Silver Birch, as we call him, is not a Red Indian. Who he is, we do not know. We assume that
he uses the name of the spirit through whose astral body he expresses himself, it being impossible
for the high vibration of the spiritual realm to which he belongs to manifest except through
some other instrument. He is the spirit guide of what is known as "Hannen Swaffer's Home
Circle". ~ foreward by Hannen Swaffer, Teachings of Silver Birch, first published 1938.
In 1982, I attended a few services at the Victorian Spiritualists Union in A'Beckett Street, Melbourne, and purchased a little golden book entitled "Teachings of Silver Birch: Wisdom from the World Beyond". Like Steve Beckow, I could say that Silver Birch was my earliest teacher in spirituality, although my first incursions into spirituality were really through the history articles and essays that were published in the women's magazine, English Women's Weekly, in the sixties and seventies. Such articles were not New Age woo-woo tainted and were gleaned and sourced from classic and authenticated historical and archeological records, to be presented to readers as hearty and solid fare for the imind, as a trencher of meat and potatoes is for the body.
Hannen Swaffer (1879-1961) was a British journalist and drama critic and in the 1930s was head of the spiritualist home circle that bore his name, and which followed the teachings of Silver Birch, the disembodied spirt who spoke through the channel of Maurice Barbanell for 61 years, until Barbanell's physical death in 1981.
Being no longer the impressionable child of the sixties, nor a seeker of the eighties; I still, nonetheless, have fondness for the Silver Birch whilst being able to discern the social, cultural and religious limitations of Maurice Barbanell.
It is my understanding that the teachings of so-called "spirit guides" is constrained by, and strained through, the cultural biases, social prejudices and personal idiosyncracies of the medium. Maurice Barbanell was a man of his times, country and culture. Hence the identification of Silver Birch as a "he" and not a "she".
With the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, it would not have been prudent for Silver Birch/Maurice to adopt a Norse/Germanic vernacular. In light of what we now know about Hitler's fascination with Germanic paganism, the historical emnity between Britain and Germany, it was more politic to allow people to assume that Silver Birch was a disincarnate spirit of vague Native American heritage.
The Norwegian explorer and author Helge Ingstad began an intensive search for Norse sites in North America, beginning in New England and working his way northward along the coast. At L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, local residents were aware of mounds located in the peat bogs, but always assumed that they were Indian burial mounds. A local inhabitant, George Decker, led Ingstad to these mounds in 1960. For the next eight years, Ingstad, and his wife Anne Stine Ingstad led a team of international archaeologists in the excavation of the site. Rather than being an Indian burial ground, the mounds are the remains of a Norse community dating from approximately the year 1000. Further excavations by Parks Canada in the 1970s makes the conclusion incontrovertible. [1]
A.W. Austen, who edited many of the Silver Birch books, wrote: The appeal of Silver Birch is to Reason, and if anything he says is not acceptable to the reader's reason then it should be rejected or at least left as an open question pending further evidence. The remarks of Silver Birch, and his replies to questions, are printed throughout in the more common type known as Roman.
Known as Roman.
The Rev. William Stainton Moses (1839-1892) was an English clergyman and Spiritualist. Born in Donnington, Lincoln, he would become a founding member of the London Spiritualist Alliance in 1884 (afterwards the College of Psychic Studies). Moses is regarded as the man who gave Spiritualism its "bible" (sound familiar?) was one of the most
remarkable mediums of the last century. There were twenty-two spirit communicators, headed by one who
signed himself "Imperator".
British spiritualism of the late 19th and early-20th centuries is heavily infested with Christian references, for the British psyche has, for the most part, been guided and impressed upon by the doctrines and dogma of the Anglican and Catholic traditions; with a brief detour into Quakerism/Puritanism around the 17th Century. Reaching further back the time-line, there are the traditions that the Roman legions brought, the Druidic, the Norse, Celtic, Calvanism, Presbyterianism and dozens of others. The hedonist pursuits of British Royalty over the centuries should not be discounted either as having formed a particular idolatry amongst the commonfolk which endures to the present day.
Long Live the Queen and Long She has Reigned. While the Members of the Houses of Parliament now hold the reins, it could be said that the prominent members of the House of Windsor serve the function of cultural icon, of meeting a need for an idealized archetype of Mother/Father personifed by Kings and Queens: a vestigal relic from times long past.
Rather like the presence of the frequently discarded appendix within the body. Many doctors believe the appendix is a vestigial organ with no function and is no more than a blind ended tube connected to the cecum, from which it develops embryologically. Researchers in the United States say the appendix produces and protects good germs for the gut by "rebooting" the digestive system.
However the researchers say sometimes the bacteria die off or are purged from the intestines as in diseases such as cholera or dysentery.
According to the researchers, the appendix's job is to "reboot" the digestive system when that happens with the bacteria safely harbored in the appendix.[2]
So what is the common thread between Spiritualism, British Royalty and a little purse-like organ in the human body? Allow me to introduce you to an individual who embodied a guiding light for my journey through all things codswallopy, malarkish and fallacious: Erik the Dead.
Erik Weisz aka "Harry Houdini" who in the 1920s turned his energies toward debunking self-proclaimed psychics and mediums, a pursuit that would inspire and be followed by later-day conjurers. Houdini's training in magic allowed him to expose frauds who had successfully fooled many scientists and academics. He was a member of a Scientific American committee that offered a cash prize to any medium who could successfully demonstrate supernatural abilities. The prize was never collected.
Harry Houdini died of peritonitis, secondary to a ruptured appendix on October 31, 1926. [3]
Erik Weisz was my greatest teacher in healing.
His simple message:
The bodily pain you ignore, WILL kill you.
Silver Birch: Lady of the Woods
The silver birch is a distinctive and easily recognisable tree with it’s ‘silver’ white papery bark and pale-green leaves. It’s not a slow-growing monster of a tree but a fairly fast-growing and not so long lived slender tree.
One of the earliest trees to come into Britain after the ice age. It needs light but can survive in quite poor soil. Being one of the earliest members of our native woodland it has a lot of fungi associated with it.
Silver birches produce male and female catkins with the female catkins turning into ‘fruit’. Though not in the human enjoying “juicy” sense. Winged seeds are shed from September.
This is very much a tree associated with the feminine and female divinity (Culpepper called it a tree of ‘Venus’). Birch is the ‘Lady of the Woods’.
It has a reputation of being a poor timber and fit only for items such as brooms (for which it is very popular) but, in fact, it is almost as tough as ash. The bark was also used to make boats in Russia and for writing in early times. It’s charcoal was used for gunpowder.
Rather appropriately it was used to make bobbins and reels for the Lancashire textile industry - this craft being very much associated with the goddesses. The sap can be used to make a lovely wine, a sweet white wine. It was popular in eastern europe but a few breweries make it in Britain. Green birch poles were used to stir molten copper to ensure a purer copper was made (and copper is associated with the female divine in some cultures). Birchwood is popular in Scotland for domestic items such as flooring or furniture.
It is not only associated with fertility and love but protection (against the evil eye). It was also a symbol of punishment (being birched). Medicinally the sap and tar (?) were said to be good: the sap against kidney stones and the tar to help with skin ailments.
One Russian tale about a Birch tree in the island of Buian says that the Mother of God could be seen seated on top. Another tale has a shepherdess spinning in a birch wood and a wild woman came and made her dance for three days then rewarded with a load of birch leaves which turned into gold coins.
One old and supposedly christian tradition involving birch, in some parts of England, is that branches and sprigs were used to adorn churches at Pentecost. This is a christian feast near Easter and the young branches were supposed to represent ‘new life’. Which sounds about as christian as bringing greenery inside at Yuletide.
The birch crops up in some place-names in England. From the Old English beorc comes some names such as Barkham in Sussex or Berkeley in Gloucestershire and Somerset. It also turns up as birche in Birchanger in Essex or Bircholt in Kent. Up north some placenames contain the Scandinavian Birk such as Birkenhead.[4]
Birch is fruitless and bears shoots without seed,
but its branches spread high and beautiful
and are laden with leaves,
filling the sky
~The Rune Poem - Verse XVIII
Notilia
[1] The L'Anse aux Meadows site was most probably a ship repair station, and a waypoint on the voyage to Vínland. The site contains the remains of three Norse longhouses used to house the ships crews.
[2] Gleaned from 'What Does the Appendix Do? Finally an answer!", News-Medical, Oct 8 2007
[3] Harry Houdini biography, Wikipedia.
[4] Trees in Northern Tradition: Their Botany & Place in Folklore - Wain 17, Vanic Ve
Image "Feathers and Tinctures" by Tracy J. Butler. Swiped from Witch of Forest Grove
Image: "Handcuff" Harry Houdini, circa 1905, purloined from Wikipedia.
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