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Footnote:
To speak of the Hells as representing the mere lower echelon of spheres, which definition may well conform to man's daily understanding of Hell as the Biblical abode of suffering and pain, is not truly accurate--or, at the very least, largely incomplete. For Hell is not reserved for the mere Biblical sinner, but Hell is: each natural love sphere that houses inhabitants which are, to a more or lesser degree, out of harmony with God's Law. As Jesus explains, "There is a Hell, or rather Hells, just as there is a Heaven or Heavens, and all men when they become spirits, will be compelled to occupy one or the other of these places; not because God had decreed that any particular spirit because of his earth belief or condition shall occupy that place, but because the condition of his soul development, or want of development, fits and fixes him for that place and no other. God has made His Laws of harmony and these Laws are never changed, and when any particular soul gets into a condition of agreement with these Laws, then that soul becomes at one with the Father and an inhabitant of His Heavens; and so long as that soul remains out of such condition it is in Hell, which is the condition of being out of agreement with the harmony of God's Laws. This is Hell and there is no other comprehensive definition of it: every thing or place that is not Heaven is Hell. Of course there are many gradations of Hell, and the inhabitants of these gradations are made by the condition of their soul development, which is determined by the quantity and quality of the defilement and sin that exists in these souls. The soul is developed as the love becomes purified and sin eradicated, and just as this process progresses the soul becomes developed."
Paul adds to this, in Vol. I ("Hell and the Duration of Punishment,") "The true Hell is a place and a condition, and one is not separated from the other; and while the condition of the soul and the beliefs of men create the Hells to a very large extent, yet Hell is a fixed abiding place, made and established and of such a character as to suit the inhabiting of it by the soul according to the condition of that soul. (...) Heaven is a place or many places suited to the development of the soul, so Hell is a place suited to the souls of degradation and evil condition. I mean to be understood as saying that place and condition of soul are correlative terms, the home of the soul depending on the condition of the soul."
"All sin and error bring their sufferings," as Jesus explains in Vol. I, ("Sin Has No Existence Except As It Is Created by Mankind and Man Must Pay the Penalties,") "and if there were no sufferings, and men were permitted to exercise their wills irrespective of the Laws which govern the universe, without incurring the penalties then the only result would be that anarchy would prevail in all God’s universe where men live, and in the spirit universe as well, for the will and its great franchise of unrestricted exercise pass with the mortal when he leaves his material body."
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