It has been remarked that some of us who come to the earth [from the spirit world] to speak to our friends, seem to have been altered, some of us only slightly, others almost beyond recognition except by such certain evidence as we give of our identity. How is it that we have so changed, for the better, it might be observed?
This apparent transformation of character is explainable by the fact that upon earth there are few people who really show themselves to the world as they truly are.
In ancient days upon earth, folk were in general much simpler in their tastes and their habits and behavior than they are now. Then they were not afraid to speak their inmost thoughts more openly to one another, provided those thoughts were not of too violent a religious or political nature. People were in many respects more neighborly in those days when life was simpler. But in these times of greater ‘civilization’, when the world has become more sophisticated, when people seem less reliant upon each other, dwellers upon earth have withdrawn within themselves until it is difficult to form any very reliable opinion upon the true character of anyone. People are more shy of expressing themselves openly.
The earth, too, has advanced in many directions, making life vastly more complicated. Life is more harassing, it proceeds at a much swifter pace, and a great concentration of energy is crammed into a few hours that would scarcely be spread over the same number of days in olden times.
Now all these conditions bring with them a consequent infirmity of temper. Under stress of such a life we do not always appear at our best. We can become irritable, or cynical; we think we are possessed of all truth, and inclined to regard as fools others who do not think as we do. We become thoroughly intolerant. We may sneer just to give vent to our feelings, and those same feelings may have been induced by something which has gone wrong or not pleased us. We may suffer from poor health of the physical body. We may be overworked or under worked. We may have too much pleasure or not enough. And so one could go on multiplying causes for our giving exhibitions of character and temperament which are not really our own, which do not come from our ‘better selves’, to use the old term.
That, broadly speaking, is life on earth as it affects a large number of people. Now let us contemplate the altered state of life upon our coming to the spirit world.
You know by now some few facts concerning life in these lands. As we step into these realms we leave all the worrying cares of the earth behind us. Gone is the poor health we may have had there. Gone, too, are the rush and bustle of earthly life in every department of its complex activities. We do not even need to worry about the state of the weather in these perpetually sunny lands, and that alone, almost, is enough to cheer the heart immeasurably!
Here in the spirit world we stand revealed as we truly are.
There is no longer any question as to what description of person we are. We can give voice to our thoughts without the fear of being considered foolish, simple, eccentric or childish. We cease to be intolerant here because we find that others are tolerant to us, and there is precious little, indeed, nothing at all, to be intolerant about in these realms. We are a happy community of numberless millions of people, with each one of whom we can be upon the most friendly, genial, and affable of terms, giving and receiving respect to and from everyone of our fellows. No single person has ever to endure that which is distasteful to him because there is no one here to cause that which is distasteful to others. The beauties and charms of these realms act like an intellectual tonic; they bring out only that which is and always was the very best in one. Whatever was not the very best in one upon earth will be swamped by the good nature and kindness which the very air here will bring out, like some choice bloom beneath the warm summer sun.
There is no room for the unpleasant phases of human character that are so often exhibited upon earth. They cannot enter these realms. And in so far as such elements of character and temperament as we show upon earth are not the reflection of our real selves, we shall at once cast them aside as we enter the spirit world upon the moment of our transition.
I have previously said that a human being is exactly the same one minute after his dissolution as he was one minute before it. That is borne out by what I have just said. It is the great difference between our real selves and the personality which we present for outward view. We are just the same, our true selves, but we may not be recognizably so. It is not so much that we have altered but that we are no longer subject to the stresses that produce the unpleasant qualities that were observable in us when we were on the earth. Remove the causes of the distempers and the latter will disappear also.
Here in spirit lands we have nothing to disturb us. On the contrary, we have everything that will bring us contentment. Our true natures thrive and expand upon such glories and splendors as the spirit world alone has to offer. We work, not for an earthly subsistence, but for the joy that comes with doing work that is both useful and congenial, and above all things, work that is of service to our fellow beings. The reward which the work brings with it is not a transient reward as is the case with so much mundane labor, but a reward that will bring us eventually to a higher state of living.
To us here in the spirit world, life is pleasure, always pleasure. We work hard, and sometimes long, but that work is pleasure to us. We have not the tiresome wearying toil that you have upon earth. We are not solitary beings fighting for our existence amid a world that can be, and so often is somewhat indifferent to our struggles. Here in these realms wherein I live, there is not one solitary individual of whatever nationality under the sun who would not come immediately to the assistance of anyone of us upon the merest glimmering of our needing help. And such help it is! There is no false pride that precludes our accepting help from a fellow creature anxious to give it.
Millions of us though there be, yet there is not one sign, not one atom of discord to be seen throughout the immense extent of these realms. Unity and concord are two of the plainest characteristics to be observed and understood and appreciated to the full.
And so you see, my good friend, there are firm grounds for not returning to visit you upon earth with exactly those characteristics by which we were so well known to you when we lived on earth. Our tempers were very often sorely tried in those days upon earth. Those times are gone now, and you know us as we really are. You did not know us for our true selves when we were with you in the flesh. That was no one’s fault but our own. Certainly it was not yours. We are sometimes sorry we were not outwardly of a more genial nature, but we were, and still are but human after all, and it is upon this factor that we will all base our defense, if defense be needed. Had conditions been different with us, perhaps we should have been different, too.
When we come to the spirit world and look back upon that part of our life that we have spent on earth, we are oft times rather shocked by the quite ridiculous importance which we placed upon some trivial incident in our daily life, an incident which caused us to appear intolerant, shall we say? or hasty or quick-tempered.
When we return to you, who are still upon earth, we do our utmost to present ourselves as we now truly are, shorn of those earthly disfigurations in our characters and temperaments by which we were perhaps too easily recognized. Such apparent change in our personality should not be so mysterious to you now, after this brief exposition. The change may seem amazing upon first acquaintance; it may even lead some of our friends to doubt our identity! It is rather pleasant to be doubted upon such a basis. At least it demonstrates to us that we have cleared ourselves of the trammels of earthly inhibitions in the full expression of our real natures.
It must not be thought, however, that we lose our individuality in this process. We retain that always. It is something which we have built up during our lives on earth, something that will characterize us and distinguish us, each from the other. We are not all reduced to an insipid uniformity. We retain our tastes and predilections; but our virtues never become as vices in their outward expression. We are healthy in body and mind, but our outlook has in so many things undergone a fundamental change.
The joy of living is a phrase of which you cannot have even the barest understanding while you are yet upon the earth-plane. It is not surprising, therefore, that we should exhibit a little of that joy when we visit you on earth. Some of us, even, dare not show ourselves to you as we really are, because some folk might be shocked! There are so many people on earth who regard us from a restricted self-conscious point of view. There would seem to be a feeling of piety in the air sometimes which we are not pleased to see when we visit you. To receive us with bated breath is not a reception according to our liking. It savors too much of the suggestion that as we have now become celestial beings (to use a favorite term), therefore we must be treated as such, that is, with gravity, with decorum, and in a manner redolent of the church sanctuary. That is not a natural environment to us. It is, in fact, thoroughly artificial, both to us and to you. We like to be just ourselves as we are, and we like you to be yourselves just as we really know you.
It is strange to us that people should look upon us as a different race of beings merely because we have gone through the process known as dying. We have simply discarded our physical body, left it upon the earth, and taken up our life in another and vastly superior world. The whole process of transition which is so much feared by the folk on earth, is a natural, normal, and painless process. It is as natural and painless as removing your outer garment when you have no further use for it. The world into which we have made our entrance is a real world, solid and perpetually enduring. The people who inhabit this spirit world are real people of [etheric] flesh and blood, people who once walked upon earth as you do now.
All that is great in man survives and is taken with him into this very spirit world where new avenues, far greater, finer, and broader, are forever opening before him. There is no limit to what immense heights he can reach, whether he be scientist, or artist, or musician, or a follower of any other of the myriad worthy occupations that are to be found upon earth.
Some of us here, in these and other realms, have made many brief visits to the earth to tell our friends there something of what transpires in this great spirit world. And in doing so we have seen the shadow that hangs over so many people’s lives, the shadow of ‘death’ and the ‘grave’, those two ogres that frighten so many good souls, filling them with a dread that is utterly and completely unwarranted. Man was never intended to go through his earthly life with this monstrous dark shadow forever hanging over him. It is unnatural and thoroughly bad. It has been raised by men upon earth in remote periods of the earth’s history, and it has so continued for the generality of earth’s dwellers for generation after generation of the incarnate.
It is but natural that, with the opportunity presenting itself, we should visit the earth, and be bringing with us a little of the light of knowledge, we should be able to dispel the fears of death of the physical body that haunts so many people, and in place of those fears to give some knowledge and information of the superb lands of the spirit world wherein we now live, and wherein you yourself will one day come to join us.
In place of fears of a speculative ‘hereafter’ we try to show you something of the brilliant prospect that lies before you when that happy moment arrives for you to take up your true and undoubted heritage in the spirit world.
We have traveled some distance together in our discussions of life in the spirit world, although we have touched but briefly upon so vast a theme.
And so, in taking a brief leave of our subject, I will take also a brief leave of you, and in doing so I would say to you:
Benedicat te omnipotens Deus.
Excerpt from Here And Hereafter