Kurzbiografie
Helen wurde im Jahr 1899 geboren. Sie heiratete Roger Greaves und wanderte nach Kanada aus, wo sie einen Sohn bekamen. Ihr Mann arbeitete auf Ozeandampfern, die zwischen England und Kanada verkehrten, weswegen er einen großen Teil seines Lebens fern von zu Hause verbrachte. Helen bekam starkes Heimweh und so entschloss sie sich 1939, mit ihrem Sohn nach England zurückzukehren, was dann zu Beginn des 2. Weltkrieges geschah.
Bereits während ihrer Zeit in Kanada hatte Helen zu meditieren begonnen, wodurch sich ihre Sensitivität herauszubilden begann, ohne dass sie damit seinerzeit bereits telepathische Fähigkeiten verbunden hätte.
Während des Krieges arbeitete sie im Amt für die staatliche Post-Kontrollstelle. 1948 fanden sie und ihr Mann wieder zusammen und verbrachten zwei weitere Jahre in Kanada. Nachdem jedoch ihr Sohn in Kanada geheiratet hatte, ging Helen nach England zurück, um sich dort mit ihrem Mann niederzulassen. Leider starb ihr Mann infolge eines Unfalls an Bord seines Schiffes am 20. Dezember 1950. Danach begann Helen Nachrichten von ihm zu empfangen, wodurch ihr klar wurde, dass es ein Leben nach dem Tode gab und dass sie selbst eine telepathische Begabung besaß.
Im Jahre 1963, während sie in einem Apartment des ›Seekers Trust‹ in Kent wohnte, schrieb sie über diese Erfahrungen ihr erstes Buch – ›The Dissolving Veil‹ (deutsch etwa: ›Der sich auflösende Schleier‹) – welches von der ›Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical & Spiritual Studies‹ veröffentlicht wurde. Währenddessen hatte Helen 1955 Frances Banks getroffen, die sich 1961 ebenfalls in Addington niederließ, wo sie die letzten vier Jahre ihres Lebens verbringen sollte.
Nachdem Frances Banks im November 1965 an Krebs gestorben war, begann Helen Greaves von ihr zuerst einzelne Mitteilungen und dann die ›Aufzeichnungen‹ zu empfangen. Diese wurden 1969 ebenfalls bei der CFPSS veröffentlicht und waren sofort ein großer Erfolg. 1971 zog Helen in ein Haus, in dem, wie sich herausstellte, ›Geister‹ verkehrten. Ihre Erlebnisse dort beschrieb sie in dem 1974 erschienenen Buch ›The Wheel of Eternity‹ (deutsch etwa: ›Das Rad der Ewigkeit‹). 1977, nach einer Operation und einer Phase der Depression, verfasste sie weitere Mitteilungen, die sie in ihrem 1978 veröffentlichten vierten Buch ›Living Waters‹ (deutsch etwa: ›Lebendige Wasser‹) zusammentrug.
1981, nach einer Pause von 15 Jahren, trat Frances Banks erneut an sie heran. Zu der Zeit war Helen bereits in ein Seniorenheim gezogen und litt unter den Symptomen einsetzender Erblindung. Das Buch ›Challenging Light‹ (deutsch etwa ›Die Prüfung des Lichts‹ oder auch ›Pfad des Lichts‹) wurde 1984 veröffentlicht. Von einigen wurde es für nicht so bedeutend wie ›Testimony of Light‹ (›Zeugnis des Lichts‹) befunden, doch darf man es gleichwohl als wertvolle Hilfe betrachten, um sowohl die Beziehung zwischen diesen beiden bemerkenswerten Frauen als auch die spirituelle Entwicklung von Helen Greaves zum Ende ihres Lebens hin besser zu verstehen.
Anmerkung des Verlags: Wir konnten die Inhaber des Urheber-Rechts für diesen Titel bisher nicht ausfindig machen, weswegen wir eine Neuveröffentlichung nicht weiter betrieben haben. Siehe auch den benachbarten Tab ›Pfad des Lichts‹ mit einer Leseprobe auf englisch.
Helen Greaves verstarb 1991.
Dieser Text wurde uns auf Anfrage vom Sekretariat der ›Churches’ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies‹ im Januar 2009 übermittelt und wir veröffentlichen ihn hier ins Deutsche übersetzt mit herzlichem Dank.
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„Challenging Light“, gewissermaßen ein Folgeband zu „Zeugnis des Lichts“, erschien 1984 bei Neville Spearman Limited. Von einigen wurde es für nicht so bedeutend wie dieses befunden, doch darf man es gleichwohl als wertvolle Hilfe betrachten, um sowohl die Beziehung zwischen diesen beiden bemerkenswerten Frauen als auch die spirituelle Entwicklung von Helen Greaves zum Ende ihres Lebens hin besser zu verstehen.
Im folgenden finden Sie eine kleine Leseprobe auf Englisch.
To the owner of the rights: Please contact us to discuss the possibility of publishing a German translation.
Introduction
WHEN I met Frances Banks for the first time, we were introduced and we shook hands.
‚Oh, I know you,‘ Frances remarked!
I shook my head. ‚I don’t think you do!‘ I said.
‚Oh, yes. I would always recognise your eyes.‘ Then she smiled, ‚We have worked together before – and we will again!‘ I said nothing, for I had heard that statement before from others.
However, it was to be so, for we became good friends. Later, after her beloved Mother Florence spoke convincingly to her through me, Frances never let go of me. She called me the Celestial Telephone.
Later, after the furnished flat which she shared with her sister just outside London was sold, she came to Addington Park to live.
It was interesting to see how much she was loved and admired by all and sundry, for she had very little money and no furniture to set up a home. But a bed, mattress, blankets, sheets were soon donated, furniture arrived from friends, and sufficient money collected to add an armchair, a table, and other necessities.
Frances never had much money until about three years later when her brother died and left her a small legacy, yet she always seemed to be helped and to have enough to live very simply.
She gave talks to the Churches‘ Fellowship for Psychical and Spiritual Studies, but when I asked what was her fee, she smiled, ‚Oh, I never take a fee – it’s part of my earthly service,‘ she retorted. ‚I only ask for my fare.‘ It was something I learned and never forgot, for later when I too stood on platforms and talked about my work and books. I felt bound to follow Frances‘ code of conduct.
She was a woman, I feel that I can now say, who went straight for any ploy, any work that she felt was in her power to do. She never hesitated. She made opportunities, arid fulfilled them. She was a leader and a woman whose whole life had been dedicated to work and service.
This is emphasized by her twenty-eight years of obedience to the vows she took and by the extraordinary work that she did in South Africa. She wrote spiritual books for children, curriculums taught at the College for Teachers. next door to the Convent, at the same time studied for an M.A. degree which she won, and even went out on missions to the native races in the wilder regions of that country. All this and strict community exercises and prayers too! Later she ·became Head of the College for Teachers, and arranged the students‘ concerts, and even dress parades.
When Frances saw some service that could be performed, she did it. Thus I was not surprised at her ‚return‘ from the next world, and her emphasis that I write with her help, Testimony of Light, which has gone all over the world, and is still a bestseller in its field seventeen years after publication. Should I have any doubts that now in her greater knowledge she would wish to collaborate in a sequel to that book?
From her initial words to me, spoken on our first meeting, I can now look back and see her dedication and desire to enlighten others with her own knowledge, and I can verify the inherent understanding of the spiritual needs within mankind. I have received hundreds of letters from many countries, from readers thanking me for the help received from Testimony of Light when they were in trouble, in stress, or experiencing great sadness at the loss of dear ones.
Is it any surprise that I now understand and accept her first words to me? ‚We have worked together before. We will work together again.‘ Frances‘ story reminds me of an incident which happened soon after I met her in 1955. As shown in her book Teach them to Live, she had spent some years as Tutor Organiser in Maidstone Prison where she was successful with even the most difficult prisoners, helping them to discover latent talents in themselves. She showed me remarkably good sketches and watercolours painted by the prisoners, and many articles designed and made by them.
But there was one prisoner, an unfrocked priest, who was entirely intransigent and refused to listen. One day he argued with her – against all that could be called good and fine or progressive and spiritual. It was the last time she ever saw the man. He disappeared from her classes; later she learned that he had committed suicide. Some two years later when she had resigned from the prison service, she and I were having tea together in my fiat. Slowly as we talked I became aware of the presence of a man from the next plane of existence. He gave his name, and then into my mind came the words, ‚Tell her that what she said to me at our very last meeting is absolutely true!‘
I told this to Frances, and she knew at once who it was, recalling what she had said to him, and the words that he used.
‚During our last conversation,‘ she said, ‚this prisoner had taunted me, insisting there was nothing beyond the grave but dead matter. I had replied that five minutes after death he would be exactly the same.‘
As she spoke I could still hear the voice in my mind, saying: ‚And that was absolutely true. I had not changed.‘
Frances smiled, and said: ‚They were the last remarks that we had together. Evidently he has progressed in the next world, and understands. Bless him!‘
How rare it must be to have some profound experience repeated in exact facsimile many years later! Yet this happened to me with startling wonder in the second return of my friend Frances Banks.
After Testimony of Light was published, communication with Frances ceased altogether until nearly fifteen years later. Then, with the suddenness of immediacy she was beside me again, and I knew it!
At this time, 1981, I had retired, owing to threatening blindness, from my cottage, to a small quiet home for the elderly, run by two dedicated ladies. The thought of doing nothing was anathema to me and I had started in a desultory way to write the story of my changing life style.
One morning, as I sat at my desk in the window of my room, my thoughts would not be disciplined and I stared laconically at the passing cars along the road. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and inexplicably I was alive, physically trembling with an inner spiritual energy.
For a moment I was still. Then I shouted aloud. ‚Frances! You’ve come back!‘ And I stood up.
Frances was beside me. I knew! She was there beside me as real as though she still existed in the body, ‚Oh, Frances!‘ I was almost crying with excitement. Then there was a tap on my door and a friend of mine who lives in the Home entered. ‚Frances has come back!‘ I was shouting, yet unaware of it. ‚Frances has returned!‘
Her pleasure was immediate, for she too had known her. We talked for a moment. Then I picked up my pen. ‚I must write it down,‘ I said. ‚Write what?‘ I asked myself a minute later. Suddenly with perfect clarity I knew. Frances never wasted her time or effort in dilatory converse. Indeed she made her reason for communicating with me entirely plain.
She had come back for a purpose. There was work to be done. She needed me, as I needed her! There was a book to be written. I was to write it! She, and the companions in her Group, would inspire it. I sat, electrified. So, she had not changed! Her spirit was stronger than ever.
Dismay, excitement, joy and doubt all seemed to take possession of my mind. How could I write a book? I could now scarcely read one. But when I was calm enough to reason with her, she had gone; and I was aware that such a book would be written, as she had told me.
And so it was. For she would start a chapter in my head, almost before I had awakened in the morning.
At first I jotted down the ideas and pieces. They sounded fascinating. I was intrigued. Some few weeks later after I had been registered blind by the eye specialist, I began to write the various chapters of the book. By now I could not read at all, and my writing was almost indecipherable, A friend lent me a recorder. I tried to speak into it, but when I played back the words they were flat and uninteresting. It was useless.
One morning I sat down to try to put on paper the words that had been running through my brain from the moment I had awakened. Imagine my surprise and joy when I found I could scrawl the words across the foolscap paper. I began to write. I became immersed. It was two hours later when I put down my pen. I had filled four foolscap pages with the untidy. but inspired scrawl across the ruled lines, yet I could not read a word of it!
The book is now finished. And I have never read a word of it! Miracles do happen when the Spirit of the Creator is involved.