Glimpses Of The Next State.Pdf - Spiritualists' National Union

199understanding,” a knowledge of the powers which spirits can attain by diligent study of thevibrations in the next state of consciousness. There are no realms in any sphere below the fifth—some say below the sixth; and a spirit may attain the sixth sphere without being in any realm.There is some contradiction in the answers of people in the next state as to whether the earthis considered as the first sphere, or whether the next sphere above the earth is properly to be calledthe first. I have adopted the former view, and therefore speak of the earth as the first sphere. Thesecond is one of mental darkness. Every human being goes to “his own place,” where he will meetwith congenial spirits—that state of society for which he is qualified by his life and deeds on thefirst, or earth, sphere. None are what we should call miserable; and this second sphere is visited bymissionary spirits from the higher spheres, who endeavour to arouse, in its inhabitants, a desire torise to a loftier condition of development. It is full of those who have committed crimes, who haveconsciously sinned against their neighbour—in short, those who have, while on the earth plane,wilfully broken the “golden rule.” It is the nearest approach in spirit life to the “hell” of theChristian theology, but it is not really the same thing. When the divine spark of desire to rise isfairly alight in the soul of the sinner, then comes the misery, remorse, and repentance for misdeedson the earth. The real “ hell” is after the spirit begins to move upward from the second sphere,when it realises the iniquity of its past, and the thraldom of trying to make good the consequencesof its own wicked acts.Every man who has not wilfully done an injury to his neighbour passes through the secondsphere and goes straight to the third. Here he may remain many earth years. It does not follow that,because he has not murdered anyone nor broken the golden rule, he is fit at once to move to thehigher spheres. There are sins of omission as well as of commission. He may have misled theignorant, and have to get into communication with the earth sphere to acknowledge his error.There may be a hundred reasons for the delay in his progress.And so on to the higher spheres. I am told that there is no hard-and-fast line between eachsphere and the next; the fact of two people, bound together by affection, being in different spheresafter the second does not affect their living together any more than it does on earth. Frequentlyhere one sees a coarse grained man living happily with a spiritual woman, and vice versa. As far as Ican learn, men of science who still desire to impress mortals and carry on their experiments on theearth plane dwell for long periods in the fourth and fifth spheres.The realms are distinguished by colours, beginning with infra-red and ending with ultraviolet.I know one man in the second realm of the sixth sphere who tells me his colour is red. Myguide is in the seventh realm, sixth sphere, and her colour is pale lavender; she tells me that thecolour of the next realm above hers is crystal-white.I have been much surprised at finding men, whom I little expected to make quick progressin the spirit world, in the sixth sphere (no realm). I am informed by the controls that such spiritshave worked hard to gain knowledge of the higher vibrations. It does not appear that we can judgea difference of character by the sphere, after a spirit has risen above the third. I conjecture that oneman might devote the whole of his attention to learning these vibrations; while another equallygood, or perhaps better, might voluntarily remain in a lower sphere—say the fourth—because hewished to be in nearer touch with the earth plane for the beneficent reason of disseminating his newdiscoveries through the minds of mortals.The question arises: “ How is it that evil and undeveloped spirits in the second sphere do solittle real harm to those on earth?” That they do harm by impression is certain, but, consideringtheir proximity, not anything like the harm that one would expect. The amount of power exerted inthe seance-room in levitation’s, moving of furniture, and so forth, if used maliciously, might unroofa house, put people to death in their sleep, or kill children at any time. I once asked this question ofa Quaker control. His reply was: “The spirits in the second sphere have not sufficient knowledge ofvibrations to do physical harm.”High spirits can always descend to lower spheres and communicate with those on the earthsphere. They can greatly assist the progress of their friends when they pass over to the spirit world.Such are the fragments of teaching I have learnt during my education. They do not amountto much, and may not be quite correct. It is constantly being borne in upon me that it is, at present,impracticable for spirits to explain in earthly terms the mysteries of the next state.