A hundred years ago today, on the 23rd August 1914, the phenomenon that has been called the "Angels of Mons" appeared on the battlefields of Mons.
What was called “The Great War” had begun less than three weeks earlier, on the 4th of August and the lightly-armed British Expeditionary Force were sent to France. Towards the end of August, they were trapped near the Belgian town of Mons, by a superior force of the German Army, three times their size. The newspapers at home had already prepared their headlines for the news of certain defeat. There were no reserves, the troops were overwhelmed and the situation appeared utterly hopeless.
A National Day of Prayer was called back at home. Churches and other holy places were open all day and there was a steady stream of visitors praying for deliverance. On August 23rd 1914, according to many accounts given by soldiers and officers on both sides, the Germans just laid down their arms and fled, their horses reared up and wouldn't go further after seeing white horses with white soldiers advancing towards them, (there are cases like that in the Bible - surely the best "warfare"!)
French soldiers reported seeing Joan of Arc, the Irish saw St Michael, others saw a bright shining light with luminous beings, a cross in the sky, a shining cloud in the form of an angel and a voice. The phenomenon caused a lull in the fighting and the German army to retreat in disorder, thus allowing the British and their allies time to escape, re-group and dig trenches. This was widely reported in the newspapers of the day and became known as the Angels of Mons. Most of these accounts seem to have been given to nurses in hospitals, or later to family members, the men explaining that they did not want to make official reports, for fear of being thought insane and shot.
I came across this video of outstandingly beautiful music by the composer Patrick Hawes, to commemorate the Angels of Mons and there's a little bit with the daughter of a soldier who saw one of the manifestations.
Today, in our secular and cynical world, these accounts have largely been left out of the history books, but even back then, people were divided in their opinions, some saying that this phenomena could be explained by extreme fatigue, hallucinations, mass hysteria and the publication (after the first sightings) of a work of fiction or as deliberate propaganda to boost the morale of the troops; but that doesn't explain how a poorly armed force stopped a far superior, better armed and three times larger army, or the moral and spiritual transformation and the new courage and inspiration to face the years ahead that many of the men experienced as a result of seeing the angels.
Here are some fairly recent observations:
"An employee of the author's grandfather was totally convinced that he had seen the angel; and although before the war he was known as a man over-fond of hard-drink, after Mons he became not only teetotal but a pillar of the community, apparently for no other reason that what he claimed to have experienced on the retreat." (Philip J Haythornthwaite, The World War One Source Book <a class="go2wpf-bbcode" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="1992)">1992)
Even the Western Front Association admit on their website: “If the self-professed numbers of eyewitnesses are to be believed - and even recently centenarian ex-Great War soldiers were seen on television still telling their stories of personally seeing the Angel of Mons - these events certainly happened…” (they go on to explain that it was probably mass hysteria)
I also came across a discussion forum where this was the topic a few years ago. The writer had done hours of research in the Imperial War Museum to help a friend with his book on the angels, but also: "... because I had a personal interest in the story. My Uncle Billy was in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and had actually witnessed the angelic phenomenon!"
...I can not say without a doubt that angels appeared that day....I wasn't there. However, I heard the eye-witness account of my Uncle Billy, and I can say without a doubt that he believed absolutely that he saw Saint Michael the Archangel there at Mons, and that St Michael had everything to do with their survival." From: Irish soldiers and the Angel of Mons
I've just come back in because the video led me to another titled "Spirits of War: War Angels of Mons" and one of the comments below it was this, from a lady called Dianne:
"I believe 'The Angels of Mons' to be a true event. Some 28 years ago I worked very briefly in an old peoples home for three weeks, aged 21.
During this time I helped care for a lovely dear gentleman, around 80 years old. On my last shift I went to say goodbye to him. He took hold of my hand and looked at me with such an intensity and told me of his story of The Angels of Mons, a story which I have never forgot.
'I was there and I saw them. They came down and saved us. Don't ever let anyone tell you it didn't happen because I saw them they saved us. Don't you forget this story and you tell them I saw them, they saved us.'
He was so intense and genuinely pleading, that I should remember this story. I know he was telling the truth."
This has inspired me to research the many dozens of testimonies in the Christian Science periodicals of World War 1, containing remarkable experiences of protection through prayer (didn't find any specific Angels of Mons ones though.) Several men lived moment by moment with the 91st Psalm and found protection, not only for themselves, but everyone around them. Today, when so many people around the world are also facing great danger and may be overtaken by a sense of fear and hopelessness, it is good to be reminded that there is an answer and that answer comes through turning to God in prayer.
Love and peace,
Judy
I was on You Tube a couple of days ago, reading an article when something in the comments caught my eye. Some one had added their comments and also told of an American company, regiment or such called the 91st, who saw action in France during WW I. They got this name because their commanding officer got them to read the 91st Psalm daily. The writer went on to talk of an engagement where other American troops had losses but this 91st lot had non.
I have no idea if this is true but it certainly made me think.
I was on You Tube a couple of days ago, reading an article when something in the comments caught my eye. Some one had added their comments and also told of an American company, regiment or such called the 91st, who saw action in France during WW I. They got this name because their commanding officer got them to read the 91st Psalm daily. The writer went on to talk of an engagement where other American troops had losses but this 91st lot had non.
I have no idea if this is true but it certainly made me think.
Hi Scomm, that's very interesting! It certainly COULD be true, but in all the research I've done over the past few weeks regarding WW1, it seems that anything that can't be explained through material logic gets excluded by the historians. All I've found on this account is here:
F. L. Rawson, was a noted engineer and one of England's great scientists. He relates to the story of a British regiment under the command of a Colonel Whittlesey, which served in World War I for more than four years without losing a man.
When asked how his regiment was able to serve four years in the thick of battle without a single causality, Colonel Whittlesey said it was because the officers and men in that regiment memorized and repeated regularly the 91st Psalm, which they called their "Psalm of Protection"
.[DLMURL] http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?noframes;read=151847 [/DLMURL]
German discussion forums
I've so far come across 10 testimonies from WW1 where the soldiers mention the 91st Psalm - the Psalm of Protection.
Thought you might like to read these excerpts - and I've included the links to the full testimonies. (Don't forget they were written 100 years ago.)
In September, 1915, I went to France and spent the winter of 1915-16 in the trenches before Ypres, and soon found that the understanding I had of God as All-power had wonderfully delivered me from fear. The ninety-first psalm was always with me, especially this sentence: "His truth shall be thy shield and buckler." For, I said, God is all-powerful; therefore He is stronger than a brick wall; I will trust in God rather than in a brick wall, and do my duty. Later I took the words, "In him we live, and move, and have our being," saying that since God is all-powerful, I in Him would be safe until God Himself was hurt or destroyed—something impossible to occur.
After many months of complete daily protection (in one place neither I nor any of the eleven with me on observation work were touched in eighteen months) I made the statement that God being the only power, there could be no other power, and that shells, bullets, gas, or any other form of mortal hate could have no inherent power, and could hurt only where ignorance of God and consequent fear admitted their power. In September, 1918, I was on observation work with one comrade in a dugout on a hill in Belgium. The hill was being shelled, and at one o'clock in the morning I heard a shell coming directly for the dugout. I felt no fear whatever and rose to my feet. The shell landed not two feet from where I was standing, blew in the whole front of the dugout, which was below ground level except for a foot, and wrecked it generally. Neither I nor my comrade was hurt, except that an instrument, to which I had my eye, nicked my cheek as it fell, and a batten of wood hit me on the knee without doing any damage or even tearing my clothes.
Arthur Percy Jones, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.
I should like to express a little of my gratitude for Christian Science"
On the Somme front we had fourteen days and nights of incessant activity and of unforgettable proofs of God's care. There were many narrow escapes, but I was barely aware of the danger, because I was so conscious of God's presence. "Though they burst at my right hand, they shall not come near me," I said to myself, adapting the seventh verse of the ninety-first Psalm. Of the twenty ambulances belonging to our section and ten belonging to another section that was helping us, twelve were temporarily disabled and five others totally demolished. Yet (with the exception of two) all were empty when hit. Never was a patient wounded en route, although we must have carried over three thousand gassed or wounded men those fourteen days. The fellows often remarked about our good fortune. They knew I thought it was divine protection. The proof was plain to me. "Whatever it is, I want a lot of it!" said one of the Irishmen. "If God is present at all, He is at times like these," I said to him, and he admitted it must be so. Henry Allen Nichols, Los Angeles, California
Christian Science brought me..."
When my need for peace and harmony has been greatest, I have turned at once in thought to God, divine Principle, and thereby entered through silent prayer and communion with Spirit into "the secret place of the most High."
Thus abiding under the almighty power of God, Life, Love, and Truth, I have been able thoroughly to demonstrate that neither strife nor turmoil can enter that secret place. This has indeed been to me a wonderful blessing. In my daily exercise of knowing the truth I have received never failing help from the ninety-first psalm and from our beloved Leader's exhortation commencing: "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full. There is no door through which evil can enter, and no space for evil to fill in a mind filled with goodness. Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 210). "Good thoughts" have indeed shielded me "from the attacks of error of every sort," and all my men, upon whom my thoughts continually rest in these times and places, have been benefited thereby. Lieut. F. H. Howard Buchanan, Norwich, England.
"I have long wished to avail myself of the privilege of..."
Hi Principle
May be it was a British regiment. I am going by memory, or the writer may have got it mixed up. It is gratifying that you found an actual reference to the 91 psalm, and WW I. All too often myth becomes fact, and equally facts get ignored.
I also remember reading many years ago that during the first world war the army experiments with images shone onto the clouds by search lights to try and frighten the enemy. Some say that this is what the soldiers saw. Who really knows. Lets just hope that nobody else has to undergo the horrors that those men faced irrespective of which side they were on..
Hi Principle
May be it was a British regiment. I am going by memory, or the writer may have got it mixed up. It is gratifying that you found an actual reference to the 91 psalm, and WW I. All too often myth becomes fact, and equally facts get ignored.
I also remember reading many years ago that during the first world war the army experiments with images shone onto the clouds by search lights to try and frighten the enemy. Some say that this is what the soldiers saw. Who really knows. Lets just hope that nobody else has to undergo the horrors that those men faced irrespective of which side they were on..
People are undergoing those horrors still.
That crossed y mind as I pressed the post button. We do seem a hopeless case. You would wonder how it all went wrong.
People are undergoing those horrors still.
EXACTLY Crowan!
As the Vietnam protest song said, "when will they ever learn?"
Pete Seeger
EXACTLY Crowan!
As the Vietnam protest song said, "when will they ever learn?"
Pete Seeger
Always good to hear Pete Seeger.
The problem is, many things can be learned from war - the easiest lesson being to 'hit back first'.
Politicians don,t have to learn from its them that kill soldiers not soldiers.
That came from a Captain who witnessed the bloody sunday trouble.
It was a politican who told the paras the protesters had weapons.
Say weapon to a soldier in that situation he,s trained to assume its a firearm.
I also learned to dig shell with my hands and hug the floor as if it was my daughter through fear.
Also if you can hear bullets going past you then your lucky so to speak.
Hi Nah-meed - good observation about politicians.
I see that you're a Buddhist and a Shaman. Considering how many different nationalities and religions were represented in WW1, I would love to be able to include some experiences of protection from soldiers other than Christians - and in my case, Christian Scientists. Do you know of any? Does anyone?
I started this thread because we're having a daily menu of anger, retaliation, blame, hatred, death and destruction in our media - and that's just the current conflicts! Then there's the coverage of WW1 and while there are stories of heroism, most of it is, quite understandably, about the needless suffering and loss of life. I just wanted to show through the many WW1 testimonies of protection, that right there, in the midst of all that terror and might of weaponry, there is a higher power that can render harmless the destructiveness of matter. In fact, I feel one coming on right now! 😉
A few months ago I was billeted with four others in a small cottage. Air raids occurred frequently, and one night during an exceptionally heavy bombardment the five of us were sitting in the cottage with the occupants, there being no trenches or dugouts anywhere near. The roar of the anti-aircraft guns and the crashing of the bombs was terrific. I was unable to get to my books, but while steadily trying to overcome the fear, these words from Science and Health (p. 571) were flashed into my thought: "Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you." The thought was eagerly accepted and clung to until the fear and the uproar had passed, when we turned in. Next morning a large bomb was found in the garden about twelve feet from where we had been sitting. It had burst open, exposing the explosive, but had been rendered harmless. I still keenly remember the wave of gratitude that flooded my consciousness when I realized how wonderfully we had been protected. A few days later, in conversation with an officer, I learned that the "dud" bomb had been examined by experts, who were quite unable to advance any technical reason for its failure to explode. Horace G. Laddiman, Norwich, Norfolk, England.
Love and peace,
Judy
As you said Principled it would be interesting to hear from sources other than Christian Science as regards God's protection at work.. Psalm 91 was written well before we were given Christian Science. There must be an equivalent concept of Divine protection in any belief that can trace its faith back to the one God.
Although the two mentioned by Judy - Buddhism and shamanism - don't trace their faiths back to 'the one god'.
Is it possible to have the type of protection as described in psalm 91 if you are a Buddhist or practice Shamanism.
The protection described in psalm 91 is only available because it has the authority of the highest level. If Buddhism or Shamanism accepts a supreme authority then any protection offered would I suspect be similar to that which is described in psalm 91
Is it possible to have the type of protection as described in psalm 91 if you are a Buddhist or practice Shamanism.
The protection described in psalm 91 is only available because it has the authority of the highest level. If Buddhism or Shamanism accepts a supreme authority then any protection offered would I suspect be similar to that which is described in psalm 91
That's a big 'if'
Here's a modern version of Psalm 91:
And this is the version that the soldiers of WW1 would have prayed with:
(I'll include a few lines)
91 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
3 Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
4 He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6 Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Love and peace,
Judy
This account has a lovely angel experience:
While serving in France I learned the true meaning of [Mary Baker Eddy’s] definition of the word angels, as given on page 581 of Science and Health: "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality." It was in the midst of danger and the fiercest fighting, when things seemed darkest, that these angels came and ministered to me, giving me a great uplift and a courage that was not my own, leading me into that peace "which passeth all understanding," showing me that even in the midst of strife and tumult one can be at peace. These angel thoughts led me to my Father's house, the consciousness of perfect harmony, where I could be at peace, in calm and rest, while all around was trouble, danger, and dismay.
One evening on the Aisne, after a day's heavy fighting, when the storm of battle had died down and men crouched in the trenches with anxious faces, fearing a renewal of hostilities, I lay in the trench trying to realize God's allness and ever presence. I was declaring to myself that there is no discord in Love, when a great feeling of peace came over me, and as I lay there thinking what a beautiful night it was, and how strangely the quiet contrasted with the terrific noise and fighting of the day, I noticed that many of my comrades round me seemed to share this peaceful sense, and were lying down comfortably for the night. Presently, as I lay there lost to the material senses in thought, I became conscious of a most beautiful presence, while I seemed to hear a voice in the sky above, which filled the whole country round about with music, a mysterious, wonderful sound, although none of my comrades could hear it, as in the case of Paul's experience on the way to Damascus. I lay quiet, and listened, while I heard mentally the words of [Eddy's] beautiful hymn (Poems, p. 4):—
O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight. *As the music died away it left me feeling most joyous, with an assurance of safety and protection, while there came to me a throng of most uplifting thoughts, bringing a calm sense of trust. Corp. Douglas V. M. Tozer, Scheveninger, Holland.
It is with a feeling of deep gratitude for all the help I..."
January 18, 1919 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel
* the full poem (based on the 91st Psalm)
Love and peace,
Judy
One thing that somewhat bothers me about this - what about all the people who prayed and did not get helped?
My understanding is that many people confuse what is generally accepted as prayer (asking for something) with having an actual understanding of the situation.
I personally am not too sure that someone is actually listening and consequently in a position to answer our prayers. Understanding is a different approach. It is knowing something is correct and therefore it can't be changed, or damaged.
This is where the belief in a creator comes in. If you believe that the creator made you perfect then you are perfect and there is no other authority that can change that state of being (unless mentally you let it)
The idea is not to allow other concepts of imperfection to have access to your thoughts.
.
My understanding is that many people confuse what is generally accepted as prayer (asking for something) with having an actual understanding of the situation.
I personally am not too sure that someone is actually listening and consequently in a position to answer our prayers. Understanding is a different approach. It is knowing something is correct and therefore it can't be changed, or damaged.
This is where the belief in a creator comes in. If you believe that the creator made you perfect then you are perfect and there is no other authority that can change that state of being (unless mentally you let it)
The idea is not to allow other concepts of imperfection to have access to your thoughts.
.
This sounds as if you don’t believe in a ‘over-everything’ god – as opposed to a creator. (Interestingly, when I first came across the concept of ‘God’ – at Primary school – the idea of a being who both created and had a day-to-day concern with us seemed highly unlikely.)
But – while I follow what you are saying - I find it hard to accept that everyone in a particular regiment had the necessary understanding ‘not to allow other concepts of imperfection in’. After all, the generally taught idea of creation is not that we are perfect but that we are flawed. You may have come to a different conclusion but many others haven’t and a hundred years ago the idea of being born into sin was more prevelant.
Also, this isn’t exactly what I’m picking up from Judy’s posts.
Yes it does seem hard to accept that a whole regiment would be so committed to these beliefs. It is always possible that there where only a few who found themselves in peril and had to rely on their protection beliefs, but it is the regiment itself that has received the credit.
That is why it was interesting to read of Judy's research into these claims. There is a ring of truth however as many related accounts were from non-combatants, orderlies and ambulance drivers. These are the duties that would have been assigned to people who conscious prevented them from taking a life. Many bible reading Christian Scientist probably fell into that category. Psalm 91 would be part of their understanding.
.
One thing that somewhat bothers me about this - what about all the people who prayed and did not get helped?
My understanding is that many people confuse what is generally accepted as prayer (asking for something) with having an actual understanding of the situation.
I personally am not too sure that someone is actually listening and consequently in a position to answer our prayers. Understanding is a different approach. It is knowing something is correct and therefore it can't be changed, or damaged.
This is where the belief in a creator comes in. If you believe that the creator made you perfect then you are perfect and there is no other authority that can change that state of being (unless mentally you let it)
The idea is not to allow other concepts of imperfection to have access to your thoughts.
.
Good answer Scomm. I'll try to expand on it, though I realise your conversation has moved on - I'll catch up! 🙂
Crowan, most people, when they pray, use the prayer of petition - asking to be given this or that, to be relieved of pain or disease or danger - all very understandable and often effective, but it's actually blind belief. It is starting from a standpoint of lack and separation - lack of health, peace of mind, safety etc. You are seeing yourself as a solitary mortal, separated from good (another word for God). This is dualism and this sort of prayer normally has quite a lot of doubt and fear associated with it. It's a bit like trying to drive a carriage with one horse pulling to the left and the other pulling to the right.
The prayer of affirmation on the other hand, starts with perfect Creator, Spirit, perfect creation, spiritual, ONE, despite everything the mortal senses throw at us, trying to convince us that this is not the case. It's not easy keeping our thought focused on Spirit like this and it can take years of study and practice. Jesus came to show mankind how to think and live in a different way - a way of spiritual understanding and One-ness with God, Spirit. A way of thinking and living that would give us dominion over all the limitations and sufferings of matter. He did not come to start a new religion with traditions, dogma etc. Was his way heeded? No. Men took some of his words, often used them to their own ends but ignored his works.
There have been individuals throughout history, from all backgrounds, who have walked in the light and have had glimpses of ultimate Truth, spiritual reality and have, to some extent, been able to overcome the limitations and sufferings of matter. But often, apart from a few devotees (I'm thinking here of the Hindu yogis) the overwhelming majority of people utterly reject having to leave their comfort (and even sometimes their discomfort) in matter. Everything material is what is real - anything spiritual is make believe, just like God.
Continued below
Just to pop ahead about the whole battalion that Scomm told us about – without knowing exactly which battalion it was and researching it, we have no proof yet that that story was true. However, even one person, holding the right thought can lift up all others around them (just like one person can drag everyone around them down) and if those men were all praying with the 91st Psalm every day, even if they didn’t wholly understand it, or totally believe the promises, I’m sure that did explain the protection – assuming that the account was correct.
Yes, Scomm, what you said about non-combatants does ring true. I didn’t personally know of anyone in WW1, but certainly in WW2, while Christian Scientists didn’t become conscientious objectors, I knew of several who, rather than being drafted for a unspecified, but probably shorter length of time and having no say in what they did, actually joined up as a regular for five years and then chose to become cooks or drivers – in non-combatant roles. But those testimonies were from both soldiers and support people.
I found two German testimonies in the collections and both of them gave gratitude at the end for going right through the war and never being in a position where they had to cause harm to anyone. I was also grateful to see how many of the men prayed, not just for their own safety, but for all their men. It’s hard enough to keep out fear and hatred from your own thought, let alone others, but many of them obviously unselfishly made the difference between life and death to their comrades. The principle is universal – it is available to everyone. I just wish that more knew about it – and accepted this unconditional gift of freedom that Jesus brought us and then the Biblical prophecy would come true:
"...and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruninghooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2
cont below...
Now back to what you said Crowan about what about the others who prayed and weren’t helped. I hope what I’ve written above has helped to explain that – as did Scomm. Is it wrong if even a few people have grasped these principles and have demonstrated them? How we would love more to investigate the wonder and joy of God's love and protection that is available to everyone, just like the laws of mathematics are!
Looking back over the Christian Science testimonies I’ve been posting (as I said, I would love to find some others, but they don’t seem to be on the internet). I’ve been very inspired by these accounts. Let’s look again. This is the ambulance driver – it’s one of my favourites:
"Christian Science brought me..." by Henry Allen Nichols
From the [url]August 29, 1942 issue[/url] of the Christian Science Sentinel
Some of the boys said that when they were driving out to post it was with the feeling that they were not coming back. But I knew every time that I was coming back, because my going and my coming were both in God's presence. Although I was going into danger, those trips out alone were joyous, for they were opportunities to declare aloud that I was in the hollow of God's hand; that man was spiritual and not at the mercy of matter; that the law of Spirit rendered the seeming power of physical law harmless; that God's law was ever present, and a complete protection….
That is the difference Crowan between effective prayer and not. All men and women have the same love, the same guidance, the same protection available to them, but they either are not aware of it, don’t trust in it, or choose to ignore it.
Let's look at the 91st Psalm. Henry Allen Nichols (the ambulance driver) wrote, "Though they burst at my right hand, they shall not come near me," I said to myself, adapting the seventh verse of the ninety-first Psalm.” It’s not the words that have power, but the truth behind the words and the commitment and trust in that truth.
Bible promises are beautiful but they come with conditions. The formula is contained within them. At the beginning of Psalm 91 it says, "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty...” How many of us ever manage to dwell, abide, stay, in the consciousness of God? Mary Baker Eddy wrote, (my underlining again) “Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God.” (Science and Health p 209)
The Psalm continues, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee... because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee..." Do we all make God our refuge? Do we all put Spirit first, or is our trust in matter?
But even our Henry didn’t manage to stay in that “secret place” all the time:
On a later front, one quiet day at post, a shell exploded near by, and imbedded a fragment of rock in my shoulder. I was able to man a stretcher and carry more seriously wounded French soldiers to the dressing room and drive them in my ambulance to the hospital, where the fragment was removed from my shoulder. Then I had time to face the error which, undetected, had crept into my thinking. It was a complacent sense of personal immunity, a deceptive counterfeit of that spiritual understanding of God's presence which had been my genuine protection. Jesus' meek words, "I can of mine own self do nothing," restored a sense of true humility; and his amplifying statement, "What things soever [the Father] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," renewed the assurance of unity with Principle….
Truth and Love (and the protection they bring) are universal - they don't belong more to one person than another, to one nation than another, to one religion (or none) than another.
Here are the two German testimonies I've found:
During these years of war, thanks to my efforts constantly to think right and to reveal a demonstrable knowledge of Truth, I was never placed in a position where I was obliged to harm my fellow man.
Hans Struss, Hannover, Germany. From the September 1920 issue of The Christian Science Journal
"With a grateful and happy heart I wish to testify to the wonderful manner in which God's love protected and guided me during the war and the help which I have received through Christian Science. As I was going to the front, this serious question confronted me: "What stand shall I take toward my opponent during the battle?" The answer was the simple statement: made by Mrs. Eddy in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 9): "'Love thine enemies' is identical with 'Thou hast no enemies.'" It became clear to me that if I had no enemies I would never be placed in a position where I would have to defend myself against them or be compelled to injure them. With this firm assurance I departed, not to the war, but to work in the vineyard of the Lord. And this assurance was not in vain, for, although I was in the front line and had to patrol far into enemy territory, I was never placed in the position where it was necessary to use weapons. Beliefs of sickness vanished almost immediately through the declaration of the truth. Poisoning from the strong French gas was harmless and left no after effects. None of my men, during the whole time they were under my command, were killed, wounded, or captured…"
Oskar Seitz, Braunschweig, Germany. From the September 1920 issue of The Christian Science Journal
Hi Nah-meed - good observation about politicians.
I see that you're a Buddhist and a Shaman. Considering how many different nationalities and religions were represented in WW1, I would love to be able to include some experiences of protection from soldiers other than Christians - and in my case, Christian Scientists. Do you know of any? Does anyone?
I started this thread because we're having a daily menu of anger, retaliation, blame, hatred, death and destruction in our media - and that's just the current conflicts! Then there's the coverage of WW1 and while there are stories of heroism, most of it is, quite understandably, about the needless suffering and loss of life. I just wanted to show through the many WW1 testimonies of protection, that right there, in the midst of all that terror and might of weaponry, there is a higher power that can render harmless the destructiveness of matter. In fact, I feel one coming on right now! 😉
Hi
There is a elemant of truth about the visions. I was a medic/nurse in the army and once a injured soldier realises he is dieing and stops fighting it they either say they can see angels or heavenly or they always call out for there Mother.
Also if you are given too much morphine that can make you illucinate .
Love and peace,Judy
hi again.
I would say that soldiers of which ever religion would see an equivalent if it helped them cope.I did two periods on active service and in that period you do or think whatever it takes to get you through.
Some have lucky items some have rosary beads. Some in our situation took solice in the fact that if a helicopter had just been shot down there was less chance of it happening to us. Try and get anybody on a patrol on the 13th of October and they would pay hundreds to someone to do there patrol.
They were mainly 18 to 20 years old and they would come upto me and make me promise if they got shot i would not let them die.Obviously i could not in reality but i did to help them cope.There were soldiers from africa who fought i wonder what they may have seen.
Thanks Nah-meed - they say there are no atheists in a battle!
What has October got to do with superstition? I understand the superstition about the 13th.
The angels vision didn't come to men who were dying - or under morphine. There are some of the accounts of them here: If you scroll down about half way to the poster " Angels of Mons Valse, Paul Paree" you can read some of the accounts there. There were about a hundred soldiers on both sides who reported seeing the angels.
Love and peace,
Judy
Thanks Nah-meed - they say there are no atheists in a battle!
What has October got to do with superstition? I understand the superstition about the 13th.
The angels vision didn't come to men who were dying - or under morphine. There are some of the accounts of them here: If you scroll down about half way to the poster " Angels of Mons Valse, Paul Paree" you can read some of the accounts there. There were about a hundred soldiers on both sides who reported seeing the angels.
Love and peace,
Judy
I was a christian then. Maybe it was some higher power saying.Is there any chance humans can take a break from our it seems need to kill each other.
You must be rubbing off on me. Me mentioning higher powers.
You must be rubbing off on me. Me mentioning higher powers.
:p:p:p