There are three ways in which we can experience communication: physical, psychical and spiritual. In physical communication there is sensory stimulation that can be responded to directly by the rational mind through the agency of the brain. In psychical communication there is an apparently direct contact from the deepest layer of consciousness of one person to another; it is from soul to soul. It is extrasensory inasmuch as it bypasses the organs of sensation and perception and yet impinges itself directly on the mind where it is accepted, acknowledged and made the object of response according to one's rational powers. In the psychic mode one person may be apprised of someone else's inner disposition without previous knowledge of his background or his private life. It was said of Jesus that He knew men so well, all of them, that He needed no evidence from others about a man, for He Himself could tell what was in a man (John 2:25). This is psychical attunement at its most immaculate.
Since the soul is not limited by the time sequence and will, we believe, continue to progress in spiritual knowledge and grow in stature even after the death of the physical body, psychic information can impinge on future events and tap into the past also. The well-attested phenomena of precognition and retrocognition provide compelling illustrations of the relative nature of time in the psychic mode. Soul can communicate directly with soul, in this world and apparently also in the life beyond death, however inadequately we may picture it from our own point of vantage. It is not uncommon for recently bereaved people to have what is for them an incontrovertible experience of direct psychic contact from a loved one, the result being an inner conviction that all is well with the deceased and that the bond of love remains intact. These impressions are necessarily fleeting and nebulous in quality so that they cannot be imparted with authority to other people, especially those who are compulsively sceptical. It is noteworthy that when Jesus arose from the dead He appeared only to those who had loved Him, however inadequately. It was only after He had ascended into the Kingdom of God that He enjoyed mystical unity with the Father, and then He could appear in His spiritual radiance to an infinitely wider range of people, including those who had been previously hostile, like St Paul.
The most exalted type of communication is indeed the spiritual in which there is a direct flow of love and wisdom from God to man. In its most profound and glorious form, mystical illumination, the barrier that separates the uncreated radiance of God from the dark torpor of the human mind is momentarily lifted, and the person can gain a direct insight into divine reality that is of life-transforming urgency. But there are also less intense experiences in which the timid soul is lifted momentarily up out of its customary gloom and apathy and brought into a concentrated focus of radiant light and encompassing love, so that a more emphatic purpose guides its hesitant steps once more. The spiritual mode of communication, however humble it may appear to be, has the effect of raising the person to whom it reveals itself from a narrowly selfish vision of life to one that is self transcending and sees as its end the service and healing of humanity, indeed of all created beings. Like the psychic mode of communication, it is extrasensory and it impinges itself directly on the soul of the person to whom it comes as a gift of grace.
Spiritual communication is always beneficial, but psychical and physical types of contact vary in their quality according to the source of the information. Psychic communication, for instance, can be of evil import and life-destroying potency if it emanates from a demonic source, which may be either a depraved human being or a perverted entity in the life beyond death. This is why indiscriminate trafficking with psychical forces is strongly deprecated in the world's higher religious teachings. Unwise types of meditation techniques can also open a sensitive person to psychic invasion from outside as well as from the untapped depths of his own unconscious psyche.
The end of the spiritual life is the spiritualisation of all things. This means the raising and transforming of both the physical and the psychical dimensions of reality from egoistical domination to full communion with God. In this respect we see the presage of this spiritualisation in God's Word Who became flesh and dwelt among us and Whose immaculate psychic sensitivity is the end to which our communion with those around us leads. It must be emphasised that we are meant to communicate physically and psychically while we live on earth, for without a vigorous body and a sensitive soul we could not actualise ourselves fully as people. We relate to all forms of creation physically and psychically, while the wisdom of God reaches us spiritually and is interpreted by the mind to form the basis of worldly understanding, scientific knowledge and social enlightenment. It is also received into the soul as love which emanates psychically to all around it, so that God's eternal blessing may be imparted freely to all living forms throughout the world.
This, I believe, is the basis of what is called spiritual healing, and it forms the foundation of effective counselling. The minister of healing is one who can attain a strong rapport, even an intimate relationship of caring, with the person whom he is serving. And in that self-giving which is the measure of all effective relationships, the power of the Holy Spirit flows from the one who serves to the one who is in need, and healing of the whole person is initiated. This is not merely a bodily healing or even a mental or emotional restoration; it is a total re-creation of the individual into something of the measure of a complete person. A person, in this respect, is a fully functioning human being working from a centre of independent judgment and decision through the agency of a freed, active will. In other words, there is an integration of the personality around the central focus of the spirit that illuminates the soul. This in turn transmits a more enduring meaning for existence to the rational mind and the emotions than a mere desire for immediate survival and the satisfaction of the body's needs that dominate the perspective of the unrealised man. The work of healing and counselling, in their different ways, is that of sending the power of God's Spirit to the person in need, and this transmission is effected psychically. It follows therefore that the more lucid and unobstructed the psyche of the one who ministers, the more effective will be his work and the greater will be the benefit he bestows on those he serves. Furthermore, he will be less liable to fatigue and psychic depletion in his arduous work, as he is able to call in prayer on the Holy Spirit at all times, especially when he knows he is in special need of protection.
We give apparently of ourselves, but in fact what comes through us is the Word and Spirit of God. As we give God's power to those in need, so we are replenished for the work of healing, and eventually we add our quota of life to the Spirit of God in our service to those around us. If we try to give everything on our own, unaided, without deference to God and calling upon Him ceaselessly in prayer, we insidiously elevate ourselves, at least in our own estimation, to god-like status. The result is severe bodily strain and psychic depletion which will soon render any further healing work impossible. The way of exchange and substitution that we have already seen as the heart of an authentic healing relationship, in which the burdens of one person are borne by another, is psychic communion at its most spiritually vibrant. The love and devotion that mark such empathy lift the burden to God Who transforms it into a blessing for the person who had borne it for so long and also for the one who had served him in the capacity of counsellor. As soon as we offer our souls and bodies as a sacrifice for other people in the name of God - and this means in loving devotion - He is with us and the Spirit encompasses us in the deepest psychic communion. We in turn give that Spirit to all whom we serve in love, so that integration may commence in the lives of many people.
In my own experience in the ministry of healing and counselling I have been impressed by the quality of blessing that can come through the silence of compassion. When one has been rendered speechless in the face of a terrible human tragedy, the Holy Spirit can implant the word of intimate encouragement directly into the soul of the one who suffers during the silence of unknowing. On one such occasion I was asked to pay a hospital visit to a man whom I had never previously met shortly after he had undergone a very extensive operation for cancer. He was not at all pleased to see me though he had been apprised of my proposed visit shortly before the operation, and had then signified his wish that I should come to see him. He felt thoroughly miserable because he was in great discomfort, and could not face having to participate in the spiritually edifying conversation which he expected me to initiate. I was impelled - without premeditation - simply to sit still in a chair next to his bed and tell him to be quiet with me. The silence lasted about five minutes; when we emerged from it his appearance was completely different. A glow of warmth played about his face and his eyes were vibrant with life. He was speechless with amazed delight, and so was I. God had used me, through being completely receptive and self-effacing, as His instrument of peace to that man, and now the Holy Spirit was working actively in him as a healing power. Indeed, his recovery was remarkably rapid and uneventful considering the gravity of his malady, and he later entered the healing ministry himself. `My grace is all you need; power comes to its full strength in weakness' (2 Cor. 12:9).
This, of course, does not belittle the work that must be done on the physical and mental level in the full ministries of healing and counselling. It simply puts them into their proper perspective. As Jesus says: `Set your mind on God's kingdom and His justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well' (Matt. 6:33). Once our spiritual relationship to God is aligned with our psychical relationship to our fellow men, His Spirit will inform all our efforts, whether physical, mental or emotional, made on behalf of those who seek our help.
It must also be said that there are people of considerable psychic sensitivity who do not have any belief in a power of transcendent might and love whom men call God. This, in itself, may not pose an insuperable barrier to spiritual understanding, especially when we consider the cruelty that man has often visited on his neighbour in the name of the God he so confidently worships. But the ultimate criterion of spirituality is one's attitude to the world and to one's fellow man, as summed up in the two great commandments of Jesus: the love of God with all one's being and the love of one's neighbour as oneself. To some, notably those of an innately mystical disposition, the love of the unseen God comes as the primary revelation. To others, especially the more extravert type of individual, it is deep personal relationships, at first enclosed and rather limited, that eventually open their eyes to the being and love of God. In fact, only when we love God in mystical devotion can we love our neighbour perfectly also, because personal love devoid of the consciously divine base tends to become demanding and possessive. When we love the whole created universe and the One Who fashioned all things, we shall not confuse the creature with the Creator, and we shall also see our own priorities in their proper perspective. All personal relationships wither with the passage of time, but when they are consummated in commitment to God they assume something of the nature of immortality.
To put these reflections on a more practical level, one may consider the person who possesses as an innate quality a strong psychic sensitivity and power. He may be able to make deep relationships with people and effect an impressive amount of healing work. But the temptation to use this gift to gain power over others will be enormous, just as will the tendency to regard himself as superior to others and to use them for his own selfish purposes. The history of occultism emphasises this destructive tendency among those who use native psychic gifts on a basically personal level, seeing themselves as the arbiters of their right or wrong usage. This was the primal sin of Adam and Eve who took on themselves the power of judging between good and evil without divine grace. Whenever a person assumes a god-like role without the prior sanction of God Himself, he takes on the quality of Antichrist, and whatever he does, especially when he believes he has the world's best interests at heart becomes aberrant and demonic. On the other hand, when a god-like role is bestowed on a person by the Deity as part of his minor work in the world, and for a short period of time only, that person becomes transparent in goodness, fully open in love to all created things, and of a radiant spiritual beauty. He is, in other words, Christ-like, and his end is self-sacrifice, not self-aggrandisement. His radiance is so transparent that anyone who is sensitive to spiritual truth can sense the soul within him - I would indeed go so far as to say the soul is visible according to the harmlessness and love of the person who manifests it in the world. Thus it can be said of Jesus that the Father and He are one (John 10:30). By contrast, the souls of many of us are so encrusted in the debris of assertive sensual existence which is an accretion of wrong bodily usage, that their light is largely obscured in everyday life. Impending death or a terrible disaster often serves to restore that light, to some extent at least, for the person's great journey into the unseen world beyond his grasp. But by then most of his life may have been lamentably misspent.
It follows that many, if not all, the gifts of the Spirit enumerated by St Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 are mediate psychically, though they all should come directly from God as a spiritual endowment. We read in Matthew 7:21-23 the following important statement:
Not everyone who calls me `Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do the will of my heavenly Father. When that day comes, many will say to me `Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name, cast out devils in your name, and in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them to their face, `I never knew you; out of my sight, you and your wicked ways!'.
It is evident from this saying that unspiritual people may exhibit gifts of the Holy Spirit, using these gifts on an unacceptable basis of personal advancement, even in the name of Christ. In the end it must be that all gifts come from the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as God is in charge of all things. His sun rises on good and bad alike, and He sends the rain on the honest and dishonest (Matt. 5:45). But if the gift is to be fully spiritualised, it must be given back to God in thanksgiving and humility. At this point the workings of the Holy Spirit in the life of the person cease to be merely an unconscious force - since the Holy Spirit's first action in our world is that of Lord and giver of life - and become the conscious light of the fully awakened person that leads him to an expanded understanding of God's plan in his life. In other words, the Holy Spirit takes His undisputed place as sovereign of our individual conscience, which was previously dominated by our conditioning and the demands of our peers with whom we work day by day. When the Holy Spirit acts within us as a consciously acknowledged power, the God of love is our sole source of devotion, and that devotion pours forth in unfailing love to all our neighbours. We are now hidden in that love, and our one aim is to give it as perfectly as we can to those in need.
In this state of selfless devotion, our innate psychic sensitivity will be quickened; even those who deny any such awareness will discover that they seem to know the inner disposition of the person they are counselling. They will appear to be given direct information about their client's needs, and what they say will be uncanny in its pertinence. This is not to be interpreted as an intrusive prying into the inner life of another individual, a meddling in his private affairs. The insight comes as a shaft of enlightenment, for the Holy Spirit is directing all our endeavours towards a confrontation with the soul of the one who is in need of healing or counsel. As the truth is shown and shared spontaneously and in good faith, so a feeling of release is experienced by both the counsellor and the client. The remarkable feature of authentic psychic communion is that both parties are led into the truth of a situation, so that the barriers of the past are lifted and the light of understanding bathes the personalities, cleansing them of diffidence, fear and mistrust. In other words, a true psychic communion strengthens the counsellor no less than the one who seeks counsel. In a real therapeutic relationship the healing is eventually visited on all who have taken part in the transaction. As we give, so we are given to the end that all may partake more fully of God's healing spirit. When the counsellor has been enabled to effect psychic contact and give the word of release to the person he is assisting, he will in all probability tend to forget the message he imparted. Once this has done its work of healing it remains a treasured possession of the person to whom it was delivered. It is no longer relevant to the work of the counsellor. Indeed, he must now move on to the next task revealed by the Holy Spirit and not spend valuable time reflecting on past work successfully completed.
The way of deeper communion with the soul of another person is also the journey to a more profound knowledge of oneself. If I am in direct communication with my inner being, I shall be open to all relevant psychic impressions coming from those around me. Far from having to strive to attain this knowledge, I have merely to be quiet and relaxed. Openness to God renders me available to minister to the needs of all those who need me - and indeed by the power of prayer to a vast, unseen concourse separated by space and time but united by the eternal love that God bestows on all His creatures. Transparency to the depth of one's own psyche brings an openness to the psychic emanations of those who seek one's help. Whether this assistance is of the unpremeditated substitutionary kind that bears another's emotional burdens or of a consciously directive type that imparts new information to that person depends on the will of God. While counselling is best if it tends towards a non- directive approach, so that the person in need can be assisted to make his own decisions once he is released from destructive tension and emotional turmoil - a therapeutic effect of a fine counselling session - it is nevertheless often the case that the interview impels him towards a changed perspective and a more positive approach to his problems. This will culminate in a consciously applied decision that is bound to influence the future course of his life.
Another fascinating psychic phenomenon that not infrequently shows itself in the practice of those who are well attuned to their fellows in their work of loving service is a startling tendency for apparently unrelated events to throw a powerful light on the problem immediately confronting them. It may be the unheralded emergence of a topic in a casual conversation that suddenly highlights a factor previously overlooked, or else a sentence from a book which one has been spontaneously compelled by an inner impulse to open and read that brings a fresh insight to the circumstance that is occupying one's present attention. Indeed, as St Paul saw so clearly, `All things work together for good for those who love God' (Rom. 8:28). The Holy Spirit co-operates for good with those who dedicate themselves to God's service, having been called according to His purpose. This is, I believe, an aspect of the meaningful coincidence of contingent, or chance, events termed `synchronicity by Carl Jung, and which he discovered during his psychotherapeutic studies with people who were steadily attaining individuation following a progressive integration of the previously fragmented parts of their personality. Jung stressed the acausal nature of the concurrence of these events: that the one did not precipitate or influence the other, but that each seemed to be a sign or manifestation of an underlying psychic accord that binds together in unity all apparently disconnected events. This unity shows itself in the cosmic harmony that is known to the mystic in his moment of illumination, and is, when all life has been consummated to God by the willed intent of His creatures, to become universally manifest as a realm of expanded, coherent thought and enlightened action.
On a more immediately practical level it seems that, as we become more fully integrated as people, so our inner relationships with others become stabilised, extended and exalted. The power of healing, which is our innate psychic emanation now purified by the Holy Spirit working freely and without distortion within us, flows out to those people in our close vicinity and also affects the life of the less developed creatures around us. These include not only our animal relatives but also the vegetation with which we share a common existence in this world of potentially abundant life. Even what appear to be the inanimate forces and forms of nature are not beyond the range of psychic influence emanating from a truly enlightened, saintly individual. As one grows in psychic sensitivity, so one's solidarity with all life and all created forms becomes more perfectly realised. This solidarity is no mere sentimental effusion or intellectual abstraction; it is an outpouring of blessing on to the entire world around one. This blessing is effected by a conscious concern that finds its end in constructive action, and also by an uncontrived, essentially unconscious attitude of harmlessness and tranquillity.
When we are at peace within the depths of our own being, we are placed in alignment with the psychic power of life that is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The inner peace that we know becomes at last a peace that is shared with those near us and finally also with those who are far away. This sharing is a function of intercessory prayer that is a product of the practice of contemplation. Once we can face God directly in love and thanksgiving, we are deemed worthy of a place between Him and His creatures, and through us flows the restored psychic power that is bestowed by the Holy Spirit as part of God's spiritual radiance. Prayer plays an essential part in our attainment of inner psychic balance; it is also the means by which we impart equilibrium to the world in faith and peace. When we can begin to see the work of counselling and healing in this inspiring light, we can glimpse the extent and glory of the influence of the Holy Spirit as the sanctifying power of God in the lives of all His creatures.
The peace that passes understanding has in the end to flow from each of us acting as God's chosen vessel. Only when we are spiritually awake and in conscious communion with God can we be in psychic communion with those around us. The power of the Holy Spirit will bring all living forms into harmonious interaction so that healing can proceed on a universal scale. This is the full vision of the spirit of counsel, that the love and wisdom of God should bring together all apparently separate elements into a fully functioning body, alive with hope and vibrant with eager expectation, led by a restored, resolute humanity.