What are the characteristics of the human spirit?

It is not your brainpower that stamps you as a spirit, but your character—

In other words, the quality of your soul, whether good or evil is the cultivation of the love element in the soul which requires knowledge as a foundation, for love is only another form of knowledge. We love that which is true and good and pure and surely that implies a knowledge or appreciation of the objects of our love. We may love that which is base but that implies an ignorance of truth.

How does the soul relate to the spirit?

To neglect our body is to impoverish our spirit. 

The spirit body partakes both of the mental and bodily food which we imbibe and it follows that if there is a spiritual counterpart to the physical body, there must be a spiritual counterpart to the food which we eat, and this latter enters the spirit body in the same way that the physical body is fed by the material food. We can imagine that this proves that we are wrong in saying the spirit body is fed by the mind and not by the material body. There is this difference—that whereas the material food we take into our bodies is needed to replace waste of the physical structure, the spiritual counterpart of the body imbibes the food for the purpose of preventing the waste of spiritual matter. Our spiritual body would waste away just as our material body would if we did not replace the waste by the food which the physical organism absorbs and of which the spiritual body receives its counterpart. Thus we see the spiritual body is precisely analogous to the physical body, so long as the two are conjoined. It is only when they become separated by death that the former is able to live independently. 

What is the mind of a man?

The mind is the index to the man, not the body, and if his mind is pure and beautiful, so will the spirit be also, and yet he will not lose his personal identity in the next life since the growth of the spiritual body depends not only on the matter of which the earthly body is composed, but upon the mind also.

What does food for the soul mean spiritually?

When we say that the mind builds up the spirit body, we mean that the mind supplies the food which is required by the soul that dwells in the spirit body. The soul shows its state of development by the condition of the spirit body. The spirit body is at once fed through the material body and clothed by the soul. The soul's condition is seen by higher spirits and the spirit body by the lower or earthly ones. To the latter, the spirit body may appear to be fully developed—whilst to the higher ones, the spirit body may by reason of the soul's non-development appear to be half-starved.

How do you build your spiritual body?

Paupers and criminals have everything to gain by the change from one world to the other. They have nothing to lose and they leave nothing behind to regret—it would be a happy release for most to be free from the necessity of supplying the needs of the body had they not to supply the needs of the spirit instead. Most of them have never given a thought to their spiritual welfare whilst on earth and they have to begin at the bottom of the ladder. Having lost their own material bodies, they use the bodies of others still in the flesh and incite the latter to all kinds of drunkenness and excess, so that they may gratify their own base desires. In our life, the principal aim is to supply the wants of the physical body, which helps to build up the spirit body within. In the spirit world, the principal object is to develop the soul that dwells in the spirit body, for the latter is not the spiritual man any more than our bodies are such.

Did Jesus really walk this earth?

Tell A. I have never gone away, only gone farther in toward something bright which I do not yet understand. It is a good country. No Greek nor Latin here. I have seen no particular Jesus. I do see spiritual forms with wonderful brightness and halo. I see no God either, but I am sure a someone exists to carry us onward. We are not wise enough to make a good law, and somebody does this. I was told that Christs were sent into all earths so as to carry the trail of truth, else it would be buried under inharmonies. You have no idea of the trail of dust and clay and selfishness and pollution a man's mind can give, and I suppose it needs many Christs to keep the way open for light.

Why is it important to work together?

The steam rises from a kettle and this vapour soon settles on the wall or pane, and the first natural thing it does is to gather into drops. These are elementals or forces rising from the school of water. A drop may be an individual mind, but flowing together, these mingle in one stream, and if this stream could be enlarged, it would turn a mill or make move a thousand wheels in orbits or belts. Now all this we see with physical eyes, but mind vapour rising from the concentration of a thousand pupils we do not exactly see unless by feeling we can get sight. Nevertheless, this mind  power forms into dew, exactly as the water vapour, the natural form of electricity, is the round bolt, and after forming, it floats precisely as a cloud of dew does and is attracted to individual mind if one rises strong enough to conquer it just as the tip of a mountain will attract a cloud and break it in showers around itself. 

These balls of force move by law and no soul can gain them unless itself is prepared. So you see when two lightning bombs of mind combine as one, how much more vivid is the strength! Out from the deep wells of understanding we two might draw and draw forever, and yet there would always come in something new, something wonderful, for one study is linked with another. So by knowing one all the rest are added.

How do you use force in your daily life?

Have power of mind and determine every day to send forth a certain force or magnetic degree or influence which is first composed of small suns or balls of energy. These elementals of condensed power of mind are ready for action, continually floating in the air in accord with their ability to rise either into ether toward heaven or nearer to earth. 

Thus by electrical elementals or little shocks of mind, there is a constant ring of the eternal law of give and receive forever and ever. 

Find your elementals of love ready to help others. 

What does Romans 8:6 mean?

Our minds are not separated by death.

What is the philosophy of know thyself?

I do not wonder the old philosopher said Know thyself. 

Love is the grand power of progression—by love I mean that pure white holiness which gives up everything for the blessedness of another.

How does the spirit speak?

The simplest speech of heavenly spirits is more melodious than any earthly sounds and comes from the characters of the people using it, that is, the sounds are according to one's characteristics. If one is loving, the language is very sweet, smooth and flowing, as if there is a liquid quality. If one is inclined more to wisdom, the sounds are clearer, more distinct and not so smooth, and yet the words are the same. 

Inhabitants in the spiritual world have no difficulty in understanding. There are not many words that suggest the old familiar ones, but Halleluiah is the same as we use on earth (no other combination of sounds so perfectly expresses the idea of worship).

The use of speech is much easier than the written or printed words. Nearly all of the letters or parts of words are segments of circles, concave or convex, according to the expression of opposite ideas. For instance, if the affirmation is expressed by convex signs, the negative of the same subject is expressed by the same signs reversed.

The ideas expressed in spiritual language are of thousands and their mortal language here would be like trying to make a grand oration from the meaningless sounds of an infant.

When inhabitants of the spiritual world see anything, they perceive not only its external forms, but its history from the earliest moment of existence, and all of its uses, what it will achieve and in what it will fail. All this is expressed in briefer phrase than we use on earth to tell the mere outer form. Hence, when they speak a name, they feel its meaning in its fullness, for the name expresses them all. An angelic spirit could not say Jehovah without feeling awe, love, adoration, self-abnegation so complete, as for the time being to make the whole nature only an expression of worship. They are all or nothing in every act. Unless the whole nature goes into action, it is impossible to perform it at all. There are no triflers here. Whatsoever they find to do, they do with all their might.

How did people get saved before Jesus?

Who has beaten this path?

The messengers who pass to and fro rescuing the lost.

You seem surprised, but for how many countless ages have the messengers come seeking the lost?

There were spirits labouring here long before Christ came down to earth.

Was the land of after death organised very much as it is now even before the opening of the Christian era?

Yes, but more spirits had to pass through Hell.

In early primitive days, the astral plane―or Hell held almost all who passed over for a long time.

In the days of the Greeks and Romans, the intellect outran spiritual development, and so Hell became crowded with men who refused to believe in God―or a future life.

The fall of that civilisation made it easier for men in the West to develop their spiritual side.

Those whose whole lives were devoted to fighting and cruelty would naturally go on acting in the same way for a long time after death.

It would only be after a long period spent on this side that they would begin to desire a different kind of life.

All those who resisted the temptation to obsess would probably remain on the astral plane until they had developed sufficiently to pass upward to the spiritual plane.

Is it the whole course of our life that fixes the particular division of Hell into which we finally fall―or is it the type of obsession, which we practice?

These will sink down to the division corresponding with that type of sin which has predominated in their lives, but those who pass over in early or middle life have not yet worn out their astral bodies, nor completely developed their character.

Their division is that which corresponds with the type of obsession, which they have practiced.

In my own case, I obsessed for drink―lust―revenge.

The latter, being a more spiritual sin, dragged me down deeper than would the other two types of obsession.

At the same time, the type of life a man has lived very largely decides the type of obsession, which is likely to tempt him most.

A lustful man if he falls into obsessing will probably do it for the purpose of satisfying his lust and will fall into the division in which lust predominates.

What is spiritual development?

Every spirit, as soon as he realises that he is really to live forever, wants to advance―as soon as the wonders and beauties of God's great laws burst upon his comprehension, he searches on and on with a longing and love that is never appeased though constantly fed.

And as he goes on he learns to transmit in some way every ray of light that he absorbs.

The sciences or profundity of the laws taught depend upon the spiritual plane where one is located, and the systems of education differ accordingly.

There are centres of education for all sorts of branches of knowledge on every spiritual plane, but these centres of education differ according to the development of the plane upon which they are situated. 

All is adapted to the needs and requirements of the plane.

Attraction governs everything. The spirit who has a great longing after music will be attracted by the melodious harmonies of some musical centre upon his plane of development. The one who earnestly desires to obtain knowledge of scientific laws will naturally gravitate to a centre where such laws are discussed and expounded.

There is no such thing as monotony or weariness among enlightened spirits.

Can you comprehend the joy and exultation of a mind that never wearies and never rests?

Leaflets of Truth; or, Light from the Shadow Land

How do you unlock spiritual wealth?

Everything we possess in celestial life is within ourselves and our outward clothing corresponds to our inner nature.

A hard, avaricious, grasping man enters this life. He has never felt pity or commiseration for the sufferings of others. He passes through the gate of death, enters the spiritual. He has been wholly bound up in self and what he could gather to himself. He may have spirit friends here, but he had no love for anyone, but himself, so his spirit friends are not particularly attracted to him, and even if they would benefit him, his soul is hard and repellant and so he is all alone—there is no beauty within him, so his surroundings are bare and barren, for he naturally gravitates to a plane corresponding to his inner self—his countenance takes on a fierce, scowling, ugly expression—his hair corresponds and is stiff and wiry and naturally takes on a dark, black colour—his hands correspond to his inner nature and they take on the appearance of grasping claws—he is usually stooped in his shoulders—his legs are thin as his body, also his arms—his feet are often very large and deformed, for he is of the earth earthy, consequently his feet become flat and large.

Now his natural spiritual garment is shrunken and shrivelled up, for the spiritual garment corresponds to the soul, the mind or the spirit. His legs and arms are covered with bristly hair, for the nearer a soul approaches the selfishness of the brute creation, the nearer the spirit's appearance approaches the appearance of the brute.

—Herfronzo in Spirit

Are clothes a mirror of our souls?

Dress in your life depends on the state of the pocket―here on the state of the soul. Therefore, it is not strange to us see a spirit clothed in the plainest garb, while even then the old body is being arrayed in the finest of satin. On the other hand, I have seen spirits here so gorgeously clothed that they looked like white, glittering forms. I have no words to describe the texture or its manufacture, for it comes just as naturally as the spirit body and the increase in beauty of body is in proportion to the increase of soul-worth. The manner and fashion of dressing as in earth we leave behind except when we wish to appear to our earthly friends in a natural way―we are taught to clothe ourselves for the time being.

Experiences of Samuel Bowles

Will we work in Eternity?

The usual idea of heaven is rest. The idea of rest for the weary is still prevalent in earth life, but each awakens to the great truth that heaven's rest is work—work in its highest sense.

Also, the thought exists in many minds that heaven is freedom and so it is to a disciplined spirit, for the interests of spirit life are so precious that one will of his own free will naturally gravitate toward that work most necessary to be done, while an undisciplined heart has to learn by degrees that the law must be fulfilled.

—Samuel Bowles in Spirit

What is the problem of free will?

To reach the centre of light and its perfection, each individual progresses through many evolutions, each one permitting a fuller measure of light. Each evolution has its duties and tasks to perform, its education to make and its errors to overcome. These are not existent―they are the natural outcome of the liberty, free will and limited understanding of the imperfect individual. Naturally they differ in each plane, but the nearer we come to the fount of wisdom, the stronger we are and the greater is our happiness, for we see more clearly the meaning of life and its glorious possibilities.

―Meslom in Spirit

What is the sacrament of initiation?

The human race is passing through a period of initiation. The morally weak and the weak of will are always in danger of being carried away. The spirit of destruction finds them ready tools with which to work its will.

—The Judge [Last Letters from a Living Dead Man]

What are examples of right conduct?

Do what is naturally right.