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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Human Potential

Mrs. Elizabeth Sweet

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The following is channeled information via the mediumship of Mrs. Elizabeth Sweet as reported in “The Future Life” (1855).

... But when they have thrown off the mantle of clay, then the soul knows well that those intense longings for knowledge, and light, and wisdom, which seem novel to many, were not made a part of its spiritual organization without a wise and holy purpose—without a practical good to accrue from the further development of those dimly conceived ideas, from their crude and inharmonious state, into a more evenly balanced sphere of action.

And now the great practical beauty of the spirit-world, in all its vast and complicated machinery of action and united harmony, bursts upon the wondering and delighted spirit. Ten thousand beauties meet his eye. There he beholds dimly conceived ideas brought into perfection. There are great and opposite principles (which he had thought could never mingle) working harmoniously together, and producing results whose power and usefulness combined, astonish him.

Here, indeed, no laggard need hope to find a heaven. They who desire music, and song, and flowers, and floating landscapes of loveliness [i.e., mere frivolity], do not find them here; it is a part of the great universe of thought and wisdom and higher life which goes to make up the great, yet beautifully harmonious home for all.

Although many are not attracted to this field of utility and practical knowledge, yet the mind whose spiritual organization has been molded out of such materials ; without its labor, without its highly conceived laws of grandeur and design of thought and never-ending labor, ever developing new and startling wisdom, there could be no heaven in which that soul could find enjoyment. He would pine and droop amid the employments which others take so much delight in. And do you not conceive that this labor is necessary? that all happiness, and all things which contribute to our well-being in our spirit-life are not produced without a cause, without a means?

Summerland was built over the eons by spirit-persons striving for knowledge and wisdom

As we are here dependent upon each other, in a great measure, for our happiness and necessaries, so are we there. Castles are not built out of thin air, created at the wish or desire of those who may want them. All things do not form of themselves, spontaneous ; but science and philosophy must lend their aid. Labor assumes a dignity and beauty, and none enjoy luxury nor ease until it is earned by the labor of their own energies; none may stand idle by and say to another: " Go and do this thing," but they must stretch forth their own hand and do for themselves. The man who is lacking in practical knowledge, when he arrives in the spirit-world, is as helpless as the person who, entering a strange country, cannot understand the language of the people among whom he has entered ; although he may have read and heard of all their manners and customs, still he is unable to mingle with them, or be useful to them until he has acquired the art of making himself understood, and of understanding them.

Thus many conceive that the general principles given of the state of the soul hereafter, in its various degrees of development, is but a kind of school where the lessons are easily conned [archaic: "known”] and the happiness of the state is all that is necessary to know; but they must learn that it is also a severely practical school, and each and every one must thoroughly understand their part, sufficiently to instruct others as well as benefit themselves, before they can pass lightly through, for with the knowledge always comes the application.

And man indeed feels that when he has entered the world of spirits, it is in many respects more natural, because more real and highly developed in its mechanical and philosophical laws than the one which they left. Here the true grandeur and sublimity of the mechanical universe breaks upon them in all its majesty and constructive beauty; and here, too, is the immortal spirit made more than man, for he becomes a god in the deep and mysterious knowledge of the universe surrounding him.

lightnings

He becomes endowed with such mighty power, that he can shake the great world of elements surrounding him with commotion ; he can roll the forces of his vast reservoir of power, so that it may be felt in spheres beyond him ; he may carry within his hands the lightnings, making them obedient messengers to bring him bright sparks of knowledge from those worlds where others cannot approach, which roll beyond him, illuminating the horizon by their brightness, and filling the beholder with wonder and unsatisfied inquiry.

The man who so thus pants and longs for his natural food is not content with other; is not to be filled, is not to find rest until he finds himself a part, filling a niche left vacant for him in this great universe, which is constantly changing—delighting—unfolding by the scintillations of its light the enrapt and eager soul.

O profound thinker! think on; thy thought had its birth before thy body, yea, coeval with thy soul; it leaves its bright impress still upon thy weary and thoughtful brow. Thou art destined for greater things, for sublimer knowledge than the puling [“weak voice of a child”], puny soul whose flight grasps not the substantial, but only the flickering, fleeting beauty, as the bee sips the honey when roaming from flower to flower, looking upon its sunlight beauty, taking a sip of its sweetness; and then when the tempest comes, when the sky is dark and the sun is hid from its view, all is dark, and dreary, and cheerless beneath the gaudy flower.

Stretch forth thy pinions, soul. Soar away into the regions of light and harmony and creative power, and ask thyself then, "Where is the mind, and what is the power who created and keeps in equilibrium all this vast univercoelum?" And behold what construction, what comprehension, what sublimity and grandeur are there displayed wherever thy feeble eye can reach!

Oh, the mind which called all these things into life, and power, and existence, was a constructive, mechanical, practical mind, and all things in your universe are constantly displaying in their changing forms, practical and beautiful results. And thus you will see that every faculty, every legitimate labor beneath the sun has a corresponding and practical bearing in regard to the hereafter of its being.

It is a deep and searching study; it is divine in its origin; it is a part of the Divine Mind itself (the mechanical development displayed by the present race), and it will so continue developing until the hidden secrets of nature are all revealed; until man becomes in his higher unfolding what the Deity intended he should be; breathing and partaking of harmony, and light, and beauty, and knowledge, from all things in nature, each forming a part of his being, and making him, within himself, a universe of harmony, proximating to the Deity in the purity and development and number of his attributes.

Editor's last word:

a hierarchy of beings, with infinite grades of power, of knowledge, of wisdom, and, everywhere, the influence of higher beings upon lower

Sherwood Eddy, “You Will Survive After Death” (1950): speaking of "Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), the brilliant co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of the principle of evolution... At the conclusion of his long volume on The World of Life, Wallace found infinite variety as the law of the universe. Instead of evidence for a solitary, infinite and eternal Being as the one and only direct agent in every detail of the universe, Wallace believed he found not only God, but a whole hierarchy of beings with infinite grades of power, of knowledge, of wisdom, and everywhere the influence of higher beings upon lower. He found 'the universe requires the continuous co-ordinated agency of myriads of intelligences' and that 'man is destined to a permanent, progressive existence in a world of spirit'." Editor's note: Wallace was correct in his discernment that the universe is managed and directed by "a whole hierarchy of beings with infinite grades of power, of knowledge, of wisdom, and everywhere the influence of higher beings upon lower." The image of Superboy, member of the Legion of Super Heroes, in principle, is not so far-fetched after all.

Editor's note: Wallace and Sherwood Eddy’s conception of "a whole hierarchy of beings with infinite grades of power, of knowledge, of wisdom, and everywhere the influence of higher beings upon lower” needs to be emphasized. There is a ruling class in the universe. The collective consciousness – which might include ourselves – of these advanced spiritually-minded ones constitutes a portion of the “God-force” in the cosmos. If I were to write a novel about this ruling body or congress of evolved spirit-entities, I might call it “The Empyrium.”