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 and Minor
    • 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?
      • 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
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The Summerlands and above

Most people come to rest after their earth lives in relatively comfortable circumstances.  Always remember that you don’t have to have lived a perfect life to find yourself in one of the Summerlands after your death.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Some even make very bad mistakes.  However, the point of living in the plane of matter is to learn from those mistakes, and if one HAS learned, if one has tried to advance his or her life in constructive ways, then their spirit finds itself residing, after the death of the body with kindred spirits on a plane that allows it both rest and advancement.

The more evolved the soul, the higher the level, and the brighter and more pleasant the environment it experiences. This is the meaning of the term “Summerlands.” I pluralize the term because even within the boundaries of the Summerlands there is room for spiritual advancement.  Thus, there are many levels.  The higher a spirit advances there, the brighter the environment and the more advanced are its spiritual neighbors. This doesn’t mean that spirits can’t temporarily go to other nearby levels within the Summerland environment, however it always yearns to return to its natural home where it is most comfortable.  

The summerlands are the picture of the Christian heaven.  They are actually places of rest for spirits still attached to materiality.  There is no immediate “pressure” to evolve or change in any way.  However, over time, the souls get bored with an unceasing vacation, and begin to long for change.  It is at that point that they make the decision to move on, generally to higher levels of evolution, or occasionally, even back to earth for another go-around at life in matter. The spirits in the summerlands could be said to live in a permanent luxury vacation.

Remember that all the environments in the world of spirit are created by the communal imagination of the spirits that live there.  When Emanuel Swedenborg reported that the conditions in the Summerlands were idealized versions of earthly habitats, he received mocking resistance from virtually every corner because even in an age in which practically everyone believed in heaven and Hell, most people, especially the elites believed that the conditions there were so otherworldly that they could not be described in human language.  Over the years, however, many modern mediums have described pleasant and idealized conditions in the Summerlands that, if not earth-like, are fair approximations. 

The Summerlands can be very pleasant indeed, with clean “air”, beautiful sounds, bright light and wonderfully decorated dwellings, all created by the inhabitants.  Of course, spirits do not need to breath air, eat food or drink water, but, because the Summerlands are all part of what Frederick Myers called the plane of illusion, spirits there sense all the pleasurable feelings that one experiences in a healthy human body.  The inhabitants of the Summerlands create pleasant earth-like environments using their own memories and imaginations, and use those environments for their enjoyment and as props to help them evolve spiritually.  

The inhabitants of the planes of illusion do not live in an ethereal dreamlike state.  Just because their surroundings are created by their collective imaginations, that doesn’t mean that their surroundings appear to them as temporary and dreamlike.  Their environment is perceived by them as quite real, substantial and enduring.  This is true throughout the entire spiritual realm; not just in the planes of illusion.  Even though spirits build their environments with their imaginations, once they have created a “thought form”, it simply becomes “solid” spiritual matter which is as real to the resident spirits as our earthly environment is to us.  Even in heaven, if I build a house with a beautiful garden, I can invite my friends to enjoy it too.  If my friend loved to cook, then she can prepare tasty food for all of her friends.  (My kind of Heaven!)

Sounds, colors, odors, tactile sensations and emotions appear to be intertwined in the spiritual environment.  In the material world, the ability of a person to hear a color, or see and smell a sound is called synaesthesia.  In our everyday lives, this is considered to be a form of hallucination and a mental aberration.  In the spiritual world, synaesthesia is a normal attribute of every spirit.  In the Summerlands, the environment is filled with this sort of warmth, color, music, pleasant odors and joyful feelings, operating in a kind of harmony which forms the background of life in the upper layers.  It is the intentional result of the communal efforts of the spirits who reside there. 

As they progress up the spiritual evolutionary ladder, however, souls find it less necessary to maintain their earthly bodily forms and the trappings of the earth that they have left behind.  The higher the spirit progresses, the more ethereal they and their surroundings become until they exit the Summerlands and reach the higher planes.  There, they exist entirely without the need for either a body with an individual identity or any physical props at all.  Eventually, as they enter the highest planes, they shed more and more of their earthly identities and become pure consciousness.  Ultimately, they combine together as they merge into the great consciousness of God.

The Winterlands>>>>

<<<<Evolution within the Planes of Illusion

You can buy this book on Amazon.com

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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