You yourself are judge and jury.

On the whole, this [the world of spirits] is the place for a square deal. You get what is yours, and get nothing more nor less. 

You yourself are judge and jury. 

That is the slick part of the arrangement. Self-accused, you have no escape. You get a true line on your own past, your own true motives, and this innate force within does the rest. I cannot but admire the simplicity and the lack of waste of the plan. Omar is right—

Thou thyself art heaven and hell.

Think of the labour-saving device it is. The system sets a soul free, leaves it alone, and the contained ingredients do the rest. 

Can you beat that?

—Spirit Harry

The spirit world is full of lonely souls.

In A wanderer in the spirit lands,* spirit author, Franchezzo, tells that the spirit world is full of lonely souls, all eager to return and show that they still live, still think of those whom they have left, still feel an interest in their struggles, and are as ready, and often more able to advise and help than when they were on earth, were they not shutout by the barriers of the flesh. 

He explains that he has seen many spirits hanging about the earth plane when they might have gone on to some bright sphere were it not for their affection for some beloved ones left to struggle with the trials of earth, and grieving in deepest sorrow for their death.  These spirits hang about them, hoping for some chance, which will make the living soul conscious of their presence and constant love.

Could these, says Franchezzo, but communicate, as friends do on earth when one has to go to a distant country and leave the other behind, there would not be such hopelessness of sorrow. 

Franchezzo has known a mother to follow her son for years, striving in vain to impress him with the sense of her presence that she might warn and save him from his path of sin. 

He has seen spirits in such sorrow, such despair, trying in vain to win one conscious look, one single thought, to show that their presence was felt and understood (Franchezzo has seen them in their despair cast themselves down before the individual, and seek to hold a hand, dress; anything). 

There is no despair of earth, great as it often is, equal to the despair a spirit feels when he realises the barrier, which death has placed between him and the world of living souls. 

*A. Farnese, A wanderer in the spirit lands by Franchezzo (Spirit), London, W. J. Sinkins, 1896

Have earth's joys proved faithless?

There is a heritage to come!

Section of M51 with progenitor star | NASA/ESA/W. Li and A. Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley)/S. Beckwith (STScI)/The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The Higher Life

The Higher Life

On the earth the broken arcs, 

In the heaven a perfect round.

Before we try to describe the spirit body and its functions, it will be well to speak of the new sphere in which the Spirit-soul is now manifesting.

This sphere is not one and single as the intermediate is, but is seven spheres closely connected together.

Perhaps a diagram will make this clearer.

The three central are the Unity Spheres; the side ones are the Duality Spheres.

The Diagram

I. The first Unity Sphere. Introductory, for strengthening and improving the character and the new powers.

III. The second Unity Sphere. For action and exercise of powers.

V. Third Unity Sphere. Peace; rest; the equipoise of the perfectly manifested being.

2. The first Duality Spheres. Discipline—the growth, guidance and strengthening of such parts of the being as were still weak and imperfect.

4. Second Duality Spheres. Discipline on a higher plane—the completion of the work. The man now passes into the last Unity Sphere, the sphere of perfection, and beyond that who shall say! 

The Duality Spheres are so-called, chiefly because the old double consciousness (which is almost dormant in the Unity Spheres) is again in force. In force, that is, in the sense of conflict of one part of our nature with another; not merely in the ability to think of ourselves as if we were two beings. This double consciousness is revived in the dual spheres because it is then easier for the ego to see its own weaknesses; to condemn and struggle against them.

Thus these spheres are dual as being in pairs; dual in the divided experience, and above all dual as to the double consciousness.

The unity are so-called, not only or chiefly because they are the one sphere for all, but because there this unity of consciousness is existent.

The unity of the whole seven in one is shown in the oneness of the man’s manifestation through all he dwells in his spirit-body; through all, he is a man of seven dimensions until he comes to the perfection of his being, as far as we can judge of perfection.

No spirit, we believe, ever passes through more than one of each of the two spheres marked 2 and 4—that is, he goes to the right, or to the left, but not to both. (The words right and left, of course, are used only in reference to the diagram).

What, then, causes him to enter one of these spheres rather than the other? 

It is the bent of his deep soul-character. There is no uniformity in mankind, rather there is infinite diversity. Yet it divides, broadly speaking, into two classes, call them by what name you please, say—

The religious and the scientific—

The imaginative and the practical—

The introspective and the outlooking.

Now, the soul that has the one bent passes into the opposite sphere, that his nature may be so cultivated and disciplined that he shall be a perfect and not a one-sided being.

When we speak of perfect and imperfect I think you understand our meaning. Sin—as you know it—is a wilful failure to do the thing that is known to be right, or the equally wilful doing of the wrong, sin, I say, is left behind finally in the psychic. By perfect I mean the essential being fully manifested and by imperfect we mean not fully manifested. 

Man, then, is not perfect until he reaches the seventh sphere; the Unity in Peace.

Man thus passes through only five of the seven spheres, but the seven are so closely connected by a constant stream of life circling through all, that he may be said to inhabit them all.

Finally, the three unity spheres are specialised thus—

I.—Is that state where all the qualities developed in the physical life reach their highest stage.

III.—The same, only psychical.

V.—The perfection of the pneumatic.

And now with what words can we describe the spirit-body? 

It is not like unto the physical or the psychical. It is not an etherealised earthly body, yet it resembles it at one point, it manifests the real man in various ways. You manifest yourself by speech and look, and perceive others by the touch and the ear. So the spirit has its spirit-vision, hearing, speech, etc.

Communicated by automatic writing; “I AWOKE!” Conditions of Life on the other Side, 1895, David Stott, London, Part II, The Pneuma, The Higher Life, 118-123

How are spirits governed in spirit life?

How are spirits governed in spirit life?

Government

We are not isolated units here, with merely individualistic needs and desires—rather we live under different governments, answering somewhat to your different nations. 

Two characteristics of earthly governments are, however, eliminated—e.g., all interference on the part of any, and all wilful misconduct. Our methods resemble an ideal patriarchal government.

The father in experience and wisdom advises, protects, and instructs those who are related to him in psychic bonds; that is in character and bent of the soul, but who are yet young and tender in the new life. 

All force, all necessity, all tyranny are absent, and one is guided or controlled most willingly or not at all. 

There is no possible place for punishment of any kind; to such as may in any way transgress the divine law there comes a sense of separation, which lasts until the faculties of the soul are readjusted. 

The old myth of the Tower of Babel is reenacted, for where there is no harmony of purpose, there confusion of language comes, and we do not understand each other’s speech; while, on the contrary, when all goes well, all will hear in their own language, whoever the speaker may be.

Just as the eye, the ear, and the palate choose and prefer some things to others, so the soul senses draw us to such things and people as can give us pure joy, or cause us to grow in the most healthy way possible.

When the Master was living his earthly life, your world, ours, and the next, all lay open to him much more fully than to most. There was so much in his nature that responded to heavenly influences, and so little to obstruct, that he may be said to have lived in all three at different periods of the same life. This openness of his is clearly shown in the story of his life, for the power was so abundant that even those around could not help sharing—they heard voices, they saw the heavenly messengers like birds descending; they saw the psychic body shine through the physical. The Master, then, knew enough of our life to promise to his disciples that if they fulfilled certain conditions they should attain certain planes of being. 

If they followed and obeyed—not a person, but those inner principles which belong to humanity—then they would be fit to lead others. 

So those who govern here are not the great ones of the earth, nor yet those who have been distinguished for great intellectual gifts—they are those men or women who, whatever position they may have filled, have been truest to their own nature, obeying the law within, without that parleying with the inner voice which leads to self-deception and crooked ways. 

Such govern and are as fathers to those who need help; while to others who need it not, there is as much freedom as if they existed alone in the universe.

We begin, then, generally as children, and gradually grow up to independent maturity; we become as fathers; we pass on to other worlds, while others take our vacant places.

Thus the law of change is still universal—the flowers change from one beauty to another or disappear from our view to reappear in other forms—the earth changes and beautifies under our faithful labour; our friends grow in spirit and sometimes they too pass away; our work, our thought, change and pass from one order to another.

A simple, natural life is ours with the sanctified will as the motive power; no machinery, no tools, no storehouse or barns; we are clothed upon as the lilies are; we gather the fruit for our healing straight from the tree of life. 

To those who are out of harmony with this divine order, this earth may often seem like a wilderness and the pools of living water like dreary wastes of sand—but this is only while their hour of tribulation lasts; only until they yield themselves to the law of their being, and become united, one, a whole creation. 

Our joys and sorrows, our trials and triumphs lie closely together, as they do in your world, but the joys are greater, and the triumphs more just and unsullied. 

We put our lower nature in its proper place of subjection under our feet and thus ruling it we rise to perfect manhood, and share the throne of all perfect humanity, and then we rise by and by to greater heights and share the throne of the Divine.

Communicated by automatic writing; “I AWOKE!” Conditions of Life on the other Side, 1895, David Stott, London, Part I, The Psyche, Government, 81-85

The Psychic Sleep

The Psychic Sleep

So He giveth His beloved sleep.

Goddard Beauties, Comet Siding Spring seen next to Mars | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) | NASA, ESA, PSI, JHU/APL, STScI/AURA

And now the psyche* sleeps for a while, for a few hours, days or years. This sleep is not that of unconsciousness—we call it so because it resembles your sleep greatly in this—that the sleeper is unconscious of his actual surroundings, while he moves and lives in fancy in other times and states. The length and character of this sleep depend entirely on the state of the man when he passed over—depend on what he was in his earthly life.

*Google define—the psyche as the human soul, mind, or spirit.

Goddard Beauties, Hubble helps find the smallest known galaxy containing a supermassive black hole | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC)

What are the soul experiences during this sleep, and what are the appearance and actions of the sleeper as viewed by us?

His experiences are as manifold, as different the one from the other as he differs in himself, for no two souls are alike, and no two can have exactly the same experience—diversity in unity is the law of our nature.

Diversity in unity is the law of our nature.

To some, there is a reliving of the past life, a taking up of broken threads, and a weaving of them together in a more finished manner—perhaps the failings are now first seen in their true light; the clouds of self-deception caused by self-love, wilful transgression, etc., fade away, and a soul can look back upon his past life with a clear and true vision, and when the soul thus truly sees and knows good and evil, it can but choose the good and refuse the evil. Others imagine that they continue their life, and starting with all the old habits and prejudices they gradually drop the evil and are strengthened in the good.

Goddard Beauties, Hubble paints a spattering of blue | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) | ESA / Hubble, NASA, D. Calzetti (UMass) and the LEGUS Team

Paul said We shall not all sleep and there is much truth in this, for to some it is of such a brief duration that it may be more truly called a change, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

We now ask—

What is the aspect in which we regard these sleepers, and what is their connection with us?

We look upon them much as you do on very young children—we care for them and guard them in much the same way. There is no sense of unfitness in their ignorance, and we can feel neither surprise when they awake quickly, nor impatience if the state is prolonged, for it is simply that their new powers are not yet adjusted to their new environment. They are not purposely deceived as to their state, but even if we should wish to tell them where and what they were, it would be as incomprehensible to them as deep philosophy to a young child. Then they need food—food which is the counterpart of

yours and they need employment in such ways as most resemble the old duties. In these and other ways, their past life is gently and gradually withdrawn from the prominent place in their mental horizon which it formerly filled, and the new rises, like a new day, upon their clearer vision. In different ways, the call comes to them to awake out of their sleep, arise from the earthly, and walk in the newness of life.

Will you always bear in mind that when we say—such and such things occur, or in this way the soul develops—we do not lay down any hard and fast law as to manner or sequence of development; rather we give you what is most general in our circle and in our experience. But as one flower unfolds and expands differently from another, so is it with the soul.

Goddard Beauties, Hubble shows the Milky Way is destined for a head-on collision | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) | NASA / ESA / Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas and A. Mellinger

The following history was received at an earlier period and has been inserted here that it may serve as an illustration of the Psyche's experience after the passing—

When I first awoke, I thought I was a girl again, and that the latter part of my earthly life had not yet been lived, but that my memory of it was only a dream, an imagination. Then, in a kind of vision (but I thought it a reality), I continued my life from my girlhood, and in the hour of great temptation—remembering my supposed dream—I withstood. Again the scene changed, and again I took up the thread of life at the same part as before. This time I yielded to temptation, but instead of keeping the birth of my child secret, I brought him up as my own and trained him as well as I could. One day I awoke to the consciousness that I had died, and oh! the rest and peace were great. After some time, I met my sister and began my real life here, but it has been much easier for that vision of life that I had at the first.

I will try to make our life a little clearer for you. 

In your world, the will can only produce things when joined to power of some sort. With us, the will can and does create our surroundings.

I mean by this that what we earnestly desire is in a moment evolved and completed, provided that our will is in harmony with the over-will of the Divine. If I will a home, that home stands immediately complete before me. When I met my sister it had been her wish to live alone.

Her life, therefore, was not so complete as it might have been. For my sake, however, she gave up her wanderings, and at a wish our home was ready, and we have dwelt there ever since.

Our life and our home closely resemble the lives and homes of earth, and this resemblance they will keep for some time, but as progress is the law for everyone, and as in their turn these new bodies of ours will seem gross and earthly, so we must cast them off and pass into higher spheres.

Goddard Beauties, Hubble's panoramic view of a turbulent star-making region | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) | NASA / ESA, D. Lennon and E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI), J. Anderson, S. E. de Mink, R. van der Marel, T. Sohn, and N. Walborn (STScI), N. Bastian (Excellence Cluster, Munich), L. Bedin (INAF, Padua), E. Bressert (ESO), P. Crowther (University of Sheffield), A. de Koter (University of Amsterdam), C. Evans (UKATC/STFC, Edinburgh), A. Herrero (IAC, Tenerife), N. Langer (AifA, Bonn), I. Platais (JHU), and H. Sana (University of Amsterdam)

But even here we are far in advance of you. If we really desire to know anything we know it without mistake. If we really desire to do anything for another, we see clearly what to do, and can do it. Only the will is needed, then there is no limit unless it would be hurtful to anyone.

If we need what we had not got for anyone, a wish would produce it, just as the Master could produce the loaves when he had a strong feeling of pity for the poor hungry souls around him.

Goddard Beauties, Hubble spies a UFO | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) | ESA/Hubble & NASA

Our life is portioned out into what answers to your mental and manual employments. We have the outward, and we have the inward; we work and we play; we talk and we think; we meet those that we love, and are parted from them again; we make new friends, and we love more and more the old ones. There is no mistake and no failure, as I say, except our own will fails. In that case, sorrow and repentance have to follow—we try again, and walk on a plain path in which there is no need to stumble.

Since I have been in this new home I have known what peace, love, and joy really are—all three unbroken, and increasing every day.

Goddard Beauties, Dark matter core defies explanation | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) | NASA, ESA, CFHT, CXO, M.J. Jee (University of California, Davis) and A. Mahdavi (San Francisco State University)

The Passing

The Passing

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;

The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting.

And cometh from afar—

Not in entire forgetfulness.

And not in utter nakedness.

But trailing clouds of glory do we come To God, who is our home.

Our birth into this new life differs in almost every point from our birth into the earthly. We owe our earthly body to others; our psychic body to ourselves. 

That is, the state of development in which we arrive here depends greatly on our past life, and we may be said to be born here as infants, children, or mature beings according to the past life and the present state of the true self. 

Our psychic body is being formed within the earthly during our earthly life, but the materials of which it is composed are not earthly but are finer, rarer, though still material, and capable of outward manifestation to the psychic vision.

The clay out of which the Spirit of Life creates our new bodies is not the old red earth, not the old Adam, but is like unto the resurrection body of the Master; a body which could not see corruption, and which the grave could not hold, though it might be guarded ever so closely.

The psyche, then, when it has quitted the earthly tenement appears immediately and suddenly in this—just as you see a man when he emerges from his house; a moment ago he was invisible to you, now he is completely visible. So it is here; the body, which is the only part of a man visible to your eyes, is the part that is invisible to us and hides him from us. Sometimes he appears for a moment here—shadowy and unreal, more like a vision—then disappears again for a while. 

This is when the soul is loth to leave the body and lingers near it.

When the time arrives for the psyche to quit the earthly plane and leave its earthly covering behind it, then the link which unites it to the physical is broken. This link partakes of the two natures, and the only pain and struggle connected with this passing is when the soul is unwilling to loose its hold on the earthly, or fears to do so. Then a moment of unconsciousness supervenes—a time of longer or shorter duration, according to circumstances. The psychical does not generally quit the body immediately, but slowly withdraws itself, and then only the body gradually decays and disintegrates—the lower forms of life escape to reincarnate themselves in some other form, while there must always be a certain degree of life abiding in each atom, for without it they would have no existence.

So the spirit of the animal goeth downward, remaining in the earthly sphere, and the spirit of the man goeth upward, entering into the higher life.

We now have the man, divested of his lower form, ready to enter into the intermediate state. And with what body does he come? With one that closely resembles the earthly one—very closely indeed at first—but with powers infolded within it that far transcend the old ones, though those powers are yet more or less dormant. 

The man is still far from being a pure spirit; he bears a form like the Master’s, a form which is in four dimensions, and which cannot be seen by ordinary earthly vision. The old body is the matrix in which the new man is formed, and from which, by the pangs of death he is parted, to enter into his second life. 

Now how does he appear on our side? Our eyes do not see the physical, which you always must bear in mind. What we see of the earthly is only the soul-image reflected in some medium. It is therefore after this uncovering that the newborn appears within the scope of our vision. He awakes and finds himself in a state that seems to him at first but the same to which he has been accustomed; he continues—as he thinks—his old life, until the fact gradually dawns upon him that the great change has taken place and that he has passed from death unto life.

Communicated by automatic writing, I Awoke! Conditions of Life on the Other Side, 1895, David Stott, London, Part I, The Psyche, The Passing, 22-6

Goddard Beauties, Ultraviolet Portrait of Andromeda Galaxy | National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) | NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)

The Change from Mortal Life to Immortality

I am Arthur Wellesley, known while on earth, as the Duke of Wellington, and at the age of 83, I finished my mortal career, or worldly existence, on the 14th day of September, in the year 1852. 

I am now commanded to describe the sensation I experienced while leaving the tenement of clay, which I inhabited. 

While lying upon my bed, supported by pillows of down, surrounded by every worldly comfort and luxury, with friends and relations bending and weeping over my aged and shrivelled form, watching, with the most intense and expressive anxiety, as each breath of vitality escaped through my parched lips, until, at length, by the convulsion of each successive fit, the difficulty of breathing increased, and my limbs gradually became paralysed and benumbed with a terrible sensation of a knowledge that death was at hand. 

I made an effort to speak, but the power of articulation had left me, and my limbs lay motionless and unable to obey the dictates of my will, although I felt that even raising a hand would abate the sensation. 

At length, the appearance of the apartment darkened, and all, for a few moments, appeared wrapt in gloom. 

The same moment a terrible sensation of cold, chilly, deathlike agony, seized my frame, while my heart appeared as a cold heavy stone, or icy substance—the weight of which forbade the office of its functions from being performed; and a dreadful noise, as if many waters were dashing furiously upon the rocks, filled my ears, and I made efforts to raise my head, but in vain. 

At that moment, a sudden thrill of indescribable pain ran through my whole frame; my limbs set, as with cramp, with an explosive sensation within my breast, and all was then still and tranquil, and my eyes again, as it were, opened, and I perceived the nearest friends bending over me, while tears bedewed their cheeks, and heard them articulate in stifled whispers the ominous words—he is dead. 

I appeared to smile at the assertion, for no pain was upon me, and I felt at ease, gazing upon them with astonishment and wonder, and made an effort to assure them of the contrary, but could not stir. 

At this moment, I appeared as if enabled to see in every direction, and felt as though in a dream, going from place to place without my body stirring, and knowing that it remained in the same position. 

I then felt myself seized by the shoulders, torn away through the apartment, which opened before me as if in a dream, was borne through the air, and could perceive fields, trees, hedges, waters, towns, villages and hamlets, which had the effect of bewildering my imagination, till at length, I found myself in total darkness, beyond the sound and reach of human ears or gaze, and then, for the first time, discovered the reality of my position. 

Here I could distinctly hear a complication of sounds of an appalling description, mingled together in the most distracting discord—music, singing, howling, screaming, with the most frightful yells of fear and alarm, which made me think of the reality of a hell. 

But I did not remain long in this state, but was shortly on my way back to the place where I had left my body, and which I knew was dead. 

I found my friends had left it cold and stretched to the full length. 

I gazed upon it with horror and amazement, and knew that it was myself, and then mingled thoughts of the world and my past life flashed before me. 

I endeavoured to persuade myself that my experience was a dream and wondered at the agility with which I moved from place to place, weak and feeble as I was, but there was the stem reality before me, cold, motionless and stiff. 

I endeavoured with my will to uncontract the limbs, to raise the head or the hand, but in vain. 

Still, I knew it was my body, and my will had exercised its power over its functions, which performed their office as I desired, but the effort was useless. 

I knelt by it, looked upon it with horror, felt of myself, and exclaimed, Are we separate beings, or what does this mean. Again the thoughts of the words, He is dead, recalled to my memory my exact position, and I knew I was only, as it were, the shadow of the reality, and wondered within myself what experience would next reveal. 

At this juncture, the door of the apartment opened, and fresh friends entered to see my body. 

They astonished me when they passed without noticing me, and though I knew them, some of whom were the most intimate friends, and offered my hand, it was unperceived or unnoticed. 

I wept bitterly on finding that I was in the room invisible to all excepting myself, and with these thoughts, I turned from my body, but, at that moment, observed the outstretched hand of an old friend whom I had known in former life, and who had died some twenty years previous. 

This inspired me with fresh hopes, and he kindly led me from the room unperceived or unheard. 

I, however, remained around the premises, and in the apartments, which contained my body until its interment, and witnessed the useless pomp displayed on the occasion. 

I also witnessed the tears of those who were nearest to me in ties of relationship and grieved that I could not explain to them the great relief I had experienced in the change from mortal life to immortality. From old, decrepit, feeble humanity, 

I found myself relieved from every worldly care and burden, but still experienced a terrible dread of the future. 

I must now leave you, for the present, but will give further description of the future state when permitted to appear.

 J. G. H. Brown, First Sitting, 16 March 1856—A Message from the World of Spirits, Holyoake & Co. London, 1807