We create our own hell
The writer and priest, Canon J. D. Pearce-Higgis, has written extensively about his research in the world of the psyche. He cited many cases of haunted houses. In one of such cases, Pierce-Higgis led the medium to a certain place where ghosts lived and mysterious phenomena took place. Once the medium fell into a trance, and through him a dramatic story began to unfold, which had lasted for several centuries:
“… The former priest's house in Mildland was inhabited by the ghosts of two monks who lived in the Tudor era in a local monastery, which was destroyed during the Reformation. They were real sinners: one of them seduced an Irish girl who worked as a servant, and she became pregnant with him, and the other took the baby away from her and killed him. This girl herself began to speak to us through a medium, complaining that "Mrs. Longhurst will no longer let me leave the house." She probably worked for this Mrs Longhurst …
Taking the baby from the girl, they locked her in the attic and poisoned her. She is still looking for her child, not knowing that he was killed and that a long time has passed. The monks also remained here to carry out their duties, and although the monastery was destroyed in 1536, they still imagined that they continued to serve in the church and work in the fields. The most curious thing is that I had to convince them for a long time that they were dead, which they believed with difficulty, because they thought that they would sleep until the last trumpet sound, and then, thanks to their vows, they would go straight to heaven or heaven.
They absolutely did not understand where they were … This whole story lasted more than five years: from time to time in the attic there were low sounds of trumpets, steps on the stairs. The doors and drawers of the tables opened and closed by themselves, here and there lights appeared. Twice there were ominous screams, and the ladies' dressing table began to wobble in the middle of the night. In addition, the house was often filled with a heavy smell of tobacco, although no one smoked in the house. Later it turned out that this was due to the presence of the spirits of some old vagabonds who lived in this house when it was abandoned for several years. Finally, this place was completely cleaned up."
Imagine how difficult it is for the guiding spirits on the other side to fully awaken the "sleeping" souls, so that they realize that death does not really exist. Each of us should reconsider our thoughts about the nature of life after death, because these thoughts not only stay with us, but also determine where we go.
“Many souls awaken (after death) only gradually,” says Hugh-Lynn Casey. - Many of the people who are tied to the earth, love the earth, earthly things and retain a strong attachment to many things, remain tied to the earth. They cannot realize that they have made the transition and wake up only gradually."
The awakening process can be difficult, especially if death occurred prematurely, such as in the case of suicide. Dr. Ritchie (George Ritchie, MD, visionary and spiritual initiator who was the first physician to venture out of hiding and publicly share his near-death experience) was shown a dimension of consciousness in which souls, according to Hugh-Lynn Cayce are actually "attached to the earth plane," but this is the attachment that arose out of their selfish desire to end their life:
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“One of the spheres that was shown to me is completely isolated from the area that intersects with people. It was a suicide realm. I am not talking about cases where psychopaths, depressed or schizophrenics, or people with an incurable disease commit suicide. I am talking about the suicide of the nature that is opposite to murder: "If I cannot kill you, then I will kill myself in order to settle scores with you."
Dr. Ritchie saw where souls dwell that killed themselves out of revenge, out of spite, out of hatred, out of resentment - out of purely selfish motives. “These creatures became completely attached to the people they were trying to hurt,” he says. "They remain attached to them until they realize that their actions are wrong."
They created this "hell" themselves, and it was by no means a sentence that God pronounced on them. According to Ritchie, the lesson for these creatures was that they should remain in this state until they fully realize that no soul has the right to kill another person, including itself.
The fundamental scientific principle of physics, which is that matter can never be created or destroyed, finds itself even more confirmation at the spiritual level, he said. And these souls, who, due to their delusions, took their lives, remain attached to the same people and circumstances from which they tried to escape. This is a hellish sphere, but not the one that God ordained. Taking advantage of the inherent freedom of will and choice, these unfortunates built their own world.
The main difference between the popular concept of hell and what Dr. Ritchie saw is the element of time. In mundane spheres, eternity lasts until the time when the soul chooses for itself limiting beliefs, hatred, anger, thirst for revenge, deceit, etc. When the soul refuses such emotions, then guardian angels and spirits get the opportunity to help the soul get out of this kingdom, and she is no longer bound by it. In fundamentalist teachings, it is generally accepted that the soul is banished to hell forever, without redemption. Cayce often said that God has no desire for even one soul to perish, but a means or a way of deflecting is always available. Be that as it may, the soul itself does the work of changing consciousness, changing its mind, to gain freedom.
The next sphere on the other side, which was shown to Dr. Ritchie, resembled the place where the man who attacked Marlene lived:
“By that time, I thought I had seen everything, although it was by no means all. I was taken to another realm in which I would never want to be … if Christ was not with me. I've never been to such a terrible place. The creatures that populated this realm were so filled with hatred, bitterness, resentment, intolerance and prejudice that you cannot even imagine. But in this area there were angels who tried to force them to change their consciousness. But these creatures preferred to beat each other with clubs to death or commit perverted sexual acts … rather than leave this sphere.
This is not a lake of boiling sulfur. This is something much worse. Imagine being placed with creatures that are filled with hatred and absolutely loveless. It broke the heart of Christ Himself. God does not send anyone to hell. These creatures put themselves there by their vile thoughts and actions."
It was especially difficult for Dr. Ritchie to look at the consequences of prejudicial thinking. For people who have held some kind of prejudice all their lives - whether it is prejudice about skin color, religious beliefs or sexual orientation - there is a place in hell. Dr. Ritchie blamed the existence of such a sphere on the false beliefs of the church, family, and community. He said that it is possible to develop such hatred in a person as he saw in these worlds only through purposeful influence. People are not born with hatred. For example, imagine a small town where the inhabitants adhere to their prejudices against a particular race or religion. Dr. Ritchie said that a person, cultivating such thoughts throughout his life, creates for himself on the other side of the door a dark hellish abode:
“I get very angry when I think about this area. When I, as a psychiatrist, see so many suicides on the basis of certain fundamentalist religious teachings that have given the devil more power than God, I also fall into anger. To hate all the people your relatives hated - this can only be taught. You are taught to be afraid of people who differ from you in skin and eye color. And it is almost impossible to describe the terror reigning there.
All these prejudices in this so-called hell were smashed to smithereens. I saw what hell create on the other side of life our prejudicial thinking, our thoughts about our brethren. Isn't it better for us to revise as soon as possible what we teach our children, our youth, as well as our prejudices - and the sooner the better."
Just as there are heavenly and hellish experiences on earth, there are different degrees of them after death - from extremely painful and hellish to dull and extremely bright. They are metaphors for the experience of the soul after death. One of the dim dimensions of life on this side is the shadow of the waitin 'beliefs in the afterlife. In Testimony of the Light, Francis Banks describes, through Helen Greaves, experiences in the realms called "Shadowland":
“… With the permission of Mother Florence, I was allowed to accompany her and some of the Sisters in their missionary work in the Land of Shadows. This is a rewarding experience. I was specifically instructed to tell you about this sad adventure … For it might be useful to shed light on the erroneous ideas about Heaven and Hell, which have been instilled in us for many centuries … that there is Heaven, that there are spheres of unimaginable joy and transcendent beauty that go beyond any state of development and reaching the Spiritual Worlds of Divine Thought, going far beyond any of our ideas about them. This is the progress of the soul to these Spheres of Perfection and Eternity, in which the journey is made forward and upward.
But there are also hellish worlds, which differ from human distorted ideas about bodily hellish torments in fire. There are hellish spheres of spirit and mind, enslaving states of suffering; the darkness, depression and agonizing state of consciousness of their inhabitants creates all this. But these hellish realms are not eternal. A person undergoing these mental anguish is forced to remain there until such time as his desires hold him there. He has the freedom to resist such manifestations of his base nature as hatred, cruelty, lust, which he has kept in himself from his earthly life and which keep him in prison among people like him … No soul remains inconsolable, unless she herself wishes it …
The Land of Shadows is a very real place, shrouded in pitch darkness, which you have to get used to, a wretched dwelling inhabited by unfortunate tortured creatures who scoff and scoff, and continue their perverted existence. Sometimes these unfortunate souls live in hatred and rebellion, sometimes in indifference, and sometimes zealously deny the possibility of other states of consciousness …”.
For many of us trying to find purpose and meaning in life, Francis Banks and Dr. Ritchie's views on the realms of heaven and hell hold great responsibility and offer endless opportunities for this life and for the continuation of life after death. As much as we expand, learn and grow in love, mercy and wisdom, how much our souls develop towards the higher dimensions of love, mercy and wisdom after death. Likewise, we can see the consequences of limited mind, stubbornness and refusal to learn love and forgiveness. There is no need to weigh our sins after death. Our thoughts, beliefs and actions are themselves judges and juries who bless us or curse us according to what we have done with our capabilities.
Grant Robert J.