Where is the Spirit World?

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1 Where is the Spirit World? Is the spirit world here? It is not beyond the sun, but is on this earth that was organized for the people that have lived and that do and will live upon it. No other people can have it, and we have no other kingdom until we are prepared to inhabit this eternally. When you lay down this tabernacle, where are you going? Into the spiritual world. Are you going into Abraham s bosom? No, not anywhere near there but into the spirit world. Where is the spirit world? It is right here. Do the good and evil spirits go together? Yes, they do. Do they both inhabit one kingdom? Yes, they do. Do they go to the sun? No. Do they go beyond the boundaries of the organized earth? No, they do not. The Prophet lays down his body, he lays down his life, and his spirit goes to the world of spirits; the persecutor of the Prophet dies, and he goes to Hades; they both go to one place, and they are not to be separated yet. --President Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p When men are prepared, they are better off to go hence. The spirits of the just are exalted to a greater and more glorious work; hence they are blessed in their departure to the world of spirits. Enveloped in flaming fire, they are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and are often pained therewith. --Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 326.

2 Do the righteous return to God when they die? These words of Alma as I understand them, do not intend to convey the thought that all spirits go back into the presence of God for an assignment to a place of peace or a place of punishment and before him receive their individual sentence. Taken home to God, simply means that their mortal existence has come to an end, and they have returned to the world of spirits, where they are assigned to a place according to their works with the just or with the unjust, there to await the resurrection. Back to God is a phrase which finds an equivalent in many other well-known conditions. For instance: a man spends a stated time in some foreign mission field. When he is released and returns to the United States, he may say, It is wonderful to be back home ; yet this one may be somewhere in Utah or Idaho or some other part of the west. --Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Question, 2: (Emphasis added) It reads that the spirit goes to God who gave it. Let me render this scripture a little plainer; when the spirits leave their bodies they are in the presence of our Father and God, they are prepared then to see, hear and understand spiritual things. But where is the spirit world? It is incorporated within this celestial system. Suppose the Lord should touch your eyes that you might see, could you then see the spirits? Yes, as plainly as you now see bodies, as did the servant of Elijah. If the Lord would permit it, and it was His will that it should be done, you could see the spirits that have departed from this world, as plainly as you now see bodies with your natural eyes. --President Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 3:368.

3 Are the righteous separated from the wicked in the spirit world? Before Christ bridged the gulf between paradise and hell so that the righteous could mingle with the wicked and preach them the gospel the wicked in hell were confined to locations which precluded them from contact with the righteous in paradise....now that the righteous spirits in paradise have been commissioned to carry the message of salvation to the wicked spirits in hell, there is a certain amount of mingling together of the good and bad spirits. Repentance opens the prison doors to the spirits in hell; it enables those bound with the chains of hell to free themselves from darkness, unbelief, ignorance, and sin. As rapidly as they can overcome these obstacles gain light, believe truth, acquire intelligence, cast of sin, and break the chains of hell they can leave the hell that has imprisoned them and dwell with the righteous in the peace of paradise. Elder Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 755.

4 What is the relationship between spirit prison, paradise, and hell? In a broad sense, the whole of the spirit world paradise and hell is a spirit prison, inasmuch as the spirits there, even the righteous, look upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage (see D&C 45:17; 138:50). I know it is a startling idea, Brigham Young stated, to say that the Prophet [Joseph Smith] and the persecutor of the Prophet, all go to prison together But they have not got their bodies yet, consequently they are in prison. (JD 3:95) Christ went to the spirits in prison in the sense that he went to the spirit world. --J.F. McConkie, R.L. Millet, Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 3, p There has been much said about the words of Jesus (when on the cross) to the thief, saying This day shalt thou be with me in paradise. King James translators make it out to say paradise. But what is paradise? It is a modern word: it does not answer at all to the original word that Jesus made use of. There is nothing in the original word in Greek from which this was taken that signifies paradise; but it was This day thou shalt be with me in the world of the spirits. --Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p Hades, the Greek, or Sheol, the Hebrew, these two significations mean a world of spirits. Hades, Sheol, paradise, spirits in prison, are all one; it is a world of spirits. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 310.

5 What do spirits do in the Spirit World?... those who labor so diligently in their moral estate to establish the cause of Zion would not be denied the privilege of looking down upon the results of their own labors from their post mortal estate... they are as deeply interested in our welfare today, if not with greater capacity, with far more interest, behind the veil, than they were in the flesh... Sometimes the Lord expands our vision from this point of view and this side of the veil, so that we feel and seem to realize that we can look beyond the thin veil which separates us from that other sphere. --President Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, April 1916, p Father Smith and Carlos and Brother Partridge, yes, and every other good Saint, are just as busy in the spirit world as you and I are here. They can see us, but we cannot see them... they are preaching, preaching all the time... they are hurrying to get ready by the time we are ready, and we are all hurrying to get ready by the time our Elder Brother is ready.... What! A congregated mass of inhabitants there in spirit, mingling with each other, as they do here? Yes, brethren, they are there together, and if they associate together, and collect together, in clans and in societies as they do here, it is their privilege... they have to do with each other, both good and bad Discourses of Brigham Young, p