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
    • Spirit Portals
  • 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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24. The Fox Sisters and the Birth of Spiritualism Page 1

In the late 19th century, skepticism concerning communication with spirits was the predominant social mindset, just as it is today.  This attitude was the result of the unfortunate history of the great wave of spiritualism, which swept the world beginning in 1848.  It began in the rented home of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York, about 2 miles north of Newark.  It is nearly impossible to find a balanced accounting of the historical events today because the skeptics literally own the discourse and have done a good job of scrubbing all evidence of spiritual and psychic phenomena from public media.  Barely a whiff gets past them.  They have edited all the relevant pages in Wikipedia.  This chapter is meant to correct the record because the events in Hydesville and those that occurred later were of seminal importance in the history of Spiritualism, as well as for the subject matter of this book.

Rented home in Hydesville NY where the rapping occurred

The Fox family was haunted by a poltergeist which was able to communicate in the presence of the two young daughters residing in the household.  It communicated by means of loud, audible raps that sounded like they came from the walls and ceilings of the house.  The children’s names were Kate and Margaret (Maggie) Fox.  They had an older, divorced sister named Leah who lived in neighboring Rochester and who also figures into their story.  When word of the disturbances got out, approximately 300 people from neighboring Newark, Palmyra and Lyons descended upon the small farmhouse to experience the phenomenon for themselves.  They were amazed at what they discovered, and a committee composed of 20 friends and neighbors set about a program of investigation which lasted about a week.  

The committee was formed to bring some order to the chaos of so many interested persons who wanted to understand what was going on.  It was not composed of professional magicians or scientists, but they were not superstitious either.  They were all Christians, and believed in God and Jesus, and most testified that they did not believe in ghosts or that the spirits of the dead returned to accuse their murderers.  They were a group of ordinary, skeptical people trying to find out how these ghostly phenomena could come about.  They described the raps as coming from various locations, and about as loud as if someone was dropping a knife or fork on the floor.  But sometimes they were substantially louder when the spirit wanted to emphasize a point.  

The fox sisters
Maggie and Kate fox as teenagers

The people of the committee at first believed that the entire thing was a trick played by Kate and Maggie, the two Fox children.  The rapping happened exclusively in the presence of these girls, so it was logical to assume that they were the ones causing the phenomena.  To rule this out, the girls were isolated in a locked room with a committee of women who closely observed them while other members of the group continued to communicate with the spirit.  Try as they might, the committee found no evidence of fraud, and the spirit kept tapping away.  

An attorney named E.E. Lewis from a neighboring town questioned the neighbors and the committee members, interviewed former tenants of the farmhouse and asked the elder Foxes to describe the events in their own words.  He published a forty page pamphlet documenting the phenomena using the interviews he had conducted. (You can find a copy by entering an internet search query or see the report on this website by clicking on this link: “A Report of the Mysterious Noises Heard in the House of John D. Fox, in Hydesville, Arcadia, Wayne County”. By the time Lewis published his report, the disturbances had been going on for about three weeks.  Aside from the visitors who wanted to debunk the raps as fraudulent, a majority who observed the initial phenomena seemed mostly interested in discovering if they were caused by the spirit of someone who was murdered in the house, and if his body was buried someplace on the property. They also asked the spirit who the murderer was and if he would ever be brought to justice.  The story of the murder was interesting, but they were more amazed by the spirit’s apparently thorough knowledge of themselves, their families and their community.

The spirit indicated by rapping that he was a peddler named Charles B. Rosma.  According to the affidavit signed by Margaret Fox (the mother) on April 11, 1848: 

“I ascertained by the same method [raps] that it was a man, aged thirty-one years; that he had been murdered in this house, and his remains were buried in the cellar; that his family consisted of a wife and five children, two sons and three daughters, all living at the time of his death, but that his wife had since died; that he was murdered in the east bedroom about five years ago and that the murder was committed by a Mr. [John C. Bell] on a Tuesday night at twelve o’clock; that he was murdered by having his throat cut with a butcher knife; that the body was taken down to the cellar; that it was not buried until the next night; that it was taken through the buttery, down the stairway, and that it was buried ten feet below the surface of the ground. It was also ascertained that he was murdered for his money, by raps affirmative.  “‘How much was it – one hundred?’ No rap. ‘Was it two hundred?’ etc., and when [another questioner] mentioned five hundred the raps replied in the affirmative. 

The fox sisters and the birth of spiritualism page 2 >>>>

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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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