Developing the Spirit Body

In the spirit world on the earth plane, spirits have no police, no laws, no public opinion, no nations and no public institutions of any kind. All is open and free to everyone—in fact, the spirit side of our life resembles life in a city of the dead or a town besieged. Of course, for some, the life they lead there may have attractions that seem at first glance superior to the life they led on earth. Paupers and criminals have everything to gain by the change from one world to the other. They have nothing to lose and they leave nothing behind to regret; it would be a happy release for most to be free from the necessity of supplying the needs of the body had they not to supply the needs of the spirit instead. Most of them have never given a thought to their spiritual welfare whilst on earth and, as a consequence, they have to begin at the bottom of the ladder. In regard to material pleasures, such as appertain to the material body, they are much better off but, in regard to spiritual possessions, they are paupers indeed. Their great object, therefore, is to associate themselves with persons in the flesh and enjoy over again, by sympathy, the pleasures appertaining to the material body, without its penalties. Having lost their own material bodies, they use the bodies of others still in the flesh and incite the latter to all kinds of drunkenness and excess, so that they may gratify their own base desires. In our life, the principal aim is to supply the wants of the physical body, which helps to build up the spirit body within. In the Spirit World, the principal object should be to develop the soul that dwells in the spirit body, for the latter is not the spiritual man any more than our bodies are such.

In our world, we spend the greater part of our time in supplying ourselves with food and other bodily wants but that is not the sole object of life on earth, though it is the primary one, for, if the needs of the body are neglected, the result is that we come into the spirit world with a poorly developed spirit body and this must first be developed in the Spirit World before the soul within can begin to grow; hence, to neglect our body is to impoverish our spirit. The spirit body partakes both of the mental and bodily food, which we imbibe and it follows that if there is a spiritual counterpart to the physical body, there must be a spiritual counterpart to the food which we eat and this latter enters the spirit body in the same way that the physical body is fed by the material food. We can imagine that this proves that we are wrong in saying the spirit body is fed by the mind and not by the material body. There is this difference—that, whereas the material food we take into our bodies is needed to replace waste of the physical structure, the spiritual counterpart of the body imbibes the food for the purpose of preventing the waste of spiritual matter. Our spiritual body would waste away just as our material body would if we did not replace the waste by the food which the physical organism absorbs and of which the spiritual body receives its counterpart. Thus, we see, the spiritual body is precisely analogous to the physical body, so long as the two are conjoined. It is only when they become separated by death that the former is able to live independently. When we say that the mind builds up the spirit body, we mean that the mind supplies the food which is required by the soul that dwells in the spirit body. The soul shows its state of development by the condition of the spirit body. The spirit body is at once fed through the material body and clothed by the soul. The soul's condition is seen by higher spirits and the spirit body by the lower or earthly ones. To the latter, the spirit body may appear to be fully developed; whilst, to the higher ones, the spirit body may, by reason of the soul's non-development, appear to be half-starved.

One may have a diminutive body and a well-developed body if his brain is well-developed  and his physical body may have grown as far as the capacity for its development would permit. It does not follow because one is small and insignificant in our world that his personal appearance as a spirit will correspond, for the mind is the index to the man, not the body and if his mind is pure and beautiful, so will the spirit be also and yet he will not lose his personal identity in the next life since the growth of the spiritual body depends not only on the matter of which the earthly body is composed but upon the mind also.

We think that the spirit body will not be recognisable by persons who knew only the outward form of the individual on earth and were unacquainted with his mind but this is a mistake, for it is not his brainpower that stamps him as a spirit but his character—in other words, the quality of his soul, whether good or evil. He may be able-minded—that will not help to build up his spirit body; it is the amount of love in his composition, not the amount of mere knowledge he possesses, which helps to form the spirit body—though love should be based on knowledge if it is to be properly directed. When that is the case, knowledge becomes wisdom. We are mistaken, therefore, if we allude to the advantage of intellectual cultivation or the development of the mind as well as the body, for it is the cultivation of the love element in the soul which requires knowledge as a foundation, for love is only another form of knowledge. We love that which is true and good and pure and surely that implies a knowledge or appreciation of the objects of our love. We may love that which is base but that implies an ignorance of truth.

The suppression of selfishness, which is the one great vice of the present age and to which all other evils are more or less traceable is the first step towards the cultivation of the love element. It is the one thing Christ came into the world to teach and it is the one lesson that needs still to be learned.