This Afterword contains the original Forward, the original contents and the additional material from the original hand-bound photocopied version from 1978. We knew that The Brothers were warning us about a pandemic, but it hardly seemed possible on the scale we have experienced. I have kept the words and spellings of the original. There was only one copy left from that time, and thanks to David Seacord, I have photos of the original pages. I have carefully copied the text for this online version.

FORWARD TO THE SECOND EDITION:
Many readers of the second edition have asked for more information about the source of this book. The origin is unusual but not as important as the live, compassion, and hope expressed by the words that compose these pages. Several years ago I was working with a psychiatrist on psychic diagnosis of physical and mental disease. While in a light trance, I felt a form surround me and identify itself as Ronsilar, a monk from the Middle Ages.

The experience was both intriguing and unsettling. Though aware of dangers arising from the misuse of psychic abilities, I felt it important to test the intent of the communication. When the presence returned, I tried to record the speech, but the accent was so strong I could barely understand the words. Failure at direct-voice recording caused me to turn reluctantly to automatic writing. Months went by between urges to write. I could scarcely read the writing and felt a lot of resistance to the attempt, but also a sense of urgency and importance to the experience. Writing finally became easy enough that I watched television as I wrote and could interrupt the narration and resume it at will.

Eventually, I began typing the communication directly. In “channeling” The Brothers I was often unaware of the content the words flowed through my hands but did not seem to impact on my mind. When I first read some of the material, there did not seem to be an overall pattern or theme to it. But after all the pages were received, my inner voice instructed me to lay them out, assemble them in the order given, and a design emerged. That order is the book you hold in your hands.

Although the language and grammar is not of our present standard, “correction” seemed to change the personal quality of the narration. The Brothers was ready to use, in contrast to the many rewrites necessary to compose this page. For some, the knowledge of this book’s origin will add to its impact if this is not the case with you, please read it with an open mind and an open heart and let the obvious love of the Brothers speak to you. Judi Beckley

October 1981

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Introduction

This narrative was composed by the Brothers of the Order of St. Sebastian and reflects their life during the mid-1400’s.1 These brothers lived in medieval Great Britain at a time when humanity had been devastated by the “Black Death.” Two of them, Emery and Basil, speak independently and also collectively, each representing their own as well as a combined point of view, augmenting the historical text. The order these men created brought renewed life and hope and had far-reaching effects upon history.

This manuscript is a protohistory, an account of a time in history described by those who lived during that time. It was received and transcribed by the author beginning in early 1978 and extending into early 1979. At first the transcription was written out in longhand in spare moments, but eventually was transcribed directly with the use of a typewriter. Although some of this material was totally unknown to the author at the time of its transcription and some of the information contained in it seemed different than current histories, all items researched have been verified by authentic texts.

This was a time when a third of the world was felled by plague, people’s thoughts of food turned to cannibalism, babies dies in the winter cold, and no one knew who was pope. During these years the Brothers occupied an abandoned fort and later, a vacant castle, gathering together the remnants of local society for shelter and rehabilitation. The Brothers came together from varied backgrounds for the purpose of applying their respective talents to the re-establishment of society.

They combined these talents with practical knowledge and an unshakable faith in humanity to meet the needs of their day. Many of their solutions, which range from gardening to metaphysics, are still applicable today. The practical advice they offer, combined with a

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spiritual view of the world is one that seems destined to gain a lasting place as a tool in solving the problems of the individual and the world. The depth of their understanding of the human condition is shown, for example, in their description of reincarnation on p. 75.

The parable of The Isle of Man begun on p. 38 is a haunting reminder of humanity’s earliest beginnings. Emery begins the manuscript. His is of Welsh birth, with the given name of Ronsilar. His father was first a farmer, and later a trader in fine textiles and spices who traveled widely and received an education at an Ottoman university, His mother was born to Scottish parents living in India and met Emery’s father while he was traveling there.

They returned to his family homestead in Great Britain, where Emery was born. Later, they returned to India, where Emery was educated. Eventually, emery traveled and joined the Order of St. Sebastian, a Catholic order begun in Italy to serve the everyday needs of the poor. Emery returned to Great Britain, when a priest visited his abbey and called for workers in the Isles. Emery was well versed in “oriental literature” and traveled extensively through eastern Europe. He wrote in later years and was regarded as an authority on the life of Alexander the Great and on the early history of the peoples of the British Isles. Emery brings wisdom, reflection, and knowledge of animals, especially sheep. He is talented in the care of wool and in the making of fabric. He is also fascinated with anything mechanical.

The other narrator is Emery’s best friend, Basil, of “Nabb’shire.” He was the oldest of a large family, and “apprenticed at 14 years.” Basil is of “an ancient line” that resided in the area of northern Britain for “a thousand years or more.” They were “gatherers of stones and builders of walls” incorporating the stones into structures and “gifted at fitting stones” without benefit of mortar.

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Basil studied the art of gold leaf in illuminating texts and had exhibited the work “at court.” He made a gift of the “Journey of the Hours” to the Queen of Austria.

Basil also is the physician and brings a knowledge of plants, especially medicinal herbs. His chapel garden contained Monksrobe, Mollywort, Dukeslipper, and Ginger, among others. The Brothers, speaking both individually and collectively present their perspectives on sociology, history, and psychology as they speak as humanist, pragmatist, and existential observers.

They speak from their own time, looking back from the present, and from a comparatively timeless perspective as they bring together the qualities of spirit, matter and consciousness, expressed in human existence.

Randall G. West

Corvallis, Oregon
June 29, 1981

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Note: The symbols at the end of each sub-section of the narrative are the signatures of different personalities and groups. Footnotes were not part of the original manuscript. They were added by the editor and the author to give further insight to some statements.

May 1982

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. History of the Order of St. Sebastian
2. History of those whom the Order served
3. Details of Life
4. Changes
5. Survival skills
6. The Castle, the Fort, and the long winter
7. The story of the Isle of Man
8. Sociological insights
9. Reflections on the Past – Predictions for the Future
10. Further reflections on the influence of the past on our present
11. Cautions and reflections
12. Temperature and Time – their real significance. Who are we? What are we?
    
    Discussions on our destiny
    
    Appendix: Footnotes Additional Material

PREFACE TO THE 10TH EDITION:
As I write this preface, 25 years have gone by since I published the first edition of THE BROTHERS in 1979. I had no idea it would still be such a large influence in my life and still in print all these years later.

At that time, I had just begun formally developing and using the intuitive gifts with which I had been born. I went on to continue my training as a psychotherapist working in both traditional forms of counseling and in intuitive consulting in private practice. I have now done this work for 30 years and have consulted with thousands of clients both nationally and internationally.

In 1987, shortly after moving to Santa Fe, NM, I was in a hit-and-run accident that resulted in a closed-head injury, triggering memories I had buried from childhood. In pursuit of that missing portion of my past, I gained insights into the scope and connections that may have also been significant in the transmission of THE BROTHERS.

I grew up in foster families some of whom were relatives of my birth parents. For a variety of reasons, I was not allowed to talk about my experiences with my birth family when I returned from occasional visits or had been living with my birth family members. I learned to compartmentalize the forbidden parts of my life. This skill has allowed me to “forget” what I learn in consultation until or unless the client later speaks to me about the material we covered during the consultation.

For my personal life, however, until the accident, this has been a deficit in my knowledge about myself. Now, I have recovered much of the memory of my childhood, researched my own and my families’ histories and located lost relatives, visited homes I lived in as a child in California and recently visited the school where my birth father taught for 40 years at Portsmouth, R.I.

The portion of that missing memory that pertains to THE BROTHERS was the rediscovery and recollection of trips I took with my birth father prior to WWII to Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, South and Central America. We traveled in the winter of 1938-39 when there were few travelers. In search of esoteric mysteries, we visited London, Paris, Montserrat, Vienna, Warsaw, Istanbul, Cairo and the Pyramids, the massive ruins of Baalbek, The Taj Mahal in India, Rio de Janeiro, and more. My father was in search of his own answers to ancient mysteries from his perspective as an architect, descendent of an ancient family from Malta and ancestors who had been Knights Templar.

He told me, a bright and curious 7-year-old, what he knew. Though I remember little of what he said, his enthusiasm infused me with a desire to learn and know more about the mysteries that have shaped our past. I have never let my interest lapse regarding the essential truths and mysteries that formed our minds and civilizations.

From the time I learned to read at 5, surrounded by libraries rich with books on history, geography and biography, my father had supervised my education by mail, sending me reading lists, stacks of books and questions to answer. He read my answers sent by mail and made notes in response. I was well prepared in history and ancient lore by the time I took those trips. I didn’t understand what I saw from an adult mentality but the visual and sensory impressions were locked into my being.

Fortunately, my foster grandfather and other relatives were educated, literate and intellectually and spiritually curious people who also shared these interests and some were world travelers. By the time I was in my teens and joined the Rosicrucians, I had a grounding in the history and theories that form esoteric traditions. I saw the scenes of that history before they were popularized and became tourist destinations. I saw the people and surroundings that were natural and native to those places.

After our trip in 1938-39, my parents’ marriage was finally annulled, I so went to live on a semi-permanent basis with foster families and my father joined the Benedictine Order, traveling to Ft. Augustus, Scotland, where he began his religious training. He returned to the U.S. at the beginning of WWII and was ordained as a priest in that Order, serving as a minister, teacher and architectural planner for the rest of his life.

Though I saw him almost every year of my life until 1972, my father and I never spoke of those early trips, that I can recall. I had been out of touch with him for several years before his death in 1981, and never spoke with him about his experience in Scotland, his ancestral ties to Scotland and Ireland, and the decisions that led to his becoming a Benedictine. I can only speculate that something we shared may have had an influence on me that resulted in my channeling this book, which is set in Scotland and England and chiefly narrated by a “world traveler” in the sense of those times.

After a recent trip to his Abbey school, I have a renewed gratitude for the influence on my mental and spiritual life given me by my father and for his life of service to others. I dedicate this latest edition of THE BROTHERS to my father, Dom. Rev. Hilary Victor James Martin, OSB., 1906-1981.

– Judi Beckley West

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