Summerland was the realm of the recently dead in
Spiritualist theory -- in it, the dear departed are loosed from their
physical infirmities, and given bodies that resemble themselves at the age of about 25 or so. (What happened to child or infant souls was actively debated.) Reunited with their dearest dead relatives, they spend an undetermined amount of time in a place very much like the forest-and-field sections of the
temperate zones of Earth, but more pleasant and
spiritual -- a land of endless warm, sunny days and
star-spangled nights, where rain storms only occur to end with
rainbows, only gentle breezes blow, and everyone does what they were happiest at in life.
Ideal as this state seems, it is only a precursor to an even more exalted state, when one leaves Summerland to an even more happy and spiritual state, the beginning of an endless journey upwards....