T3

05-77

"No fabled dreamy heaven of eternal inactivity awaits you, but a sphere of progressive usefulness and growth to higher perfection."

11-406

"You ask them which heaven they inhabit, because you have the idea of several heavens, placed one above the other, like the stories of a house, and they therefore answer you according to your own ideas; but, for them, the words 'third,' 'fourth,' or 'fifth' heaven, express different degrees of purification, and consequently of happiness."

13-9

"Many and varied are the conditions that prevail when the soul comes alive in this world, or in one of the states to which we are subject after death."

19-19

"I have observed that there are innumerable states and conditions and diversified experiences in spirit as on earth.… Having different experiences here, as with you; and, on returning to you, we have different experiences and different descriptions of the spirit world to relate to you, according as each has realized for himself."

25-87

" The spirit world lies between sixty and one hundred and twenty miles from the terrestrial surface; the whole intermediate space, including that immediately over the earth, the habitation of mortals, is divided into seven concentric regions called spheres. The region next the earth, the primary scene of man's existence, is known as the first or rudimental sphere. 411. The remaining six may be distinguished as the spiritual spheres."

25-87

"The spheres revolve with the earth on a common axis, forming the same angle with the plane of the ecliptic, and move with it about the ponderable sun."

27-25

"Spirits, after leaving the body, are conducted to localities adapted to the capacities and the condition of their minds, in reference to education, society, and progress. … Localities are selected in which the attributes, desires, and characteristics of the spirit may be more distinctly developed. All good and pure spirits, therefore, do not reside near this earth, if, indeed, anywhere near it. Some reside millions of miles distant, others on planets near the earth, but all assume the characteristics of the inhabitants of the planet or globe in which they are to reside … whose organization is, of course, more ethereal and spiritual than if born on this earth."

27-26

"Many globes, spheres, or planets contain inhabitants of far inferior organization to man."

27-38

"The second sphere embraces not only this earth, but many worlds, and to each of the globes in this circle do spirits most adapted go. Some are confined to earth, many good spirits from missions of necessity; but the seventh sphere is among the orbs where the presence of God is most manifest. And the gradations or steps until this point is reached, are in circles of worlds, not miles."

29-56

"As the [residents of the] higher spheres had created all the beauties of those realms, so had the denizen of those lower spheres built up the appalling conditions of their spirit life."

31-156

"Souls, when they come out, usually remain in the neighborhood where they have lived, unless there is some strong reason to the contrary."

32-41

"The world in which we find ourselves immediately after death we call the 'astral world.' From this point we can progress to higher planes-to higher levels of consciousness. By 'higher' planes I do not mean spatially higher but rather those planes which have a finer vibration."

32-53

"Heaven and hell are not places-they are spiritual states of being. They are not static states but are states in which there can be growth and progress toward ultimate wholeness of being."

33-68

"Human souls have always spent far longer on these planes than on the earth itself; the tenure on each plane here has no set period. Those who develop quickly may pass on within a few years of their coming, others who mature more slowly may spend centuries here. So these planes of being are really to be thought of as the true home of the human race."

33-127

"One goes through the door of death; a physical body is left behind and all the rest of the being goes through. One has then a short interval in a kind of anteroom and here another body, the etheric, is left behind. This is the second death. Then yet another door opens which lets us through into this glorious world of the astral planes where a long period is usually passed without further change."

35-98

"You'll look back at the first stage and call it purgatory. The second stage, when you can have anything you want with the speed of your thought, you'll call heaven. The third stage, when you experience the bliss of the Oneness, you'll call Nirvana."

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02-66

"This world affords every man just exactly the place that his nature and conduct in life have fitted him for."

02-102

"Each spirit is so situated that he is happy in proportion as he is developed and good."

04-146

"Each experience is different … For example, there is an initial stage for those who are still focused strongly in physical reality and for those who need a period of recuperation and rest. On this level, there will be hospitals and rest homes. … There are also training centers [where] reality is explained in accordance with an individual's ability to understand and perceive it. … some individuals do not undergo any such periods, but because of development and progress during their past lives, they are ready to begin more ambitious programs."

08-36

"When you return to us, you will have a choice: do you accept our love and God's love fully and return to Him or don't you? No onus will attach to you if you do not. We are not told that we must do anything. God lets us find our own way."

13-13

"Between each plane or new chapter in experience there is … an intermediate state [the astral plane or 'Hades' as Myers calls it], when the soul reviews his past experiences and makes his choice, deciding whether he will go up or down the ladder of consciousness."

14-23

"Take a bird's eye, dispassionate view of all your worldly interests. Master them or they will master you. In the latter case, when you get here, you will be miserable. Life will seem empty, a wilderness. Earth ties tighten their grip, yet you will be unable to respond. Confusion will result - that is purgatory."

17-230

"You gravitate to a place you are fitted for. Mother, there's no judge and jury, you just gravitate, like to like."

19-72

"Both heaven and hell and all of their modifications are conditions of one's own soul. … A soul or person or spirit of dark, undeveloped conditions would at any place in all the realms of space be in darkness."

19-394

"I find here a glorious country, but glorious only to those who are in condition of its appreciation."

20-157

"People are not on our sphere because they are more clever than those below them; for there are very clever people on lower spheres. It is a question of goodness, of spiritual development. Some here are quite stupidly good, their every impulse is pure and good, yet they are quite incapable of organising or thinking clearly."

22-92

"Upon entry into the spirit life, a person will naturally and automatically gravitate to his state in spirit which corresponds to his acts and thoughts throughout life."

24-7

"By the working of the natural law you gravitate to the place for which you are suited; what is within you draws you automatically."

29-37

"Each soul as it passed into spirit passed into that realm for which it had fitted itself when upon the earth-into that realm and no other."

30-53

"By man's thoughts and inspirations he weaves for himself his future place in this dimension."

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02-70

"There is no such thing as a literal Hell of fire. Hell is in a man's soul and is simply remorse for a bad life on earth. Those un-repentant dwell in a place apart until they desire to do better, and progress."

02-99

"Today … we went to a part of the world I had never been before. It was to a much lower plane of existence than ours and is called the Sphere of the Unprogressed. Here is where a great mass of the low class come when they first come over. Not only these, however, but I was told that many who had occupied high positions on earth, but who had spent their lives in defrauding or oppressing their fellow men. They were not half so unhappy as you would think, though to me their country is dreadful. They suffer no sickness, nor want for the necessities of spiritual life, but the whole face of nature there is the same dull lead color, and entirely without beauty."

02-102

"A number of spirits do live and spend most of their time near the earth, but they are the very unprogressed and find their pleasures in mingling with mortals."

04-179

"Others may insist that because of their transgressions they will be cast into hell, and because of the force of such belief, they may for some time actually encounter such conditions."

12 - 33

"If the soul should be tainted with horrendous sins against others (the only true sin) then that soul will lie fallow for a long time, unless it is so beset by evil that it returns to trouble those left behind."

13-61

"The man or woman who has never deeply loved or cared for any other human soul may, at death, rise from the body of clay into loneliness and into a night that, in its impenetrable blackness, is like no night on earth."

18-145

"The belts or zones that lie close around your earth are designed for the habitation of undeveloped spirits when out of the body; as they outgrow the passions of earth and become more refined, they pass to another or higher zone. Many remain in the first or earth zone for years."

18-147

"After a time, when as it seemed, I grew accustomed to the darkness, I could see people about me, poor men and women who did not realize they had left the physical body…. The guide spoke gently to them. Some answered with coarse jests, others with mirthless laughter; but a few came close and listened while he told them of their condition and what must be done to work out of this darkness, which was of their own creation. We have as much trouble in making these poor spirit people understand conditions beyond their sight and touch, as you have with earth people."

02-103

"A large number of the human race come here with both body and mind sunk in the lowest depths of ignorance and vice, … They are what you would call the scum of the earth and have passed their lives in vice and crime. There is but one such place for this class, but its extent is incredible and its population immense. They live in discord and misery and everything is dark and forbidding, and a dull leaden fog pervades the air at all times."

19-340

"The spirit of the hangman, the murderer, the wrongdoer, is related by strongest ties to all his criminal acts on earth, to all that he has made miserable on earth; and … so the spirit of the wrongdoer hears in itself an image of all connected with his wrongdoing, continually revolving upon his inner consciousness, and though locally in purest heaven, his relations to his earth life make for himself the gloomiest hell. Thus he hears the carpenters erecting a scaffold and the avenging words of the one he hanged, and feels the pangs of the bereft home which he made desolate."

20-227

"The very worst of criminals can rise. When first reaching the other side they think that theirs is the only place. They cannot even see us when we visit them. I am aware that there is an essential difference between my body and that of a person on the lower sphere. My body is so etherialised that it is almost as invisible to those people as it is to you, and the mental barriers set up by those unhappy souls preclude them at first from even sensing my presence."

20-229

"A man who has been very cruel, thoughtless and selfish … finds himself with no other friends, and no one else near him, save those who are exactly like himself. The whole atmosphere and the very scenery of the place is tinted with the hopeless drabs and grays of their mental and spiritual outlook. How truly poets and the great writers have symbolised the darkness of evil, the grayness of misery. I have visited it and I have seen the grayness, I have seen the darkness. It surpasses that known on earth."

23-24

"If I go down to [the Lower Realms] it becomes murkier and murkier until it is so creepy that I scoot back here where I belong."

24-36a

"Some people, whose spiritual faculties have dwindled till they have become atrophied … can see no beauty here."

24-36b

"Some people are earth-bound. All their interests are there, and they return for that contact with men and the old conditions they crave."

25-92

" Evil or misdirected spirits find their affinities in the second sphere, where the lowest and most undeveloped are associated together, and remain for indefinite periods."

25-104

"We passed into the second sphere; on entering which a tremor seized me. A moral darkness pervades the atmosphere, which renders it gloomy and uncomfortable in the extreme. The inhabitants are dark and dismal in their appearance, and are continually tortured with the pangs of a guilty conscience."

29-56

"If this place we were now could be called hell — and no doubt it would be by theologians — -then there was certainly no evidence of fire or heat of any kind On the contrary, there was nothing but a cold, dank atmosphere."

30-98

"There are also Hells though certainly differing from the physical hells and everlasting fiery torments of man's warped imagination. There are hells of the spirit and the mind, confining states of misery; dark, depressing and as real as the tortured consciousness of the dweller therein makes them. Yet these hells are not eternal. The man (or woman) in these mental torments need stay there no longer than his desires keep him."

30-99

"The Shadow Land is a very real place indeed; a gloomy murk covers it to which one has to become accustomed; squalid dwellings inhabited by unhappy, tormented beings who jeer and mock and pursue their warped existences."

32-55

"Hell is a state of being heavy, dull, dismal, gray, and glum-as when you are heavily depressed and self-centered."

32-58

"Some people find themselves 'earth-bound' after death. This is a lower astral state."

33-106

"The lower astral plane where we all begin our experiences is the place for adjustment and cure. It is a kind of sorting house, a place of training and purgation to fit one for the more exacting conditions of the higher astral planes."

34-40

"Hell does not exist as this place you have fantasized, where you burn in some everlasting fire … Yet there is an experience … that to your soul would be hell. … Yet even this experience is never eternal."

35-74

If there is no hell, yet I am experiencing hell, what the hell is the difference? "There wouldn't be any, as long as you remain in your created reality. Yet you will not create such a reality forever."

37~14

"Imagination plays an important part in his conceptions of paradise. If it has become perverted through his deeds and thoughts when he was a man, it may create sinister surroundings for him."

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02-69

"Never doubt for a moment that this world is a thousand times better in every way than yours. When I compare even my happy life on earth with what I now have, I can but see the contrast."

03–121

"The conditions in which we find ourselves depend on the condition of our mind. If we wish it we can be surrounded by beautiful country."

04-179

"Some may inhabit [a conventional heaven] until they learn through their own experience that existence demands development and that such a heaven would be sterile, boring, and indeed `deadly'."

08-39

"To be happy, one must know of a condition that is the opposite of happy, and there is no such condition here."

17-230

"Summerland … is a very happy medium. The very highest can come to visit you. It is just sufficiently near the earth plane to be able to get to those on earth."

18-47

"It is a wondrous land of light, where the beauties of nature, as seen on the earth, are brought to perfection. … The great pity is that it is so long before some spirits even begin to see it as it really is. Some of these spirits, who have not progressed far enough to see and realize the beauty about them, when communicating with their friends on earth, give them quite wrong and dissimilar impressions of conditions over here."

19-29

"We cannot express to you more than a very faint idea of the thrilling delight in which a spiritually enlightened soul on this side of life perpetually basks."

19-73

"I might talk to you of that country, of its grandeur, of its happy inhabitants, of its rich and sweet aromas, of its music-its delightful strains of sweet music, of its flowers in endless bloom and variegated colors in infinite profusion, its mountains, hills, dales, plains, and beautiful streams. But I might talk to you and get hosts of the most advanced immortals, dwelling in the eternal beauty and grandeur of that glorious country, to stand here with me and speak and sing of its ambrosial gardens, all your days on earth, and yet you could only have a dim idea of that beautiful country awaiting you on this side of life."

20-159

"Ours is such a wonderful life in comparison to that lived on earth. Nothing I could say through this channel would give you any idea that was comparable to the reality. It is so much more wonderful, bright and enjoyable than we can express."

32-43

"The astral world is almost a replica of your world, except that it is of a finer substance and we are not 'bound' by our objective reality as you are."

20-168

"On the higher spheres there is the perfect operation of Divine law or principle. The people do not need keeping in order. They are nearer to the actual governing court, or seat of activity, and therefore can see the perfect workings of law."

23-24

"These worlds above us are even richer in light and happiness. … If I go there, and I can, I find it too bright; the light hurts my eyes. And the vibrations are so refined that I can't respond to them!"

11-125

Are there worlds in which the spirit, ceasing to inhabit a material body, has no longer any other envelope than the perispirit ? "Yes, and this envelope itself becomes so etherealised that, for you, it is as though it did not exist. This is the state of the fully purified spirits."

25-108

"I receive my ideas of the fifth, sixth, and seventh spheres from the spirits who dwell therein, having never visited them in person. What a magnificent panorama is there presented to the spirit's gaze! There are colossal temples, and "houses not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." As far as the vision can extend may be seen cities and palaces, whose lofty domes sparkle like diamonds in the sunbeams of heaven; … The parks are of great magnitude, and abound with the most beautiful animals. … There are congregated millions of spirits, who are associated together like a harmonious and happy family. … How shall I describe to you the transcendent glory of the seventh sphere? Let us contemplate it. In it all the beauties and joys of the lower degrees are combined, but in a much more refined and sublimated form."

29-37

"There are other realms immeasurably more beautiful than that in which we were now happily living; realms of surpassing beauty into which we cannot penetrate until such time as we have earned the right to enter, either as visitors or as inhabitants. But though we may not pass into them, the glorious souls who dwell in them can come into realms of less celestial rarity, and can visit us here."

29-42

"At the border to the higher realms … a soul thus unprepared would find itself in much the same situation as upon earth when one emerges into brilliant sunlight after prolonged stay in complete darkness. But as in the case of the earthly sunshine one can, after a suitable lapse of time, become again perfectly at ease in the normal bright light, it is not so in the case of the higher realms. There is no such adaptability there. The 'blinding' effect will be continuous to one of a lower state."

30-44

"No soul coming here from earth's limitation, however advanced it may be in spiritual truth, is able to stand the stepped-up vibrations or the translucent Light of these High Planes."

32-43

"On numerous occasions since I arrived here, I have been permitted to go into the higher planes where there is a unity of God-praise, not a segregation of the praise of God."

32-55

"Heaven is a state of being joyous, light, loving, harmonious, vibrant, God-centered and others-centered."

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