What is the plain and simple truth?

 The Plain and Simple Truth

But ask the animals,

And they will teach you,

Or the birds in the sky,

And they will tell you—

Or speak to the earth,

And it will teach you,

Or let the fish in the sea inform you.

Which of all these does not know

That the hand of the Lord has done this?

In his hand is the life of every creature

And the breath of all mankind.

—Job 12:7-10 New International Version

A minute after you die, you are exactly the same—

You are the same in essence*.

*Google define essence—the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, which determines its character.

After death, life goes on—on a fuller and more abundant scale of living.

Intercommunication between the living and the so-called dead is a reality—

It is possible for the intelligent—

Eternal—

Self-conscious I to exert itself apart from the physical body—

The I persists and strengthens in consciousness, realising and accepting its place in a divine scheme.

VOICES FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD

 

Life can be so free here!

There is none of that machinery of living that makes people on earth such slaves.

 

In our world, a man is held only by his thoughts.

If they are free, he is free.

The next world is a world of thought—

You read others’ thoughts—

Commune with one another—

Project astrally—

Tune in—

See and penetrate matter if the desire is strong enough. 

You can still keep in touch with loved ones and be with them in an extension of consciousness.

Death is merely a transition stage between two great planes of life.

Go into the life to come with a full faith in immortality—a full faith in the power of the soul to create its own conditions.

The Thomas Bradford Experiment

On 6 February 1921, Thomas Lynn Bradford sealed his apartment in Detroit, Michigan, blew out the pilot on his heater and turned on the gas.

Some weeks earlier, Bradford had sought a fellow spiritualist in a newspaper advertisement. 

Ruth Doran responded. 

The two agreed that there was but one way to solve the mystery—two minds properly attuned—one of which must shed its earthly mantle.

On 8 February 1921, the New York Times ran a follow-up under the headline Dead Spiritualist Silent.

On 12 February, a week after Bradford’s suicide, Ruth Doran professed to hear his voice.

This was his message—

I am the professor who speaks to you from beyond. 

I have broken through the veil. 

The help of the living has greatly assisted me.

I simply went to sleep. 

I woke up, and at first did not realise that I had passed on. 

I find no great change apparent. 

I expected things to be much different. 

They are not. 

Human forms are retained in outline, but not in the physical.

I have not travelled far. 

I am still much in the darkness. 

I see many people. 

They appear natural.

There is a lightness of responsibility here unlike in life. 

One feels full of rapture and happiness. 

Persons of like natures associate. 

I am associated with other investigators. 

I do not repent my act.

My present plane is but the first series. 

I am still investigating the future planes, regarding which, we, in this plane, are as ignorant as are earthly beings of life just beyond human life.

Human intelligence is part of the essence of divinity and persists when the body has been cast aside. 

You do not die, for there is only life as an immortal spirit. 

Life continues. 

You only return whence you came. 

You have nothing to fear. 

There is simply a rebirth—a change of condition—a shifting of the scenes—an awakening in a new world.

I am alive again—and so happy.

I appear to be in a wonderful light and marvellous country of perfect conditions.

It is perfect and filled with light and perfume and life and movement.

I am a beggar in a wonderful state of life.

All progress is change, and your new consciousness is of light and action and joy.

You are conscious of a real—

Tangible—

Uplifting force of life-giving Love—

An ever-present—never-ending—never-failing force. 

This is a real and tremendous experience.

Do you regret your life here?

Yes—I might have done many things, which I neglected, but I am permitted another life.

Do you have any flowers?

Yes—loads of them. 

Everything is so beautiful—you would love it. 

Beauty is all about me.

How do you understand love now?

Love is a vast and wonderful sense of life and is the atmosphere we breathe. 

Without it, we could not continue to live.

THE BIG QUESTION

 

What is the experience of the soul immediately after it leaves the body?

The person approaching death experiences a gradual dulling of the physical senses. 

In many cases, this is the only phenomenon attending the approach of death. 

But in many other cases, while the physical senses are growing dimmer, the psychical senses are growing more acute. 

It is not uncommon, for the dying to manifest consciousness of sights and sounds in near and distant places.

The dying person frequently enters into spiritual communion and communication with those already on the other side. 

While the two may not be in nearness in space, they enjoy the closest relationship in mind and spirit.

The dying person's astral body, which is connected to the physical body by a slender thread or cord of astral substance, gradually disengages itself from its physical counterpart. 

Finally, this thread snaps, and the astral body slips away.

The spirit sinks into a deep sleep and restful state. 

It is being prepared for rebirth on the astral plane, and requires time to adjust itself to the new conditions, and to gain the strength and vigour required for its new phase of existence.

The spirit sleeps in peace—undisturbed by and protected from outward influences. 

It is different with the individual whose mind is filled with strong desires and thoughts of those left behind—providing such persons are in sufficiently close rapport with the departed spirit because of love or other strong attachments. 

These produce restlessness in the sleeping spirit, and tend to attract it back to the scenes of earth.

In the same way, the strong desires of those left behind often serve to establish a rapport condition between such persons, and the departed spirit, causing it to become restless and uneasy. 

These conditions disturb the spirit, deferring its evolution and development in its new phase of existence.

Telepathy gives you the key to the phenomena of the other side.

The astral body is an exact counterpart of the physical body—both are merely temporary coverings for the soul itself.

A person passing from the material into the astral plane in a peaceful state of mind is seldom disturbed in the astral sleep, living naturally through the resting state and evolving easily into its new phase of existence, as naturally as the unfolding bud into the flower.

Help me by loving me.

Your soon find your own.

Immediately upon leaving the earth, you gravitate to your rightful place—a mansion—a cottage—or even a hovel—as you have earned. 

It is essential, therefore, to regard life experience, whilst in incarnation on the earth plane, as a preparation for this existence. 

Live Life in Eternity Now.

LIVE LIFE IN ETERNITY NOW.

Your present life is not the only one. 

You have your next life to prepare for. 

In other words, the life you lead on earth is your preparation for your life in the next, and is the result of your earthly development.

Life on earth is surrounded by conventions that are the result of centuries of customs, and are as varied as there are different localities. 

These conventionalities are like the mist of the morning before the rising sun. 

Life on earth is judged by the standards established arbitrarily by some more or less worthy teachers, and is judged by appearances. 

All this, too, melts as the dew before the sun of truth.

Christ’s teachings were pure and true, and if really lived would make of earth a foretaste of heaven, for all that really matters in earthly-life is that you should have been honest, and sincere of purpose, and with a real love of your fellows.

Honesty means the naked—real purpose—which underlies one's acts, and is seldom faced even by one’s own self, but here—in the clear light of this purified atmosphere—you see so plainly, and all the shams and self-indulgent excuses, as you use them on earth, are effaced.

All are not strong enough to face the truth without fainting.

Love, too, has a different meaning. 

It is as much different from even the greatest earth-love, as the glorious sunset is more splendid than the firefly’s glow. 

Love is essentially unselfish in its essence and essentially beneficent in its results. 

It radiates, and gives strength and joy, and life becomes perfect in its warmth. 

It becomes absolutely selfless, and it is only when you begin to love one another that you are fitted to take up this work. 

Life must be lived for the good it radiates.

The everyday exercise of thought and love towards all is sufficient.

Earth’s dogmas—except for the two great laws—Love God above all things, and your neighbour as yourself—are superfluous and confusing.

I am surrounded by the love and care of God like a cloud of vapour would be to you.

As an individual, you act out only a small part of the grand scheme of the universe. 

Your best and only essential preparation, for worthily playing that part is truth and charity. 

No matter what the outward circumstances may be, the only essential for a better and larger life in the world to come is Love—

Love, in its spiritual sense—

The Love, which sees the best in others, and demonstrates honesty, helpfulness and understanding. 

Given this fundamental, all your intellectual attainments are of great value and determine your place in the scale of life in the next world.

Thank God—honesty was my one great ideal.

There is no day or night. 

Spiritual life is such as you sometimes dream. 

Time does not count. 

Life seems material.

You are never tired—

Nothing is the least effort. 

The spiritually savvy [unlike those who are very ignorant of spiritual things] can go right on—their transition is smooth and demands seemingly little effort or difficulty. 

In the next world, as on earth, there are as many experiences, as there are individualities.

You move about without effort by a mere wish or desire. 

Space and time do not exist. 

It is as though a wonderful intelligence is all that really existed, and that intelligence makes you perceive that your life is sustained by the most marvellous life-giving Love.

WORDS EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW

How strange is the lot of us mortals!

You are here for a brief sojourn, for what purpose, you do not know, though you sometimes think you sense it.

But without deeper reflection, you know from daily life that you exist for other people—

First of all, for those upon whose smiles and well-being your own happiness is wholly dependent, and then, for the many unknown to you to whose destinies you are bound by the ties of sympathy.

A hundred times every day, I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labours of other men—living and dead—and that I must exert myself to give in the same measure as I have received, and am still receiving.

—Albert Einstein

In this life, you awaken to the splendour of spiritual life. 

You are perfectly happy. 

You want to know, and go on. 

You feel elated and uplifted by a sense of life and joy beyond expression. 

You know your life is just beginning and you are conscious of every moment.

Are you never lonely?

Loneliness and happiness are incompatible—I am happy.

Are there little children where you are?

There are all sorts of lovely beings, but their age does not seem definite, as it did on earth.

How are you taught? In classes?

 

There are no classes.

I am instructed by a sort of absorption of this life-giving Love.

I am much stronger and every day—as you call it—I see more.

I am, at last, freed from all restraint.

My real nature and love of the beautiful and the ideal is able to go on untrammelled.

I long for the complete and full expression of my nature, and know with a marvellous certainty that it is to come.

THE SPIRIT WORLD—OUR NEXT HOME

SPIRITS' EXPERIENCE WHEN ENTERING THE SPIRIT WORLD

THE FIRST STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

I shall try to explain to you my mental condition while yet on earth, for it is the mentality that affects the physical condition and determines our state. 

I was, for some months previous to my death, as you call it, much disturbed mentally on account of the war, and the loss of friends, particularly of Percy, so I tried excessive exercise and work to keep me from thinking too much and torturing me with the unanswerable question of why it should all be, but try as I would, I could not shake off the depression, which had hold of me and made all that had hitherto seemed of interest, perfectly flat and meaningless—

So when I fell ill, I was so tired that nothing mattered—

The spring had snapped, and it had snapped simply because I was discouraged with the meagre result of our best efforts. 

I wanted to go to sleep, and had an idea that death meant just that—

Sleep and infinite effacement. 

I fell asleep with this conviction, or rather this hope, and this state affected me to the extent of making me unconscious of the passage of life on earth to life here, which is as far removed from our conceived idea of heaven, as anything could be.

I have since learned that the mental condition of the dying always affects the first state of consciousness in this life, therefore, when you awoke me [being brought to consciousness by his mother’s wish to communicate with her son], my surprise was very great, and my joy unbounded to think I was really alive after all, and with all the vigour and vitality of youth, and all the joy of its most supreme moments fulfilled.

The mental condition of the dying always affects the first state of consciousness in this life.

I was so intensely grateful to you for calling me that I immediately opened my eyes to understand where I was and when and how.

I found a splendid old man. 

I say found because one seems to see, but it is all without any effort—only desire. 

I felt surrounded by sympathetic understanding and love, and I knew that you had brought me into communication with a rare and wonderful mind who took charge of me from that moment—

I began to see and understand, and also to determine that through me, he would speak to you and bridge this chasm between us.

I was from the first quite conscious of my own old personality with its desires and ideas—only the externals had disappeared. 

My curiosity to know was as great as ever, and it was as if I had suddenly been transported to some strange and delightful country where conditions of climate and beauty of aspect were so perfect that the annoyances incident to earth life had vanished, and all the obstacles to perfect expression had been dissipated.

I remembered my past, but could realise its best aspirations—

I felt free and happy in the conscious strength given me by the transcendent atmosphere of love.

It is real—

It is intelligent—

It is exquisitely beautiful—

It is exhilarating—

It gives clearness of vision, and strength of purpose, life and certainty of expression.

In its light, we know that the best is possible.

You dwell in a realm of thought. 

This new dimension, or thought-power, can penetrate the dense place, which is our world. 

The exchange of thoughts and ideas is without conversation. 

Ideas, thoughts and desires are understood without expression by those with whom you are in harmony.

The joy that pervades life on this plane is difficult to put into words for you. 

Here thoughts and ideas are interchanged by a sort of automatic intercourse, or rather an interpenetration of mind.

Words and languages have ceased to be necessary as a vehicle of communication.

I am sauntering along paths among exquisite flowers and trees in the glorious light of a perfect day.

This light itself is a marvellous pleasure to the senses you now possess.

It is a glorious, enveloping, self-radiant glow that leaves no shade, and comes from no sun.

It seems to be self-generating, but never too great to be perfect.

It does not seem to generate heat, only light and joy.

There is no hurry, and you know you can only see so far as your development permits, but you know, too, that there is no obstacle to perfection.

Your life is a purely intellectual one passed in the pursuit, or rather, the absorption of knowledge, which every day becomes clearer.

No earthly experience can compare with the spirit’s joy and exaltation of this new world—a joy and exaltation, which is likened to the joy and exaltation of the discoverer when finding some unknown treasure.

In this world, there is clarity of vision—

The mind is perfectly free and capable of progressive understanding.

The spirit equates those rare moments in earthly life when natural beauty was so great that words were not only unnecessary but discordant. 

So the spirit feels, and so is language halting before the beauty and glory of nature.

There are many conditions of life on this plane. 

Each spirit is permitted to progress—

The divine spark of life is eternal and inextinguishable. 

Those whose lives on earth were earnestly and persistently devoted to their spiritual development, and to doing good to their fellow beings, are received in the light. 

They go on intellectually just where they left off, and progress rapidly.

In this plane, as on earth, you are endowed with free will and can choose the particular sphere in which you will work.

Groping in the Dark

Many never think. 

They live superficially, and in a state of reflected morality, which is without force or character either for good or evil. 

They remain long in the shadows, or mist, and are slow to progress—

Until they recognise their own shortcomings and ignorance, it is not possible to give them help. 

Ultimately, they gather strength from the force of love about them, and so begin to question and grow. 

They are like bulbs buried in the earth—

They have glorious possibilities, but remain impervious to them until exposed to the sun of truth, which must penetrate the cloud of their ignorance.

There is a vast crowd of mortals who have moments of exalted virtue and sincere desire to do right who fall victims to the varied temptations of life. 

These suffer periods of purification, which are bitter and full of remorse and horror, for they realise that it is entirely through their own weakness that they have failed to follow the good they frequently glimpsed, and in this pure and radiant light, they see their own lives. 

They are permitted periods of repose and joy, which refresh and comfort them because they know they will return to the expiation work, which they consciously undertake, as they see that this is their only purification. 

The periods of exaltation, which they enjoy make them realise that all that is best and noblest is to be within their grasp, and they gladly devote themselves to whatever work is given to them—to be the sooner ready to undertake the glorious work of fulfilment they have been given glimpses of.

I am going to explain to you the various classes, or grades of beings on earth, and how, when they come into this life, they are naturally placed where they themselves have prepared. 

Of course, there are numberless variations, but there are several general groups.

In the last-mentioned group are the majority of the intellectual workers of earth, and in their work of expiation here, they are given tasks for which their earth development best fitted them.

THE LAW OF VOLUNTARY EXPIATION

I want to try to make a little clearer this expiation* I mentioned.

Despite great suffering and anguish, there can never be despair among them, for the periods of light, when they see the glory of the radiant day, casts an effulgence* over their days of suffering.

Their suffering is real, but it is voluntarily undertaken to expiate their past sins.

*Expiation—the act of making amends or reparation for guilt or wrongdoing; atonement.

*Effulgence—shining brightly; radiant | emanating joy or goodness (of a person or their expression).

—English Oxford Living Dictionaries

Your work of expiation entails suffering [one is in the depths of darkness, so-to-speak], yet the way opens vistas of light, leading you to the glory of an effulgent day, mingled with visions so transcendently beautiful that it is led into the glory of an effulgent day—

The atmosphere, which surrounds you is like a tonic, giving strength and joy and knowledge. 

You know through senses developed since coming here that you are an immortal soul, conscious of Divine Life, and the promise of full opportunities of perfect fulfilment.

Regular work is of immense importance.

Spirits love to be useful, and can still exercise their skills in this new life.

Where Souls Go Up and Down

My friend, there is nothing to fear in death. 

It is no harder than a trip to a foreign country—the first trip—to one who has grown oldish and settled in the habits of his own more or less narrow corner of the world.

When one comes out here, the strangers whom one meets seem no stranger than the foreign peoples seem to one who first goes among them. 

One does not always understand them—

There again, one's experience is like a sojourn in a foreign country. 

Then, after a while, one begins to make friendly advances and smile with the eyes. 

The question, Where are you from? meets with a similar response to that on earth. 

One is from California, another is from Boston, and another is from London. 

This is when you meet on the highroads of travel, for there are lanes of travel over here, where the souls go up and down, as on the earth. 

Such a road is generally the most direct line between two great centres, but it is never on the line of a railway. 

There would be too much noise. 

You can hear sounds made on earth. 

There is a certain shock to the etheric ear, which carries the vibration of sound to you.

Sometimes, you settle down for a long time in one place. 

I visited an old home in the State of Maine where a man on this side of life had been stopping, for I do not know how many years—

He told me that the children had grown to be men and women and that a colt to which he became attached when he first came out had grown into a horse and had died of old age.

You see your past as through an open window.

You see the road by which you have come, and mapped the road by which you mean to go.

You manage to get over space with incredible rapidity.

The Spirit’s Life Review

In The Life Beyond Death, Yogi Ramacharaka [pseudonym] sheds light on the phenomenon of the review of the past life of the Spirit—that great panorama that passes before your mental vision, as you sink into the spiritual slumber. 

This process really occupies but an infinitesimal moment—

A moment so brief that it can scarcely be spoken of as a point in time [in the space of a moment]. 

Yet in this brief moment [the process of concentration is intensified and the single point of time covers the period of the longest life], you witness the panorama of the life you have passed on earth. 

Scene after scene of infancy to old age passes before you in review. 

The most insignificant incident is reproduced with as much fidelity to detail, as is the greatest event. 

The subconscious planes of memory unfold their secrets to the last—

Nothing is reserved or withheld. 

Moreover, you—by your awakened spiritual discernment—can know the meaning, cause and consequence of every event in your life. 

You can analyse and pass judgement upon yourself, and your acts. 

Like an omniscient and impartial judge, you judge yourself. 

The result of this process is that you carry with you into your slumber-state a concentrated record of your entire life, including the seeds of your desires, ambitions, likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions—there to become as seeds, which will produce better fruit in the future. 

These seeds serve to bear the fruits of future character so far as the required characteristics and desires will admit.

In Testimony of Light, Spirit Sister Frances describes her experience in a letter to Helen Greaves, amanuensis—

I still have the same experiences—the same problems—the same hopes—with even greater and wider aspirations for work, only now, I view them from an entirely different angle, and with far greater dawning comprehension.

Now, I am learning to apprehend the meaning of much that happened to me. 

I see it as a background Pattern. 

In a way, I am beginning to realise the effects of my thoughts, and to view the events that were set in motion by these very thoughts and ideas.

This is indeed a most sobering exercise.

When in the body, one is so limited by environment, emotions and difficulties that it is very hard to judge accurately such results. 

When you do try to assess the value, you are so often wrong because you yourself [your small egotistic self] gets in the way and deflects the purpose.

Here you live so much more in the realm of mind. 

As you ponder over an experience, or a purpose, the mind stretches out to see all sides of the problem. 

This is a new, and not always exciting, or pleasant experience. 

It is rather like a chain reaction—much more potent and real than the old association of ideas of earth psychology. 

Here as one thinks—one is.

This can be described as a stretching of the mind period.

As one thinks—one is is factual.

You are under no compulsion to review your past life on earth as soon as you arrive and the new life begins. 

Some take a long while to tackle the problem. 

They dread to see the effects of mistakes and failures.

Some of our patients here have got stuck. 

And that is where I, who myself am undergoing this kind of mental and spiritual psychiatry, can help them. 

That is partly why I have elected to stay on here for a space until my own course has become clear [both past and possible future] and until I have been able to rectify the places in the chain where I have failed. 

My experiences as a teacher, a religious, a psychologist, and an earnest seeker after the spiritual life are of great value now. 

I have some background on which to draw and which might [and sometimes does] help those who are too timid or frightened or guilt-ridden to attempt the work for themselves. 

Besides, you know the old adage that you learn by teaching. I am doing just that now.

The method here is interesting and provocative.

Somewhere, in the deeps of my mind, two blueprints are brought forward into your consciousness. 

These are so clear that you can [literally] take them out, materialise them, and study them. 

One is the Perfect Idea with which your spirit went bravely into incarnation. 

The other is the resultant of only a partially understood plan—

Your life as it was actually lived.

It is shock to you, and a very salutary experience to find that these two plans differed exceedingly.

And yet one learns so much by facing the results.

In a way, the blueprints resemble maps with coloured places, and light and dark patches, and a kind of glowing sun, for the highlights. 

First of all, the mind looks at the whole comparison, and sets the blueprints side by side.

This is the first shock—a true humbling of yourself to find that you did so little when you would have done so much—that you went wrong so often when you were sure that you were right.

During this experience, the whole cycle of your life-term unfolds before you in a kaleidoscopic series of pictures. 

During this crisis, one seems to be entirely alone. 

Yours is the judgment. 

You stand at your own bar of judgment. 

You make your own decisions. 

You take your own blame. 

You are the accused, the judge and the jury.

Yours is the judgment. You stand at your own bar of judgment. You make your own decisions. You take your own blame. You are the accused, the judge, and the jury.

This is where quite a few souls in this Rest Home have become immobilised. 

Their pictures were too searing in their exposures. 

So we try to help them along, but only when they have made the inner desire to right their wrongs. 

Until that decision, I do not know what happens to them, but I should think that they are prisoners of the self.

Immediately, these souls become ready to face themselves again, they are guided to these beautiful and peaceful homes. 

Here, the Sisters devote their love and thought, skill and experience to aiding the stumblers.

The second stage of this recapitulation starts when the soul feels strong enough, and calmed sufficiently, to take the earth's life round by round [so-to-speak]. 

Then, the blueprints are brought into the mind again—only this time the start is made from the moment of departure from the body. 

The mind works slowly backwards through one’s experiences.

Someone is beside you. 

Whether it is your own High Spirit, or a Great Helper, I have yet to discover. 

Only now, as you ponder—work out—go over—tabulate—judge what you did, AND WHY AND WHAT WERE THE RESULTS [good or bad], you are gloriously aware of this great being beside you, giving strength, peace, tranquillity, and helping with constructive criticism.

This is a wonderful experience—harrowing at times—but very cleansing and bringing new hope.

Lots of those here have got stuck on their first picture. 

So we [the Sisters here in the Home] try to link up with these great ones, and bring help and strength to the stumblers’ level.

THOUGHTS ARE THINGS

You have no conception of the permanent beauty you are creating when your thoughts of love go out toward your fellow beings. 

In your soul is set into action forces of peace, harmony and creation, and this materialisation of power sets into permanency the thought so set forth.

Nothing has been forgotten in the Home provided for you. 

Through your efforts now, you are creating that which is Eternal. 

Send out those thoughts of love towards others. 

Through its thoughts of love towards its mother or father, even a child can set into action these great powers.

God is inherent in everything because He is a God of Nature, and does not step outside Nature to perform His Work.

What you believe matters.

Death only shifts the fulcrum.

Spiritual life is closely allied to earth-life, and is only an outgrowth of earth-life.

Prepare for a natural heaven.

Heaven is only our natural world intensified, and unblemished.

As the spirit form is composed equally of magnetism and electricity, it finds no difficulty in travelling as fast as a bolt of lightning.

You take up whatever is dropped in earth-life, and perfect it.

You enjoy loving communion with kindred—unalloyed by earth’s cares.

You are again in the prime of life.

Old age is a garment worn-out, and is left in the past.

Dress depends on the state of the spirit, and comes just as naturally, as the spirit body. 

Spirits adapt to the conditions of change through different spheres, and leave behind the manner and fashion of dressing as on earth except when they wish to appear to their earthly friends in a natural way.

As the spirit grows, its capacity for good enlarges, and its raiment grows brighter. 

The increase in the beauty of the body is in proportion to the increase in soul-worth.

The desires of the heart furnish the homes of spirit-lives.

The spirit suffers no physical care or fatigue.

The spirit speaks by thought—by telepathy [this is how it overcomes the difficulty of different languages]. 

This does not mean that it has no privacy of thought, and that its mind is open for all to read. 

The spirit has to project a thought when it wants to communicate that thought.

It is possible for the spirit body to go through apparently solid substances—just as sunlight goes through glass or heat—for no atoms of matter are actually touching, however solid they may appear to be.

You do not age permanently although you carry the impress of the body when you first come over—by degrees, freed from material care, the signs of age disappear, and the spirit-body looks like that of an adult in the prime of life and perfect health.

Death is a great leveller—

The mind remains in its unconcealed magnanimity, or meanness, and gravitates to its proper sphere.

The spiritual body pervades the external form. 

Bone pervades bone—muscle, muscle—nerve, nerve. 

The spiritual is a simile of the earthly body, and when the earthly dust is brushed off, you find yourself the same entity, with similar thoughts, desires, passions, affections, and emotions. 

The earth and the spirit-world are similarly related being intimately blended without any chasm between them.

The individual who has obeyed the laws of his nature passes quietly from one room to another, calmly and easily, as the ripened apple falls from its parent stem.

The refined ether of space is slightly denser than spirit-forms. 

Being relatively lighter, gravity is nearly suspended. 

Spirit-lives assume positive action through the exercise of will, and move wherever they will with a rapidity exceeding light. 

Their flight to a distant star is almost as instantaneous as thought. 

The more elevated the spirit, the easier this feat is performed. 

Low minds cannot rise into space, and these are around you all the time. 

These can control the physical things of earth. 

The more exalted the spirit becomes, the less it can control physical matters, and it becomes impossible to do so directly.

In the spirit-world, thoughts and ideas are interchanged by a sort of automatic intercourse.

You are making a soul-picture for your future life—

Every good thought or act is stamped on the sphere of home—

Evil acts and inharmonies of life are stamped in the sphere of inharmonious or undeveloped land.

Heaven is a place with spheres, or belts, which are—of themselves—a universe to the inhabitants. 

Each sphere is perfectly adapted to the wants of those inhabiting it. 

The first and second spheres resemble earth in their material properties and surroundings—

The element of earth being but a little coarser than those of the first sphere.

The first is so nearly allied by the interchange of magnetic and electric forces—giving the same sensations—that the spirit, on entering this sphere, often mistakes it for his earthly home, and vibrates between it and earth.

THE SPIRIT BODY

Spirit bodies are not made of ether—

They manifest on the Etheric Sphere.

Spiritual spheres are built of, and formed, in Ether.

The spirit body exists on the Spiritual or Etheric plane.

Spirit bodies are made of chemicals and gases and atoms of a finer kind than one gets on the earth-plane.

These are held together in much the same way as the atoms of the physical body, but this body does not disintegrate in the same way as the physical one does because life in the Spiritual or Etheric planes is many times longer than the one on the earth-plane.

There is something substantial about the spirit-body. 

The nearer a spirit goes to the God-force or Life-force, the lighter the entire etheric body becomes, for the greater Life-force in the higher spheres requires less chemical matter.

The spirit body’s chemical constituents are very much like that of the earth-plane in the denser spheres.

THE SOURCE OF ALL POWER

In Claude’s Book, Claude asks the reader to draw a circle for the earth—around that, to put seven circles, one outside the other, for the seven spheres. 

Outside these—filling all space—is an enormous force—an actual force—which seems to contain many strong powers, or forces, that are undiscovered on the earth-plane, but which are contained in the God-force or Life-force. 

Everything that has life is animated by this God- or Life-force, and the nearer you go to it, the more you can feel it. 

Electricity is only one of the many constituents of this force—

In the spirit world, this force is understood to be one enormous power that is known to be there—

This force is felt, as this power penetrates through the spiritual spheres and reaches the earth-plane.

Although it seems to come in a massed condition as it touches the earth plane, it divides itself into different manifestations.

The God- or Life-force holds together everything on the earth-plane and animates it.

 

The God- or Life-force is to all atomic matter what water is to dry matter—it consolidates it.

The whole universe is full of revolving atoms, but unless they are gathered and solidified in a mass, you would not see them. 

Earth is only atoms gathered into solid form—

If you were to scatter them sufficiently, they would go out into the universe again—back into space whence they came.

Your whole human life is either a preparation for an infinitely fuller, more satisfying life, or an experience of remorse that is indescribable suffering.

Almost immediately after death, you find yourself possessed by the power to read or hear thoughts.

The different spheres in the spirit-world are strata or layers—one above the other. 

A spirit world is a vast globe very many times larger than our earth. 

The different localities in this spirit world are termed spheres. 

Spirits passing from the earth are drawn to different sections of this immense globe according to their development.

I see life everywhere about me—busy, happy life.

Spirits fly to and fro on missions of love or mercy—

Many have a light like a sun radiating from their head and figure.

One can see these lights at a great distance, shining in various colours and different degrees of magnitude.

When moving toward you, the light appears to open, and you recognise some friend or individual approaching to talk with you, for although it is not necessary to be near friends to speak with them, spirits generally desire to be near those they love.

If love is given unselfishly, generously, and wisely, it is returned in greater measure by the thought and influence of spirits in the higher life, which materialise according to the requirements of the earth-plane.

Nothing in nature is ever lost—

Life does not cease to exist because the physical body is destroyed.

Life or intelligence is spirit and continues to exist somewhere.

Spirits out of the body are the same individuals in every respect as they were when living on earth.

When you leave your body, you leave material conditions. 

You live in eternity, and try to understand something about your new surroundings. 

Progress is essential. 

Standards are not the same as on earth. 

There are no conventions or creeds. 

You are taken alone—go on—remain behind—exactly according to the real worth of your inner self.

The spirit holds the same relation to spiritual things that you hold to physical nature. 

Death opens the door and admits the freed spirit into a new and glorious realm of happiness.

Prepare for immortality.

Natural and chosen guardians nourish, protect and educate children in spirit life. 

These are taught through play or amusement. 

Everything a child or youth learns is placed before it as pleasing amusement or something delightful and beautiful necessary for their information, instruction and happiness.

Children are often brought to earth to be sustained by the mother’s magnetism [or some member of the family]. 

An infant is always held within its mother’s magnetic arms until it can be sustained without it.

Societies are varied according to their requirements. 

All arts and sciences are investigated and taught in the higher realms.

Here is the classical scholar—the artisan—the poet—the explorer—everyone perfectly represented and enjoying his vision of higher life and perfecting his highest ideal or conception. 

Comprehending the beautiful, spirits attract the beautiful to them. 

Nothing is allowed to mar inspiration in the heavenly spheres. 

All things minister to those visions of soul inspiration.

God works automatically through the regular operation of His Laws.

The spiritual sun emits a halo that envelops all scenery with an auroral light of genial warmth. 

Scenic changes are beautiful, and give a variety of seasons.

All the animal creations are here in their form and sphere—

All—everything like earth—and much that earth does not have because of her density.

You find so many things like earth.

The variety of scenery is so beautiful it has never entered the human mind to conceive the glories that await the pilgrim stranger to this fairyland.

Homes are constructed for the education and blending of all that come within the sphere of domestic ties.

Societies associate for the advancement of knowledge.

Cities are on a different plane from the earth and on a grander scale of conception, for the spirit is ever reaching out in its spiritual capacity for knowledge within its sphere of attraction.

Divisions of religious teachings do not diversify spirits—

All are of one mind—with full knowledge of the great Law of Love. 

The writer is now speaking of those spheres, which have fully awakened to the true spiritual condition of a Universal Father whose love permeates All Life. 

You find no isolated beings who are left to wander alone, but a general law that governs the whole—

All are welcome to come home where the vine and fig tree yieldeth its fruit—

No walls or barriers to the necessities of life. 

It is a spontaneous gift to all—

None lose the true condition of their spirit's teaching.

Here people live in sets or colonies because those of like interests and nationalities gravitate naturally to each other and their people.

The scenery of the spheres is not too unlike earth, but its transcendent beauty can never be described until seen with the eyes of the spirit-body.

Thought generates electricity, which—like lightning—conveys the idea and photographs it in another receptive mind.

You should understand that the language spirit-lives use here is thought-language. 

A Russian and an Englishman can speak freely together provided only that their level of development is the same—not only their intellectual education, but their spiritual knowledge. 

Evil is more powerful psychologically than good. 

Any man with willpower can draw evil spirits around him to accomplish his wishes. 

If he will aggrandise himself, and trample down what stands in his way, fearless of good or God, he will find assistance and become a Nero or Napoleon. 

Only the fluctuations of his own will can defeat the efforts of his evil guides.

Some spirits can assume almost any shape they choose because they understand the properties of matter—

They can draw out of the elements of Nature phantom shapes of flowers, trees, houses, horses, dogs, or with whatever they can superinduce a spiritual rapport.

Thought and desire become intensified in the spiritual condition.

Spirits eat the spiritual counterpart of our food—

They feel both hunger and thirst—as keen to them as our appetites are to us on earth.

A curated selection from Mc Evilly, M. A., Meslom’s Messages from the Life Beyond, 1920, New York, Bretano’s Publishers | Ramacharaka, Yogi, The Life Beyond Death, 1912, Chicago, Illinois, Yogi Publication Society | Barker, E., Letters from a Living Dead Man 1914, New York, Mitchell Kennerley, | Kelway-Bamber, L., Claude’s Book, 1919, New York, Henry Holt and Company