by Anthony Borgia

‘Do we have religious centers in the spirit world?’ If an ecclesiastical edifice is an indispensable adjunct to religion upon earth, then the establishment of churches would benefit the peculiar state of the ‘afterlife’, whatever it may be. That is what many people think, and this attitude of mind finds outward expression in the spirit world. Yes, there are religious centers (churches) here, and very beautiful they are.

They are, of course, in keeping with all other buildings, being constructed of the same kind of materials, and having the same degree of care lavished upon them. Some people are considerably surprised to find such places here when they make their advent into spirit lands. I can number myself among them. Others, as I have hinted, more or less expected to find churches fully established in whatever ‘heaven’ to which their earthly religion had safely conducted them. The discovery helped to make them feel more ‘at home’ in their new surroundings, and they very soon become active members of the community attached to the church.

In these realms one will find religious centers of most of the denominations with which you are familiar. My own former religion is fully represented, and what is known as the Established Church also. But there are others besides, each with its own buildings. I have been into many of them. They all possess a calm, restful atmosphere in which it is very pleasant to spend a few thoughtful moments. When there is stained glass in the windows beautiful effects are created by the external light as it pours in from all quarters, while the rays meet and blend into colorful rainbow shafts.

Some of the churches are exact replicas of buildings that are in existence now upon earth. Others are what the earth would call restorations of once famous abbey churches, and so forth, that have fallen into ruins on earth. Here they have risen in all their architectural glory to grace the countryside with their presence.

The church buildings vary in size from what would be considered a small chapel to great cathedral churches, all of them erected and upheld by their devoted congregations.

How such things come to exist in the spirit world may cause you some wonder, since one would have thought there was no place for further religious differences and creedal distinctions. Most people do so think, but there remains a large residue who are still firmly wedded to their old earthly religious persuasion. Religious beliefs can take a very secure hold upon the minds of some persons. When they arrive in these realms they are fully convinced that their particular beliefs are alone responsible for their being where they are, which they regard as ‘heaven’, their just reward for their true faith. The fact that they led good lives in the service of others on earth they would sweep aside as of very little account in the great reckoning which has taken place. It is their faith, and their faith alone, they aver, which has brought them to these realms of heaven. They cannot be made to see that their great faith has availed them nothing; that they are where they are, not because of their faith, not in spite of it, but utterly regardless of it, and that it is their life of service to their neighbor, just that and that alone, which has brought its reward. The faith persists, sometimes elaborated with ritual and ceremonial, sometimes left plain and unadorned, simple and rather crude. And while it so persists their spiritual progression and evolution are at a standstill. They remain where they are in an environment of their creation.

The laws that allow of their religious practices are strict and must be obeyed. Adherents to each form of religion must confine their practices solely to themselves. There must be no endeavoring to convert others to their beliefs. Their outlook, as you can imagine, is foreshortened. They can and they do enjoy their ‘heaven’, home-made though it be, until one day spiritual enlightenment will come to them. Then they will emerge from their restricted, circumscribed life into the greater world that has been round about them all the time, had they but realized it. They will leave their useless creeds and dogmas behind them, and march forward upon the road of spiritual progression and evolution. They will then regard their churches as beautiful structures put to an entirely wrong use. They now see that as they regularly stepped out of their churches at the conclusion of a service, they stepped out into a world of truth, of truth which was not resident within the church’s four walls.

Now a word as to the ministers who conduct the services in these churches. They are men who were clergymen on earth. There is no lack of ministers for different churches. In fact, the supply is largely in excess of the actual demand. But that makes no real difference, since a number of ministers can work together in the same church, and so provide a fuller and more elaborate ceremonial in such establishments where it is performed.

After their earthly labors, their work here seems very light to them. Indeed, they have precious little to do beyond conducting their services. But then, you must remember that they consider themselves in ‘heaven’, and to take a few services and spend the remainder of the time in comparative idleness is simply the ‘eternal rest’ of which they spoke so glibly when they were upon earth. The members of their congregation are eternally resting, too. So that they are happy enough in their own limited way. They have arrived where they are through the kind of life they led when on earth, and here they have stayed while a sort of spiritual somnolence has descended upon them. They live that life of ‘piety’ which they thought so much about, and they are thankful for the church’s help in getting them where they are.

The clergy are of all ranks in ecclesiastical orders, from learned prelates to simple parish clergymen. We have attended several of the services in these churches and listened to the sermons. It was an interesting experience.

Orthodox religion upon earth has much, very much to answer for. It forges many spiritual fetters which bind up the minds of countless souls upon earth, so that when they come here, we in the spirit world have to find means to strike off the irons that shackle them, so to release them to that freedom of spirit which is the natural, right, and proper mode of living in these lands.

When the earth becomes truly and completely enlightened in the knowledge of life in the spirit world, all these churches will be put to a different use. They will cease to be repositories of creeds and dogmas, and become true temples of the spirit world. And in the true temples of the spirit world something very different from what you call ‘communal worship’ takes place.

In the center of the city in these realms there is a great temple, a magnificent structure. It forms the very hub of the city from which everything radiates in every direction. It is a huge edifice, capable of seating thousands of us without any fear of crowding or other unpleasant conditions. It is encompassed by the most beautiful gardens, and as soon as one comes within the precincts one feels the most astonishing flow of power that emanates not only from the great wealth of flowers, but from the very building itself. This outpouring of force never diminishes.

Now, this is a temple of thanksgiving, not of worship as the earth understands it and professes to practice it. We do not congregate here to offer up so-called ‘sacrifices’; nor do we perform elaborate ritual and ceremonial. Indeed, we do not perform either the one or the other at any time. We are not wearied by long and mostly unintelligible readings from ancient writers of a date so remote that they have no application to our present purposes and needs. We do not recite gloomy extracts from psalms which the majority of people do not understand. We do not sing hymns with whose sentiment we are either entirely out of tune or disbelieve in altogether. And lastly, we are not treated to the recitation of long, wordy, fulsome prayers that mostly breathe blatant flattery in their every sentence, and propound the most abstruse theological doctrines, as to the meaning of which one is utterly at fault. We perform none of these useless exercises. Instead, we meet here on special occasions, not by rule, not by habit, not because it is a duty, not because it is the ‘right thing to do’; we meet here not because God ‘demands’ corporate worship as His right, not because some spurious authority proclaims that we must do so, or take the consequences.

We meet, because on the special occasions to which I have just referred, most illustrious beings from the higher realms come to visit us in this temple, beings who are close to the Great Source of all life and light. They bring with them some of the transcendental fragrance of those higher states of existence, and we are permitted to bask, as it were, in the radiance of the power and light they bring. Such power and light are partly of themselves and partly from the exalted realms, but chiefly from the Great Source of all.

The principal visitant on these occasions gathers together our heartfelt thanks for all that is given to us, for all that we possess, and he transmits them to the Giver.

Such a ‘service’ is simple and unpretentious, and above all things it is short. Most of these gatherings last not much longer than fifteen minutes or so of earthly time. But into that brief space of time is concentrated an act of inspiring beauty such as the longest, most elaborate, and most spectacular church ceremonial upon earth could never achieve in hours of pontifical pageantry with little or nothing underlying it.

We can please ourselves whether we shall be present or not, and we are not thought any the worse for being absent. Sometimes many of us are absent upon important work at the time of these visits, but we enjoy the benefit of them on another occasion, and in the meantime our thoughts go out to the visitants. But it is the same in this as in all things here. Once you have experienced some of the delights of these realms you never wish to forgo further such experiences, if it can possibly be helped.

We have other and smaller temples distributed throughout the realms, where there is carried on upon a smaller scale the same description of visitation that takes place in the great central temple. Some of the smaller temples are fashioned exactly like the churches with whose form you are familiar upon earth. This is an ideal realized, a church as you know it, devoted to its true purpose, and not merely a stage upon which is enacted a great deal of worthless ceremonial which has no spiritual significance and certainly no spiritual effect.

Upon earth an act of religious ‘worship’ implies in the minds of most folk an act of propitiation to a God who constantly demands it as His right. The Great Father of the Universe then ceases to be a Father and becomes an omnipotent being of uncertain temperament and most uncertain temper. Self-abasement, conciliation, worship, adoration, and a multiplicity of other emotions are what orthodox religions tell you must be your attitude towards the Great Creator. And to crown this gross and libelous conception of the Father of the Universe, you are told that you should, indeed, you must love Him.

Orthodoxy, in one form or another, has claimed a monopoly of the ‘life hereafter’, and therefore all that appertains to it has been regarded in a strictly religious sense. The spirit world has thus become a world of piety, of sanctity, or righteousness; how the latter word is relished by some types of churchmen! Heaven, these same churchmen would say, is a holy place, a place sanctified by the presence of angels and saints, where a continuous stream of worship ascends to the Great Throne above. And so on earth you must have Divine Worship, and it is the duty of every citizen, according to his religious persuasion to attend once a week at some place of worship. A great many do so without the remotest notion of what they are doing or the reason for doing it. They have only the crudest ideas concerning a Supreme Being, such ideas as they have are derived from their religious teachers.

At last, when they pass into the spirit world, they bring all their crude notions with them. But as there are no laws here against thinking what you like, they continue so to think along the same old lines. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they do not think at all. But we who have our spiritual freedom know just what the term worship is worth.

We do not worship, as the earth understands the term. We pour out our eternal thanks for the happiness that is ours, a happiness that is itself magnified by the thought and the knowledge that still greater happiness lies ahead of us all. We are consumed with the deepest and truest affection for the one Infinite Source who so lavishly bestows so many good things upon us.

Excerpt from Here And Hereafter