Reflections by: Olivia Robertson

I was five years old, in a small country town, Reigate, in England. I was dressed for my first day at school. My sister Barbara, my elder and mentor, gave me a serious warning.

“You are only a new girl. When you get there – a girl called Mona will come up to you and be very kind and even kiss you! Look out! She does that to all new girls. But she is Head of a Gang and you’ll be hers. You’ll be lost.”

After this fearsome warning I walked down Reigate Hill with Barbara with trepidation. And sure enough, when I arrived, a big girl – about twelve – came up to me, went on her knees and embraced me. Fortified by my sister’s superior wisdom, I pushed away and turned my back. This was my first step in self-realization…

My next experience, two years later, was what happened to poor Gladys. At school we had been invited to a party in a very rich family’s home. There was to be strawberry and vanilla ice-cream, a garden railway train for children and Presents. So hopefully we climbed into a school bus and off we drove.

Then we drove past a row of small terraced houses with washing hanging up. I cried out: “There is Gladys playing in her garden!” There she was, yellow hair flying, playing solitary catch-ball in a small yard. “Oh, She wasn’t invited”, explained a girl. “She’s poor.”

Years later, another scene impressed itself on my mind. It was during War, World War II. I was acting as a nurse – Red-Cross on my apron, in Bedfordshire. There I saw a sunset in the wrong place – It was London on fire.

But it was not this dramatic scene that hurt me. It was in our ward where injured men from Dunkirk were treated for fractures. Most had their legs in plaster, hoisted up on pulleys. Some, recovering, could eat at table. But we had to have two separate tables for meals, as French and English patients would not eat together. Well, they had each other…

Not so our solitary black African soldier. No one would eat with him. He had to eat his meals at his locker.

We can legislate, write books, give sermons, but how can we change human nature? And not just human. I saw a documentary film about the private family lives of wolves. There was one wretched black-haired wolf who was the pack fool. He was bullied, not allowed to eat until all the others had eaten – and then only was given left-overs. In order even to live, this wolf became the pack comedian. He would play absurd tricks, grovel, roll-over – anything to please. So he was tolerated. Finally he could bear it no longer, so off he went in search of a better life. He was monitored by camera – but went astray and was eaten by a mountain lion.

But what was strange – even suggesting some sort of conscience, was that the pack mourned his passing. The whole winter the wolves were dispirited. They had no one to blame, no one to torment, no one to laugh at. What an obituary for a scapegoat.

I like solutions – perhaps because I am born under Aries? What are my remedies for cruelty from Gangs, whether these be schools, nations or churches?

So here are my own three discoveries. Firstly, we do have God the Father but he can repudiate – punish – disown. This is what we learn from Fathers. But God the Mother loves even the most repulsive and stupid children! This we observe in the behaviour of Mothers. So when we acknowledge God the Mother as being source of all that is – to insult – belittle – ill-treat any of her children, whether two-legged, four-legged or with no legs at all – we hurt our Divine Mother. And She has the backing of the Divine Father.

To give an example: The most tragic of photographs I have ever seen was of a monkey in a vivisection laboratory, his hands gripping the bars of his cage. He head was lifted up – his mouth open – with an expression of such anguish – such terror – that he was both animal and human – indeed, Nature Herself, when we destroy her children and her earth.

My favourite method to dissipate cruelty is through recall of previous incarnations, experienced in trance state, and remembered by the percipient. What I find strange is that the persecutor in one life becomes the victim in the next. And so on through a succession of lives, until liberation is attained through forgiveness.

My third method is through the arts – that empathy we find with fictional characters – in Shakespeare – Tolstoy – in paintings by Rembrandt. Our separated consciousness finds communion with diverse characters – creatures. We gain the divine gift of Omnipresence.

To me the necessity is never to lose control of ones own original eternal soul. So indeed Beware the Gang!

Every country, every religion, all legal structures, need to offer their members a way of escape from their institutions. Spiritual Awakening comes through change!

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