Such a weary, dreary task!

What is the condition and redemption in spirit-life of the one who was a wrongdoer in earth-life—say, of a murderer?

It depends upon the condition of wrongdoing―where no wrong is intended, no sin is imputed.

As in earth-life, one desiring to do the right who finds he may have unwittingly wronged another, experiences regret, and strives to redress the wrong, so the one who―in the light of spiritual unfoldment finds his earthly influence among men had a wrong―or corrupt tendency―strives by every means within his power to counteract the influence he left behind him by spiritual impressions, inculcating the right tendencies of thought. 

He is not comfortable in mind until he sees he has done something to appease his own regrets, and has witnessed some fruits of his opposing efforts.

Thus with the murderer who unintentionally deprives his victim of life. 

He devotes himself as soon as he is able to the amelioration of any adverse conditions of his victim outcoming from the deprivation of earthly experiences from which he was too suddenly cut off. 

But the Cain who deliberately spills his brother's blood through hate—his condition is the most wretched that can be imagined.

While no earthly repentance can atone for the deed, still if he truly repent in earth-life, it is a great help—he has before him the light of a true perception of his own condition, and he is permitted through his own earnest desire to begin to work out his own redemption through the devotion with which he lends himself to the service of his victim.

Such a weary, dreary task! 

The ages, stretching out before him, showing through their darkness, but one light for him—that of the service, which it is shown him he may perform toward his victim―or those who were connected with him upon whom his death may have had an indirect influence―through want and misery, perhaps, of depriving them of the spiritual development, which the wretched slayer may perceive might have been theirs if his hand had not deprived them of their loved one―or if thoughts of hate and revenge had not been engendered in their minds through the dreadful shock and sorrow, which they experienced.

For there is endless difference between a service, which must be performed to redress one's own wrongdoing, and a service wherein the highest seems to stoop to the lowest, yet proves his spiritual altitude by the largeness of his love when he bends.

The wilful murderer who passes over with his soul seething with the passions of hate and murder is indeed in outer darkness—

The darkness of his own soul, which excludes all light. 

There are the bad spirits—the ones who―imprisoned between barriers of their own wilful embracings of evil passions and undesire of betterment―are necessarily associated with only those as evil as themselves in a spiritual existence where only the laws of attraction regulate the planes of thought. 

And thus evil festering with evil reproduces evil in more hideous forms of thought than could be possible to a mind on earth―where from the admixture of good with bad, the most evil nature is constantly somewhat toned and improved. 

Not so here.

Now every individual spirit-life has an aroma, as well as every individual of the vegetable kingdom―be it attractive flowers―noxious weeds―or tempting fruit―has its odour. 

And there is a thought-atmosphere― as well as that every planet has its atmosphere, wherefrom the life pertaining to it draws sustenance, and likewise injury at times. 

The atmosphere of the earth will float miasmas born of its own species' decay, as well as the health-giving tonic native to its growth and unfoldment.     

The more subtle, soul-sustaining thought atmosphere is likewise capable of certain infections from the dark spirit-lives, which recede from light in place of advancing in order of progression toward it.      

These spirit-lives of darkness continually foster the evil influences on earth, while the spirit-lives of light as constantly lend their disinfectant, health-giving influence to the earth-developing souls. 

                                                              

No spirit of evil can come near enough to influence an earthly inhabitant to his harm unless his thoughts and desires attract it. 

But if his mind has a bent to delve in the darkness of error and sin, earthly workers may do far more to induce him to turn to the light than any spirit-lives of goodness and love can.

He may be influenced on earth through his outer physical conditions—

Oftentimes, his physical sufferings induce him to a different reflection, understanding and desire, but when the conditions of flesh are passed, and his soul can no longer experience bodily pain, there seems nothing to lift him to better thoughts and desires, and the spirit-life seems to lose even the rays of light, which were once native to it.

What the conditions of such a spirit-life's redemption may be we cannot tell. 

If he be really so lost to light, as to have no desire for betterment, the mind of God alone, which can know his whole condition―the reason for it―can know what may be his redemption, and what time in God's eternity it may take to solve it.

But we have no reason to say there can be no redemption more than that eternity can have an end.

It is not possible in a spiritual existence that the good should come near such evil—should even witness their manner of existence―or thought. 

They could not help them―

There would be nothing to attract on either side.

But we have never witnessed such a soul passing from earth-life―

Always there is a regret—

Always in the heart of the most stubborn-lipped wretch, there is a consciousness of wrong―an appreciation of the good and true that makes him willing to turn his face toward the light of improvement.

If he is unable to bear light from higher sources, he may return to earth to learn of those striving to be good there. 

His own influence is not good, since he is below those whom he approaches, yet the earthly one striving to do right protects himself by prayer—by the earnest wish of his soul to be right from all such influences that would be malarious to his spirit―

He has a sure antidote that is within the reach of everyone.

But it is important that you should get the right start in spiritual development in earth-life, else you cannot hope to do such double work as retracing your steps and ever catch up with those who―leaving earth in proper purity and development―keep steadily advancing toward the Centre of All Light and Holiness.

LEAFLETS OF TRUTH, OR Light From the Shadow Land

 

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

I want to say a word to those who are about to die.

Letter 15

A Thing To Be Forgotten

I want to say a word to those who are about to die. I want to beg them to forget their bodies as soon as possible, after the change, which they call death.

Oh; the terrible curiosity to go back and look upon that thing, which we once believed to be ourselves! 

The thought comes to us now and then so powerfully that it acts in a way against our will and draws us back to it. 

With some it is a morbid obsession, and many cannot get free from it while there remains a shred of flesh on the bones, which they once leaned upon.

Tell them to forget it altogether, to force the thought away, to go out into the other life free. Looking back upon the past is sometimes good, but not upon this relic of the past.

It is so easy to look into the coffin because the body, which we wear now, is itself a light in a dark place, and it can penetrate grosser matter. 

I have been back myself a few times, but am determined to go back no more. 

Yet some day the thought may come to me again with compelling insistence to see how it is getting on.

I do not want to shock or pain you―only to warn you.

It is sad to see the sight, which inevitably meets one in the grave. 

That may be the reason why many souls who have not been here long are so melancholy. 

They return again and again to the place which they should not visit.

You know that out here if we think intently of a place, we are apt to find ourselves there. 

The body, which we use, is so light that it can follow thought almost without effort. 

Tell them not to do it.

One day, while walking down an avenue of trees―for we have trees here―I met a tall woman in a long black garment. 

She was weeping―for we have tears here also. 

I asked her why she wept, and she turned to me in eyes of unutterable sadness.

I have been back to it, she said.

My heart ached for her because I knew how she felt. 

The shock of the first visit is repeated each time, as the thing one sees is less and less what we like to think of ourselves as being.

Often I remember that tall woman in black, walking down the avenue of trees and weeping. 

It is partly curiosity that draws one back, partly magnetic attraction, but it can do no good. It is better to forget it.

I have sometimes longed, from sheer scientific interest, to ask my boy Lionel if he had been back to his body, but I have not asked him, for fear of putting the idea into his mind. He has such a restless curiosity. Perhaps those who go out as children have less of that morbid instinct than we have.

If we could only remember in life that the form, which we call ourselves, is not our real immortal self at all, we would not give it such an exaggerated importance, though we would nevertheless take needful care of it.

As a rule, those who say that they have been long here do not seem old. 

I asked the Teacher why, and he said that after a time an old person forgets that he is old, that the tendency is to grow young in thought, and, therefore, young in appearance, that the body tends to take the form, which we hold of it in our minds, that the law of rhythm works here as elsewhere.

Children grow up out here and they may even go on to a sort of old age if that is the expectation of the mind, but the tendency is to keep the prime, to go forward or back towards the best period and then to hold that until the irresistible attraction of the earth asserts itself again.

Most of the men and women here do not know that they have lived many times in flesh. 

They remember their latest life more or less vividly, but all before that seems like a dream. 

One should always keep the memory of the past as clear as possible. It helps one to construct the future.

Those people who think of their departed friends as being all-wise, how disappointed they would be if they could know that the life on this side is only an extension of the life on earth! 

If the thoughts and desires there have been only for material pleasures, the thoughts and desires here are likely to be the same. 

I have met veritable saints since coming out, but they have been men and women who held in earth life the saintly ideal, and who now are free to live it.

Life can be so free here! 

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

In our world, a man is held only by his thoughts. If they are free, he is free.

Few though are of my philosophic spirit. 

There are more saints here than philosophers, as the highest ideal of most persons, when intensely active, has been towards the religious rather than the philosophic life.

I think the happiest people I have met on this side have been the painters. 

Our matter is so light and subtle, and so easily handled, that it falls readily into the forms of the imagination. 

There are beautiful pictures here. 

Some of our artists try to impress their pictures upon the mental eyes of the artists of earth, and they often succeed in doing so.

There is joy in the heart of one of our real artists when a fellow craftsman on your side catches an idea from him and puts it into execution. 

He may not always be able to see clearly how well the second man works out the idea, for it requires a special gift, or a special training, to see from one form of matter into the other, but the inspiring spirit catches the thought in the inspired one’s mind and knows that a conception of his own is being executed upon the earth.

With poets, it is the same. 

There are lovely lyrics composed out here and impressed upon the receptive minds of earthly poets. 

A poet told me that it was easier to do that with a short lyric than with an epic or a drama, where a long-continued effort was necessary.

It is much the same with musicians. 

Whenever you go to a concert where beautiful music is being played, there is probably all round you a crowd of music-loving spirits, drinking in the harmonies. 

Music on earth is much enjoyed on this side. It can be heard.

But no sensitive spirit likes to go near a place where bad strumming is going on. 

We prefer the music of stringed instruments. 

Of all earthly things, sound reaches most directly into this plane of life. Tell that to the musicians.

If they could only hear our music!

I did not understand music on earth, but now my ears are becoming adjusted. It sometimes seems as if you must hear our music over there, as we hear yours.

You may have wondered how I spend my time, and where I go. 

There is a lovely spot in the country, which I never tire of visiting. 

It is on the side of a mountain, not far from my own city. 

There is a little road winding round a hill, and just above the road is a hut, a roofed enclosure with the lower side open. 

Sometimes I stay there for hours and listen to the rippling of the brook, which runs beside the road. 

The tall slender trees have become like brothers to me. 

At first, I cannot see the material trees very clearly, but I go into the little hut, which is made of fresh clean boards with a sweet smell, and I lie down on the shelf or bunk along the wall, then I close my eyes, and by an effort―or, no; it is not what I would call an effort, but by a sort of drifting―I can see the beautiful place. 

But you must know that this is in the nighttime there, and I see it by the light of myself.

That is why we travel in the dark part of the twenty-four hours, for in the bright sunlight, we cannot see at all. 

Our light is put out by the cruder light of the sun.

One night, I took the boy Lionel there with me, leaving him in the hut while I went a little distance away. 

Looking back, I saw the whole hut illuminated by a lovely radiance―the radiance of Lionel himself. 

The little building, which has a peaked roof, looked like a pearl lighted from within. 

It was a beautiful experience.

I then went to Lionel, and told him to go, in his turn, a little distance away, while I took his place in the hut. I was curious to know if he would see the same phenomenon when I lay there, if I could shed such a light through dense matter―through the boards of the building.

When I called him to me afterwards and asked if he had seen anything strange, he said―

What a wonderful man you are, Father!

 

How did you make that hut seem to be on fire?

Then I knew that he had seen the same thing I had seen.

But I am tired now and can write no more.

Good night and may you have pleasant dreams.

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

What is the Psyche?

The Psyche

Before proceeding to describe life in the world of spirits more fully, it may be well to say something about the human ego itself, and the reason why its surroundings and destiny are so varied.

Why hast thou made us to differ? Why do some suffer the anguish of the body and misery of the soul, while others have no cross in their lot? Is this not a common cry?

But it arises simply from your short-sightedness—from the small, the very small portion of your life, which alone is open to spiritual gaze, but which self-love and self-pity magnify until it fills not only your earthly but also your heavenly horizon. 

You must take large views of life if you would understand it all clearly. 

You must think of the human ego as passing from eternity to eternity across the narrow bridge of time—as coming from the invisible All-Father—made manifest for a brief day, and then returning to the bosom of the Infinite. Incarnated first in the lowest phenomena; rising through the dead stone, the living plant, the animal, to the human ego—then disappearing to the eye of sense and living purely in the spirit.

Now as each human ego differs in manifested life from every other, it needs a different experience, and each is given the material (so to speak) from which it can derive the food best suited to its special needs. 

Some can only grow when their roots have struck deep in the black earth of sin; others require the knife of the pruner freely applied to them; while to others only sunshine and the dews of heaven seem necessary—to each the best and most suitable surroundings are given.

As souls pass over in all stages of their development, their life has to be very varied. On the other hand, the difference between one man’s destiny and another’s is not as great as it appears, especially if you could take the sum of their experiences. 

If your eyes could see the heart, as well as the life, understand the deepest springs of motive, and know fully all the powers of inherited evil, of susceptibility to influence, then many of the good and evil would stand on a greater equality in your estimation. 

Those crimes that shock you most are often small things in spiritual eyes, for much belongs to the physical and will drop off from the psyche at death, as the outer covering of the leaf-bud when it comes forth in its perfection. 

It is that spirit which says to its brother—Am I thy keeper? which is most hurtful to the soul, but whatever it may be, sin or suffering, good or evil, joy or misery, all shall have the appointed end in nursing the infant soul.

I used these well-known words as a heading because it seems as if the Father said to Nature, with reference to the soul—Take this child and nurse it for me, and the physical proves the best nurse that you can have. Then when you have grown to adulthood you are passed on to the care of those in the psychic world, and they watch over you and help you until the wounds are all healed, and your strength restored so that you can begin a new and worthy life.

The state of the human ego when it casts off its physical body depends on the degree of development that it has already attained.

The ego is now the psyche and spirit. Its psychical body is the image of its physical one; not inferior, but superior; the blossom of the seed, yet still the blossom of that particular seed, and not of another. 

Now it has to go through varied experiences until instead of the psychic dominating the spirit, or the two being evenly balanced, the spirit becomes entirely the master, and the psyche, the servant. Then the ego is ready to depart into the heavens, having finished the task that was given it to do.

 

At first, the psyche is generally supreme. Life then is much like the earthly one; food is necessary, spirits live in houses, they work, they rest, but yet with a difference. You need food and rest at stated intervals, but here they are only needed when the spirit is not strong enough to supply the body. 

With spirits, the will is strong enough to control the body. The body only needs refreshment when the faith fails, or is too weak. Gradually, and with many failures and retrogressive steps, the soul and spirit become first equal, then the spirit is master, and finally, the psychic envelope is burst, and the spirit rises free and untrammelled. 

The pneuma, when it is strong enough, goes to its home for a time, and then returns. This it may do often and over a long period before it finally leaves. Generally, however, about half a century is the limit of its stay in Hades or an intermediate state.

And then the Ship

Complete at last—loosed from its earthly bonds,

Glides from its birthplace to the sea—

Which yielding, yet supporting, bears it on.

Out from the land-locked harbour to the deep.

Cumbrous before, it lay upon the stocks

Like some dead thing, neither of earth nor air—

But now it lives and guided by the winds

Leaves earth behind it, and sails onward to the sun.

Communicated by automatic writing; “I AWOKE!” Conditions of Life on the Other Side, 1895, David Stott, London, Part I, The Psyche, The Psyche, 54-59