The term “spiritual gravity” sums up how the law of compensation works. Spirits tend to “gravitate” to the spiritual plane that most suits their level of spiritual development where they are surrounded by other spirits of similar inclinations. For all practical purposes, it works like a spiritual law of physics. A hot air balloon will rise to a certain level if the air inside is heated to a certain temperature. Adding more heat causes the balloon to rise to a higher level. Similarly, a soul filled with more of God’s light rises to a higher level than one which contains less.
More highly evolved spirits who rise to a higher level all naturally share the various gifts they bring with them into Spirit, while lower spirits sink to a lower level where they must deal with the narcissism and greed of their spiritual siblings. The confinement of lower spirits in a less-than-pleasant Winterland or even one of the hells is not “Divine Justice.” It is the result of the laws of spiritual physics. Lower spirits “sink” into the lower spiritual realms in the same way a rock sinks beneath the surface of the water.
Spirits confined to lower levels can temporarily rise to slightly higher levels through the expenditure of lots of energy, but because they live in darker realms, their supply of energy is necessarily low, and they are unable to remain in that higher level for very long. Furthermore, the conditions in the higher level are not congenial to the lower spirit which finds that it is unable to see clearly in the brighter spiritual light, and cannot tolerate the “warmer” conditions on this higher level.
Once a spirit has attained its proper spiritual level, it cannot permanently rise to a higher level occupied by more elevated spirits unless it has evolved enough to actually belong there. This makes sense from a spiritual point of view. On earth, a bad person may involve himself in the lives of good people and do them harm. But that does not happen in Spirit. The natural laws that govern the spiritual planes mitigate against this. The spirit of that bad person naturally descends to a lower spiritual level where it is unable to reach the good souls who were once its victims.
The rock that has sunk beneath the waves cannot rise until some physical process causes it to become buoyant. In the same way, a spirit confined in one of the Winterlands cannot rise past the transitional plane into the Summerlands until it has progressed enough spiritually to rise by nature of its increased spiritual buoyancy. In order to be able to permanently exist on any higher plane, the spirit must first complete its development on the plane onto which it has gravitated after the death of the body. After it completes its development on that plane, it rises to the next plane. But until that happens, that spirit remains isolated from the higher spirits and cannot affect, or even see them.
However, spirits from a higher plane can visit lower levels or planes, including the earth plane if they so desire. It is not especially easy for a higher spirit to visit a lower realm because the conditions in that realm are hostile for the higher spirit. They find themselves becoming uncomfortable as they approach the border of the lower sphere. But spirits living in the Summerlands and above can train themselves to enter the lower realms. Their main reasons for doing so are to comfort, protect and guide loved ones still living on earth, to further their own spiritual education and evolution, and to help the spirits who live on the lower planes to evolve beyond their mournful circumstances.
The difficulty for these spiritual missionaries is that it can be nearly impossible to actually make contact with the residents of the lower realms. Those trapped on the transitional plane are sometimes unable to see or hear the missionaries, and because of their time entrapments, they are often afraid to acknowledge the presence of souls they know to be dead. Remember that most of these spirits don’t know that they have died themselves, and seeing a dead relative would be like seeing a ghost.