(44) The [soulish] spirit of the soul is very much more subtle, and more incomprehensible than the body, or the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, which hold, retain and form the body; for it goeth forth from the seven spirits, as God the Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father and the Son.

(19) But the animated or soulish spirit, which qualifieth or uniteth with God, that comprehends it well; but the bestial body attains only a glimpse thereof, just as if it lightened: For thus presenteth itself the innermost birth or geniture of the soul, when it teareth through the outermost birth or geniture in the elevation of the Holy Ghost, and so breaketh through the gates of hell; but the outermost birth presently shuts again; for the wrath of God bolteth up the firmament, and holds it captive in its power.

(6) But they held their peace: and Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, saith,

(6) I cannot at all write it in thy heart, for it is not for every man's capacity, understanding and apprehension, especially where the spirit stands in the house of wrath, and does not qualify, operate or unite with the light of God. But I will shew it to thee in an earthly similitude, that thou mightest, if possible, get a little into the deep sense.

(67) And in proportion as the burning of their bodies becomes severe, a corresponding change shall take place in their spirit for ever and ever; for before the Lord of Spirits none shall utter an idle word.

(46) For the word is in thy heart [Deut. xxx. 14], [Rom. x. 8], and qualifieth or uniteth with the soul, as if it were one being; and if thy soul stands in the love, then it also is one being. And, thou may say, that according to thy soul thou sittest in heaven, and livest and reignest with God. [Understand, according to the spirit of the soul, with the image out of the animated or soulish fire.]

(48) And on the day of their affliction there shall be rest on the earth, And before them they shall fall and not rise again: And there shall be no one to take them with his hands and raise them: For they have denied the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed. The name of the Lord of Spirits be blessed.

(121) Behold, thou understanding spirit: The spirit speaketh to thee, and not to the dead spirit of the flesh: Open wide the door of thy astral birth, and elevate that one part of the astral birth in the light, and let the other in the wrath stand still, and take heed also that thy animated or soulish spirit do wholly unite with the light.

(2) And feel sin a lump, thou wottest never what, but none other thing than thyself. And cry then ghostly ever upon one: a Sin, sin, sin! Out, out, out!” This ghostly cry is better learned of God by the proof, than of any man by word. For it is best when it is in pure spirit, without special thought or any pronouncing of word; unless it be any seldom time, when for abundance of spirit it bursteth up into word, so that the body and the soul be both filled with sorrow and cumbering of sin.

(5) To these, then, and certain others, especially the Marcionites, the Scripture cries, though they listen not, "He that heareth Me shall rest with confidence in peace, and shall be tranquil, fearless of all evil."

(2) For in this work, a soul drieth up in it all the root and the ground of sin that will always live in it after confession, be it never so busy. And, therefore, whoso will travail in this work, let him first cleanse his conscience; and afterward when he hath done that in him is lawfully, let him dispose him boldly but meekly thereto. And let him think, that he hath full long been holden therefrom. For this is that work in the which a soul should travail all his lifetime, though he had never sinned deadly. And the whiles that a soul is dwelling in this deadly flesh, it shall evermore see and feel this cumbrous cloud of unknowing betwixt him and God. And not only that, but in pain of the original sin it shall evermore see and feel that some of all the creatures that ever God made, or some of their works, will evermore press in remembrance betwixt it and God. And this is the right wisdom of God, that man, when he had sovereignty and lordship of all other creatures, because that he wilfully made him underling to the stirring of his subjects, leaving the bidding of God and his Maker; that right so after, when he would fulfil the bidding of God, he saw and felt all the creatures that should be beneath him, proudly press above him, betwixt him and his God.

(16) It is the same for them who go out from the body. For when the soul withdraws into itself, the spirit doth contract itself within the blood, and the soul within the spirit. And then the mind, stripped of its wrappings, and naturally divine, taking unto itself a fiery body, doth traverse every space, after abandoning the soul unto its judgement and whatever chastisement it hath deserved. Tat: What dost thou, father, mean by this? The mind is parted from soul and soul from spirit? Whereas thou said'st the soul was the mind's vesture, and the soul's the spirit.

(62) The soul which is a member of God's household is one which is kept pure, and the soul which has put on Christ is one which is pure. It is impossible for it to sin. Now where Christ is, there sin is idle.

(62) And the Lord of Spirits will abide over them, And with that Son of Man shall they eat And lie down and rise up for ever and ever.

(41) For the conversation of the holy soul is in heaven, and though indeed it converseth in the body on earth, yet it is always continually with its Redeemer JESUS CHRIST, and eateth as a guest with him. Note this!

(2) I grant well, that to them that have been in accustomed sins, as I am myself and have been, it is the most needful and speedful cause, to be meeked under the remembrance of our wretchedness and our before‑done sins, ever till the time be that the great rust of sin be in great part rubbed away, our conscience and our counsel to witness. But to other that be, as it were, innocents, the which never sinned deadly with an abiding will and avisement, but through frailty and unknowing, and the which set them to be contemplatives—and to us both if our counsel and our conscience witness our lawful amendment in contrition and in confession, and in making satisfaction after the statute and the ordinance of all‑Holy Church, and thereto if we feel us stirred and called by grace to be contemplatives also—there is then another cause to be meeked under as far above this cause as is the living of our Lady Saint Mary above the living of the sinfullest penitent in Holy Church; or the living of Christ above the living of any other man in this life; or else the living of an angel in heaven, the which never felt—nor shall feel— frailty, is above the life of the frailest man that is here in this world.

(1) These things having been defined, I think it necessary also to describe the things religiously performed by us over those who have fallen asleep. For neither is this also the same between the holy and the unholy; but, as the form of life of each is different, so also, when approaching death, those who have led a religious life, by looking steadfastly to the unfailing promises of the Godhead (inasmuch as they have observed their proof, in the resurrection proclaimed by it), come to the goal of death, with firm and unfailing hope, in godly rejoicing, knowing that at the end of holy contests their condition will be altogether in a perfect and endless life and safety, through their future entire resurrection. For the holy souls, which may possibly fall during this present life to a change for the worse, in the regeneration, will have the most Godlike transition to an unchangeable condition. Now, the pure bodies which are enrolled together as yoke-fellows and companions of the holy souls, and have fought together within their Divine struggles in the unchanged steadfastness of their souls throughout the divine life, will jointly receive their own resurrection; for, having been united with the holy souls to which they were united in this present life, by having become members of Christ, they will receive in return the Godlike and imperishable immortality, and blessed repose. In this respect then the sleep of the holy is in comfort and unshaken hopes, as it attains the goal of the Divine contests.

(5) With their intellect absorbed in That, their Self being That, established in that, they go from whence there is no return and their sins are dispelled by knowledge.

(129) But when he is overcome, then the heavenly gate openeth in my spirit, and then the spirit seeth the divine and heavenly being; not externally without the body, but in the fountain or wellspring of the heart there riseth up the flash in the sensibility or thoughts of the brain, and therein the spirit does contemplate or meditate.

(24) Now comes the question of the soul leaving the body; where does it go?

It cannot remain in this world where there is no natural recipient for it; and it cannot remain attached to anything not of a character to hold it: it can be held here when only it is less than wise, containing within itself something of that which lures it.

If it does contain any such alien element it gives itself, with increasing attachment, to the sphere to which that element naturally belongs and tends.

The space open to the soul's resort is vast and diverse; the difference will come by the double force of the individual condition and of the justice reigning in things. No one can ever escape the suffering entailed by ill deeds done: the divine law is ineluctable, carrying bound up, as one with it, the fore-ordained execution of its doom. The sufferer, all unaware, is swept onward towards his due, hurried always by the restless driving of his errors, until at last wearied out by that against which he struggled, he falls into his fit place and, by self-chosen movement, is brought to the lot he never chose. And the law decrees, also, the intensity and the duration of the suffering while it carries with it, too, the lifting of chastisement and the faculty of rising from those places of pain- all by power of the harmony that maintains the universal scheme.

Souls, body-bound, are apt to body-punishment; clean souls no longer drawing to themselves at any point any vestige of body are, by their very being, outside the bodily sphere; body-free, containing nothing of body- there where Essence is, and Being, and the Divine within the Divinity, among Those, within That, such a soul must be.

If you still ask Where, you must ask where those Beings are- and in your seeking, seek otherwise than with the sight, and not as one seeking for body.