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Part One: Spirit, Soul, and Life Beyond the Physical Body
The 5756 readings begin with questions about communication with people who have passed from physical life. However, their deeper subject is not simply communication with the dead. They are concerned with the nature of Spirit, the continuing life of the soul, and the relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds. The readings teach that death does not destroy the individual. It only changes the conditions through which the individual lives and expresses consciousness.
To understand these readings, it is helpful to distinguish between spirit and soul. The spirit is the eternal divine life within us. It is the part of us that comes from God and remains connected with God. The soul is the developing individual. It carries the memory of what we have thought, desired, chosen, and done. While the spirit is divine and everlasting, the soul develops through its experiences and its use of free will.
The readings describe a living person as a combination of body, mind, soul, subconscious mind, and “the superconscious mind, or the spirit” (5756-4). The physical body is our temporary instrument in the material world. The mind directs our choices, the soul becomes the record of those choices, and the spirit remains the highest divine influence within us.
When the physical body dies, the spirit does not die, and the soul does not lose everything it has become. The reading explains that the soul leaves the physical body carrying the results of its earthly experience. It says, “That builded by thought and deed becomes the active particles, atoms, that make up that soul body” (5756-4). In simple terms, our thoughts and actions help form the spiritual condition in which we later find ourselves.
This means that heaven and hell are not presented only as places to which someone sends us. They are also conditions we help create within ourselves. The subconscious mind “never forgets,” and the thoughts, deeds, and desires of earthly life remain present to the soul (5756-4). The reading therefore asks us to consider “what a hell digged by some, and what a haven and heaven builded by many” (5756-4). Our spiritual surroundings reflect what we have loved, desired, and developed.
The 5756 readings repeatedly teach that the physical and spiritual worlds are not completely separate. They are different expressions of the same creative energy. One reading states that “things spiritual and things material are but those same conditions raised to a different condition of the same element—for all force is as of one force” (5756-4). Matter is therefore not separate from Spirit. It is Spirit expressed through a denser form.
The physical world is also described as a pattern of the spiritual world. The reading says, “There is in the conscious physical world every—EVERY—pattern of the spiritual world” (5756-3). This helps explain why the readings compare spiritual communication with ordinary forms of communication such as a telephone or radio. A signal may exist, but communication cannot occur unless the receiver is properly connected and tuned.
Communication between the physical and spiritual worlds depends upon this kind of attunement. The reading explains that people in both conditions must be receptive: “Those in the astral plane are not always ready. Those in the physical plane are not always ready” (5756-4). Communication cannot be forced. There must be a suitable connection, a shared desire, and a condition in which the minds and souls involved can meet.
Desire is especially important. A change from physical life to spiritual life does not immediately remove the desires a person has developed. The reading says, “Because there are changes in the dimensional conditions does not alter that which is known in the earth plane as desire” (5756-8). If love, concern, or a desire to help continues on both sides, communication may become possible when an appropriate channel is available.
The readings use the radio as an illustration. Different stations may be broadcasting at the same time, but we hear only the station to which the radio is tuned. In the same way, “the attunement of an individual in the material or earth plane to the attunement of the entity in the spirit or fourth dimensional plane is necessary” (5756-8). The reading adds that “desire [is] the ruling one,” but that desire must be attuned to the same spiritual vibration (5756-8).
Love is one of the strongest forces maintaining the connection between souls. When explaining why a father attempted to communicate with his family, the reading says, “LOVE goes far beyond what ye have called the grave” (5756-14). Physical death may end the visible relationship, but it does not end genuine love. Those who have passed may remain concerned about the spiritual and emotional welfare of those they love.
However, the readings do not encourage people to become dependent upon spirit communication. Communication may help or hinder spiritual progress, depending upon its purpose. When asked whether communication assists or delays the development of those in spirit, the answer was, “It does all!” (5756-8). If the communication offers love, comfort, guidance, or constructive service, it may help. If it encourages fear, curiosity, selfishness, control, or attachment to material life, it may hold both sides back.
The correct test is therefore not simply whether a communication appears supernatural. Its value must be judged by what it produces. The reading teaches, “Those that signify, testify, glorify the Giver of life are in the proper course. Those that glorify self are in that class that must be put away” (5756-8). True spiritual experience should turn the mind towards God, love, service, humility, and constructive living.
In fact, the readings suggest that “spirit communication” would be more correctly called “SOUL communication” (5756-14). The spirit itself is the divine life from God, while it is the individual soul, with its memories, personality, desires, and development, that attempts to communicate. The physical body is described as a “house of clay,” and death is “only the release of the soul body” from that temporary house (5756-14).
Personality and individuality also need to be distinguished. Personality is the outward character we develop in a particular life. Individuality is the deeper identity of the soul. According to the reading, the souls of those who have passed continue to live, while their personalities are gradually transformed “in the oneness of the purpose and desire” toward what they have spiritually developed (5756-14). The soul remains individual, but its selfish and temporary personality may slowly give way to a greater awareness of unity with God.
The purpose of these teachings is not to make us fascinated with death. It is to help us understand the importance of life. If thoughts and deeds become part of the soul, then every earthly choice contributes to our spiritual condition. The readings therefore bring the subject back to service. They say that the individual possesses little true power until reaching “that ability to GIVE of self in service” (5756-4). Spiritual growth is shown not by unusual experiences, but by what we give to others.
