If you have found this page directly without coming from the homepage, please read the Homepage first, to put this and the other pages in context. Also from there you can go to a quick summary page of the main points in the website.

Heaven and Hell and the concept of Sin

Do Heaven and Hell exist? Well, hell is not the place of torment by fire that some of us will have been told about! Nor is it a place of punishment by God. Remember: 'God'/The Source is perfect love, not a person with human failings who desires punishment and retribution!
Unlike on earth, where humans at many different levels of spiritual development co-exist, after death we go to a place with people of similar spirtual progress to us. That is because like attracts like. The only exception is that by choice we can choose to live at a 'lower' level than we are suited to, but not a higher one. This is because we find that too 'high' a level is simply too bright for us.

By contrast, the higher spheres are full of light, love, peace, beauty and harmony. Good feelings, love and music even seem to emanate from the plants and the water. We can live in dream houses with gardens that we can tend, and our guides help us to adapt and learn. In fact we can continue to learn about the same things as we were interested in in our earthly life, or learn something new. One of our main focuses is on helping others, especially those still on earth. There are 'libraries' containing all the books every written, 'cinemas' where we can watch any film ever made and so on. In other words, the collective experience of the whole of humanity is available for study and enjoyment.

But, perhaps to help a loved one, or to serve other beings, we can choose to live for a time at a 'lower' level. We can certainly visit loved ones who live in a 'lower' place than ours. So we need not worry that we won't be able to be with loved ones already passed who may have progressed beyond what we can achieve at that time. Also, telepathy is the main means of communication, so we can communicate (after a little practice, perhaps) whenever we want with anyone we have affinity with, at any level.

So rather than there being just two places, Heaven and Hell, there are in fact many, probably an innumerable number of levels, spheres, mansions - call them what you like - and we go where we are best suited. We move up (or down, but almost always up,) according to our development.*(see note) There may be a small period of trial and error when we first pass over, and if we find we are not quite suited to that plain, we move up or down a level or two soon after. Some fascinating accounts of this initial period after 'death' (remember death is an illusion - we cannot die, we only change) in Michael Newton's book Journey of Souls, in which people under hypnosis recount their life-between-lives experiences.

At the lowest level, it is reported by some, both by channelled writing and by Out of Body Experiences (OBEs) that there is indeed great suffering, for ignorant and undeveloped spirits find themselves bunched together, and being as they are, all they want to do is harm each other. Imagine the very 'worst' (oops, a judgmental word!!) of humankind in a prison all together. Imagine the hatred, fear and degradation. But in the book After Death - Letters from Julia, Julia explains that one of the "joys of heaven is emptying hell". This is in stark contrast to the idea that banishment to hell is for ever. But in fact there are Christians who believe that in the end, everybody will be 'saved'. This is called or Universal Salvation.

I must stress that these spirits are not there as a punishment. They are there because their current level of development puts them there, and like moths to a flame they cannot rise above it. That is until they want something better. Then, and only then, can they make the difficult journey 'upward', towards realms of less darkness and hate, and more light and love. On the links page, I have listed, and linked where possible, books or articles to read about these sorts of places.

There are one or two 'reports' from spirit that say that in the very, very few cases where people are utterly depraved, base and undeveloped over a period of many lifetimes, their damaged souls go back to the start  where all life is created, to be healed or 're-modelled'. But this is only in the extreme cases when they cannot better themselves. This is about as close to the traditional 'Hell' of annihilation as I am prepared to admit, and I'm not 100% convinced about this. I think I've read it in 2 sources so far. (I have also found some quite heated debates online by fundamentalist Christians about whether God eternally punishes all those who are supposed to go to hell or annihilates them!! (What a God!) And no, I'm not going to bother to provide links to those sorts of blogs!)
Would you, as a parent, send your child to everlasting torment or annihilate them for something they did or didn't do? Would you devise a system that sent your child to this hell if they didn't love you any more or if they said they didn't accept your as their parent? I doubt if many would. And if any would, would they be the sort of people who would be worshipped and revered?

* This is the generally accepted view that Spiritualists and other similar religions/philosophies hold.
However, the idea that these levels or spheres are separate places rather than a continuum of the same level is questioned by some spirits, and even denied by some. These latter spirits claim that the idea is nonsense and that once returned to the spirit world, all negative things are left behind. For example, the 'Hitler went to heaven' concept - because as a spirit he (and other similar figures) chose to come to earth as a very negative force because the earth needed to learn from his actions. Some people may find this offensive, of course, and I'm sorry if that applies to anyone reading this. It is certainly one of those areas where I am not yet convinced one way or another, and I shall endeavour to learn more about this...

The spirit spheres, especially those close to earth, are made to be like earth. This to ensure a smooth transition from this world to the next. The next destination for most people is like earth made perfect.
It is said that there is an etheric copy of everything that is on earth. Spirits find their world as solid as ours because their own spirit body vibrates at the same frequency as their world, just as ours does. But both our world and the spirit world(s) are actually illusions which appear as reality to us because we are part of them. And this concept of the earth and physical matter being illusory is in accordance with Quantum mechanics, which says that matter - atoms, objects, etc. - change when and because we observe them. In other words, we create the illusion ourselves.

So what is real, then? Probably only the pure energy form that is our soul. When we have advanced enough, we don't need form, we just exist as energy. But we are still 'us', in fact then and only then are we the 'real us'!

So don't worry about dying. You will be in a place that suits you, with your departed loved ones, and you have all eternity to continue to grow and develop and enjoy being who you are. You will never loose your identity in any way.
Those who have been generally kind to others, the animal kingdom and the earth itself, will find themselves in beautiful surroundings with similarly minded people.

By the way, which of the pictures on this page seem more likely?
('answer' at the bottom!)

Our increased abilities in 'Heaven'. In spirit, we can do things more easily than we can

in a physical body:

• We can travel, almost instantly, to anywhere we want. That includes when we visit the earth, perhaps to be close to a loved one still here. Space is as insignificant as time is to the spirit. People who have OBEs (Out of the Body Experiences) say that they can travel in the same way, because they are temporarily in the spirit dimension. William Buhlman describes amazing experiences in his book Adventures Beyond the Body.
• As mentioned before, we can communicate by telepathy.
• We don't need to eat, drink, earn a living - or go to the loo! (However, one OBEer reported that when he was taken to some very low levels people still did all those things!) But of course we can choose to eat and drink for pleasure if we want.
• We can change our appearance, within certain limits depending on our spiritual level. For example, we can change between a young and an old version of our earthly bodies, and we can change them to reflect the perfect version that we always wanted whilst on earth! However, we cannot fake our spiritual status or lie, because of telepathy and because our spiritual state and general level of development is obvious for all to see.
• We can create things by mental effort. This is known as manifesting. Actually, we can do this now in the physical world, especially in terms of situations and outcomes, but it takes much greater sustained effort and can be a slow process because of the denser nature of the earth plane. For example, changing our lives for better or worse can be in our hands if we go about it in the right - or wrong - way. We are more in control than we often think!
• In the book The Highlands of Heaven the Rev. Vale Owen is told by his communicating spirits that very advanced beings even create stars and planets, following the laws of creation set by God! I don't think I'll be doing that for a while, though we will probably be able to create certain living things after a while on the higher levels. But certainly we are all co-creators with God in this world and the next.

Evil, Satan and The Devil

By the way, I don't believe in Evil (with a capital E) as such, in the way that it is depicted in the Bible, or at least in the way that many people interpret it. Neither do I believe that people are born into sin and need to be redeemed or saved. That's a ridiculous idea. Certainly there are beings, whether they are incarnate or in spirit, who act in such a way that most people would call them or their acts evil. But I believe evil is simply ignorance - sometimes gross ignorance - of love. Psychologists say that there are basically two opposites, love and fear. Hate and so-called evil is caused by fear, therefore evil is a lack of love, caused by ignorance, not a separate almost equally powerful force opposed to God. So rather than Satan being a force that we have to avoid, especially when we die, if there is such a person, he/she is merely a soul that has gone further away from the love that is godlike than anyone else, but that he/she is one of us who may go to that 'melting pot' or choose to better him/herself in the very distant future. If you are 'of the light', you have little to fear from evil. Like attracts like, remember. It's possible, as some say, that 'evil' will try to attack those who do good, but I myself have not (yet!) experienced this. Maybe I'm not good enough, lol! A prayer of protection should be enough to ward away beings of darkness. You could use the Lord's prayer, if you like. Garlic probably doesn't work.

I was amazed to discover this extract from page 2 of 2 in a BBC article under the Religious Studies section:

"Some people no longer see evil as a 'person' or 'being'. St Augustine in the fourth century suggested that evil is 'an absence of good'. Therefore, if enough people do good, evil would be removed. Some people think of evil as a psychological or emotional problem, that no one is inherently evil, but circumstances can lead them to become so." Yay!! Good old St Augustine! As for me, I think the less I think or worry about 'evil', the less I am likely to attract it. Christianity worries too much about evil.

Sins and Sinning
Many of the things which Christians, the Bible itself, and probably other religions too, call sins are just old taboos, mainly about sex! Others are merely choices that we make which may not serve us best, or, choices that we actually need to make in order to experience things - so they may not even be wrong choices at all. Certainly we will not be damned for them, though those actions which violate or affect others negatively we will at some stage be sorry about and have to make up for, either by karma or service to the person concerned, in the spirit world or in another life. So, no doubt you would like me to say which 'sins' I mean!
Well, I did briefly make such a list, with explanations, but I quickly came to the conclusion that this was not the best thing to do. For one, it was incomplete and therefore likely to be misleading; secondly there are so many complications in this earthly life which change normally good choices into bad choices and vice versa that I realised it would be wrong of me to make such a list. You have to decide for yourself - it is not for me to say what is right or wrong for another person. That's an important thing to remember: since we are all on a different path, and at different stages on that path, what is right for one may be wrong for another. This is not a yes and no, black and white area, despite what most religions will tell you. However, I can still generalise that anything which violates another person or animal - or the planet - is not an act of love. Obvious really. Negative words and thoughts also are not of the light and love.

I will mention a few things specifically, however:

Seeing as I believe we have many lives and need to experience many aspects of human existence in order to grow spiritually, being straight or gay, LGBTQ, etc is all part of earthly life. Just be happy being yourself, whatever that is in your life now.

Abortion is a more difficult one. Firstly, of course it IS a violation, and therefore cannot be considered an act of love, probably not even in an attempt to save the child from being brought up unwanted or physically disabled. But another aspect not considered by 'the world' is that a soul may have incarnated into a foetus knowing that the abortion was or was likely to take place. (Actually souls don't usually incarnate fully and permanently into the foetus until near birth, but that doesn't mean the foetus can't feel pain. A subject for another time, perhaps...) It can be a way of advancing the spiritual growth of the baby and/or the mother; perhaps even a process of karma where roles have been swapped to experience the other side of a past-life situation - ie. not as a punishment. So therefore, although the act of abortion is technically a violation, it is not necessarily a wrong choice, because it may have been part of the plan. Still, I would say that abortion should not be entered into lightly. Souls do also plan for adoption situations and their adoptive parents are actually already friends in spirit. Everything is considered before coming to earth - we are just programmed to forget because it is best if we start life with a 'clean sheet'.

So you see how hard it is to say what a wrong choice is. As you can tell, I don't like the word sin because of all the traditional beliefs that go with it, which I no longer give credit to. We have choices, some may be good, some may be not so good. But they are choices, not sins. Putting yourself before others might actually be the right thing to do if that helps you on your path more than putting someone else first might help them. But there again, maybe you are here to learn to serve others more, in which case putting yourself first might be a bad choice, but, on the other hand maybe the reverse is true and the other person should be learning about doing things for themselves more!! THERE IS NO RIGHT AND WRONG in the strict sense of the word. We are told time and time again that everything is for good and everything is perfect, because it is all part of the 'plan'. Almost all NDEers and OBEers have reported that. This may be hard to accept from an earthly point of view, but then this is not our true home or reality.

Even in the relatively traditional and 'safe' series of books by the Rev. Vale Owen, an advanced spirit tells him that he (ie. the spirit), has a greater love for God because he was once someone who did many evil things. He came to God via the 'back door' - through great suffering and repentance. And because of his wayward spiritual path, he was all the stronger in his love than those who were relatively good all the while. So who can say that his path was wrong?

Oh what a difficult and complex journey it is that we have, to get back to The Source!