The Structure of Heaven

An encyclopedia of the paranormal, How Spirit is organized and how it affects your daily life

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  • About The Structure of heaven
  • Introduction
  • 1. Skepticism and Classical Physics
    • Skepticism/Humanism
    • Skepticism/Relativity and Quantum Physics
    • Skepticism/CSICOP
    • Skepticism/Why the Skeptics are Wrong
    • Skepticism/The advantages of belief
  • 2. The Human Soul
    • Why do we live in a material Universe?
    • The Human Soul and its Relationship to the Body
  • 3. God and Theodicy
    • Does God cause bad things to happen to good people?
    • Guardian Spirits and the Life Plan
    • What is Theodicy?
      • Zoroastrian Theodicy
      • Jewish Theodicy
      • Christian Theodicy
      • Why is Theodicy important?
      • Can Love conquer all??
  • 4. Psychics and mediums- an overview
    • What are psychics and mediums?
    • Why mediums can’t seem to agree about the afterlife
  • 5. The Structure of Heaven
    • The Universe according to Emanuel Swedenborg and Frederick Myers
    • A Map of the spiritual realm
  • 6. Heaven, Hell and the planes of illusion
    • Introducing The transitional plane (The Earth Sphere)
      • The functions of the transitional plane.
      • Crossing over
      • Time traps on the transitional plane
    • Evolution within the planes of illusion
      • The Summerlands and above
      • The Winterlands
    • The Hells
      • The Conditions in the Hells
      • Who goes to Hell?
      • Hell and the transitional plane
    • How spirits from different levels perceive each other
    • Vertical Stratification of the Spiritual Realm and How Spirits Progress
    • Horizontal Stratification and Spiritual Social Groups
  • 7. What happens when we die?
    • There is no external Judgement in the Afterlife!
    • Death doesn’t change a soul’s attitude
    • The life review
    • What do spirits look like?
    • Ghosts and their clothes
    • Zombies
    • Time In the spiritual world
    • Time in the planes of illusion
    • Memory in the planes of illusion
    • What’s it like to be dead?
  • 8. Spiritual laws/The Law of Divine Love
    • Spiritual Laws/The law of compensation
    • Spiritual Laws/Spiritual Gravity
    • Spiritual Laws/Spiritual Frequencies
    • Spiritual Laws/The Law of Attraction
    • Spiritual Laws/The Law of Free Will and Good vs. Evil
    • The red devil and the white angel
    • The spiritual advantage of Living in a Material World
    • Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?
  • 9. The Human Aura and Theosophy
    • The Aura as a Protective Spiritual Skin
    • The Aura and Spiritual infection (Obsession)
  • 10. Dr. Carl Wickland and Thirty Years Among the Dead
    • Dr. Wickland’s Spirit Dialogs
    • Spirit Related Insanity
  • 11. Spiritual Infection and Modern psychiatry
    • Emanuel Swedenborg’s Spiritual Insight
    • Wilson Van Dusen
    • Wilson Van Dusen’s Heavenly and Hellish Voices
    • Entities that invade the minds of the living
  • 12. Earthbound Spirits
    • Will I end up an earthbound spirit?
      • Three reasons that GOOD souls get stuck on the transitional plane.
    • Where do ghosts get their energy?
    • Human Spirit Obsession
    • Human Spirit Possession
    • Criminal culpability and spiritual infections
    • Enthrallment by the living and Hypnosis
      • Enthrallment and Abusive Relationships
      • Enthrallment: Cults
      • Enthrallment in the afterlife
      • Enthrallment by God and angels
  • 13. Angels and demons
    • The Provenance of Angelic Beings
    • The War in heaven
    • Angels and their function in religion
    • Magic and Wicca
    • Demonology
      • The structure of Hell
      • How demons infect a person or place
      • The five stages of demonic attack
      • Why do demons want to possess people?
      • The characteristics of demons
      • Thought Forms
  • 14 exorcim
    • Major exorcisms (also called imperative exorcisms)
    • False, or fake possessions
    • How Religion Views Demons Vs. Ghosts
    • Avoiding Demonic Repossession
    • Who can Remove Demons?
    • Removing Human ghosts
    • Exorcism and poltergeist activity in disturbed children
    • Haunted Dolls and Other Objects
    • Dealing with Family and Marriage Disturbances Caused by Ghosts
    • Goodness and ghosts
  • 15. Poltergeists, Ghosts and Hauntings
    • Poltergeists versus Ghosts
    • How spiritualists view ghosts
    • How Parapsychologists view ghosts
    • Children and Poltergeist infestations
    • Poltergeists that make the news
    • Ghosts and spiritual imprints
    • Ghosts of famous people
    • Why do ghosts seem bound to the same location?
      • Ghosts and sensory deprivation
    • A Ghost Story
    • Differentiating between Human and Demonic hauntings
      • Hauntings by Human ghosts
        • Human Ghost hangouts
      • Hauntings by Demonic spirits
  • 16. All about Psychics and others prone to spiritual infections
    • 1. Psychic Sensitives
      • Psi and the human brain
      • The five general categories of psychics
    • 2. Spiritual infection and mental illness
      • Are the spiritually infected mentally ill responsible for their criminal acts?
    • 3. Spiritual infection and Acquired Negative Lifestyles
      • Spiritual infection and drug and alcohol addiction
      • Spiritual infection as a result of negative personality traits
    • 4. Spiritual infection and childhood abuse
  • 17. Criminals and Spirits
    • Why are criminals more prone to spirit obsession than other people?
  • 18. Religion and Government
    • The birth of Morality
    • Religion = Spirit + Politics
    • The paranormal and religion
    • Human Nature-The REAL reason for religion
      • Sex and Religion
      • Religion and War
      • Religion vs. Secular law
    • Religious Dogmas
      • The Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal
    • Spiritualism
    • Why are the dark spheres necessary?
  • 19. Spirit Lies and Tall Tales!
    • Edgar Cayce
    • Edgar Cayce and Atlantis
  • 20. Suicide and its Spiritual Consequences
    • Nondiscretionary Suicides
    • Discretionary Suicide
    • Why you should never choose to commit suicide
    • Suicide Terrorists
  • 21. Reincarnation (An Introduction)
    • Spiritualism and Reincarnation
    • Allan Kardec and the Spirits’ Book
    • Allan Kardec, a warrior for reincarnation
    • Theosophy and Reincarnation
      • Madame Blavatsky
    • A House divided
    • Karma
    • Swedenborg on reincarnation
    • The group soul (the oversoul)
  • 22. Reincarnation: The evidence
    • The evidence for possession as an alternative to reincarnation
    • The early church and the history of reincarnation in the West
    • Past Life Regression
    • Is reincarnation really a part of God’s plan?
      • Why would a soul choose to reincarnate?
      • The Pitfalls of Reincarnation
      • If a soul reincarnates, what happens to the old personality?
      • The ultimate fate of old personalities 
  • 23. The Cross Correspondences
  • 24. The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism Page 1
    • The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism page 2
    • The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism page 3
    • The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism page 4
    • The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism page 5
    • The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism page 6
    • The Fox sisters: Original report of the Hydesville Haunting
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Poltergeists versus Ghosts

The term “poltergeist” is from German and means “noisy ghost”.  It was originally used to describe ghosts that can create physical disturbances such as moving objects and making noises.  In order to do this it is necessary for an entity that exists only in spiritual form to be able to affect earthly matter.  To be clear, it is only marginally easier for a ghost to move earthly matter than it is for a person to move an object without touching it.  Not all ghosts are capable of psychokinetic effects.  Some ghosts can make their presence known to living people only by producing mental images and hallucinations.  The ability for any person or spiritual entity to move earthly matter without directly or indirectly touching it is called Psychokinesis, or PK for short.   

Psychokinesis is a facility shown to be a property of ordinary living human beings.  In most people, it is generally a very weak property.  However, in certain adolescents and in rare psychic adults, it can be strong enough to move observable objects without physical contact.  Because of this, it can be almost impossible to tell the difference between psychokinetic effects caused by the subconscious mind of the living agent and the activity of a spiritual presence.   

The term poltergeist was originally created by a nineteenth century parapsychologist named René Sudre.  Sudre believed that psi facilities were innate properties of living people. He did NOT believe in a spiritual world, or that spirits were responsible for the undeniable evidence of violent or noisy “hauntings”.  He believed that  all psychokinetic phenomena normally attributed to ghosts were, in fact, created by human observers who unconsciously produce these disturbances without being aware that they are doing it themselves.  

Today, skeptical parapsychologists use the term “poltergeist” as a way to evade the question of a spiritual cause for psychokinetic phenomena like the production of sounds that can be recorded, the levitation of objects, the slamming of doors and the other violent activity seen in hauntings and possession cases.  That way, a skeptical parapsychologist can avoid the stigma of being called a “ghost hunter”.  They want to to be seen by a materialistic public as scientists rather than dreamy mystics, so some of them just assume that all paranormal phenomena are caused by living humans, either through PK or fraud.  Others will admit that some of the phenomena are difficult or impossible to explain but publicly maintain their skepticism anyways.

Today, it is frankly, more “profitable” for a professional parapsychologist to be skeptical of spiritual explanations for apparently ghostly manifestations.  They are more likely to be hired into academic positions by skeptical university administrators than  parapsychologists that admit to a belief in spiritual entities.  Thus they attribute the paranormal movement of objects to a subconscious desire on the part of, say, a distressed person in a household to “lash out” at the  persons causing their distress.   For all practical purposes, therefore,  the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist is simply a matter of belief.  If you believe in human psi but don’t believe in spirits, you call the manifestations a poltergeist.  If you believe in Spirit, you call it a ghost or a spirit.

The major reasoning behind the belief that psychokinetic disturbances are strictly attributable to human-caused psychokinetic effects is that some cases, especially the most violent ones seem to follow a particular person from place to place instead of being tied to a particular location like most ghosts.   

Of course, not all parapsychologists are skeptics, and a second definition of psychokinetic manifestations has emerged. It is used by parapsychologists who either believe in a spiritual realm, or at least do not rule out the possibility.  For these scientists, the major differences between a ghost and a poltergeist is that ghosts are tied to a particular place and generally produce relatively mild psychokinetic phenomena while poltergeists tend to follow a particular person (called a poltergeist “agent”) from place to place.  In either case, objects are thrown, noises are heard, faucets turn on without anyone in the room, and puddles appear on the floor without any indication of a leak. 

How Spiritualists view ghosts>>>>

<<<<Poltergeists, ghosts and hauntings

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This book is available in both an eBook and a paperback. I don't advertise on this site, and the sale of this book is the only way I can recoup my hosting fees. I wrote this as a public service. Everyone has a right to understand that No One Lives Forever, but No One ever Really Dies!

Science, Math and God

Science, Math and God is the companion book, originally written as a preface to The Structure of Heaven. It's a book that explains why the skeptics are wrong, and why modern science no longer rules out the paranormal. Learn why God now has a place to live. (Also available as an eBook and paperback at Amazon.com)

The Lower Reaches of Heaven

The Lower Reaches of Heaven is a modern rendition of an of an old book; Thirty Years Among The Dead by Dr. Carl Wickland. It is essential reading if you want to understand Earthbound Spirits and the dynamics of their environment. It also contains lots of editorial comment and historical facts, as well insight into how ghosts think.

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