Is there such a thing as a spirit world?

Is there not organised in the spirit world a congress to control and direct the great spiritual movements in the earth life?

There is such a group of spirits, as your correspondent refers to, but they do not control the affairs of earth life―not by any means. They only exert as much influence over those affairs as they are able to by and through the instruments that they find on the earth. Sometimes, although they may desire to influence largely in certain directions, they may be prohibited from doing so because of the want of some instrument through whom to manifest. Sometimes the atmosphere is against them, sometimes the soil. Different localities produce different thoughts, as well as different material influences.

―Theodore Parker in Spirit