The Aspects of the Spirit Body

I have a very special memory of an experience I had with my son very soon after his death, actually just a couple of hours after he died.  I have taken the description from my book “Kory” that will be coming out in print in the upcoming months. It helped me understand the spirit body in a very personal way.

…were unaware of the experience that started to unfold for me. As I sat in a chair beside Kris’s bed, I suddenly felt Kory standing behind me. He put his arms around me and gave me a hug. It was as real as the earlier hug that he gave me just hours earlier.

Where have you been? I blurted out. The words were only in my mind, but I knew Kory could hear me, just as I heard him. I understood from years of research that at death some people will watch over their bodies. Kory did not come to us until his body was at the coroner’s.

Kory laughed and said, “Mom, if you could only see the things I have been shown! And you should see what I’m wearing!”

Immediately, a vision of Kory standing in a glowing white robe was impressed upon my mind. The robe had a brilliant whiteness to it that seemed to come from sparkling lights hidden within the folds of the silky fabric. It was the most luxuriously beautiful and comfortable-looking robe I had ever seen. Also impressed upon my mind was the knowledge that Kory had been shown the wonders of the universe and the history of the world. I was amazed at the amount of experiences and knowledge that he had been bestowed with in the short time since his death. Time had truly stood still while he was shown many wondrous things. Kory was clearly very happy, but I knew he was greatly concerned about us. Thankfully, he was given the comfort that we would be okay in time. I could not see him, but I sensed everything about him and his presence so fully that it was more real than beholding it with my eyes. The knowledge was given to all of my senses and burned into my heart.

I sensed another presence standing quietly beside Kory. I felt the presence of my father, David Kinney. He had been killed when I was a little girl and was now standing beside Kory, acting as his guide. They both seemed to resonate a love and understanding that the rest of the world could not see. They were beyond sadness and pain.

One Book that was a wonderful comfort to me following Kory’s death was a book by Duane S. Crowther called “Life Everlasting.” It was written in 1966 after the death of his daughter. It is an incredible collection of information.

Please click here to see the link to Amazon if you wish to order this incredible book.

I would like to use a few descriptions of the spirit body from his book.

The mortal body has long been regarded as a limiting and retarding obstacle to the full functioning of the spirit’s powers and capabilities,…Orson Pratt taught, for instance,

Our happiness here is regulated in a great measure by external objects, by the organization of the mortal tabernacle; they are not permitted to rise very high, or to become very great; on the other hand it seems to be kind of limit to our joys and pleasures, sufferings, and pains, and this is because of the imperfection of the tabernacle in which we dwell; and of those things with which we are surrounded; but in that life everything will appear in its place, is something like the scaffolding you see round about a new building that is going up; it is only a help, an aid in this imperfect situation; but when we get into another condition, we shall find that these imperfect aids will not be particularly wanted; we shall have other sources of gaining knowledge, besides these inlets, called senses.

We shall learn many more things there; we need not suppose our five senses connect us with all the things of heaven, and earth, and eternity, and space; we need not think that we are conversant with all the elements of nature, through the medium of the senses God has given us here. Suppose He should give us a sixth sense, a seventh, an eighth, a ninth, or a fiftieth. All these different senses would convey to us new ideas, as much so as the senses of tasting, smelling, or seeing communicate different ideas from that of hearing.

We read or learn a thing by observation yesterday, and to-day or tomorrow it is gone,…some of the knowledge we receive here at one time becomes so completely obliterated, through the weakness of the animal system, that we cannot call it to mind, no association of ideas will again suggest it to our minds; it is gone, erased, eradicated from the tablet of our memories. This is not owing to the want of capacity in the spirit; no, but the spirit has a full capacity to remember…

We become acquainted with the light and color through the organization of our bodies. In other words the Lord has constructed the mortal eye and framed it in such a manner that it is capable of being acted upon by one of the elements of nature, called light; and that gives us a great variety of knowledge…suppose that the whole spirit were uncovered and exposed to all the rays of light, can it be supposed that light would not affect the spirit if it were thus unshielded, uncovered, and unclothed?…The spirit is inherently capable of experiencing the sensations of light; if it were not so, we could not see. You might form as fine an eye as ever was made, but if the spirit, in and of itself, were not capable of being acted upon by rays of light, an eye would be of no benefit. Then unclothe the spirit, and instead of exposing a small portion of it about the size of a pea to the action of the rays of light, the whole of it would be exposed. I think we could see in different directions at once, instead of looking in one particular direction, we could then look all around us at the same instant… Then there would be a vast field opened to the view of the spirit, and this would be opened not in one direction only, but in every direction. This will be calculated to give us new ideas, concerning the immensity of the creations of God, concerning worlds that may be far beyond the reach of the most powerful instruments that have been called to the aid of man. This will give us information and knowledge we never can know as long as we dwell in this mortal tabernacle. 

Brother Crowther further explains:

One of the powers which spirit beings are expected to possess will be the capability for rapid movement from place to place. As Brigham Young explained,

The brightness and glory of the next apartment is inexpressible. It is no encumbered with this clog of dirt we are carrying around here so that we advance in years we have to be stubbing along and to be careful lest we fall down. We see our youth, even frequently stubbing their toes and falling down. But yonder, how different! They move with ease and like lighting. If we want to visit Jerusalem, or this, that, or the other place- and I presume we will be permitted if we desire- there we are, looking at its streets…If we wish to understand how they are living here on these western islands, or in China, we are there; in fact, we are like the light of the morning, or I will not say the electric fluid, but its operation on the wires.

As quickly as the spirit is unlocked from this house of clay, it is free to travel with lightning speed to any planet, or fixed star, or to the uttermost part of the earth, or to the depths of the sea, according to the will of Him who dictates.  ( These two discourses were delivered by Brigham Young at two separate funerals, Aurelia Spencer- 1871 and Daniel Spencer in 1868.

If we want to behold Jerusalem as it was in the days of the Savior; or if we want to see the Garden of Eden as it was when created, there we are; and we see it as it existed spiritually, for it was created first spiritually and then temporally, and spiritually it still remains. And when there we may behold the earth as at the sawn of creation, or we may visit any city we please that exists upon its surface.

Brother Crowther gives these accounts:

Such powers of locomotion were observed in the actions of young Briant Stevens, who appeared to his father in a dream the night following his death from tetanus, February 3, 1887:

At length he saw a light and in this light was little Briant, standing in the air, robed in snowy whiteness, with a face transfigured in its light and beauty. The boy smiled at him and moved his hands as if in loving recognition. This single inclination of the shining head seemed to project the body in any desired direction.

 

… Instances in the scriptures give evidence of the capacity to see into the past and into the future which is available to spirit beings. Moses, for example, “beheld the world and the ends thereof, and all the children of men which are, and which were created,” (Moses 1:8) and bore witness that he saw with his own eyes, “but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld…

 

Enoch, who saw “all things, even unto the end of the world,”  

This is a subject that will take a few visits to cover. I have loved learning about the incredible capabilities of the spirit body. When writing my book I used many of these insights in various chapters of Kory’s experiences in the Spirit World.

I hope this gives you a taste of the capabilities of the spirit body. Check in next week for further discussion.

Please send your comments and questions I would love to hear from you.