The Economy of Existence

Man dieth and wastes away, man giveth up the ghost.

This is according to appearance; the fact is that man does not give up the ghost at all—he gives up the body. Man has a threefold nature—the divine principle of life called the spirit, then the refined spiritual form consisting of subtle elements, which for want of a better name we call magnetism, called by Judge Edmonds the electrical body; lastly the gross outer physical system. The purpose of the physical body is to be a basis for the development and growth of the inner life from babyhood to manhood; it is merely the husk to protect the real being while it is ripening for the spiritual kingdom, and the meaning of death is that the spiritual form has served its purpose and drops off, ushering the spiritual man into a spiritual world—opening his eyes to a world of realities which surrounded him, though unseen, whilst living the earthly life.

Death, then, is a simple transition, taking place in the order of nature, in analogy with what we see taking place in the lower forms of organic life, such as the dropping of the husk from the ripened fruit, the liberation of the beautiful butterfly from its chrysalis form. When the person has lived rightly this event is anything but dreadful. The change is usually accompanied with the most agreeable and delightful sensations, our information on this matter being received from spirits themselves, and this being their uniform testimony. They compare it to the passing from a dark room into a bright one; awakening from a troubled dream to the realities of life; emerging from a dark tunnel into the splendour of day. The death of the body is neither a king of terrors nor the penalty of sin; these terms are only applicable to the condition of the spirit when degraded by a coarse and vicious life. Physical dissolution is a natural event in the economy of existence, the throwing off of the outer covering, to set the spirit free to enter its own proper realm.

Rev. C. Ware 

(The Encyclopaedia of Death and Life in the Spirit World—Opinions and Experiences from Eminent Sources, J. R. Francis, Chicago, The Progressive Thinker Publishing House, 1903)