Who Is in Spirit Prison?

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Maidservant said:

You are kind.

Some hereabouts may not agree on that one......    

 

[Meadowchik]

On 6/21/2020 at 4:33 PM, Duncan said:

Would it be fair to say that the spirits in Spirit prison are people who rejected Christ here when they were in mortality and those bad people who never heard of of the Gospel while in mortality. I suppose too that the Gospel in being preached in Paradise to good people who never heard of the Gospel or had a chance to accept it? 

 

On 6/24/2020 at 5:46 AM, Maidservant said:

We are all in spirit prison.

Until we are not.

Christ is the pathway from one to the other.

Whatever world we may find ourselves in.

One neighbor may be in (spirit) prison; one may not be. They may dine at the same table and look at the same stars, even have a conversation with one another; but they will be in different worlds.

Until they both and each find their greatest peace.

Currently a student again, I am reminded of something my mentor told me earlier this year. He spoke about doing school in two ways: one way is to learn the material. The other way is to get good marks. They are not one and the same.

For me, this means that I cannot learn all of it in the term, but prioritising some information can help me get further on in the course as a whole, where we continue to learn.

I think that we all have our own respective "prisons." They might be ignorance, trauma, fear of abandonment, chronic pain... And so, to learn our way out of them as much as is possible, we can each find a priority that helps us the most at a given time. 

I wish that Mormonism embraced this type of perspective, instead of the rather rigid paths it seems to be espousing.  Granted, lots of LDS seem to accept less rigidity and I think it helps them manage their relationships in much more healthy ways.  I found the Community of Christ (previously Reorganised LDS) to be much more in line with an embrace of multiple possible, beneficial paths.

For me, atheism with my belief in rationality and kindness is a good, healing path that is helping me leave spiritual captivity.

[rodheadlee]

Who is in Spirit Prison? 

All the mean people.

[Ahab]

20 hours ago, 2BizE said:

I think it is a symbolic place and not actually real.  The spirit prison is a way for us members to justify our construct of being in a better religion than others’.

I think all places are symbolic of what each place represents, and I think most who are LDS think of every place as one of the 4 classifications of places... in descending order, either celestial, terrestrial, telestial, or spirit prison.

But what if the place we are in is relative to what our mindset or level of glory/intelligence is when we are in that place, wherever we are or wherever we go? 

For example, what if someone's mindset or level of intelligence/glory is celestial when in a place that is technically classified as a telestial world or within the telestial realm?  Not a place where our Father or Jesus would call home.

I believe all who become celestial will be able to go to any place even if it isn't one of the greatest places, and that people with less intelligence/glory will be in the inferior places without realizing there are those with greater glory among them.

[2BizE]

2 hours ago, Ahab said:

I think all places are symbolic of what each place represents, and I think most who are LDS think of every place as one of the 4 classifications of places... in descending order, either celestial, terrestrial, telestial, or spirit prison.

But what if the place we are in is relative to what our mindset or level of glory/intelligence is when we are in that place, wherever we are or wherever we go? 

For example, what if someone's mindset or level of intelligence/glory is celestial when in a place that is technically classified as a telestial world or within the telestial realm?  Not a place where our Father or Jesus would call home.

I believe all who become celestial will be able to go to any place even if it isn't one of the greatest places, and that people with less intelligence/glory will be in the inferior places without realizing there are those with greater glory among them.

According to LDS lore, the Spirit Prison is a temporary location, opposite of Spirit Paradise, where people are placed before they are assigned to one of the three degrees.  Mormons typically think of Spirit Prison is where non-Mormons or bad Mormons go waiting for the resurrection.  This causes many Mormons to think they are better than others...

[Maidservant]

14 hours ago, Meadowchik said:

 

Currently a student again, I am reminded of something my mentor told me earlier this year. He spoke about doing school in two ways: one way is to learn the material. The other way is to get good marks. They are not one and the same.

For me, this means that I cannot learn all of it in the term, but prioritising some information can help me get further on in the course as a whole, where we continue to learn.

I think that we all have our own respective "prisons." They might be ignorance, trauma, fear of abandonment, chronic pain... And so, to learn our way out of them as much as is possible, we can each find a priority that helps us the most at a given time. 

I wish that Mormonism embraced this type of perspective, instead of the rather rigid paths it seems to be espousing.  Granted, lots of LDS seem to accept less rigidity and I think it helps them manage their relationships in much more healthy ways.  I found the Community of Christ (previously Reorganised LDS) to be much more in line with an embrace of multiple possible, beneficial paths.

For me, atheism with my belief in rationality and kindness is a good, healing path that is helping me leave spiritual captivity.

I resonate with what you express here.

I actually recognize that I am an atheist when it comes to many/most conceptions of God, and consider my forsaking and freedom from those conceptions to be a great healing from great blindness and captivity. However, I choose not to identify as an atheist, because I just don't think that fits me either. I do like the word God, it works for me to describe my experience; although I have taken great care to define that syllable for myself.

I like Alma 41:15 "That which ye do send out shall return unto you again."

Those things that have healed me the most have nothing to do with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have had much healing to do from the Church/Gospel/church culture/etc/whatever. In fact, the thing that healed me the most in my entire life was nothing to say or to believe or to feel (per se) or to think or to understand or to learn or even to do. It was something to drink. It was an herbal preparation. Within a week of daily use, my mind returned to me (because of the release of toxins that had my brain and cell chemistry bound in prison/misery for decades). So there, you know? Busted my entire way of seeing how bodies and choices work.

For me, Christ is not a person, but a way. It is a way that has existed for aeons before this place and time, under many syllables other than /kriste/. One can have a hold of Christ without ever having known that syllable; one can take that syllable into their mouth a thousand times piously and have no idea how to actually take hold of [Christ, the way, peace, union, etc] in one's body and course of life. Isaiah describes it this way (35:8): "And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way." In Helaman 3:29, there is this description: "The word of God . . . [leads the human] of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery."

I've been committed to this way before this world and will always be committed to it in all time and all eternity (long haul, anyway, not counting brief forgettings); and I'm completely aware that the Church as we know it did not invent this Way; and this Way will outlast it far after the Church's season concludes.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Maidservant said:

I resonate with what you express here.

I actually recognize that I am an atheist when it comes to many/most conceptions of God, and consider my forsaking and freedom from those conceptions to be a great healing from great blindness and captivity. However, I choose not to identify as an atheist, because I just don't think that fits me either. I do like the word God, it works for me to describe my experience; although I have taken great care to define that syllable for myself.

I like Alma 41:15 "That which ye do send out shall return unto you again."

Those things that have healed me the most have nothing to do with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have had much healing to do from the Church/Gospel/church culture/etc/whatever. In fact, the thing that healed me the most in my entire life was nothing to say or to believe or to feel (per se) or to think or to understand or to learn or even to do. It was something to drink. It was an herbal preparation. Within a week of daily use, my mind returned to me (because of the release of toxins that had my brain and cell chemistry bound in prison/misery for decades). So there, you know? Busted my entire way of seeing how bodies and choices work.

For me, Christ is not a person, but a way. It is a way that has existed for aeons before this place and time, under many syllables other than /kriste/. One can have a hold of Christ without ever having known that syllable; one can take that syllable into their mouth a thousand times piously and have no idea how to actually take hold of [Christ, the way, peace, union, etc] in one's body and course of life. Isaiah describes it this way (35:8): "And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way." In Helaman 3:29, there is this description: "The word of God . . . [leads the human] of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery."

I've been committed to this way before this world and will always be committed to it in all time and all eternity (long haul, anyway, not counting brief forgettings); and I'm completely aware that the Church as we know it did not invent this Way; and this Way will outlast it far after the Church's season concludes.

When you are praying/meditating/ "in the zone", are you aware of communing with a personal intelligence or rather more like being merged with the universe and one with all things?

Those somehow are not mutually exclusive by any means

 

[Ahab]

18 hours ago, 2BizE said:

According to LDS lore, the Spirit Prison is a temporary location, opposite of Spirit Paradise, where people are placed before they are assigned to one of the three degrees.  Mormons typically think of Spirit Prison is where non-Mormons or bad Mormons go waiting for the resurrection.  This causes many Mormons to think they are better than others...

i would say people who are not in prison are better off... rather than say better... than people who are in prison. And whether or not someone is called a "Mormon" it is better to not be someone who is in prison.