Spirits of the Departed
Souls who have passed on do not really leave us. They remain with us as more than mere memories. The souls of people whom we loved on earth continue to seek our welfare us much as they are able. The souls of people we wronged on earth harbor resentment against us and would avenge themselves if given the chance. Thus, the dead are not really dead. They may be living with us. Sometimes sensitive people can call them down to earth, as in the Bible when Saul employed a medium to call up the ghost of the prophet Samuel.
Most people are ignorant of spiritual influences on the living, yet they are real. The philosopher Immanuel Kant once said, “The human soul stands even in this life in indissoluble connection with all immaterial natures in the spirit world, that it reciprocally acts upon these and receives impressions and help from them.” They include not only spirits of the dead, but also nature spirits—sprites, fairies and their ilk. The first peoples know them well, and their shamans are trained to sense their presence and employ them for human benefit. Their influence can be benign, or it can be beneficial, as the muse that inspires great art or the sudden insight that begets scientific discovery and invention. Spiritual influence can also be terribly destructive; for example, the passions that inflame age-old conflicts into modern-day ethnic violence.
Intercourse between heaven and earth works both ways. Spirits can be mobilized to assist earthly people for a righteous cause; conversely spirits need help from earthly people to resolve their own difficulties. Many religions promote the idea that the living should make offerings to benefit the dead; the Latter-Day Saints even promote baptism for the dead as a way to bring them closer to the perfection of the end-times. In this regard, Father Moon teaches a doctrine of “returning resurrection,” by which spirits descend to assist the living, and the living in turn assist the dead by shouldering the burden of their unfinished business and resolving it.