“This message title is; “Hell is a place as well as a condition.” It’s from Sweedenborg the Seer, Swedish scientist, mystic and theologian. Published in The Gospel of God’s Love, page 456.
“I want to tell you about things that spirits in the hells do, or have done to them , as you might say, in order to get out of their darkness and suffering, and progress to a happier condition.
“When spirits who lived an evil or sinful life on earth first come into the spirit world, they enter into what is called the earth plane (I mean those portions of the First Sphere nearest to earth which partake largely of the material). They are received by their friends who may have been with them at the time of their passing, and are by them comforting to some extent, and made familiar with their surroundings.
“This may last for a shorter or longer time, according as the spirit is capable of understanding their changed condition from mortal to spirit. (I will assume this spirit is male.) After this condition of consciousness is assumed, these friends leave him, and a guiding spirit, whose duty it is to perform the task, shows or conducts him to a plane and place which he is fitted to occupy, and which, by the workings of the law of compensation, he must occupy. In this place he is surrounded by and must associate with spirits in sinilar condition of development as his own, until some change comes to him which will fit him for a higher place.
“This change again may come in a shorter or longer time, dependant upon the spirit realizing what his condition is, and that there is a possibility of progressing. Of himself, there is little he can do to bring about this change, and it is brought about primarily through the influence of other spirits who are in a more enlightened condition than himself. These influences do not necessarily come from spirits who have received the new birth, but may come from spirits who know nothing about it, and have only natural love. They may not even be of a high order of development of either intellect or soul; but they must be in such condition that they know and are able to tell the lower spirit of the possibility to progress, and the way in which it can be made.” To be continued…