Life After Death

Where is the Spirit World?

EXPERIENCE, JANUARY 27, 1918

Spirit: MR. H. M. Psychic: MRS. WICKLAND

I am pleased to come here again. I felt that I must take advantage of this evening to say something to my dear wife (present in the circle). I am so glad I can talk to her as we always talked. I am happy she is here.

God bless you, my wife. We were so happy together. I would not care to come back here at all if it were not that she is still on earth.

This world is only a school where we gain understanding through experience. In the spirit world we go on and on, progressing, but before we can progress we must have understanding of the spiritual laws. If we have not the right understanding then we remain in darkness and hover around the earth plane.

I am pleased that I had even a little knowledge of the higher life, for when I reached there my spiritual eyes were open and I could see and realize the beauties of the spirit world.

I have met many of my dear friends on the spirit side of life. Many whom I knew are still in darkness and I have tried to help them understand their transition.

If I could only express the conditions on the spirit side of life so that you would get the full meaning! There is such beauty, such harmony.

I have to thank little Silver Star (one of Mrs. Wickland’s guides) for having awakened me when I reached the other side. Even with my knowledge of the other world I might have slept a long time, because when I passed out I was in a heavy sleep from an opiate which was given me on account of the nature of my sickness. But this little Indian girl called me by name and woke me up, and brought me to the spirit world.

You know I had been sick for a long time and I was very sick before I passed out. I made my mistake in trying for so long to cure myself. Christian Science says we should overcome matter.

We cannot overcome matter by will. When we are in the physical body and the body needs certain forces of which it is made, if we do not get them in our food we must get them through medicine and so build up the body, because will cannot conquer substance.

God has given us a will to use as a force in Nature and we should use it rightly. When as Scientists we refuse to do this we must suffer the consequences. I was an example of such a consequence. I went into Science with full will power and full faith that there is no such thing as matter and that we should overcome it. I tried and failed.

Mrs. Eddy is suffering now for advancing that idea. When you have a dress that is wearing out you try to get some material of the same color and quality with which to mend the dress. We do not do that with our bodies. We think the body should develop the substance it needs when it wears out.

I did not get enough elements in my food to build up my physical body, my organs became atrophied and sluggish and were inactive because I did not take the right food to give them proper activity.

I should have gone to a physician to have them put in normal condition, but instead I tried to use my will to make them work. I tried by intelligence to overcome and build up the weak part of my body. That is just as if one refused to mend a worn place in a dress, insisting that no hole could come in that dress. I was just as foolish about my body, and I had to suffer the results.

When the body needs toning up we must do something to tone it up and to get the electric forces set right. I passed out because I wore out my body with my mind and did not feed it or take sufficient care of it.

God gave us our bodies and He also gave us minds to take care of them. If we become one-sided and think mind is all then we get into trouble.

I took good care of my clothes, but how little I took care of my body. If I had paid half as much attention to my body as I did to my clothes I feel that I would have been on earth today.

Probably some day things will be so understood that there will be no death - I mean that we will merely step out of the physical body into the spirit world.

If one would prepare himself for passing out of the body as he does for a journey he would be able to say: “Now I am ready to go. I am through with this world. It is time for me to go, and I want to go to the spirit side of life.” Then there would be no dread.

Many Christian Scientists ruin their bodies by lack of right care and often go as far as I did; they use will, no reason, and take improper nourishment, or not enough.

I knew about ten years ago that I should attend to my inactive organs. If I had had them attended to, I would not have suffered as I did. I suffered a great deal and I used my will to make inactive parts act.

I should have liked to remain on earth long enough to do the work I felt I should do; but I will do the work on the spirit side of life, and when my wife comes we will work together.

My dear wife, if I had thought less of mental, or Christian Science, and given more thought to the material side of things, then you would be in a better position than you are now.

I really lost all thought of things material and I guess I thought we could live on air, and I always thought conditions would change some time. I did not realize. I was so hypnotized in my work that I hardly lived in the material world.

If it had not been for my wife I think that sometimes I would have forgotten that I should eat at all. I thank God she was not so deeply interested in the work as I, because then there might be two dead people.

Before leaving I must tell you of a little experience.

When I passed out I was awakened by hearing somebody say: “How do you do?” I listened, and once again I heard the quaint voice of my little friend, Silver Star.

Then I thought I must be in California, because I remembered that Dr. Wickland and his wife were there, and I thought that Silver Star was speaking through Mrs. Wickland.

Nobody says “How do you do” like Silver Star. I did not realize that I had passed out of my body. Again I heard Silver Star say “How do you do” in her strange way, and then I began to wonder where I was.

All at once I seemed to be alive again. Then I felt better. I thought, “I must have gone through the crisis of my sickness and now I am feeling better and am waking up.”

That was the time Silver Star brought me in to control Mrs. Wickland. I realized that I was weak from my sickness, but, having no pain, I thought I was getting better. I felt so light and strong that my first thought was that I could finish my book, but when I really came to myself I heard Dr. Wickland talking to me.

Then I thought, “Well, how did I get to California? How did I get here? I must be dreaming.” It was some time before I realized where I was. I did not even then realize that I was controlling.

Doctor asked me who I was. I thought it strange that he did not know me, but I told him that I was Mr. M., and asked whether he did not know me.

Doctor was very much surprised and explained as gently as he could that I had passed out of my mortal body a week before and was now a spirit.

That was the first time I realized that I had passed out of my physical body into a spiritual body. It was very pleasant to think that I had wakened in a mortal body instead of in darkness.

Afterwards I saw many of my friends and I felt that there is no death.

Doctor talked to me for a while and then my father, mother, sister and brother all came to me, and they brought many relatives and friends, and we had a happy reunion, one that can never be forgotten. Only, I wanted you, my wife, to be with me when I met all my relatives and friends.

When I realized that I was using an earthly body I felt sick again and my will power seemed to fail me. I began to feel very weak and a sensation of sickness came over me.

I at once thought of my little friend, Silver Star, and she said I must throw away my old clothes because I had no use for my old body, for I had new clothes now.

When I thought of my spiritual body, I arose; I felt I had new clothes and I received strength and left the physical altogether. The magnetic current was cut and I dropped my old clothes entirely.

I was then lifted bodily, so it seemed, and I felt I was floating, and we went through conditions of all kinds. I felt so strange and saw so much that I grew fearful, so they told me to shut my eyes and keep them shut, which I did.

I did not know anything after that until they placed me on a beautiful bed. I was very tired and all I wanted was to rest, just rest.

When I awoke from that sleep of rest my relatives and friends were around me. Somebody said: “Now you are well and strong and we will take a journey to our home in the spirit world.”

We went to many of their homes. Each had a little home. We were united and happy, for here only harmony exists. We traveled from one place to another.

When I had been to visit quite a few friends, they said: “Now you have seen the spirit side of life. Here we are not idle. This is not a world in which one is idle; it is a world of busy minds. It is each one’s duty to work. Now you are strong and we will take another journey - to earth.”

I wanted to see my wife so much. You were in my mind so much, my wife, and I wanted to see you. We passed through the spirit world and earth sphere to matter again.

The earth is a little globe. The globe has a sphere around it. The distance between the spirit world and the world of matter is about sixty miles. This sphere is the world of the spirits in darkness.

Christ went to the spirits in darkness and prison - the prison of ignorance.

We passed through conditions that cannot be described, the most hideous, the most fiendish, so ugly that I cannot describe them.

It made me shudder to see the condition of the crippled minds, the selfish minds, the jealous minds. Each had the countenance of his mind. They were dressed as when on earth, but only because of their minds.

They were like vermin. They were like a lot of worms stirred up and crawling over one another. Talk about hell - that surely was hell! They told me that was the earthbound sphere.

Then we came to matter again. We saw the people walking around in a life of matter, each one in some kind of business. It looked like a world of ants, and each one seemed to have some of these evil-minded spirits clinging to him. They are like the barnacles on boats; some are shaken off, but others come on. I cannot describe the sight.

I have been with you, my wife. You have felt me. I could not impress you because I was not strong enough to use my mind for that purpose, but still you have felt me. It has only been a little, because I had not strength enough to come closer. I am with you a great deal. After I learn in spirit how to overcome matter then I can come to you and help you.

I will build a home for you in the spirit world and when that home is finished and your work here is done then I shall be the one to meet you, and we will have a real home.

I want to thank you all for the privilege of coming to your little circle, and would like to come again some other time.

 

This is extracted from “30 Years among the Dead” by Dr Carl Wickland, first published in 1924. Chapter “Christian Science”, page 315.