Which Religion is Observed in the Afterlife

What touched me most strongly was the totally wrong attitude that religions on Earth had about the world of spirit. The very fact that I was lying there alive was a complete refutation of so much that I had been taught and assumed to be true during my priestly life upon earth. I could imagine volumes of orthodox teachings, creeds, and doctrines melting away because they are of no account, because they are not true, and because they have no application whatever to the eternal world of spirit and to the great Creator and Upholder of it. I could see clearly now what I had seen but hazily before, that religious doctrines are manmade, but that the universe is God-given.

My friend went on to tell me that I the people living in the homes we could see from where we were lying were of all conditions. Their religious views when they were on the earth were equally varied. But one of the great facts of spirit life is that souls are exactly the same the instant after passing into spirit life as they were the instant before. Death-bed repentances are of no avail, since the majority of them are but cowardice born of fear of what is about to happen. Their fear was of the eternal hell created by religion, which is such a useful weapon in keeping parishioners in line. The idea of hell has caused more suffering in its time than many other erroneous doctrines.

Religions and religious beliefs form no part of the afterlife, but because people take all their Earthly characteristics into the spirit world, the fervent adherents to any religion continue to practice their religions in the spirit world until such time as their minds become spiritually enlightened. My friend said, “We have here whole communities still exercising their old earthly religion. The bigotry and prejudices are all there, religiously speaking. They do no harm, except to themselves, since such matters are confined to themselves. There is no such thing as making converts here!”

Such being the case, then, I thought to myself that our own Roman Catholic religion must be fully represented here. Indeed, it was! The same ceremonies, the same ritual, the same old beliefs, all are being carried on with the same misplaced zeal in churches erected for the purpose. The members of these communities know they have passed on, and they think that part of their heavenly reward is to continue their man-made forms of worship. So they continue until a spiritual awakening occurs. Pressure is never brought to bear upon these souls; their mental resurrection must come from within themselves. When it does come, they will taste for the first time the real meaning of freedom.

My friend promised that if I wished, we could visit some of these religious bodies later, but he suggested that, since there was plenty of time, it would be better now if I became quite accustomed to the new life.

Religious contentions and controversies are at the bottom of all the ignorance and lack of knowledge that so many people bring with them into the spirit world, and if the minds of people are stubborn and they are unable really to think for themselves, then do they remain shackled to their narrow religious views, thinking it to be all the truth, until a day of spiritual awaken dawns for them. Then they will see that their slavish adherence to their creeds is holding them back. It is to be so much lamented for every one who leaves, for ever, these misguided congregations, another will come to fill his place—until the time comes when the whole earth knows the truth of the world of spirit. Of course they do no harm as they are, here, beyond retarding their spiritual progression. Once they realize what they are doing themselves, and take the first step forward, their joy knows no pounds. They will realize the ‘time’ they have apparently wasted.

Now it may be asked, if, with the acquisition of knowledge and truth, these extensions of earthly religions into the spirit world  are better done away with, what will you put in their place? It sounds like a condemnation of communal worship. By no means. We have our communal worship here, but it is purged of every trace of meaningless creeds, of doctrines and dogmas. We worship the Great and Eternal Father in truth, absolute truth. We are of one mind, and one mind only. And no one is called upon to believe blindly—or to profess to do so— something which is utterly incomprehensible to any mind. There are many, many things here which we do not understand—and it will take eons of time before we even have a faint gleam of understanding them. But we are not asked to understand them; we are asked to take them as they are. It makes no difference whatever to our soul’s progression. We shall be able to progress far—and far beyond that—before we shall ever need to think about understanding such things. And so we have one mind in our worship of the All-highest.