LIGHT UPON THE PATH

As President of Wrekin Trust, founded by Sir George Trevelyan in 1971, I attended a closing celebration of its work at Hawkwood College last month. There I met Paul Fletcher of the Chalice Well Trust and he kindly gave me a copy of this book of unpublished writings of Wellesley Tudor Pole. Much of the book is based on correspondence with Sir David Russell, who was a great benefactor of my own university at St Andrews, but about whom I knew nothing except his connection with a successful local paper mill. Tudor Pole and Russell corresponded a period of decades, and the archive is lodged in the University. This involved a huge labour of love on Paul's part, mirroring the prodigious output of WTP himself, writing up to 200 letters a day (and we think we are swamped by emails!). I felt a personal connection here, as Sir George was a spiritual mentor for myself, and had been in his turn mentored by WTP. Then also a connection with Russell who, towards the end of his life, wrote that 'what we are here for is the development of what one might call Mind, which includes sympathetic understanding, imaginative purposes and all these qualities include and mean.' (p. 249)

WTP – as he was called - lived from 1884 to 1968, and was a mystic and visionary in action, who influenced many leading spiritual figures of the day, and is perhaps best known as the originator of the Silent Minute during World War II. The book draws on his unpublished writings in a chronological sequence and contains many gems of spiritual advice. Even as a young man, he writes about the critical factors of will, concentration and control and the importance of concentrating attention on the thought of oneself as the I am based on the reality of the one Self and Spirit - offering oneself in service to the whole. His experience during the First World War was decisive, and resulted in his book Private Dowding, a post-mortem account of a soldier taken down as heard, although WTP recognises that he cannot even prove the reality of his source to himself. In any event, he transcribed the following inspiring words: 'if you will dwell in peace, learnt to love deeply. Never cease loving. Love God by pouring yourself away. Love your fellows by giving them all you possess of light and truth. Love LOVE for her own blessed sake. Such love will bring you nearer heaven.' (p. 37) This also illustrates how WTP served as a bridge between the worlds while he emphasises the critical importance of spiritual work during our human lifetime.

One chapter is devoted to the discovery and significance of what came to be known as the sapphire blue bowl - representing the Grail cup - in 1906. The importance of this for WTP is that the cup of communion and fellowship should have been the central symbol of Christianity rather than cross. For him, the Sign of the Cross represents duality and sorrow, while the Sign of the Cup stands for unity and joy while also representing the feminine. The idea of companionship and fellowship is expressed in the Chalice Well Trust which he founded and which continues to this day. WTP thought that Glastonbury, Iona and an unspecified other location in the Western Isles were the key spiritual power points of the British Isles and formed part of a new energetic dispensation of the Light, embodying spiritual renewal in Britain. This vision was very much shared by Sir George and I remember getting a sense of it when sitting with him on Glastonbury Tor during Harmonic Convergence in 1987.

As I mentioned earlier, WTP is best known for his role in the Big Ben Silent Minute during World War II. This is an expression of what he called the Inner or Spiritual Front, and was inspired by a conversation in December 1917 when another officer received the message that, although he himself would not survive, WTP would live to witness an even greater and more vital conflict. Here, this officer and others like him could form part of an unseen army by using a special time of silence 'to give us our opportunity', observing that the power of Silence is greater than you know and can form a channel between the visible and invisible worlds. For WTP, silence can become the gateway to the eternal Mind. He put in an immense amount of work in setting this up, including some 10,000 communications and 1,000 interviews, eventually bringing the BBC, the King and Churchill on board. Eventually, millions of people were taking part. Later, in a letter to President Eisenhower, he reports that a staff officer of the German Intelligence Corps told him that during the war 'you had a secret weapon for which we could find no countermeasure and which we did not understand, but it was very powerful. It was associated with the striking of Big Ben at 9 PM each evening. I believe you called it the Silent Minute.'

WTP developed a further iteration of this impulse with the Lamplighter Movement along with Sir George Trevelyan (p. 290) and invoking the power of the Archangel Michael. I believe such an impulse is necessary in our own time, so as to harness the healing power of positive intent, and to this end I am working with the One Spirit Alliance on a parallel Heart of Light idea, also using the 9 PM silent minute in your own time zone - interested readers can email me for details. I will end this review with some words written to Rosamond Lehmann, whom I met through the College of Psychic Studies in the 1980s. WTP remarks that wisdom is not made up of a mess of theories, speculations and metaphysical intricacies. Many earnest pilgrims and students of the path of knowledge find themselves swamped and lost in by-ways leading to cul-de-sacs: 'the spiritual road to progress is a simple one and is not cluttered up by masses of non-essentials.' There is much rich spiritual nourishment in this book, which gives an intimate glimpse into the life, work and world of a remarkable spiritual visionary in action.