Do you have a glare all of the time?

You write in one place that you have no night there [in the world of spirits], yet you write in this paper of the glare of light.

Do you have a glare all of the time?

If not, what succeeds it?

I have previously stated that there is no night here―or no night like your night, but that each soul had its time for rest, and to rest, the conditions necessary must exist. 

As to the glare of light, I would state that different degrees of light and heat are necessary to the spiritual vegetation ever-existent, and that, as in earth-life, we―when the light is most intense―seek for shade. 

As nature is ever-repeating itself, we find the most exquisite bowers with green foliage all around where we can enjoy as much of the cooling breeze as though in earth-life we had come heated and weary to one of nature's green recesses.

―Spirit Samuel Bowles

What is the Cave of Song?

One spot in the spirit-spheres is held as a great retreat by explorers and visitors. 

It is called the Cave of Song, from the flute-like notes that reverberate through its subterranean archways. 

Sometimes, solemn and pathetic―at others, joyous and enchanting in its symphony. 

At times, the spirit-life feels that it is enchanted ground by the musical voices that come from it―at other times, silent chambers whose gorgeous beauty is unrivalled by outward life.

Here are wonderful domes hung with jewels of stalactites, which flash and quiver in the reflected light through interstices, reflecting on the water beneath in cascades and waterfalls, giving it a grand and romantic picture. 

Here the spirit-life can wander through wondrous apartments, giving an opportunity for study. 

Here are archways with fluted pillars of alabaster, which tower to an immense height, leading to domes and galleries, where statuary of the most wonderful conception of every living thing is embodied and at rest in its appropriate place, true to the material of outward life. 

Gems of great brilliancy flash in their gorgeousness, giving a life and warmth to this enchanting cave of Summer-land.

When you wander through grand old castles that are here, whose consecrated domes have towered above for so many ages of your life, then you will wonder at the gorgeous grandeur of those tessellated and crystal floors, whose domes and arches are surrounded with the wonderful in art and science―where there are living pictures of past greatness in form and expression of the notable of all time and spheres―living, sheeny faces whose life-like appearance thrills the soul with wonder and admiration.

When you pass from sphere to sphere, you float at will to every conceivable place, and yet you  have corridors of beauteous surroundings, which wind through the starlit canopy where you may rest and view the glorious scenery below. 

As you pass to Vesta, wonders on wonders meet your view. 

Here you find beautiful grottoes―lovely little nooks―with every luxury that the soul can conceive of to allay its desire. 

Beautiful bright spirit-lives who attend, and as you approach, sing and chant their melodious songs, which thrill you with delight. 

They are a beautiful race―so small―so perfect in their organisations that they are wonderful in their magnetic life―so perfect, happy and joyous in their natures. 

None have ever been seen on earth. 

Vesta is a beautiful planet, which shines in its orbit―or soul-lit canopy with great beauty, and its inhabitants partake of its genial life. 

There are a few of the inhabitants who come to attend you to their home where you may enjoy for a while the beauties of their glorious life.

Tongue can never express―or mind conceive of the glories, which surround the different spheres―or belts of atmospherical light and the millions of happy spirit-livess who inhabit them.

The Social Life of Heavenly Spheres

Evil Personified

Closer and closer they gathered―a moving mass of evil personified.

As Spirit Franchezzo stood watching the crowd, his attention was drawn to a group of spirits who were pointing over at him. 

Faithful Friend left Spirit Franchezzo to speak with them alone, for they might recognise Spirit Franchezzo as having been there before.

As Faithful Friend moved away, the dark spirits drew near to Spirit Franchezzo with every gesture of friendliness.  

Spirit Franchezzo responded with politeness, though he felt the most violent repugnance to their company―they were repulsive-looking, horrible in their wicked, leering ugliness.

One touched Spirit Franchezzo on the shoulder.  

As Spirit Franchezzo turned to him, with a dim sense of having seen him before, the spirit laughed a wild horrid laugh, and cried out―

I hail thee, friend, who I see dost not so well remember me as I do thee, though it was upon the earth-plane we met before. 

I, as well as others, then sought hard to be of service to thee, only thou wouldst have none of our help, and played us, methinks, but a scurvy trick instead. 

None the less for this, we, who are as lambs, didst thou but know us, have forgiven thee.

Another also drew near to Spirit Franchezzo, leering with a smile perfectly diabolical and said―

So ho! You are here after all, friend, in this nice land with us. 

Then surely you must have done something to merit the distinction? 

Say whom you have killed―or caused to be killed, for none are here who cannot claim at least one slain by them, while many of us can boast of a procession as long as the ghosts that appeared to Macbeth, and others again―our more distinguished citizens―count their slain by hundreds. 

Did you kill that one after all?―ha! ha! ha!

And he broke into such a wild horrible peal of laughter that Spirit Franchezzo turned to fly from them, for, like a flash, the memory of that time when he, too, could have been almost a murderer came across his mind and he recognised in these horrible beings those who had surrounded him and counselled him how to fulfil his desire―how to wreak his vengeance. 

Spirit Franchezzo recoiled from them, but they had no thought to let him go.  

He was here―drawn down, as they hoped, at last, and they sought to keep him with them that he might afford them some sport and they might avenge themselves on him for their former defeat.

Spirit Franchezzo read this thought in their minds, though outwardly they were crowding around him with every protestation of hearty friendliness.  

For a moment, he was at a loss what to do.  

Then he resolved to go with them and see what they intended, watching at the same time for the first opportunity to free himself from them.  

He suffered them to take him by an arm each, and they proceeded towards a large house on one side of the square, which they said was theirs and where they would have the pleasure of introducing him to their friends. 

Faithful Friend passed close to them, and looking at Spirit Franchezzo impressed the warning―

Consent to go, but beware of entering into any of their enjoyments―or allowing your mind to be dragged down to their level.

They entered and passed up a wide staircase of greyish stone, which like all things here bore the marks and stains of shame and crime.  

The broad steps were broken and imperfect, with holes here and there large enough―some of them―to let a man through into the black dungeon-like depths beneath.  

As they passed up, he felt one of them give him a sly push just as they were stepping over one of these, and had he not been watching for some such trick, he might have been tripped up and pushed in.  

As it was, he simply drew aside and his too officious companion narrowly escaped tumbling in himself, at which the rest all laughed and he scowled savagely at Spirit Franchezzo.  

Spirit Franchezzo recognised him just then as the one whose hand had shrivelled in the silver ring of fire drawn around his beloved on the occasion when her love had drawn him to her and saved him from yielding to these dark fiends.  

This spirit held  his hand carefully hidden under his black cloak, yet Spirit Franchezzo could see through it, and he saw the shrivelled hand and arm, and knew that he might indeed beware of its owner.

At the top of the staircase, they passed into a large magnificent room, lighted up by a glare of fire, and hung around with dark draperies, which were  in perfect rags and tatters, and all splashed with crimson stains of wet blood, as though this had been the scene of not one, but many, murders. 

Around the rooms were placed ghostly phantoms of ancient furniture―ragged, dirty and defaced, yet retaining in them a semblance to an earthly apartment of great pretensions to splendour. 

This room was filled with the spirits of men and women. 

The women had lost all that could ever have given them any claim to the charms and privileges of their sex. 

They were worse to look on than the most degraded bedraggled specimens to be seen in any earthly slum at night. 

Only in Hell could women sink to such an awful degradation.  

The men were as bad―or even worse, and words utterly failed him to describe them.  

They were eating, drinking, shouting, dancing, playing cards and quarrelling over them―going on in such a way as the worst and lowest scenes of earthly dissipation could but faintly picture.

Spirit Franchezzo could see a faint reflection of the earthly-lives of each, and knew each alike had been guilty, not only of shameless lives, but also of murder from one motive or another. 

On his left was one who had been a Duchess in the days of the sixteenth century, and he saw that in her history she had from jealousy and cupidity poisoned no less than six persons. 

Beside her was a man who had belonged to the same era and had caused several persons obnoxious to him to be assassinated by his bravoes, and had slain another with his own hand in a treacherous manner during a quarrel.

Another woman had killed her illegitimate child because it stood between her and wealth and position. 

She had not been many years in this place and seemed more overcome by shame and remorse than any of the others, so Spirit Franchezzo resolved to get near to and speak to her.

Do you feel out of harmony with your surroundings?

You are where you are by the law of your being—the thoughts, which you have built into your character have brought you there, and in the arrangement of your life, there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law, which cannot err. 

This is just as true of those who feel out of harmony with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them.

What is the great I AM?

The tree loses nothing by the seeds, which naturally fall—they are merely excesses of its own vitality. 

So you may suppose the great I AM loses nothing of force—or possibilities—or power—by endowing us—His spiritual children—continually being born into the world—with this Will Force—or by constantly perpetuating the Cosmos Force, which He has caused.

Leaflets of Truth or Light from the Shadow Land