Mary-Margaret Moore:

Good afternoon. This is Mary Margaret. I was very glad to have seen you here. And I was interested to know about your work with John when you were down in Socorro and so forth. I'd heard around from other people that you had found a place somewhere in Arizona that you felt comfortable. And I'm just really, really pleased about that. So with all that behind, let's just go right on into the questions that you have asked.

Bartholomew / Mary-Margaret Moore:

So then, good afternoon, my friend, and thank you for your letter. I will take your questions as they appear in order in your letter.

Your first question about the Tibetan monk period, and why the Tibetan bell left you so squeamish. My friend, one of the things that every aspirant has to learn at some time in their incarnative pattern is that not all teachers are as they seem to be. Indeed, that some, especially in the Tibetan decline of the deep Tibetan awareness, many of the teachers of that lineage were extremely prone to take their students through the roles of the occult. By that I mean spending a lot of time in the astral.

Doing a lot of work with different kinds of thought forms, creating different types of thought, deviant thought process forms to go out and hurt others, to be able to conjure up an ugly thought and send it forward in order to hurt someone else. Or to in some way frighten someone else. Or in some cases, simply to gain power over them. And this was the situation present in your relationship with the monasteries in Tibet. Not your only one, but certainly the one that you're referring to that. My meaning here is that you were in a small monastery, not one of the very large ones, where this probably couldn't have happened, but in a very remote one.

And under the authority of a very, very... how could I put it... almost diabolically clever but extremely competent astral abbot. And in that situation, he was able to coerce many of the men and young boys, which is what you were when you were in this one, into helping him to conjure up, through deep meditation and different kinds of magical formulae, to create thought forms to increase his power as well as to increase the financial situation there in his monastery. Because, being remote, it was very much subject to the whims of the travelers. And because there was this need to have more money and not allowing himself to just allow the flow of the divine to fulfill the needs, he decided that what was needed was more, much more worldly possession.

And so, therefore, when travelers would come through in those days - and indeed it is still true - many times travelers would simply stay in these monasteries, these retreats, for as long as they could. And at this time then, they would begin this process of, in a way, I suppose would be called in these days, brainwashing, Although I think this is a much deeper form of it that was taking place in those days, and in order to coerce the various travelers to give over what possessions they had freely.

So that there wouldn't be any kind of reciprocation by the police or whatever - that was certainly not called the police, but the army of soldiering persons who moved around the countryside trying to keep law and order as best they could. So in order to make sure that it was done without any traces, it was then done through the mind. And one of the ways, of course, was through working with bells, working with thoughts, working with various essences and certain tankas and so forth, all of this. And as a young child, you were a boy and a young child that had been placed in the custody of this monastery. Because your parents were gone, were dead, and there was no way for you to subsist. So you were placed there.

And it was a logical choice, and certainly not one of your own choosing. And the difficulty arose because some of you, especially the younger ones, were not at all convinced that this was the proper way to use your time and your powers. As a result, nothing terribly horrendous happened to you in the physical sense. But again, he began then working on all of you in an attempt to bring you into line, working on the inner planes rather than on the outer planes. Because, after all, this man did have tremendous capacity as an occultist. He certainly knew what he was about.

And therefore, when you became recalcitrant, which you and several others did, the answer was simply to convince you that you should leave the monastery and find work elsewhere, which is exactly what you did. But the sign and the symbol here being the bell, would make you feel at once to be in a state of powerlessness, to have people trying to manipulate and to maneuver you on the deep levels, which would, of course, be an extremely uncomfortable position, considering the feeling that you had for this particular gentleman. So you understand, I hope you understand then, that it's perfectly natural that you feel this way. And when you left the monastery, then you went down into the... into a small village and made your way very well, very well indeed. But the residue is still there. And it would, of course, come up in this kind of context, especially in a workshop, when you would be working on the inner planes in any case. So I hope that adequately answers your question.

Now we come to the question about the period of Jesus and why you react to tunnels. The tunnels were not truly tunnels in the vision that I have of it. And what I see is not particularly related, perhaps the time of the Jesus, his life itself. But I see is all I can share with you, is that which comes after that as an after-fact. In other words, you were a Christian in those days, certainly of a Judaic tradition, but a convert hoping to be a convert in that, particularly, feelings about the Judaic tradition at that time were unsatisfactory. There was a feeling of inertia and apathy and so forth. And you, wanting to get on with it, decided that it might be of interest to see if this new way would open things up.

Now, the tunnels are simply what were called later the catacombs. And of course I can see how you would say that they would be tunnels because they would... they would give that that appearance and the memories of being in the arena, thrown to the lions. This whole kind of situation after Christ had already left the earth plane and as the Christian faith was beginning to build, many of the followers were forced to live in the catacombs. This is information you already know. And many times they were thrown into difficult situations. Now, I do not see it into the lions particularly. I will only share what I see. I see an arena, I see lions in the arena, but I do not see that that was your destiny.

In fact, here again you are a male, as you have been in many of your lives, but certainly not all of them. And you are extremely well built, very handsome to look upon, very much of a power figure among the peasantry, and also the intelligent peasantry, you see, because they did have that situation in those days that you could be both a peasant and be intelligent and be in a sense educated, because the education took place in small villages and it was open to everyone of the male line, where you got yourself into trouble because as you began to become aware of the truth that were being given here, there came this feeling of wanting to perhaps participate in a more full blown way.

Indeed, what you really wanted to do was to study in order to become what would now be called a priest of the ministry. But that is not of course what they were called at that time. But certainly you wanted to become a student of the subject of this new religion and didn't see any reason why it should in any way be a negative situation for those in your family. However, your family did not respond in the same way, nor did - and this was the important thing - nor did the family of the woman to whom you were betrothed. There was a year waiting period that you were enacting at this time. And within that year you were to do certain rituals and so forth and make certain decisions about marriage, life, and what have you.

And it was in that year that the family of the woman, the girl actually, of the girl that was to be your spouse, became extremely hostile toward these new rumblings that they were hearing from you and from the various young intelligentsia in this peasantry class and therefore arranged and contrived out and out to simply have you reported, which was a simple thing to do. The tax gatherers moved around the land in those days, and it was simple to... and oftentime were in the pay of the government, or whatever the form they would call it in those days. And that is precisely what they did.

As this gentleman passed through the town, he would give money to anyone who could give him what would be called now tip of people who had in any way defiled their laws. And of course, there were many. And so you were reported, and it was a reporting of this new thought, this new wave. And of course, there was a tremendous amount of pushing against that by the government not wanting that kind of thing to get out of hand. And so the next thing you knew before the year had terminated and you were able to move off with your spouse, you were taken into custody and taken to a very small... now, again, there were various arenas.

You know, some of the large arenas are the ones that are theatrically depicted, but there were other arenas, smaller ones, that were held in the provinces. And there wasn't as much pomp and circumstance, but they certainly were as gory and sometimes more gory because they were not usually done with the splendor or even the... I hesitate to use this word, but it's the only one that comes to mind, with the taste of the ones that were held in a large city. And there was your destiny. And you tried, you escaped once and moved into the catacombs.

But again, again, as always at this time, which was very prevalent, someone chose to help finance whatever it might be, some new clothing or a new home or whatever, and chose to turn the entire catacomb inhabitants over again to the taxpayer. And so once again you were incarcerated. And this time, without any ado, you were thrown into the arena. But it was not, although there were lions in the arena, it was not a lion that was able to... that ended your life. It was simply, by this time you were extremely debilitated physically, having gone through tremendous hardships, trying to make your way when you escaped. And the life in the catacombs was extremely desperate.

There was very little food, often very little water, and many of the basic ingredients. One of the reasons why in subsequent lives, you made sure that you had sufficient financial endowment was because of your feelings of tremendous pain and suffering during this kind of situation. All right, so how you did die then was not with alliance, but then, but in physical combat with another, because, as you know, the rules were simple. Whichever slave was able to overcome the other slave, or in this case, you weren't even slaves, you were prisoners, would be given a chance to live. And you would live from one fight in the arena to another, hoping to be victorious, you know, for as many months or years as was possible. And so that is the situation there now.

And the last one you talk about is of Pontius Pilate and a palace filled with marble. This one, again, I would question and please, if I'm wrong, disregard it. I think that if you're thinking of Pontius Pilate, I don't feel that, my friend, I don't feel that that is the situation. I think it could have been someone named that. It was not an uncommon name. And yes, I can see that it was a palace, and it was small and it was by the sea, and it was what would be called a small lordship, a very small lordship, but with total power in the area.

And yes, of course, your husband would not have been there because it would have been his job most of the time to be wandering around the countryside trying to do his best to keep law and order.

Now, the point of all this, and the reason that I would bother to go into it because I really am not interested in dealing with reincarnational patterns, is because in each one of these lifetimes, certainly the last two, which is, I think, where we should really concentrate, the first one, the Tibetan one, I think, was not quite as important spiritually because it did tend to get deflected due to this unhappy circumstance with the abbot of that monastery, but certainly with the other two, it was a definite choice point.

When you were the man in the arena and died in your youth, you died with a very definite desire to further understand, not necessarily Christianity, although that's how it's personified in that life, but that you finally... you see, everyone has a lifetime that finally makes deep sense, that says, this is my choice point. From this moment on, I am committed to some kind of deep spiritual understanding, no matter how spotty or how on-again off-again. So it is in that lifetime that you become extremely devoted, if I could say, to the idea - and this is simply still an idea of trying not for realization, which is not how it presented itself to you, but to understand.

You see, most of your lifetimes, you have chosen to have a quick mind. And that works for you, and it also works against you. And one of the things very needful in this lifetime is to now develop the heart quality. Because certainly the mental quality is extremely well developed. And so now the question is to develop the heart, which is one reason why you were born a woman in this marble palace. Because, you see, with him gone so often, although there were tremendous temptations, sexually and otherwise, around you, because it was a very remote area and very little to keep you occupied, and certainly not a lot of people around of your intelligence or of your intellect.

There was this desire to... deeply, to understand. And now you did something that turned out to be extremely wise. You used the time that he was away, which was a lot, to work with this deeper understanding and to deepen it through. Now, the way that, of course, that you... the only way that you could do it in those days was with wandering persons who would come and go. You know, the wandering holy men would come and talk and you would give an order that they were to be presented to you. And in the small, very small banquet hall, they would talk and you would listen. Now, of course, you couldn't do this in an obvious way. Because even then it was not considered correct, if I could use that word.

Certainly it was not ladylike or fashionable to try to develop your own inner nature. It was indeed understood that what you did was to simply serve the man of the house in whatever way he wanted. And that didn't require an awful lot of mental activity, certainly much more physical activity, sexual as well as serving, as well as humility and so forth. So now you sit, you find yourself the wandering minstrels, the singers that would come and go, the balladeers and so forth would come and give their epic and give their myths. And you would take it all in and try to understand.

Now, you were closely aligned in this lifetime, in every household of any consequence at all, there was someone who was in charge of the spiritual end of things. They had things very much in groups in those days. And so there would be someone intelligent, educated and spiritually oriented in whatever way was fashionable in the time. A philosopher, what you would call him now, who was in residence here. And he became very close to you. Not in any deep physical sense, but certainly in a soul sense. That he was someone who you deeply respected and who was able to attend to, helping you satisfy some of this inner thirst that you were having for your deep answers.

And of course, he was able to do it in a respectable way because he had entree into any of the homes, any of the rooms of the palace... like... structures, and oftentimes this might be interesting, you would find yourself sitting out on the balcony, and he would be sitting, not close to you, of course, not allowed, but somewhere as you were doing your needlework, and he would just be talking and filling you full of different thoughts. And occasionally you would raise your head and ask a question, and then, of course, he would... he would answer. Now, one of the helpful things was that there were a lot of ladies in waiting hanging around such palaces in those days.

Most of them came from very poor, but old families, families that had had stature in the past but now had fallen into disrepute and lost their financial standing. But the girls, of course, were not allowed to go into the cities or the towns and do nothing. But they were always, often, given to ladies of greater stature as ladies in waiting. Now, many of these are women who wanted and needed to begin their own deep understanding also. And so it is through your work with them, as they would sit around listening to the philosopher or sitting in the hall listening to the tales and the balladeers and so forth, that they, too, were able to begin a soul journey.

Because at that time, my friend, it was not at all a normal thing for a woman to be asking any deep or certain... any important questions. So this is when your growth really began in the deepest sense, that you were determined. And of course, since you had a lot of time on your hands, you could say that you became a very fine meditator in that you puzzled over these things with long and intensive questioning and yearnings and needing to have a sufficient soul answer. So I would say that that would be a very important thing.

Now, again, we deal with your granddaughter and why she is on drugs. And the question is what you need to learn from this experience, my friend. This is a day when many come in and turn themselves over to the drug culture and then begin it as kind of a social activity, kind of an interesting thing to do. And without any conscious knowledge, are caught up in, swept into the current, and then the power of the drug takes over. And the rest of the life oftentimes is spent in a struggle to get out of it. And that is what's happened to the child and to the woman. And it's simply a matter... it's really not my position to tell you anything about her, because... because that is her own private business.

And so I will make no comment as to her end of things. But what I will be happy to deal with is what you need to learn from this experience. Because, of course, that is your end of the situation. The main thing that I would ask you to learn is that no matter what anyone does, the only thing that you can do is to do the best that you can. And then you must release them. Not only on the deep level, but also a feeling of what can I do and how could I better serve? And what is my role in this? Basically, my friend, your role is to continue to love. And continue to let her know that although what she is doing has been extremely difficult for you and for her, that the quality of your love and caring has not changed.

And this, I think, is the important statement. Always there is this need for these persons. They are already aware that they are in a state of imbalance. And that socially and every other way, they are looked upon in an imbalanced state. So their real desire is to move into a state of harmony within themselves and feeling of goodness. So anything that you can do along the lines of giving her a feeling of her own basic worthwhileness, of being able to again and again keep reminding her of her good self, of reminding her that there is another way, of reminding her that no matter what she does, no matter how difficult it might be, that there is a very deep love that you have within you for her.

And that anything that you could do, you would do. But that you would also not stop loving her. No matter what form her life might take. And this is the hard part. Because it is one of the social customs of the world today to decide that a way to discipline... to change behavior in others is through withdrawing love, is to showing that you have great disapproval and so forth. No one needs to tell this girl that she is in a state of disapproval with much of her environment. This is a very deep knowledge within her. So the only thing that I would give to you is a statement within herself. That whatever choices she has made, she has a right to make those choices, no matter how destructive.

And that in her choosing this discussion, she is moving in her own way through a very difficult lesson. Which is that we have to state that she is responsible for her choice. She has chosen it. And now she must understand that. So the deep question is, can you show her that you care about her deeply, not through any kind of negative state, but through a positive state? It is very difficult, you see, to choose to love someone in this circumstance. Because the fear comes in. If I show them love, they are going to mistake it for approval and think that I'm approving of what they do. My friend, I don't think there is a chance in the world that this girl will ever believe that.

But to know that the love is there and that she has made choices, and that she has made difficult choices, and that you will be there to help her in whatever way she finds meaningful, in whatever circumstance, would be an extremely helpful statement. To be... everyone succumbs in most every life to some kind of pull in the world. With many it's very subtle, so that it's not obvious. With some it's very blatant, as in drugs, it's obvious. But the basic statement is when you look at yourself and those people that you know that you've been aligned with, almost every one of them has succumbed to some basic hypnotism in the world, be it drugs, alcohol, money, power, sex, self-importance, do-gooding, whatever it is.

There's something that they have succumbed to, subtle or not, and hers happens to be obvious. So again, she is no different from anyone else. This is her time to see that this kind of activity does not work, that it only leads to a certain kind of action which is all very difficult for her to deal with and difficult for those around her to keep in a supportive and loving position around it. She will learn the lesson and it will be hard, but nevertheless, she has the right to choose to learn the lessons that she feels to them. So please, honor her choice.

I do not mean go to her and say I honor your choice of taking drugs, but simply within yourself, honor her choice knowing that it was something she simply needed to know and to understand very fully and very boldly. We often see this in the spiritual end of things where someone throws themselves headlong, almost as off a cliff into something, to convince them totally and utterly that this is not the way. Because if you do it only halfway, if you only do a half measure, oftentimes you don't learn the lesson. So in a sense this is a courageous act. In another sense it is a very self-deceptive act. But nevertheless it is not yours or mine to judge.

It is simply ours to continue to love and to put out that hand of help whenever it's asked, under whatever circumstances, and to never let there be any question about the deep and utter caring. No matter what choices she makes in the world, the love should not be withdrawn and that should be in a very positive way. I do not mean to support her financially and all of a sudden to do, very deeply aware of the love flow that you have between you and me.

So with that I hope I have answered your questions. I certainly do wish you again every great success, and deep success in your your new movement. And at any time that I can be of help, please do not hesitate to call on me. So I leave you, my friend, with my deep love and my total gratitude for all that you do.