Life in Spirit 2.11: Does God Exist?

Hi, David here, and welcome back to my series of articles looking at life in spirit through the automatic writings of early twentieth-century medium James Padgett. James worked primarily through the First World War and into the early 1920s, so it’s about a century now since the messages that he wrote were created.

What follows is based on the transcript of my latest YouTube video, which is available here: https://youtu.be/tyPwP1niFD0

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Today I’m going to look at a message to James from Joseph Salyards, James’ old law professor. We’ve looked at a few messages from Professor Salyards already and it’s always interesting to see the progress he’s making and what he’s learned in the time between messages.

In the message we’re looking at today, he tells us something of the knowledge he has, based on what he calls his soul perceptions, rather than intellect, that God is not only a conscious being but one with personality. Joseph Salyards also takes the time to explain how he knows this.

These are not easy things to get across and it’s not often that people in spirit make the attempt, so this is definitely a message worth knowing about.

It’s not a particularly long message but it does repay close reading. The message was given to James Padgett on November 21, 1915.

Joseph begins as follows:

“I am here, your old Professor Salyards.

I merely want to say that I am very happy, and want you to know that I am progressing in my condition of soul development and in my knowledge of the truths that pertain to the spirit world. I have not written you for some time, and would like to tell you of certain truths that I have learned since I last wrote you.

Well, I find that I am now in a condition of soul development that enables me to see the truth of what the Master has told us in reference to the real existence of God, who knows what His creatures are doing and in what way they are making use of their bodies and souls.”

So, already Joseph Salyards has made some pretty big statements. The Master, of course, is Jesus, whom Salyards has been privileged to meet, and it’s clear from what he says that Jesus has explained things as to ‘the real existence of God’.

Salyards also explains that he himself has reached what he calls ‘a condition of soul development’ that enables him to see for himself, as a matter of his own experience, that what he was told is true. Also, among the things that Salyards sees for himself is that God is an aware or conscious being, who knows what we are doing, knows the ways we are using our bodies and souls.

These days, many of us, including me, grow up with no particular religious teachings given to us. So the idea that there is a God is not necessarily something we trust in, not least because there are so many different ideas available as to what or who God is. Is ‘God’ simply another word for whatever is the source of all that exists?

Even if it suits us to think that there is such a source, what can we say about it? Is it a conscious source? Did it set things up and leave them to run or does it involve itself in the universe? If it involves itself in the universe, at what level is it active? The idea that God is aware of what every ensouled being is up to just seems too much for many people, simply because such a consciousness is so far beyond our own, and therefore of anything we have experience of being.

So this message from Joseph Salyards has already gotten us into some pretty big questions.

Even within Spiritualism, with the opportunity to hear from people who have personal experience of what it is like in spirit, there is disagreement as to who or what God is, simply because we hear different experiences from different people at different stages of development, and who therefore live in different places. So we have to navigate between different testimonies, and choose which ones to trust in. How do we do that reliably?

I’ve reached the point where I trust in the Padgett messages because I have found them to be a practical guide because they contain instructions as to how to apply and use the knowledge they contain, so as to develop our mental and spiritual awareness, even while we live this earth life. In other words, the Padgett messages contain within them their own user guide as to how we can test them.

I’ll say a bit more about that as we get further into the message. So far, Joseph Salyards has told us through James Padgett that God does indeed exist, is a being with consciousness, and is aware of what ‘His creatures’ are doing. The phrase ‘His creatures’ implies that we are a creation of God. Obviously we are all born of earthly parents, and our bodies are indirect creations, but it is possible that the soul is a more direct creation of God. Referring to God as ‘Father’ and ‘He/His’ is, of course, simply a feature of the English language and the society it reflects.

Salyards goes on to expand upon what he means by saying that God is ‘aware’:

“I mean that this God is one having all the faculties that you would suppose only a being would have who had a form and personality; and one can hardly understand how a mere essence or formless existence could have such powers and qualities.”

So, Salyards tells us that God does indeed have all the faculties that you would expect of a being with form and personality; that being so, God is not some unconscious, formless essence. Now, in saying that God has some kind of form, Salyards is obviously not talking about any kind of physical form; he is simply saying that there is something about God’s existence that gives it form — a presence that can be perceived.

He continues:

“I never, until recently, could comprehend the real truth and meaning of God. I believed Him to be mere essence, void of form or personality, who had the wisdom and love and power that I was taught such a God possessed.”

So Joseph Salyards is telling us that, according to the traditional earthly teaching he was given, the best sense he could make was that God was formless, a ‘mere essence’ but somehow still had attributes such as ‘wisdom and love and power’. Given what he has learned in spirit, Joseph now says:

“Such comprehension is beyond the finite mind, and can only be accepted as a realization of an existing condition or truth by means of faith.”

So Joseph makes the point that comprehending the real truth and meaning of God is beyond the finite mind — it’s not something we can achieve through the use of our intellect, nor is it something we can achieve by limiting ourselves to exploring the physical environment. In comprehending God, we either perceive or realize the truth of what is there or we rely on faith.

And you can see the problem with this: if our awareness is not sufficiently developed to let us perceive the full extent of what is there, and we rely instead on faith, or belief, how can we be sure we’re getting it right?

The reason Joseph Salyards is keen to share his words with us is because he is now in a very privileged position, having knowledge:

“Yet now I have more than faith to enable me to understand the fact that this God, whom we call our Father, for He is, has all these qualities and powers, and such understanding, which to me is a wonderful and unexpected addition to my knowledge of God.”

So, if Joseph Salyards now has ‘more than faith’, meaning the knowledge he has acquired during his time in spirit, where does he get that knowledge from? He tells us that:

“This understanding, of course, is not a thing that arises from any exercise of the mind, or the result of any mental power or quality which I may not have realized that I possessed, but is the result of the exercise of my soul perceptions, which have become so great and in such condition of unison or harmony with God’s qualities of Soul that He and all His attributes appear to me as real, perceptible existences, having a certainty of a comprehensible Being, as do the existence of spirits and their attributes.

No mere development of the intellectual qualities or attributes could ever lead to a comprehension of the personality of God as I have described it.”

So, Joseph tells us that he is only able to perceive God because his soul perceptions have grown or developed so as to enable this experience. No amount of intellectual debate is going to settle the question of God’s existence or nature because it can never give us the ability to perceive these things as a matter of experience.

Rational thought is hugely valuable, and I heartily wish that some of those I share this earth with would do a bit more of it, but it doesn’t of itself give us the experience of having done something. It’s a good thing to plan an expedition carefully but at some point you have to go and make it real.

Joseph Salyards continues:

“I never in all my life, natural or spiritual, conceived or expected that it were possible for any soul of a mortal or a spirit to see God as I now see Him, and I never could understand what was meant by the beatitude, ‘The pure in heart shall see God’ (Matthew 5:8), except in this sense, that as we become pure in heart those qualities that were ascribed to God would become a part of us, and as such possessors, we could see God, or rather the result of those attributes of God in our souls.”

So, prior to the experience he now has, Joseph thought that a saying such as ‘The pure in heart shall see God’, simply meant that someone who worked at being ‘pure in heart’ would embody that quality.

Instead, what he now knows, is that someone who is ‘pure in heart’, meaning someone whose soul perceptions are sufficiently developed, shall, quite literally, see God — and will know this not as a matter of faith or belief but personal experience.

“I don’t know whether you can fully comprehend what I intend to convey to you, but I have tried my best to put the idea in such language that your mind may understand, to some extent, what my meaning is. I know that you will never fully know what this great soul perception is, until you have experienced what this development is in your own soul, which is necessary to enable it to see with the clearness that I now see.”

Here Joseph Salyards touches on the question that hovers in the background all the way through this message: what does he mean by ‘soul perceptions’?

There is a difficulty here, which Joseph Salyards acknowledges: until someone undergoes the process of soul development he mentions, they’re not going to know what it is to have it. Words can only do so much to plug that gap.

The good thing is that this does get explored in future messages, especially in what I call the Divine Love messages from more highly advanced people in spirit that we look at in the series of videos beginning with 10.1, which are uploaded on Sundays. The process of soul development that Joseph Salyards mentioned is what comes about through sharing in Divine Love, through prayer or asking for this to happen — and it’s important to remember that this is a process we can begin during our earthly lives.

There is a great deal to enjoy in the material world, above all the people we share it with, and a great deal we can learn from being in it, but that is not all that the soul is capable of. After all, we don’t necessarily stick to the state or country we were born in, or which we live in; if we have the means and opportunity, we often travel, to explore, enjoy new experiences, meet new people, learn from who or what we encounter, so as to enhance our enjoyment of life.

Wanting to explore spirit is no more weird, and should be no more daunting, than wanting to go on holiday somewhere new and exciting. So explore, use what you learn, give yourself the gift of looking back from a higher vantage point in time to come.

And with that, I will leave you with Joseph Salyards’ closing words:

“I have written enough for tonight, and if you will carefully read what I have written, you will find much food for thought, and probably some help to a correct and complete comprehension of who and what God is.

I want to express to you my gratification and pleasure in being able to come to you again and having you take down my ideas, and also for the opportunity to declare that God is a Being, having an existence of His own, comprehensible only by the soul perceptions of His redeemed children.

I will say good night,

Your old professor and brother,

Joseph H. Salyards”

In the next video in this midweek series, next Wednesday, I’ll be taking you through another message from Joseph Salyards, given to James about three months later, in February 1916, when he comments on how much he is learning from some of the other people in spirit who write to James.

The next video in the Divine Love series will be video 10.11 this coming Sunday, where we’ll be looking at a message from the apostle John, which corrects some of the things in the gospel attributed to him, as it has come down to us. John also takes some time to explain what was going on with Judas and his choice to lead the Jewish authorities to Jesus, which then led to his trial and execution.

So I hope you’ll join me for one or other of those. As always, if you’ve enjoyed this video, please do take a moment to ‘like’ it and, if you haven’t already, subscribe to the channel, as it does help to introduce the material to others.

In the meantime, thank you for watching, and I’ll see you soon.

Bye, bye.