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ASCENT
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SPIRITUAL ANTHOLOGY
Dedicated to Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Who continues to be my Guiding Light
“You are a child of God, and it is your God-given role to help others to remember that they are also children of God”
[Divine decree received 2010]
‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed;
It can only be changed from one form to another.
Everything is energy and that is all there is to it.
Match the frequency of the reality you want,
And you cannot help but get that reality.
It can be no other way.
This is not philosophy;
This is physics’
[Albert Einstein]
Why these Writings?
On completion of the Labyrinth here at Jacaranda Haven in 2010, I walked it on my own for the first time and then stood – silent and empty- in the centre. A loud voice spoke telepathically to me:
“You are a child of God, and it is your God-given role to help others to remember that they are also children of God”
Sai Baba had gifted me a pen and vibhuti (sacred ash) whilst leaving Puttaparthi in 1999, renowned psychic Joan Moylan had told me in 1998 to write, and psychic Jennifer Starlight conveyed to me from Spirit in early 2022 that I was meant to write…but what ?
And then I realised that all I could write about to assist others on their paths was my own experiences, teachings and learnings in order to “…help others to remember that they are also children of God”. Hence these autobiographical writings…
Modules
This is but one ‘module’ in this collection of autobiographical writings that I choose to call ‘modules’. Each one stands alone, but some cross-reference others. A completed book is a static thing once finished: however, these modules are flexible in that I can add to them at any time should new experiences/information comes to hand, and the reader can pick & choose which particular modules attract them. The collection of modules thereby constitutes an’ anthology’.
The intent of writing these is to share experiences and teachings that I have been blessed with along the way of a human incarnation – the ascent of consciousness – such that the reader may also benefit to illumine their own path/ascent to the ultimate inevitable goal for all humans: that of ‘self-realisation’.
Belief vs Truth
As a precursor to reading any of these Modules, there is a need to clarify the difference between ‘Belief’ and ‘Truth’: one may ‘believe’ eg it is raining outside by the sound on the roof, but when you actually see the rain falling/walk out and get wet, you actually then ‘know’ it is so – ie it is ‘true’, and so ‘belief’ about that instantly ceases.
Many go through life accumulating fixed ‘beliefs’ about people/things, and, as Krishnamurti taught:”… the moment you arrive at a conclusion/form an opinion/a belief, you block the possibility of further enquiry and discovery”.
So, a hot air balloon called ‘Ascent’ awaits: I invite you to climb into its basket with me, throw overboard the ballast of all those accumulated ‘beliefs/opinions’ you have acquired to feel safe, and therefore allow this balloon to rise free and drift to destinations unknown.
Because, otherwise, some of what you read herein may sorely challenge your accumulated beliefs…
Everything recounted within the Anthology is absolutely true, unless I have qualified otherwise.
John Stephen Butterworth
Archangel Michael and the Southern Cross Academy of Light
ARCHANGEL MICHAEL
In maybe 1991, I was spending a weekend near Bathurst west of Sydney at the home of Keith & Jean Renwick who Rosemary had known from her days attending the School of Philosophy and saw Rosemary (who also happened to be there) sitting in the garden sketching in pencil on a large sketchpad the head of a man. She said that the image was just slowly revealing itself…someone else saw it and said immediately:
“That’s Archangel Michael” as Rosemary had no idea who the image might be…and how prophetic this proved to be…
In 1992, a teenage daughter of the lady who, with her husband, hosted the Sunday night ‘channelling’ sessions that we attended at a St Ives home in Sydney reportedly started receiving ‘automatic writing’ from Divine realms: she later said that she would arrive home from school, sit down to do her homework, and Spirit would often take over her writing hand and write messages/teachings.
Unbeknownst to anyone else (including me) at the time, the teenager received one such message one afternoon which she said came from Holy Mother Mary, and which she was told to give in total confidentiality to Rosemary after one of the Sunday evening channelling sessions at her house.
“Archangel Michael asks you (ie Rosemary) to go to rainforest on an island where He will meet with you” (or words to that effect).
Without telling anybody else what was going on (once again, including me as we were only acquaintances at that time), Rosemary took time off work, booked a flight to Hawaii, thence to Hana (at the eastern end of Maui) and checked into the Sheraton resort complex there.
Before leaving, she left a sealed envelope in her room effectively saying that, if she didn’t return, she will have ‘ascended’ – as that was a common focus of New Age groups at that time – with many believing that ascension meant physical ascent possibly aided by extraterrestrials…
She recalls that she had to stay one night in Honolulu before flying on to Hana. The porter who carried her bags to her room on check-in, turned up the next morning to collect her bags and presented her with a beautiful lei made from por-kenni-kenni flowers that he had sat up the previous night making as he obviously knew there was a special reason for her visit. She says she burst into tears and simultaneously heard Archangel Michael speak to her saying He had guided this happening.
So, having arrived at the Sheraton and settled in to her cabin, she ventured forth armed with a disposable camera, notebook and water and started walking. She says she walked…and walked…and walked – looking for some rainforest (as He had directed), and came across an abandoned church where she sat down cross-legged on a banana leaf, and meditated…After maybe a half hour, she says she started to get impatient and even angry, saying out loud to this Archangel how she had spent all this money coming all this way, and for what? Then she says she saw some tyre tracks ahead of her, and realised they were leading into rainforest .
As she started to walk into the rainforest, she clairvoyantly saw cherubim (yes, they really do exist) flying around who said excitedly : ”She sees us, she sees us!!” Rosemary said the energy was so intense the hairs we standing up on her neck…
And with that, Archangel Michael started to manifest , wraith-like, ahead of her on the track from the head downwards with an orb of light (seemingly) held at waist-height in His right hand with palm upwards and a (?) sword of light in His upheld left hand.
Rosemary, awestruck, stammering, asked the one question that everyone would ask on meeting an Archangel:
“May I take your photo?”
To which He graciously assented. So she did, in which (understanding the optical limitations of disposable cameras) the cherubim are specks/short flashes of brilliant light, and Archangel Michael’s ghosted head, orb and sword are mostly visible…
He then said: “Come walk with Me… through you, many things will come to pass… create a space.” and with that, Rosemary says she, horror of horrors, walked into the largest sticky spider’s web imaginable… and understandably screamed in fright… and He immediately disappeared!!
She was devastated at what had happened and cried uncontrollably for days…she says the resort staff must have assumed she was a jilted bride, staying in her cabin and crying continually. And in a way, she did feel cheated as she had felt that it could have potentially been something of a divine union – if I have understood her correctly.
Whilst awaiting her flight back to Sydney in Honolulu, He chose a coral ring for her and told her to buy it and always wear it for Him. And she does to this day.
[PS Sadly the photo has gone astray – probably the casualty of numerous house moves when we were renting in Sydney]
Meanwhile Back In Sydney
Now what makes this experience even more extraordinary and indeed constitutes third party confirmation of what had happened, is that at least three separate and widely-spaced individuals/groups also had Divine experiences of what she was undergoing in Hana:
At the channelling group in St Ives, Rob (the principal channeller) was told that, wherever Rosemary Whitfield was in the world, she had undergone a remarkable spiritual experience/’ascended’.
One of the others there phoned me where I was living at that time upstairs above my mother’s house at Northbridge (about half hour drive from St Ives) to pass on the news to me as they knew that Rosemary and I were friends.
I got off the phone overjoyed for her and proceeded to offer up thanks to God and the Divine realms accompanied by powerful harmonic/overtone chanting (…which I did not ‘ground’ to finish) and went to bed in another adjacent room…
I fell asleep only to have the bedside phone wake me abruptly some time later.
As I came into consciousness, and picked up the handset, I realised the whole room was pulsating with powerful energy waves as I stammering, asked who was calling at this hour.
It was my recently-separated former partner (a clairvoyant in her own right) in Mosman (about 20 minutes drive away), who, obviously having been woken up herself, said:
“What is going on ???” she then paused, and said:
“Rosemary Whitfield has just had an extraordinary spiritual experience!!! Where is she???”
The Southern Cross Academy of Light
Following Rosemary’s extraordinary rendez-vous with Archangel Michael in that rainforest at Hana on Maui in Hawaii, she indeed “…created a space” as directed by Him by initially hiring a hall for like-minded folk to gather once a week for meditation (to get the ball rolling as it were), but there was much more yet to play out.
She got to meet an enthusiastic lady and husband who had roughly similar visions about a spiritual organization and the 4 of us got to the point at one stage of trying to buy a small property just south of Maleny in Queensland – seeing this as a headquarters. But it was not to be.
We also teamed up with a Sydney lady prominent in the fields of corporate governance and probity (let’s call her ‘Susan’ for ease of reference: not her real name) who had similar visions of such an organization and we started to develop Aims, Objectives and Principles. During one think-tank session, I was clearly given three Principles (which I now sense may have come from Master Kuthumi?):
- The only authority is one’s Heart
- If all come to give, then all shall receive
- Cooperation, not competition
To just briefly reflect on each of these in turn:
- Vedanta (I believe) teaches(amongst other things) that the heart is the direct connection to God/the means to self-knowledge (ie despite whatever legal/legislative/judicial systems may be set up, the heart is the only true way of knowing what is righteous). (The Dalai Lama – Avalokiteshvara: The Buddha of Compassion came to me once in sleep teaching me about this.)
- In the West, there is bred an attitude of ‘What’s in it for me?’ as the means of deciding whether to attend a function/act in any situation rather that an approach of ‘What can I contribute?’
- In Western society, one is brainwashed that competition is healthy for business/sport etc and so that attitude pervades consciousness such that it can affect every activity; cooperation surely has a more lovingly supportive attitude that should always lead to a ‘win/win/ outcome.
Moving into 1996, we decided to officially register a business name and I went to the Office of Fair Trading in Sydney to do so – hoping to register the name ‘Academy of Light’. The lady at the counter refused to do so as she said others had already done so/had very similar names.
I stepped out into the hallway and rang ‘Susan’ who coincidentally was taking a break from a conference and told her what was happening. She went quiet, then said:
“Ask if we can have the name ‘The Southern Cross Academy of Light’?”
I did, and found indeed we could, so that became the name – thanks to ‘Susan’s’ inspirational guidance.
Shortly after, we decided to hold a conference in Canberra, hired a venue, and widely advertised (remembering that the Internet was not yet as readily accessible as it is today). Some 50 + people from all over Australia attended this 2 day event which had a range of speakers on different topics plus naturally a plenary session which focused on identifying what those present felt were the most pressing needs spiritually for such an organisation to aspire to satisfy.
The Aims, Objectives and Principles were clarified, along with committing to the intent to hold regular gatherings initially in Neutral Bay Sydney presenting a wide range of speakers. Each gathering would start with a protective invocation, meditation followed by the speaker/presenter for the evening and finally refreshments.
We also commenced in 1996 publishing a quarterly magazine which Spirit/Sai Baba had named: ’Shining BRIGHT’ (as more fully explained in the module: ’Jacaranda Haven’) containing inspirational articles on alternate therapies, consciousness expansion, spirituality and such like .
This grew from humble beginnings as a small, black & white edition to then more pages on better quality paper and inevitably to colour and B & W on high quality paper. There were 33 hardcopy issues in all of the better quality editions until it ceased publication in 2010 due to increasing costs. It was always free: no charge. [Refer Appendix:’ Shining BRIGHT’].
Administration for the Academy (known for short as SCAL) was initially carried out from our home, and then sharing of office space with members of our family who were book publishers: to them, our heartfelt thanks for that kind assistance for many years.
The Academy was unique as a not-for-profit organization initially run mostly by volunteers that was not affiliated with any other group/religion/organization and hence was totally independent in its activities.
Likewise the magazine, and SCAL’s reputation for such, placed it in a unique position that attracted increasing numbers of meeting attendees and presenters from around the world. It hosted, (and continues to host as its new form as AOL) a broad range of such presenters, original thinkers, writers and performers.
At the peak of its activities in the early 2000’s, it had numerous branches around NSW and one in Queensland (plus one lady hoping in vain to start such in London) – many meeting in the premises of other eg alternate therapy businesses.
We realised in 2003 that we needed to ask other like-minded leaders in various professions to form a Core Group, and a meeting of those was held at our house at which it was agreed to do so.
The 2 lawyers and myself worked on the Constitution and other legal documentation necessary to register SCAL as a not-for-profit organization with deductible gift recipient status to encourage donations.
A substantial amount of work and effort was expended, but sadly it was not to be, as a majority of the Core Group wanted to ditch the magazine as a ‘loss leader’ which Rosemary vehemently opposed and the Group then dissolved. Little by little, the branches dropped away until finally there was just the Sydney gathering weekly, now fortnightly (severely constrained for a while in recent times by the COVID pandemic restrictions). Rosemary used to pay for the cost of each issue on her credit card, then get very stressed – always trusting to eventually get fully reimbursed by advertising revenue, and occasional donations/tithing.
One unforgettable day in 2005/6, a lady waiting in our loungeroom to have a session with a visiting therapist/healer complimented Rosemary about the wonderful work that SCAL did and spontaneously gave the Academy ,via her, a cheque for $10,000!! Which wonderfully covered the costs of a couple of issues. Thank you SO MUCH to that lady for such generosity!!
From not long after its inception in 1996 to 2002, she worked on Academy administration from our rented home PC and phone until in 2003, the Academy became so busy that we had to set up a home office. From then until we finally moved fulltime to the country in 2017, Rosemary worked regularly with others in the Academy office in between doing her own one-on-one therapy/counselling sessions: in the early years, she was doing up to 4 or 5 sessions a day, plus the Academy administration, plus housework, plus family especially her progressively aging mother Hazel Rex (see separate module ‘Rosemary’).
It is really a story of immense dedication to her heartfelt calling of serving others – which in turn inspired others to also assist in the office/at meetings/at workshops etc.
To all those, and to those who continue to support Academy of Light Inc., she (and I) remain eternally grateful.