by Anthony Borgia

Religion has become as a separate part of the life of man upon earth, to be practiced or to be ignored, as the predilections of the individual may decide. Religion, to so many of the incarnate, means a succession of church-going at regular intervals, or merely a blind belief in every word that is contained in the New Testament, whether it be understood or not.

If one particular religion prefers to introduce a little ritual into its services, that ritual is branded as superstitious by others of an opposing sect. But the truth, as we can see it in the spirit world, is that most religion, as it is at present constituted upon the earth-plane, is itself nothing but sheer superstition. It is superstition begotten of ignorance or lack of knowledge of the truths of life as it is lived in the spirit world.

The afterlife is regarded by the unenlightened as some holy place when, on the one hand, it concerns heaven; or ‘hell,’ it is not pleasant to think. But the Church keeps the prospect of it always before the minds of the ‘faithful’ as an instrument of fear, to frighten people into a proper way of living while they are upon earth.

Heaven, then, in the minds of so many church-goers is a religious place where the soul will be everlastingly ‘caught up’ in an ecstasy of pious fervor, where constant ‘prayer and praise’ will be the order of the day for all eternity—and a great deal more upon the same devout lines. If we behave ourselves while we are upon earth and do the best we can, then, when our time comes, frightful though it may be, we can always throw ourselves upon the mercy of God. Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

The interpretation of that is perfectly simple, the churchman will say. It simply means that according as we give mercy to others upon earth, so shall we receive mercy on earth, and so, also, will God be merciful to us.

Then we read that Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill.

Some renderings of this beatitude prefer the word righteousness to justice. The righteousness in this case is that of the person who seeks to acquire that spiritual attainment known as piety, a word which we do not like in the spirit world. It savors too much of sanctimoniousness, of the belief that mere piety will bring untold happiness in the spirit world to those who practice it on the earth-plane, it reminds some of us in the spirit world of the religious abominations that have taken place in the name of religion.

In the spirit world, piety does not need naming. If by piety is meant reverencing God, then we reverence the Father of the universe without the necessity of being cajoled into it or threatened with dire penalties if we do not cultivate it. We do so without being told that it is His due, His right, and that He demands it. The very thought that a person should wish to acquire great piety when upon earth is not a true thought. Few people, if they are really honest with themselves, are filled with piety nor do they wish to be so.

With us in the spirit world, God is not some dread Being who must be constantly appeased, propitiated, and dreaded because of the fearful punishments with which He can inflict us upon this instant. We know that to be a completely fantastic conception of the Greatest Being whose desire is the happiness of all living creatures. God is regarded upon earth as the Great Dread Judge of all mankind, but a Judge who is merciful withal, if we merit mercy and ask Him for it.

But if mercy were thus being dispensed of what value would be the justice? Justice, strict justice—and that is the only justice there is in the spirit world—and mercy cannot go together in these lands. Mercy belongs to the earth plane, not to the spirit world. In what form, or under what conditions, or in what circumstances, could we in the spirit world accord mercy to anyone? There is no form, no conditions or circumstances prevalent. Mercy implies the remission of some penalty or part of a penalty that has been incurred by the commission of an offence. If some person has committed an offence against us, the person who committed it has himself to blame for the consequences. We can forgive sincerely, but the penalty still remains. It is a penalty, which the individual inflicted upon himself. God has not done so. It is not an offence against God.

No person on earth or in the spirit world can offend the Supreme Being. No base thought or idea, no act, however evil or barbarous, no vice, no obscenity, no blasphemies or maledictions, can come within a thousand miles of the Father of the universe. Any one of the catalogues of spiritual horrors, which I have just enumerated, can—and will—woefully injure a fellow mortal, but most of all they will injure the perpetrators. They have not offended God; they have brought dire disaster upon themselves. They have broken the laws of the spirit world, among the chief of which is the law of cause and effect. Would the Father of Heaven mitigate one iota of the punishment due to breaking of one of the natural laws? If He were to do so, where would strict justice be?

The idea that man is constantly offending God is crude. Allied with it is the similarly crude notion that God inflicts punishments not only upon individuals, but upon whole nations and continents. The wars that man wages upon earth are, so you are told by learned theologians, direct acts inflicted by God in punishment for the evil way of living which has been adopted by a belligerent nation or nations.

Both contestants are included within this condemnation so that we have the spectacle of two or more nations killing each other, depriving each other of their normal span of life on earth, as the considered method of an all-wise and supreme Being bringing punishment upon erring mankind. What a gross travesty! And when great storms and hurricanes and pestilences sweep through the earth world, leaving disaster and desolation and sorrow behind them, these also are the product of the same Infinite Mind. Another gross travesty!

Let me say once more: from the Father of the universe can come nothing, which is not of the highest and greatest good. Wars and storms and hurricanes are not the work of God. War is the work of man, and of man only: meteorological upheavals are the work of natural forces only.

The Father of the universe is not an awful Judge who shall come to judge the living and the ‘dead.’ He judges no one. Whence, then, comes the mercy and upon what account? Where can we in the spirit world show mercy? We cannot judge; we cannot condemn; we cannot sentence. Forgiveness for an offence—yes, we can give that, and we do so with heartfelt sincerity. But with all our forgiveness freely and fully and finally given, we cannot remove on element of the effects that certain causes have brought about in the state of him who has offended us.

We can—and we do—help such an individual with an expression of the fact that we have forgiven and forgive the fault in our brother to the fullest extent. We can help him to redeem the spiritual ground he has lost. Forgiveness has achieved nothing of itself beyond establishing the right kind of relationship between two people . We may wish with all our hearts that we could ameliorate their unhappy position; we might be filled with mercy towards those who have injured us. That feeling of mercy will translate itself into a deep sympathy and understanding but that is as far as it proceeds. The self-inflicted penalties remain just the same; we cannot abate them one fraction.

Mercy is a quality, which can only be practiced upon earth, and we merit a rich reward for our showing that splendid quality during our earthly lives. But as soon as we pass into the spirit world, mercy ceases. Justice takes its place, and justice is the operation of the law of cause and effect. It is a justice which is incorruptible, infallible, impartial, unfailing. There is no evading it; it must exert itself upon all persons alike, of whatever nation, creed color, age or sex.

Blessed are they that seek justice, for they shall have their fill. Many seek justice upon earth, and fail to obtain it. Here in the spirit world they receive their fill. The measure is full and brimming over, I do assure you. Those who have denied giving that justice when on earth, they, too will have justice. They will experience what real justice can be. Jesus knew this when he spoke those words. He saw the injustice that was about him in the part of the world in which he lived, and he knew where strict justice was eventually to be found—in the spirit world.

But he also knew that mercy does not come from God but from man to fellow man. It is the theologians who have built up this singular conception of the Father. It is they who have transmogrified the Great Father into a stern and awful judge.

Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and all his angels. Here in the gospel we are supposed to have the very words with which God will condemn the transgressor. In the spirit world, it fills us with unspeakable horror to contemplate upon the enormity of any person authoritatively teaching others that the Father of us all could utter words of such fearful condemnation. And these words are put into the mouth of Jesus, although it must be conceded that, at long last, honest doubts are creeping into the minds of churchmen on earth that so much that Jesus is reputed to have said was, in good truth, never spoken by him at all.

Assuredly this evil sentence upon the transgressor must be placed first upon the list of utterances that were never made by Jesus. Indeed, he could not have given voice to such downright, unblushing falsehood. For there is not one atom of truth in it. Nor is there any truth whatever in any statement appearing in the New Testament wherein it is specifically asserted that man shall be condemned for all eternity, no matter how great may be the enormity of his sins.

There is no awful Judgment Day, whether it be alleged to take place immediately upon man’s passing into the spirit world or at some later and unspecified time. I have said this to you before. At the risk of being tiresome, I cannot refrain from repeating it.

The dread of Judgment Day or of being summoned before the High Court of Heaven to be judged and sentenced—either or both of these outrageous beliefs have cast a blight upon the whole earth world for hundreds of earthly years. It has filled many, many estimable souls with the uttermost despondency. Many others with sensitive minds have passed their earthly lives in a state of spiritual terror because of that dread day that is supposed to await them at the close of their earthly lives.

It is part of my work in the spirit world to be at hand when people are making their entrance into these lands as residents, so that I speak from first-hand experience when I tell you of the abject terror that consumes so many poor souls when their moment of transition has come. Instead of the winter of their earthly lives passing gently into the glorious fresh, fragrant spring of their new life in these lands, they arrive here with that terror full upon them. Such beliefs are relics of pure paganism, but this wicked fiction has been kept up and disseminated by the Churches of earth as a measure of inspiring fear into the hearts of their ‘faithful.’ As a former priest of the Church, I regret deeply and earnestly, that I ever gave tongue to such misguided teaching. And there are hosts of others like me.

Man has been branded by the theologians as something so evil; so much accent has been laid upon ‘sinful man,’ and the Father of the universe is alleged to be so stern and awful (always the Great Dread Judge), that there is little wonder that man upon the earth-plane turns with some hope, forlorn though it may be, to the mercy that might be given to him.

The most that the average man can do upon earth is to hope for the best, to hope that perhaps things may not be so terrible for him in the afterlife as he has been led to believe. He has no certainty of it, and the Church would say that he has no right to assume anything, but he can sometimes think quietly. And out of those quiet thoughts he may derive some measure of spiritual insight; he may receive a little inspiration from some unseen friend of the spirit world—and leave the theologians and official spiritual teachers to their incomprehensible creeds and dogmas and their spiritual presumption.

For no one is more presumptuous than the Theologian, who, knowing little or nothing of the truth of spiritual matters, professes to know a great deal.

Fear is the strongest weapon, the deadliest weapon, in the theological armory. For hundreds of years Orthodoxy has wielded this weapon to inspire fear in the hearts of mankind—by the supposed dire penalties which it will be their misfortune to suffer when they pass to the ‘next world’ if they should have misbehaved themselves on earth. The worst sentence of all is to be condemned to hell for all eternity where the ‘sinner’ will remain forever in strange fires that burn but never consume.

But let it not be assumed that there is not a day of reckoning for all mankind. Most assuredly there is. And that moment first presents itself immediately when we have cast off the physical body in ‘death.’ Thence forward, everyday—to use earthly terms—every moment of the day becomes our time of reckoning. We judge ourselves as we go along in life in the spirit world. We do not hold a formal court of inquiry into our actions as we proceed in our life, but the inevitable law of cause and effect, being ever operative, provides us with the very essence of progression. We ourselves provide the cause: we thus set the law in motion. And the law produces the effect. That is how we progress in the spirit world. There is none to judge us but ourselves, and we can be stern and unrelenting to ourselves!

I want to make myself perfectly clear when I say that man judges himself. I am not speaking figuratively, neither am I suggesting that as each soul arrives in the spirit world it becomes so enlightened that it immediately perceives with full comprehension all the errors of its life. If that were so it would not be long before the dark realms and the gray lands were soon emptied of their inhabitants. I mean simply this: the law of cause and effect is in continual, perpetual operation upon every person who is born upon earth from the moment of his drawing breath upon that plane of existence, right through his earthly life, and so it continues after he has passed here into the spirit world. The operation of that law is, in its effect, precisely the same as though a complete process of adjudication were set in motion under the presidency of some individual. That is exactly what has happened, the individual who is presiding being ourselves.

Let us consider a simple analogy. If we should choose voluntarily to plunge our hand into the blaze of a red-hot fire, we should suffer the most excruciating agony from our burnt fingers. Could we blame a single soul for our most a foolhardy action? Most certainly not, for what we did, we did of our own free will. We were fully aware that it was a mad act to commit, but we persisted nonetheless. Could we blame the fire for burning us? Again most certainly not for it is the nature of fire to burn, and it is simply the operation of cause and effect.

My analogy is but an elementary one, but it has its direct application, because a misspent life, a life lived upon earth in a series of transgressions, will have the same effect upon us—an effect which will be fully revealed when we arrive in the spirit world—as though we had thrust our hand into the flames of the fire. We see what we have done—we see the result of what we have done.

We see where the blame rests; we see just what we have done for ourselves. We perceive unerringly that it is our own fault, the fault of no one else, and therefore we blame no one else. What we did, we did deliberately and of our own free will. Our motive was bad, or, alternatively, our motive was not good. Applying this rule to our earthly lives for it is with our earthly lives I am treating at the moment, you will observe just where God enters into our true spiritual appraisement. He enters nowhere. He is not Judging us: He will not judge us, either at the moment of our transition or at some unknown later date. There is, in fact no need for Him—or for anyone else—to do the judging. We shall be compelled to do it most efficiently ourselves.

To return to my analogy, we have but to gaze upon our burnt hand for the whole story to reveal itself to our minds with full truth. Others, too, can see the dreadful burns, but they need not know how they were brought about. We are under no obligation to tell them, but there will come a time when we shall be glad to unburden our troubled minds of its load of misery and sadness.

Lest some of my good friends upon earth should take me too literally, or mistakenly to misapply my little analogy, let me hasten to assure them that there are no flames here in the spirit world. Those dreadful flames of hell do not have any place in the economics of the spirit world!

I am speaking to you at some length upon this particular subject of Judgment and Judgment Day because I have in mind my own earthly experiences, from which I know, as do you, the universal extent of the belief—and the fear, which it inspires. I want to remove that fear if possible, and in doing so to bring some brightness and gladness into the lives and thoughts of my good friends upon earth. But most of all, it is my greatest wish that my friends should have a better and deeper understanding of the Great Father of the universe since it is He whom the orthodox religions of the earth traduce so abominably and outrageously in their transforming Him into a grim and horrifying Judge from whom our principal hope is mercy.

From our discussion of justice and mercy, one or two subsidiary questions may come into your mind, which it is opportune to answer now. For instance, you might ask: how does justice actually operate in the spirit world? Justice, as we know it on earth, must be dispensed by someone or other. It cannot come about of itself if we are considering some particular cause.

Now that, my good friend, is a difficult question to answer unless one should be a spiritual expert or technician. Suppose I were to ask you how did the fire burn that hand? Of what is the flame composed and how does it burn? There I think we should find ourselves both in the same relative position. We can most of us say what happens in particular cases, and we can be very familiar with certain effects, but we are not all conversant with the actual forces that are set in motion, nor how they operate. We can, however, throw a little light upon this matter.

Justice, as we are now considering it, is a very comprehensive term. In the spirit world it means that not only shall the transgressor receive his just merits, it means also that all who have suffered during their earthly lives, whether from the evil deeds of others or from stress of adverse circumstances, or from illness and defects of the physical body, all such people shall be accorded a full measure of compensation through the natural means which are abundant and lavish in spirit lands. Justice, you will see, will be given to those who have suffered through the fault of no one.

A long chain of circumstances and events might have led to the eventual afflictions of one individual, but justice will be done to that person freely and fully. Perhaps you already have knowledge of some of the manifold delights which are to be found in these realms of light, and the supreme joy which they bring to all of us here, and will bring to the thousands who in future time are bound for these realms. Therein lies their compensation for everything which they might have endured, and I have yet to find anyone who is not in whole-hearted agreement with me that the happiness that is to be derived here far outweighs any and every unhappiness that was ours during our earthly lives. The incarnate need have no fear upon that score. Compensation is lavishly bestowed. But there is also the justice that comes to the evildoer.

The acts and thoughts of our earthly lives are registered within us, and thus our life’s history is indelibly recorded within our never-failing memories. In order to understand this you must first of all know one simple fact of spiritual knowledge. It is this: spirituality means light, the absence of spirituality means darkness. I am not speaking figuratively, but literally. The light is real light, just as you have on earth in the noonday of summer, and is not some spiritual ‘experience.’ The darkness is Stygian, the complete absence of light, and it can be blacker even than the darkness of the darkest midnight of a bleak and bitter winter on earth, or of some deep tenebrous dungeon below the ground. The individuals who live in these two contrasting states of light and darkness exactly match their surroundings of brightness and gloom in their own persons. Their bodies and their very raiment will correspond minutely with their habitation. In the bright realms, wherein it is my happy fortune to live, our clothing and our physical frames are as full of light as are our surroundings. The same state of things exists in the greater and more exalted realms above us to a degree that is indescribable in ordinary earthly terms. In addition, the very countenances of the elevated beings that inhabit those realms have taken upon their lineaments the high spirituality of their realms.

In the dark realms, the reverse takes place. The denizens are hideous in form and feature, distorted sometimes out of all resemblance to their once human appearance. Indeed, when they were upon earth they may have been elegant in form and handsome in feature, but are now reduced to their true status. Their attire may be filthy rags, a mere mockery of clothing. They may present such a revolting spectacle that one would naturally recoil from contact with them. The base deeds of their lives have reacted upon them, both in body and mind. They possess no perceptible glimmer of light themselves, and their habitation is similarly devoid of light. You will see my meaning when I repeat that spirituality means light, the absence of spirituality means darkness.

You will also observe the monumental stupidity of Orthodoxy when, in its blindness, it pontifically pronounces that when we of the spirit world return to earth to speak with our friends there, we are nothing but devils of hell masquerading as angels of light! There is no such masquerading here, I do assure you, my good friend.

Nowhere in the spirit world is it possible for any person, of whatever description, to assume one scintilla of light which is not completely and absolutely his own. No person can endow another with light, temporarily or permanently. The light, which emanates from us, is the result of the working of the law of cause and effect—which is justice.

Another question, which may come to your mind, is this: how does each person go, automatically, as it seems to the exact place he has earned for himself? Who decides the matter?

To answer the last question first: no one decides the matter for any person; the person decides it for himself. He goes automatically to his right abode because that is the abode for which he is exactly fitted. He is attuned to that abode in a manner, which I will explain to you, for the same reason there is no fear of an individual over-stepping or escaping from the dark realms if so be it he has condemned himself to those regions. The reason is this: the kind of life which every soul leads upon earth reacts directly upon his spiritual counterpart; in other words, a person’s spirit body will possess just that degree of light which is resultant from his life on earth.

If his life has been bad in every sense, then his spirit body will possess little or no light. The sphere to which he goes in the spirit world will possess exactly the same degree of light as the spirit body itself, no more, no less. The two coincide perfectly; they are attuned.

We might draw a simple analogy from the oceans of the earth world. The sea, as you must know, is comprised of water of various densities in which myriads of creatures are living, segregated according to the different densities. They are fitted for the particular pressure of water by their physical construction. If, broadly speaking, creatures occupying water of one density attempted to enter that of another density, they would bring destruction upon themselves if they penetrated far enough. They would be forewarned of any encroachment or deviation from their rightful sphere by acute discomfort or suffering.

The barriers between these different densities are invisible, but they are there nonetheless. Now if we leave the ocean and come to dry land, we find that human beings will suffer acute distress and might even terminate their earthly life abruptly if they penetrate into regions of atmospheric pressure to which they are not accustomed, or for which they are unprovided with special apparatus with which to counterbalance such unaccustomed atmospheric density.

Perhaps you would find great difficulty in breathing when upon the heights of a lofty mountain. When venturing into high altitudes in the air, you must be fully protected or your earthly life will quickly terminate. Again, the barriers are invisible, but none the less real. So it is in the spirit world. In the dark regions of the spirit world the density, if so we might call it, is enormous, as you would compute such things. Inhabitants of higher realms can enter them only when suitably protected by the necessary spiritual ‘apparatus.’ I use the term ‘apparatus’ in a figurative sense only. We do not actually wear any special clothing or other impedimenta for the purpose. The particular protection that is needed is afforded through our mental abilities. We must all learn how to perform this mental process before we venture into the dark realms, and even then an experienced cicerone is indispensable.

When we are invited to pay a visit to realms higher than that which we normally inhabit, some dweller in the higher realm will always be present to equip us for the journey. That is a process, which we cannot undertake to do for ourselves since it needs extra force, which we do not ourselves possess.

When we walk across our own particular realm we shall eventually come to a spot or locality where we shall feel that we are not as comfortable as we were. We shall see and feel the light becoming stronger, and we shall be unable to withstand it. That is one of the invisible barriers of the realm (increased intensity of light may not, per se, constitute a barrier). That is where the relative density is beginning to change.

So it is throughout the whole vast dominion of the spirit world. We shall each dwell in that region where we feel most comfortable. Even in the dark realms that rule applies, although it may sound strange to your earthly ear to speak of comfort in those revolting regions. But whatever distress comes to a soul in darkness, it is not so much from the realm in which he lives as from the mental state into which he is plunged. The realm itself does not inflict tortures upon him. His fellow beings alone do that. He is not inevitably condemned to live there; his own spiritual state will keep him there until such time as he feels the urge to progress.

Thus you will plainly see that justice in the spirit world is the operation of the law of cause and effect, and that it requires no administrator but ourselves alone. We have inflicted upon ourselves the condition in which we find ourselves. To whom can we cry for mercy? The forgiveness, which we may receive from another, will carry us no further on the way. We pay the price to the uttermost farthing. Our wounds are self-inflicted; we can blame none but ourselves. The Father of Heaven has not judged us; He has not condemned us; we have not offended Him; He has nothing to forgive us. We have broken spiritual laws. That, and that only. Why should we beg for mercy? What right have we to beg for mercy? We knew that fire scorches and burns—to return to our old analogy—yet we deliberately plunged our hands into the flames.

Blessed are the merciful on earth. Blessed are they that seek justice for they shall have their fill in the spirit world.

Excerpt from Facts

See Part III here.