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This article is about the "spirit world" as related to Spiritualism. For other uses, see Spirit world (disambiguation).
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[edit] History
By the mid 19th century most Spiritualist writers concurred that the spirit world was of "tangible substance" and a place consisting of "spheres" or "zones".[4][5] Though specific details differed, the construct suggested organization and centralization.[6] An 18th century writer, Emanuel Swedenborg, influenced Spiritualist views of the spirit world. He described a series of concentric spheres each including a heirarchal organization of spirits in a setting more earth-like than theocentric.[7] The spheres become gradually more illuminated and celestial. Spiritualists added a concept of limitlessness, or infinity to these spheres.[8] Furthermore, it was defined that Laws initiated by God apply to earth as well as the spirit world.[9]Another common Spiritualist conception was that the spirit world is inherently good and is related to truth-seeking as opposed to things that are bad residing in a "spiritual darkness".[10][11] This conception inferred as in the biblical parable Lazarus and Dives that there is considered a greater distance between good and bad spirits than between the dead and the living.[12] Also, the spirit world is "The Home of the Soul" as described by C. W. Leadbeater (Theosophist) suggesting that for a living human to experience the spirit world is a blissful, meaningful and life changing experience.[13]
Yet, John Worth Edmonds stated in his 1853 work, Spiritualism, "Man's relation spiritually with the spirit-world is no more wonderful than his connection with the natural world. The two parts of his nature respond to the same affinities in the natural and spiritual worlds."[14] He asserted, quoting Swedenborg through mediumship, that the relationship between man and the spirit world is reciprocal and thus could contain sorrow. Though ultimately, "wandering through the spheres" a path of goodness "is received at last by that Spirit whose thought is universal love forever."[15]
[edit] References
- ^ Hill, J. Arthur (1918). Spiritualism - Its History, Phenomena, And Doctrine. London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne: Cassell and Company, Ltd.. p. 211. ISBN 1-4067-0162-9.
- ^ Hill, p.44
- ^ Colville, W. J. . (1906). Universal Spiritualism: Spirit Communion in All Ages Among All Nations. R. F. Fenno & Company. p. 42. ISBN 0-7661-9100-1.
- ^ Edmonds, John W.; George T. Dexter, M.D. (1853). Spiritualism. New York: Partridge & Brittan Publishers. p. 262.
- ^ Hill, p.36
- ^ Carrol, Bret E. (October 1, 1997). Spiritualism in Antebellum America (Religion in North America). Indiana University Press. p. 62. ISBN 0-253-33315-6.
- ^ Carrol, p.17
- ^ Edmonds, p.123
- ^ Edmonds, p.136
- ^ Hill, p.168
- ^ Edmonds, p.143
- ^ Hill, p.208
- ^ Colville, pp.268–270
- ^ Edmonds, p.104
- ^ Edmonds, p.345
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