An American Folksinger’s Experiences in Spirit.
February 8th, 2008
Santa Cruz, California
Received by FAB.
I am here, Phil Ochs.
You were right when you told your friends that I followed you home tonight. I knew how much you loved the album, and your Angel guides guided you to purchase the CD. And, as you clearly understand, you have created a rapport with me that goes back many years.
I did in fact suffer not just from my suicide but from other things I did wrong, as well as from a lot of misplaced anger. But that is now in the past, and I have progressed considerably.
Your thought is true, that my burning sense of righteousness helped me greatly over here. After I got the lay of the land, I was visited by some very beautiful spirits, who helped me to find the way to progression. It was in this way that I found the Divine Love.
I found that many of my feelings and attitudes were in fact in harmony with God’s Will, even though in other ways, other aspects of my behavior were not in such accord. But the fact that I did have this godly component enabled me to progress more quickly than if I had been devoid of it.
You are wondering where I currently am in my spiritual journey. Well, I now live in the Third Sphere, where everything is beautiful and in harmony. I am still writing songs, but my subject, as you easily can understand, has radically changed. I have lost that angry bitterness, and my songs have a greater sweetness. This sweetness was part of my personality on earth, but it was drowned out too often by more negative patterns, such as this free-floating anger.
I see now what you clearly perceived when you first became aware of my music, that my music has the quality to remain, even though its contents are topical to the time in which it arose. And this is because my concern was justice, and I, like you, could not stand what was happening in my country. It turned my stomach, and I just had to speak out, which I did.
In the workings of the laws of the spirit world, this speaking out came back to bless me, and gave me much needed comfort, after I was struggling with the consequences of my tragic deed. I obeyed the Creator by speaking on behalf of justice, and I disobeyed Him by taking my own life. I know you find it hard to grasp the immense disparity of these contradictory tendencies, and yet they were both found in me.
Oh, it was hard at first! I didn’t know what to expect, and I encountered other suicides just like me. They had cared for truth as I had. But we all felt we deserved the suffering that came upon us.
My desire to come out of my unfortunate condition brought beautiful Angels to me, who told me that God had looked with favor on my behavior in regard to the courage I had shown speaking out about the evils of my time. And they explained that once I became free of my suffering, all the good things I did would come back to me and make me happy.
I, being intelligent, reasoned that this made sense. I felt it was just that I suffer, since I rejected God’s greatest gift of life. But I also thought that the good things I stood for also should be reflected in the way the Creator treated me.
And so it was true, for as my soul sent out earnest prayers for forgiveness and for the Divine Love, I found that my inner condition got lighter, and I found myself in a lighter sphere. The more I prayed, the more I progressed, and the more I progressed, the more I prayed. It was amazing and wonderful that I held the key to my own development, even as I recognized God’s Grace in removing from me the darkness that had afflicted me.
I really loved the poem you wrote about me. It makes my heart glad that when this book is published, as it surely will, I will be remembered in that way, and you will thus perpetuate my memory to a younger generation.
Your perception is that though my songs were topical and specific to the time, they are still completely sincere, and have musical quality that will remain. That is what I have heard from certain spirits over here.
Sooner or later, the truth will out, and the Creator has a hand in guiding humanity toward this goal. I realize that the sense of justice is an ineradicable part of human nature, and I feel happy that I was able to listen to my conscience the way I did.
Yes, I was a rebel who could not accept society’s norms. But I also operated in that wider dimension of justice that united me to so many others who did as I did. I have met many of these souls, and have had such wonderful conversations about how God had used us to further His purposes.
Just as God has rescued many from oppression, so He will operate in the same way in your time, for though the actors have changed, the drama is exactly the same in principle, and the same laws of morality are fully working now as they have been from the beginning.
I wish for you a happy life. My closing message to the world is that it really pays to listen to one’s conscience and to love the truth. This works out in ways we can scarcely imagine, and it sets up a force field that unites humanity to the Divine, and brings the world into harmony with God’s Will.
Thank you for receiving this long message. I am happy to be represented in the world in this way, and to be able to further God’s Kingdom by affirming what has always been true.
Philip David “Phil” Ochs (December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and ’70s and released eight albums.
After years of prolific writing in the 1960s, Ochs’s mental stability declined in the 1970s. He eventually succumbed to a number of problems including bipolar disorder and alcoholism, and took his own life in 1976.