“I was in an atmosphere of beauty,
countryside, scenery which was magnificent.
I remember seeing various relations and friends
who all seemed terribly, truly excited to see me,
all crowding around me, welcoming me,
showing me around.”
– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), from his Leslie Flint interview (1960)
Soon after he ceased incarnating, the being who had been Thomas Jefferson found himself sadly reduced to guiding an oblivious fourteen-year-old girl. The child had been his close male friend through seventeen previous lifetimes, and he had spoken to her in an experience of light when she was eight years old. He would become more openly involved when she was in college, but in 1960 he must have been bored right out of his considerable mind.
In 1960 the world was only fifteen years past the use of atomic bombs in warfare. What had been done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an effort to end the Second World War had shocked elevated beings at the highest levels. So Thomas’s young charge was one of many who had lately entered bodies as part of an emergency effort to elevate the consciousness vibrations of humankind away from fear and hatred and toward ever more perfect love. The British medium Leslie Flint (1911-1994), undeniably the greatest independent direct voice medium of the twentieth century, was then in his heyday. He was inviting the famous of prior eras to adapt and use the ectoplasm voice box suspended in the air beside his head, and speak again.
Perhaps out of boredom, in 1960 Thomas returned to his Jefferson persona and gave Leslie Flint’s communication process a try. And when he spoke, the voice that was recorded was undeniably that of Thomas Jefferson in old age. I was young back then when he was old, his law clerk and a surrogate son; and that voice put me right back into his cabinet at Monticello, listening to him opine. In 1960 he refused to talk about his Jefferson lifetime. Instead, he made a plea for world peace, and he answered questions about where he had arrived some 134 years before. The two who questioned him were George Woods and Betty Greene, who were Leslie Flint’s usual sitters; and while we don’t have room here to share more than highlights, I’ll try to help you feel the magical wonder of that conversation. At first, he complains about the process itself:
“I am not quite sure if you can hear what I am saying. Very difficult for anyone in my position to manifest in this fashion to talk to people on Earth and at the same time keep one’s equilibrium, if one can use that term and apply to the spirit. … Aligning with vibration, tuning in, remembering things that one wishes to say, transmission of thought into sound, words, words, often words which don’t indicate anything clearly at least what one feels, I find extreme difficulty.” (We read this, and we smile. One of the greatest wordsmiths in American history was by then so used to communicating by thought that he is annoyed to be back to having to use words again!)
(He begins with the need to end the Cold War.) “I’m particularly concerned naturally in my own country, or at least that which was my own country. I’m very disturbed indeed, because I feel that unless something is done very soon, the world could so easily be plunged into a third world war which would be more ghastly and more dreadful than anything that one can imagine. There’s still hope. While there’s hope, you must make every effort to try to bring people together. … I think you’ve got to trust Russia, whether you like the idea or not. You can’t get away from the fact that eventually you’ve got to start hugging the big bear. It’s no good going on the way that statesmen have been going on this earth for around ten years. You’ve got to realize that you’ve got to live together, you’ve got to work together, you’ve got to trade together, you’ve got to be friends.”
(He expounds at length on the need for peace and friendship in the world, which apparently was the reason why he had chosen to communicate at all. Then someone says, “Weren’t you in Washington? You’re president, weren’t you?” And he answers that question.)
“One time, a long time ago. … I don’t feel inclined to talk about that.”
(So then someone asks him about his transition.) “Well, my reactions when I passed over here were simply very different to any I could have possibly anticipated. … I found myself in an environment here which was so like material life as I’ve known in the country that it seemed that I was way back in my youth. … It was as if, you might say, that your world that I had known in my youth had been transported into this new world, as if I was being received into an atmosphere which was natural and quite comforting. What amazed me, of course, at first was that everything seemed so natural. I don’t know why what you’d think passing out should be unnatural, because, in a sense, it’s the most natural thing that happens to everyone. But here was a world which was so real, so natural, that it could have been a kind of dream that one might have had thinking back into one’s early years, one’s youth among one’s friends and countryside that was familiar. And in a kind of way I suppose, you might say it was a kind of dream. There were dreams that were very real and I realized now that several times I had dreams when on Earth which were, in fact, realities. I realized that those things I thought were dreams were not so. My spirit had been released from its body, and I traveled over here and met various souls that I had known and been in an environment which was familiar and friendly. So when I died, as you call it, I went into this environment or condition of life which I’d seen often in my dream state.” (We all travel in the astral on many nights and visit earth-like places. We spend time then with deceased love ones, especially as death approaches. We often think these memories are only vivid dreams.)
(He is asked about visiting those on earth.) “I came back quite frequently the first few years. … I felt well, here am I trying to make contact and take an interest in the old life, and no one seems very interested in me, and no one seems conscious of my presence. … I got very tired of that, and for quite a while I stepped away from Earth. But gladly I felt the call to come back and be of some service, and so in consequence I’ve taken an active interest in politics, because I realize, as many do here, that it’s essential for changes to take 
place in your world. … Man’s got to realize that the only things that matter are the spiritual things. … One should realize that one has got to progress mentally and spiritually, and if you’re blessed with worldly things, to realize their only link is, they’re there for you to use and to share among those less fortunate than yourselves. But to do as the majority do: struggle from birth to grave for money and position and then have to leave it and accomplish nothing in consequence, seems to be a pointless and foolish attitude towards life.”
(Then he is asked about “other spheres.”) “Well, I have been privileged to go to one higher sphere on my own for a great visit. … it’s very difficult because you ask me to tell you something about a sphere which is even removed from myself and far, far removed from Earth, and for me to describe something or in a material language, I could think of no way, no words that could really describe it, except in that it was full of light, and that it had such harmony and such beauty that words couldn’t describe it, and one was ever conscious of beauty in so many ways, one felt so elevated in consequence that one felt that one could rise beyond all that one had ever known, and all that one had ever hoped. Here there was perfection, if ever there was perfection, and in a kind of way, it was so wonderful that one felt like a child that had opened his eyes on something which is so beautiful and so glorious, that you could hardly believe it, except you gasp in surprise, and your heart would thump away and you sort of feel this is too wonderful and would it last? Indeed, there are some things that one cannot describe.” (I believe what he refers to here is a visit from the upper fifth level, which he had achieved, into the lower sixth level, where the vibrations would have been higher but still bearable for him.)
(He is asked about flowers, and he begins a soliloquy.) “Flowers grow here six feet high with magnificent blossoms, and they give off a ringing tone and a musical note and the perfume is wonderful. … We have colors here which we couldn’t describe to you. The hues are varied and many, and the birds, for instance: we have wonderful birds, many of which you’re familiar with of course, but others that you are not. And of course, we have a mental 
communication. You take the animal kingdom in your world: you have a pet animal, a dog, cat, and you get to know it and it gets to know you, and although it can’t speak, it somehow transmits things to you, and you’re able to transmit things to it, and the same applies here. But here because mind is so dominant, here thought is such a reality that the animal can speak, not only in a vocal sense, but in a mental sense. Here the animal is more sensitive than it is on Earth. Here we are conscious of each other’s thoughts. Here you are known really as you are for the first time. At first it’s a little frightening, but gradually you begin to progress and you lose a lot of the things which at one time were common to your nature, and you expand and grow and those things don’t worry you so much. But I’m afraid that here you cannot put up any facade, because you are known immediately. You know exactly what a person is. I want you to know this: that I in common with every soul on this side are only concerned with the welfare of the human race. We’re only concerned with the spiritual development and progression of the human being.”
Everything Thomas says about the afterlife realities is amply confirmed by others. Still, it’s lovely to have the personal testimony of such a brilliant man! In the soft drawl of a Virginia gentleman who had at last achieved a developmental level past the need for him to incarnate again, we hear with the wonder of joyous children what our own next stage of life will be.
The following decades of this being’s development brought ever-deeper understandings. Amazingly, he considers his present task to be even more important than his having so materially helped to found the United States! His charge now is to assist the Heavenly Host in uplifting and transforming the world. Next week we will consider how all of reality looks to him today….
“Whoever you are or wherever you may be,
working in loving cooperation with the realms of Spirit,
we will help you. We will guide you and uplift you.
Give us the opportunity, open your hearts and your minds to us,
let us come in and we will do our utmost to help you
individually and collectively and in peace and in harmony together. …
Don’t imagine that you are superior, because those who are most humble
are often those who are most progressed. Love opens the door.”
– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), from his Leslie Flint interview (1960)
