WHEN the spirit world is described as being a world of thought, where thought is the great creative power, and where thought is concrete and perceivable by all men, the conclusion is very often erroneously drawn that the spirit world is an unsubstantial place, and that we, its inhabitants, are vague shadowy people, lacking any real substance, and answering for all purposes to that very earthly designation of 'ghosts'! Pursuing this mistaken deduction, the life of the spirit world people must inevitably be somewhat dream-like and illusive.The incarnate think along these lines because to them thought is something that can be practised unseen and unheard. On earth thought is secret to the thinker until such time as he wishes to give verbal or other expression to his thoughts. It is customary to say on earth: our thoughts are our own; we can think what we like; thoughts can never harm anyone, and so on. So that when we of the spirit world assert that our world is a world of thought, the incarnate immediately revert to their own thoughts and their unsubstantial nature, and thereupon place the spirit world in the same category of tenuous things.
Generally speaking, upon earth thought must have some form of concrete expression for it to be effective. The architect must first think of his cathedral, or whatever it may be, commit his thoughts to paper in regular order and with exactitude before the builder can make any commencement upon the outward and visible expression of his original thoughts. And so it is with a multitude of other things, from the simplest article to the most complicated instrument or ornate building. On earth thought must have a medium of some sort before it can find the slightest trace of outward expression. For this reason, among others, the incarnate are prone to regard the earth as being the one certain and substantial world in which it is possible to exist. The spirit world becomes the very opposite.
The incarnate do not realise the force and power of thought or else they would never think along such lines as I have indicated. Every thought that passes with force and purpose through the mind of an earth dweller is projected from his mind as a thought-form. To speak unscientifically, it is registered, at least for a time, upon the surrounding ether. It depends, of course, upon the thought itself, and of what it consists. If it is merely one of those passing thoughts that all folk upon earth have in their minds at various moments during the day, then such thoughts will be registered in the manner I have just indicated. If the thought is directed towards some friend who is now resident in the spirit world, that thought, if it is properly directed with purpose and intent, will inevitably reach that friend. It will reach him or her just as it is sent, no more and no less good or bad or indifferent.
Thought may be invisible to the majority of earth dwellers but it is very much visible to spirit folk. People who are still on earth, and whose psychic powers have been developed, are often capable of seeing these thought-forms. That ability raises problems which sometimes lead to mistakes and misunderstandings.
Thought is upon a different plane, a higher plane of existence from that organ of the earthly body, the brain, through which thought functions on earth. Thought is upon the same plane of existence as the mind, and the mind belongs truly to the spirit world. And by higher plane I do not mean a higher spiritual plane, but one that cannot be observed by the ordinary physical organs of perception. In the spirit world thought has direct and instantaneous action upon whatsoever it is directed, whether it be upon a human being or upon what on earth is called 'an inanimate object'. (I cannot use the latter term appositely in connection with spirit world objects, because all objects, all things, have life, certain and unmistakable. There is no such state as that of being lifeless in the spirit world.) It is not until you come into the spirit world that you really know just what thought can do. And I do assure you, my good friend, that some of us are positively horrified when we find out for the first time!
In the spirit world thoughts do not become visible immediately upon their passing through a person's mind. They are not flying about in a loose fashion. The idle thoughts of which I spoke travel no further than your immediate earthly surroundings. Thoughts directed to some friend in the spirit world will reach that friend, and they cannot be classed as loose thoughts.
Imagine to yourself the state of confusion, of congestion almost, and of embarrassment if all our thoughts in the spirit world were visible. But because they are not immediately visible, that is not to say that they are not potent, for assuredly they are very potent. No, they are not visible as you regard it, but they will unfailingly reach their destination wherever it may be. If directed towards some friend upon earth, in many cases it is problematical whether the friend will perceive them: or, perceiving them, whether he will know whence they have come. But if our thoughts be directed towards some friend in the spirit world, there will be no such doubt or uncertainty.
How do we receive thoughts in the spirit world? One of the first and most interesting experiments that Ruth and I carried out under the friendly eye of Edwin during our early explorations of these realms, was that of hearing Edwin speak to us from a distance. Without recounting the full circumstances, it is sufficient to say that although Edwin was in sight of us both, yet he was too far away for us to hear his voice even if he had used it above his normal tones. But we both distinctly heard his voice sounding close to our ears. At first, of course, we could not believe our ears, and we were rather inclined to regard the whole thing as some trick or other that Edwin was performing for amusement and general merriment. But he repeated his message to us—it was merely bidding us to rejoin him—and it was so unmistakable that we forthwith did as directed. As a prelude to hearing Edwin's voice, we had both perceived a bright flash to appear before the eyes. It was in no sense blinding or startling; indeed, the flash was too beautiful for that.
And that, I think, describes briefly but precisely what happens to all of us when a thought is passed between one and another of us. The thought is invisible in transit, it arrives at its destination instantaneously, when it manifests itself before us as a pleasant but compelling flash of clear light, and we can then hear the voice of our communicator speaking close to the ear, as it seems. I say as it seems, because here I am not attempting to give a scientific explanation of how it happens, but confining myself solely to what does happen. The voice always sounds to me to be close to the ear, and most people here say that the same thing occurs in their own case. It may be some sort of inner perception of the voice, though to me it always sounds far too like the owner's actual voice for that. My own view is that the sound of the voice actually travels through the air, and that we receive it upon the natural apparatus of our minds.
I confess that I have not looked into the matter in that deep manner that some people, perhaps, will think that I ought to have done, if only for the purpose of supplying them with a long and deep, accurate and scientific explanation of the whole process. But I am persuaded that the majority of my good friends will much rather have this frankly and obviously unscientific description of what takes place here during every second of time, just as a matter of course, than that I should lead them into some deep morass of scientific disquisition from which we should all have some difficulty in extricating ourselves! I do not profess to a knowledge of science, and I always feel that while we are peering deeply into causes and detailed explanations we are missing all the beauties of the very thing we are examining.
There is so much here that we take for granted, that is to say, we take things as they present themselves, without demanding learned explications of them. And it is the same with you who are still upon earth. Suppose, for example, I were to ask you (supposing, also, that I did not already know) how you managed to move yourself upon your two legs in the common feat of walking. I think it would much more suit your taste for you to tell me briefly just what you did with your legs and how tired they can become after prolonged activity, than to treat me to an erudite essay upon the various muscles of the leg, their names, their shape and size, their exact mode of action, their particular function, and so on. In the meantime, while the legs were being thus dilated upon, the friend, whom the two legs were supporting, was passing through some charming country, a description of which would be so much more entertaining!
And so it is with a great many other matters here—here in my world and in your world too. While science has its important place in both our worlds, yet we do not ponder every minute of our lives upon the inner working of the numberless functions of men and things that constitute life in either world. Science must have its proper position, but life would be rather dull and dreary, and certainly rather complicated, if we paused to inquire into the various modes of operation of so many common actions. We must just take things as they are. That is your general attitude upon earth; that is our general attitude here in the spirit world.
My chief purpose is to give you as many details as possible or practicable of our life in spirit lands. To state a fact as plainly as possible, to provide explanations only where necessary to an intelligent understanding of my account, and to leave it to others to probe more deeply into causes, must be my aim.
When thought is directed to us from the earth it takes the same form of a flash before the eyes. There is no difference whatever in the actual process. It matters not whence the thought has been directed, whether from your world of the earth or as an intercommunication in the spirit world. The process is universal, and there are no variations in it.
When I spoke to you, a moment ago, of the thought-forms you create in the ether immediately surrounding you on earth by your having idle thoughts in your mind, that must not be taken as also applying to us in the spirit world. If it did the spirit world would be a strange place, and the people in it would appear stranger still, for they would continually seem to be enveloped either in a kind of haze of thought-forms or something even more substantial.
The case is different with people on earth. That part of the spirit world which is immediately interpenetrating your world that is to say, the invisible world in the immediate vicinity of the particular spot, for example, where you are reading these words, this spot is not part of the realms of light. It is dark. It may have its minute patches of light in certain well-defined places, but the greater part of it is dark. Thought, of the kind that contains no evil within it, will be bright, and therefore it will show up in the surrounding gloom, just as the light of a tiny flame will illumine the gloom of a chamber from which all other light is excluded. Even a limited diffusion of light will be the case. But take the tiny flame into the bright light of the sun and the diffusion seems to end, the feeble light having become absorbed by the greater light of the sun. The flame will still be visible, but its light will be strictly limited to its source.
This somewhat elementary analogy will serve, I hope, to illustrate the difference between thought in the invisible regions closely adjacent to your world, and thought as it is in these bright realms where I live. Even this simple analogy must be qualified by saying that however wandering may be our thoughts they are not visible like the flame of light in the sunshine. Things are far better ordered than that in the spirit world! We do have mental privacy here. Without it social intercourse would be trying, to say the least. We are living in a land of truth, that is certain; but we do not carry things to such an extreme that we must voice the truth openly upon all occasions. As with you, so with us; there are moments and occasions when silence is golden!
But it is essential that one should learn to think properly as an inhabitant of the spirit world. One of the first things one has to do here, as a new arrival, is to think properly. It is not a difficult achievement, and not nearly so formidable a task as it may sound. It concerns one's thought about people rather than thoughts of a general nature upon things. When thought is concerned with a person, the thought, if it has sufficient force behind it, will travel to that person. If it happens to be of a pleasant or complimentary description, or of a jovial and genial nature, then the percipient will be happy to receive it. But all thoughts are not of this innocuous sort, and our mental secrets may have passed out of our minds only to have found their destination in the very last place we wanted them to be, namely, in the mind of the person of whom we were so freely thinking.
The thought, however, must have a sufficient measure of directive power behind it to send it upon its journey, and this factor is the saving of many of us, because so many thoughts are mere birds of passage in our minds, and while they are there they have little really deep concentration upon the individual concerned. But the very prospect of what can happen is enough to make us keep a strict watch upon our minds, and in a brief period it becomes as second nature to us.
There are many things that we have to unlearn and re-learn when we first come to dwell in spirit lands, but our minds, being then free of a heavy physical brain, are at liberty to exercise their powers to the full. We are enabled, therefore, to acquire rapidly the methods of living under different conditions of existence. Our memories behave as memories should; that is to say, they are not erratic in their retentive performance, but can be relied upon to act perfectly. You can see how invaluable such an attribute will be when it becomes necessary to learn afresh how to do things according to spirit laws. It is in this rapid way that so many common actions quickly become as second nature.
Although, in the spirit world, thought has such direct action and is generally so powerful, that does not mean the thought makes physical effort practically unnecessary, even undesirable. There are a great many things for our hands to do in the spirit world, and I would add that our feet also are constantly in use! We like to walk, just as we used to upon earth. What could be more natural? We are human beings after all, though some folk would deny us this characteristic. We are human, and we behave in a manner that is human. Our feet were given to us to use, and we walk upon them.
Because we can create so much with our minds, because we can fabricate things by the close application of thought, then, it might be imagined, there is precious little left for our hands to do, except to make up our full complement of limbs, and so obviate our presenting ourselves as something of monstrosities. The truth is that we use our hands in a thousand different actions during what you would call a day's work, or during a day in our life.
Think for a moment. Recall the scores of instances in which one may use the hands. For example, in our spirit homes we pick up a book, we open or close a door, we shake hands with some friend who calls; we arrange some flowers upon the table; we paint a picture, or play upon a musical instrument; or we may operate scientific apparatus of some sort. Such instances could be multiplied a thousand fold, and would become too tedious for words in their enumeration. We like to employ our hands in conjunction with our minds as well as exercising our minds alone, just as do you on earth. People take a natural delight in fashioning objects by hand, and so allowing the mind to work through their hands. There are plenty of things that could be created in these realms purely by thought and without the least interposition of the hands, but we like to go the long way round sometimes and find some employment for our hands, and we relish the enjoyment that comes from it.
But occasions do arise when we act quickly, in fact, instantaneously. We wish to go to a particular place in the realms which is, say, hundreds of miles distant, as distances are reckoned on earth. We could walk the entire distance without a trace of fatigue, but in such cases we prefer a speedier form of transportation. We therefore abandon the slow walking method of locomotion, and we bring our minds to bear upon the matter. By direct action of the mind we find ourselves instantaneously in the very place in which we wished to be.
As to how we think ourselves in a certain place, here again I would not offer you a scientific explanation for reasons which I have given you, so I will confine myself to this: in the spirit world our bodies are under complete control by our minds. The former do just that which the latter wishes or commands. A wish becomes a command in this case. Now with you, your mind may wish to be in a certain place, and no matter how hard you may wish it, you are entirely at the mercy of your physical body. You may even sit in your chair and imagine yourself, in every detail of circumstances, in the precise place. You can 'see' yourself there, but the physical body must go too if you desire to be there physically. And that may raise all sorts of problems which will come readily enough to your mind—opportunity, for example; or the requisite time and means for getting to the desired destination. These are all considerations affecting the physical body, because you must take that with you, for in the physical body is the brain, and it is through the brain that the mind works. This is the natural and normal order of things on earth.
In the spirit world it is very different. We have no heavy physical body. The body which we possess is in every respect equal to our minds. Our minds have no heavy vehicle by or through which they have to function. Thinking is at once translated into action, but without the intermedium of a physical brain such as you know it. The brain which is resident within our heads is not as your physical brain; our bodies are not as your physical bodies. With us our whole being, our limbs, our muscles and so forth, are completely subservient to the mind in so far as their acting according to our will is concerned. For the rest, our bodies are subservient to the natural laws of the spirit world.
We also perform certain actions subconsciously in exactly the same way as do you. For example, we breathe in precisely the same way as you breathe. Our hearts beat in a fashion exactly similar to yours, and they are subject to the same subconscious maintenance in their beating. But we have that which you do not have, namely, complete and absolute mastery of the muscles of our limbs. When we come to learn some new art or endeavour to become proficient in some task that requires the mastery by the brain over the muscles, then you can see just how perfect is the attunement of our minds with ourmuscles. It is not really a mastery of the one over the other, although I have expressed it in that way. To be more accurate, it is an absolute attunement, the one with the other.
Now with you on earth, the effort of walking makes imperative the use of various muscles. First, you have a heavy body to move along the ground on which you are standing, and you have certain laws of gravity which are pulling you towards that ground. The gravity is so adjusted that your feet will fall to the ground easily without requiring any effort to push them down. The matter is nicely balanced. When your legs are tired after prolonged use they will fall the more readily to the ground than when you are fresh. Who upon earth has not experienced at some time or another that great heaviness of the limbs consequent upon fatigue? It is one of our constant joys that we never suffer from such disabilities. There is a law of gravity here in the spirit world, but we are not subservient to it. All else is, but we human beings are not so. Or to put it another way, our minds can and do at all times rise above it. That again is second nature to us. If we should tumble down, we cannot hurt ourselves because our spirit bodies are impervious to all injury in whatever shape or form.
Incidentally, we do not often fall because we have not the heavy and rather clumsy bodies that are essential upon earth. It is mostly newly-arrived folk who do the tumbling! When we have become fully acquainted with the power and force of our minds we never do such awkward things!
I am afraid this must seem rather a long way towards answering the question as to how we move ourselves instantaneously from one place to another, but you know how simple questions demand the consideration of other factors not unconnected with the original question in order to make the answer to the latter intelligible! Hence, therefore, my seeming deviation and protractedness.
The laws of gravity will keep all the 'inanimate objects' of the spirit world in the place where they properly belong—the buildings, the rivers, the sea, and the rest. It will keep us there, too, but only in the qualified sense that I have just mentioned to you. Remember that on earth your mind is limited in certain directions by the abilities—or disabilities—of the physical body. If, say, you wish to write something down, your hand and you arm must be in a fit condition to do so. The same rule applies to the rest of your body. To walk, your legs and feet, and indeed, many other parts of the body, must be in a moderately sound state to do so. The speed at which your limbs can move is not limited by the wishes of the mind, but by the ability of the limbs to move. The performer upon a musical instrument knows how true this is from the unremitting practice which he has perforce to do before his hands can move at the speed which the music makes necessary.
In the spirit world our bodies are always in a state of absolute perfection of condition. The muscles and the various parts of our bodies will respond as instantly and as rapidly as we wish the moment we set the thought in motion. We set the thought in motion, the thought sets the limbs and its parts in motion. There is no lagging, no perceptible fraction of a moment between our thought and its action. It will recall to your mind the familiar phrase: to think is to act. That is literally what takes place in the spirit world. Some of our actions are subconscious, as I have indicated to you; breathing, for example. We do not have to learn how to do that.
My mention of breathing has brought me to a point in our discussion where I think it would be acceptable if I were to speak to you upon the subject of what we both know as the spirit body. There are particular aspects about it upon which one of my friends upon earth has expressed the wish for further information. I am happy to give it to the best of my ability, but I would limit myself, as I have done throughout the whole of these writings, to knowledge which has been gained by my own experience. My reason for the latter is simply that it could be reasonably inferred that I might have recourse to the many books of learning upon all subjects that are to be found within the library of the great hall of learning. In effect, I should merely have to 'look things up' in any work devoted to the subject under consideration. I have recounted to you how we have the truth here reposing between the covers of thousands of volumes. One has only to consult these, it might be said, to become possessed of an immensity of knowledge upon all subjects under the sun. Thus one could soon ascertain the literal truth upon so many of the questions that have puzzled generations of students and inquirers. The truth is there in those books, certainly, but information of a highly technical nature is not to be gleaned merely for the reading. We must understand something—in many cases a good deal—of our subject before we can plunge into technicalities which a full exposition of the truth will disclose. I must, therefore, know and understand my subject before I can pass on the information and knowledge with any hope of your understanding it. How, otherwise, am I to know that I have given you the correct answer to a question? It is the only satisfactory course to you, who have followed me so patiently thus far, and to me, that I should know what I am talking about, and so give you only those things of which I have specific knowledge or experience.
I have hitherto always tried to make it clear when I am only expressing a personal opinion, and when I am quoting from the knowledge and experience of my friends in the spirit world.
And now let us proceed with our friend's question.
My friend of the earth recalls my account of the orchestral concert which I attended here, and he says that 'if people play wind instruments in the spirit world, they must have lungs that are capable of breathing air'. And so he asks: 'Do people breathe in the spirit world?' If so, are the lungs used for oxygenating the blood?'
Such reasoning is perfectly accurate. The spirit world has air just as you have on earth, and we have lungs in our bodies with which to breathe it. And it does 'oxygenate' the blood in what would be the spirit world equivalent of that process. Upon earth the air you breathe will help to purify the blood. In the spirit world we have good rich blood running through our veins, and we breathe the beautiful clean fresh fragrant air, but while your blood undergoes the process of oxygenating, our blood is reinvigorated by the spiritual force and energy that is one of the principal constituents of the air we breathe here.
Could one exist without it? Hardly. It gives us a measure of life-force just as it does you on earth. But you could not exist upon air alone. You must have food and drink. We do not need these two latter commodities, as you know, but we derive another part of our sustenance from the light of these realms, from the abundance of colour, from the water, from the fruit when we wish to eat of it, from the flowers, and from all that is beautiful itself. As these realms positively abound in beauty you will see why we enjoy such perfect health.
But we also take in strength from the great spiritual force that is being constantly poured down upon us all from the Father of Heaven Himself. It is, as it were, an eternal magnetic current that is for ever charging us with force and power, and giving us life.
It really comes to this, that we derive our life-force from a score of different sources; sources, moreover, that we do not have to seek as do you with your food and drink, but which literally envelope us wherever we go, whatever we do. We cannot shut ourselves off from the means of life, nor can the means of life be denied us or ever fail us here. The air we breathe cannot become polluted, nor can the water become in a similar state of impurity.
The earthly body is so constituted that through various processes and natural functions a firm resistance is made to the onslaught of germs that cause disease. When it is behaving normally and properly such disease will be successfully repelled. But even though the earthly body should successfully resist disease, the potential causes of it, the germs, still remain in the earth world. In the spirit world there are no such things as germs of any description, therefore there can be no disease of any sort whatever. Moreover, the spirit body is completely impervious to any kind of injury. It cannot be damaged by accident, and it is imperishable and incorruptible. So that whatever organs we possess they can never become disordered in the slightest degree. We are constantly enjoying a state of perfect health, upon which there are no two opinions among all of us here in these realms. The slightest trace of ache or pain is something not only unheard of, but from our point of view, fantastically impossible.
It is obvious from what I have told you that one or two organs of the earthly body would be manifestly superfluous in the spirit body. We do not eat food because we are never hungry. There is therefore no waste that has to be eliminated from our bodies as is essential with your physical bodies. The food that you eat goes through its processes, after you have consumed it, to provide what is necessary for the physical body, until it finally becomes waste matter. And to perform this series of actions various organs are vital.
We possess an interior mechanism which follows much upon the same lines as does yours, but there is this supreme difference, namely, that we have no waste matter that must be eliminated from the body. There is no such thing as waste matter in these realms. That which is not wanted either ceases to exist altogether, or is returned to the source whence it came. By ceasing to exist, I do not mean that which is not wanted is annihilated, but that it ceases to exist in the form it held before it became unwanted. Perhaps you will recall an amusing experience which I had shortly after my arrival here. I told you how astonished I was to find that the juice which had poured from some fruit that I was eating, and had, so I thought, run down my clothing, had, in fact, done nothing of the sort. It had completely disappeared. All that had happened in this case was simply that the juice of the fruit had returned to the tree whence the fruit had come. That is the explanation I was given, and that is what we all know to occur in any other circumstances of a similar nature. If you ask me how it happens, then, perforce, I will say honestly that I do not know. Lest my ignorance should appear too great that I should ever set myself to inform others, let me hasten to add that there is no one in these realms who could provide an explanation upon this point. There is no esoteric secret about it that such information should be withheld from us. It is just that our spiritual evolution has not proceeded sufficiently far for us to understand if we were told. What we cannot yet understand ourselves, it is impossible for us to expound for your understanding.
The organs that we possess, therefore, have their very definite purpose for their existence. We do not carry about with us organs that are redundant. Their purpose is to act as a channel for the life-force, the etheric power, if you wish to call it so, that emanates from a multiplicity of sources. There is no fear that some organs, or all of them, will become atrophied because they do not seem to be employed in the same manner as their counterparts in the earthly body. The organs of assimilation of the earthly body will become seriously affected if a sufficient quantity of food is not passed through them. No such situation could arise in our spirit bodies, because the life-force here amply sustains them and keeps them in proper working order, and thus they fulfil their objects.
The spirit body, then, possesses only such organs as are vital to it, and they can be regarded as a modification of their earthly counterparts. The further significance of this will be plainer to you when I tell you that, with the exception of the higher and highest realms, the spirit world, in which millions upon millions of us are living, is populated entirely from the earth, and from no other source. Procreation belongs to the earth, and has no place in the spirit world.
It has become a habit to begin the counting of time by some supposed date of the creation of the world. Time, in its measured sense, can be said to have commenced with the formation of the earth, but human life was already in existence long before then. The spirit world was long in existence before the earth, but the spirit world was not empty. It was inhabited by great souls whose knowledge and wisdom and spiritual progression and evolution have been proceeding steadily, throughout the whole of this colossal period of time. All these beings possess a body which in its parts and its functions are exactly similar to the body of anyone of us here, regardless of our position upon the ladder of spiritual progression, though, under certain conditions, that body would appear outwardly to us infinitely lesser beings as a blaze of light.
The spirit body which we all possess is the normal body. The earthly body, which temporarily covers the spirit body during its earthly passage, is a modification of the spirit body, an accommodation to earthly laws and conditions and modes of life. The life of the individual begins upon earth, it spends a limited period in that sphere, and then comes to us in the spirit world. The personality and individuality and attributes of the person are in their initial stages of formation upon earth, and the process is continued after his arrival in the spirit world. The physical distinctions of race will be preserved, borne upon his face, in the very colour of his skin, and in other ways that will readily occur to you, and these he will retain in the spirit world.
The true sphere of life is the spirit world because it is permanent. The spirit world is therefore the standard of life as it is ultimately to be for us all, and so the spirit body, not the earthly body, is the standard of the human form.
In company with many others I have seen and spoken to at least one illustrious being whose period of life, in years, reaches astronomical figures. He possesses, just as do you or I, the ordinary normal complement of limbs; he has hair upon his head. His hands, anatomically like yours and mine, have their full number of fingernails. And so we might go on, through the complete catalogue of the parts of the human anatomy as it exists in the spirit world. The exalted nature of his being and the elevated realm in which he resides make no difference, anatomically, from the rest of us. His spirituality and wisdom and knowledge are, of course, in their high degree incomparable with us here. But we are not considering that for the moment. What we are considering is that when man, who has lived upon earth, comes to the spirit world to continue his life here, he sheds with his earthly body all such organs of that body as will be superfluous in his new mode of living. The organs with which he now finds himself are for ever beyond harm of every description. No germ can attack the body; no destructive force can exert the slightest influence upon it. It is incorruptible. Its various organs, such as the heart and lungs, act perfectly. For example, the beating of the heart remains constant and normal under all conditions. We cannot literally become breathless. (I have sometimes said that some particular experience has left me breathless almost, but this is a figure of speech only). Our respiration, like the action of the heart, remains always at its normal rate. And so it is throughout the rest of our bodies.
I do not pretend to the knowledge of a physician or a surgeon, but I do know that my body functions perfectly, that I enjoy, as we all enjoy, a state of perfect health such as I never for one moment enjoyed during my life on earth. Indeed, it is impossible to know what absolute, perfect health can be until one comes to live here in the spirit world. The body I possess is not a hollow drum, a mere empty vessel in the ownership of which I am able, in some mysterious fashion, to carry on my life. There is good rich blood flowing through my veins. There is no doubt about that, for I can observe the flesh-pink tinge it gives to my skin, as it does to us all. We have the complexions of healthy individuals, though the former may vary in the depth of their colour by virtue of the various racial characteristics which you can easily call to mind. Whatever may be the precise shade of our complexions or of our skin in general, we none of us have the pallor that is usually associated either with a poor state of health or with some particular form of earthly occupation.
The circulation of the blood within our bodies is the means of diffusing the vital force that keeps us alive. If you should ask me why it should be necessary to have these organs to do this work, then I can only say that it is impossible for me to explain the fact of human creation itself. We might ask in turn, why does the incarnate person have his organs to do such work as is required of them? We should have to go to the very beginning and ask why has man come to be in the form that is familiar to us, and not in some other form. We must take things as they are in this instance at least. To do otherwise is rather to suggest that we could make several improvements upon the anatomy of our bodies were we given the opportunity. As far as we, in the spirit world, are concerned no improvement could possibly be made upon the structure and operation of our spirit bodies.
And I think that in these very bodies we have at least one assured example of perfection in our midst, and which we enjoy now. The greater perfection—I use this phrase in accordance with the terms of our previous discussion upon perfection—the greater perfection that awaits us when we proceed to a higher realm is a spiritual perfection, and will not apply to the state of health of our bodies. We may feel so much lighter, more etherealised, more rarified, but as far as I have been able to ascertain, we shall feel in a precisely similar state of buoyant, brilliant health as we do now in these realms.
It is manifestly impossible for me to take every organ of the body and deal with its particular functions in due order. What we can do, to sum up the matter briefly, is to reflect upon this: the spirit body is possessed of organs that are proper to it and to the world in which it carries out its functions. The earthly body will answer to the same description in its own sphere of action. The spirit body, coming first in the order of 'creation', is the standard of human form and figure. The earthly body resembles it, but it has certain other organs added by which it carries out certain processes that are essential to its continued survival upon earth. The two principals of these processes are the means of assimilating food and the means of perpetuating human life upon earth. Food we do not need in the spirit world, and the population of spirit lands is derived, with the exception of those beings in the higher and highest realms to which I have referred, entirely from the earth in so far as this spirit universe is concerned. In discarding my earthly body at my physical dissolution, I found that my spirit body was without certain organs, the possession of which would be entirely redundant. Such organs have no counterpart in or upon the spirit body.
A question may naturally be asked as to how we can live with some of our organs missing. The answer is that they are not missing; they were never there! The spirit body performs perfectly because it is perfectly constructed, complete in all its parts, and only possesses such organs as it requires—in number slightly less than those required by the earthly body.