What is spirit-substance?

Spirit Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson continues his narration of life in the unseen world―

The power of thought is almost unlimited in the spirit world―

The greater the power of any particular effort or concentration of thought, the greater the results. 

Our means of personal locomotion here is by thought―

We can apply that same means to what the earth world would call ‘inanimate objects.

In the spirit world, nothing is inanimate―

Thoughts can have a direct influence upon all the countless things of which the world of spirit is composed. 

Ships are meant to float and move upon the waters―

They are animated by the living force that animates all things here [in the spirit-world]―

If spirit-lives wish to move them over the water, they have but to focus their thoughts in that direction, and with that intention―

Thoughts produce the desired result of movement. 

If wished―

Call upon their scientific friends to provide them with splendid machinery to supply the motive power, and they would be only too pleased to oblige them. 

But they should have to focus their thoughts upon the machinery to make it generate the necessary driving force. 

Why then go this long way round to produce the same result when they can do so directly, and just as efficiently?

Do not conclude that anyone can move a boat through the water merely by thinking that it will do so. 

It requires, like so many other things, the requisite knowledge―its application upon well-ordered lines, and practice in the art. 

A natural aptitude greatly helps in these matters―

Once the ability has been gained, it gives one a most satisfying feeling of power rightly applied―

Not only of power, but the power of thought in a way that is not perhaps possible in some other ways. 

Perfect, as the movement of spirit-lives can be through the realms, yet the movement of such a large object as a boat, simply and easily, magnifies the wonder of the whole of spirit-life. 

There was no fear of accidents! 

They do not—cannot—exist in these realms.

The task of actually constructing a craft is highly technical―the methods of the spirit- world, so entirely different from those of the earth plane, have to be mastered. 

Although we must earn the right to possess in the spirit-world, we have the aid of our friends in the actual building. 

We can form in our minds, when on earth, the shape of something we long to have—

A garden, a home, or whatever it may be. 

It will then be a thought-form and will be converted from that into actual spirit-substance by the help of experts.