by Edward C. Randall

There were few nights during the years of scientific investigation that I did not talk with earthbound spirit people, usually with several, and I have learned much of their condition.

“What creates the earthbound condition?” is the first question properly asked. I answer, as I have been answered thousands of times:

“The lives they led, and the conditions they created for themselves, for as a man sows so shall he reap.”

The laws of nature, the laws under which we live, are not only fixed and definite, but eternally just.

Thoughts are things, and every moment as they emanate from each individual something is added to his character. It is enriched or impoverished, and if no light emanates from it one is held at his dissolution within the lower planes that circle this globe. The selfish character, like the miser in the “Chimes of Normandy,” the cruel, the immoral and wanton, the thief, the murderer,—is it not just that they be herded together until they have lived over each wrong act, lived it aright and made compensation, thus qualifying themselves for association with a finer group? The justice that meets human souls at the frontier is complete. They enter into a condition which is of their own creation. They find such light as they radiate, and no more. There is no escape in the after life from the consequences of things done and performed in this. In this plane, so close about the earth that in reality it is a part of it, the wicked, the malicious and base, and all those who have acquired no spiritual development, are held.

This plane has various stages. Some are in total darkness, some in half light; all in all, it is at most a twilight zone between the spiritual and physical worlds. Here old appetites, thoughts and desires hold sway as before. In this zone a great mass of undeveloped people of the same general character, with a desire for spirituality no greater than when living in the physical body, remain. Their condition is much worse than in this world, for there is not the opportunity for reformation that there was before. There the great law of attraction holds together those of a similar character, so that these live in mental poverty until they have a desire for better things. Then the way is shown and they work slowly out by their own efforts, but the labor is long and the path dim that leads to the zones of happiness and peace.

Bruno said: “Whatever good a man has to his credit, whether it be much or little, is the seed from which he grows eternally.”

In my talks with earthbound spirit people I never found two exactly alike, any more than they can be found alike here. That change [death] did not alter or improve them. This is evidently Hell, so much talked of and feared.

I recall so many earthbound that have told of the horror of their condition, that it is with difficulty I choose specific individuals, for I had speech with such a great number. It is like seeing the paintings in the principal galleries of Europe. There are many, but some stand out prominently. This is the story told by one:

“I was not a good man among men. I was selfish, cruel, took human life, and was, as I now know, killed while committing a crime. When I awoke it was very dark, and, not knowing what had happened, I called in anger, but my companions did not come. My voice echoed back to me again and again, and I began to think I was in a cave. I arose and groped about in the darkness, but I could not find the walls, though I walked for hours. I did not feel hunger or thirst, and days and months passed, while I was ever searching for the walls that threw back the echo of my call. Can you imagine the sensation that you would have, to be lost in an open forest with the sun in the sky, to say nothing of being lost in darkness? My sensations and suffering beggar description.

“After a very long time I saw a light, and as it approached I saw that it shone or radiated from the form of a man. ‘My brother,’ the man said, ‘you are in spiritual darkness; how can I help you?’ He came and, putting forth his hands, would have touched me, but I was speechless and rushed away in fear. Thereafter when I saw a light I would hide, fearing I would be arrested, for at that time I did not know I had left my physical body. I became desperate, and the next time a light approached I waited. Coming to me, a man from whose body light radiated, as before, said, ‘What do you wish?’ I replied, ‘I want to get out of this prison.’ ‘You are not in prison; you are dead.’ I cursed him for making such fool statements, and he was gone.

“Again I was alone in darkness. How long this continued I know not, for, there being no day, I could not count time. Again there came one to me and again I demanded that I be released from my prison. He calmly and kindly replied, ‘You are not in prison; you are a spirit.’ That seemed to me the height of absurdity, for I was very much alive; but I listened and he told me ‘that I had made the change’ and brought another, an artist, who drew pictures of my youth and the faces of my boyhood friends, and, one by one, sketched those acts and deeds and wrongs that I had done. Then the light faded and they were gone and I was left alone to think.

“When I had fully come to appreciate my condition and to regret the wrong done and the suffering caused by me, there came a desire to do what I could to make reparation. Then came other spirit people to encourage me and suggest what I must do to obtain spiritual growth and, with it, the light. Not one offered to take my burden, or to undo the wrong that I had done; that was for me; they only pointed out the way. I was told there were none to forgive me, except the injured; no savior but himself.

“Step by step I went forward; hour by hour I made reparation and lived again each wrong and lived it right; and day by day, as you count time, I undid my wrong and added to the right. The way was long, the labor intense, but in it I found a happiness I had never known before. For I was building my character; the atom of good was striving for its spirituality. Now that is all behind me, and I live in the glorious and effulgent light of the spirit world, laboring among congenial souls. I was seared by the fire of selfishness and wrong. I paid, and paid to the last farthing, the penalty. Now I am at peace with all the spirit world, as it is with me.

“I send this message back to the world of men: There is not in the universe a method by which ‘any one can escape the penalty of wrong.’ Had I known this fact, I would have lived among you honestly and been fair with my fellow men. I did not know it, and I have paid in full, as all will pay in full, for ignorance will not excuse.

“It has been a privilege to tell through you of my experience in the earthbound zone of the spirit world. If one man will hesitate when contemplating a single selfish or wrong act, and turn from it because of better understanding, it will reflect upon me and better my condition.”

The following statement as to earthbound conditions is from another spirit:

“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.

“We of the higher zones try to teach them that they must forgive and forget the wrongs of earth and in that work advance out of the earthbound condition, but many turn a deaf ear to our suggestions and try to revenge the wrong done to them when on earth; all this is intensely human, and this zone, so like the physical, is very real.

“Those who have progressed, those who in the beginning passed directly through this belt, because of their spirituality, would never come back into that atmosphere, were it not for their love for and desire to help humanity.”

In explanation of this condition another spirit said:

“Many on leaving the mortal body are still in earthly conditions, found on the grosser spiritual side you call the lower sphere, where the spiritual senses are not yet awakened to susceptibility of spiritual discernment.”

Again, one said:

“I find a great many come from earth life in a very darkened condition; and, of course, they gravitate or are drawn to localities of corresponding conditions. They don’t know just where they ought to go or what to do. In fact, many are ignorant of any other than the condition in which they find themselves. Many, too many, are in a condition of slumbering, some in a deep sleep which lasts a long time, and great effort is put forth to awake such spirit people.”

This is the experience of another spirit:

“I had been in the after life a number of years when I was taken into the lowest sphere, and what I saw has lingered in my memory ever since. I was taken by a guide accustomed to work in the earthbound plane. We move, as you know, with the rapidity of thought. My first impression was of a descent in the dark, all about me gloom, and to add to the horror I could hear voices though I could not see any one. 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 some shrieking because they could not escape their victims; those they had wronged were not there,—it was their awakening consciousness that brought such vision. 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.”

In the beginning when I talked with spirits who did not know they were dead, as that word is commonly used, it staggered my thought. I could not then conceive that one could be in that condition and not know it. I did not then know that the next life was so material, so tangible, and, in the lower spheres, so like our own; neither did I know that here and now we possess an inner body, which, when separated from the outer flesh garment, is identically the same as before, with the same feature, expression and thoughts. With the first or lower sphere actually blending with our world as it does, how can those who have just gone understand their condition, if they possess no knowledge concerning this change?

In the presence of such known facts, the question of the continuity of life no longer remains, and we advance to the more important proposition of what are the conditions the so-called dead meet when they cross the border. Where is the border? Where is the after life and what is the new environment? These questions are vital and are being answered from day to day, though few ask the question, and of those who do ask a less number understand. The world is too busy getting money to give this subject serious thought.

Let it not be understood that all the living dead are earthbound and held in such zone of darkness; of all that go, only a few of the many are there held. But let it be remembered that conditions in spirit planes vary as the varying characters of men, and that each reaches that environment for which his earth life has fitted him. There he will live until by growth [or metempsychosis] he has earned a more advanced zone.

The experiences of these spirits were unusual, terrible in severity, and possibly extreme, but they are necessary to illustrate what the degenerate and wicked must expect. Others have told of the wonders and delights of the next conditions, as they were enabled to feel and visualize them in the beginning. Where spirit people are, what they see and enjoy, depends on just what their earth life earned. How many know this fact?

The fortunate should help the unfortunate; the strong should defend the weak; the intellectual should lead with gentle hands the mental poor. This is the highest conception of religion in both worlds, and a necessary process if we would enrich ourselves in either.

A spirit has said:

“You can have no idea of the nature and extent of punishment which some spirits have to undergo. There is no hell, nor is torture inflicted in the spirit world. Every one that comes brings the punishment with him in his own nature. When a spirit passes from the earth to this world, every trait of his natural habits, principles and passions is delineated on his spirit features. There can be no deceptions with us.

“You will be placed with those of similar character, whose natures correspond with yours.

“There is no night here, and consequently no day, at least not as I once measured, and as you still measure, time. Time here is measured only by emotions, events and deeds. There are dark places and darker souls, as there are on earth.”

Excerpt from Frontiers Of The After Life