HEAVEN AND HELL

Heaven and Hell in the Spirit World and Spiritual Progress through them.

Heaven and Hell

November 23rd, 1915
I am here, St. John, Apostle of Jesus.

    I want to tell you tonight about the things that spirits who have not received the Divine Love of the Father do, or have done to them, as you may say, in order to get out of their darkness and suffering, and progress to a happier condition.
    Well, when these spirits of evil, or sinful Life, first come into the Spirit World, they enter what is called the Earth Plane.  When I say the Earth Plane, I mean those Spheres, which are nearest the Earth, and partake very largely of the material.  They are received by their friends who may have been with them at the time of their passing, and are, to a certain extent, comforted and made familiar with their surroundings.  This may last for a shorter or longer time, according, as the spirit is capable of understanding their changed condition from mortal to spirit.  After this condition of consciousness is assumed by the spirit, these friends leave them, and some guiding spirit, whose duty it is to perform the task, shows, or conducts, them to the place or plane which they are fitted to occupy.  Which by the workings of the Law of Equalization, they must occupy.  In this place, they are surrounded by, and must associate with, spirits of a similar condition of development as their own, until some change comes to them which fits them for a higher place.
    Of course, this change may come in a short time, or it may require a longer time to bring it about.  All this, depending upon the realization by the spirit, as to what their actual condition is, and the fact that there is a possibility of progressing, of themselves they cannot bring about this change.  For the Law, which fixes their place, or condition, does not cease to operate until there is called into operation another Law, which permits and helps the change.
    The only way in which this changed condition can be brought about is by the influences of other spirits of a more enlightened and higher position than that of the spirit whose position I have spoken of.  These influences do not necessarily come from spirits who have received the New Birth, but may come from spirits who know nothing about it.  And, who have only the Natural Love.  Even they may not necessarily be of a high order of development of either intellect, or soul.  But they must be in such condition that they know, and are able to tell the lower spirit, of the possibility of progress, and the way in which it can be made.
    Many spirits, who are themselves in a dark position, or condition, can help others who are in a darker condition.  Just as on earth, a student of a lower class in school may not be able to teach all that is taught, or may be learned, in that school, yet they can teach those in a lower class than their own, things that they have learned in progressing, to their own class.
    All spirits have a work to do.  These spirits of little development are engaged in teaching those of lesser development the way to get in the same condition as those who teach are in.  Of course these latter cannot teach anything that belongs to a higher condition than the one in which they are.  In such cases the progress is very slow, for many reasons.  It sometimes takes centuries for a spirit to progress from this very low plane to a higher one, where only the lowest grade of happiness exists.
    So you see that in order to help these dark spirits, it is not necessary for the helping spirit to be one who has in their soul the Divine Love.  But all this means that the spirit who is helped in this way cannot possibly progress higher than its Natural Love, moral conscience, and intellectual endowments, will permit.  No progression of the soul to a realization of the Divine Love of the Father, or to the Celestial Spheres.
    This is important for you and all humankind to know, for the reason that you and others may learn what the True Soul Development means.  How effectively spirits possessing this Soul Development (of Divine Love), may help all other spirits, good or bad.  Aside from this you may suppose that the spirits who hear you talk at the séances, where all kinds and conditions of spirits congregate, and promise to help both mortals and spirits, may not be able to do so, because some are in a dark and low condition themselves.  Yet all spirits may help other spirits, to some extent, who are in a lower condition, sometimes, in the beginning of the progression, more satisfactorily than can the higher spirits.  Because these dark spirits who try to help the darker spirits, are more in harmony with them.  The darker spirits will listen to them, with more interest and belief that they can help them.
    This is a help that does not work in such a way as to cause the spirits who are so helped to lose their desires and recollections very rapidly, and to progress into the higher planes, without the great suffering that you have been told of.
    I thought I would write this to you, for the reason that you might not, in your investigations and teachings of the Spirit Life, give due importance to the possibility of one dark spirit helping another.
    All the phases of mediumship, when honestly conducted, have their proper places, and work in God's Plan of Redemption.  None of them must be considered as useless, or without special design.  Of course, the above mentioned phase of assistance to spirits is of the lowest form, and is merely preliminary to the great work which the Higher Spirits do, in carrying out the Great Plan of Redemption, which has been explained to you.
    The important work; is that of the spirits who know what the Divine Love of the Father is, and what fits spirits and mortals for the enjoyment of the Great Happiness, which obtains only in the Celestial Spheres, and also in the Soul Spheres, to a lesser extent.  When a spirit, who is dark, learns of this Great Love and strives to obtain It, and earnestly prays for the Help of the Holy Spirit, which is God's Messenger of Divine Love, it will progress much more rapidly.  Its sufferings and darkness will leave it sooner, and Greater Happiness will come to it.
    Still I say, the work of these lower spirits, that I have spoken of, is a great work, and must not be underestimated. So remember what I have written and give due credit to this work.
    I will not write more, but will with all my Love and blessings say goodnight, your brother in Christ, St.John.

Heaven and Hell

December 18th, 1915

I am here, John.

    I merely want to say that I have listened to the message that you read, and to the remarks of your friend and yourself.  I believe that you have a True conception of the Truth, as to these hells.

    Swedenborg told you gave you a correct description of their conditions as they actually exist.  Herod with the certainty of experience what he found to be True.  I, John, who have visited them in the efforts to allay the sufferings of the spirits who inhabit them, tell you that they exist as places, with all the darkness and surroundings that cause the sufferings of the unfortunate spirits to increase.  I desire to make this statement so that this question, of what Hell really is may be settled for all time, so far as you are concerned.

    I know that many mortals console themselves with the belief that because of certain Natural Laws, there cannot possibly be any Hells such as the orthodox teach.  That therefore, there cannot be any Hells at all.  The conclusion drawn from the premise is not correct.  The mere fact that because a human, or spirit, cannot burn Eternally, and never be consumed, does not justify the inference that such spirit cannot be punished by surroundings which have a fixed locality.

    No, human must not rest in the belief of there being no such hells as Swedenborg has described.  Because if they do, they will be woefully mistaken and surprised, should they live such lives on Earth, as will cause them to be placed in these Hells.

    I merely wanted to say this much tonight, as I do not want you to receive any communication, which is not in accord with the Truth.  It is of such vital importance, that you receive nothing but the Truth, that we who are interested in this work have determined that nothing but the Truth shall come to you, and that whenever error, or misstatements, creeps in we will carefully correct the same.

    So without writing more tonight, I will say that I am, your brother in Christ, John.

Heaven and Hell

May 23rd, 1917
I am here, Jesus.
?
Jesus, your brother and friend.
    I come tonight to say a few words that you may be encouraged in your spiritual condition and made to feel that I am with you in your doubts and despondency.
    I was with you last night and realized just what your condition is, and tried to influence you with my Love and sympathy.  When you felt that you were all alone, I endeavored to impress you with my help and the power of the Love that I have received from the Father.
    I know that while you are in the flesh, and temptations come to you, there will be times when you will think that you are forsaken, or that the Father's Divine Love is not in and about you, in all its beauty and sustaining influence.  That then, thoughts will come to you, such as Job speaks of in the book that you have been reading.  God will seem a long way off.  My brother, let me tell you with all the Knowledge and Love that I have, that God is never a way off from you in His Love, and that He is always ready and willing to help and comfort you.  If you will only have Faith, and let your longings go out to Him for the inflowing of this Divine Love into your soul.  It is never absent from you, and awaits only your invitation for making itself real and consciously present with you.  You only, can prevent its coming into your soul.  If you will believe that this is True, and endeavor to realize how close this Divine Love is to you, and how anxious the Father is that you receive it, you will be able to overcome these thoughts, that arise from the weakness of the flesh, or rather, from the strength of the animal part of your nature.
    So try to remember what I say.  Whenever these thoughts come to you, look upon them as merely thoughts that come in the visions of the night and have no real foundation for their existence.  As you may not know, Real Thoughts can arise only from that which is Real.  When this Divine Love of the Father comes into your soul, appetites and passions that arise from the perversion of the animal nature of your being, cease to be real, and are merely the recollections of what has been a resultant of that perversion.  This Divine Love makes that, which aforetime was perverse, a Genuine Thing of Truth, in Harmony with God and Goodness.
    Life is of God.  When not perverted by the will of human, is like unto the Goodness from which it comes.  Good and evil, are conditions which are only; as in the one case, God is Real, and in the other, evil is not real, as being a part of the Creation of God.  It, sin, is the creation of human, that humans are disobedient and out of Harmony with their own Creation and the Laws of their Creator.
    I write this to encourage your Faith in the Goodness of God, and in the inherent Goodness of yourself.  To confirm your Faith and Knowledge in the Truth that in God's Universe all is Good.  Only that is sinful which human them self, in violation of the Will of the Father, have created, and afterwards cultivated and nurtured.  So believe this; that when this Divine Love comes into your soul, you have the possession of that, which will enable you to forget the creatures of your own will and make successful your efforts to cease the cultivation of this resultant of your own creation.
    It is only when you, for the moment, forget, or cease to realize, that this Divine Love is yours, does the existence of the evil, which was as you may think, to be naturally yours, become to you real.  At least in your thoughts appear to be real.  You have experienced the condition of soul when these thoughts had no place in your Life, and were, to you, as if they had never been.  What you have thus experienced, may, if you let live your Faith in the possession of this Divine Love, continue to be your condition without intermission.  You be enabled to enjoy consciously the Reality of its continuous existence.
    I further know that this state of freedom, from thoughts of evil, requires you to watch.  Upon the first suggestion of such thoughts, pray to the Father for the increased expression of His Divine Love.  You will not be disappointed.  As in the prayer, which I have given you, you are taught to ask that help may be given you to overcome all temptations of the flesh and the influence of the evil ones, so I repeat, let your supplications for this help ascend to the Father, when first you feel the temptation.  For so far as regards your condition of soul qualities, these temptations and influences are real.
    The evil ones are with all mortals.  The condition of the soul determines whether they, the evil ones, can, or not, make a rapport with the mortals.  When this Divine Love comes into the soul, such rapport is impossible.  Then the secret of overcoming temptations is; to have the soul qualities in such condition that the rapport cannot be made.
    I know that humans, sometimes, by their course of thinking of things good and pure, invite this rapport (with the soul and Spirit of God and His Angels), but this is not to be relied on as a sure preventive.  For thoughts are changeable, and the results of the appetites and  emotions.  The natural, as I may say, tendencies of humans, are to gratify these appetites when not curbed by the higher development of their moral qualities.  Which qualities are very susceptible to the influence of the sensual nature of human.
    I felt the necessity of writing to you as I have, for it is so important both for yourself, personally, and as my instrument for the work that has been given you to do, that you acquire more of this Divine Love, and the Knowledge, by which you may be helped so very much to overcome these temptations and influences.  The more Divine Love, the less the power of temptation, and the possibility of thoughts that do not find their source in this Divine Love.  So I say to you: watch and pray.
    Well, I will not write more tonight.  With my Love and blessings will say goodnight and God Bless you.  I will come soon and write another message.  I hope that you may be in condition to receive it as successfully and correctly as you did my last one.  Your friend and brother, Jesus. 

Heaven and Hell