From the book, Answers to Life’s Enduring Questions: From Science Discoveries and Afterlife Revelations.
The world we are living in now is a spiritual realm, with matter, energy, and forces woven by Our Universal Intelligence. The next spiritual realm of life is the same, but with a different set of matter, energy, and forces we will experience together. On arriving in the next life, people are astonished at its similarity to life on earth.
The body experiences will be of the body we had in Earth School at its prime, or what we wish we had had at its prime, in our twenties or thirties in Earth School. We will be able to do all the things we do on earth, and much more.
This article describes what people do in the life after this life.
What Will My World Be Like in the Afterlife?
In the next life, called by some Summerland, there are a great many environments, but all are pleasant, with surroundings reminiscent of the environment of Earth School, only more beautiful than the residents are able to describe.
Summerland environments have all the attributes of Earth School. There are mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, meadows, and vast fields of flowers. There are seas and beaches. There are gatherings of all the animals familiar on earth as well as other new species.
You can support this effort to give people the truth about the reality of the afterlife with your $6 contribution.
Will I Have Social Activities with Other People in the Afterlife?
People have full, rich social lives that include activities people engage in together. The activities in the life after this life are much the same as activities in Earth School. In our lives today we often gather to socialize. Gatherings of people in the life after this life are identical. We attend concerts, sitting in rows of seats with other music lovers listening to performances that excite us. The same scene with equally keen music lovers is played out regularly in the next realm. They also have family gatherings where they meet with great joy and affection. People gather in groups for pastimes such as sports or social activities.
Will I Attend Events Like Plays, Concerts, and Entertainment
People gather in beautiful, majestic buildings and halls to engage in all manner of activities of interest to them. Buildings such as halls of learning, schools, art galleries, concert halls, and museums are described as being made of a solid material that has a pearl-like luminescence. The buildings are assembled in vast, beautiful, clean cities. In these halls of learning, people studiously read out of self-motivated interest.
Will I Experience and Participate in Music, Art, or Other Activities?
Music and art are integral, vital components of Summerland life. The air seems to be full of music. Not everybody has to hear it, though. The people living there can hear the music only if they want to hear it. Anyone can shut it out and be in silence.[i]
There are vast concert halls and orchestras made up of thousands of people playing instruments, some of which are like those in Earth School while others are unique. Music is both heard and seen. As an orchestra plays, beautiful colors appear around the orchestra in keeping with the music, with no devices responsible for the lights. As Monsignor Benson said through Anthony Borgia, “In music, it can be said that the spirit world starts where the earth world leaves off.”[ii]
The master composers from earth continue writing works that are performed by the vast orchestras. Great painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, dramatists, and others who were talented on earth continue their work in the life after this life.[iii]
People who wanted to pursue an art while in the earth realm but were unable to do so may learn the art form and develop into accomplished performers. There are many “amateur” displays of the early artwork.[iv]
Can I Enjoy the Recreation Activities I Love on Earth?
Yes, all recreation activities except those that involve harming people or animals are freely available in the next life.
When someone wants to engage in a pleasurable activity, the circumstances are available. The desire for the activity among people interested in it makes the equipment or circumstances available, without request. Mary Ann Ross, speaking in a Leslie Flint session, says that she always wanted to play the piano when she was on the earth. After her transition, when she entered the house in which she was to live, she was amazed to see a piano there. The man accompanying her was a piano teacher. When she sat to play the piano, she received mental guidance from her teacher so she played well very quickly.[v] You can listen to the recording of Mary Ann Ross describing from spirit when she first saw the piano and played it at www.earthschoolanswers.com/ross4/.
Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, speaking from the life after this life,[vi] explains that people do not suffer fatigue of body or Mind. However, if someone becomes restless with one form of work, the person may engage in another form of work for a while or in an endless variety of recreation activities. Whatever people enjoy doing in Earth School they may continue in the next stage of life. There are concerts, halls of art, gardening, beautiful scenic paths, and the whole abundance of pleasurable activities we have in Earth School, plus more.[vii]
Historical performances are given by the actual people involved in the original events. [viii]
There is no hunting or other activity that would terrorize or injure animals. There is no slaughter allowed, under whatever cloak it masquerades, such as sport. In this realm animals cannot die, but they could be subject to terror. Therefore subjecting an animal to terror constitutes injury and is not allowed. [ix]
There are races and other contests, but those engaged in them have only a friendly rivalry. There is no reward involved. The participants enjoy becoming more capable and accomplished, not being better than someone else. People play sports such as baseball and football in areas designed for the sports.[x]
There are beautiful theaters for concerts and plays, and vast libraries that contain every work produced by humankind, both in this stage of life and the next. There are halls devoted to painting, sculpture, literature, fabrics, tapestries, and many other subjects, filled with people practicing their skills and enjoying the camaraderie of people with the same interests. Every art object and discovery is represented there. None is lost.[xi]
There are recreational devices such as boats and motorcycles. They are not powered by machinery. The boats sail effortlessly and the motorcycles travel with ease because of the intention of the person controlling the effort to have the boat or motorcycle propel itself forward.[xii]
Will I Be Able to Take Walks or Travel to Enjoy the Scenery?
You may walk or transport yourself by intending to be somewhere. People may walk to destinations, although they do have the ability to simply focus on where they would like to be and they are transported there instantly.[xiii] However, people may not will themselves into another’s presence unless the person wants the visitor there. People still have privacy and free will to choose those they want to associate with.
You may travel to distant places just by intending to be there. There are automobiles, but they do not burn petroleum products and emit noxious gasses. In some communities, hobby groups of people interested in automobiles have created replicas of particular models of automobiles. They ride in them for sport and pleasure.[xiv]
Can I Have a Magnificent Garden?
There are abundant flowers, more beautiful than those we enjoy on earth. Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, speaking through Anthony Borgia, hinted at how much more remarkable Summerland is than the earth environment. He noted that the gardens are very orderly, with no wild growths or weeds. A great many flowers are in full bloom, with superb colorings. The flowers pour out great streams of energizing power that uplift the soul spiritually and give it strength. They exude heavenly perfumes. All the flowers are living, breathing, and incorruptible. The sound of music envelops them, making soft harmonies that correspond perfectly with the gorgeous colors of the flowers themselves.[xv]
People garden and plant flowers all around their houses. The soil is just like earth soil, but not “dirty.” People and houses don’t get dirty.
Will I Communicate Using My Voice or Telepathy?
People may communicate by making vocal sounds or through telepathy. The longer someone is a resident of the life after this life, the more interested the person is in foregoing the ponderous action of stringing words together and vocalizing them to convey thoughts. Minds are more open to each other so thoughts are accessible by anyone through telepathy.[xvi]
It is possible to use free will to deliberately keep our thoughts to ourselves. That requires more effort, so if someone is freely, spontaneously speaking, the thoughts will simply pour out into the telepathic discourse.
There is a “universal spirit language” so people who came from various language backgrounds are all able to understand conversations and discourses.[xvii] People in groups who had similar customs on earth keep their languages as long as they want to, but in communicating with people who speak other languages, the communication is through telepathy so language is not a barrier.[xviii]
Can I Relive Things That Happened During My Life?
Yes. A person may choose to relive experiences they had in Earth School. All experiences that ever were or ever will be are accessible from Our Universal Intelligence. In the next realm we are able to access events from our own lives from this vast archive. John Thomas, speaking from spirit to his son, Charles Drayton Thomas, explained that it is possible for someone to live over again the happiest scenes of our earth life and enjoy them together with others.[xix]
Will My Desires and Expectations Change?
A person’s desires and expectations are the same immediately after the transition as before. The Mind does not change. People may want to eat, sleep, drink, smoke, and all the other things they did when in the earth realm. Since they expect food, sleep, drinks, and smoking to be available, they are. They don’t will them into being. What the person expects to be in their environment is there because of the expectation. However, drinking a beverage with all the properties of wine or stronger drinks does not intoxicate.[xx] It isn’t necessary to sleep, but if someone wants the experience they lie down and sleep comes naturally.
As the person matures away from earth habits, expectations and desires, the need to eat, drink, sleep, smoke, and other activities carried over from earth extinguish.[xxi]
One person who came through in a Leslie Flint session loved to smoke a pipe, so he had a pipe. Of course, the smoke was not deleterious to his health and didn’t affect the atmosphere. All the pleasurable sensations of smoking a pipe were there, however. Since there is nothing but Mind and experiences, the same experiences will occur. There never was a physical pipe in a world outside of the person in the earth realm—just the experience of smoking. As a result, the same is true in the life after this life.
Raymond Lodge, speaking in the life after this life, said that some of the newly transitioned soldiers smoked cigars. [xxii]
People new to the next stage of life may prefer to wear the clothes they wore in Earth School, so those clothes are available without their requesting them. What they are given suits their desires and expectations.
Will I Feel the Entire Range of Emotions?
Yes, you will experience the full range of emotions. However, there is no trauma or death, so you will not experience the negative emotions associated with the types of disturbing events that happen on earth.
The people living in the life after this life are human beings living in a different country. They still feel the emotions we all feel on earth. They feel joyful, excited, frustrated, sad, and the range of other emotions. Some of their emotions are associated with the situations and emotions of those still living on earth. They receive people’s thoughts and feelings, so when someone they love is feeling joy or sadness, they respond by being joyful or sad. They frequently lament that the grief of people on earth is disturbing to them because of their transition.
Will I Have a Job?
Everyone is occupied with what is of greatest interest to them. That results in the services we associate with being provided by people in jobs. However, you will not be paid. You will perform the services out of love and joy.
People are industrious because being active, accomplishing goals, and serving others brings them bliss. Their work is recreation.[xxiii] People act out of love for one another, without expecting compensation for the work. They give of themselves in ways that make both them and the receiver joyful. Everyone works out of enjoyment and a desire to serve others. No one is compelled to perform any task. People are not required to be anything they don’t wish to be.
All occupations known to people on earth are represented in the life after this life, except police, prison guards, undertakers, and other such occupations that fit only the earth environment.[xxiv]
There are gardeners, musicians, architects, counselors of newly transitioned people, teachers of children, craftsmen in all crafts, and all manner of occupations. Builders build houses for people who desire to have a house without expectation of being paid. They use their thoughts to create, but there is still labor involved in the building.
A person may continue an occupation from Earth School. Artists still paint; builders still build houses; scientists still perform their research; and teachers still teach. Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde are still writing plays.
If a person always desired to play the piano while in Earth School but never had the chance, they may learn to play the piano in the life after this life and give recitals or be part of the vast orchestras. Someone who loved to grow flowers on earth but ended up being an auto mechanic can become a gardener in the life after this life.
Medical doctors in the next life help doctors in Earth School to practice medicine and surgery. “Many a spirit doctor has guided the hand of an earthly surgeon when he is performing an operation,” Monsignor Benson explains from spirit.[xxv] There are great “halls of rest” for people who have transitioned suddenly and violently where nurses and doctors tend to them.
Counselors or support people work with individuals who had a difficult time on earth and are still recovering from the experiences.
Since there are no factories, people who engaged in manufacturing occupations on earth find other occupations and preoccupations. Many teach children who have left Earth School and grow up in the afterlife. Some people do “rescue” work, helping people who have made the transition understand where they are and guiding them along as they adjust to their new lives. People engage in the occupations that give them bliss.
People are not required to work, but if someone chooses not to work, that person eventually rises out of the indolence.[xxvi]
If I Am a Scientist, Engineer, or Other Researcher, Can I Continue My Work in the Afterlife?
Yes, scientists, engineers, researchers, and other specialists are continuing their work in the next life. They then convey their advancements to specialists on earth by inspiriting them.
People who were scientists on earth do not become all-knowing when they transition to the life after this life. They continue to learn from the point at which they were before the transition, using more advanced technology and equipment they develop using their newly found knowledge. New principles and discoveries are conveyed to them from higher-level Minds. They in turn impart them to scientists in the earth realm working in the same field, although virtually all the scientists on earth are not aware of it. As a result, the scientists working in the next life and scientists on earth advance together, with the scientists in the next life slightly ahead of the scientists on earth.[xxvii]
If I Am an Artist, Dancer, Musician, or Other Master of the Arts, Will I Be Able to Inspire Performers and Artists on Earth?
Yes. You may continue your art in the next life and inspire people in Earth School whom you want to help develop their talents. You will share in the joy of their accomplishments.
Those on the next planes of existence are greatly interested in inspiring people in Earth School and helping them to create beautiful art works, symphonies, performances, and other artwork. Some explain that they are looking for promising people to inspire. They also continue their own development of their craft far beyond the capabilities they had while in Earth School.
Chopin explained from spirit in a Leslie Flint session that musicians gather and compose and play compositions, make comments to each other, and receive helpful advice. Together they go to other realms to listen to the music composed there, which is unique to that realm and condition.[xxviii]
Chopin was having one of several conversations he had with a musician on earth named Rose Creet, who was sitting with Leslie Flint. He had explained that he was helping Rose perfect her performance. In this conversation, Chopin remarked to her, “I’m going to make of you an excellent pianist.”[xxix]
Will I Be Able to Keep Learning by Attending Classes or Schools?
Yes, you will be able to learn any skill or learn about any subject of interest to you. You may attend classes in any of the many schools.
There are schools, but they are not places where students memorize facts. The memory works perfectly, so there is no need to memorize. Students are able to learn quickly, with sharpened understanding. Each student follows their own course of study, independent of others.
There are expansive halls of learning where people are being taught or are practicing their skills. Raymond Lodge, communicating from spirit to his father through the medium Gladys Osborne Leonard, explained that they attend lectures at the halls of learning, where they prepare themselves for the higher spheres while living in lower ones.[xxx]
Will I Be Able to Read Books and Go to Libraries?
Yes, there are libraries with vast numbers of books. However, much more knowledge is available from sources other than the books found in them. Jane Sherwood’s husband in spirit, communicating through her, explains that people can study in libraries but soon learn how to access information from memory bank reference libraries that contain records of everything that has ever happened.[xxxi]
Every book ever written is in the libraries, but people don’t need to check them out. They can simply have the book read itself to them. People can even understand the original meaning of the author, as though the author were with them explaining it.
People can also converse with the authors rather than read the books.
What Religion Will I Join in the Next Life?
People gather for spiritual discussions, but there are no holy scriptures, rituals, or dogma among those who have released themselves from Earth School’s belief systems.
Some people still cling to the old beliefs, staying in pockets with others who have the same worldviews. Everyone enters the life after this life with all the same assumptions and perspectives they had on earth. As a result, there are some Christian groups living together who are sure they’re in a holding pattern waiting for the rapture and their return to a physical existence in Earth School. Some who believed that the spirit sleeps until the resurrection are “sleeping,” although they’re given guidance and inspiration to begin understanding that they’re already in the next stage of their eternal life.
Some people continue to hold to their theological teachings for extended periods so they don’t progress. All these people with narrow, restricted views eventually grow out of them into freedom and spiritual maturity. No one stays in these conditions forever.
Will I Be Able to Have Sex If My Partner and I Want It?
Yes, if you want it. We have been assured that if we want to enjoy the pleasures of sex in Summerland, we are able to do so. J. M. Peebles, considered a father of the Spiritualist movement, describes sexual activity and full pleasures in the life after this life: “Men and women, continuing as they do their individuality, sex necessarily exists in the world of spirits, but in heaven there are no perversions of these functions.”[xxxii]
Will My Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation on Earth Have Any Effect on Me in the Next Life?
There is no discrimination according to a person’s sentiments about their gender identity or sexual orientation. The person carries on with the attitudes and interests they had on earth. These are not assigned to a gender or sexual orientation.
How Long Can I Stay on the Next Plane of Life?
We are able to stay in the next life for as long as we want to. One man named Omar in Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson’s messages from spirit through Anthony Borgia said he had been in the Summerland stage of life for 2,000 earth years.[xxxiii] At another time Monsignor Benson said that the rulers of realms spend many thousands of earthly years in the spirit world before they are placed in charge of people.[xxxiv] Leslie Flint had people come through in his séances from the Roman Empire.[xxxv]
A person may stay in the plane called Summerland as long as they want to.[xxxvi] Progression to the higher spheres depends on the desire of each person and the effort to acquire knowledge. But staying forever in one place would be a miserably dull eternal existence. People advance beyond the Summerland level eventually. As we advance in our wisdom and spiritual stature, we are able to ascend to higher levels of consciousness. The higher someone goes the more elevated they are in knowledge and goodness. People advance to higher levels gradually, not by graduating from one sphere to another.
Sources of the Information
[i] Taylor, Witness from Beyond, 64.
[ii] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 46.
[iii] Austen, The Teachings of Silver Birch, 117.
[iv] Stringfellow, Leslie’s letters to his mother, 83.
[v] “The Mary Ann Ross séance,” Leslie Flint Trust, January 20, 1969, https://www.leslieflint.com/mary-ann-ross.
[vi] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 129.
[vii] Suzanne Ward, Matthew, Tell Me about Heaven (Camas, WA: Matthew Books, 2012), 108.
[viii] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 100.
[ix] Burbidge, The Shadows Lifted from Death, 134.
[x] Eisen, The Agashan Discourses, 99.
[xi] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 182.
[xii] Ward, Matthew, Tell Me about Heaven, 104.
[xiii] Kelway-Bamber, Claude’s Book, 17.
[xiv] William Eisen, ed., The Agashan Discourses (Camarillo, CA: Devorss & Co., 1978), 99.
[xv] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 11-12.
[xvi] Charles Drayton Thomas, “Report re Lodge via Leonard,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 33 (1945): 137-160.
[xvii] Betty, The Afterlife Unveiled, 29.
[xviii] Sherwood, The Country Beyond, 69.
[xix] Thomas, Life Beyond Death with Evidence.
[xx] Stringfellow, Leslie’s letters to his mother, 82.
[xxi] John Worth Edmonds and George T. Dexter, Spiritualism (New York: Partridge & Brittan, 1855), 89.
[xxii] Crookall, The Supreme Adventure, 78.
[xxiii] Mary Blount White, Letters from the Other Side (Hinesburg, VT: Upper Access, Inc., 1995), 24.
[xxiv] Allen, The Realities of Heaven, 152.
[xxv] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 143.
[xxvi] Kardec, The Spirits’ Book, 255.
[xxvii] Allen, The Realities of Heaven, 138 (citing Stringfellow, Leslie’s letters to his mother, 49).
[xxviii] “Frédéric Chopin séance,” Leslie Flint Trust, July 7, 1955, https://www.leslieflint.com/chopin-july-7th-1955.
[xxix] “Frédéric Chopin séance.”
[xxx] Lodge, Raymond or Life and Death, 263.
[xxxi] Sherwood, The Country Beyond, 86.
[xxxii] James M. Peebles, Immortality and Our Employments Hereafter: With What a Hundred Spirits, Good and Evil, Say of Their Dwelling Places (London: Forgotten Books, 2015; originally published in 1907), 151.
[xxxiii] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 12.
[xxxiv] Borgia, Life in the World Unseen, 119.
[xxxv] “The Lucillus séances,” Leslie Flint Trust, August 1, 1962, https://www.leslieflint.com/lucillus.
[xxxvi] Stringfellow, Leslie’s letters to his mother, 115.
