posted August 01, 2016 07:35 PM            

https://www.scribd.com/doc/11572146/dion-fortune-through-the-gates-of-death

posted August 07, 2016 09:36 AM            

"This intermediate stage between life and death is not the same thing as Purgatory. It is rather a landing-stage whereon the soul steps ashore and gathers together its baggage and greets its friends. Purgatory might be defined as a psychic quarantine. It is only after consciousness has accustomed itself to the disembodied life that the soul goes on to face the purification of Purgatory. Let it be clearly realized that Purgatory is not punitive, nor is it eternal, but consists in forcing the soul to face its own record. It is the reactions of the soul to that record which are the cleansing fires. Purgatory is not a place, but a state of consciousness; but cause, on the Innter Planes, all those with the same outlook draw together, Purgatory for all practical psychic purposes has a definite astral location."

Thus, to me it sounds more like her understanding of purgatory is more like the understood 'life review' that we go through once we pass the physical realm. Where we see the challenges we risen up to, the lessons learned and understood, the ones we didn't quite grasp and the ones we failed miserably at; the lives we affected either good or bad, etc.

I would need to read further to see how she defines hell but even in the video text, it states that while in purgatory we are in 'skilled hands'. So again her term purgatory seems to be different than the religious term which seems to imply an eternal limbo of sorts?

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posted August 09, 2016 05:58 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by SDragon:
I'm not sure where those other passages were taken from but probably further along the book which I haven't come to yet. Earlier in the book on page 21, she writes:

"This intermediate stage between life and death is not the same thing as Purgatory. It is rather a landing-stage whereon the soul steps ashore and gathers together its baggage and greets its friends. Purgatory might be defined as a psychic quarantine. It is only after consciousness has accustomed itself to the disembodied life that the soul goes on to face the purification of Purgatory. Let it be clearly realized that Purgatory is not punitive, nor is it eternal, but consists in forcing the soul to face its own record. It is the reactions of the soul to that record which are the cleansing fires. Purgatory is not a place, but a state of consciousness; but cause, on the Innter Planes, all those with the same outlook draw together, Purgatory for all practical psychic purposes has a definite astral location."

Thus, to me it sounds more like her understanding of purgatory is more like the understood 'life review' that we go through once we pass the physical realm. Where we see the challenges we risen up to, the lessons learned and understood, the ones we didn't quite grasp and the ones we failed miserably at; the lives we affected either good or bad, etc.

I would need to read further to see how she defines hell but even in the video text, it states that while in purgatory we are in 'skilled hands'. So again her term purgatory seems to be different than the religious term which seems to imply an eternal limbo of sorts?

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Chapter X is called Purgartory, reading it now and will share more once I finish it.

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posted August 16, 2016 12:55 PM            

From the Chapter X: Purgatory

"The soul, forced to contemplate these, undergoes a struggle severe in proportion to its deviation from the spiritual standards. Nothing explains these states so well as the terminology of analytical psychology. The soul is in the throes of a conflict between its higher and lower aspects. This conflict is subjective and expresses itself in the imagery of the astral dream, and the soul is said to be in purgatory. For purgatory is simply the forced realisation of the significance of our own misdeeds. Its scenery, so often described by saints and psychics is such stuff as dreams are made of, the dreams of souls forced to face the truth.

...

Each individual soul is taught by these dream-pictures that sin brings inevitable suffering, for it is shown the consequences of its wickedness or folly and may not turn away its eyes. It feels in imagination as it would feel if it had actually come to the state which its dreams depict. Sysyphus the ambitious rolls his eternal stone up the hill and may not rest; Tantalus the drunkard sees the cup recede from his lips. Thus each learns the vanity of his weakness.

The initiate has never believed in the appalling doctrine of eternal punishment. No psychic has ever confirmed this belief, no spirit returned from beyond the grave has ever reported it. What is there any man could do in the brief spell between birth and death to deserve it? But every spirit reports purgatory and has a wholesome respect for it.

...

Can we not readily understand how the atmosphere made by all the souls at present out of incarnation who are struggling with thwarted hate or unsatiated lust, would mould the scenery of Hell out of the plastic astral ether?

All those who hate, all those who lust, congregate together, and it is largely the cumulative atmosphere that they make between them which causes the abreation of the higher type of soul, the soul that has possibilities of redemption. The minor transgression, which appears venial enough in ourselves, looks very different when we find ourselves in the midst of a sphere where innumerable souls are carrying it to all extremes and we have to live in its atmosphere. Indulgence in the sins of the flesh, which may not appear so bad when it is being done by a single person in an otherwise clean environment, will soon nauseate even its most hardened habitue when he is compelled to practise his chosen vice in the company with thousands of others who are all doing exactly the same thing, and is not allowed to stop when he has had enough, because the irresistible momentum carries him on willy-nilly.

If, however, a soul has largely risen above its weaknesses during life, or if it is not very deeply imbued by them, its visit to the purgatorial fiery whirlpool will be brief, for its struggle to resist the current will soon cause it to be thrown out upon the bank, free."

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