Having a power which is higher than organic force, the human will can overcome material gravity, and thus the spirit-body may rise and float with the speed of light upon ethereal rivers of space. A voyage on the celestial seas may be accomplished quicker than a telegraph-operator could record the fact for the daily press. By this power of the spirit's will, in harmony with invariable celestial tides, man will be enabled after death to travel from the Summer Land to different departments of the heavens with more ease and infinitely more pleasure than you can now travel to foreign places on this globe.
The Summer Land, more especially those portions in connection with the inhabitants of earth, appears to my interior eyes like a neighbouring planet. It is the next room in the house not made with hands; but there is an infinite number of other rooms. Characteristics and peculiarities of the lower sections may not prevail in higher divisions of the sphere. In that which lies next to us the law of social attraction is as operative as in this world. It is not easy to tell why, but the dwellers are gregarious and remain very near each other. In more refined sections the people are influenced by other interests. Gregariousness becomes distasteful to those
who seek the finer attractions of the Summer Land. New and larger affections render former selfish relations almost antipathies.1
The next sphere of human existence is only another department in the great educational system of eternity. There mankind has opportunities to outgrow the errors and follies of this life, and thus myriads become prepared for yet another ascension. If a man leaves this world in good spiritual circumstances he may proceed at once to a better brotherhood and be engaged in higher duties, in obedience to higher sympathies and attractions. Those who pass in darkness of spirit, who have brought upon themselves discord and misery, leave earth without these finer attractions, and they become subjects for the philanthropic treatment of others who have souls for higher sympathies. Individual affinities and antipathies come from the action of the temperaments of different spirits in the vicinity of each other. When you pray therefore, let it be for the highest manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven, for a social condition above the plane of ungovernable attractions and repulsions, for blessings above the sphere of antipathies and unwise sympathies. Mankind has yet to learn the difference between passional inclination and that spiritual love which attracts and ennobles its object. The former is "of the earth, earthy" and is not found in the celestial brotherhoods. The wisest do not encourage indiscriminate inclination; they rise into the celestial atmosphere of pure, immortal affection; and thus the wisest person in the Summer Land is the most loving. Divinity, in its central life, is love. Fraternal love is at the bottom
of the heavenly companionship. The best brotherhoods in the Summer Land work diligently among inferior associations to bring about heavenly peace and concord.1 When the inferior societies are harmonised, the earth will be more harmonised also. In addition to these missions there are others to those who are constantly coming from earth and from the planets in space. When we arrive, each in our turn, we shall find persons perfectly acquainted with all that we have ever done. Angels' eyes are clairvoyant. However faithless, however worthless, you cannot get away from them, neither can you escape from yourself. Carry this memory with you through life. It is not the gospel of fear but the doctrine of truth, which puts a check on the play of ungoverned appetites. In the Summer Land, as seen by clairvoyance,2 I discover three distinct associations of men and women, each occupying a position determined by the degree of cultivation, sympathy one for another and power of approaching each other's sphere of knowledge and attainment. Each society is encompassed by a peculiar sphere or atmosphere, being an exhalation from the specific quality of their interior characters. Every spirit has a peculiar sphere and also a general one in which it can exist with pleasure.3 Spirits know and associate with
each other according to the quality of the sphere exhaled from their interiors, and according to the relative degrees of brightness encompassing their forms. They have affection for one another in proportion to the similarity in the degrees of love and purity to which they have attained. Thus are the three states or societies established.
In the first society is an immense number of infants and uncultivated spirits, as these have proceeded from earth. The atmosphere which encompasses and protects them is gloomy and rather uncongenial, because it is an emanation from uncultivated intellects. Viewed comparatively with that existing on earth, there is yet an exceeding purity among them. They are in the plane of natural thought, that is, they are just emerging from the instructions and impressions of earth into the wisdom of the higher societies. In the second group or society are those who have become highly instructed in the principles and truths of the Divine Mind. All who die on earth with minds unfolded properly are congregated herein, because here they can associate agreeably. They are enveloped with an atmosphere of resplendent brilliancy, which indicates purity and elevation. It appears like the interfusion of many colours unknown on earth, so perfectly conjoined and blended in such harmony that the whole aroma is itself a representation of purity and refinement. It is a sphere emanating from the whole body of the society, indicating the wisdom of the spirits composing it. Their wisdom consists in a knowledge of
truths and principles1 concerning material and rudimental things, while the inconceivable variety of colours surrounding them arises from dissimilar stages of advancement. Yet all are in the same grade of wisdom and thus form one society, which is just emerging from a superior knowledge of visible effects presented on earth to a perception of their interior causes, essences and modes of manifestation. But they are not in possession of superior wisdom concerning the uses for which causes and effects were instituted. The third society is clothed with an aerial garment which is a perfect representation of the character and perfection of their interiors. I behold it in all colours and in a variety of reflections proceeding from the subordinate societies. These render their spiritual emanations so very beautiful that language is inadequate to describe it. This third society is on the plane of effects, and those composing it have a perception of all ultimate design, of the universal adaptation of things to each other. Their minds are exceedingly luminous, laying open the externals of things and perceiving the character of the interior. Their vision extends to every recess of their own habitation and their knowledge comprehends all subordinate material existence. Their wisdom is light, love, brilliancy, even ecstasy—to a degree that transcends description. They behold
the vast landscapes of the Spirit Home and are not only in a state of emergence from causes to effects but from their own sphere to the third world of human existence.
Notwithstanding the dissimilitude between the three societies there is perfect unity among them and dependence one upon another. There is a continual aspiring affection from the infant intellect to the high wisdom of the third society. There is a unity of action which causes all to live for one another, like a brotherhood. Each group is well situated in reference to the specific state which each is compelled to sustain. The conditions are perfect in proportion to the degree of wisdom and refinement. The lowest appears inferior in comparison with that which is above, but to man on earth it would represent a high state of perfection. The lowest contains and involves the highest, while the latter comprehends and pervades the whole. Thus it is that all preserve an order in their lives and situations, and one is continually unfolding the possessions of another. Thus all go onward to a still higher sphere of spiritual and intellectual elevation.
Swedenborg says truly that in the Spirit World the different associations, nationalities and religious sects continue. Philosophers of the atheistical school make their notions a matter of association, so that the children of parents who think as they do,1 and persons in other brotherhoods, have large gatherings, where they enjoy festivities and conversation. Human nature here is human nature there. Archilarium is the name of an open pavilion where these teachers
1 This should not be understood as suggesting that children are produced in the Summer Land as the fruit of any psychic or spiritual relation of the marital kind which subsists therein, for the marrying and giving in marriage, if indeed any, is of another order. It is a union of heart and mind.
A brotherhood of affiliated souls is seen upon the west of a beautiful mountain called Starnos. Hereon is another pavilion of exceeding beauty, like a building made of trees, flowering shrubs and countless vines, full of indescribable colours. Flowing by the side of this pavilion is a river called Apotravella. The congregation sings to its tides, and there are times when the vast, many-arched temple throbs like a harp, responsive to the musical revelations of that celestial stream. The temple-chief is a Turk who is still a follower of Mahomet. He often sees and adores the gifted man who represented Mecca. Other dwellers in this region believe that further portions of the Summer Land will yet take great interest in the prophet of God. The chief has a young bright wife, and together they constitute the host and hostess of that vast pavilion. The doctrine of polygamy is not practised in this brotherhood.1
The race of Gnostics is almost extinct, but a few are gathered together in the valley of Ori, where Ephelitus, the oldest among them, holds his levees. He was a scholar and propagandist in that early sect. He draws about him those who wish to hear of scenes and toils in Rome seventeen centuries ago.
La Samosata is the name of a convent or monastery, and there are persons who believe still that the Roman Catholic faith is God's exclusive religion. It is a place shut in by mountains that fill the distance, like Alps upon Alps. Could the earthly astronomer gaze thereon he would seem to be contemplating new star-fields, of beauty and magnitude beyond his ability to transmit in language or trace on maps. La Samosata is so vast that it might contain all Roman Catholics who have entered into the spirit-world during many past centuries. It sends down inspirations and benedictions to fellow-believers on earth.
Zellabingen is a vast German association, composed wholly of persons who had not acquired the power of song before death, yet possessed an ardent love for music. Their present association actualises what was here ideal. Some of them are centuries old and yet younger than any grown person on earth, for every change in the cycle of their lives is to them the beginning of a new age. Lindenstern and Moraneski are Russian and Austrian associations. The former seems to be immersed almost wholly in matters of history, with reference to races of planets. They have lost much of their attachment to their native globe, and they are almost Teutonic in their studious methods. They are peculiarly truthful, unselfish and disinterested. On the other hand, the Austrian assembly is concerned almost entirely with the formation of the best governments for the peoples of earth, though they do not seek to exert political influence over kings and emperors. On the north of Mount Starnos is a beautiful Spanish association called Acadelaco or Eco del Eco, as nearly as I can remember. Miantovesta is an Italian brotherhood distinguished by some of the loveliest women that have ever lived on earth. From time to time the members journey to the Zellabingen Society; their sweet singers take part in the anthems of its groups, the voices blending like drops of dew in the air. Remembering this
magnificent melody, I think sometimes that the early Christians may have derived from it their conception that the kingdom of Heaven is devoted to works of music and prayer.
Monazolappa is the only exclusively African realm that I have seen in the Spirit World, and it is there I learned that a large percentage of the progeny of earth's early inhabitants never attained immortality but went out of sight into the laboratories of matter.1 Oahulat is the name of a brotherhood of Sandwich Islanders. Wallavesta and Passnata are regions of peaceful Indian tribes. The hatchet is really buried and the pipe of peace is smoked. The old dreams of sachems and wigwams, great forests and shining lakes for bathing and fishing are more than realised in the Summer Land.
There are still other things to speak of, the vast white flowers Archibulum and Aurealia—the general name for a class of pulsating lilies. The first is constituted so as to give an image of children grouped in its centre. Many admiring spirits seem to think that they see therein a beautiful representation of the Son of Mary and Joseph when he said: "Suffer little children to come unto Me." It is one of the most marvellous floral developments in the Garden of God. It is contemplated by Rachel and other beautiful Jewesses of the old Hebrew Scriptures. The Aurealia are graceful golden plants growing by the peaceful homes of pure souls, where they vibrate in the soft zephyrs of the immortal sphere.
Do not forget, in conclusion, that I am speaking of scenes in the Summer Land, the next door neighbour to all that circle of planets of which the earth is a member. What would you say if you should hear somewhat concerning the third sphere, of the one beyond that, or of another and still higher?