Light from the Spirit Land

Do children who leave this earth-plane in infancy progress in stature the same as if they had continued to live on earth?

Children grow in stature precisely the same as they would had they remained on earth to mature age. 

Joseph Lowenthal (Spirit) 

Are all souls in spirit-life satisfied with the prospect of a boundless, eternal existence or do some desire oblivion there, as misery makes some seek it here?

As happiness and unhappiness belong strictly to the spirit – to the thinking power of the individual, so the spirit carries with it this condition of happiness or unhappiness into spirit life. These unhappy souls are not outside the law of progress and, by and by, when they begin to perceive a better way and that the way is open for them to ascend from their hell and enter heaven, as for all others – if they can perceive this truth, they will embrace it and rapidly ascend out of darkness into light.

Can the pure and sinless, as infants, appreciate and enjoy heaven as highly as those who have known life's conflicts and trials?

The infant's heaven is just as perfect a heaven as the heaven of mature age. The infant can enjoy just as large an amount of heaven, according to its own life, as mature age. It is only a different condition of the same element – happiness.

John Pierpont (Spirit)

Will the intelligence give his opinion of the following text? 

And Jesus, when he was baptised, went up straightway out of the water and lo! the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him and lo! a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.

It is a well-known fact that Jesus was a medium for spirit manifestations; that his entire life was a series of spirit manifestations and there was a perfect distribution of spiritual power through his organisation. The record tells us that the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God, like a dove, descending on him, and he heard a voice, saying, This is my beloved son. Well, why not? The spirit of God performs like so-called miracles even today and has performed them in every age, for in every age there have been ears attuned to spirit-voices; there have been eyes that could perceive spirit-forms; there have been those, in their physical senses, who could take cognisance of the conditions of spirit-life. Now, as Jesus possessed a highly developed physical and spiritual organisation and as he was perfectly rounded in spiritual and physical form, he would be well able to receive perfect manifestations from the world of mind. 

Will the controlling intelligence please tell us why spirits do not give their whole names when asked to do so while communicating through test mediums? They will give their first name but seldom give the surname, when, if the whole name were given, it would give much better satisfaction to sceptical people.

Spirits labour under a great many more disadvantages in returning to manifest here after death. When they return, they are suddenly ushered back again to the world; their medium is imperfect; they find their work very hard and they struggle to give even one word. Names are hard to give; first, for this reason – When the sitter comes into rapport with the medium and the spirit who has a desire to possess the medium and to manifest through it, the sitter's first, most intense and most positive thought is the name of the party that is to control. If it were possible for the sitter to render his mind entirely passive to what might come, the manifestations would be far more reliable and names would come much easier.

Theodore Parker (Spirit) 

We often see mediums personating and faithfully enacting the death scene that it seems a repetition of the same thing. Now, what I wish to know is this – How is it so faithfully reproduced? Is the departing spirit conscious enough to remember all those physical motions? I have always thought there was a time when most, if not all, ere unconscious at the time of change or immediately after. Is it so?

The immortal soul never loses its consciousness – it is sometimes shut out from external circumstances and experiences that attend human life but never in the absolute unconscious of its own soul realities. These repetitions of death scenes are easily produced because they make a very vivid and very clear impression on the mind of every spirit. Though there is no consciousness in the external, in the internal, the spirit is conscious and active and the recording angel never fails to take down the most minute circumstances. Everything is faithfully transcribed and can be reproduced. These mediums are mirrors that seem to be hung between the two states of being and, if the surface is clear, the reflection will be correspondingly clear but, if it is spotted, the reflection will be correspondingly deformed.

What is the recording angel?

It is sometimes called memory. That name or term may answer as well as any other. The circumstances through which every soul is called to pass become the external characteristics of that soul and no one thing, even the most minute, is ever lost.

Joseph Lowenthal and George A. Redman (Spirits)