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Chapter XI: Astral Heavens and Hells2223
Chapter XI: Astral Heavens and Hells
I
n the quotation from the occult writer, given in the preceding chapter, the
following statement is made: “Each man is his own absolute law-giver, the
dispenser of glory or gloom to himself, the decreer of his life, his reward, his
punishment.” And this is true not only in earth-life, but also doubly true of
the life of the soul on the Astral Plane. For each disembodied soul carries
with it its own heaven or hell, of its own creation, and of its favorite belief,
and partakes of the blessings or sorrows of each, according to its merits.
But the Judge who sentences it to reward or punishment is not a Power
outside of itself, but a Power Within—in short, its own conscience. On the
Astral Plane the conscience of the soul asserts itself very forcibly, and the
still, quiet voice, that was perhaps smothered during earth-life, now speaks
in trumpet-like tones, and the soul hears and obeys.
A man’s own conscience, when allowed to speak clearly and forcibly, is
the most severe Judge that exists. Stripping aside all self-deception, and
hypocrisy, conscious or unconscious, it causes the soul to stand forth
naked and bare to its own spiritual gaze. And the soul, speaking as its own
conscience, sentences itself in accordance with its own conceptions of right
and wrong, and accepts its fate as merited and just. Man can fly from the
judgment of others—but he can never escape from his own conscience on