THE SOUL WORLD: ITS HELLS, HEAVENS AND EVOLUTIONS 

ROLL aside the curtains of materiality, penetrate through the mists and darkness of ignorance that skirt the passage-way between the two worlds, go beyond the doubts and mutations of material thought and enter into the radiant light of the Soul World that lies beyond; and in that fairer country, journey with us and to some extent inspect its hells, its heavens, and comprehend in some degree the evolutions that are possible there to that life itself as well as to the people who live therein. 

This soul world is the home of arisen humanity, the place where man commences his future of life and conscious existence on what is called the spiritual side of being; where he commences to unfold the latent capacities of his nature to a grander degree than e’er he could while living here below, though before this can be done many things have to be reckoned with. The evils of the past have to be dissipated, superstitions that have accumulated about the person have to be purged from off the nature of the individual; and to accomplish this, something of pain and travail must necessarily be endured by all concerned. 

It is the greatest mistake to suppose that merely because you enter into the soul world you are then prepared to receive all wisdom and manifest all excellence. The path of the student is difficult; there is no royal road to knowledge; and whatsoever the soul gains and values the most is always attained with the greatest effort, and sometimes by the deepest suffering. The fires of suffering are among the potent elements that reveal the jewels of your character. So in the spiritual world it may be, that, in passing through periods of trials and purification, the soul is gradually moving onwards to brighter and better things, and gaining in strength and beauty by reason of its suffering. 

DEATH WORKS NO GREAT CHANGE 

When at first you enter that soul life, it may seem to you that there is very little difference between that life and the world you have just departed from; to all appearance people will seem much the same to you, the outward circumstances of their lives will have strong marks of similarity, and the general conditions of the world itself will be so similar to the general conditions of the world from which you have departed, that you might almost think that you had fallen asleep in one country on the earth, and had awakened in another. Yet this remarkable similarity is a wonderfully beneficent providence upon the part of the Eternal Wisdom; for if the translation from one world to the other involved a sudden and complete change and alteration in conditions and relationships, why then so sudden a change would result in such a shock to the consciousness, that in all probability people would be seriously affected by the suddenness of the transition and its resultant consequences. 

Divine beneficence thus works to meet the requirements alike of the meanest and the greatest of humanity; for when the average individual awakes and finds himself surrounded with scenes somewhat similar to those with which he has been long acquainted in the world he has left behind, the shock is lessened and he feels how natural it is that he should be living in this new world, and he says, “It seems to me I have been here before; I am familiar with the scenes and people, and really it is a natural place for me to be”; and there is something of truth in this supposition. In the hours of sleep, when curtained slumber has enclosed the outward mind and sense, the soul is sometimes awakened to the glories of the life beyond and has then caught faint glimpses of its beauty, and mingled perchance, with its people. Therefore, when he comes to the soul world, indistinctly at first, but gradually disclosing itself, he recognises that the familiarity of the world about him arises from the fact that he has seen and known it before he actually became a permanent resident therein. 

THE SPIRIT WORLD IS SUITED TO OUR NEEDS 

He enters, then, into a world that is in every way suited by its nature to his needs. At first the character of the change seems but very unimportant, and hence it is that we always say, though sometimes our statement raises some dispute, that from the actual fact of death, in the first instance, there is but little or no change in the character of the individual; but after he has resided in the soul world for some little time he realises his condition, and begins to understand that the old standards of determining a man’s position do not apply with the same force to his new state. Then he begins to realise that the social life—shall we call it—of the spiritual world rests upon different foundations from those of the social life of the world he has departed from and instinctively he begins to understand that he will very soon drop into that place or plane or association that his interior spiritual development entitles him to occupy. 

Then the difficulties of the life begin to assert themselves. What at first seemed plain sailing and easy going; what at first gave him confidence that the wicked were not punished, and made him feel he had cause for secret congratulation; which made him say, “Ah! you see there is no hell, no devil, no vengeful God to punish, no burning lake of fire, there is nothing to fear, as I have been taught”; which causes him for a time to give all his remorse to the winds and make him think he is going to have a “royal time” over again, presently disappear, and soon some little doubt begins to obtrude itself; a little speck floats across the clear blue of his present pleasure, and he asks himself, “I don’t know; this is curious; what does it mean?” 

EVERY SOUL FINDS ITS TRUE LEVEL 

Ultimately he realises that this is what it means: that a man is as are his motives; that in the soul world the order of things is, that, if his secret life be soiled and defiled and he has been living a he before the world, then, in a very short time, the he will rise to the surface of his spiritual personality, the deceit will become manifest in his actual appearance, and those who were so glad to see him, and with whom he was so glad to be, will begin to look askance at him, and he will realise that something has gone wrong. He will then learn the lesson, that all association in the spiritual world depends upon the law of mutual affinity and fitness; and if he hath no affinity with and is unfit to mingle with the better sort of those he finds around him, even in the earliest portion of his career, then, most surely, does the law of repulsion begin to exercise its influence, and he is driven out, driven out from those whom he thought he could succeed in blinding as to his real character, driven out from those whom he thought to hoodwink with his pretended and false claims. 

Repulsion begins to operate between them, and he is bound to go one way, and that way is away from them. Then he begins to understand, that, if there is no hell and no devil and no angry Deity to punish him, there is something that exceeds all these three ideas, a something that is working within, a law of repulsion—that drives him out, and that entails all the penalties that those triune concepts have previously been associated with; and he begins to wish presently that a hell and a devil really did exist, for when a person possessing an undeveloped and abnormally constituted mind and character is driven out to his own society, he begins to realise the fact that his own society is the very worst possible kind of society he can be associated with, and would go anywhere, do anything, frequently, to escape therefrom. 

Then begins another phase of the problem. He is now getting into hell! But the effects of this position vary in almost every case. It may result in the development of rage and hatred, of fierce and bitter strugglings within his own breast, turmoil, passion and spite in his mind and thought; he will become angry, vengeful, vicious, and every stage in the descending character of these passional developments will be clearly and indelibly marked upon his features and in his character. One point must be here insisted upon. 

HELLISH NATURES FIND THEIR HELL 

Though these characteristics be expressed in the appearance and personality of the individual, as a rule they are not recognisable to those who live upon the same plane of spiritual unfoldment, nor are they recognisable to any extent by those who are upon a lower plane of development. But they are perfectly plain and easily to be perceived by those who are above them in spiritual development; hence those will see all the peculiarities expressed in the outward and personal characteristics of the individual, and will see that these external manifestations represent the internal conditions; just as among yourselves the expert physiognomist can read in the lineaments and appearance of the face, to a very large extent, the interior character of the individual, so that he makes comparisons between such persons and certain animals that possess certain characteristics—that this man looks like a fox and has a foxy look, and so forth. 

Now it does not follow that a person has a pig’s head, though he has a piggish face. So when you are told that certain spirits have the appearance of foxes and other animals you may take it that such appearances are but symbolical presentations; and the spirit who is making the statement to the foregoing effect does so sincerely, no doubt, through not having a clear conception of the law in the matter just alluded to. Whereas you should understand all that is really implied is an indication of the still-continued undevelopment of the spirits thus described. 

Now these people we are referring to descend into hell. They may become vengeful, moody, or active; they may brood in silence and secrecy, or they may join others like themselves; for they carry forward the dispositions they possessed while living in this world, and you may find them quarrelling amongst themselves just as they did here below. 

This interpretation of their characters gives you the keynote of their personal dispositions. In brief, we may say that all those who are in hell are those souls that are living disorderly lives. A disorderly life is one that is out of direct relationship with the external laws of progress and development, for by this progress and development you ensure true unfoldment, and its consequent of happiness. 

HELL IS A STATE, NOT A PLACE 

Disorder, then, is the keynote of the hellish and of the hell world, and this disorder brings us now to the task of locating the exact place where it is. It is not in cavernous recesses where murky clouds lower, and there are burning and rolling waves of fire and flame, away from the light and the glory of the day—deep bosomed in the very bowels of nature herself, where demons gnash their teeth and hurl their anathemas against the goodness of God. God never made such hells as these. He had no necessity to do so; for the hells of the spiritual world are within the individuals who are experiencing the results of all the conditions their actions can create. 

A disorderly individual having disorder in himself (using the term in the higher spiritual sense) has hell within him. As the old teaching has told you very truly that the kingdom of heaven is within you, so also may its opposite be within you; and this being true, hell being within the disorderly life of the disorderly liver, that hell can never be escaped from until those who dwell within the sphere of influence themselves unlock and unbolt the bars of their disorderly living and emerge into the heavens that he beyond. Hell, then, is purely a personal question, and individual experiences will vary in their intensity and character in accordance with the circumstances of the particular person concerned. 

Thus, you will understand, that no actual theological hell can be found in the soul world, but, instead, that each one makes his own hell, and making it himself he cannot complain against the Almighty Providence for giving him too much, for he creates all he experiences; thus every cause for complaint of injustice is destroyed. Dealing with the matter in this light, we have dealt with it only in its personal application. 

Let us direct your attention now to some of the hells that literally exist in actual outward form in the soul world. This seeming contradiction will explain itself in a moment or two. You look with us, standing by our side, and with astonishment you say: “This cannot be hell. See those towering mountains that rear their purple domes into the azure hues beyond. See those glowing colours that bathe the whole scene in radiant beauty. Behold those magnificent flowers, those graceful trees, those streams like silver threads winding among the green grasses that wave and roll on their pleasant banks. See those charming lakes, surely these are not the adjuncts of hell? And those noble edifices lifting their symmetrical domes heavenward; those stately men and women, those youths and maidens, those children, they are not devils living in hell. Why, how can you call this hell? How can you say these are devils? There must be something wrong here. The picture is too fair and lovely in its character. Surely you must be wrong?” 

No, we are not wrong; all this is, can be seen by you there. But question one of these inhabitants and ask him what he sees. You observe the fines of care upon his brow; he is sad, subdued and sullen; there is a terrible look lurking in his eye, and latent answer seems to be slumbering within. “Oh, this place is a horrible place,” he answered. “See those towering walls bleak and dark as the eternal granite. Look at these stagnant streams; they stink in one’s nostrils; the air is full of vile odours; the very trees are stripped and bare, there are no blossoms. Look at these people; they are hateful and I loathe their presence. Oh, if I could only get away from here, and be free again, how happy I should be!” 

EVERYTHING HAS BEAUTY FOR THOSE WHO MAY SEE 

What is the cause of the obliquity of vision which so changes all these transcendent glories we described a moment since? The difference is this: You looked through eyes unclouded; you looked through your better thought and nature; while he sees but through his own disordered and demoralized thought and feeling. The fairest flowers do not attract his gaze, the verdant hills and luxuriant valleys are bare and barren, the trees are stark and naked, the musical and crystal streams are but turbid water. When the mind is unattuned to the beauty and glory of nature and the harmonies of God, then all of being is bare and bleak and dreadful, and your fellow creatures seem like foes and vile. 

People in this condition are mentally and spiritually demoralized for the time being, out of order with nature, and out of relationship with God; or, as you would say, psychologically insane, and see existence not as it is, but in the fight of their own perverted states. Reflection, however, at last penetrates through the obscuring mists of their disordered minds. Why are they here? If the spiritual life is a natural life, if the soul world is for every one and all, why do they come here? they ask themselves. The answer is that they are brought there unknowing to themselves by a power superior to their own and being there are literally held there. 

How so? Some things in the spirit world are done much better than they are done among yourselves—and this is one of them. Sometimes the absurd idea of the liberty of the individual is carried to too great a length among yourselves, and results most disastrously; for it is not right that the untrained and the ignorant and the vicious should have the same absolute liberty and freedom in the community in which they move as the virtuous and the good. This is a problem we suggest to you for your own consideration. You have to protect yourselves against them; and that protection carried one step further might restrain within well-defined limits, and make you realise the fact that those out of relationship with the best conditions, and the best form of human society, should be legitimately restrained by those wiser and better than themselves. 

THE EXALTED ONES ARE THE WATCHERS OVER THE HELLS 

In this very hell we are speaking of this law holds good. The wise and philanthropic spirits, the great and the good, through all their tributary and subordinate agencies, exercise control. They bring in, from time to time, men and women, youths and maidens, within whom they see the possible development, this sprouting to life, so to speak, of their several natures, they are brought within the magic circle, shall we say, within the spiritual sphere belonging to this locality, and the general influence of the protecting minds makes a wall around this place that these feebler wills are utterly incapable of passing through. They meet a barrier; what it is they cannot tell, but they are conscious of a superior force, the character of which they cannot define. 

There they are kept until this sphere of influence gradually penetrates their thoughts and infuses itself into their minds, stimulates their moral character and quality, and develops their latent possibilities into action. Then, as the mind becomes orderly, as the soul comes into right relationship with the spiritual surroundings that belong to it, in the place where they are, behold, they begin to see the sunshine; blades of green grass begin to take the place of barren soil they have seen so long; the very trees begin to put forth their leaves again and the turbid waters seem to move with a quicker motion. Little by little the beauty of the scene begins to unfold itself 

You may take it from us, that the more of beauty you can see in your external surroundings, the more of beauty is there developed within yourself So as these disorderly minds become adjusted and reduced to due relationship to the conditions with which they are surrounded, behold their mental and moral natures begin to assert themselves, and their intuitions and aspirations begin to make music in their happy souls; little by little they begin to realise that the hell in which they lived was a great sanatorium, a great health college, where under salutary moral influences they have been gradually brought out of the hell that the disorderly conditions of their past life created within themselves. 

ALL THE HELLS ARE TRAINING GROUNDS 

Thus the hells of the soul world are educational, reformatory, spiritually and morally hygienic, so to speak. Those only are brought into them in whom it is seen the harmonies and germs of goodness are beginning to sprout; and these being thus treated are by degrees brought into active relationship with those who instruct and surround them, their special adaptations and qualifications are discovered, and they are in time transferred to other educational places, where these qualities can be nourished and developed into health and activity. Thus from the lowest hells spring forth the angels we shall deal with next. 

Before leaving the hells and their inhabitants there is another peculiar point we would like to impress upon you which concerns the souls living therein, for in many cases they appear to grow worse after they have passed into the spiritual world. You must remember that there is in every one of you a certain amount of disorder, disease of body, obliquity of mind, and perversion of moral consciousness, all of which are potent elements of evil and wrong-doing. If you cannot exhaust the germs of these things while you are living in this world, if they are not expelled by the superior moral faculties and intellectual and spiritual development while here on earth, then will they cling to your mental sphere and effect their out-working when you get into the spiritual world. 

Do not, though, for one instant construe the argument that every man has so much wickedness, therefore he has got to be wicked to get rid of it, and thereby excuse the wickedness of yourself or your neighbour. Nothing of the sort is here involved. There is this possible misdirection in you all, but its true and legitimate expulsion is through developing more and more of the spiritual attributes, which is your duty here. If you do not get rid of this possible element of degradation while here, then it will have to exhaust itself in the spiritual world; and apparently it will result in your becoming much worse after death than before. The end comes at last; the period of reaction asserts itself. At such times some gentle brother, from one of the great benevolent brotherhoods who have charge of these hells we have just mentioned, is able to take you, unconsciously to yourself, and place you in one of the sanatoriums we have portrayed, and in the end effect your purification. 

But come with us to fairer scenes, if possible; though surely we may say this scene is fair enough, for wherever the doing of good to your fellows is involved, there shall we find beauty and sweetness, and something akin to the beneficence and love of God Himself is there. 

EVEN THE HEAVENS ARE ADJUSTED TO YOUR GROWTH. 

We come, then, to what, for convenience sake, we will call the fairer scenes of the soul world, where the souls of men are supposed to be basking in everlasting felicity, where eternal sunshine reigns supreme, where happiness, pleasure and JOY are perpetual. “Yes,” you will say, “one would like to find that such things were true, one would very much like to discover such things after death; if we could only enter there and enjoy all the beatitudes of such a condition, how happy should we be for the change!” 

At first you will not find such things; the everlasting and eternal sunshine is a dream that we do not think you will realise for ages yet to come; the alternations of joy and sorrow, of shade and sunshine, of hope and fear, of success and failure, are necessities to the immortal soul for ages yet to be—and in these heavens there will be no one uninterrupted and glowing day, no unceasing tide of joy, no unvarying sunshine; the soul has to grow, man has to advance step by step and gain experience; experience brings him knowledge. But while he is gathering knowledge through experience, failures and disasters are sure to assail his progress from time to time. 

Therefore the heavens will not be altogether devoid of their cares and anxieties, shall we call them, not altogether devoid of their aspects of gloom; and yet because of the germs of sweetness and order and beauty belonging to them, it shall make these as fleeting shadows passing across the path of human life, only as a fitful cloud briefly shutting out the golden sunlight. 

“What shall we find in those heavens?” What do we mean by heaven? As hell is within, so also is heaven. It is no more a locality than hell. The sense of order, peace and righteousness, consequent upon well doing, within the breast, makes the place a heaven; and in the societies, fraternities, families and associations of the soul world the pure soul lives in sweetest bonds of unity. There in that happy estate you shall find all that the souls of men desire, all their hopes realised, all their affections ministered to, all their aspirations unfolded to the point that they have reached. 

GROWTH FROM STAGE TO STAGE 

What shall be the evolutions that arise from the heavens and the hells we have just referred to? For one might truly say that the heavens are the evolution of the hells; indeed, when we take life right through, in every case do we find that each ascending stage is an evolution from the stage that preceded it. What then is beyond these heavens? When the minds and souls of men grow strong enough they plume themselves for flight to higher regions, and the conditions of disorder and inharmony disappear from the realms belonging to their existence on the planes described; all shall then be order, harmony, and peace, and on the particular plane of spiritual existence we have been detailing, there shall be embodied within yourselves all the latent possibilities that will then have become actualities, the essential principles being thus embodied within the consciousness of those who live upon that plane of life, behold the old heaven shall be rolled away as a scroll, so to speak, and those who have lived therein go to higher states still; where still nobler elements of spiritual life shall be evolved, where what you have reasoned upon, what you have thought upon, and experimented upon, in preceding stages, shall then become actual and positive knowledge that shall be as plain and clear to you as the simplest of simple things among yourselves to-day. 

Then shall the soul unfold new powers, new qualities and orders of action, new and stronger associations shall arise, and over all shall brood the consciousness that there is a mightier than thou, a deeper than that which hath yet been revealed or done, a grander than even you have yet dreamed of; and your search for the mystic words of wisdom, your desire to find the deeper fountain yet undiscovered, shall bubble up with renewed force and power within your souls whenever you but do and dare for the greater truths as you did and dared for the radiance and glory of that heaven you have now attained. Then shall all feuds be stayed, all hatreds of the mind be quenched, all the discords of affection be stilled, all the differences and dissensions that ever keep the human lives and loves apart be banished for ever; and the great family of humanity shall become one spiritual brotherhood of happy and united souls in the more real soul world that lies far, far beyond the conditions of the soul world that we have just been dealing with. Thus, briefly, we have endeavoured to place before you the quality and character of the hells and the heavens, and the evolution of possible greatness and grandeur in yourselves, in the conditions of being that will meet you after you master the first conditions of the soul world into which you enter immediately following your departure from physical existence. 

EACH SOUL’S EXPERIENCE CORRESPONDS TO HIS INTERNAL GROWTH 

Thus discord and harmony, as you will have learned, are the keynotes of the hells and heavens of spiritual existence; and the lesson we wish to enforce clearly upon you is, that the Divine Providence has not made one condition or state bleak and barren and wretched and miserable for those who are unhappy and in darkness and misery, and another condition of divine beauty and glory for those who are morally and spiritually progressed; but that the soul world, like the natural world, is a bright and beautiful world in every department, and that you see and interpret its character through the medium of the discord or harmony that resides within your own breast and is manifested in your own mind. Take this lesson to your heart, and then you will realise that as is your own character and development, so will be your interpretation of the condition of existence in which you happen to be situated. 

Now, let us withdraw you from this fair world to the realms of mortal beings again, leaving its glory and its beauty as a memory bright and pleasant to linger within your thoughts— coming down from these brotherhoods, these families, and fraternities, from these noble and philanthropic hearts, so that you may again be practical dwellers in mortal life; and as the curtains roll behind you, as you retire from the glory that lies behind them and again tread the terrestrial fields, A remember but a thin veil hangs between yourselves and that world from which in mind you have now returned. If you wish to enter into the calmer heavens over there, see that heavenly conditions are unfolded within your lives and breasts while here on earth. Remember also that surely you shall find an entrance into the hells that lie beyond, as a consequence of the discords in your natures now. 

Strive, then, to reduce all discords to harmony, purify yourselves from all unclean thoughts, desires and deeds, lift your natures up to the highest plane of personal application, morally and spiritually; live so purely before the world that, like the brightest silver, if but a breath rests upon it, it vanishes ere the stain can fairly be said to have been seen. Keep your hearts so purged, your souls so pure and sweet, that no stain can ever rest upon them; and when you die, when you pass through the mystic portals into the soul world beyond, then shall you be fitted to enter into some of its heavenly associations by having a heavenly condition already developed within yourselves, and that shall measurably assist you to come under the influence of that greater and grander evolution that we have suggested as possible for the inhabitants of the soul world beyond.