What goes on in the spirit world?

God is no nearer to Spirit lives in the Spirit world than He is to us in the earth world. It is they who are nearer to Him because, among other things, they can see more clearly the Divine Hand in this world, and the expression of His Mind. 

Spirit lives occupy themselves in study―or they can engage themselves in the amusing recreations that abound in these realms.

Intellectual recreation, which may take diverse forms, is amply provided for in the halls of learning because learning can itself be a recreation.

One particular diversion that finds a very considerable measure of favour with Spirit lives here is that of dramatic representation of different kinds.

They have beautiful theatres situated in environments just as beautiful, worthy buildings devoted to a worthy purpose. The architects who design the buildings do so with the same meticulous care as is shown in all their endeavours, and the results reveal the degree of active co-operation that exists between the masters of the craft. The garniture, within is the product of skilled artists from the Hall of Fabrics―the gardens without have the same devoted care lavished upon them. 

Each theatre of this realm is familiar to them by the type of play that is presented in it. The plays themselves are frequently vastly different from those that are customary upon the earth plane. They have nothing that is sordid, nor do the authors of plays insist upon harrowing their audiences. They can see many problem plays where social questions of the earth plane are dealt with, but unlike the earth plane, their plays will provide a solution to the particular problem.

They can go to see comedies where, as Spirit Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson does assure us, the laughter is invariably much more hearty and voluminous than is ever to be heard in a theatre of the earth plane. In the spirit world, they can afford to laugh at much that they once, when incarnate, treated with deadly seriousness and earnestness!

They have witnessed grand historical pageants, showing the greater moments of a nation, and history as it really was, and where the original participants themselves re-enact the events in which they were concerned, first as the events were popularly thought to have occurred, and then, as they actually took place. These representations are among the most widely attended here, and never are there more attentive and rapt members of the audience than those players who, during their earthly lives, played the parts, in stage plays, of the famous characters whom they are now seeing “in the flesh.”

In such pageants the coarser, depraved and debased incidents are omitted entirely because they would be distasteful to the audience, and indeed to all in this realm. 

Spirit ives have no need here to take bodily exercise, vigorous―or otherwise, nor do they  need to go out into the “fresh air.”. Their Spirit bodies are always in perfect condition, they suffer no disorders of any kind, and the air penetrates into every corner of their homes and buildings, where it fully retains its purity. It would be impossible for it to become vitiated―or contaminated in any way. It is to be expected then that their recreations should be more upon the mental plane than upon the “physical.”

As most of the outdoor games of the earth world involve the use of a ball, it will be appreciated that here, where the law of gravity operates under different conditions from ours, anything in the nature of propelling a ball by striking it would lead to quite hopeless results. 

On the earth plane skill in games is acquired by the mastery of the mind over the muscles of the body, when once the latter has been brought to a healthy condition. Here efficiency is quickly gained, whether it is in playing upon a musical instrument, painting a picture―or in any other pursuit that requires the use of the limbs.

And it must be remembered that indoors―or outdoors are precisely one to them here. They have no changes of weather during recurrent seasons. The great central sun is forever shining―it is never anything, but delightfully warm. They never feel the necessity for a brisk walk to set their blood circulating the better. Their homes and houses are not necessities, but additions to an already enjoyable life. You will find many people here who do not possess a home―they do not want one, they will tell you, for the sun is perpetually shining, and the temperature is perpetually warm. They are never ill―or hungry―or in want of any kind, and the whole beautiful realm is theirs to wander in.

It must also be remembered that viewpoints change very much when one comes to live here. What they deemed so very important when they were incarnate, they find is not nearly so important when they  arrive in the Spirit world. And many of their erstwhile earthly games seem rather tame and trivial beside their greatly increased powers in the Spirit world. The fact that they can move themselves through space instantaneously is enough to make the greatest earthly athletic skill recede into insignificance, and their mundane sports and games are in similar case. Their recreations are more of the mind, and they never feel that they must expend a superfluity of physical energy upon some strenuous action, for their energy is at a constant level, according to their individual requirements. They find that they have so much to learn that they do not need the number―or variety of recreations that we do. They have plenty of music to listen to, there are such wonders in these lands that they want to know all about, there is so much congenial work to be done that there is no cause to be cast down at the prospect of there being few of the earthly sports and pastimes in the Spirit world. There is such a superabundant supply of vastly more entertaining things to be seen and done here, besides which a great deal of the earthly recreations appear sheer trivialities.