Is hell real? Is hell eternal?

Those dark realms are not the theological hell to which people are

 condemned for all eternity, once in, never out again. 

Every person who at present is an inhabitant of those

 terrible places has the free choice to emerge from them whenever he changes his mind.

The law is

 

the same there as here, and applies to us all—there and here. 

And here is a living witness to what I say.

When I lived on earth, I was a successful businessman. Business was my preoccupation in life,

 for I thought of precious little else, and I considered all means right in my dealings with others, provided 

such means were strictly legal. As long as they were that, I deemed the rest did not matter. I was ruthless, 

therefore, in gaining my ends, and coupled with a high degree of efficiency, I achieved great commercial 

success.

In my home, there was only one person to be thought of, and that was myself. The rest of the family did

 as they were told—and I did the telling.

I always gave generously to charity when I thought I should derive the greatest benefit and credit for 

myself, for I did not believe in anonymity as far as I was concerned. If any donations were to be given I saw 

to it that my name was sufficiently prominent. Of course, I supported the church in the district where I lived, 

and at my own expense had some portions added to the building, with proper emphasis upon the donor.

The house I occupied was my own, and of such size and situation as befitted my position in the world. In 

every respect, I regarded myself as a god. It was not until I came to the spirit world that I discovered 

that I was one, made of tin, the sorriest, shabbiest god that ever existed.

I awoke to find myself in the dirtiest, wretchedest hovel you can imagine.

The house, the hovel, was small

. It stood in a horrible, bleak spot, without garden or any 

living thing roundabout. 

The inside was in keeping with the outside, poorly, meanly furnished.

The very clothes I was wearing were threadbare and soiled. In this dingy hole, I found myself 

smouldering with rage that I should have been reduced to such a state of 

squalor. 

I did not seem able to leave the premises—I felt glued to the house. 

I gazed out of the windows and

 

could see nothing but barren ground with a belt of mist not far away. 

A grim, dismal outlook in a literal 

sense. 

I stormed and raved

—I was consumed with anger, an anger that was aggravated by the fact that I did not know whom to blame

 for my present situation.

I considered I had been done a grave injustice, and that 

the Church, of which I regarded myself a most ornate pillar, had flagrantly misled me, and that I was called 

upon to pay for its mistake.

To whom was I to turn in my difficulties? 

I was perfectly well aware of what had taken place—in other 

words, that I was 

“dead.”

But the mere knowledge of that was of precious little use. 

I suppose I must have emitted some kind of thought in request of assistance. 

I was on the way to being something very different from the inflated egoist and spiritual blackguard that I 

was when I arrived in the spirit lands. 

I had to make up for all that was past. It was 

hard work, but I never lacked friends.