Why did God create the material worlds?

The plan of creation, extending over the spiritual and material world, is the adaptation of form to uses—

And the evolution of matter and spirit from a lower to a higher plane of existence.

In the early geological periods, only the grossest forms of life could exist or contend with the crude elements and disturbed state of earth and atmosphere. 

Thousands and thousands of years elapsed before man appeared on earth—not then the perfect Adam, but a being a little higher than the animals and lower than the angels.

A creature, resembling the wild savage—there, first, you find the spiritual nature shooting out—a phosphorescent-like emanation, living a semi-sentient life between two worlds, the spiritual and material. When separated from the body, this fine network of impalpable spiritual existence becomes compact and a solid body in the atmosphere of the spirit world, even as certain gases that are invisible to the eye become under peculiar circumstances solid and ponderous bodies.

The soul being a progressive development of every created sentient form is admirably adapted for navigation through space.

Its power is analogous to light to penetrate space, and in the rapidity of its motion, it speeds, like a bird seeking its nest, to its immortal home. 

This, if its spiritual instincts are developed, if not, guided by its love and will, it hovers over its useless body or the former place of its habitation. 

To its surprise, it finds itself with a form adapted to diving into the depths of the sea, of ascending into the air, of penetrating matter and traversing the earth, almost unlimited in its powers, but dependent on its intellectual development and the expansion of its moral faculties, for an intelligent use of its new organism.

The page of natural history will teach the investigator that a lower form must finally ultimate into a higher one.

You, having a spiritual nature, which is constantly reaching out into the invisible world must find ultimately what you seek.

The more your wants increase, the more your power to gratify them increases.

As you rise in the scale of creation, you are constantly changing your position and adapting yourself to new conditions—from the wigwam, the hut, the tent of your ancestors—you have developed the artistic palace of the present day.

When this world ceases to be useful to you, you rise to another better adapted to your growth.

When you become too ethereal to exist on the planet earth, you rise to a more spiritual one.

—Spirit Charles Darwin

What is the myth of the Summerland?

On first leaving earth, you are often reminded of your earthly home and feel a longing desire to return to awaken your friends to your great discovery—to give them glad tidings from this unknown life or beautiful sphere, for it is not that uncertain visionary heaven that was taught of old, but a real, living, breathing country full of all life, vegetable, animal and spirit, all in spiritual beauty, showing forth the handiwork of the Divine Creator, and that the fullness thereof is for all.

Your spirit takes its flight through the airy realms. You seem on wings of ethereal light and feel such glorious, inward joy, astonishment, wonder, awe and thrilling joy fill your soul.

Everyone has all that he can use or comprehend, and the spheres are prepared for the reception of all adapted to their condition. 

Here they are nourished and educated to comprehend all its uses and all its blessings until prepared to enter the next abode.

Each sphere has its laws, labour and education. Every scholar has studies adapted to his taste or capacity, and thereby advances much faster in the higher knowledge by this harmonious blending.

Angels guard and guide you until you become able to establish your individuality.

Life here is very similar to that of earth and every sphere in heaven has its variety and condition adapted to the wants of its inhabitants. 

Many are never entirely lost and can hardly perceive the change of the chemical structure falling from their spirit body. 

These are so spiritually alive, as not to be aware of the change until some spirit friend reminds them of their passage to this glorious realm. They have changed their garments so easily while on the earth plane that the spiritual body superseded the structure of physical life, donning the spiritual garment so gracefully, as not to perceive it until reminded by their spiritual friends and the glorious surroundings.

The second wife over there?

I am often called upon here to decide matters for others [in the world of spirits]. 

Many people call me simply the Judge, but we bear, as a rule, the name that we last bore on earth. Men and women come to me to settle all sorts of questions for them—questions of ethics, questions of expediency, even quarrels. 

Did you suppose that no one quarrelled here? Many do. There are even long-standing feuds among them.

The holders of different opinions on religion are often hot in their arguments. 

Coming here with the same beliefs they had on earth and being able to visualise their ideals and actually to experience the things they are expecting, two men who hold opposite creeds forcibly are each more intolerant than ever before. 

Each is certain that he is right and that the other is wrong. 

This stubbornness of belief is strongest with those who have been here only a short time. After a while, they fall into a larger tolerance, living their own lives more and more and enjoying the world of proofs and realisations, which each soul builds for itself.

But I want to give you an illustration of the sort of questions on which I am asked to pass judgment.

There are two women here who in life were both married to one man though not at the same time. The first woman died, then the man married again, and soon, not more than a year or two later, the man and his second wife both came out. 

The first wife considers herself the man’s only wife and she follows him about everywhere. She says that he promised to meet her in heaven.

He is more inclined to the second wife though he still feels affection for Wife No. 1. He is rather impatient at what he calls her unreasonableness. He told me one day that he would gladly give them both up if he could be left in peace to carry out certain studies in which he is interested. These were among the people I met soon after I began to be strong myself here—it was not so very long ago, and the man has sought my society so much that the women to be near him have come along too.

One day, they all three came to me and propounded their question—or rather, Wife No. 1 propounded it. 

She said—This man is my husband. Should not, therefore, this other woman go far away and leave him altogether with me?

I asked Wife No. 2 what she had to say. 

Her answer was that she would be all alone here, but for her husband, and that as she had had him last, he now belonged more to her than to the other.

In a flash, the memory came to me of those Sadducees who propounded a similar question to Christ, and I quoted His answer as nearly as I could remember it that when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels, which are in heaven.

My answer was as much a staggerer for them as their question had been for me, and they went away to think about it.

When they were gone, I began myself to ponder the question. 

I had already observed that whether or not all here are as the angels in heaven, there does seem to be a good deal of mating and rejoining of former mates. 

The sex distinction is as real here as on the earth, although, of course, its expression is not exactly the same. 

I asked myself a good many questions, which perhaps would never have occurred to me, but for the troubles of this interesting triad, and I thought of the man I had somewhere read about who said that he never knew his own opinion of anything until he tried to express it to somebody. After a while, the three came to me again and said that they had been talking things over—perhaps after the manner of angels in heaven—for Wife No. 1 told me that she had decided to let her husband spend a part of his time with the other woman if he wanted to.

Now the man had a sweetheart, a girl sweetheart, before he had either of his wives. 

The girl is out here somewhere and the man often has a strong desire to try to find her. What opportunity he will now have to do so, I cannot say. The situation is rather depressing for the poor fellow. It is bad enough to have one person who insists on every minute of your society, without having two.

And I think his case is not unusual. 

Perhaps the only way in which he can get from his two insistent companions is by going back to earth.

There is a way, however, by which he could secure solitude, but he does not know of it. 

A man who knows how can isolate himself here as well as he could on earth—he can build around himself a wall, which only the eyes of a great initiate can pierce. I have not told this secret to my friend, but perhaps I may some day if it seems necessary for his development that he have a little solitude. At present, it seems to me that he will learn more from adjusting to this double claim and trying to find the truth that lies in it. 

Perhaps he may learn that really, essentially, fundamentally, he does not belong to either of these women. 

The souls out here seem to belong to themselves, and after the first few years, they get to love liberty so much that they are ready to yield a little of their claim upon others.

This is a great place in which to grow if one really wants to grow, although few persons take advantage of its possibilities. Most are content to assimilate the experiences they had on earth.

It would be depressing to one who did not realise that will is free to see how souls let slip their opportunities here even as they did on their moon-guarded planet.

There are teachers here who stand ready to help anyone who wishes their help in making real and deep studies in the mysteries of life—the life here, the life there, and in the remote past.

If a man understands that his recent sojourn on earth was merely the latest of a long series of lives, and if he concentrates his mind towards recovering the memories of the distant past, he can recover them. Some persons may think that the mere dropping of the veil of matter should free the soul from all obscuration, but as on earth, so out here—

Things are not thus and so because they ought to be, but because they are.

We draw to ourselves the experiences, which we are ready for, and which we demand, and most souls do not demand enough here any more than they did in life.

Tell them to demand more and the demand will be answered.

Effortless Spirituality?

The laws of God are immutable and unchangeable, and as you are born under the law, you are to comply with the law and reap the blessings commensurate with the keeping of the law.

Nature is the keynote around which hang the various laws you recognise and realise as true revelations. The fingerprints of Nature are ever-present and repeating the same thing over and over again.

In Nature, you find the various atoms of matter blended in different forms with different attributes—All living and working under the same laws of cause and effect, attraction, repulsion and the transformation processes.

Nature, in all her various forms of life, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, shows how strikingly her laws are enforced, working a complete system of growth, maturity, and the final transition.

In all Nature, you will find intelligence, which is the culmination of the various forms of life essences. One within itself would not be of any consequence, but the culmination of these various life essences brings to you an avowed intelligence.

Each and every element has its affinity, and in due time comes forward by the avenues of intelligence in the birth of new forms. Thus, you perceive the forces of the positive and negative, which carry with them two other forms, attraction and repulsion.

In Nature, the seasons and years are markers of time, mileposts in your material existence, whose progress is slow due to a mind not as yet fully developed, awaiting its future by a scientific study of life.

In all animated Nature, you feel the presence and intelligence of life—the life that is never lost.

Nature loves with all her strength,

And might within her hand

Rules supreme, in breadth and length,

And rests, upon the strand.

Nature all so pure and good,

Gives to each and every man

Just portions for his daily food

And raiment from the land.

At fireside and the hearthstone,

Nature teaches, oh—so sweet

The love notes of the newborn,

In twain do both loves meet.

Nature gives to each new parent,

Lessons for each to learn

And sends them forth in patience,

To bring their just return.

The flowers in springtime send forth their fragrance to the atmosphere by the incoming gases, entering the cells of their bodies, so you, as a spirit entity, drink in from the Great Fountain of Love, the semblance of His Majesty. It is just as essential for the life of the spirit to live by the love of the Infinite, as it is for the flower to breath the gases in the atmosphere to enable it to put forth its blossom.

As there is no effort upon the part of the hyacinth to waft its fragrance, so there is no effort upon the part of spirit to drink at Love's Fountain.

Nature is all-sufficient to give forth her own, and through that channel, new fields will open and new workers placed within the gates.

Truly, the forces of Nature are great, and an understanding of the beloved of Nature will bring unto that one the lovely precepts and examples that teach and lead them in paths most beneficial.

Cycle of Life?

The laws of God are immutable and unchangeable, and as you are born under the law, you are to comply with the law and reap the blessings commensurate with the keeping of the law.

Nature is the keynote around which hang the various laws you recognise and realise as true revelations. The fingerprints of Nature are ever-present and repeating the same thing over and over again.

In Nature, you find the various atoms of matter blended in different forms with different attributes—All living and working under the same laws of cause and effect, attraction, repulsion and the transformation processes.

Nature, in all her various forms of life, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, shows how strikingly her laws are enforced, working a complete system of growth, maturity, and the final transition.

In all Nature, you will find intelligence, which is the culmination of the various forms of life essences. One within itself would not be of any consequence, but the culmination of these various life essences brings to you an avowed intelligence.

Each and every element has its affinity, and in due time comes forward by the avenues of intelligence in the birth of new forms. Thus, you perceive the forces of the positive and negative, which carry with them two other forms, attraction and repulsion.

In Nature, the seasons and years are markers of time, mileposts in your material existence, whose progress is slow due to a mind not as yet fully developed, awaiting its future by a scientific study of life.

In all animated Nature, you feel the presence and intelligence of life—the life that is never lost.

Nature loves with all her strength,

And might within her hand

Rules supreme, in breadth and length,

And rests, upon the strand.

Nature all so pure and good,

Gives to each and every man

Just portions for his daily food

And raiment from the land.

At fireside and the hearthstone,

Nature teaches, oh—so sweet

The love notes of the newborn,

In twain do both loves meet.

Nature gives to each new parent,

Lessons for each to learn

And sends them forth in patience,

To bring their just return.

The flowers in springtime send forth their fragrance to the atmosphere by the incoming gases, entering the cells of their bodies, so you, as a spirit entity, drink in from the Great Fountain of Love, the semblance of His Majesty. It is just as essential for the life of the spirit to live by the love of the Infinite, as it is for the flower to breath the gases in the atmosphere to enable it to put forth its blossom.

As there is no effort upon the part of the hyacinth to waft its fragrance, so there is no effort upon the part of spirit to drink at Love's Fountain.

Nature is all-sufficient to give forth her own, and through that channel, new fields will open and new workers placed within the gates.

Truly, the forces of Nature are great, and an understanding of the beloved of Nature will bring unto that one the lovely precepts and examples that teach and lead them in paths most beneficial.

 

Nature as the Ultimate Revelation?

The laws of God are immutable and unchangeable, and as you are born under the law, you are to comply with the law and reap the blessings commensurate with the keeping of the law.

Nature is the keynote around which hang the various laws you recognise and realise as true revelations. The fingerprints of Nature are ever-present and repeating the same thing over and over again.

In Nature, you find the various atoms of matter blended in different forms with different attributes—All living and working under the same laws of cause and effect, attraction, repulsion and the transformation processes.

Nature, in all her various forms of life, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, shows how strikingly her laws are enforced, working a complete system of growth, maturity, and the final transition.

In all Nature, you will find intelligence, which is the culmination of the various forms of life essences. One within itself would not be of any consequence, but the culmination of these various life essences brings to you an avowed intelligence.

Each and every element has its affinity, and in due time comes forward by the avenues of intelligence in the birth of new forms. Thus, you perceive the forces of the positive and negative, which carry with them two other forms, attraction and repulsion.

In Nature, the seasons and years are markers of time, mileposts in your material existence, whose progress is slow due to a mind not as yet fully developed, awaiting its future by a scientific study of life.

In all animated Nature, you feel the presence and intelligence of life—the life that is never lost.

Nature loves with all her strength,

And might within her hand

Rules supreme, in breadth and length,

And rests, upon the strand.

Nature all so pure and good,

Gives to each and every man

Just portions for his daily food

And raiment from the land.

At fireside and the hearthstone,

Nature teaches, oh—so sweet

The love notes of the newborn,

In twain do both loves meet.

Nature gives to each new parent,

Lessons for each to learn

And sends them forth in patience,

To bring their just return.

The flowers in springtime send forth their fragrance to the atmosphere by the incoming gases, entering the cells of their bodies, so you, as a spirit entity, drink in from the Great Fountain of Love, the semblance of His Majesty. It is just as essential for the life of the spirit to live by the love of the Infinite, as it is for the flower to breath the gases in the atmosphere to enable it to put forth its blossom.

As there is no effort upon the part of the hyacinth to waft its fragrance, so there is no effort upon the part of spirit to drink at Love's Fountain.

Nature is all-sufficient to give forth her own, and through that channel, new fields will open and new workers placed within the gates.

Truly, the forces of Nature are great, and an understanding of the beloved of Nature will bring unto that one the lovely precepts and examples that teach and lead them in paths most beneficial.

Collective Intelligence?

The laws of God are immutable and unchangeable, and as you are born under the law, you are to comply with the law and reap the blessings commensurate with the keeping of the law.

Truly, the forces of Nature are great, and an understanding of the beloved of Nature will bring unto that one the lovely precepts and examples that teach and lead them in paths most beneficial.

Nature is the keynote around which hang the various laws you recognise and realise as true revelations. The fingerprints of Nature are ever-present and repeating the same thing over and over again.

In Nature, you find the various atoms of matter blended in different forms with different attributes—All living and working under the same laws of cause and effect, attraction, repulsion and the transformation processes.

Nature, in all her various forms of life, the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, shows how strikingly her laws are enforced, working a complete system of growth, maturity, and the final transition.

In all Nature, you will find intelligence, which is the culmination of the various forms of life essences. One within itself would not be of any consequence, but the culmination of these various life essences brings to you an avowed intelligence.

Each and every element has its affinity, and in due time comes forward by the avenues of intelligence in the birth of new forms. Thus, you perceive the forces of the positive and negative, which carry with them two other forms, attraction and repulsion.

In Nature, the seasons and years are markers of time, mileposts in your material existence, whose progress is slow due to a mind not as yet fully developed, awaiting its future by a scientific study of life.

In all animated Nature, you feel the presence and intelligence of life—the life that is never lost.

Nature loves with all her strength,

And might within her hand

Rules supreme, in breadth and length,

And rests, upon the strand.

Nature all so pure and good,

Gives to each and every man

Just portions for his daily food

And raiment from the land.

At fireside and the hearthstone,

Nature teaches, oh—so sweet

The love notes of the newborn,

In twain do both loves meet.

Nature gives to each new parent,

Lessons for each to learn

And sends them forth in patience,

To bring their just return.

The flowers in springtime send forth their fragrance to the atmosphere by the incoming gases, entering the cells of their bodies, so you, as a spirit entity, drink in from the Great Fountain of Love, the semblance of His Majesty. It is just as essential for the life of the spirit to live by the love of the Infinite, as it is for the flower to breath the gases in the atmosphere to enable it to put forth its blossom.

As there is no effort upon the part of the hyacinth to waft its fragrance, so there is no effort upon the part of spirit to drink at Love's Fountain.

Nature is all-sufficient to give forth her own, and through that channel, new fields will open and new workers placed within the gates.

Truly, the forces of Nature are great, and an understanding of the beloved of Nature will bring unto that one the lovely precepts and examples that teach and lead them in paths most beneficial.