The Practical Mystic
sample chapters
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1
The Path of Chelaship 7
CHAPTER 2
Snapshots from the Life of a Chela 13
CHAPTER 3
Lessons in Chelaship 37
The First Time I Met Mark Prophet 39
The Orange Dress 43
Trying to Meditate 48
A Message from the Master 52
The Eyes of Morya 55
The Great Divine Director and the Elementals 60
An Experience of the Holy Spirit 63
The Ascended Masters’ SOS 66
“Waves Upon the Sea” 69
Floating Away with Seraphic Meditations 71
The Presence of Babaji 74
Pictures of the Masters 76
Averting an Earthquake 79
Transferring Glyphs 81
Lady Dorcas 84
The Spoken Word and the Written Word 87
The Call Compels the Answer 89
“It is Finished!” 93
A Couple of Ladies in Waiting 96
A Karmic Return 98
Joining the Messengers’ Staff 100
The Master Trains Us Well 101
The Masters Use Our Adaptability 103
Karma with a Staff Member 107
To Sleep But Not to Dream 109
Trust No Man! 111
The Shrinking Baby Clothes 114
Saved for the Summit 117
The Burning Candle 119
Mark Acts the Fool 121
“I Can’t” Means “I Won’t” 124
Mark Discovers a Past Life and Is Not Pleased 126
A Meal for Two Queens 128
Once a Cardinal 131
An Old Sailor 133
No Bad Karma Together 137
Family Ties 138
Don’t Personalize Your Work 146
Working on Climb the Highest Mountain with Florence Miller 149
Not the Holy Spirit, But an Angry Wind 153
“You Are a Son of God” 156
The Soul Always Knows 158
The Rice Fast 161
Mark’s Mastery of Meditation 163
More Memories of Mark 164
Small Unexpected Statements 166
More Lessons from Past Lives 168
Caregiver for Tatiana 174
Before the Karmic Board 179
Mark’s Voice 183
Knowing Mother 185
The Cyclopea Marathon 192
Annice and Mother 195
The Messenger Sees the Electronic Belt 197
Mother and Morya Train Annice to Be a Writer 199
An Afternoon Nap 205
For the Judgment 207
The Weight of the World 209
A Book for Every Conference 211
A Center in Paris 213
Accepting Help from Others 218
Training Your Replacement 220
Never Above the Law 222
Giving Up Chocolate 225
Working in the Candy Store 227
All My Gals Ascended 230
CHAPTER 4
Annice as I Have Known Her 236
From the Guru to the Chela 243
33 Keys for the Practical Mystic 246
Further Reading 248
Notes 249
Introduction
I came to know Annice Booth in the early 1990s, when I worked for her for several years. In time we became friends, rather than just employer and employee. Over the years our assignments changed, and we saw less of one another. Then one day in early 1999 I called her and asked if she would like to go to lunch in nearby Yellowstone Park. She said in her characteristic way, “I’m available!”
I bundled up against the cold and drove down to pick her up so we could go on our little adventure. On this occasion, we went to the grand old hotel at Mammoth Hot Springs, one of her favorite spots for lunch. The view was beautiful and the mountain air invigorating. Annice always felt better in the higher altitude of the Park—it was as if she could really breathe there. She also loved to see the bison, deer and elk.
Thus began a series of weekly outings, going to Mammoth or Chico Hot Springs or Pine Creek, or sometimes further afield to Livingston, Bozeman and beyond. Our outings were usually an hour or two, often over lunch. In winter we usually went to Gardiner, the small town at the north entrance of Yellowstone Park. Gardiner can be pretty quiet in winter when the tourists are gone and most of the restaurants are closed. But the Town Cafe was always open, with its laminated tabletops, vinyl seats, colorful locals, moose and elk trophies on the walls and good home cooking.
Annice loved food and her friends enjoyed taking her out to eat. She was good company, always interesting and informative. Sprinkled here and there were stories of her life, and in particular, her experiences with Mark and Elizabeth Prophet, spiritual teachers and pioneers in the New Age movement in America. Annice met Mark and Elizabeth in 1966, only a few years after the founding of their organization, The Summit Lighthouse. She joined their staff in 1969.
Mark and Elizabeth were messengers for the ascended masters, who are the saints and sages of East and West, brothers and sisters of light who have graduated from earth’s schoolroom throughout the ages and returned to God in the ritual of the ascension. The messengers delivered the teachings of the masters to the world in the form of lectures in their own words and dictations from the masters themselves.
The early days of the organization were a remarkable time—a small circle of students living in the household of their teachers, almost in the tradition of the spiritual communities of the East. Was it also something like this for the disciples and the holy women who were with Jesus in the Holy Land? Or for the brothers and sisters of Francis and Clare when they had just a small band at Assisi?
Annice had many fascinating stories to tell of her interactions with the messengers and the masters. They provided insights into a life that few are fortunate enough to experience. They shed light on the spiritual path and what it means to be a modern-day mystic.
After Mark Prophet ascended in 1973, Elizabeth carried on his work and grew the organization to become a worldwide movement with outposts on every continent. Annice was a part of that growth and saw and learned much. She became an author and editor, a minister in Church Universal and Triumphant, and the director of two teaching centers. Eventually she was placed in charge of ministering to the members of the organization around the world.
Through all of this, Annice was a dedicated student of the masters’ teachings. She kept her own files and had a phenomenal memory for where a particular gem from the masters had been published. But more than this, she was a student of the masters themselves, and also the messengers who were their representatives to the world.
As our outings continued, the stories kept coming. Eventually I started to write them down. They were so unique and precious and I did not want them to be lost. I took notes when I could to record all the details, hurrying to keep up with the flow of her thoughts. Often she would pause, as if dictating, to allow me to catch up. I took to carrying a notebook with me whenever I met her, because I never knew when a story would emerge.
A few years later I told Annice that her stories should be published so that others could also learn from them. She said, “I have already written down all that I dare to write in my three books.” She was referring to Memories of Mark, Secrets of Prosperity and The Path to Your Ascension. She said she could not print these stories or even tell them to others, since they involved private details of her life with the messengers. Even more than this, some of the experiences were in the Zen nature of the Eastern tradition of the Guru-chela relationship. Annice thought they would not be understood or appreciated by those who had not experienced this first-hand.
I told her I felt that these stories could be understood if they were explained and put in context. The lessons were so valuable for anyone who was serious about a spiritual path. If they were not written down, I feared that they would be lost, and with them, some wonderful practical examples of the reality of the Guru-chela relationship with the ascended masters.
I told Annice many times, “You may not be able to tell your stories, but I know that I could.” Finally she relented, saying, “Publish them when I am gone. Write them down and after I am gone decide how much you dare put into a book.”
I quickly agreed before she changed her mind, and thus this book began. Later, when she saw the manuscript, she urged me to publish it while she was still with us.
The stories you will find here illustrate what Annice understood of the spiritual path and what motivated her to persist on that path all these years. They are mystical, and yet the lessons they illustrate have very practical application. Most especially they offer examples of a living chelaship under two remarkable spiritual teachers. To me, these stories are now more important than ever, when Mark is no longer with us in the physical and Elizabeth has retired from outer service for health reasons.
I asked myself one day why I took so long to begin to write down the stories that Annice told me. I treasured them and thought to myself that “someone” should write them down some day. Annice was always focused on her current projects (a lesson in chelaship in itself), and she had a kind of timeless quality that made it hard to imagine a time when she would not be here with us. But by 2002 Annice was eighty-two, and no one had yet taken that torch. I finally decided that maybe it should be me.
Perhaps I was prompted by someone upstairs who wanted it done. I would not be surprised if it was Lanello (the name by which we know Mark Prophet now that he is an ascended master). She knew him for six years before he ascended and he seems to take a special interest in her to this day, making sure that her needs are met. Many of Annice’s friends remember getting an inner prompting to call her and then finding that she needed something done. It was not uncommon for me to call and ask if she wanted to go to lunch, only to hear her say, “Good, I told Lanello that I needed to get out.”
I am glad that I wrote the stories down when I did, for in February 2007 Annice suffered a stroke. Although she remained the same person she had always been, the stroke severely limited her ability to speak and write. For someone whose whole life had been speaking and writing, it was humbling to have to start all over again, to learn to speak in words that made sense and to learn to write again, beginning with signing her name.
Yet Annice could still make herself understood. She even retained her sense of humor under what would have been very frustrating circumstances for most people. She would know exactly what she wanted to say, but try as she might the words often came out all jumbled. Her friends admired her good humor, fortitude and sheer determination. We often had to play twenty questions to figure out exactly what she meant. She commented that even if she and I had wanted to write down her stories, she was now simply no longer able to do so.
I am passing on these stories as she told them to me and as I have reconstructed them from my notes. I have also added commentary giving my understanding of the lessons in chelaship that they convey. They are in loosely chronological order, but the sequence isn’t all that important. They came forth originally as the Holy Spirit prompted her to reveal them, each one an important little lesson in the Guru-chela relationship, and they do stand alone as individual vignettes of the path.
Annice has been a chela of the masters and the messengers for more than forty years. She has seen times when some seemed to forget what chelaship was all about and others appeared to be failing tests and falling by the wayside. Those who follow in her footsteps may not have the blessing of the one-on-one relationship with the messengers that she was fortunate to experience on the outer, but this relationship is still possible on the inner. Those who want to take up this path have a wealth of knowledge in the teachings of the messengers and the masters. They also have the example of Annice and of many others who have made it on the path. All of these can provide guideposts to a very rich relationship with the Guru on inner levels.
I knew early in the process of compiling this book that it would not be a complete account of Annice’s life. That would take a book in itself. Although I have included biographical details and photographs, the main focus is the tale of a unique and often misunderstood relationship—that between master and disciple, between student and teacher.
It is my hope that these few vignettes from my conversations with Mrs. Booth will provide encouragement and inspiration for others to pursue the path of chelaship under the ascended masters, with all of its challenges and joys.
Neroli Duffy
Chapter 1
The Path of Chelaship
In the Eastern tradition, a student who wishes to pursue the spiritual path seeks out a master, a Guru, who can teach the sacred mysteries and impart to the chela the initiations leading to enlightenment. The Ascended Master El Morya defines chelaship in his classic book on this subject, The Chela and the Path:
In the Eastern tradition of chelaship, recognized for thousands of years as the way of self-mastery and enlightenment, one desiring to have the mysteries of universal law imparted to him applies to the Teacher, known as the Guru, considered to be a Master (through the ages the real gurus have included both ascended and unascended Masters) to serve that Teacher until he is found worthy to receive the keys to his own inner reality....
In return for illumined obedience and self-sacrificing love, the chela receives increments of the Master’s attainment—of the Master’s own realization of his Real Self. Through the acceptance of the word of the Master as inviolate, the chela has imparted to him the Christ consciousness of his Master, which in turn is the means whereby the base elements of the chela’s subconscious and the momentums of his untransmuted karma are melted by the fervent heat of the sacred fire which comprises the Master’s consciousness.
Thus, by freely and willingly setting aside the momentums of his human consciousness, the chela discovers that these are soon replaced by his Teacher’s mastery, which, when he makes it his own, serves as the magnet to magnetize his own higher consciousness and attainment.
Chelaship has been described as a unique inner relationship between the master and the student. The goal for the chela is the reunion with the Higher Self in the ritual known as the ascension. It is a free-will relationship, somewhat like a marriage contract, where the two are bonded and the master works to mold the student in the image and likeness of his or her Christ Self. The means are any mode or method that the master can use to take the chela where he or she needs to go to bypass the human condition and to embrace the divine.
The relationship between Guru and chela, or Master and disciple in the terminology of the West, has always been central to the spiritual path. In the East, people tend to think of the Guru as necessarily being in the physical plane, and those who were serious about the spiritual path would earnestly seek out the one who could open the door for them.
In the West the Guru-chela relationship is not seen so often in the physical, yet there are some notable examples, perhaps most famously in the case of Jesus and his disciples. In the fragments of this relationship found in the Bible, Jesus appears very much in the mode of the Guru. He transmits to the disciples the keys to higher consciousness; he sets the rules for their discipleship; he rebukes them when necessary.
And of course, their relationship with him does not end when he leaves the scene in Palestine. He continues to teach them, to guide them, to initiate them.
Many Christians today understand Jesus to be their Lord and Saviour. They might not be comfortable with thinking of him as Guru, but he is their Lord, their Master. They might not think of themselves as chelas, but they are striving to be, or are, disciples, and they have a living relationship with the Master Jesus, now ascended. I have met people who have this very real tie with Jesus. As they walk the spiritual path, they are aware of his guidance and direction. This is a mystical and yet very real relationship that we can all aspire to have with Jesus, or with another of the ascended masters.
The training on the path of chelaship, whether inner or outer, is individual for each student, yet certain elements are always the same. It is very much on-the-job training. The master will use the lessons that circumstances and one’s karma present at any moment on the road of life. The training may be rigorous as the master seeks to wrestle with the human creation of the student. The student is expected to observe himself and to change his behavior when it is not acceptable or pleasing to the master. It is a practical path, designed to lead the student to the goal of the ascension.
Above all, the Guru-chela relationship is a relationship of profound and intense love. The love of the Guru and the chela surpasses any relationship of love that is known on this planet—even that of husband and wife. For in truth, the highest form of relationship between husband and wife is also a guru-chela relationship where each is subject to the Christ Self of the other.
Taking on a chela is not done lightly by a master. For in so doing, the master literally takes the karma of the chela and bears a portion of it himself. In turn the chela pledges to serve the master and his mission in the world, part of which is often to reach those who are also tied to the master at inner levels but do not yet know it on the outer.
This book seeks to describe that which is in some ways indescribable. It tries to shine a light on aspects of the Guru-chela relationship through the eyes of one who went through it and witnessed it first hand—not a perfect chela (for there is no such thing) but one who has endured on the path to the end.
The ascended masters have said that those who were trained by the messengers should also pass on their training to others. Annice lamented that in later years this form of training was often not welcomed or accepted. One reason for this may be a lack of understanding of the masters and their methods, which are often counterintuitive to the human mind because they are designed to outsmart that mind as well as the not-self.
Perhaps this book will in some way help to fulfill this request from the masters. Those of us who knew Annice have learned much from the stories she told of her life with the messengers and the gems of truth that they contain. These stories give a glimpse into the lives of the messengers, two special souls who spanned the octaves of heaven and earth. And most importantly, they give a unique insight into the relationship between the Guru and the chela and the time-honored methods by which the masters have trained their students through the ages. For the messengers do hold the office of Guru, even while they are the representatives of the ascended masters, who are the true Gurus of this age.
Annice serves on the fourth ray, the ray of purity and discipline—qualities that were very evident in her life. Her Guru is Serapis Bey, the chohan of the fourth ray. According to Cosmic Law, you can only have one Guru at a time. But the Guru may send a chela to another ascended master for a time.
For example, many of the masters send those who come to them as would-be chelas to El Morya, since he has a great skill in the training of new students. Thus in some of the episodes that Annice recounts, El Morya appears as the Guru. He is the founder of The Summit Lighthouse and the Guru of the messengers, very much involved in the day-to-day activities of the organization.
The masters also deliver their initiations and training through the messengers as their representatives in the physical plane. So Annice also received her training in chelaship from Mark Prophet and from Elizabeth, who we know as Mother.
There is a great bond between Mark, Mother and Annice, one that endures beyond time and space. Annice promised Mark that she would remain faithful to Mother and would remain with her while she was in embodiment. Some of us suspect that this is one of the reasons Annice has remained in embodiment for so many years and why she is still with us.
The ascended masters and the messengers are very present spiritually in this time and the Guru-chela relationship is as real and vital today as it ever was. For those who wish to pursue this relationship, Annice’s stories provide some unique lessons.
Let’s begin with a brief look at her life.
MORYA
MARK
MOTHER
MRS. BOOTH
Chapter 2
Snapshots from the Life of a Chela
Annice Elma Moore was born on May 28, 1920. Annice never liked the name Elma, but Mark said that you cannot get closer to El Morya than El Ma Moore. He explained that El Ma means “mother of God,” and Moore was the name of one of Morya’s embodiments.
Annice describes her childhood as a happy one. She had two sisters—one of whom died at an early age due to a genetic disposition to heart disease. Annice inherited the same condition but broke out of that mold in a spectacular way.
She attended the University of California in Berkeley and majored in Latin and French. She wanted to be a teacher, but did not finish her degree. She was also a serious Bible student and could quote scripture—book, chapter and verse.
Annice married Lester Booth on May 30, 1940, two days after her twentieth birthday. Her father lost his job three weeks before the wedding and he had no savings. He was a meat buyer for the Andrew Williams chain of stores. He called in an efficiency expert, who promptly decided that they could do without Annice’s father. Annice said, “He efficienced himself out of a job!”
The big wedding she had planned in a large church in Hayward, California, was scaled back to a more intimate occasion at home. Annice, as always, was adaptable. They moved the organ to the living room and the bride walked down the aisle from the kitchen. The number of guests was reduced to about thirty.
Lester owned a photography studio in Hayward. After they married Annice went to work at the studio. At this point she became “Mrs. Booth.” It was a name that would stick for a lifetime.
Annice’s son, Lawrence William Booth (Little Larry), arrived on April 28, 1943. Larry was Annice’s only child and she considers that she was lucky to have him. Her doctors had told her earlier that because of her health problems, including thyroid disease and myasthenia gravis, she could never have children. But Annice didn’t give up. She so much wanted to have a child.
Mother once told Annice that she had searched the karmic records and there was no indication that Annice and Larry had any connection, good or bad. There was no karma between them at all. This is very unusual, since most families come together with ties from past lives. Often they are working out their past negative karma together; sometimes positive momentums from the past are a foundation for service together in this one. But Annice and Larry had never been together in any past lives and there was no earthly reason why she should be his mother. Annice says that she basically pestered God until he gave her this little boy. The Karmic Board, the spiritual overseers who oversee these things, finally said, “all right. Let’s give her a child.”
In addition to raising their son, Annice and Lester ran the photography studio from 1958 to 1969. Annice was successful in business. She never lacked for abundance. In later life, she would comment how the money seemed to grow in her bank account. She put it to good use. Never extravagant, she always had everything she needed, a self-described simple soul who could be happy almost anywhere. When in later years she wrote her book Secrets of Prosperity, she outlined the keys to her success in life and told some of the lessons she had learned from her years in business. It was a very practical application of the thirteen steps to prosperity taught by Mark Prophet.
Annice has a somewhat Buddhic nature hidden within a seemingly ordinary exterior. She is flexible and moves with the Holy Spirit. If something changes, she just says, “That’s the way it goes,” and moves on. She would need that flexibility all too soon. Her life changed dramatically when she found the Teachings of the Ascended Masters and the messengers Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet.
In October 1966 her sister showed her a brochure from The Summit Lighthouse that said, “Jesus is inviting you to have lunch with him in the garden.” She felt the call of the master and attended the Harvest Class in Colorado Springs. From the moment she met Mark and Elizabeth, she felt she was home, and she became an active member of the organization. She regularly attended conferences and seminars, and she accompanied the messengers on their European Tour in August and September of 1968.
Mark Prophet invited Annice to join the staff of The Summit Lighthouse in 1969. She wanted to accept Mark’s offer but initially declined because she was so busy with the photography studio. But eventually, at the age of forty-nine, she closed her business and joined staff. Lester joined staff a while later.
Annice served in many different capacities in her years on the messengers’ staff. The month that she joined, the organization acquired a property in Santa Barbara that would be known as the Motherhouse of the Keepers of the Flame Fraternity. Annice’s first job was to supervise the staff who tackled the huge task of painting and remodeling to make the property a beautiful home for the masters. The Motherhouse formally opened Easter 1970, and Annice was placed in charge of this new outpost of the organization in California. She purchased the food, cooked meals, cleaned, supervised staff, conducted services and did whatever else needed to be done.
This willingness to serve in any capacity and meet the need of the hour is one of Annice’s characteristics, and she wore many different hats in the early years. She answered the phones, handled correspondence, mailed the Pearls of Wisdom, taught at Ascended Master University and was even the principal of Montessori International at one time. For a while she commuted between Santa Barbara and Colorado Springs, continuing to run the Motherhouse while helping Mark and Mother complete their landmark publication Climb the Highest Mountain.
She traveled extensively with Mark and Elizabeth, accompanying the messengers and their staff on several tours around the world, including the India Pilgrimage in April 1970 (right after the opening of the Motherhouse), the Holy Land Tour in September and October 1972, and Mission South America in December 1973.
Mother frequently told Annice that she was family, even though Annice was very clear about who was Guru. She shared many intimate moments with the messengers, even helping Mother raise her youngest child.
In February 1973, Mark Prophet made his transition, going on to become the Ascended Master Lanello. Mark’s departure was a great loss to Mother and the staff. They no longer had his personal presence with them. Annice was no exception to this sense of loss, and she felt Mark’s absence keenly. Staff life was an intimate, almost family experience for them all. But encouraged by Mother’s example, the staff rallied to carry on the mission that beloved Mark had begun, to bring the Teachings of the Ascended Masters to the world.
Annice was ordained as minister in The Summit Lighthouse on July 4, 1974, at a conference held in Spokane, Washington. Many have benefited from her practical spiritual counsel since that time. She was someone you could go to for a no-nonsense perspective.
Under the direction of the messenger, she ministered to a worldwide movement from 1978 to 1982 as the head of the Office of the National Coordinator, later renamed the Office of Ministry. By this time she was divorced from Lester, and the work took her around the world, lecturing, counseling, directing and visiting the study groups and teaching centers on every continent. She considers that it was a time of balancing world karma.
Annice was a faculty member of Summit University for more than twenty years. She taught a course on the laws of the abundant life on Wednesdays, the day of the fifth ray, wearing a long green robe, the color of abundance and healing. She read her lectures from handwritten note cards with carefully chosen quotes, teachings and affirmations from the messengers and the masters. Her course on the ascension followed the same format and was popular with generations of students.
Her ascension class, “The Path to the Ascension,” was always on Friday, the day of the amplification of the fourth ray, the ray of the ascension flame. She arrived at 8:30 a.m. sharp wearing her white robe. Annice started promptly and ended exactly on time. Tardy students soon became acquainted with a practical demonstration of the discipline and attention to detail of the fourth ray. She would say, “Young man, do you have a watch? They sell them at the bookstore!” Few students were late twice.
In April 1980 Annice traveled with Mother and other staff members to India to establish the Ashram of the World Mother in New Delhi. In May she traveled as school principal with Mother and Montessori International students to Washington D.C., England, Scotland and Ireland.
Annice was director of the two teaching centers in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul from 1982 until 1989. One staff member who served there describes her as a “very dear friend who stands up for your soul to support you.” Annice was indeed a friend of your soul—and not your human creation, with which she could be stern. She touched many lives throughout her long years of service.
It was in Minneapolis that Annice was suddenly forced to step back for a while from her busy schedule of service. In October 1988 she suffered a major heart attack. Then, when she was in the hospital recovering, she had a cardiac arrest. For twelve minutes the hospital staff worked to revive her while the ascended master Lanello and his twin flame, Mother, were on inner levels discussing Annice’s fate.
Lanello wanted her in heaven; Mother wanted her to stay on earth. In describing this event later, Mother said there are so many saints in heaven, she couldn’t understand why God would need another one there when there is so much that needs to be done down here.
Eventually Mother won. Annice was resuscitated and returned to the land of the living. The surgeons opened her chest to perform several bypass grafts. When she was recovering from the surgery, they were amazed to find that she had no post-operative pain.
After Annice came back, people asked her what she remembered of her time on the “other side.” She said that she remembered looking at the clock on the wall of her room. The next thing she remembered was looking at the clock again and it was twelve minutes later. Her room was full of people and her chest hurt. (They had been pounding on it doing CPR to revive her.) She didn’t remember any of what had happened during her near-death experience—no tunnel of light, no meeting with masters and beings of light. She said, “I don’t think there is any hope for me. I remember nothing.”
We were told at the time that part of the reason for Annice’s heart attack was the weight of condemnation upon her. Various people were angry at her for the disciplinarian approach she used in running the teaching center in the Twin Cities. But we also understood that Annice had been granted a dispensation to extend her life. All she knew was that God had sent her back to earth, and therefore she must have more work to do.
On March 15, 1989, at Mother’s invitation Annice stepped down as director of the Minneapolis Teaching Center and came to serve at the Royal Teton Ranch in southwest Montana, the international headquarters of The Summit Lighthouse and Church Universal and Triumphant. This spiritual community, known as the Inner Retreat, became her home. She began working once again on Mother’s writing and publishing team.
By October 1990 Annice was working as hard as ever. She became the director of the Office of Ministry and soon took on added responsibilities for outreach coordination, Summit University, and rapidly expanding translations and fundraising teams. In a real sense Annice ministered to the world, and the messenger considered that she was “mother to the teaching centers and study groups.” She was a prolific letter writer, and at one time or another she visited almost every major center.
She was an excellent administrator and delegator. She did not do anything herself if she could delegate it to someone else, and this is one secret of her success. It took three people to replace her when she retired. By her constancy and faithful support of the mission of the messengers, year in and year out, Annice demonstrated the qualities of perseverance and endurance. Saint Germain once told us that the one quality he wanted from his chelas was endurance.1 Mother told us that it takes profound love to endure on the path, and Annice certainly endured.
In a dictation on May 28, 1993, the Maha Chohan, the ascended master who is the representative of the Holy Spirit, said to Annice, “The Darjeeling Council salutes our co-worker Rev. Annice Booth and does wish her a happy birthday.” This was a very rare honor, since the ascended masters seldom referred to any student by name in a dictation. This salutation shows the esteem with which the Brotherhood held Annice. Mother often told Annice that she was closer to heaven than to earth.
For five years Annice bore the weight of the world on her shoulders as she was responsible for overseeing so many aspects of the worldwide organization. But in time, this took its toll on her health. In 1995 she was seventy-five and had had double pneumonia and congestive cardiac failure. Morya told her through Mother that she could not sign one more letter or document or piece of paper, that he did not want that burden on her heart. He told her that she should retire from all responsibilities in the departments where she worked. (However, she continued to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of Church Universal and Triumphant, an office she had held from January 28, 1991, until April 30, 1998.)
With her new freedom, Annice’s health soon recovered. But then she got bored! Annice is happiest when she is working, doing something positive for the world and the masters. Years earlier she had dedicated the remainder of her life, “as long as God wants me to remain in embodiment,” to spreading the Teachings of the Ascended Masters to the lightbearers of the world. She wasn’t about to let retirement stand in the way of her mission, so she settled down to write her first book, The Path to Your Ascension.
Annice relates that at one point it seemed that the book was just not coming together. She made the calls to go to El Morya’s retreat at Darjeeling that night. The next morning she woke with a first sentence for the book running through her mind. She quickly got up and wrote it down before she forgot, and pretty soon she had written out the whole first chapter, sitting there in her nightgown.
She was inspired to re-write the chapters as if they were lessons in the etheric retreat of Serapis Bey, the Ascension Temple at Luxor. The story just flowed and she was on her way. After the publication of this book, the Ascended Master Djwal Kul commented on it: “Now you have the book that was written by your teacher Annice Booth. And so you have something that is magnanimous, in a sense, to take to the world and to worlds beyond. Think of the wondrous glory of giving to everyone you know an understanding of karma and reincarnation. Is this not a joy of joys?”2
Annice started work on two more books of her own writings, Secrets of Prosperity and Memories of Mark. She felt driven to write each of them, and many felt she was overshadowed by the ascended masters in doing so. They convey the unmistakable flame of the Brotherhood and make enjoyable reading.
Having completed her three books, in 1999 Annice turned her attention to some of Mother’s publication projects. Foremost of these was the Climb the Highest Mountain series. Annice had worked with Mark and Mother on this project from 1970 to 1972 (when the first book in the series was published, containing the first seven chapters) and also in late 1970s and early 1980s when Mother had worked on additional chapters. Mother retired in 1999, and from that year to 2008 Annice completed the eight remaining volumes in the series as well as two volumes of additional material, The Masters and Their Retreats and Predict Your Future, which contains the teaching on charting your initiations in life through the science of the cosmic clock.
Mother had often spoken of the importance of the teachings in the Climb the Highest Mountain series. The masters had referred to it as the scripture for the Aquarian age, the Everlasting Gospel referred to in Revelation 14. As Annice worked on completing this key element of the mission of the messengers, she felt that this was one of the reasons she was sent back into embodiment after her heart attack.
Annice’s retirement was hardly that of a lady of leisure. Yet she was a great example of balance in life. She was well known for her afternoon naps. When she and her body had had enough, many a meeting would end with the words, “Nap time.” She knew when her body needed rest, and we all knew not to disturb her between 1:30 and 4 p.m. except in an emergency. She often slept, but sometimes just laid on her bed and rested. Her body needed the time-out.
Annice did all her work without a computer or access to email. We tried in vain to interest her in the wonders of technology, but she steadfastly refused to get a computer or learn how to use one. She appreciated all that the Internet and modern technology could do for the spreading of the teachings and enthusiastically encouraged us to pursue this avenue of contact with the world, but she knew it wasn’t for her.
Friends and co-workers printed out important email messages to keep Annice in the loop, but I do not think she ever totally trusted computers. She felt that there was something about her aura that wasn’t compatible with them—they just would not work for her. And who knows? She may have been right. So till the end of her working life Annice used the reliable manual methods she was familiar with, while her assistants used computers to bring the fruits of her labor to the rest of the world.
Mother had told Annice after her heart attack in 1988 that she had balanced only 43 percent of her karma at that time. This was a bit of a shock for Annice. If she had passed at that time, since she had not balanced 51percent of her karma, she would not have qualified for her ascension. She took this very seriously, and from that time on she gave an hour of violet flame each day as often as she could to transmute her remaining karma.
She evidently made much progress, for in 1997 El Morya told her, “Beloved Annice, Serapis Bey is standing behind you, his perpetual presence over you. You have recently balanced 51 percent of your karma, and that figure very recently jumped to 61 percent.”
In 2007 Annice had a serious stroke, which affected her ability to speak coherently. (The medical term for this is aphasia.) She had thought that her time might be near, and when she first learned she had had a stroke, she expected that Lanello would shortly come and whisk her off to heaven. When that did not happen, she knew that there must be some reason God wanted her to stay on earth a little longer, and she accepted the limitations that came with this new assignment. She sat up in her hospital bed laughing at her own funny speech and the jumble of nonsensical words that came out of her mouth.
After her stroke, Annice was no longer able to give her mantras and decrees. She looked sadly at me and indicated that she could no longer get the words out. Seeing Annice in this situation gave me a new appreciation of the concept, “Work while you have the light.” Her many years of service and giving violet flame decrees would have to provide the momentum to see her through this next phase of her life.
Annice often used to remind us that Archangel Michael once asked the students of the ascended masters to try to live to ninety-nine years of age. At the age of eighty-four, she would often say, “I’m trying.” In later years she would comment that old age is not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to go through the challenges of life’s later years, especially when the body is not behaving as well as it used to.
For as long as I have known her, Annice has been dealing with various challenges to her health: a heart condition, high cholesterol, hypertension, myasthenia gravis and a thyroid condition, to name a few. But she never seemed to let these things stand in the way of her service. She had a philosophical attitude, seeing them as a means to balance karma. “I must have been naughty on Atlantis,” she would say with some amusement.
She has always worked hard to maintain her health and stay in embodiment as long as she can. Along with her medications, she takes a number of natural remedies and supplements, including red yeast rice for lowering cholesterol and Hawthorne berry for her heart. God has a plan for each of us, and we must strive to live as best we can until it is time for us to go—on his timetable, not ours.
As of the time of this writing, Annice is still with us. She doesn’t have the stamina of earlier years. Her words still come out wrong, but she continues to work on her speech therapy. She keeps up with the news and world events, and although she can no longer decree, she prays in her own way.
And always the chela, at the age of eighty-nine she is still working on balancing her remaining karma and looking for ways to serve the masters and their mission.
Chapter 3
Lessons in Chelaship
The following episodes from Annice’s life are printed much as she told them to me. I have added my own comments, sometimes giving some of the background to the events Annice described, sometimes sharing what I learned from it.
Each story illustrates one or more spiritual principles of the Guru-chela relationship between Annice and her teachers, Mark, Mother, Serapis Bey and Morya. Her reactions, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, show a living, breathing and loving relationship with her teachers. One important thing to note is that she was not perfect (and she would have been the first to admit it) but she was always striving and seeking to make progress on the Path.
There is much here for each of us to learn. In the final analysis it is the quality of the heart and the striving of the soul that are important. The masters do not expect their students to be humanly perfect, like robots or machines. They understand what it is like to occupy a physical body and to be subject to the limitations of the flesh and the human consciousness. They do expect us to strive, to do our best, to try to understand why we make mistakes, and to learn from those mistakes. And when we do make a mistake, we have to pick ourselves up, balance the karma of that mistake, and move on.
Annice’s life and example show certain qualities of her soul as recognizable traits from beginning to end. Her friends will remember those qualities, and I hope that they will also smile and say, “Yes, that is the Annice that I knew.”
No doubt you will have your own insights as you read each story. Ask your higher self to guide you and reveal the specific lesson that may be there for you.
In this chapter, Annice’s stories are set in bold type, my comments in normal type.
The First Time I Met Mark Prophet
What would it be like to meet your Guru for the first time? One thing about the Guru is that he is always unpredictable. Certainly, Annice could not have predicted what would happen when she first met Mark Prophet.
Having felt the unmistakable call of the Master Jesus, she traveled to Colorado Springs to attend her first Summit Lighthouse conference. The headquarters at that time was at La Tourelle, an imposing mansion near the famous Broadmoor Hotel.
I first saw Mark Prophet at the October Class at La Tourelle in 1966. The day before the class there was a 5 p.m. Vespers service led by Mother. Mark came at the end to give the benediction, and following the service, the two of them stood at the front door shaking hands with people as they left. As Mark grabbed my hand, my knees buckled and I had to grab the door handle to save myself from falling.
Mark said to me, “You’re finally here!”
I had no idea what he meant.
Lester asked if he could take the messengers to dinner. He had expected just Mark and Elizabeth but there was a van full of people. Mark said, “You don’t mind, do you?”
Well, what can you say? Included in the party were staff members Ruth Jones (who has since made her ascension), Tom Miller, Bill Harper and the two children Mark and Mother had at that time.
At that dinner I had my first conversation with Mark Prophet. He said to me, “What exactly is your name on your name tag?”
“Annice,” I said.
“It’s the wrong name for you.”
“It’s the name my mother gave me.”
“Well, she made a mistake!”
I thought to myself, “Who is this guy?”
“Do you know how she decided on the name?”
“Yes. She read a French novel and thought that it was the most beautiful name she had ever heard.”
“Well, it is not your name. The vibration is all wrong.”
Mark continued, “Do you have any sisters?”
“Yes. Doris.”
“Yep, your mother made a mistake. That should have been your name.”
As I thought about it in later years, the name Doris is very close to Dorcas, the name given to me by Saint Germain. So perhaps Doris should have been my given name.
From that day forward Mark called me Mrs. Booth.
What a significant first encounter. Why did Annice’s knees buckle when she met the Guru? We can speculate that it was the light of the encounter with the messenger. Of course, we do not know for sure, but one thing is certain: her teacher recognized her and had been waiting for her arrival. Annice did not know what he meant at the time, but her knees gave her away. She later understood.
The touch of the Guru is significant in one’s life. In the eastern tradition to make any connection with the Guru—through the touch of his hand, even seeing him or hearing his voice or remembering him—is believed to lead the soul to enlightenment.
There are still a few people in our movement who shook Mark Prophet’s hand. Chances are you, the reader, were not one of them. I wasn’t. But just because you never shook Mark Prophet’s hand in this life, it doesn’t mean that you cannot shake Lanello’s hand or shake Mother’s hand for that matter. Those who never met Mark or Mother physically can still make that sure inner connection with the Guru.
One way is to hear and see them through the marvelous technology of the modern world sponsored by the Ascended Master Saint Germain. We are blessed to have so many audio and video recordings of the messengers and the Teachings of the Ascended Masters delivered through them. We can see and hear them every day, if we want to, and many people do just that.
You can also meet the masters and the messengers in their etheric retreats, as you travel to those Universities of the Spirit in your finer bodies while your physical body sleeps. There are classes and conferences to attend, there is spiritual work to be done and teaching to receive to help you on your path.
You can place your hand in the hand of Lanello and Mother as your Gurus and never let go. And they have promised to place your hand in the hand of your own Holy Christ Self. How much the masters and the messengers love each one of their chelas, and how they long to take them by the hand to help them to arrive at their goal: the reunion with God in the ritual of the ascension at the conclusion of a life of love and service.
How long has the master been waiting for your arrival at the door of his retreat? How long has he been waiting to take your hand and say, “You’re finally here”?
Lanello is our ever-present Guru, so known because he is always with his chelas and letting them know that he is there for them. A simple call will suffice. Lanello says:
It is my desire, and it is a great desire, that you accept me as being “physically” present with you. I am so near to you. If you will only incline your ear, you will hear me speaking to you through your Holy Christ Self with correct discretion and judgment and direction.... I can do, oh, so much more for you, for I have that dispensation, being the co-founder with beloved El Morya of The Summit Lighthouse. Being now a co-Guru with him and serving under him, I can do so much, beloved.... Don’t forget to call to me. Lanello is my name.3
One insight we can glean from this story is that our name is a key to our identity. It is intended to carry the light and vibration of who we are. It is interesting to see that Mark Prophet tells Annice in their very first conversation that her name is not the one that she was intended to have. It seems that he is literally challenging who she is—or rather, who she thinks that she is. Mark was establishing her true identity and name, right from the beginning of their relationship—so much so that he no longer called her by her given name.
The Orange Dress
The day of that dinner with the messengers, I had turned up at the conference in a very smart, up-to-the-minute orange dress. I loved that dress. I had just purchased it for what was quite a bit of money for those days. I thought I looked so wonderful.
After the service Mother approached me and said, “Dear, I don’t know if you know about our teachings on colors. We wear the colors of the day or white.”
Mother suggested that I wear white or blue or other colors of the seven rays. I told her that these colors were not fashionable at the time.
Lester and I stopped by our motel after dinner and I said to him, “I don’t think she liked my dress.” So I searched through the clothes I had brought with me to find something else I could wear that would look nice. That evening, during the Holy Communion service, I was in brown and Lester was in black. Everyone else was wearing white.
I was brand new and I thought that people really did not know how to dress in The Summit Lighthouse. Not long after that, the messenger gave a teaching on wearing the colors of the days. After that lecture I wore the color of the day all through my life.
This story illustrates in an amusing way the first step on the path for many people—that our own self-assessment of who and what we are may be lacking. Annice thought she looked “so wonderful” in her orange dress, and perhaps she did by the standards of the world. But for the spiritual seeker, there is a higher standard and a higher calling. Not knowing what that higher standard is—much less how to reach it—we come to the realization that we need a teacher.
This is a test before we can even begin the path. It is often a test of the ego. Are we willing to admit that we don’t know? Are we willing to admit that our cherished ideas and concepts might be wrong, or at least inadequate?
The Guru challenged her right away. Fortunately, Annice did not take offense. More important than color of her dress was the state of her consciousness. She was willing to listen and to change. Thus she could begin to walk the path of chelaship.
The ascended masters’ teachings provide an interesting perspective on color and vibration. Physically, each color represents a certain band of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum. But more than this, each color conveys a unique vibration spiritually.
The masters encourage us to meditate on and to wear the pure colors of the seven rays, which correspond to seven different aspects of the Christ consciousness. Blue is the first ray of power, protection and good will; yellow, the second ray of wisdom and illumination; pink, the third ray of love, art and beauty; white, the fourth ray of purity, harmony and discipline; green, the fifth ray of healing and abundance; purple and gold with flecks of ruby, the sixth ray of peace and brotherhood; and violet, the seventh ray of freedom and transmutation.
By wearing these colors and having them in our environment, we can attract these qualities to us and help to magnify them in our aura. Colors to avoid are black, red and orange, which can attract and magnify negative energies. Some psychologists study the effect of color on people’s emotions and even their physiology. The masters’ teachings add a spiritual dimension to this study.
Annice diligently and obediently applied this teaching, and as soon as she heard Mother’s lecture about the spiritual significance of color, she changed her wardrobe. All her life since that time she has worn the color of the day as each of the seven rays is more to the fore on a particular day. If you forgot what day of the week it was, all you had to do was look at Annice—pink on Monday, blue on Tuesday, Green on Wednesday, purple and gold on Thursday, white on Friday, violet on Saturday, and yellow on Sunday.
In earlier years, Mother and many of the staff at headquarters and teaching centers were quite diligent in wearing the color of the day. In later years, Mother would often wear something different, perhaps based on what she or the masters felt would best help in her assignments for that day.
Annice, however, never changed her practice. I see it as a quality of her fourth-ray sense of order and discipline. There is also a certain element of ritual in it, as each day, even for a few moments while dressing, she had the opportunity to meditate on one of the seven rays, and as the cycles of the weeks turned, to develop a balance of momentum on each of them.
The teaching on color is a useful tool on the path, but we are not rigid about it. None of us would want to make someone who has just walked in the door of our home or center feel uncomfortable about their choice of clothing or colors. Most people find out this teaching over time as they come across elements of it in our publications or observe that many who are associated with these teachings choose to wear particular colors. Or they may discover for themselves how certain colors make them feel.
Getting back to Annice’s story, this situation was clearly embarrassing for her. She thought she looked so nice, and yet here was the messenger pointing out a fashion faux pas. You can imagine how upsetting such a simple thing as this might be—she has a lovely new dress that she has just purchased and really loves, and now she can’t wear it.
Mother was tactful with Annice, but not really concerned about pleasing her ego. This was a seemingly insignificant episode, but like many things in life, it was a test—one that came very early in her association with the messengers. How would Annice react? Would she take offense? Would she be able to surrender a favorite dress if the teacher requested this?
Mother faced an interesting test around choice of colors early in her training as a messenger. She went to the movies with Mark and chose to wear a red dress that she had bought before she had found the teachings. The color red has a vibration that ties into anger and the forces of darkness that go with it. Mark had suggested she not wear it, but she decided to wear it anyway. She had loved that dress.
During the movie, sitting in the darkened theater, Mother felt a dark presence, an entity, sitting on her shoulder and attaching itself to her neck. She asked Mark to help her get this entity off her, but he explained that he was not able to do so since she had done what he told her not to do. So Mother had to wrestle with this force and get rid of it herself. It took her a number of days to finally deal with it.
This was a valuable lesson learned early in Mother’s training to be a messenger. The masters allowed her to see and feel the effects of color on her aura and being. They respected her free will and she also had to deal with the consequences of her decision. But even more than a lesson about color, this incident was about a state of consciousness that could allow her to be disobedient to the instruction of the Guru, as Mark had that role in her life. The color of a dress may have seemed like a small thing at the time, but what a price we might pay when we are disobedient to the Guru, even in a small thing, and thereby put ourselves outside of his protection. Perhaps this experience is one reason why Mother was so careful about color and so diligent in passing on this teaching.
In later years, when Mother was asked by her chelas for guidelines about the colors they should wear, she explained that if your employment required you to wear black as a part of your uniform (for example, a waiter) then you should wear black in respect to your employer and your job. Men could wear black suits for professional reasons or if their jobs required it, but if possible, everything from the heart chakra up, including shirts and ties, should be ascended master colors. Navy blue is a good alternative to black for men’s clothing.
El Morya recommended that his chelas not wear black shoes. Brown is an acceptable alternative, as it does not interfere with the flow of light in the spiritual centers in the feet. Women have a much wider range of shoe colors available, so it is less of an issue for them.
Did the messenger always wear ascended master colors? We recall seeing her in later years on occasions wearing olive green or a muted orange shade. She did not explain why she was wearing these colors. Annice said that Mother often said to her, “My initiations are not your initiations.”
Trying to Meditate
After I came back home from my first Summit Lighthouse conference, I came across a book by Alice Bailey, published by an organization called the Lucis Trust. The book mentioned the names of some of the masters I had heard about through the Summit. So I said to myself, “Great, this is a book about our ascended masters.”
I did not realize at the time that Alice Bailey, although she had been in training with the masters at one time, had lost her sponsorship and was not representing the ascended masters. On the back of the book it said, “Join this meditation group.” I thought, “How wonderful. I don’t know how to meditate, and this group will show me how.” So I wrote and signed up with them to join their group. They asked on the application to send in a photograph, so I did. (Mark told me later that they could see my aura in the photograph.)
In the meantime I went back to the bookstore where I bought the book and purchased the whole Alice Bailey series at a reduced price.
Soon I received a special delivery letter saying, “We are pleased to have you as a part of our meditation group.” The first lesson taught you how to meditate at the full moon. I thought it was great that I would learn to meditate at last.
You also had to send in a questionnaire each month. One question said, “In your meditation, have you found any other groups of students of the ascended masters?”
I wrote back and said, “I don’t know how to meditate, but in one of your books on such and such a page, it says that in the last quarter of the century, in the southwest of the United States, there would be a new group of ascended master students. Well, I have found it. I did not have to meditate to find it. I have found The Summit Lighthouse and the messengers Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet. They are in Colorado Springs, as predicted by the masters!”
Well, I got an airmail, special delivery letter back very quickly that said, “For the benefit of your soul and our group, you should be dismissed immediately. We’ll pray for your soul that you will not fall into the psychic.” It was signed the Lucis Trust.
I never did learn to meditate with them.
When I told Mark about this, he said, “The master saved you, didn’t he? You had better not read the books that you have. To be safe, put them in my library.” And so I did.
Florence Miller [another long-time student of the masters] also had some problems with the Lucis Trust. She had been in this group before joining The Summit Lighthouse. Then her parents had written to the Lucis Trust to tell them that she had joined the Summit, and they set up a prayer group to work against us.
This is a typical test that comes to a new student on the path. Often just before or just after finding the teachings of the masters, an alternative will present itself and the student will have to make a choice.
This choice becomes a test for the student—of motive, of discernment, or some other element of consciousness. Sometimes the alternative presents itself with flattery or the promise of great knowledge or spiritual powers—or perhaps a seemingly more “friendly” atmosphere. What will the student choose? What are his priorities?
One good benchmark for discerning the true teacher from the false is something that Annice said on a number of occasions, “The false hierarchy flatters you. The real masters don’t.”
Sometimes the alternative that presents itself is the very same false teaching that lured us away from the path lifetimes ago. So we are faced with the same test again. And hopefully we will have learned enough, in all those years outside the mystery school, to see through the counterfeit way and no longer be lured by its attractions.
These tests can be subtle. We might wonder why they should come so early on the path. How can the student know what is the right choice before even having a chance to study the teachings and to learn the principles of cosmic law?
I think of the statement in the Bible that God will not give us a test that we are not able to pass. And perhaps this test is not so much about knowledge of the law as of motive and purity of intent. If the student is sincere and really wants to know, if he is totally honest in his motives, if he asks God to show him the way to go and really wants to know, if he is prepared to accept God’s answer, no matter what it is, then he can make the right choice.
In Annice’s case, it seems to have been a bit easier than this. The Lucis Trust threw her out before she even had to make a choice. Perhaps it was good karma of service to the masters in the past that enabled them to step in and “save” her, as Mark explained.
The messengers recommend that the masters’ students not read the books by Alice Bailey, as they are not sponsored by the ascended masters and contain significant errors. They also do not recommend meditating on the full moon, since the full moon tends to amplify the negative emotional energies of the planet. Like Mother Mary, we seek to put the energies of the moon beneath our feet.
A Message from the Master
The first time I received a message from Morya, I was still in business in California. My husband, Lester, and I took Mark Prophet out for lunch. We were brand new and I was attending my second conference [the Class of Malta, held in San Francisco, October 1966]. At lunch Lester said that he’d like a glass of tomato juice, and I said, “I’ll have one too.”
Mark said, “No. Morya says that Annice should have pineapple juice.”
I was flabbergasted. I said, “Mark, why would Morya say that to me?”
Mark said, “I don’t know, but he did.”
Out in the parking lot I said to Lester, “Did you realize that Morya was talking to me?” Quickly looking around, thinking that he had missed seeing the master, Lester said, “Where? Where?” He had totally missed that the master had spoken to me through Mark.
Looking back on it, I think that Morya knew about my family history of heart problems and probably wanted me to have the potassium in the pineapple juice.
Annice found it interesting that the first direct word she received from Morya through Mark was not the kind of comment one might expect. Chelas sometimes think that on meeting the master he should say something profound, something of deep spiritual significance, or give some direction for their life’s work or divine plan. And perhaps the masters do this for some chelas.
But Morya’s first comment to Annice was grounded in the practicalities of life. It had to do with what she put into her mouth.
In later years, serious health problems threatened to curtail Annice’s lifespan and service, and looking back we can see why the master was concerned with her health. Each of us needs to live as long as we can on this earth in order to balance as much karma as we can and qualify for our ascension. And if we pass prematurely, without having balanced the necessary 51 percent, we will have to come back and start over in another body.
El Morya was lovingly caring for his student and concerned about those things which might shorten or prolong her life. It was a pattern that was to be repeated. Annice said that Morya took an interest in her health for a long time through Mark.
Here is another example:
We had just returned from India and we were all exhausted. It had been a difficult trip and we had bumped into some intense karmic records. I was a member of the staff, and Mark said, “Mrs. Booth, how do you feel?”
“Mark, I feel dirty.” That was the only way that I could describe it. Just dirty.
Mark said, “Morya says you need flax.”
“What in the world is flax?”
Mark said, “I don’t know, but Morya says you need flax.”
I talked to a staff member who had owned a macrobiotic restaurant, and I asked him, “How do I eat flax?” Stanley told me about flax seeds and how to grind them and take them each morning with cereal.
We got some flax seeds and I had them every morning on my cereal. Now, thirty years later, I’m still taking flax seed.
It was amazing how down-to-earth the master was. It was not “Oh, you wonderful chela! How fantastic you are and what a great job you are doing.” Rather I got a lot of teaching from Morya through Mark which was very specific and practical instruction for me at the time. I am so grateful for it.
Annice was impressed that Morya knew about the health benefits of flax seed long before it became popular with those interested in healthy living and natural foods. In the years since Morya’s direction to Annice, flax has been found to contain high levels of lignans and omega-3 fatty acids and has been shown to be useful in the prevention of heart disease and cancer.
Annice often said, “I have quite a bit of obedience built in me.” If the master told her to take flax seed, she was obedient and took it. She did not stop and did not need to be told a second time.