things may be revealed to him which are revealed to others after death. It is sometimes permitted, after he returns from that state to the sensible world, that all he has seen should remain in his memory, or that if he does not remember it, traces of it should remain in his mind. If he saw hell, he will retain traces of despondency, sadness, heaviness of spirit, suspicion and melancholy. If in the treasury of his imagination he has preserved these traces, it is lawful for him to communicate them to others....
The torments of the grave, O seeker after the divine mysteries, are of two kinds: one kind is spiritual and the other is material torment, and they have been repeatedly explained.
The spiritual torment cannot be understood, until a person is acquainted with his own soul and spirit. His soul exists in its own individuality: it is not dependent upon form or mould : it has neither hand or foot, nor eye or ear. The external senses which it possessed were dependent on the body, and remain inactive and useless after death, and all the enjoyments resulting from them become entirely null. Wife, children, friends, property, slaves and domestics, equipage, cattle, estates and fields were formerly sources of enjoyment to it. And if he were a lover of, and a seeker after these things, so that he had been always occupied with them, the torment of separation from them will make a deep impression upon his soul, and he will be most certainly the subject of sorrow and lamentation. But if his heart was untrammeled by these delights, and was inclined towards the future world and was always awaiting death, if the enjoyments of the world were distasteful to him, while he was always occupied with the wants of the soul, which are to find out God—then, in the event of death, he will have attained his longing and his love, and have reached rest, joy and happiness.
