LIFE, DEVELOPMENT AND DEATH IN SPIRIT-LAND 

WHEN you remember that life for the inhabitants of the spirit-land means an eternity of life, and that the argument is an unending existence, you may naturally inquire: Is it possible that the bodies of the people living in the immortal world shall continue to maintain their structure and their functions for such an enormous duration? 

There is, of course, to the majority of people living on the mortal plane, the idea of friction, waste and consequent decay, as being facts they are familiar with in association with material bodies, and it will be urged that if there are functions and activities associated with the spiritual bodies there must necessarily be friction, waste and decay in connection with those bodies; and while people may, in a certain sense, be able to grasp the conception of the eternal duration of those bodies, they certainly are unable, in the great majority of cases, to dispense with the supposition of friction, waste and decay, as previously stated. 

That these are factors in all organic structures on the mortal plane is self-evident. Have they to be considered in regard to the organic structure of the spiritual plane? And if so, what are the means whereby that waste is repaired, and that friction reduced to the lowest minimum? These are deep questions, and are asked in vain of the usual and accepted authorities upon such subjects. 

Now the development of the spiritual personality in the spirit life is also another important question; for if there be a development there must either be an expansion of existing materials or an aggregation thereto, for the development must either proceed from within or be the consequence of additions from without. It matters little whether it be development of soul or mind or body, the law must hold good in either case, and if one case, in all cases; and the solution will have to be sought concerning the source of the means of the possible development of the individual inhabitant of the spiritual world. 

GROWTH AND DEATH IN SPIRIT LIFE 

We will also, as another interesting speculation, ask the question: If the duration of the personal existence of the spiritual world is eternal, and the development of the individual is eternal also, may there not come a time when the personality of the individual will have grown so enormous in proportion as to be practically unwieldy? When we introduce the speculation, we have to deal with the possibility of death in the spiritual world, and a wave of fear and sadness may, as it were, roll over your spirits, a chilling blast may seem to sweep across the eager buds of your aspiring natures; and you may say, if we have to face the grim monster again after passing through mortal death, then the exchange has advantaged us but little! 

Yet having realized that death in your mortal condition is only a stepping-stone to a larger life, and having gained the confidence of victory in one case, the assurance of victory in all cases where a like experience is to be encountered may almost be counted upon as certain. If existence in the higher life leads you to higher powers and the exercise of greater ability, it follows that every seeming obstacle in your path will grow less powerful the more exalted you become yourselves. 

Life in the spirit land means several things as associated with the individual. It means spiritual life, mental life, personal life; for you must bear in mind that the inhabitants of the spiritual world are just as much beings, persons, men and women, as are yourselves; that they are endowed with the machinery for the expression of intelligence, just the same as humanity; that they, any more than yourselves, have not yet reached a plane where they are able to express intelligence apart from organisation. 

Now this is a most important fact to be considered. You must bear in mind that in all cases the exhibition of force is dependent upon an agency for its manifestation. It matters not what the ultimate expression may be, the agency is the thing contended for; and as intelligence, as a force in man’s personal nature is dependent upon an agency for its expression, you must have in spirit-land, as here, an organisation, and this organisation is the agency for the expression of your intelligence, and the manifestation of the inherent powers of your immortal entity. Hence the existence of this organisation, the reparation of its waste, the reduction of the results of its friction to its lowest possible minimum, are questions fairly and legitimately before us for consideration. 

OTHER PLANES—OTHER METHODS 

Here it follows that the spirit-body being upon a higher plane than the mortal body, its functional operations will involve another set of laws, and those laws will be upon the higher plane, as is the body they are associated with; and whereas there are certain processes that are absolutely necessary in the material life, their counterparts may be accomplished by other methods and higher laws than those by which they are accomplished while you are living here on earth. The processes of physical existence may be thus summarised: 

You consume food; the heat and chemical action in the various organs of digestion reduce the food to its component elements, which elements are distributed to the various portions of the system. Through the various activities there is a waste of tissue, and this expenditure is repaired by the liberation of the essential elements or forces of the foods or substances which, being absorbed into the human organism, sustain and repair it. Therefore, ultimately, it is the forces of nature that sustain the human organism; and the process whereby you reach these forces is the process of destructive assimilation, as expressed in the digestion of human food. 

This is apparently a round-about process, you will say. It is particularly fit and proper for the plane of life upon which it operates, and it would be improper and inadequate and utterly unfit if applied to beings living upon a higher plane than that you at present occupy. But if the question of assimilated forces on the lower plane has to receive attention, why should not also be considered the assimilation of forces upon the higher plane? if the elaboration and absorption of forces is the means whereby reparation is accomplished here, may it not also be that upon the higher plane a similar process is also involved? And if so, shall it not be further accepted that the means whereby this result is obtained upon the higher plane shall be a higher method, as compared with the method you depend upon in this world? 

If we accept the position that the organisation of the spirit body and its processes are to a certain extent a duplicate of the material organisation, then the question becomes a point of interest as to what use the duplicates of the great organs of the interior of the system subserve, what are their counterparts in the spiritual personality, and how are their functions accomplished there. If we take the duplication of the organism as a spiritual fact, and that it contains within itself the spiritual counterparts of most of the organs you are familiar with in the human physiology, then we have to assure you that that internal organism becomes, as it were a species of battery, a collection of cells or sacs, whereby in the peculiar structure and formation of the spirit body the essential forces of the spiritual realm are extracted, and are sent on their mission for absorption into, and the consequent maintenance of, ethereal organisations that constitute your bodies there; that instead of the grosser fluids of the material organisation, the etherealized electricities and magnetisms of the spiritual world are the circulating mediums in the spirit organism. 

ALL WASTE MUST BE MADE GOOD 

Now the operations of the spiritual physiology, shall we call it, to use a term to convey the idea clearly to you, necessarily involve the expenditure of force, just the same as the operations of your earthly body, when, having exhausted its forces in the accomplishment of any particular object, they have to be recruited and restored by means of the forces elaborated and distilled by the digestive and assimilative agencies of the system from the food consumed; so in the spirit body, corresponding processes are necessary to distil the elements and forces that are needed to establish and maintain health and action in the spirit beings. Now, this necessarily demands not only the expenditure of force, but may possibly involve the expenditure of substance as well, and this substance has to be again supplied; for the structure has to be continually built up and sustained, as well as its depleted forces restored, which, when the needful processes are duly fulfilled, is satisfactorily accomplished and the structure sustained. 

Therefore the life of the individual in the spirit-land is sustained by these electrical and magnetic processes and distillations in a manner somewhat analogous to, though not exactly the same as, the means depended upon on the grosser plane. We might, in a word, sum the argument up by saying, that the processes of material existence are the prophecy, dim, faint, and indistinct, of the higher laws and methods whereby life is sustained in the spirit-land. 

A little experiment, which will assure you of the fact that it is possible to sustain life by the principle of absorption, consists in the immersion of a portion of the physical body in water; the system will absorb the water, a certain action called endosmosis, which the scientific mind is familiar with, will enable the structure to absorb the water, enabling the person to thus obtain whatever nourishment the system needs. You may try the experiment for yourself; if you are suffering from excessive thirst and heat, place your hand underneath the water tap, and gradually a cool influence will spread through the entire body as the water flows over your hand. The coolness and absorbed moisture will gradually spread throughout the entire system, restoring the lacking fluid that causes you to experience the thirst. 

Now this is a very simple fact but it contains a deep prophecy of the law of absorption as one of the means of subsistence in the spiritual life. Magnetically or psychologically the same law is operating. You absorb one another’s influences, you absorb each other’s affections and hatreds, each other’s health and disease. Constantly and continually you are subject to this law of absorption; and when you see that this law is but the prophecy of its operation upon a higher plane and under better circumstances, you can understand that our argument is not strange or far-fetched. 

ABSORPTION SUPERSEDES DIGESTION 

Here, then, we have found something of the means of life for the people living in the spiritual world, and we find that life is active and operant there, as it is among yourselves, and the men and women there have a reality pertaining to their natures that has not often been supposed, that ignorance, fanaticism, and superstition unfortunately have hitherto entirely denied; that the problem of subsistence of life in the spiritual world has been altogether ignored in the spiritual training the world has received in former times; and that subsistence there follows at first certain general lines of similarity with this life, but that ultimately the law of subsistence by absorption is the rule in the higher spiritual states. 

Coming to the matter of development in the spiritual world we have to consider two questions; development as applied to the personality of the individual, and development as applied to his individuality and consciousness, if we may be permitted to use familiar terms as applied to the outer and inner nature of the people of the spirit life. 

The objective, or, more correctly, the organic, part of the spirit has an eternal persistence of duration; if the form is eternal, and the development of it is eternal, you might ask if the individual would not at last grow so unwieldy in proportion as to be utterly incapable of locomotion. This is not true. So far as we have been able to trace the law, it is impossible for the personal development of the individual to ever attain such enormous proportions as to utterly deprive him of the power of using his body in any sense whatever, the reason of which we will show you presently. 

WORK IN THE SPIRIT WORLD 

Now the mental and spiritual development of the individual runs on indefinitely, but you must remember that mental growth and spiritual growth in all cases depend upon self-effort; there is no growth without work, that is to be distinctly home in mind. You can starve your mind and soul just as truly as you may your body; and if you will not pluck from the trees of truth in the vales of wisdom, you certainly will not grow in mind, any more than you would grow in stature if you were to refuse to eat the necessary articles of subsistence in the material life. 

In the spiritual life you must work for mental growth and spiritual development, and unless you do so work you will not gain either. This work must be intelligent work; for as you starve your bodies by eating improper food, so, mentally, you may starve your mind by improperly feeding it, and to such an extent that mental digestion is arrested, and then the mind will be surely starved, as would the body under similar circumstances. Your work must be within the limitation of your present abilities; and as you consume your ability, so to speak, in an intelligent effort, thus you build up your mental characters and nature. Fill up and grow sturdy in your mind, and your increase of strength and knowledge will enable you to deal with still greater problems, the mastering of such will give you strength and stature in mind as a consequence of knowledge gained. 

Spiritual unfoldment is apt to be considered as the great thing all should strive for. There is a sort of idea among many people, a loose and indistinct idea it seems to us, that spiritual development is the only development worth having. In the name of common sense what do you mean by spiritual development? Do not all the forces of mind, affection, and every intellectual quality and character of your nature, all the forces and expressions of your conscious life, proceed from your immortal entity? 

SPIRITUALITY IS CONSISTENT WITH PRACTICAL LIFE 

Some people seem to think that spirituality is a sort of golden cake that they may take a bite out of and be benefited, the same as the eating of manna in the olden times. Nothing of the sort. The spirituality of the individual does not depend upon the cultivation of one special department, but upon the entire rounding out of the whole nature, mentally, morally and spiritually; and when this development of character is strong, the individual, self-poised and self-centred, can rise triumphant over the ins of time, over the evils of the flesh, over the perplexities of daily life, ride the storms of hatred in safety and security, and emerge at last into the clear waters of a conscious self-poised existence, fearing no sorrow and dreading no future; then there is a spiritual development worthy of the name, made up of the personal, mental, moral and conscious development of the individual who is concerned. But such lives have neither time nor inclination to mourn, cry, or yearn for an especial spiritual development; for they feel the spirituality of their own souls radiating to every department of their being, and expressed in every thought and action of their lives. 

This is the spiritual development we would suggest to you as being realised in the spirit life. Over there it is not the question of the development of one especial part of a person’s nature to make them prominent or noticeable, or to give them some especial grace and quality. He is considered the most spiritual who has the most of spirituality in the entirety of his life, character, thought and action. Hence, then, in the spirit-land, the question of development may be followed upon any particular plane that you please. One person may make an especial point of development in a certain direction, another person’s inclination running into some other channel may cause him to pursue development in some opposite direction; yet you could not accuse either of being unspiritual, for they are pursuing the way, that, to their necessities and consciousness, seems the correct and proper one for them to pursue; and for them it is, because it seems so to them. When you can convince them that it is not the proper way and cause their thoughts to flow into other channels, then the new way will be the proper one for them. 

Development in the spiritual world may be intellectual, moral, or spiritual; it may be aesthetic, artistic, poetic, affectional, it may be the hundred and one different things by which the mind and soul and consciousness round out in so many departments, in the many different methods of progress and unfoldment; but whatever way the line of progress may be pursued, the development comes as the natural consequence and result of intelligent labour wisely directed. 

THE OBJECT OF DEVELOPMENT IS SERVICE 

What is the consequence of this development? This development of power supposes the development of the means for the utilization of power. The development of faculties, and the development of functions, must proceed side by side with development of organic means of expression. Now, in the spirit-life, the means of expression that are depended upon, in the earlier stages at least, are the means which are the subjective means to you in this world; and the subjective powers of your present nature become the objective features of expression in your early conditions in the spirit state. 

The result of this is, that there is not only an acquisition of power immediately upon entering the spiritual world but there is a further development of that power as a consequence of life and action on that plane; remembering now that for every being there is a development of ability, there must be a development of means through which that ability is acquired and expressed, that is, the organic means by which knowledge is gained implies another set of means whereby knowledge, after it is gained, can be put into practical operation. 

The spiritual brain, the spiritual sensibilities, the spiritual activities, the spiritual agencies, or senses shall we call them, that you utilise in the spiritual world for the acquisition of knowledge, have still a subjective side, which is affected by the knowledge when gained, and enables it to be expressed after you have mastered it and made it part and parcel of your own experiences. 

But why is it impossible that the development and life of the individual can never become so enormous as to become unwieldy, as we have suggested? 

THE ANALOGY OF DEATH 

This brings us to the question we have to deal with next, death in the spirit-land. If there is a process of expansion in the personality, the consciousness, and mentality of the spirit, there is a process of precipitation and concentration also. You continually grow in knowledge, your mind expands, and it contains so many things that you begin to feel the necessity of setting your mental house in order. What illustration can we give you? 

Here is a merchant: business pours in upon him thick and fast, he has a large correspondence from all quarters of the globe; there he sits at his desk, around him are pigeon-holes without number, where in proper order he puts his various correspondence, letters, and bills, and notices that come before him. But his papers have accumulated to such an extent that he says, “Dear me, I am getting overwhelmed with papers and documents— what shall I do with them?” Then he thinks he will have them all gone through; and those that are useless and out of date he will destroy and those that are of some service he will enter on the pages of a book conveniently arranged for that purpose. 

Then the process of precipitation and concentration begins; a portion of the papers are noted by a few lines in the book, and either filed away or perchance destroyed. The more important are carefully reduced to small bundles and stored away in the cellar, in case there may be occasion to refer to them in the future. By these methods many a pigeon-hole is cleared entirely, and the contents of others are materially reduced; so that the merchant says at the end of the clearing up, “Now I have got all of the important matters in this book properly indexed, where I can make ready reference to bygone transactions, and have plenty of room for the new correspondence.” He has concentrated and precipitated the experiences of the past year, he has reduced them to small dimensions; and his old correspondence not being allowed to remain in an unwieldy condition, he now can dispose of his new correspondence with ease, and handle it without difficulty. 

DISCARDING THE OUTGROWN 

In the spiritual world you will ultimately find yourself in a condition similar to that of the merchant. Your mind will be stored with memorandums of investigation of a thousand different things, and you will begin to realise that you are becoming overburdened. Then you will pass your mental treasures in review, and finding certain things not altogether necessary for your well-being, they may well be put away. And little by little you gradually go through your whole account of mental treasures, and reduce them to the smallest possible compass; and the mind’s actions being thus reduced and concentrated, the volume of preceding experiences that are in the memory will be reduced to the narrowest compass, and you will be thus able to start again with more room in the memory, more room in the drawers of your mind, ready for larger things hereafter. 

But this process cannot be fully accomplished without a certain peculiar condition, and here we shall have to digress a moment or two to introduce a point of spiritual philosophy that we think is well worthy of your consideration. The threefold operations of the mind may be described as perception, observation and reflection. This leads to the process of assimilation as the result of the three processes referred to; and the mind, assimilating the products obtained by one or all of these three processes, unites in a concrete whole the materials thus required. Now the three planes of mental and spiritual action are love, justice and wisdom, corresponding to the physical or natural, the mental, and spiritual natures of the individual. 

Now when you are living in this world, you are living altogether upon the physical plane of existence; and when you die here, the essence of all the experiences you have passed through are concentrated in your memory at the time of your passage from one world to the other. Also, when you pass from one plane to the other of spiritual existence, a process somewhat similar and analogous to that passed through upon passing from this stage to the next beyond it has to be encountered; and the result is a concentration of all the experiences and results upon that spiritual plane, so that you consolidate the experiences of that plane of being, and they become the foundation of your mental being when you arrive on the plane above. 

THROUGH SLEEP TO RENEWED LIFE? 

How, then, do you die in the spiritual world? Have you to be sick? oh, no! You will please bear in mind that in this matter we are speaking of your translation from one of the grand planes of spirit life to another, not of a mere change of sphere, society, or association, but of an absolute removal from one condition of spiritual existence to another that lies beyond it. You are not sick, there is no disease, no illness; but yet you are about to be translated from one condition of life to another beyond it. Are you fitted for it? Yes, you have been growing towards it; your spiritual perceptions have been quickened, and you see clearly there is a higher realm beyond you than the one you are at present residing in, and you realise it is a state that you have to enter. 

How can you gain admission? There comes a time when that plane of spiritual life that you are now on has been exhausted, an indefinite age may pass before such a result is attained, but come that time surely will, and does, and then there is this process of assimilation we have previously referred to. Thoughts, as it were, concentrate; you feel a nameless, but sweet and beautiful rest stealing over you; you feel that you are going to vacate the cruder elements of the condition you are then in. A beautiful sleep will fall upon you, and while this sleep is on you, behold these elements will drop from you, as the dew may fall from the tree. 

You awake presently, and in that waking find that you have made the voyage from the state you were then in to the wonderful clime you now have reached. No pain, no sorrow, scarcely a change in form even; but certain grosser spiritual elements, that were fit and proper to the condition before, have been left behind. 

And when, with a greater activity of the powers of your immortal nature, you stand on the higher plane, the whole of your preceding life is there enshrined within your mental nature, spread out before your mind’s eye, whensoe’er you choose to view them; and profiting by what you have obtained before, realising it is but the stepping-stone to what now lies before you, you will then start upon the new career that there awaits you. This may involve a separation of greater or less duration from those whom you have been previously associated with. If you have attained a higher plane of spiritual existence, you will have to wait until your friends have reached the same development ere they can stand side by side with you in the same condition of spiritual unfoldment. 

DEATH THE PATHWAY TO LARGER LIFE 

Here we have, then, in brief review, passed before you the questions of life and development and death in spirit-land. Let us look at the matter of death, however, from another point of view, which does not mean translation from one stage to another in the meaning in which we have just placed it before you. There are many who have to die from old prejudices, from old affections and old loves; many who have to die morally and mentally ere they can be resurrected from the crudities and imperfections, the errors and mistakes they have accumulated while here below. This accumulation will have to be vacated, thrown off, the old will have to die, and the new man come to life. Many and many such a death have we witnessed in the spiritual world; you say here it is repentance; we see it over and over again a thousand different times. 

Die to the old and live to the new; die to the false and live to the true; and by so “dying” and so “coming to life” you can attain a freedom and beauty, and an impetus of development, that cannot come to you by any other means. There are hatreds that will have to die before love can bloom; there is ignorance that must die ere wisdom can take its place; there is the calloused cold-heartedness that must die ere the warm rich life of love can animate the soul itself; there are all these influences and associations to die from ere the jewels of character and the beauties of the inner life can fill your mind. 

In thus placing before you life, development, and death in spiritland, we trust you will agree that we have given you some clear and precise information upon the various topics considered. Our object and desire has been to do this, so that you may learn in some degree what are the actual facts of man’s post-mortem life and character.