I desire to impress upon your minds this principle, that when you look down to the real basis of selfishness and lust, you will find that they do not originate in the body, but that they pertain to the spiritual being. There are certain needs, however, which do grow out of the physical body; but when the spirit is separated from the body, it no longer feels these physical demands; for instance, it will no longer feel the need of food, experience thirst, or be susceptible to the effects of the elements—heat and cold—as is the physical nature; but that which administers to the demands of the mind, independent of the body, belongs to the mind. And when you enter the Spirit world, if you take truth with you, you will also take falsehood—if you carry purity with you, so you will impurity—if justice goes with you to that sphere, so will injustice. Now think of society in its individual action, social, governmental, and religious action, and tell me whether the world, or the individuals of the world, are governed by the true, divine impulse? Are they searching after the true needs of the body and mind, or after pleasure and self-gratification? And in your activity, which controls?—a sense of need, or a desire after gratification? You settle this question for yourselves, and I will settle it for myself. If you are under the rule, and in the sphere, of lust you belong to the sphere of outer darkness; and if you are under the rule of charity, you belong to the second sphere or Spiritual Paradise. His servants you are to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey. It is for you to say whom you will obey.
Now this earthly sphere is the lowest and darkest sphere. Its influences are dark and defiling. In this sphere men are swallowed up in worldly matters, and striving to gratify self.
But when a separation takes place between the mind and the body, we shall come into new relations, although we shall not at once change our thoughts, feelings, and affections, and shall recognize ourselves. Our lusts and self-love will follow us to the Spirit-world. There is not, as many seem to suppose, a miraculous process, by which man is changed while passing through the dark valley of shadows. If a change takes place in him in the Spirit-world, it must be in accordance with the same divine law which governs him in this sphere of existence. If you will but exercise your reasoning faculties on this point, you will see that it should and must be so. When we come to understand the Spirit-world, we shall find that in our Father’s house there is a mansion suited to those who seek after self-gratification, and that that world, like this, is subdivided into many minor spheres, corresponding to the various grades of development in the different spheres of mind. There are physical spheres, intellectual spheres, moral spheres, and religious spheres, as there are in this world; and they are very much of the some description as those here, because they proceed from the same basis. Individuals passing from this sphere to that, will fashion out of the materials which their own conscious elements furnish the same kind of a Deity there that they worshiped here. As in New York city there are many degrees of advancement in these different departments—one man seeking to gratify his lusts through appetite, and another man in some other way; and as you can find here every sphere, except the divine sphere (I doubt whether you can find that), so in the Spiritual world you will find all these different degrees of advancement, each occupying its own appropriate sphere.