Collected Wisdom

Here is a massive collection of wisdom taken from some of the greats of the spirit. There is everything here from after death experiences to prophecies of the future. Because it is so vast, I have tried to make a list of the major headings below, and put links to them. But remember that although the descriptions differ, this is how we experience life, for we might see life as an artist, a scientist, mother, a child, a person in pain, and all the views have similarities and differences, and that is the wonder of this collection.

George Anderson

George Anderson – Where do we go when we die – What the afterlife is like – On what level can the spirits communicate – Will a suicide progress – What changes after death – What about reincarnation

Edgar Cayce 

Edgar Cayce – Edgar Cayce:Who Was This Man? – Answers To Great Questions Of Life – Our Origins:Where Did We Come From? – Evolution:Who Are We? – The Universe:How Did It Get Here? – Religion:Is It True? – Reincarnation – Does it really happen? – Jesus Christ:Who Is This Man? – The Future:What lies beyond? – The Planets:What Are These Dimensions? – Your Body:How Is Your Next Destination Determined? – Meditation:Is It Connecting With The Afterlife? – Prayer:Is It Talking to God? – Dreams:Are They A Gateway To The Spirit World? – The Book of Revelation:What are its secrets? – The Mysteries:What are these religions about? – Astrology:What Is The Christian Perspective? – The Readings:What Else Did Cayce Say?

Ruth Montgomery

Ruth Montgomery – An Atheist’s Death Experience – A Murderer’s Death Experience – A Jungle Savage’s Death Experience – A Drug Addict’s Death Experience – A Baby’s Death Experience – A Preacher’s Death Experience – A Saint’s Death Experience – The Reincarnation Experience

Fredric Myers

Myers – Life After Death – The Material Realm – Immediately After Death – The Earthbound Realm – Outer Darkness – The Borderland – The Earth Plane – The Intermediate Plane – The Plane of Illusion – The Plane of Color – The Plane of Flame – The Plane of Light – Timelessness

Dr. Michael Newton

The Journey of Souls –  The levels of soul groupings – The Beginner Soul – The Intermediate Soul – The Advanced Soul – Returning to the physical

Emmanuel Swedenborg

The Three Stages After Death – A person’s true love is revealed at death – The first stage after death – The second stage after death – The way to heaven is not hard

Reverend Mattson

What About Heaven And Hell? – Where is heaven and hell? – Is there a devil? – What is Jesus like? – What is eternity like? – Is God limited only to Christians? – What are the planes of existence? – His journey into outer space.

Betty Andreasson Luca

Her abduction – Her experience with the One Experience

Joseph Kerrick

UFOs and the Near Death Experience – Aphorisms

Lisa Barker

Children and near-death experiences

Tony Crisp

Tony Crisp – Some of my Writing

Rudolph Steiner

Rudolf Steiner 

George Anderson

Wisdom – A Man Who Speaks With The Spirits

The following is a discussion with George Anderson by the radio and television talk show host Joel Martin as written in his book entitled “We Don’t Die”.  George Anderson is a spiritualist who has amazing paranormal abilities with the spirits of the deceased.  He was hired by the NYPD Homicide Dept to solve unsolved murders.  Here he answers some questions about the afterlife. 

 Where do we go when we die?

“Well, according to what they say, go through the different levels of consciousness.  We’re working our way up.  It’s like, to go up to the twelfth grade, you’ve got to pass the first through the eleventh.  When we pass on, we do go into the tunnel, we can go through these little darker levels, which can represent a form of hell or purgatory, because these are the two negative levels, or the darker ones.  But if we’ve been a good person, we generally just seem to pass through them very quickly and then we go on through the third and fourth levels of consciousness.  When we go through these levels we meet our relatives and friends greeting us at the end of the tunnel where they’re waiting and they lead us into the light.  And there’s like a form of spiritual rejuvenation, like a reunion, like a party, ‘Hey, it’s great to see you again.’  We recognize each other by personality.  There’s no physical body, but there’s a spiritual body that may take on a physical form.” 

 What the afterlife is like?

“Learning and growing seem to be what it’s all about there.  And they are able to understand themselves, if they want to.  I’ve been told by the other side that you have to make a prime decision over there.  You have to face up to yourself and do something about it, otherwise you’ll just flounder and you won’t progress spiritually.  That seems to be a very important issue, to recognize yourself, your positive qualities and your negative ones, and try to do something about it.  I’ve also been told that they have tasks, jobs to do over there.” 

 On what level can the spirits communicate?

“You might be inclined not to come to me if you’re on one of the darker levels.  I would not be attracting anything that would be negative, so if you’re on the darker or the lower levels, unless it’s for a specific spiritual purpose, I would not discern you.  A Hitler, to take one extreme, would put himself in such a state of darkness that he would literally not be able to communicate.” 

 Will a suicide progress?

“They can progress.  This is why it’s so important that people, no matter what your religious belief or persuasion, even if you’re an atheist, remember to pray for those who have passed on.  Because  that embraces them in love and encourages them to progress.  The problem that the suicide faces in the next dimension is that, when you arrive in the next level, it’s not the pretty sight that the average passing can be.  Their problem is that they cannot forgive themselves.  When someone comes through in a reading and is starting to make me feel as if they’ve taken their own life …You feel like you’re in the presence of a ghost.  There’s a chilling feeling.  And it’s very important that those coming through acknowledge what they’ve done.  It’s like getting up and saying,  ‘I’m an alcoholic.’  Coming forward and saying, ‘I have taken my own life.’  A friend of mine who had recently taken his life came through and did not know how to go into the light.  I kept telling him to go forward to the light, but he was afraid of judgment.  He couldn’t forgive himself.  Also, he was having a problem with the fact that after he had taken his own life, his spirit obviously lingered around the scene of the act.  He could not overcome the memory of his father’s discovering him, and that was haunting him emotionally to a tremendous degree in the next dimension.  What he and many of us don’t understand is that there is judgment there, but it is not done by God on a throne.  Judgment rests basically with yourself.  And we all know that the greatest enemy we can face is ourselves.”

“It can take eons of time as we understand it before they go into the  light.  It depends on the person.  You’re in control.  You hold the reins.  Those who’ve come through those darker levels have said that they’ve had to face themselves and realize that if they don’t shape up, in other words, learn more about themselves, they’re not getting anywhere.” 

 What changes after death?

“One of the things that the higher entities in the next dimension say is that we can very easily cheat others, but we can never cheat ourselves or God.” 

 What about reincarnation?

“Now, some spirits may choose to remain on the other side indefinitely, while others return.  We all seem to stay together with the same people that we felt close with – birds of a feather flock together.  We may have different parents, our brother or sister could be our parent next time.  But we do seem to stay with the same other souls that we feel a certain affinity with, or a good vibration with.”

“As I’ve been told from the other side – although I sometimes find it hard to believe – there are no accidents in the universe.  Everything has a purpose, a mission, a meaning.  And for the parent who loses a child tragically in an accident, the child was fulfilling his or her mission; the parent was fulfilling that mission too.  The parents are in that circumstance to learn a lesson.  Maybe the lesson was patience, love, acceptance, understanding, and comfort of others.  It can be a number of things.  I want people to understand that life is everlasting.  Everything that happens in your life has a purpose.  There is no one you are close to who ever dies.” 

Edgar Cayce – Wisdom

 Answers To Great Questions Of Life

The afterlife was revealed to Edgar Cayce (pronounced “Casey”) (1877-1945), a man who had amazing near death-like revelations.  He was America’s most documented clairvoyant and spiritualist. In 1910, the New York Times carried two pages of headlines and pictures; and, he was declared the “World’s Most Mysterious Man.”  In 1954, the University of Chicago accepted a Ph.D. thesis based on a study of his life and work.  He is also considered to be the father of holistic medicine.  The following are his revealed answers to the major questions of life.

 Our Origins – Where Did We Come From? 

In the beginning, God desired to express Himself, and He desired  companionship.  Therefore, God created the universe and souls.  Every  soul that exists in life was created then and none has been made since.

After the creation of the universe, certain souls became more concerned  with, and aware of, their own wills and creations rather than God’s.  This resulted in a rebellion where souls left the presence of God.  This was the fall in spirit, the revolt of the angels.

All souls were created with a free will and God did nothing to curb it; however a soul acted, the soul had to act within Him; by whatever route, the soul had to eventually return to Him.  When a soul returns to God it becomes aware of itself not only as a part of God, but as a part of every other soul, and everything.

The fallen souls mingled with the universe and became a part of it.  Our solar system attracted souls and the earth came into their path.  Of the souls God created, only a comparative few have come into the experience of our solar system, though many have gone through or are going through a similar entanglement in other solar systems in the universe.

A way of escape was prepared for the souls entangled in our solar system.  On earth, an animal was chosen to be a vehicle for the evolution of the soul.  A species of ape had evolved into a form that most nearly approached the necessary pattern.  Souls descended on these apes and influenced them to move toward a different goal from the simple one they had been pursuing.  They came down out of the trees, built fires, made tools, lived in communities, and began to communicate with each other.  Swiftly, even as man measures time, they lost their animal look, shed bodily hair, and took on refinements of manner and habit.

Then the souls inhabited the bodies of the apes and earth had a new inhabitant: man, having three-fold life (physical, mental, and spiritual).  He appeared as a consciousness within an animal, a consciousness which was felt on the earth in five different places at the same time, as the five races (red, yellow, black, white, and brown).

 Evolution – Who Are We?

God’s plan for the fallen soul was a series of earth lives, reincarnations through the process of evolution, interlaced with periods of dwelling in other dimensions of consciousness as spirit forms within our solar system.  Each of the solar systems in the universe provides an opportunity for development, advancement, and growth toward the ideal of complete companionship with God – the position of co-creator in the vast system of universal mind.

The planets of our solar system represent the dimensions of consciousness of the system of universal mind – its consciousness as a whole.  There are nine dimensions to the consciousness of the solar system.  The earth, the third planet from the sun, is the third dimension.  Our sun is as an atom in the universe of stars.  The planets are as electrons with their own dimension of energy around the nucleus of the sun.

This process of evolution and reincarnation continues until every thought and every action of the physical body is in accord with the plan originally laid out for the soul.  This conquest of the physical body could not be attained until there was perfection in the other dimensions of consciousness of the solar system, for these made up, with the earth, the total expression of our sun and its planets, the total expression of the mind of God.  Whichever state of consciousness the soul assumed became the focal point of activity.  The other planes of consciousness receded to the position of urges and influences.  When the body could be controlled so that the soul was free from the influences of the flesh – it’s cycle of earth lives ended and the soul could go on to higher levels in the universe.  However, life after life, souls descended, gravitized, more and more into earthiness, becoming less aware of their own soul, their subconscious minds.  Finally man was left with a conscious mind separated from his subconscious mind.  The subconscious mind influenced the conscious mind like a body in a suit of clothes.  Only in sleep and death is it disrobed.

As this separation of the subconscious mind from the conscious mind continued, man remembered his true self only in dreams, in stories handed down from one generation to another.  The arts and sciences were born, brought to earth by the incoming souls, and gradually their heavenly source was forgotten.  Downwardly, man went from heavenly knowledge to revealed religions, philosophy and theology, until man only believed what he could see and feel and prove with his conscious mind.  Intellect, roughly speaking, is from the stars:  it is the mind of the soul, conditioned by its previous experience in creation outside the solar system, and dimmed or brightened by its recent experiences on earth. 

 The Universe – How Did It Get Here?

The universe was built with the tools which man calls music, arithmetic, and geometry: harmony, system, and balance.  The building blocks were all of the same material, which man calls the life essence.  It was a power sent out from God, a primary ray, as man thinks of it, which by changing the length of its wave and the rate of its vibration became a pattern of differing forms, substance, and movement.  This created the law of diversity which supplied endless designs for the pattern.  God played on this law of diversity as a person plays on a piano, producing melodies and arranging them in a symphony.

Each design carried within it, inherently, the plan of its evolution, which was to be accomplished by movement, growth, or, as man calls it, change.  The sounds of several notes unite to make a chord; chords in turn become phrases; phrases become melodies; melodies intermingle and move back and forth, across and between and around each other, to make a symphony.

Everything moved, changed, and assumed its design in various states of form and substance.  Activity was begun and maintained by the law of attraction and repulsion: positive and negative, attracting each other and repelling themselves, maintained the form and action of all things.

All this was a part of God, an expression of His thought.  Mind was the force which propelled and perpetuated it: mind did everything God imagined; everything that came into being was an aspect, a posture, of mind.

Thus a new individual, issuing from and dependent upon God, but aware of an existence apart from Him, came into being.  To the new individual there was given the power to choose and direct its own activity; without this freedom it would remain a part of the individuality of God.  Mind, issuing as a force from God, would naturally fulfill His thoughts, unless directed otherwise.  The power to do this – to direct otherwise the force of mind – is what man calls his free will.  The record of this free will is the soul.  The soul was the greatest thing God made.  The fact that man’s body is a speck of dust on a small planet leads to the illusion that man himself is a small creation.  The measure of the soul is the limitless activity of mind and the grandeur of imagination.  Our souls are as sparks from the One soul of God.  The first thought which it generated of itself, the first diversion of mind force from its normal path, was the beginning of the soul.  Thus the soul consisted of two states of consciousness: that of the spirit, bearing a knowledge of its identity with God (the subconscious mind), and that of the new individual (the conscious mind), bearing a knowledge of everything it experienced.

God is aware of everything that happens in the universe and is aware of the consciousness of each individual.  When the desire of will was no longer different from the thought of God, the soul would return to God.  Thus the return of the soul is the return of the image to that which imagined it, and the subconsciousness of an individual, its soul record, could not be destroyed without destroying part of God Himself.  What is destroyed is the ego – the desire to do other than the will of God.  When the soul returns to God the ego is voluntarily relinquished; this is the symbology of the crucifixion of Christ. 

 Religion – Is It True?

Every soul was created, in Biblical terms, as an angel from heaven.  Every soul that goes through life was created at the time the universe was created.  Sometime afterward, a rebellion began where souls left the Light and presence of God.  This is what the Bible refers to as the fall of one third of the angels from heaven.  This collective force of rebellion is what the Bible refers to as Satan.

Over time, the fallen souls mingled with the universe and became a part of it.  As they became more entangled with matter, it became increasingly difficult to live as pure spiritual beings.  As mentioned earlier, the souls trapped on earth inhabited the bodies of a species of apes who later evolved into homo sapiens.  The souls were now trapped in these bodies and could only be permanently free from them at the time of death.

The race of man was fostered by a soul which had completed its experience of creation and returned to God, becoming a companion to Him and a cocreator.  This is the soul known as the Christ, the three dimensional manifestation of God.  The Christ is Leader of the unfallen Sons of God.

The Christ soul wanted to rescue the souls who fell and were trapped on earth.  After supervising the first influx of souls to earth, the Christ soul took form himself as a man from time to time, to act as a leader for the people.  The Christ soul appeared as the man the Bible refers to as Adam.  Adam was not the first man created to live on earth.  He was the first man to receive the Christ Spirit, and thus becoming the first Son of God and man.

When Adam received the knowledge of good and evil (which was necessary for spiritually evolved souls to become Christ-like), the peaceful animal life of man ended.  Through the Christ soul, new souls could enter the earth dimension for spiritual and physical evolution.

The Christ soul saved mankind.  The Christ soul, besides becoming Adam, also took on flesh to become Enoch and Melchizedek, to teach and lead.  Enoch and Melchizedek were not born and did not die.  The Christ soul realized after these assumptions of flesh that it was necessary to set a pattern for man, to show mankind the way back to God, and to pay the karmic debt for mankind’s sins.  He assumed this task, and was born to a virgin as Jesus, the three dimensional manifestation of God on earth – the Trinity.  Our goal is to become as Christ’s three dimensional likeness: body, mind, and soul: the body (as of the Father), mind (as of the Son), and soul (as of the Spirit of God).  He, Jesus, triumphant over death and the flesh, laid down the ego of the will, accepted the crucifixion, and returned to heaven showing mankind the way back to God.  Jesus paid the karmic debt for receiving the knowledge of good and evil as Adam, because this knowledge, while ultimately bringing redemption and righteousness, also indirectly brought sin.  This triumph over death and the body made spiritual perfection through evolution possible for other souls trapped in flesh.  Jesus is the pattern we are to follow.  Through Jesus (the Spirit of God, love) we can be set free from the earth and it’s desires and return to God. 

 Reincarnation – Does it really happen?

Reincarnation is the story of physical and spiritual evolution.  The plan for the soul was a cycle of experiences in the solar system in which the new individual would come to know creation in all its aspects, at the discretion of will.  The cycle would be completed when the desire of will was no longer different from the thought of God.  The consciousness of the new individual would then merge with its spiritual consciousness of identity with God, and the soul would return to its source as the companion it was intended to be.

The earth is an expression of divine mind with its own laws, its own plan, its own evolution.  The law of karma, the law revealed to the ancient Hebrews, is the law of cause and effect, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.  Unpaid debts (sins) incurred in the flesh must be met in the flesh, and reincarnation is the result.  This same law not only applies to individuals, but also to groups of people as they act together.  There is karma for families, for tribes, for races, for nations.  When the souls who committed a war in a previous lifetime reincarnate to a nation for a new lifetime, a war will be committed upon that nation.  Only when victory is dispensed by a nation with justice and mercy, will the karma of war be lifted from them.

Every person’s life is shaped to some extent by karma: his own, that of his associates and loved ones, that of his nation and race, and that of the world itself.  It is what the person does about these influences and urges, how he reacts to them, that makes a difference in his soul development.  Because of karma some things are more probable than others, but so long as one is free in God anything is possible.

Thus free will and predestination coexist in a person.  His past experiences limit him in probability, and incline him in certain directions, but free will from God can always draw the sword from the stone.

This law of karma, of reincarnation, was superceded by a new and greater law brought by Christ.  This is the law of grace which frees souls from the consequences of karma and thus, reincarnation. 

 Jesus Christ – Who Is This Man?

In the beginning God “moved,” God who from the beginning could be called multiple, for “in the beginning was the Word, the Word was God, the Word was with God.”  As God moved, souls – portions of Himself – came into being according to the Cayce readings.  Therefore, there was a “time” when souls, as separate consciousness from God, was not separate.  This includes all souls, both living and dead, and all were created in the beginning.  All souls preexisted, having their origin in God the Father, but all existed in a spiritual realm prior to coming into the world to live many earth lives.  The origins of sin, according to Cayce, lay in souls seeking expression of themselves outside of the plan or the way in which God had expressed.

Jesus the Christ, according to the Cayce readings, is the central instrument of God to make it possible for all souls to fulfill the original purpose of their creation.  Cayce affirms the Godhead to be three-dimensional, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, when viewed from the level of earth consciousness, which itself is a “three-dimensional plane in one.”  The Godhead in Its multiplicity can be perceived as more complex than three-dimensional when viewed from the perspective of higher levels of consciousness.  Nevertheless, the Christ, whether one speaks of the Godhead as three-dimensional or multidimensional, is seen as an essential part of the Godhead.  Indeed, Cayce says the Body of Christ is the Father, the Mind of Christ is the Son, and the Spirit of Christ is the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, who became the Christ, the Messiah, is also a man – specifically, a soul created with other souls in the beginning and, like them, a part of God’s Universal Consciousness.  This is not to say that Christ is a created being.  In the Cayce readings the Christ is integrally one with the Father.  The union of the Christ and the man Jesus constituted, according to the readings, a unique divine-human unity, although this relationship is properly the ultimate goal of all entities and is spiritually possible for all.  Cayce affirms that there seemed to be two wills – divine and human – in Jesus Christ.  Cayce flat out states that Jesus was also the first Adam of Genesis.

It is well known that the apostle Paul wrote of Adam as “a type of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14) and drew between Adam and Christ a parallel that was also a contrast: “The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor 15:45).  Christ is thus seen as the last Adam, the “one man” who by his obedience undoes the results of the disobedience of the first (Rom 5:12-21).  Jesus Christ recapitulated the stages of Adam’s fall, but in reverse order and quality. It is understandable how shocking this statement of Cayce’s is to most fundamental Christians, that Jesus whom they have always believed to be sinless had been not only guilty of sin, but the very person who has been traditionally regarded as the author of sin on the human level.  However, Cayce in no way states that Jesus as the Christ was guilty of any sin of any kind.  At that stage of His personal and cosmic development His obedience was flawless, His relationship with the Father perfect.  In Cayce’s words: “the perfect relationship to the Creative Forces or God, the Father – which the man Jesus attained when He gave of Himself to the world, that through Him, by and in Him, each entity might come to know the true relationship with the Father.”

The Cayce readings, however, go on to speak of the singular appropriateness of Adam finally emerging as Jesus, the man, to become the Savior of the world, the Christ.  It must also be noted that sin did not begin with Adam, according to Cayce, but it had its origins in spiritual realms before even the creation of the earth.  We can therefore assume that this was Adam’s redemptive intent all along, that is, to be savior of the world.

The perception that Jesus had previous human incarnations did not originate with Edgar Cayce.  For example, the early Jewish Christian group known as the Ebionites taught that the Spirit had come as Adam and later reincarnated as Jesus. Other Jewish Christian groups such as the Elkasaites and Nazarites also believed this.  The Clementine Homilies, an early Christian document, also taught many incarnations of Jesus. According to Cayce, the incarnations were as follows: Adam, Enoch, Melchizedek, Joseph, Joshua, Jeshua (the scribe chiefly responsible for forming the Hebrew Bible according to Cayce) and finally Jesus.

How will Jesus come again?  The Cayce readings affirm the second coming of Jesus: “He shall come as you have seen Him go, in the body He occupied in Galilee.”  So Cayce expects a literal return in body from the sky in the same manner He departed.  Cayce often stated in his readings that “the day of the Lord is indeed at hand”. When asked how soon the second coming will be Cayce responded: “When those that are His have made the way clear, passable, for Him to come.” 

  The Future – What lies beyond?

All of us, like the prodigal son, are spiritual beings who have come from the Father, have gone astray of our own choice and are on a journey of return.  Each of us is a pilgrim on the spiritual path.  As spiritual beings, we not only existed before our entry into the earth plane, but we were, in previous times, able to move through many dimensions and planes.  Although our present assignment seems to be on the earth in a three-dimensional existence, the cycle of the undeveloped soul’s experience relates more to the entire solar system, not just in the earth plane.  The planets, the sun and moon, and the dimensions of existence they reside in, have an important influence on man’s spiritual development as taught by the ancient religious science of astrology, such as practised by the Magi, the Wise Men of the Bible.  They discovered the time of the birth of Christ by studying the position of the stars.  These other dimensions may often be experienced by souls between earth lives, in dreams, through meditation or hypnosis.

As for the future of mankind, shortly after the year 2000 A.D., Christ will manifest himself to the world once again to usher in a new era, a one thousand year period of world peace and righteousness, the age of Aquarius (the water-bearer).  The end of the Age of Pisces (the fish, the symbol for the Christian church) is upon us.  But before peace and righteousness comes, the earth will undergo catastrophic disasters upon civilization.  These disasters will force mankind to once again rely on nature, God, and other people to create harmony and stop all war, evilness, and end the continuing desecration of this planet.  As in the days of the dinosaurs, the days of Atlantis, and the days of Noah, civilization also experiences a process of evolutionary renewal from time to time that leads to perfection.  The earth has a mind of its own and it cleanses itself of impurities as a single organism does.

Each soul came to earth not by chance, but through the grace, the mercy, of a loving Father; that the soul may, through its own choice, work out those faults which prevent its communion and at-onement with God. 

 The Planets – What Are These Dimensions?

Our present existence on Earth is three dimensional.  There is time, space, and motion.  We think of space in terms of height, length, and width; time as past, present, and future.  We speak of ourselves as having physical, mental, and spiritual life.  We understand the dimensions of man’s awareness to be conscious, subconscious, and superconscious; the world about us as mineral, plant, and animal.  The Bible refers to Divinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

According to Cayce’s revelations, our experience relates more to the entire solar system and not just the three dimensions of Earth.  The solar system has nine dimensions or planes of consciousness, of which Earth represents three.  Other dimensions of consciousness are associated with other planets.  There is not only incarnation and reincarnation in the Earth plane, but experiences in other planes between incarnations as well.  These experiences are related to the dimension symbolized by the planet.  Cayce did not give a complete description of them; however, the following incomplete chart was derived from his revelations.  Each planet in our solar system has a different major influence by which certain lessons are to be learned and for which we are tested.  They are:

Dimension 2 — MERCURY – of the Mind

Dimension 4 — VENUS —— of Love

Dimension 3 — EARTH —— of the Flesh

Dimension ? — MARS ——– of Wrath (Madness)

Dimension 7 — JUPITER —- of Strength

Dimension 1 — SATURN —– of Woe

Dimension 8 — URANUS —– of the Psyche

Dimension ? — NEPTUNE — of the Mystic

Dimension ? — PLUTO ——- of the Consciousness

Our sun is like an atom in the universe of stars.  Just as each atom has many higher and lower energy levels, so our solar system has them as well.  For an electron to escape from an energy level of an atom, it must make a quantum leap to a higher energy level.  Once the electron has broken free from the atomic forces, it can journey on to other locations.  The same is true for a soul.  For a soul to escape from the lower planes of consciousness, the soul must rise to higher planes of consciousness.  The higher the soul travels, the freer it is from the heavier carnal forces and the soul can journey on to higher places in the universe.

 Your Body – How Is Your Next Destination Determined?

The Kingdom of heaven is within you, said Jesus.  Your body is a temple for the Spirit of God.  On this earth plane, a person is influenced by their flesh and, in many ways, the influence of the flesh determines a person’s level of spiritual development.   According to Cayce and the Eastern religions, within your body are seven spiritual centers. Through these spiritual centers, our spiritual force finds a means of expression.

Our bodies are like a miniature solar system with our hearts performing the function of the sun, the center of the system.  The seven spiritual centers are the seven endocrine glands which are the Pituitary gland (the “third eye”), the Pineal gland, the Thyroid, the Thymus, the Adrenal glands, the Lyden gland, and finally the sexual gland (the testes or ovaries). These glands are known by science to be the emotional and motivational centers of the body.  They act especially in responses to the imaginative forces of the mind.  For example, when you get angry, the Adrenals secrete.  The activity of the sexual glands is directly related to sexual motivation. Science knows that the Pituitary is the master gland of the body.  It’s secretions have a direct and coordinating effect on all the other glands. According to Cayce and the Eastern religions, each spiritual center is connected to a different plane of spiritual consciousness.  The lowest spiritual center, the sexual glands, is influenced by the lowest plane of consciousness.  The Pituitary gland is influenced by the highest plane of consciousness.  The plane of consciousness one travels to upon death is generally determined by the spiritual center that has the greater influence in a person’s life.  The following is a chart showing how these spiritual centers and the planes of consciousness go together. It begins with the highest level of consciousness and ends with the lowest level.

JUPITER —- the plane of Strength — Pituitary gland

MERCURY – the plane of Mind ——- Pineal gland

URANUS —- the plane of Psyche —– Thyroid gland

VENUS ——- the plane of Love ——- Thymus gland

MARS ——– the plane of Anger —— Adrenal glands

NEPTUNE — the plane of Mysticism – Lyden gland

SATURN —– the plane of Woes ——- Sex glands

The energy of the sexual glands, used wholly on the sexual level and without control, may bring sexual perversions and unbridled sensuality. If this spiritual center is the most influential in a person’s life, at  death the spirit may travel to the corresponding spiritual plane of Saturn, the plane of Woes, according to Cayce. The Lyden gland, located above the sexual gland, is the starting point of the soul’s activity.  It is the door through which the soul may go on to higher planes of consciousness. The corresponding spiritual plane for this spiritual center is the plane of Neptune, the plane  of Mysticism.

The Adrenal glands are located above the kidneys.  We are actively aware of this center in times of stress, when it pours adrenalin into the blood stream to aid us in fighting or fleeing.  The Adrenals are also the storehouse of our emotional karma according to Cayce.  From this center comes the negative energy of anger and hatred.  If this spiritual center is the most influential spiritual center before death, the spirit may travel to the corresponding plane of Mars, the plane of Anger.

The Thymus gland is found behind the heart in the solar plexus area of the chest.  Since the Thymus is related to the heart it is associated with love.  Love opens all doors.  At this center, love is awakened, bringing with it consideration, unselfishness, sincerity and honesty.  It’s corresponding plane is Venus, the plane of Love.

The Thyroid, located in the throat, is related to will-power.  From the misuse of the will for selfish and domineering ends, may come the condition known as hyper-thyroidism.  When little effort is made to the will at all, the opposite may occur, an imbalance known as hypo-thyroidism.  It is worthy of note that in some cases where there has been a growth on the Thyroid, a degree of clairvoyance or telepathy has developed.  The energy released upon the Thyroid opens the door into the psychic realms of consciousness, the plane of Uranus, the plane of  the Psyche.

The Pineal gland is situated a little above the Pituitary and is the “Mind of Christ” center.  When this center has been truly awakened, one may experience spiritual holy communion.  It is at this center that the mind of the soul meets the Holy Spirit.  This center, when stimulated daily through meditation, can bring seership or prophecy. It’s corresponding plane of consciousnes is the plane of Mercury, the plane of Mind.

The Pituitary is the master gland of the body.  It is situated between and behind the eyes in the brain, acting as the “third eye” of ancient mysticism. It is through the Pituitary, the highest spiritual center, that ultimate awakening comes.  It is through the energy of the Pituitary that one may enter the very presence of God through meditation and prayer. It’s corresponding spiritual plane is Jupiter, the plane of Strength.

The Kingdom of heaven is truly within us and our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit.  We seek God and His Kingdom by looking within ourselves. Through meditation and prayer, one can unlock the doors to the many dimensions, the many mansions, of God’s Kingdom.  But the door must first be unlocked here on this earth plane, the plane of the flesh.

In interpreting the Book of Revelation in the Bible, Cayce made some astonishing statements.  In the beginning chapters in Revelation, John sees a vision of a book with seven seals.  This book symbolizes John’s body with the seven spiritual centers.  In the vision, John weeps as he realizes that no one in heaven or earth is worthy to open the seals of the book.  However, there appears a Lamb, the Christ, with seven eyes, who opens the seven seals one by one.  This sequence of events in the vision is extremely important and instructive for us in the initial stages of our awakening.  The awareness that no one is worthy enough to open these seals except Christ, should indicate to us that no attempt to open these centers, whether by drugs, hypnosis, breathing exercises, or other specialized meditation or inner awareness techniques, should be made unless the seeker has firmly set his spiritual ideals and is so directed by the spirit within.  The seven eyes of the Lamb symbolize the seven spiritual centers.  They are the organs of perception through which we may become aware of other planes and dimensions in the same way that our commonly known five senses are organs of perception of our earth experience.

Although we have learned to think of God as One or Triune, the Revelation speaks repeatedly of the seven spirits of God.  This expression suggests seven different functions of the Divine Spirit.  Thus we, as children of God made in His image, contain within us the corresponding spiritual sensory centers, which give us the potential of becoming aware of the seven aspects of the Divine.

The body is the temple of the living God both as the place where we may meet Him and as an instrument of awareness through which we may attune to Him.  As an instrument for attunement, the endocrine glands serve as points of contact between the Spirit and the body.  These centers are the transformers of the One Force of Spirit into physical consciousness and manifestation.  The functioning of these centers is, in turn, dependent primarily upon the quality of motivation or ideal chosen and dwelt upon by the imaginative forces of the mind. 

 Meditation – Is It Connecting With The Afterlife?

Prayer is speaking to God and meditation is listening to God.  Mastering the technique of meditation is not easy.  There are three keys necessary to succeed in meditation.  The three keys to this door of communication with God are sincerity, enthusiasm and perseverance.

As for sincerity, ask yourself these questions: Do I really know who and what God is?  Do I know Him personally as a loving Father, or do I just know about Him?  More important, does He know me?  Are we on speaking terms, or do we just nod occasionally?  If we find ourselves answering in the negative to these questions, we may begin to realize how greatly we need Him.  His promise has ever been that if we believe, live by His laws, He will aid us swiftly when we call, no matter where we happen to be.

Enthusiasm is important because it is an inner fire, an inner light seeking its own source.  In Webster’s dictionary, in  origins of the Greek word “enthusiasm” meant to be “inspired, or possessed by a god.”  In meditation, this inner fire stimulates every cell of the body and every reflex of the brain to listen.  How do we evoke enthusiasm for our search for God?  By first examining those people who, from the beginning of time, have found Him. The Bible tells of man’s experiences with God.  Studying it in conjunction with efforts at meditation and prayer awakens the necessary enthusiasm to begin.

Perseverance is perhaps the most difficult key.  We need to keep on, day after day, in the effort to re-establish our communion.  When we first attempt to harness the thoughts, to control the body, to sit still, we realize just how much the body controls us, mind and spirit.

The purification and control of the spiritual body takes place within the endocrine glands, under the direction of the mind.  The Cayce readings and modern science concur that constructive thoughts and emotions release healing hormones into the body and mind.  But the Cayce readings go further. They suggest that the endocrine glands are the spiritual centers of the body and that through them our spiritual forces find means of expression. Meditation is a key to opening these spiritual centers.

These centers are the gonads, the lyden cells, the adrenals, the thymus, the thyroid, the pineal and the pituitary glands.  The proper application of the energies illuminates them, transforming the individual into a light in the world.

Ideals enter the mind when led by the spirit.  The Cayce readings remind us over and over again that mind is the builder, led by the spirit we are entertaining, the spirit of God or the spirit of the devil – self. What one thinks and eats, one  becomes.

Spiritual cleansing begins when the mind is in accord with His spirit. It is across the bridge of the mind that we pass, as we come to know God. Once a soul sets for itself an ideal which is spiritual in essence, every cell in the body is made aware of this and changes begin to take place. Our seven spiritual centers become the points of contact with the Divine within; thus we experience a stepping-up of activity in all these centers. We have redirected the use of this energy to its highest function.  A refining process has taken place in the body, a lifting of the rate of vibration; these centers now disseminate their energies and hormones to the entire body.

As the individual sits in meditation, his mind focused on an affirmation (an idea), spiritual energy begins to move upward from the gonads.  Usually, at this point, a pulsation may be felt at the end of the spine. If the spiritual force has been able to rise unhindered and undefiled to the pineal and pituitary, one may experience an incandescence as if the whole body had been filled with light and become transparent.

It is at the pineal center that we gradually become oriented to the Christ-presence, where we may even receive the mind of Christ, depending on the degree of the attunement.

This force then flows into the pituitary, from whence, being now in purified form, it flows downward, cleansing and strengthening body and mind.

And Jesus also said, “He that believes on me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) The movement of these spiritual forces in meditation are the “rivers of living water.”

The more we become able to still the conscious mind, the more trouble we can expect from the subconscious mind, for it is the conscious mind of the soul.  It, too, must be purified.  We have stimulated this area of the mind as a result of the ideal we have upheld; attitudes and thoughts previously concealed in the subconscious rise to the surface for examination.  Symbols and old familiar scenes begin to flash before us like pictures on a screen.  However, this is still only the beginning of meditation.  We should not dwell too long on these pictures but press on to the silence.  In other words, we must return attention to the affirmation.

We may at this point be fascinated by the many faces appearing, or numerous pairs of eyes staring.  We may even hear our names called; we may feel as if we were in the midst of a crowd, listening to chatter and laughter.  We must not stop there, for we are not yet in real meditation. Of course, it is fascinating at first, for it is an entirely new experience.  The sounds, the voices, the pictures, the eyes and faces may all belong to souls already in the beyond who, having seen the light pouring through the open door (the spiritual center), have been attracted. It is much akin to the sensation of looking through a strange keyhole, only to see another eye looking back.  Intriguing, perhaps, but neither stands to gain much from such a restricted encounter.

We must leave this entertainment behind and “press on to the mark of the high calling,” His mark, the superconscious, the Christ Consciousness, the “hill of the Lord.”

Spiritual height is reached by attunement to the Creative Forces in meditation.  The release of energy should never be forced by such methods as exercise, or holding the breath, or by focusing one’s mind on a special center, or by willing the center to open.  When meditation is properly approached, these centers will open voluntarily.  The knowledge, power and illumination of the soul which accompany this opening will then be concentrated on the good of others and not to one’s own misdoing.

The opening of the centers should come only as a result of spiritual growth, not through any abnormal means.  Unless the power released is used to express His spirit with and for others, it will but inflame our lower natures.

The glands of reproduction are the reservoirs of the life force.  They house the creative energy of the body.  As the individual sits in silence, having lifted his mind by use of the Lord’s Prayer (an excellent affirmation), creative energy is released at this level.  This energy now carries the stamp of the Divine, because both the purpose and the thought which released it were holy.

The lyden gland, control-center of the soul’s activity, opens its doors to this energy, enabling the mind of the soul – the subconscious – to rise to the pineal, seat of the Christ Consciousness.  This energy is then transmitted to the other centers of the body by means of the pituitary. As it passes through the centers, it illuminates them.

Meditation brings an increase in vigor and improved health.  An expansion of consciousness is achieved, and with this expansion comes the realization that we are in eternity now.  The realization dawns that indeed there is no death.  The only real death is the separation in consciousness of the soul from God.  When this has been overcome there is no death, for consciousness is continuous in whatever plane one manifests. “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” (John 14:2)  These “mansions” of God are levels of consciousness.  Where is consciousness?  Within the bodies we now occupy, wherever we are.   “For you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and  they shall be my people.” (2 Cor 6:16)

Through meditation, we may become aware of these other planes of consciousness as in dreams.  Therefore, whether we are on this earth, or in another dimension, the “house of the Lord” is the shell which we occupy.  For while God wills that no soul shall perish, He will not force man to seek Him.

As E. Stanley Jones wrote, the purpose of religion is not so much to get us into heaven, or to keep us out of hell, but to put a little bit of heaven into us, and take the hell out of us.  This has always been the greatest responsibility of the church.  Surely, meditation is one of the direct approaches to this end. 

 Prayer – Is It Talking to God?

Meditation does not lessen the need for prayer, because it does not take the place of prayer.  Prayer is a mental activity on our part addressed to God.  Meditation is a listening state so that we may hear God speak to us.

Prayer comes before meditation, before the affirmation; and we may pray, if need be, all day long as we go about our daily work.  Jesus found it necessary at times to pray for long periods.  Certainly prayer should be a constant activity of the religious heart.

The Edgar Cayce readings remind us that “he that would know the way must be oft in prayer.”

There are many types of prayer.  Unfortunately the most common one is the “gimme” prayer, wherein we beg God for favors.  Is this wrong?  Not for some people.  For prayer, the art of prayer, is an ever-growing experience.  When there is an acceptance of God’s presence, one knows that He will supply all that is truly needed to fulfill one’s purpose in life.

The art of visualization, so common today as a form of prayer, is another type of the “gimme” prayer.  We want to make sure that He knows exactly what we want, so we send Him “pictures” of it.  If we are going to tell God that we know what is best for ourselves what is the point in praying in the first place?

Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  The enlightened soul relegates the “gimme” prayer to the nursery toy box, and turns to the prayer of thanksgiving, of adoration, of petition for the woes of others, always adding, “Thy will be done.”

The Cayce readings tell us that the daily prayer of Jesus was, “Others, Lord, others.”  From this it is self-evident that the prayers of supplication of the awakened soul deal primarily with the needs of others. The more we pray for others, the more we gain in the power to pray, and the more are we ourselves blessed.  For how can we sincerely pray for another, and not be praying for ourselves, too?

Asking God for forgiveness shows proper repentance for wrongs committed, but unless those wrongs are righted by our own conscious effort, we shall never feel forgiven.

We may pray for guidance, but if we are not trying to do what we think is right, will He hear us?  Yes, but we may not hear Him.  As the Bible tells us, an unrepented sin seals our ears to the voice of God.

May we pray to escape further trials and tribulations?  Certainly. Jesus did; but when He knew that He had to die on the cross to fulfill His purpose, He accepted it unfalteringly.

God does not wish to see us suffer; our adversities are of our own creation.  We have erred in a sin either of commision or of omission, something we should not have done, or something we should have done.  Just as a parent punishes a child in order to correct it, so the laws of God prove immovable when we try to resist them.  The more we struggle to resist, the more hopelessly do we entangle ourselves at the mental or physical or material or emotional level, and sometimes on all four levels simultaneously.

Our attitude when we are sick or suffering should be, again, “Thy will be done.”  This calls for an inner submission while awaiting recovery, but doesn’t stop us from doing all within our power to get well.  A rededication of heart and mind and an acceptance of suffering as a needed lesson have on more than one occasion brought instantaneous healing.

“Thy Will, Thy Spirit, Thy Ways” is the cry of the awakened soul.

How does one pray?  Just as the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, so many people today ask the same question; it would be presumptuous of us, however, to tell another exactly how he should formulate the words of anything so personal and private as a prayer.

The words themselves are not important.  It is the spirit in which they are said which is all-important.

God already knows more about the contents of our hearts than we do; our real need is to be perpetually aware of Him as the source of our protection, and so we pray to keep unbroken contact with Him.  The words in themselves are not as important as some people would have us think.

As Kahilil Gibran says, “God listens not to your words save when He utters them through your lips.”

What is the best position in which to pray?  A group of ministers once met to decide that very problem.  They talked at length without reaching any conclusion.  Some insisted that it was essential to kneel.  Those with bony knees said that it was just as effective to keep seated. Others felt that they had to pace to and fro to generate the necessary fire.  When the debate threatened to become heated, they decided to leave the decision to the only parson who had been silent throughout.  He came from a rural parish, and he answered them thus: “One day when I was late for service, I ran across a neighbor’s yard and fell headlong into his well.  Half way down, my foot caught in a broken board, and I hung there upside down.  Brethren, I have never prayed so well before or since!”

I hope that proves that it is not our position but our sincerity which makes our prayers effective.

Prayer directs the consciousness to God.

Through prayer, we solicit aid from divine power.

Prayer encourages humility.

Prayer takes one outside of self to Him.

Prayer brings guidance.

Prayer releases tensions.

Prayer brings healing.

Many people go into a state of meditation without realizing it when, worn out from prayer, they wait for answering help.  Here the results of prayer are one with the rewards of meditation.

While we need always to call on the Lord, we need even more to listen to Him, and it is in the quiet of meditation that there is a stepping-up of spiritual receptivity in every phase of our being.

We learn so much more by listening.  This is what the Bible means when it says:  “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalms 46:10)

Every religion speaks of the quest of the soul for the Holy Grail, the place of the Most High, the Light, the Father.  The Chinese speak of it as “The Old Road”;  the Hindus call it “The Path of Return”; and in Christianity it is referred to as the way back to the Father.  Meditation is the gateway that leads us to Him. 

 Dreams – Are They A Gateway To The Spirit World?

During the dreaming state of sleep, we experience the different levels of consciousness and receive input from the different dimensions of the spirit world.  Through dreaming, we have special access to our spirit within.  According to the Cayce readings, there is not a question we can ask which cannot be answered from the depths of our inner consciousness when the proper attunement is made.

A dream may be of a physical, mental, or spiritual nature and may deal with all manner of psychic manifestations.  These include telepathy, clairvoyance, prophetic visions, out of body traveling, communication with beings in other dimensions including deceased friends and relatives, spirit guides, angels, Christ, and even the voice of God.  Dreams can also give invaluable information on the status of the body.

All subconscious minds are in contact with one another.  Through the subconsious, dreams may place us in attunement with those in the physical plane or those in the spiritual plane.  We may be visited in the night by discarnate entities for many reasons: they may seek to give us assurance  about their well-being in other planes of existence; they may come seeking our aid through prayer; they may come to bring us information which may be very helpful or limited; or they may come to influence us with their own desires or perspectives, which may be helpful or harmful.  For example, there are dream reports of deceased relatives appearing and giving instructions about where to find a will or a lost object.

The events we experience in the third dimension are, as it were, a “past condition” because this dimension is simply a projection or a reflection of what is being built at another higher level.  Therefore, when  we tune into these higher levels, as we may in dreams, we become aware of what is being built, and what may be projected into the physical in the future.  Nothing of importance happens to us that is not foreshadowed in our dreams.  Which is not to say that all dreams are precognitive or that the exact detail of everything we experience is given earlier in dreams. However, the word “foreshadowed” suggests that we may glimpse and be warned of what we are building now which may come into manifestation later.  We call these dreams “precognitive” or “prophetic”.

Just as the angels spoke to people in dreams in the times of the Bible, the spirit world still speaks to people to this day. Some people came to Cayce with dreams of Christ.  None was told that it was simply his imagination, but all were assured they were indeed in touch with Him.

There is no dimension of human life, whether social, financial, emotional or physical, mental or spiritual with which the dream may not on occasion deal.  Dreams may encourage or reprimand, instruct or deceive, inspire or seduce, guide or confuse.  The potential for an immense array of experiences in consciousness is always there.  What we actually receive depends upon our attitudes, motivations, the measure of our attunement, and the extent to which we have made applicable what was received in earlier dreams and in waking experiences.

Many people came to Cayce to have their dreams interpreted.  An example was the dream of a young man about his father-in-law, who had recently taken his own life.  In the dream a voice commented, “he is the most uncomfortable fellow in the world,” and then the dreamer was shown his own baby crying for food.  The image was to convey the dead man’s hunger for guidance and spiritual sustenance, said Cayce.  The next night the dreamer heard the man’s own voice, together with “a wandering impression of restlessness.”  The voice said, “I seek rest.  I want to leave and be with my family down there.”  Again Cayce said the dream contact had been authentic, showing the dreamer how much his prayers were needed for the father-in-law, who was still an “earthbound” discarnate.  He added that the reason the discarnate was turning towards people in earthly life was that “the lessons are learned from that plane, see?”  It was a point Cayce often made, that souls who had once entered the earth had to learn their final lessons in the earth, where will is called into play in a fashion different from existence on other planes.

Yet contact between the dead and the living can be joyous.  Sometimes it occurs because the dead want to show the living what death is like, to take away their fear and grief.  Exploring the possible reality of such contact, one dreamer had her side pinched by a discarnate friend, so vividly that she screamed in fright, while another had his toe pulled when he asked for it – and did not ask again.  One dream took a man inside the brain of a woman dying of cancer, a relative, and showed him precisely what a relief death was, when it finally came.  A later dream also showed him how a soul feels when awakening to consciousness after death. Discarnates are not only rewarded by recognition from the living, or even by the joy of teaching the living.  They can also, in relatively unusual cases, work directly with the living for the fulfillment of worthy causes. 

 The Book of Revelation – What are its secrets?

The final book of the Bible is called the Book of Revelation.  Written by the Apostle John toward the end of his life, he records a vision he experiences while in meditation.  This vision contains a tremendous amount of symbolism; the same kind of symbolism one would see in a dream, a vison of the spirit world.  All such Biblical visions, such as Peter’s dream of a sheet filled with unclean animals being let down to earth, are not to be taken literally.  There are always hidden meanings behind the symbols. The symbols involved in such visions and dreams represent spiritual archetypes having a much deeper meaning than a literal interpretation. Such is the case with the Book of Revelation.

Edgar Cayce unlocked the symbolism of the Book of Revelation while under hypnosis.  He gave a large amount of readings specifically for the purpose of discovering the Book’s hidden meaning.  What Cayce revealed can be contained in a book itself.  What follows is a very general discussion of the Cayce interpretation

Chapters 1-3: Letters to the Churches

John explains that he was in the Spirit when Christ appears to him standing in the midst of seven candlesticks.  Christ then tells John to write down what he sees and hears concerning seven churches

Interpretation:

While in meditation, John’s conscious mind is contacted by his superconscious mind, the Christ consciousness, which is the divine core of every person.  The seven churches represent the seven spiritual centers of the body or “seals”, where the physical, mental and spiritual forces all come together. The Christ consciousness tells John that anyone who can regain control of these spiritual centers within their bodies can access the Mind of Christ, the universal superconscious, and never need to reincarnate again (verse 3:12). Here is a table of the symbols:

Church of Ephesus ——- SEX GLANDS ———- Seal 1

Church of Smyrna ——- LYDEN GLAND ——- Seal 2

Church of Pergamos —- ADRENAL GLANDS — Seal 3

Church of Thyatira —– THYMUS GLAND —— Seal 4

Church of Sardis ——– THYROID GLAND —– Seal 5

Church of Philadelphia – PINEAL GLAND ——- Seal 6

Church of Laodicea —– PITUITARY GLAND — Seal 7

Chapter 4-11: Christ opens the Seals of the book in heaven

John now appears at the Throne of God and sees four beasts and twenty-four elders around it. On the Throne sits God who has a book with seven seals.  John weeps when he learns that no one can open the seals to the book.  One of the elders tells John that Christ is able to open the seals.  Christ then opens the seals, resulting in many earth changes.  The seventh seal unleashes seven angels who sound seven trumpets which are sounded one by one.

Interpretation:

John has a mental awakening when he attains the spiritual level of the Christ consciousness, within the throne of his own body.  The four beasts are his four lower spiritual center’s desires and the twenty-four elders are the twenty-four cranial nerves that lead to his five senses.  The superconscious, the Christ Mind, is now in full control of John’s body. The body is symbolized by a book with seven seals which no man has the ability to open on his own (verse 5:3).  Only through the development of the Mind of Christ within a person’s being by experience can these spiritual centers be opened. As each spiritual center is opened, different parts of the body are purified and upheavals of the body occur mentally, physically, and spiritually.  The Christ consciousness opens the seventh center, the pituitary, as a result of perfect control of the mind for one half hour (verse 8:1). Here are more symbols interpreted:

PARADISE OF GOD = The original consciousness of man before his fall

TREE OF LIFE = The spiritual centers of the body perfectly synchronized.

ANGEL OF THE CHURCH = The intelligent force governing a spiritual center

SATAN = unregenerated mind

BOOK OF LIFE = The collective unconscious record of all souls

EARTH = The physical body

NEW JERUSALEM = The new consciousness awakened

NAKEDNESS = Exposure of faults

SEVEN LAMPS = The seven intelligences of the spiritual centers of the body

Chapter 12-14: A Woman, A Dragon, Two Beasts, and a Lamb

John sees a woman with twelve stars about to bear a child.  Next to the woman is a dragon that is ready to devour the child she is giving birth to.  After the child is born, the child is taken to the Throne of God. Afterward, a war in heaven occurs and the devil and his angels are cast out of heaven to earth.  John also sees a beast rise out of the sea which the world worships.  John then sees a Lamb on the earth and angels proclaiming the fall of Babylon.

Interpretation:

John is shown a picture of the soul of Man in its development since the days of eternity.  The woman symbolizes the human soul crowned with the twelve basic patterns of Man (the zodiac).  The child she bears is the conscious mind.  As the conscious mind is born, a rival force of the Self Will occurs, which brings about recurring periods of rebellion in Man. Through Divine intervention, the conscious mind is protected while the unconscious mind from which it sprung, is withdrawn below the conscious level.  This is the same story as symbolized as the fall of man in the Book of Genesis.  Rebellion from the physical brings conflict into the soul but the soul can remain above it by remaining concealed from the forces of Self-Will.  The beast John sees rising out of the sea is the selfish desires that arise which are capable of ruling man.  These desires spring from the Self Will of the unspiritualized intellect of Man whom the world worships as a “symbol of success”.  The human intellect, lacking spiritual orientation, cuts itself off from all that is Divine.  The Lamb John sees are the forces of the Christ consciousness in the world going into action.  Babylon, the pattern for earthly riches and success in the gratification of the flesh, begins to be destroyed as men are shown the consequences of their prostitution of their higher faculties.

MARK OF THE BEAST = The pattern of animalistic behavior

MARK OF THE LAMB = The pattern of the evolved Divine behavior

NUMBER OF THE BEAST = 666

NUMBER OF MAN = 666 = Natural man as opposed to evolved man

Chapter 15-18: Seven Angels, Seven Vials of Seven Plagues, and a Great Whore riding a Seven-Headed Beast.

John is shown seven angels each of whom holds a vial containing a plague which they pour upon the earth one at a time.  John then sees a woman sitting on a seven-headed beast with ten horns.  The woman wears on her forehead a name written “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.”  John is told the seven heads symbolize the seven mountains on which the woman sits and the ten horns symbolize ten kings.  These make war against the Lamb and the Lamb conquers.

Interpretation:

John is seeing within the soul of Man, the collective unconscious, that the souls of individuals are purified and tested on seven levels of consciousness symbolized by the seven plagues being poured out by the seven angels.  When all seven levels have been purified, then and only then can a person control the physical, mental, and spiritual forces within his body.  Physical diseases arise from the misuse of the forces and self-gratification of the flesh wars against universal truth.  This brings about conflict in the world against groups and governments.  The end of the seven ordeals comes when man’s social institutions and concepts collapse, leaving universal truth to be realized.  The Whore of Babylon symbolizes lust and the beast it rides on are manmade ideas stemming from self-gratification.  It is explained to John that these forces have taken control of the seven spiritual centers of Man’s body, thereby becoming possessed and ruled.  However, as the highest forces of evolving man overcome the forces of self, even the ten basic urges symbolized by the ten horns, will in time fulfill the Divine pattern.  As the divine nature in Man becomes less realized, society is destroyed by its own hand through self-gratification.

SEVEN PLAGUES = Trials in which the soul may overcome its karma

VIALS of the WRATH of GOD = Karma, consequences

ARMAGEDDON = Conflict

FALSE PROPHET = Self-delusion

Chapter 19-22: Rejoicing in Heaven, the Devil Thrown into a Bottomless Pitt, a New Heaven and New Earth.

John nows sees much rejoicing in heaven and the appearance of Christ. An angel casts the devil into a bottomless pit for one thousand years. John then sees a new heaven and a new earth come into being.

Interpretation:

What was the final salvation of the bodily, mental, and spiritual forces in John in Chapter 11, now are shown to take place in collective man.  When Man recognizes the Divinity within him as the controlling force in the world, and turns away from his own selfish pattern of living for self alone, the old pattern disappears and the Christ Pattern emerges. John is told that the merging of the evolved self with the Divine superconscious which has taken place in John must also take place in all humanity (verse 19:7).  The fulfilled pattern of evolved Man, the Christ, is now shown in a position of power.  Now the archetype of Man’s continual rebellions, the self-willed intellect symbolized as the devil, is confined for a time in the collective unconsciousness.  During this period of one thousand years only the evolved souls incarnate the earth (verse 20:4). At the end of this period, the remaining souls begin to incarnate, bringing with them their unsatisfied ambitions and desires.  This, of course, brings about the former conditions of imbalance (wars and plagues).  These conditions, all man made, are now themselves eliminated and all mental forms and patterns not formed by Divine Will are purged (verse 20:14). The new heaven and new earth John sees is Man’s perfected state of consciousness and regenerated body.  Man’s mind at this point is now divine in the perfection of control and is free from outside limitation.  Man’s conscious mind merges with the Christ Mind.  Revelation 22:18-19 states that if anyone adds or takes away from this book, that person will experience the plagues in this book.  The “book” is the body, which is the vehicle for human experience in the world.  Through it the lessons of the soul are learned.  There can be no shortcuts or meanderings without dire consequences to it.

MARRIAGE of the LAMB = Union of the evolved self with the superconscious

WORD of GOD = Christ the Logos, the fulfilled pattern of man

LAKE OF FIRE = The subconscious area of repression, the “id”

FIRST RESURRECTION = The reincarnation of advanced souls

GOG and MAGOG = Worldly influences

THE DEAD IN JUDGMENT = Reincarnating souls

HELL = Remorse, guilt and frustration

SECOND DEATH = The destruction of all manmade evil conditions

TWELVE TRIBES OF ISREAL = The twelves basic patterns of man, the zodiac

TWELVE GATES; 12 ANGELS; 12 FOUNDATIONS = see Twelve Tribes of Israel

TEMPLE OF GOD = The superconscious mind

NEW JERUSALEM = The state of the evolved soul 

 The Mysteries – What are these religions about?

This system of metaphysical thought which emerges from the readings of Edgar Cayce is a Christianized version of the mystery religions of ancient Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, India, and Greece.  It fits the figure of Christ into the tradition of one God for all people, and places Him in His proper place, at the apex of the philosophical structure;  He is the capstone of the pyramid – the Stone the builders rejected.

The mysteries were concerned with man’s problem of freeing his soul from the world.  In the mystery symbologies the earth was always represented as the underworld, and the soul was lost in this underworld until freed from it by wisdom, faith, and understanding.  In the Greek mysteries, Persephone, was abducted by Pluto, Lord of Hades.  Persephone is the soul of man, whose true home is in the heavens.

Jesus said He came to fulfill the law, and part of that law was the Cabala, the secret doctrine of the Jews – their version of the mysteries.

It is interesting to speculate on the fact that Edgar Cayce was raised in strict nineteenth century Bible tradition, and suffered the greatest mental and emotional shock of his life when he discovered that in his spiritual readings he declared the truth of the mysteries and acclaimed Jesus as their crowning glory.  Edgar Cayce had only a seventh grade education and consciously knew nothing of what he said under hypnosis. He was only versed in the Bible and had no high school or college background of any kind.  Up until his revelations, Cayce had never heard of the mystery religions.  Yet his readings check with everything about them that is known to be authentic.

The mystery religions were, then, a preparation for the coming of Jesus.  He was the fruit of their efforts, and His message was a fuller revelation to the people at large of the mysteries themselves.  In the scramble which Christianity made to establish itself as the dominant religion of the decaying Roman Empire, the mysteries were denied their proper place, since to grant that they had truth in them would justify their further existence.

The complex symbology employed by the mystery religions has survived fragmentarily in Christianity, notable in church architecture and in the sacrifice of the Mass.  The early Christians used every means possible to conceal the pagan origin of their symbols, doctrines, and rituals.  They either destroyed the sacred books of other peoples among whom they settled, or made them inaccessible to students of comparative philosophy, apparently believing that in this way they could stamp out all record of the pre-Christian origin of their doctrines.  The doctrine of reincarnation and the Gnostic mysteries of Christ were thrown out by the Church in 553 A.D. 

 Astrology – What Is the Christian Perspective?

According to the Cayce readings, our solar system is a cycle of experiences for the soul.  It has nine dimensions, corresponding to the planets;  they represent focal points for the dimensions, or environments in which the dimensions can express and materialize themselves – although materialization of each dimension is different.  This is the third dimension, and it is a sort of laboratory for the whole system, because only here is free will completely dominant.  This is also the only planet where three dimensional physical life exists.  On the other planes, souls exist in spirit form corresponding to that dimension.  On the other planes, or dimensions, some measure of control is kept over the soul to see that it  learns the proper lessons

The control is usually by the soul itself, if it has evolved sufficiently, because once the body of this dimension has been left and the consciousness of this life has been absorbed into the subconscious, the separation between the two is lifted.

The subconscious is the record of all the lives of the soul, in this system and in other systems, out among the stars.  It is the story of what we do with our spirit – the portion of God that is given to us for life, with the gift of individuality, or separate existence from God.  Our problem is to perfect our individuality, and then we return to God.  Our spirit and soul, or individuality, are joined to Him.

Our astrological influences from the planets, or dimensions, we have inhabited will be good or bad, weak or strong, according to the experiences we have had there, and how we handled our problems.

For example, we react to the earth according to the manner in which we have handled the problems of earth in our other lives – brotherly love, material possessions, sex, food and drink.  Sometimes we are working on an earth problem to the exclusion of any influence from the stars or planets at all.

The stars represent soul patterns, not experiences.  The twelve signs of the zodiac are twelve patterns from which the soul chooses when coming into the earth plane.  They are like races – patterns of temperament, personality, etc.

Astrology is mentioned all throughout the Bible.  People had believed in the stars in Biblical times.  Everyone knew the influence of the sun on the earth, and the sun was a star.  It certainly made a pattern, so far as life on earth was concerned – it shaped everything, or at least nourished everything – and the shape had to be such as to allow the sun to give life to it.  The other stars, the signs of the zodiac, for instance, influence people in subtler ways:  by making them bullish, or lionish, or airy, or introspective.  Since the planets are old dwelling places of the soul, they influence people when they come to a point of prominence in the sky just as a man who had once lived in a certain city would be influenced by reading of it, or meeting someone from the town, or by seeing photographs of it.

Take the moon, for instance.  It’s influence is obvious on such things as the tides and the female cycle.  These things are observable because the moon was so close.  The word “lunatic” stems from “luna” meaning moon.  Law enforcement officials are well aware of the affect a full moon has on the crime rate.  The other planets are farther away, and the stars are far beyond them.  But their light comes to the earth, and they influence in some way the heart, or the brain, or the emotions.

One of the great astrological stories in the Bible is the story of the  star of Bethlehem.  It is written that the star was a sign from God signalling the birth of the Messiah into the world.  The three Magi, Persian astrologer-kings, determined the time of this birth by the position of this star.  In 1600, Johannes Kepler hypothesised that this star was actually a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn.  Confirmed by modern astrology, this symbolism ties in with the prophecies of that era concerning a Messiah amongst the Jews.  The conjunctions occurred at the end of Pisces, ruled by Jupiter.  Jupiter is the planet of kings.  Saturn is the planet that rules the Jews, thereby giving the king of the Jews. This was a very infrequent triple conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and it occurred in the year 7 B.C.

Every 2160 years a different sign of the zodiac is in the position dominating earth.  It goes backward, and is therefore called a precession. During the heyday of Egypt the sign of Taurus, the Bull, was in the commanding position.  So the people worshiped the bull.  But Taurus ruled only by reflection, as it were.  It was the overt sign.  The sun, actually in Scorpio, was shining across into Taurus.  So Scorpio, the real sign, the spiritual guide of the search, appeared on the foreheads and staffs of the priests of the time.

We are now at the tail-end of the Age of Pisces, the fish (the Church Age) and will enter the Age of Aquarius (the Age of the Water-Bearer, Christ) around the year 2300 AD.  Christ was born as the last Lamb of the Age of Aries (the Ram) and the first Fish of sacrificial Pisces.  The two fish of Pisces show Christianity’s split between spirit and matter.  The Equinox reached the first star of the second fish in 1817, and the rise of secular science in this year fulfills ancient predictions of “antichrist”. Jesus recruited fishermen as disciples to make them fishers of men.  He fed the masses with a miraculous draft of fishes.  His followers were know as “pisciculi”, the “little fishes”.  The sign of the fish has been know the world over to be the sign of Christianity.

With the Age of Aquarius, after much earth upheavals, the true Water Bearer will rule this planet.  He is the one who will bring Living waters that bring eternal life.  Many believe this Age will bring heaven on earth. This is the time when the prophet says “They shall beat their swords into plowshares”.  Jesus Himself said that there will be wonders in the sun, moon, and stars signalling His return.  We must always look to the many signs so that we will not be taken unawares. 

 Edgar Cayce – Who Was This Man?

The story of Edgar Cayce properly belongs in the history of hypnosis.  Cayce had the uncanny ability of putting himself asleep at will and speaking in an authoritative voice on subjects far beyond the range of his normal knowledge.  He was not even an avid reader of books.  All he needed was the subject to be discussed, or the inquiring person’s name, address, and whereabouts, a conductor to make suggestions and ask the questions, and a stenographer to take it all down.  Almost every day for forty-two years he went to sleep and answered questions covering an immense range of subject matter.  He could do this at any time, any place.  There were no darkened rooms, turbans, incense, crystal balls, or paying audiences.

Persons from all walks of life came to him for help or advise.  Among them were a movie producer, an actress, a top steel magnate, a U.S. Senator, a Vice-President of the United States; parents, the sick, the lame, the disturbed.  His strange gift of clairvoyance has never been duplicated in modern times, although a few other psychics have proved a measure of ability beyond any doubt.

The Cayce records are unique.  Twenty million words from an unconscious mind is not a commonplace.  If they can be believed, new frontiers wait to be explored.  Clairvoyance, clairaudience, dreams, hypnotism, point the way to a better understanding of the history and depth of the human mind and soul. A challenging field lies before man in his search for truth and the meaning of human existence in earth.

Cayce was born on a farm near Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1877.  A poor student, he received no more than a grammar school education, and eventually took up photography as a trade.  His psychic powers were accidentally discovered in 1901, when he was twenty-four.  He caught a cold and suddenly lost his voice.  After a year of numerous and unsuccessful medical treatments, he became resigned to a life of rasping whispers.

About this time hypnotism was enjoying a fad throughout the country, and a friend suggested that he try it as a means of helping his condition. Cayce was willing to try anything that might cure his throat.  A local hypnotist offered his services, and Edgar readily accepted.  He insisted, however, that he put himself to sleep, with the friend making the suggestions after he was “under”.

The experiment proved to be more than successful.  Cayce went into a deep trance and described the condition in his vocal cords, advising, strangely enough, what to do for it.  The advice was followed by the hypnotist – that of suggesting the blood circulation increase to the affected area – and when Cayce awakened he had regained his normal speaking voice.  After a number of follow-up sessions, the cure turned out to be a permanent one.

Cayce, his family and his friend were astounded.  When word got around of this unusual occurrence, he was besieged with requests by the sick to try his diagnoses and curative methods on them.  He was reluctant to attempt anything of the kind.  In the first place, he was uneducated and knew nothing of medicine or anatomy in his waking state. After all, he had no idea what went on while he was asleep.  In the end, however, he gave his consent, and his misgivings proved unfounded.

In most of the cases that were presented to him, the celebrated psychic never met the persons making the requests.  They were received through the mail; the recipients of the readings were usually hundreds of miles away.   All Cayce needed was the full name of the person, his address, and where he would be at the appointed time of the reading.  Lying on the couch with his necktie and shoelaces loosened – for better circulation, the readings said – he could answer any question put to him.  His wife, Gertrude, usually made the suggestions and asked the questions, while his lifelong secretary, Gladys Davis, took everything down in shorthand.  After a while, the sleeping Cayce would start to mumble, as though searching for something.  Then he would clear his throat and speak in a firm, authoritative voice.  “Yes, we have the body,” he would begin, and then go into a half-hour discussion of the physical condition of the person who was ill.

But in 1923 a startling new kind of reading was discovered.  Cayce was operating a photographic studio in Selma, Alabama, when one day he met Arthur Lammers, a well-to-do printer.  His hobby was metaphysical philosophy, and what he wanted to know was far beyond the range of Edgar’s normal thinking.

“What is the meaning of life?” he asked.  “What is the real nature of man?  What is the meaning of birth and death?  Why are we here?  Cayce accepted Mr. Lammers offer to explain these mysteries through his powers of hypnosis.  What followed was the beginning of the metaphysical thought that emerged from 2,500 “Life” readings, as distinguished from the “Physical” readings he had previously been giving.

For Cayce, this was the beginning of another period of tortuous self-doubt.  Brought up in an atmosphere of strict, orthodox, Protestant Christianity, he was uninformed on the other great religions of the world and their similarities with his own.  What the readings now said seemed foreign to everything he had been taught and had been teaching in his Sunday school classes for many years.  The essential principles of the great religions, said the readings, were nevertheless all the same – they were only clothed in different garments.

Cayce withheld judgment on the point for a long time.  In the end he and those close to the work came to accept reincarnation.  It was unprovable of course, but in provable instances the readings had shown themselves to be honest if not infallible.  The answers were consistent.

Eventually, somebody thought to ask the sleeping Cayce where he was getting his information.  He gave two sources his mind apparently succeeded in tapping.  One was the unconscious or subconscious mind of the subject himself; the other was what was called the universal memory of nature, Jung’s Collective Unconscious, or the Akashic Records.  This is the “Recording Angel”, or the “Book of Life”.

Say the Cayce records: “Edgar Cayce’s mind is amenable to suggestion, the same as all other subconscious minds; but in addition thereto, it has the power to interpret to the objective mind of others what it acquires from the subconscious minds of other individuals of the same kind.  The subconscious forgets nothing.  The conscious mind receives the impressions from without and transfers all thought to the subconscious, where it remains even though the conscious be destroyed” as in death.

The readings also say, “The information as obtained and given by this body (Edgar Cayce) is gathered from the sources from which the suggestion may derive its information.  In this state the conscious mind becomes subjugated to the subconscious, the superconscious, or soul mind, and may and does communicate with like minds, and the subconscious or soul force becomes universal.  From any subconscious mind information may be obtained either from this plane or from the impression as left by the individuals that have gone before.  As we see a mirror directly reflecting that which is before it – it is not the object itself, but that reflected”.

This is a new idea.  If it is true, then Cayce’s mind was able to tap the mass of knowledge possessed by millions of other subconscious minds, including those who have passed over to the spiritual, cosmic realms in death.  This would be an almost unlimited source of wisdom, since it was universal and Cayce was unhindered by time and space.  Upon this “Akashic record” is supposedly registered every sound, every thought, every vibration since the beginning of time.  Cayce, then was no “medium”.  When this idea first appeared in a reading, few, including Cayce, could believe it.  Science knew nothing of any such etheric  substance.

Newspaper headlines did not affect him as offers of fame and large sums of money came.  Although he never earned more than a modest living at best, he turned down all efforts by others to commercialize on the readings.  Desperately poor at times, he once flatly refused an offer of $1,000 a day to go on the stage.  Simple in his tastes, he was an expert fisherman and a horrible golfer.  He loved to talk about the Bible and would preach a sermon at the drop of a word.

A national magazine ran an article titled, “Miracle Man of Virginia Beach”, and Edgar was swamped with an avalanche of 25,000 requests for readings.  By 1944 he was a year behind in appointments and suffering from over-exertion and edema of the lungs.

A stroke confined him to bed.  Now 67, he never recovered.  His last reading, given for himself, was not followed by the doctors in charge.  On January 3rd, 1945, Edgar Cayce passed over to the other side.  No man ever left the world a stranger legacy. 

  The Readings – What Else Did Cayce Say?

“The spirits of all that have passed from the physical plane remain about the plane until their developments carry them onward, or they are in the plane of communication, or remain with this sphere, any may be communicated with.  There are thousands about us here at present.” (3744-2)

“The soul is the God-part in you, the living God.” (262-77)

Question: “What is the highest possible psychic realization?”

Answer: “That God, the Father, speaks directly to the sons of men.” (440-4)

“In each atom, in each corpuscle, is life. Life is that you worship as God.” (2968-1)

Question: “Is the destiny of every spiritual entity to eventually become one with God?”

Answer: “Unless the entity wills its banishment … Yet God has not willed that any soul should perish.” (900-20)

Question: “If the soul fails to improve itself, what becomes of it?”

Answer: “Can the will of man continue to defy its Maker?” (826-8)

“Each soul is destined to become a portion again of the First Cause, or back to its Maker.” (987-2)

“You grow to heaven, you don’t go to heaven.” (3409-1)

“All you may know of heaven or hell is within your own self.” (4035-1)

“The judge shall be your own conscience; for conscience is that which awakens the mind of the soul; the Soul that of your self that is the nearest portion of the dwelling place of the Holy of Holies Himself – the Spirit of the Master.” (254-54)

“The coming into the earth has been and is, for the evolution or evolving of the soul unto its awareness.” (5749-5)

“The Father has not willed that any soul should perish, and is thus mindful that each soul has again, and yet again, the opportunity for making its paths straight.” (2021-1)

“All souls were created in the beginning, and are finding their way back to whence they came.” (3744-4)

“All souls in the beginning were one with the Father.  The separation or turning away brought evil.” (262-56)

“For, the earth is only an atom in the universe of worlds.” (5749-3)

Concerning Jesus: “An entity, then, is the pattern of divinity in materiality, or in the earth.  As man found himself out of touch with that complete consciousness of the oneness of God, it became necessary that the will of God, the Father, be made manifested, that a pattern be introduced into man’s consciousness.  Thus the Son of Man came into the earth, made in the form, the likeness of man; with body, mind, soul.  Yet the soul was the Son, the soul was the Light.” (3357-2)

“Christ is the universal consciousness of love that we see manifested in those who have forgotten self, as Jesus, give themselves that others may know the truth.” (1376-1)”

“He came into the earth that we, as soul-entities, might know ourselves to be ourselves, and yet one with Him; as He, the Master, the Christ, knew Himself and yet one with the Father.” (3003-10)

“From what may anyone be saved?  Only from themselves!  That is, their individual hell; they dig it with their own desires!” (262-40)

“You’ll not be in heaven if you’re not leaning on the arm of someone you have helped.” (3352-1)

“Know the Lord thy God is One.  And all that you may know of good must first be within self.  All you may know of God must be manifested through yourself.  To hear of Him is not to know.  To apply and live and be is to know! (2936-2)

“The Lord abhorreth the quitter.” (518-2)

“Happiness is a state of mind attained by giving same to others.” (2772-2)

“Happiness is love of something outside of self.  It may never be obtained, may never be known by loving only things within self.” (281-30)

“The conquering of self is truly greater than were one to conquer many worlds.” (115-1)

“The spirit of hate, the anti-Christ, is contention, strife, fault-finding, lovers of self, lovers of praise.” (281-16)

“Let that rather be the your watchword, ‘I am my brother’s keeper.’ Who is your brother?  Whoever, wherever he is that bears the imprint of the Maker in the earth, be he black, white, gray or grizzled, be he young, be he Hottentot, or on the throne or in the president’s chair.” (2780-3)

Fredric Myers 

Life After Death

It cannot be stated too often that the spiritual perspective is inward and not outward. Once we leave the physical realm we will view reality inwardly and not outwardly. All that we have placed inside ourselves will act as a lens, a filter. All that we see will be seen through and be distorted by these things we have stored within ourselves. This is why, it is important to remove as much clutter as possible so as not to obscure our reality. The dimensions which immediately surround the Earth have been called the mental realms by both Edgar Cayce and Rudolf Steiner. It is here we face, we inhabit, we experience what we have built into our minds as a result of our activities. It is in the mental realms where our minds embody our souls. In this reality we do not leave behind the attitudes we held in the Earth but we inhabit them. This was illustrated many times in the Cayce discourses when he said that we not only take our attitudes with us into death, but we inhabit them. They will, however, become much, much larger in death, much harder to bear, with no way to set them aside easily.

In essence, after death, Steiner said we expand into the planetary spheres. The moral disposition we carry over with us allows or prevents us from moving on in a conscious manner. After this experience, we fall asleep and the cosmic forces act directly upon us preparing us for the next earthly experience. Our cosmic sleep regenerates us. There comes a time when the desire to reincarnate starts to work on us. When that happens, we begin the process of going back through the planetary spheres picking up what we will need from each in order to fulfill our purpose in the next Earth life. The “soul kernel” is carried in to the embryo, forgets the whole trip and is born again on Earth.

In the end, our transition after death is like stepping into our own thoughts where we have existed all along. This is an inward step, so small, so natural; yet from a material perspective it is so abrupt, and so extreme. At the moment of change some of us are completely aware of what is happening, some of us only partly aware, and yet others totally unaware. Ultimately we meet and greet our own death with the same awareness and attention to detail we gave to our experiences in life.

Since taking leave of the Earth realm, we have been traveling throughout many realms of reality. In each dimension we experienced that which was helpful, in some we reviewed and evaluated our experiences, but in all we were resuscitated. The realms in which we made our temporary homes and the order in which we experienced them were exactly what we needed to complete our earthly experience, to be refreshed, renewed, and prepared for our next material adventure. Each of the realms we visited were focal points from which certain basic qualities of our being emanate. We not only worked in the unique surroundings, but we mixed with the essence of each quality of which each realm was comprised. These qualities are not external things to which we responded, but they are what we are.

[The following discussion is] not meant to promote an attachment to the wonder or splendor of any particular dimension of reality. All that [will be given is] for the better understanding of who we really are. We are the sum total of all of our experiences from the very foundations of our beginning up until this moment.

Each experience is but another thread woven into that fabric of which we are composed. No realm is any more important than another, nor is our habitation or incarnation into any realm more important than any other. Our experiences in reality are continuous and although certain happenings may seem more momentous than others, it is the accumulation of what we do with creation which is our quest. For it is only in that accumulation of experiencing the various expressions of our God that we truly fulfill our destiny. It is important to note that we carry all of our experiences into each dimension because we are the focal point of their accumulation. Further, although each dimension operates under different sets of basic laws, they are but variations of laws we already know. There is one Creator, one set of principles of life we call laws, and one direction in which to grow. The infinite variety in creation is largely due to the limitless ways in which the same things may be manifest. If we would just watch the patterns of what we know unfold before us, we would see ever so clearly the most important aspects of what seems both behind and ahead of us. 

The Material Land

When in the Earth, we live simultaneously in all regions of the soul and spirit lands. We are not aware of our presence in other realms at the same time as we are embodied in the Earth, but our lack of cognizance does not in any way inhibit our multi-presence. It is from the Earth that our desires, our ambitions, and what we do about them sends waves of life resonating through all regions of the soul and spirit lands. As there is no time and space outside of the material universe, we have ample opportunity to experience these waves of our own soulness when we arrive in the regions where they are manifest. From the soul and spirit regions we draw life as well as send it; here we experience ourselves as well as all of life.

Life in the Earth is not only experiencing ourselves, within the confines of universal laws, but it is done in a much more focused fashion. As we live in the Earth realm we are at the same time building conditions in succeeding realms. The building process in materiality is therefore multidimensional. The Edgar Cayce source expressed it best in discourse 5749-3 when the entranced psychic stated, “.. with error entered that as called death, which is only a transition or through God’s other door into that realm where the entity has built, in its manifestations as related to the knowledge and activity respecting the law of the universal influence.”

As all of life is a gradual metamorphosis, so is that period of transition we call dying. From a physical perspective, we might say one was alive one moment and gone the next. We may comment that death came without warning. Because we see only those external happenings which are perceptible to the physical senses, we often assume there was no activity outside of this perspective. As we grow in stages from infancy to maturity, we likewise grow from life in material realms to life in spiritual dimensions. The pattern here is ever the same: We do not instantly arrive at, occupy, or depart from any condition in reality.

Dying is a process which begins before the soul takes leave of the body and in fact begins before any illness, accident, or happening which may cause physical death. In that rest we call sleep, the soul departs and prepares for the transition it is moving toward. How far in advance of our departure do we begin our preparations? In a sense, one is preparing for death through all of life. Again, let us refer to the Cayce work and psychic discourse 5488-1 which states, “.. in the midst of life one is in the midst of death, for death is but the beginning of life, as life is but the beginning of an opportunity to manifest that as is innately built within the soul of an individual itself. 

Immediately After Death

There is a definite happening at that point we call death, the least of which is the falling away of the physical body. Our awareness, emotions, memories, likes, dislikes, desires, and fears all live on within us. We have tried to make a case thus far to illustrate that our consciousness more than our physical senses is what we are. We have used materiality but we are not material.

Our material experiences are to our soul what food is to our bodies. The memories, the relationships, the tastes of life are all carried over unadulterated in the first stage of death but as the digestive process continues they lose their prominence and our attention turns to other things.

In the first stage following physical death we find ourselves in the realm which is made of and held together by the mental activity of life in materiality. Here, in what we will call the nearest reaches of what Cayce termed the borderland, life is bigger than life. It is a narrow reality bordered on one side by a gradual density and on the other by a likewise gradual quickening or elevation. It is the state occupied by Dr. George Ritchie, which he describes in his book, My Life After Dying. Further, it is the divide between life in the Earth and life in the mental realms. This divide is in fact that part of the mental realm completely overlapped by the material realm. One can move into closer proximity to the Earth and become so fixed by desire, as Ritchie observed, that one is unable to extricate oneself. One may move toward a quickening into finer realms or one may slide into one of the densest realms we call “outer darkness.” 

The Earthbound Realm

Many people who die surely do not do so willingly. For some, their deaths, like their lives, are rebellious and their minds are fixed on materiality. Before gaining a cognizance of what and where they are, they try to fly on the wings of their misguided values back into the density of materiality. One thing, however, is amiss; they are not material. As they go about trying to function, the newly discarnate entities do not understand why they cannot communicate with others; as a result, they are gripped by fear. The Cayce discourses contain much material on this state of confusion. Some think they have lost their minds, others think those around them have gone mad, and others adapt in the world of semi-reality. They do encounter objects that are manifestations of thought but they have no way of separating those objects from denser ones with which they cannot interact. This extreme edge of the mental realm is so close to materiality that it intertwines with it at every turn. The fact is that interaction with mental counterparts of material activity that exist in this stage of consciousness is so like materiality, so closely conjoined to the physical, that the lost soul cannot tell where one stops and the other begins. This confusion, or blurring of divisions, lends credence to the perception that the troubled soul is in the same physical state it held while embodied in the Earth.

It is natural to ask why these souls who make their home at the edge of the borderland do not realize they have died and passed on to another reality. How often do dreamers realize they are dreaming even though their activities are not what one would consider consistent with waking reality?

Some souls adjust to this confusion and as a consequence, are tied to the Earth for years. They derive their satisfaction by mingling with those forces, those energies which are given off from life in material realms. They live vicariously, as Dr. Ritchie noted, in the emotions and mental activities of those who are in the Earth realm.

Those souls who have trapped themselves in this region endlessly try to influence matters in the Earth realm. Some are from time to time successful as they mix with thought patterns emanating from the Earth realm and some are not. Some souls have even become self-destructive enough as to occupy or possess the body of a material human being who has, by its own uncoordinated activities, separated its mental from its physical forces.

God and all of creation personify patience and await those souls turning back to the road they began to travel after awakening in the borderland. To assist their return, there are countless ministers of mercy all about them in their existence in the borderland. These who would help them need only for them to will that help, for us to let go of their fixation on materiality; then they will set their shaky feet on the path they must follow. 

Outer Darkness

Let us now take a detour into a yet denser reality so we can better understand another of our options upon awakening in the borderland. There are some of us who have lived our lives in such a way that we have turned completely within ourselves. We have blocked out all love, all warmth, and all spirit from our daily doings; we have created a void within and around ourselves. We chose to deny our responsibilities to others and to ourselves; we choose ourselves at all cost. Upon passing on, before we become conscious that we have entered the borderland, we swiftly move on to that realm to which our life choices in the Earth resonate. This region is void of love, life, and light, void of all of those things we cast out from our lives in the Earth. The region in which we find ourselves is approximately our wish come true. We are truly alone, with ourselves, within ourselves; it is pain beyond pain for us. Edgar Cayce described this region of void as “outer darkness.” The name of this dimension describes it very accurately, as we find no love, hope, friendship, kindness, benevolence, or any of what we have come to know as human qualities. Instead there is nothing but ourselves, and it is unbearable. In the absence of that which we term “fruits of the spirit” truth, love, patience, gentleness, kindness, long-suffering, and brotherly love we fill the void with an irrational and unbelievable amount of pain and fear. It is so dark in the realm of outer darkness that the dark hurts and panic grips us without our knowing why.

Like our material universe, outer darkness seems endless and without any meaningful boundaries. There is nowhere we can go to escape the agony and horror which fills almost every part of our being, and the desire to flee consumes us. The farther and faster we travel through this realm the greater the feeling that it is endless. Even outer darkness has degrees, and it is darker and denser at the center than at its outer fringes. Helen Greaves describes these degrees as hells. Likewise, this is the hell described by Emanuel Swedenborg in Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen.

The closer we are to the outer edges, the more interaction there is with others in the realm, while the closer to the center we find ourselves, the darker and more painful we find the solitude. One who finds himself in outer darkness cannot move toward the center by force of his own motion. The center represents levels of reality and are not linear. One cannot travel across this dimension; one must grow through the levels of this realm.

Outer darkness is not one of those realms which must be overcome in stages, although we can choose that method of growth. One may find himself on a particular level after death that most closely corresponds to his activity and the degree of absence of those fruits of the spirit in his life, and there is no need to experience other levels here. No level of outer darkness is without pain and fear, but, as we have noted, the very center is the most agonizing. In the reality we call outer darkness, we have very little memory of our earthly lives. We remember little, if anything, of our earthly relationships, and we are so absorbed in pain and fear that our suffering exacts every last ounce of our attention.

This lower region of outer darkness is not a punishment. It is a region which operates lawfully for the benefit of those agonized souls. This region is not a realm which was created for any soul to experience, but one which came about as a consequence of the negative activity of souls in creation. So great has been the desire for self, so monumental across time and space has been the selfishness of some of God’s creatures, that this realm is the creation or manifestation of their own collective activities. Outer darkness and the reality with which it is associated were created and are held in place by collective self-interest.

As noted previously, universal law is perfect and works for the benefit of all, all of the time. An excellent example of the law of grace is that no evil, no negativity, whether single or collective in nature, exists without a way of redemption being simultaneously imprinted by the Creative Forces throughout its fiber.

Nowhere is it more obvious than in the realm of outer darkness that no one needs to remain here beyond one’s own will to do so. We might conjecture that no one wishes to suffer such misery but that simply is not so. We constantly do things on the Earth realm that cause us difficulty, unhappiness, pain, and illness. We do not wish to suffer the discomfort of our actions, but this does not keep us from those activities. In the Earth realm, as in spiritual realms, until we turn our attention from ourselves, we cannot in any way change our estate.

The occupants of outer darkness are there for various lengths of Earth time.

It is peculiar to discuss length of residence by a measure which does not exist in that dimension. For most of us it is very difficult to relate to a timeless condition, so the use of finite terms helps us to better understand. Some residents feel they have been in outer darkness for weeks or months, others for eons. No doubt, all are correct in their assessment of length of time spent in this realm. In a reality of pain and torment, even a moment can seem like an eternity and there is no way to judge length of stay until after one has long departed. Doubtless, some souls have occupied outer darkness for what we would measure as hundreds, even thousands of years. But it is more likely that most stay for a considerably shorter period. It is not possible for souls to be forever confined to outer darkness since, in such a case, there would be no hope of redemption. Further, Swedenborg noted in his book, Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell from Things Heard and Seen, that it is God who keeps the balance in the realm of outer darkness so that all things would not be destroyed. Again, outer darkness is not a punishment, rather it is the ultimate manifestation of our own undoing, and he who is Mercy would never abandon us to such spiritual agony. 

The Borderland

Let us return our attention to the realm that we call the “borderland”. The borderland is the outer edge of the mental realms overlapping materiality. All that we experience in materiality is manifest in its purity in the mental realms. When one is in any of the mental realms, reality seems so much purer, so much more real. One arriving here would become aware that there has definitely been a change, an awakening. What we would perceive as our senses in this realm would seem infinitely sharper, and we would be much more sensitive. All that is material is but an expression of what is manifest in the mental realms. So here we find ourselves with the authentic original and not the copy. As we look around and absorb our surroundings, we feel as though we have just emerged from a haze. We do not see anything we did not see on Earth and everything is quite familiar. There are those around us that we know. Some may have been friends or relatives who passed on before us, and others may be souls that do not incarnate with us but with whom we shared a genuine connection. We do not notice all of the souls around us, only those for whom we have sympathy or have shared experiences.

We notice that sleeping and waking seem to be faculties still with us, as Ruth Mattson Taylor noted. We feel that we have just wakened, and we go through periods of what appear to us to be states of awake and asleep. Certainly, we do not need sleep outside of the Earth realm. But we are accustomed to periods of rest and seize the opportunity when first entering the mental realms. Gradually this cycle of sleep and work leaves us. But we do find periods of refreshment akin to rest. We have a major adjustment to make and all of those we meet in the borderland are there to help us. In every realm in which we find ourselves between lives on Earth, there are those who are resident in those dimensions, except for those in the borderland. This state of reality is unique in that it is a transient state for all who inhabit it. There are those souls and beings who choose to work for the betterment of souls in the borderland, but they are visitors there, not residents.

In the borderland is where we review in detail the life just lived in the Earth realm. We see our lives with a clarity obscured from us when we were in the Earth realm. We see the potential, the ultimate possibilities of all the choices we didn’t make. Although this is an emotional experience, Steiner notes that we are protected by those beings around us from immersion in our own emotions and from becoming lost. There is not one review, but several; each exacts yet another focus. Although we are free from the fetters of time and space, we still take this review process gradually so that we are not overcome and immobilized. Part and parcel to this review, a healing takes place. As the scars left on the mind become evident, a healing takes place so that the soul will be able to move on. Now we take note of great Beings of Light for the first time, and we are struck by how we recognize them. There is total familiarity and the realization of their always having been with us, whether before, during, or after our Earth life.

“You see, death is not the grave as many people think. It is another phenomenistic form of life.” – Edgar Cayce 

The Planes Of Existence After Death

2 Corinthians 12:2-4.  “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the THIRD HEAVEN.  Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know – God knows.  And I know that this man … was caught up to paradise.”  A quotation from St Paul in the Bible. 

The Earth Plane – Stage One

Stage one is, of course, the earth plane. As soon as earth experience has been thoroughly comprehended – either through

reincarnation, or through the exchange of experience with others on other planes – the candidate may proceed to

realms beyond the reach of the earth mind.  After death a person enters Stage two, the Intermediate Plane. 

The Intermediate Plane – Stage Two 

Stage two is called the “Intermediate Plane” or “Hades”.  This is the plane where all must go upon experiencing the earth plane.  Here, memories or their entire past lives flash before them.  Apparently it is this state which is referred to in the ancient tradition of “hell”.  Whether or not it is “hellish,” depends upon the memory of the particular person.  If his contains sinister episodes and terrifying experiences, these will drift by the person’s vision along with the more joyful happenings.  Some persons begin at this stage to feel what is called “the earth pull, the birth pull” and the person may decide to return to stage one, the earth plane.  For others, stage two is brief and is followed by entry into a more stable world called “the plane of illusion”, stage three. 

The Plane of Illusion – Stage Three

After stage two, a person enters a more stable world called “the plane of illusion”, stage three.  This is a dimension where things may be created with the mind and shaped by the direct action of the imagination.  Though a person may linger in this stage for generations, an eventual decision must be made:  The individual either returns to earth or progresses to stage four.  Before leaving, however, the more enterprising souls may have an opportunity to experience one of the great wonders of this plane of consciousness – a tour through some section of The Great Memory.  Just as, on earth, one may go to a library and see newsreels of important earth events of history, so, in stage three, one may witness any event that occurred from the beginning of human experience.  Everything that has ever happened has been recorded by the cosmic memory. 

The Plane of Color – Stage Four

Stage four, an indescribably lovely existence, is called “the plane of color”.  Here one must leave behind all rigid intellectual structures and dogmas, be they scientific, religious, or philosophical.  An infinite variety of new sounds, colors and feelings are experienced here and souls find a much wider freedom to function with more highly energized intellect and spirit.

Since Myers had not progressed beyond the fourth plane at the time of his communication, his accounts of the higher levels of consciousness beyond this are less detailed and more speculative.  He seems to have picked up enough hearsay, however, to outline with some confidence the general nature of the further advance.  If on the fourth plane the soul becomes free from the earth pull, the soul is qualified to experience cosmic ranges beyond earth’s confines.  One of these ranges is the next plane, the “plane of flame”. 

The Plane of Flame – Stage Five

In the fifth plane, the “plane of flame”, one acquires a body of flame, enabling him to tour the stellar universe without being harmed by its temperatures and turbulence and to return with a fuller experience of these cosmic reaches. 

The Plane of Light – Stage Six

The sixth plane  is the “plane of Light”.  Individuals on this  plane are matured spirits, having lived through, with conscious comprehension, all the aspects of the created universe.  They are capable of living now without form, of existing as white light in

the pure thought of the Creator.  They have joined the immortals, thus fulfilling their final purpose of the evolution of consciousness. 

Timelessness – The Final Stage

The seventh and final stage, in which the soul enters full partnership with God, is beyond Myers’ verbal reach.  Myers knew that the levels of consciousness in the upper ranges were beyond the insight of the average earth dweller except for intuitive flashes.  The seventh stage, called “timelessness”, are of an advanced spiritual nature, so close to the ultimate essence of creativity that no adequate vocabulary has yet been evolved to describe them, and hence they are difficult to communicate to earth-level beings. 

Ruth Montgomery’s Revelations

The following was written by Ruth Montgomery, a respected journalist and clairvoyant, as revealed to her by the spirit of Arthur Ford, the world renown spiritualist who is deceased.  To understand more, one must read her book entitled “A World Beyond” which I highly recommend.

“Those who want mansions will find them ready, but those who want food for the spirit will find it in abundance, for that is what this is all about, material versus spiritual, and it is up to each soul to choose which way he will go. 

An Atheist’s Death Experience

“Let us take an example of a person who was so sure that there was no God and no hereafter that he treated others badly while there and felt no moral obligation to lend a helping hand or to be a decent citizen.  When he makes the transition he is angry and tempestuous, for he finds himself in a situation of his own making, surrounded by other greedy souls, who because they are in like situation, welcome him gleefully to the hell that they have created for themselves.  He is shocked.  These are not the type of people he wants to associate with.  They are fiendish and ill-mannered, whereas he has been a stiff-necked, educated, and polished man, although he never gave thought to anyone but himself.  He tries to break out of the fiendish group, but they surround him.  He calls for help, but no one with a better nature can enter the group to save him.  He has dug his own grave, so to speak, and is allowed to lie in it for a while.

“He is utterly miserable, for he now begins to see the folly of his ways but does not know how to avert his fate.  He is left there until his own remorse for sinful ways begins to penetrate his being and he acknowledges to himself that he wasted a lifetime, a rare privilege, by thinking only of himself.  After he reaches full repentance he is then able to free himself of the unrepentant creatures around him, and for a long time thereafter he searches his own soul to review the past mistakes.  This is sometimes a long, drawn-out process, because he will have to make his way alone.  Only he is able to assess his wrongs and seek forgiveness, although there are many here willing to lend a hand whenever he himself reaches out to them for it.” 

A Murderer’s Death Experience

“What of a murderer who deliberately kills another for his personal gain or satisfaction?  This is not a pretty story.  Full of hatred or vengeance, he expects to find nothing when he passes through the door called death, and for a long time that is usually what he finds – nothing.  He is in a state like unto death for a goodly while, until at last something arouses him, and he wakens to find out that the hell he had every reason to expect is indeed awaiting him.  It is not goblins and devils that he sees, but visions of his own face distorted by hatred, greed, malice, and other defeating emotions.  He cringes from the sight, realizing that he sees himself thus, that he himself was possessed of a devil, and that except for his baser nature he would have been able unaided to cast him forth.  He is appalled as he realizes that he wasted a lifetime of opportunity.  Not for him is enrollment in the temple of wisdom or the higher school of learning.

“This soul will stay in torment for a long, long time, until he believes himself to be totally lost.  When he eventually reaches this pit of despair, he may at last cry out to God to rescue him and that wail of despair is heard by God.  Other souls are sent to ease his suffering, and if his will is truly uplifted toward spiritual development, he will slowly slowly slowly begin to work himself upward until he has learned the penalties for taking another life which was given by God.  When he is sufficiently strong to do so he will accost the person whose life he took, and their reaction is such as to ring bells in paradise; for, as likely as not, the other soul has conquered self to such extent that he has already forgiven the suffering soul who cut short his span of physical life.  This forgiveness uplifts the murderer to such an extent that he is gradually able to take his place in the society of other souls and finally to learn some of the lessons of salvation.  Remember that a soul on this side, just as on your side, is never without help from God and the good souls whom God created in His own image. Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opened unto you.  That is the law of the universe.  Ask, receive; knock, open the door of your mind and let the rays of universal love flow in.” 

A Jungle Savage’s Death Experience

Arthur Ford next discussed the case of “a savage who had never been exposed to Christianity or any other organized form of worship except for the jungle cult.”  He wrote, “This lad died after having been bitten by a cobra and was about nine years old when he crossed over.  He was a totally uncivilized as anyone who has never seen any form of cleanliness or civilization, because it was perhaps thousands of years since that lad’s previous incarnation and he had done little or nothing in the spirit form to improve himself.  He slept for hundreds of years and was so disinterested in other souls here that when he finally decided to try on the physical body again, he was like a fish out of water.  He lived only to eat and sleep, and what work he managed to do was solely to avoid beatings and cursings.  He lived in ignorance, and he died in the same manner, and thus progressed no single jot in that lifetime.  For that reason there was no point in continuing his physical existence, and here, although kindly souls are trying to awaken him, he continues to sleep or thinks of nothing but himself and his pleasures, which are few, except that he likes to torture animals.  Thus, the snake bite was in the way of karmic indebtedness for what he had done to those beings which are less evolved than human beings.

“This type of soul is highly depressing here, even more than in the earth life, for there seems little to jog them into awareness of responsibilities and soul growth.  But even that boy was no worse than many who, living in civilized areas with plenty to eat and much work to accomplish, give themselves over to riotous destruction instead.  They in their next incarnations may find themselves in circumstances similar to those of this boy who perhaps many eons ago had been equally destructive and thus was unwilling to return to physical state in order to repay his karmic debts.  Growth, development, love, constructive action, and consideration for others are the keys to unlock the kingdom of heaven, and those who use force and anger to destroy, instead of love to rebuild, are earning dire consequences for themselves in this spirit life and in future incarnations.” 

A Drug Addict’s Death Experience

“Drunks on this side hover around the earth souls who drink too much, lusting after the pleasures of alcoholism and unable to break the bond of habit which binds them to physical body.  The same with heavy smokers or drug users, there or here, or the sex maniacs who take advantage of others to appease the bodily craving for intercourse.  This is a very important lesson which we learn on this side.  To escape the perpetual cycle of rebirth into physical form, we must erase the ties, the shackles which bind us to satiation of the physical body.  So try to lick the bad habits while there.  It is easier by far than to come unloose from them on this side.  Those who neither drink nor smoke nor use drugs nor lust after sex will be free of those shackles on this side.

“It is easier while in physical form to break those shackles than it is to undo them here, where no temptations are put in our way.  Thus, there is no reward for behaving correctly here in spirit, because there is nothing to tempt us otherwise.  The hard school is in the physical one, and there it is that we must meet and overcome the temptations.” 

A Baby’s Death Experience

“Let’s take the case of a baby newly born into the flesh who, after a brief struggle for life, withdraws back into this spirit state.  The baby had wanted life, to be sure, and had at least helped to select its parents, but what happened to alter the circumstances?  Sometimes the baby finds a body so weakened by malformation that it will not sustain life, but more often it is the spirit which withdraws.  Let us take for example a baby born into a lovely home where he is greatly desired who lives only a few days or weeks or months before departing the body.  That baby has most certainly had something to do with the decision to withdraw.  Perhaps at first there was a reluctance to enter the human body or the spirit became convinced that this was not the proper vehicle for working out the karma that obstructed its spiritual growth.  At any rate, the physical baby’s soul has left the spirit world for such a brief period that little readjustment is necessary.  Once again the soul takes stock of what has just occurred and assesses why it gave up the opportunity to become flesh again to solve karmic problems.

“The baby is not a baby, at least in the spirit world; for all souls were here from the beginning of time, and although some of them are more highly evolved and far wiser and more meaningful than others, because of experience here and in the earth states, none here is a baby.  The one we take as an example today came back to us after a brief struggle as a baby in arms.  The heart had been damaged in the physical body and therefore could not sustain life.  The soul is disappointed at first when he returns here, for although babyhood is by no means an ideal existence, nevertheless he had chosen parents whom he loved and surroundings where he felt that he would be able to repay some karmic indebtedness.  That this opportunity was denied him by physical limitations speaks itself of karmic patterns, for this soul realized that in a previous life he had ended the life of a new baby through neglect of its needs.  Thus, although this was a life that he greatly wanted to complete, he had to make amends by withdrawing from that seemingly ideal situation.  The so-called baby returns here and after a brief period of adjustment is ready to begin again in the temple of wisdom to learn how to resume the ascent toward the ideal of oneness with God.  Because he has been gone from here only briefly, he needs little reinstruction, but if he had been a physical baby for two or three years, there would be souls here ready to help him adjust psychologically, to bring him out of the baby syndrome and into adulthood again.” 

A Preacher’s Death Experience

“Let’s take the case of a man of the cloth, a Billy Sunday type who preaches hellfire and brimstone and believes every bit of the Good Book literally.  He comes across here, and after the first shock of discovering that God is not sitting on a throne surrounded by angels, he begins exhorting those of us here to repent before it is too late.  He thinks that this is a very brief interlude until he adjusts, and that the rest of us are probably lost souls who lack the righteousness to advance into God’s waiting arms.  His sermons here actually do draw souls who hunger for the kind of heaven that their finite minds had conceived, and they think that this Billy Sunday type will lead them rapidly to the promised land.  They throng to his sermons and shout ‘amen’, while he tells them that within a very short time they will all advance into heaven with a retinue of angels playing harps.  ‘Amen’, they shout again, and are grateful that one of their own at last has arrived to open the gates of the temple.  This preacher, whom we’ll call Billy, at first rants and exhorts, demanding to know of the older souls around here how he finds the way to the throne of God, for he honestly believes that we are concealing it from him in some mysterious way.  At last the old souls gather around and explain to Billy that he is preaching a false doctrine; that heaven is within each man, and so is his private hell; that he has arrived, and nothing is being hidden from him.  It is up to him to begin work on his own spiritual advancement, and he is retarding the progress of others to mislead them with false hopes of a promised land.  For this is the promised land, and we make of it what we will through our own endeavors.  Wiser heads, so to speak, take Billy in hand, for he is a good but misguided soul.  They suggest that he attend a temple of wisdom for a time to have his eyes opened to the one truth; that all of us are a part of God, and that until all have realized this basic truth, none of us will advance beyond the basic state of man.

“When we grasp that each of us is as much a part of God as any other, then we are able to spread the good word that by helping these other parts of God we advance together to a higher plane of awareness, the veils drop from our eyes, and we are able to see exactly where and why we are here.  Helping others is the watchword.  Billy begins to grasp a glimmering of this universal law, and before long he is a zealously spreading this word to others as he was preaching hellfire and brimstone.  Basically he is an excellent soul, but through mistaken principles he was spreading a false line.  Now he spreads the truth with the same eloquence, and soon he begins to assess his previous earthly existence, seeing where he misled others by not opening his own eyes and listening to the persuaive arguments of those who were less orthodox than himself in his tight-minded beliefs.  He is eager to undo the damage he has done, and through other ministers of like faith in the physical bodies he implants seeds of wisdom, which if placed in fertile soil begin to sprout roots and spread truth among the hard-liners.  Because he is basically a fine soul, he will advance more rapidly here than some who knew the truth while in the physical state but failed to work as hard as this soul had done to uplift and help others.” 

Reincarnation – A Way To Progress

“We learn now why the problem so often arises here wanting to return again and again to physical state, without spending enough time to assess all errors of the previous round and determine exactly how we expect to meet future temptations as they arise.  Why would a soul want to rush back to earth form before he is ready?  Here we face the failing in so-called human nature: the zest for pleasures of the flesh, desire for too much alcohol, sex, body-building, and the like.  Some are so overly fond of the bodies they left behind that they are scarcely able to wait for an opportunity to form another body and set to work indulging it.  These souls are the truly earthbound, who will not be able to advance spiritually until they learn to give less thought to appetites of the flesh.  Any habit-forming pleasure, and they are endless, traps one into the cycle of rebirth over and over, until the appetites are finally put aside while still in the flesh – lust for mney, lust for power, lust for sex, and habits such as an unnatural craving for alcohol, drugs, tobacco, or any of the indulgences which we feel unable to break loose from.  This is a lesson for souls who would like to break the cycle of rebirth.” 

A Saint’s Death Experience

“Today we will look into the heart and mind of a woman who believes that she is of saintly qualities and who expects to be transported directly to the arms of God.  She fears nothing so much as having others in higher places of authority and is determined to impress Saint Peter with her virtuous ways so that no mistake will be made at the judgment throne.  She awakens on this side and looks about her for the pearly gates through which she will enter after admission by Saint Peter.  All she observes is a platform on which sprawls an old soul who has been on this plane since eons past.  Mistaking him for Saint Peter, she approaches and says, ‘Look here, sir.  I am Mary Blunk and I wish to be taken to God.’

“The old soul look pityingly at her and suggests that she rest awhile, but she will not hear of it.  She had been sick in the physical body, and now that she has shed it she is full of anticipation for her seat beside the Father.  She will brook no delay, so the old soul motions for her to pass along, and soon she arrives at a gate that is not nearly as magnificent as that which she was expecting.  There is no lock and no gatekeeper, so she passes through and begins an ascent along a garden path.  Flowers are blooming in profusion, but she pays them little heed, since she is bent on reaching the seat of God as quickly as possible.  Along the way she encounters others who are either ascending or descending the path.  Our heroine nods but rushes along, hoping to pass some of those who are toiling up the path ahead of her.  Those who descend, she assumes, are rejected ones who are on their way to hell.

“Pushing past those ahead of her, she eventually reaches a high stage and assumes that on top of it she will find God awaiting her with open arms.  Now she adjusts her hair and clothing.  She feels them reassuringly, for the raiment here is as real to her as that which she washed on Mondays at home.  She glimpses a handsome young man and, assuming him to be an angel, asks sweetly, ‘Will you announce me, please, because I am in a hurry to bow my head at the knees of God.’  The young man slowly surveys the scene and finally replies, ‘But, madam, some of the newly arrived souls are still plodding up the hill which you have climbed.’  She impatiently requests that he address God for her so that she will not have to wait in the long line that is approaching.  The young man smiles and says, ‘But, madam, how will you be saved until all those others who struggle upward are also rescued from the abyss below?’  The woman replies that she has nothing to do with them, since they are all strangers to her.

“Finally another man approaches her, and she seems vaguely to recognize him as the old beggar down the street who was always holding out a tin cup when she hurried past his corner.  ‘What in the world are you doing here?’ she demands of him.  He replies that he has only recently left his battered physical body and is now in the next stage of development.  The woman snorts that this seems an odd place for him to be hanging around, and she herself begins to mount steps that she has just noticed, which make an entrance to the pavilion where she assumes God is awaiting her.  There at last she sees a man who seems to have a very spiritual face.  Curtsying before him, she asks to be taken directly to God.  The man replies, ‘But, madam, all of us are God.’  She looks wildly around and notices that he is including the old beggar in that sweep of his arms.  This annoys her, for that beggar never seemed to wash and his hair had always been matted, although she observes now that he gives the impression of cleanliness.  ‘Stop playing jokes,’ she says.  ‘Lead me to my Maker.’

“‘But, madam,’ the beautiful young man says, ‘He created all of us, not just you, and He does not have time to welcome each and every one of you back to this temporary stage of development.  The one over there whom you think of as a beggar will be a good instructor for you during this interim period until we are able to assist you and others to reach a higher state.’  Such argument as the poor woman gives him!  She will have no part of taking the beggar for an instructor, or anyone else for that matter.  Her business is solely with God, and she demands to know where she will find Him.  Others are now crowding around, and some are also asking for God.  They all want to know where He is, and the woman is indignant that many of them have caught up with her, so that she will no longer be first in line.

“At last the young man turns to the throng of newly arrived souls and says sweetly, ‘Hearken, God is everywhere.  God is love, and as surely as each of you learns to love and assist each other, there will God be working amoung you.  Now take up the mantle and see if it fits you any better than those who surround you.’  ‘But where is the judgment seat?’ the woman demands impatiently.  ‘You are sitting on it, madam,’ the beautiful young man replies.  She looks wildly around, seeing no seat of any kind, and at last begins to perceive a glimmer of his meaning.  She is to be the sole judge of herself.  No one will tell her whether she has lived a pure and blameless life.  She will have to work it out for herself, and as she begins to look within her own heart she discovers this terrible truth:  In trying to live blamelessly, she has been thinking only of herself and her own spiritual growth.  She was too busily concerned with her own goodness to think how to stop for a comforting word with those beneath her status.  She had bethought herself to avoid contamination with those beneath her for fear that it would stain the white garments that she spiritually wore.  Where was the love for others?  Within herself lay all the answers.  God would not have spoken more directly in His judgment than she was now able to do on her own.  She who knew her own heart best was now appraising her shortcomings.  No one would judge her, for she was the sole judge of self, and when she tried to assess the qualities of the beggar beside her, she knew that not in ten thousand years could she see into his heart and know his errors of commission and omission, for he also was the sole judge of himself.”

Dr. Micheal Newton 

The Journey of Souls

When Dr. Micheal Newton, a certified Master Hypnotherapist, began regressing his clients back in time to access their memories of former lives, he stumbled onto a discovery of enormous proportions:  that it is possible to “see” into the spirit world through the mind’s eye of subjects who are in a hypnotized or superconscious state; and that clients in this altered state state were able to tell him what their soul was doing between lives on Earth.  His book “Journey of Souls” represents ten years of his research and insights to help people understand the purpose behind their life choices, and how and why our soul – and the souls of those we love – lives eternally.  The following are excepts from this book.

There are souls who have been so severely damaged they are detached from the mainstream of souls going back to a spiritual home base after death.  Compared to all returning entities, the number of these abnormal souls is not large.

There are two types of displaced souls: those who do not accept the fact their physical body is dead and fight returning to the spirit world for reasons of personal anguish, and those souls who have been subverted by, or had complicity with, criminal abnormalities in a human body.  The first type we call ghosts.  These spirits refuse to go home after physical death and often have unpleasant influences on those of us who would like to finish out our human lives in peace.  These displaced souls are sometimes falsely called “demonic spirits” because they are accused of invading the minds of people with harmful intent.

Those subverted by criminal abnormalities do undergo separation in the spirit world, and this happens at the time of their orientation with guides.  They are not activated along the same travel routes as other souls and will go into seclusion upon reentering the spirit world.  These souls don’t appear to mix with other entities in the conventional manner for quite a while.

Because wrong doing takes so many forms on Earth, spiritual instruction and the type of isolation used is varied for each soul.  The nature of these variations apparently is evaluated during orientation at the end of each life.  The relative time of seclusion and reindoctrination is not consistent either.  For instance, I have had reports about maladjusted spirits who have returned back to Earth directly after a period of seclusion in order to expunge themselves as soon as possible by a good incarnated performance. 

The Levels Of Soul Groupings

All souls, regardless of experience, eventually arrive at a central port in the spirit world which I call the staging area.  Once past the orientation station there seems to be no further travel detours for anyone entering this space of the spirit world.  Apparently, large numbers of returning souls are conveyed in a spiritual form of mass transit.  Spirits are brought in, collected, and then projected out to their proper final destinations similar to a central terminal of a metropolitan airport that has the capacity to fly people out in any direction.  The most outstanding characteristic of this world is a continuous feeling of a powerful mental force directing everything in uncanny harmony.  People say this is a place of pure thought.

After souls arrive back into their soul groups, they are summoned to appear before a Council of Elders.  While the Council is not prosecutorial, they do engage in direct examination of a soul’s activities before returning them to their groups.

Group placement is determined by soul level.  After physical death, a soul’s journey back home ends with debarkation into the space reserved for their own colony, as long as they are not a very young soul or isolated for other reasons.  The souls represented in these cluster groups are intimate old friends who have the same awareness level.  Members of the same cluster group are closely united for all eternity.  These tightly-knit clusters are often composed of like-minded souls with common objectives which they continually work out with each other. Usually they choose lives together as relatives and close friends during their incarnations on Earth. 

The Beginner Soul

There are two types of beginner souls: souls who are truly young in terms of exposure to an existence out of the spirit world, and souls who have been reincarnating on Earth for a long period of relative time, but still remain immature.

I believe almost three-quarters of all souls who inhabit human bodies on Earth today are still in the early stages of development.  Souls end their incarnation on Earth when they reach full maturity.

The beginner soul may live a number of lives in a state of confusion and ineffectiveness, influenced by an Earth curriculum which is different from the coherence and supportive harmony of the spirit world.  Less developed souls are inclined to surrender their will to the controlling aspects of human society, with a socio-economic structure which causes a large proportion of people to be subordinate to others.  The inexperienced soul tends to be stifled by a lack of independent thinking.  They also lean towards being self-centered and don’t easily accept others for who they are.  Every soul was once a beginner. 

The Intermediate Soul

Once our souls advance into the intermediate ranges of development, group cluster activity is considerably reduced.  This does not mean we return to the kind of isolation that occurs with novice souls.  Souls evolving into the middle development level have less association with primary groups because they have acquired the maturity and experience for operating more independently.  These souls are also reducing the number of their incarnations.

These souls are at last ready for more serious responsibilities.  The relationship we have with our guides now changes from teacher-student to one of colleagues working together.  Since our old guides have acquired new student groups, it is now our turn to develop teaching skills which will eventually qualify us for the responsibilities of being a guide to someone else.

This is a significant stage for souls in their development because now they are given increased responsibilities for younger souls.  The status of a guide is not given to us all at once, however.  As with many other aspects of soul life, we are carefully tested.  The intermediate levels are trial periods for potential teachers.  Our mentors assign us a soul to look after, and then evaluate our leadership performance both in and out of physical incarnations.

Only if this preliminary training is successful are we allowed to function even at the level of a junior guide.  Not everyone is suited for teaching, but this does not keep us from becoming an advanced soul.  guides, like everyone else, have different abilities and talents, as well as shortcomings.  By the time we reach the advanced level, our soul aptitudes are well known in the spirit world.  We are given occupational duties commensurate with our abilities.  Different avenues of approach to learning eventually bring all of us to the same end in acquiring spiritual wholeness. 

The Advanced Soul

I believe that people on Earth who possess souls which are both old and highly advanced are scarce.  A person whose maturity is this high doesn’t seek out a regression therapist to resolve life-plan conflicts.  In most cases, they are here as incarnated guides.  Having mastered the fundamental issues most of us wrestle with daily, the advanced soul is more interested in making small refinements toward specific tasks.

We may recognize them when they appear as public figures, such as Mother Teresa; however, it is more usual for the advanced soul to go about their good works in a quiet, unassuming manner.  Without displaying self-indulgence, their fulfillment comes from improving the lives of other people.  They focus less on institutional matters and more on enhancing individual human values.

The mark of an advanced spirit is one who has patience with society and shows extraordinary coping skills.  Most prominent is their exceptional insight.  This is not to say life has no karmic pitfalls for them, otherwise they probably wouldn’t be here at all.  They may be found in all walks of life, but are frequently in the helping professions or combating social injustice in some fashion.  The advanced soul radiates composure, kindness, and understanding toward others.  Not being motivated by self-interest, they may disregard their own physical needs and live in reduced circumstances. 

Returning To The Physical

There comes that time when the soul must once again leave the sanctuary of the spirit world for another trip to Earth.  This decision is not an easy one.  Souls must prepare to leave a world of total wisdom, where they exist in a blissful state of freedom, for the physical and mental demands of a physical body. Once back in the spirit world, souls have misgivings about even temporarily leaving a world of self-understanding, comradeship, and compassion to go to a planetary environment of uncertainty and fear brought about by aggressive, competing humans.  Despite having family and friends on Earth, many incarnated souls feel lonely and anonymous among large impersonal populations.

The rejuvenation of our energy and personal assessment of one’s self takes longer for some souls than others, but eventually the soul is motivated to start the process of incarnation.  While our spiritual environment is hard to leave, as souls we also remember the physical pleasures of life on Earth with fondness and even nostalgia.  When the wounds of a past life are healed and we are again totally at one with ourselves, we feel the pull of having a physical expression for our identity.  Training sessions with our counselors and peer groups have provided a collaborative spiritual effort to prepare us for the next life.  Our karma of past deeds towards humanity and our mistakes and achievements have all been evaluated with an eye toward the best course of future endeavors.  The souls must now assimilate all this information and take purposeful action based upon three primary decisions:  Am I ready for a new physical life?  What specific lessons do I want to undertake to advance my learning and development?  Where should I go, and who shall I be in my next life for the best opportunity to work on my goals?

Once a soul has decided to incarnate again, the next stage in the return process is to be directed to the place of life selection.  Souls consider when and where they want to go on Earth before making a decision on who they will be in their new life.  While some spiritual locales for life selection are difficult for my subjects to describe, they use remarkably similar descriptions.  He is told it resembles a movie theater which allows souls to see themselves in the future, playing different roles in various settings.

In this place of life selection, our souls preview the life span of more than one human being within the same time cycle.  When we leave this area, most souls are inclined toward one leading candidate presented to us for soul occupation.  However, our spiritual advisors give us ample opportunity to reflect upon all we have seen in the future before making a final decision.

After souls have completed their consultations with guides and peers about the many physical and psychological ramifications of a new life and body choice, the decision to incarnate is made.  It would be logical to assume that they would then go immediately to Earth.  This doesn’t happen before a significant element of preparation occurs.  The space souls go to for this in the spirit world is commonly called the place of recognition, or recognition class.  I am told the activity here is like cramming for a final exam.

One of the last requirements before embarkation for many souls is to go before the Council of Elders for the second time.  The spirit world is an environment personified by order and the Elders want to reinforce the significance of a soul’s goals for the next life.  Some return to their spirit group after this meeting to say goodbye while others say they leave immediately for reincarnation.  Those souls getting ready for embarkation to Earth are like battle-hardened veterans girding themselves for combat.  This is the last chance for souls to enjoy the omniscience of knowing just who they are before they must adapt to a new body.

Emanuel Swedenborg 

The Three Stages After Death

During a period in 1743, Emanuel Swedenborg experienced a number of dreams and visions that moved him profoundly.  A fifty-five year old bachelor scientist and arguably Europe’s most brilliant thinker, he began to devote his total creative energy into discovering the nature of the human soul.  In the process, he came face to face with God.  He received a Christ vision of such extraordinary power that it changed his life dramatically.  After his Christ encounter, Swedenborg’s inner life underwent an extraordinary paranormal transition leaving him with an amazing capacity for second sight unique in the annals of psychic

phenomena.  The following are excerpts from famous book “Heaven and Hell” which provides more than just a glimpse into the exciting journey awaiting us all. 

Ruling Love

There is a “ruling love” which a person keeps after death, and which never changes to eternity.  Everyone has a considerable number of loves, but they all go back to a ruling love and make one with it – or, taken all together, compose it.

All the elements of intention that are in harmony with the ruling love are called “loves”, because they are loved.  Some of these loves are more inward, some more outward; there are some directly bound; some are nearer, some are farther away; there are various kinds of subordination.

Taken all together, they make up a kind of kingdom.  Thus they are in fact organized within a person, even though people are completely unaware of their organization.  To some extent, however, this is made known to people in the other life, for they have an outreach of thought and affection there that depends on this organization.  This is an outreach into heavenly communities if the ruling love is made up of loves of heaven, but an outreach into hellish communities if the ruling love is made up of loves of  hell.

First: After death, people are their love or intention.

Second: To eternity, people stay the way they are as far as their intention or ruling love is concerned.

Third: People who have a heavenly and spiritual love enter heaven; while people who have a physical and worldly love without a heavenly and spiritual one enter hell.

Fourth: People do not keep their faith if it does not come from a heavenly love.

Fifth: Love in act is what lasts; hence this is the person’s life.

After death, a person is his love or intention.

This has been borne in on me by observed experience over and over again.  The whole heaven is divided into communities on the basis of differences in the good that comes from love.  Every single spirit who is raised into heaven and becomes an angel is taken to the community where his or her love is, and once there they are where they belong so to speak – as thought they were at home, where they were born.  An angel senses this, and makes close friends with others like themselves.

When they leave and go somewhere else, there is a certain constant resistance.  This is the effect of their longing to return to those who are like themselves, which means to their own ruling love.  This is how close friendships are formed in heaven.  The same holds true in hell, where people also form friendships on the basis of loves which are opposed to heavenly ones.

We may establish that after death people are their love from the fact also that there is a removal after death, a kind of carrying away, of the elements which do not make one with their ruling love.  If a people are good, then all the things that are discordant or that disagree are removed and, so to speak, carried away.  In this way they are installed in their own love.  The same happens with people who are evil (the difference being that true things are carried away from them, while false things are carried away from good persons), until finally all individuals become their own love.  This takes place when a spirit-person is brought through into the third state described below.  Once this has happened, people constantly turn their face toward their inner love, keeping it always before their eyes wherever they turn.

The same holds true for people in this world: their own love leads them too, and they are led by others by means of their own love.  It is all the more true when they become spirits, because then they are not allowed to present the semblance of any other love, or to pretend a love that is not really theirs.

All personal association in the other life evidences the fact that people’s spirits are their ruling love: for in fact, so far as anyone acts and talks in keeping with someone else’s love, that person seems complete, with a fully expressive, cheerful, lively face.  But so far as anyone acts and talks contrary to someone else’s love, that person’s face begins to change, to become hazy, and to fade from view.  Eventually the whole person vanishes as thought the person had never been there.  I have often been amazed that this is so, since nothing like it can occur in our world; but I have been told that something like this does happen to the spirit of a person, which is no longer with another person’s view when it turns away from that other.

Several times, I have been enabled to see how good, simple folk wanted to educate evil people in matters of truth and goodness, and how these latter ran away from this education; and when they reached their own kind, they grasped the false elements that suited their love with an intense pleasure.  I have also been enabled to see good spirits talking with each other about true things, which the good people present listened to eagerly, while the evil ones who were also present paid no attention whatever, just as though they did not hear anything.

Paths are visible in the spiritual world.  Some lead to heaven, some to hell; one to one community, one to another.  Good spirits travel only along paths that lead to heaven, to the community which is involved in the particular good that comes from their own love.  They do not see paths leading in other directions.  Evil spirits follow only paths that lead to hell, to the particular community there which is involved in the evil that comes from their own love.  They do not see paths leading in other directions; and even if they do, they do not want to follow them.

Since loves do define everyone’s life in this way, everyone is examined as to quality as soon as they come into the world of spirits after death, and are connected with people who are involved in a love like their own. People who are involved in a heavenly love are connected with people in heaven, and people who are involved in a physical love are connected with people in hell.

Then too, after the first and second states have been completed, these two classes are separated so that they no longer see or recognize each other.  All individuals become their own love, not only in regard to the more inward elements of their mind, but even in regard to the more outward matters that are proper to their face, body, and speech; for all people become an image of their love, even in outward things.

People who are involved in a physical love are wholly incapable of living in heaven’s warmth, since heaven’s warmth is heavenly love.  They are however capable of living in hell’s warmth, which is a love of cruelty toward other people who do not support them.  The pleasures of this love are various kinds of contempt for others, of enmity, hatred, and revenge. When they are involved in these, they are involved in their own life, utterly ignorant of what it means to do something good to others on the basis of and for the sake of the good act itself – only of doing good on the basis of what is evil and for the sake of what is evil.

People who are involved in a physical love cannot breathe in heaven either.  If an evil spirit is taken there, he draws each breath like someone hard pressed in a struggle.  But people who are involved in a heavenly love breathe more freely and live more fully the farther into heaven they are. 

The First Stage After Death 

There are three states people pass through after their death before arriving in heaven or hell.  The first state involves their more outward aspects, the second involves their more inward aspects, and the third is a state of preparation.  People pass through these states in the world of spirits.

As far as the first state is concerned, the state involving people’s more outward aspects, they come into this state immediately after death.

All people have more outward and more inward aspects to their spirit. A spirit’s more outward aspects are the means by which it adjusts the person’s body in the world (especially his face, speech, and manner) for associating with other people.  But the spirit’s more inward aspects are the ones which belong to the person’s intention and resultant thought, which are seldom evident in the face, speech, or manner.  From infancy, people get used to displaying friendliness and kindness and sincerity, and hiding what their own intentions think.  So as a matter of habit they wear a moral and civic life in outward matters, no matters, no matter what they are like inwardly.

This habit is the source of people’s virtual ignorance of what lies deeper within them, and also of their inattention to these matters.

People’s first state after death is like their state in the world, since at that point they are similarly involved in outward matters.  They have much the same face, speech, and spirit, consequently they have much the same moral and civic life.

This is why they are then quite unaware that they are not still in the world, unless they pay attention to things that happen to them and to what they were told by angels when they were awakened – namely, that they are now spirits.

So the one life continues into the other, and death is only a crossing.

Whenever individuals in the other life think about someone else, they set the person’s face before themselves in their thought, together with many other things that belong to the person’s life.  When they do, the other person becomes present as though called and summoned.

This kind of thing happens in the spiritual world because thoughts are communicated there and because distances do not have the same attributes as they have in the natural world.  This is why everyone, on first arrival in the other life, is recognized by friends, relatives, and acquaintances of one sort or another, and this is also why they talk with each other and then associate with each other along the lines of their friendships in the world.

So they are taught by their friends about the state of eternal life, and are taken around to different places, into different companies.  Some are taken to cities, to gardens and parks; most are taken to splendid places because this sort of place delights the outward nature they are involved in.  Then they are intermittently led into thoughts they had during their physical life about the soul’s state after death, heaven, and hell, until they resent their former utter ignorance of things like this, and resent the church’s ignorance as well.

Almost all of them are eager to know whether they will get into heaven. Most of them believe that they will because they have led a moral and civic life in the world, without considering that evil and good people lead lives that are similar in outward aspects, do good works for other people in similar fashion, attend church in similar fashion, listen to sermons, and pray.  They are wholly unaware that outward behavior and outward worship do not accomplish anything, but rather the inner elements from which the outward ones come.

Hardly one out of several thousand knows what inner elements are, or knows that they are where heaven and the church dwell within a person.

Then, too, all the spirits who arrive from the world are put into a connection either with a particular community in heaven or with a particular community in hell; but this applies only to their more inward elements.  These more inward elements, however, are not visible to anyone as long as the spirits are involved in more outward matters, since outward matters cover and hide inner ones especially with people who are involved in something evil on a more inward level.  Later on, when they come into the second state, these more inward elements become very obvious, because at that point their more inward reaches are opened, and their more outward ones recede. 

The Second Stage After Death

People’s second state after death is called “the state of the more inward elements”, because at that point they are brought into an involvement in the more inward things that belong to their mind, or their intention and thought, while the more outward things they were involved in during their first state go to sleep.

As a result, when people are in this state they are involved in their very selves and in their very own lives.  For thinking freely from one’s very own affection is a person’s real life, and is the real person.

People in this state are thinking on the basis of their very own intention, which means they are thinking from their very own affection or love.  At this point, their thinking makes a unity with their intention – such a unity, in fact, that they hardly seem to be thinking at all, simply intending.  It is almost the same when they talk; but there is the difference that they talk with a certain fear that the things their intention is thinking might come out naked.  This is because their fear became part of their intention in the world due to the demands of civic life.

Absolutely everyone is directed into this state after death because it is the actual state of the spirit.  The earlier state is the way people were in their spirit when they were in company, which is not their proper state.

Once people are in the state proper to their more inward concerns, it is very obvious what kind of people they were intrinsically in the world. At this point, they are acting on the basis of what really belongs to them.  If they were inwardly involved in something good in the world, they then behave rationally and wisely – more wisely, in fact, than they did in the world, because they are released from their ties with a body and therefore from the things that darken and, so to speak, cloud things over.

On the other hand, if they were involved in something evil in the world, they then behave senselessly and crazily – more crazily, in fact, than they did in the world, because they are in freedom and are not repressed.  When they lived in the world, they were sane in outward matters because they were using them to fabricate a rational person.  So once these outward matters are taken away from them, their madnesses are unveiled.

All people who have lived in the world involved in what is good, and who have acted out of conscience (these being those who have acknowledged something divine and loved divine truths, especially those who have applied them to their lives) – it seems to all such people, when they are brought into the state proper to their more inward concerns, as though they have been roused from sleep and come awake, or have come from darkness into light.

They are thinking on the basis of heaven’s light, and therefore out of a deeper wisdom; they are acting on the basis of what is good and therefore out of a deeper affection.  Heaven is flowing into their thoughts and affections with something more deeply blessed and pleasant that they had not known about before.  For they have a communication with heaven’s angels.  At this time too, they recognize the Lord, and are worshipping Him out of their very life; for they are involved in their very own life when they are in the state of their more inward elements, as we have just stated.  Further, they are recognizing and worshipping Him from their freedom, because their freedom is part of their deeper affection.

Then, too, they are withdrawing in this way from what is outwardly holy, and are entering what is inwardly holy, where actual, true worship takes place.

No one enters hell until they are engaged in their own evil and in the false things proper to evil.  This is because no one there is allowed to have a divided mind, to think and say one thing while intending something else.  All who are evil there will think what is false there because of their evil, and will speak out of their evil’s falsity.  Both their thinking and their speech will come from their intention, and therefore out of their own proper love and its delight and pleasure, in the same way they thought in the world when they were in their spirit – that is, the way they thought within themselves when they were thinking from their more inward affection.

All souls arrive at the community where their spirts were in the world. In fact every person is bonded to a particular heavenly or hellish community – an evil person to a hellish one, a good person to a heavenly one.  A spirit is guided there step by step, and eventually gains entrance.

When evil spirits are involved in the state of their more inward elements, they are turned by stages toward their own community. Eventually they are turned straight at it, before this state is completed. And once this state is completed, evil spirits themselves hurl themselves into the hell where there are people l brought through the second state into a third, a state of their preparation for heaven by means of instruction. For no one can be prepared for heaven except by means of insight into what is true and good – only, that is, by means of instruction.  This is because people cannot know what is good and true on the spiritual level, or what is evil and false, unless they are taught.  In the world, it is possible to know what is good and true on a civic and moral level, what is called fair and honest, because there are civil laws which teach what is false.  There are also social contexts in which a person learns to live by moral laws, all of which deal with what is honest and right.  But what is good and true on the spiritual level – this is not learned from the world, but from heaven.

Unless people realize and recognize these facts, they cannot think spiritually.  Without thought about these matters, they cannot intend them; for if one does not know something, one cannot think about it, and if one does not think about it, one cannot intend it.

When a person does intend these things, then, heaven flows in; that is, the Lord’s life flows into the person’s life through heaven.  For the divine essence flows into intention, through that into thought, and through these into life, these two being the source of a person’s life.

We can see from these considerations, that there is no learning of what is good and true on the spiritual level from the world, but rather from heaven; and we can see that no one can be prepared for heaven except by being taught.

To these places, the Lord brings the good spirits who are to be taught, after their second state in the world of spirits has been completed. This, however, does not apply to everyone, because people who have been taught in the world have already been prepared there for heaven by the Lord, and are brought into heaven by another route.  Some are brought in immediately after death.

Once spirits have been prepared for heaven by teaching given in the places mentioned above (this takes a short time only, since the spirits are involved in spiritual concepts which take in many elements at the same time), they are dressed in angelic clothes, most of which are white, as though made of linen.  So dressed, they are brought to a path that heads up toward heaven and are committed to angel guardians there.  Then they are accepted by some other angels and introduced into communities, and there into many forms of happiness. 

The Way To Heaven Is Not Hard

Some people believe that it is hard to lead a heaven-bound life (which is called a spiritual life), because they have heard that a person needs to renounce the world, give up the appetites that are associated with the body and the flesh, and live like spiritual beings.  They take this to mean nothing other than rejecting what is worldly – especially wealth and prestige – walking around in constant devout meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life, passing their lives in prayer and in reading the Word and devotional literature.  They think that this is renouncing the world and living by the spirit instead of by the flesh.

But an abundance of experience and discussion with angels has enabled me to know that the situation is completely different from this.  In fact, people who renounce the world and live by the spirit in this fashion build up a mournful life for themselves, one that is not receptive of heavenly joy; for everyone’s life stays with them.  On the contrary, if people are to accept heaven’s life, they must by all means live in the world,involved in its functions and dealings.  Then through a moral and civic life they receive a spiritual life.  This is the only way a spiritual life can be formed in people, or their spirit be prepared for  heaven.

For living an inward life and not an outward life at the same time, is like living in a house with no foundation, which gradually either settles or develops cracks and gaps, or totters until it collapses.

If we look at and examine a person’s life with rational acuity, we discover that it is threefold: there is a spiritual life, a moral life, and a civic life; and we find these lives distinct from each other.  For there are people who live a civic life but not a moral or a spiritual one. Then there are people who live both a civic life and a moral life and a spiritual as well.  These last are the ones who are leading heaven’s life – the others are leading the world’s life separated from heaven’s life.

A first conclusion we can draw from this is that a spiritual life is not separated from a natural one, or from the world’s life.  Rather, they are bonded together like a soul with its body, and if they become separated it is, as just mentioned, like living in a house without a foundation.

The considerations about to be presented will make it possible to see that it is not so hard to lead a heaven-bound life as people believe it is.

Who can’t live a civic and moral life?  Everyone is introduced to it from the cradle and is acquainted with it from his life in the world. Everyone, good or bad, leads it as well, for who does not want to be called honest and fair?

Almost everyone practices honesty and fairness in outward matters, even to the point of seeming honest and fair at heart, or as thought they were behaving out of real honesty and fairness.  Spiritual people need to live the same way – which they can do just as easily as natural people – the only difference being that spiritual people believe in what is divine, and behaves honestly and fairly not just because it is in keeping with civil and moral laws, but because it is in keeping with divine laws.  For people who are thinking about divine matters while they are active are in touch with angels of heaven.  To the extent that they are doing this, they are joined to them, and in this way their inner person is opened, which, seen in its own right, is the spiritual person.

When people are like this, they are adopted and led by the Lord without realizing it.  Then anything honest and fair that they do as part of their moral and civic life is done from a spiritual source.  Doing something honest and fair from a spiritual source is doing it out of what is genuinely honest and fair, or doing it from the heart.

The laws of spiritual life, the laws of civic life, and the laws of moral life are handed down to us in the precepts of the Ten Commandments. The laws of spiritual life are found first, the laws of civic life next, and the laws of moral life last.

People who are simply natural live by these precepts in the same way as spiritual people do, in outward form.  They worship the divine in similar fashion, go to church, listen to sermons, put on a pious face, do not kill, commit adultery, steal or bear false witness, do not cheat their fellows out of their possessions.  But they do this simply for themselves and the world, for appearances.

As for people who have at heart recognized what is divine, who have focused on divine laws in the deeds of their lives, and have lived by the precepts of the Ten Commandments, things are different for them.  When they are let into their inward aspects, it is like coming from darkness into light, from ignorance into wisdom, and from a mournful life into a blessed one.  This is because they are involved in what is divine, and therefore in heaven.

We can now see that it is not so hard to lead a heaven-bound life as people think.  When something gets in the way that people know is dishonest and unfair, something their spirit moves toward, it is simply a matter of thinking that they should not do it because it is against the divine precepts.  If people get used to doing this, and by getting used to it gain a certain disposition, then little by littler they are joined to heaven.  As this takes place, the higher reaches of their mind are opened; and as they are opened, they see what things are dishonest and unfair; and as they see them, they can be broken off.  For no evil can be broken off until after it is seen.

This is a state people can enter due to their freedom, for who cannot think this way, due to their freedom?  And once this is begun, the Lord works out all good things for them, arranging things so that they not only see evil elements but dislike them, and eventually turn away from them. This is the meaning of the Lord’s words, “My yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

A heaven-bound life is not a life withdrawn from the world but a life involved in the world.  A life of piety without a life of charity (which occurs only in this world) does not lead to heaven.  Rather, it is a life of charity, a life of behaving honestly and fairly in every task, every transaction, every work, from a more inward source, hence a heavenly one.This source is present in that life when a person behaves honestly and fairly because it is in keeping with divine laws.  This life is not hard.

Reverend Mattson 

What About Heaven And Hell?

The following are excerpts from the book “Witness From Beyond” edited by R. M. Taylor, which contain the after-death communications of the noted theologian A. D. Mattson through the distinguished clairvoyant Margaret Tweddel.  The Reverend A. D. Mattson died on October 19, 1970.  Months later, Margaret Tweddel, one of the most respected clairvoyants in England, began receiving after-death message from the Reverend.  Below are some of his most interesting messages. 

Where Is Heaven And Hell? 

Concerning heaven and hell, “It is not true that when we die we wait for a judgment day.  Heaven and hell are not places – they are spiritual states of being.  They are not static states but are states in which there can be growth and progress toward ultimate wholeness of being.

“As there are degrees of heaven or hell on earth, so there are degrees of heaven or hell in the spiritual world.  The spiritual state of being you have on earth is the spiritual state you take with you to the world beyond when you die.

“There is no sudden metamorphosis from an idle person into an active person, from a nonreligious person into a religious person, from a money-centered person into a God-centered person.  This is not an automatic thing.  Your personality – your likes and dislikes, your hopes, your fears – are still attached to you, although in a more nebulous form that when you are on earth in a physical body.

“I see people come over.  They arrive and have high hopes that everything is going to be different for them.  However, nothing can be different for them because they have brought with them what they are.  There is so much harmony here, and if they have brought a disharmonious personality with them, they find it very difficult to link in with the harmonious existence that we have.  This is something that grieves me when I see it.

“It is not true, as some people think, that if we only give verbal assent to belief in God, well, that’s fine – that is our passport to heaven and everything will be all right.  What we have to remember is that Jesus showed us the path by which it will be all right.  He doesn’t say ‘It’s all right, Brother, come along in.  Sit down now and relax and do nothing.’  He says, ‘It’s all right.  You are on my way.  There are a lot of stones in it, but you are on my way.  If you ask me, I’ll help you over the stones.’  The old teachings that ‘as you strive, so you’ll be helped’ are right.  The Lord helps those who help themselves.

“If you truly try to follow the laws of the Kingdom which the Lord has revealed, and ask for his help, he will aid you in becoming a whole person.  As I see it from here, there is a rod of light – a pulsating power, the vital force of the Holy Spirit – right down through you.  It is the self-centeredness of the personality which erects blocks and disturbances which make it impossible for the Holy Spirit to function through you.  If you ask for help from the great physician, the Lord Jesus, he will help you to unlock the inner, healing power of the Holy Spirit which is within you so that it can be diffused and can spread throughout your being.  The Lord will help you to achieve the attunement, the shalom, the peace, the wholeness which is heaven.

“Heaven is not sitting down and ‘casting down your golden crowns’ and singing ‘Hallelujah.’  However, I did notice that there is a tendency among certain sects or religious people over here to congregate in their little groups and have their little sessions of what they feel are ‘heaven.’  This is an interesting fact.  I am told by my teacher here that eventually they become very bored with this narrowness, and then their own helpers and teachers here try to give them another thought and another idea and help them to break away from this narrow approach. “We tend to feel that when we die, heaven is as we thought it – and it certainly is.  As I’ve said, you can be received exactly the same way you always thought you would be received.  You may remain in that narrowness if you want – you need never change unless you wish.  God gives us perfect freedom in spirit.

“The old notions are that you go ‘up to heaven,’ you go ‘down to hell.’  We have not understood that it is merely a matter of vibration.  The finer the vibration is, the nearer we are to heaven.  Heaven is a state of being joyous, light, loving, harmonious, vibrant, God-centered and others-centered.  The heavier the vibration, the nearer we are to hell.  Hell is a state of being heavy, dull, dismal, gray, and glum – as when you are heavily depressed and self-centered.

“People who have an orientation of hate, for instance, find themselves unable to appreciate a realm of love and harmony.  Therefore, they continue in their state of bitterness and are ‘closed’ to the glory which exists around them.  I am told by my spiritual inspirer that they have to wait.  These people wait and gradually they appreciate the fact that it is very destructive to hate like that.  When they have had real hates and have been emotionally upset like that, or have had a real bitterness toward someone, then it takes them quite a period of time to get the light and the power around them again, to be able to appreciate this place or that, or go to the Valley of Praise, or go and hear beautiful music.  They just hear discords, and eventually they come to the realization that ‘this isn’t much of a life, is it?’  And the moment that happens, those who are dedicated to work with this sort of person come and they have their methods of easing them away from the state they are in.  It is like taking a skin off an onion.  They will gently peel off this

layer that is formed by hate – this shutting-in, restricting coat that comes on them with their violent, negative emotion.” 

Is There A Devil?

“Just knowing the bad mistakes you made through your carelessness or your selfishness is a hell.  You don’t need a devil prodding you with a fork.  Believe me, your own anguished mind is a prod that is more hurtful than any prodding with a devil’s fork.

“I met a man over here who said that he would gladly exchange good old Dante’s Inferno for the mental anguish he was experiencing over guilt feelings from wrong actions he had taken on earth in certain business matters.  In Dante’s Inferno he would be able to complain that the devil was doing this to him, whereas now he had no devil to complain of because the devil was himself.

“Whether there is a negative personal being who can be called the devil I cannot say.  I have not seen anyone personified as the devil.  There certainly is an evil force which builds up from the negative aspects of life and has a tremendous influence.  Thought forms which are evil certainly play a part, but I don’t think they are the whole answer.” 

What Is Jesus Like?

“I have seen the Lord Jesus in all his radiance, in all his glory, but not immediately on arrival because then you are still with the dust and vibrations of your own thinking.

“When I first saw him, the light and the glory and the surging of power was so tremendous.  It was like an avalanche of feeling over me.  At the present time I just don’t feel that I have found a way in which to describe what it was like – an indescribable contentment and uplifting, a tremendous ecstasy of feeling on all planes, being completely out of yourself, an unusually vivid knowledge of the intense, sympathetic love around you – the warmth of it, the light of it – something that is not external but is part of you.  It is like a sunrise on a mountain that is covered with snow, when the colors come down and reflect on you – a dazzling brilliance that would make you close your eyes and yet feel it in every pore of your body.  This is the feeling that you have as you come toward the LIGHT.

“And then suddenly to hear the voice that says, ‘Look at me.’  And when you look – there, just as you’ve always imagined – you see him.  He shows himself to us according to our own understanding.  If I want to think of him as a man who walked by the lake and a man who looked as the Jews looked at that time, then I’ll see him that way.  If in my thought I think he’s modern and bright, then I’ll see him that way.  We do not see him as the medieval painters made him.  We see him as we, in our own selves, have pictured him, because otherwise we wouldn’t recognize him.  How would we know unless we have the picture already in our own being – in our own minds, in our own hearts.

“To me he came walking across the air – across the tops of the buildings, the trees.  I’d always known he’d come toward me with his arms and hands outstretched.  He said, ‘Come, let me show you’ – because I have an insatiable curiosity and I must see and I must know.  But there was no ‘falling asleep in the arms of Jesus.’  There was the knowing warmth of BEING that I’ve always known would be.  It was so much beyond what words can tell.

“It is true that the Lord Jesus can take a form so solid that those who are in the body may see him – those who are in the dream state may see him and be called by him.  But when I saw him transcendent, I was days and days just marveling and sensing and knowing.  This was my rebirth.  The body in which I now function was strengthened – made resilient, firm, aware.  When I first came over here, I only knew what I had known and seen, shall we say, in a vision.  But that was to see and not to experience.  Until you have experienced it and been caught up without the ties and the cord that keep you with the physical body, it is very difficult to comprehend.

“Until you are released from the bondage of the physical body, you have no way of knowing the feeling and the uplifting and the thoughts that come into your head.  The body is so much heavier than the personality which goes on.  But even in your personality, there are times when you are completely detached – we call it a mystical ecstasy.  Every time I turn my mind toward him now.  I am engulfed in the power and time has no limits or meaning.  It may be a flash, it may be hours – I know not.  It is just a great knowing.  I ask and he’s there.  He says, ‘Follow me,’ and we follow.  But we don’t follow with our feet.  The whole being of you follow him because he is everywhere – in and through and around and everywhere.  He is the manifestation of God.” 

What Is Eternity Like?

“We don’t talk about time here.  We talk about opportunity.  We cannot think about time here because it is not measured off in days and nights and months and years.”

“I want to put on record that I find life here more interesting than one could dream possible, but it does detract from quiet thinking periods.  I am slowly realizing that there is a greater need for self-discipline than when a physical body made its demands known.  Then I had time divided up into sleep and waking, and the latter part divided into eating, talking, studying, teaching, walking, thinking, etc.  Here there is so much to see, so much to hear, so much to do.  One has to learn to set aside some ‘time’ for one’s own personal self-discipline, because if the mind doesn’t control the body you can be in the same state of utter discord as you are when you are in the physical body.  Discipline brings order, and it is absolutely imperative to have orderliness.”

“Here there is an overall awareness of what is going to happen on earth six weeks, six months, or perhaps two years ahead.  At times it is rather like being in an airplane looking down, and we get an overview or prevision of what is going to happen, due to our being able to see things in broader perspective.  However, do not for one moment imagine that, now that we are here, we automatically have completely extended vision and have become seers.  That is not true.  However, we do have some who are seers here.  They are souls who, through much trial, tribulation, and service, have been permitted to see in a more extended way.”

“Man has to think of life everlasting, manifested now in the present.  This is very important.  Life has been held very cheaply.  Millions of people have been killed through devastation, torture, war, and man’s inhumanity to man.  This has brought spiritual pollution on all levels.

“We are just as much morally obligated to help our brothers on earth when we are without a physical body as we were within a physical body.  This is an aspect of truth that few people want to face.  They think, ‘Oh, when I’m dead everything will sort itself out.  There will be no troubles, and that will be that.’  That is not true.  God still gives us the opportunity and responsibility in the spiritual world to observe and to choose and to serve.

“It is not going to be pleasant for a lot of people to know that, whether they like it or not, they are their brother’s keeper.  We are each other’s keeper.  We are each other’s deterrent.  We are each other’s goad and help, because we are all part of the ONE pulsating, living, glorious WHOLE.

“I say glorious in spite of the terrible things that are still happening in the world, because man is progressing up the spiral of

evolution.  From here we know that there is no problem, there is no pain, there is no ill, there is no disharmony in the whole of the created universe that eventually will not be made into harmony.  This is an awareness that one gets here which is harder to achieve on earth.  It is something I want you to try to remember.” 

Is God Limited Only To Christians?

“Jesus reveals the way, the truth, and the life.  However, unless we can give someone the true Christian experience of the Christ, it is not right for us to say to them, ‘You must not be a Buddhist – you must be a Christian.’  Unless we can give the true Christian experience of the Christ, then it is far better for us to leave them with the Buddha and that approach to God and to the word.  It is wrong for us to say to a Hindu, ‘Oh, no, all that is wrong.  You must be a Christian.’  Unless we can give that man a true and deep understanding of the meaning behind the words that Jesus said – the sense of the knowing of the power of the meaning behind the word – then we have no right to take away their faith because there is an old saying that nature abhors a vacuum.

“I am still utterly amazed at what I find here.  Utterly amazed!  There is love and there is harmony.  There is music that transcends all thought.  There is color, light, belonging, and there is being.  It isn’t only in the one path of Christianity.  You find it in many, many other faiths.  All faiths which stress love have this focus.  It is like reaching out to a sun and light comes down along different rays.

“We are all walking.  We Christians walk here, the Hindus walk there, the Buddhists walk in another place, and so forth.  All have their own paradise, goals, aims, and objectives for so long.  Then suddenly they are into the tremendous experience of knowing that all is one under God and that there is no division in purpose.  There is one God of us all.” 

What Are The Planes Of Existence?

“The world in which we find ourselves immediately after death we call the ‘astral world.’  From this point we can progress to higher planes – to higher levels of consciousness.  By ‘higher’ planes I do not mean spatially higher but rather those planes which have a finer vibration.

“All of the various planes of consciousness have different frequencies of vibration.  For instance, you assume that the matter of earth is composed of atoms and that these atoms are composed of energy which vibrates.  This matter of earth is denser than the matter of the higher planes.  As you can see light waves which vibrate at a ‘visual observing’ rate, so you can see the matter of earth.  However, as you cannot see radio or television waves which vibrate at too fast a rate to be seen, so you cannot see the matter of the world beyond, unless you are clairvoyant.

“The spiritual bodies of those who have died vibrate at a rate too fast for your physical eyes to see.  However, they can be viewed by clairvoyants whose sight has been opened to receive this faster vibration.

“You know, the world beyond is not up there somewhere.  It’s here – a change of condition.  It is all in one space like a big sponge, containing all the different frequencies of vibration – like soapy water, salt water, clear water, the different densities of water – you can relate it to the different densities or vibrations that I have here.   “The astral world is almost a replica of your world, except that it is of a finer substance and we are not ‘bound’ by our objective reality as you are.

“On the astral plane we are conscious of our personalities and the modes of life we carried out on earth.  Therefore, we have denominations on this plane and we continue to practice the rites of our respective churches.

“On numerous occasions since I arrived here, I have been permitted to go into the higher planes where there is a unity of God-praise, not a segregation of the praise of God.  However, I feel very strongly that there is work for me to do here, helping to break down the barriers which segregate the churches.  Therefore, I shall be a sojourner on this astral plane but the higher planes, where there is a unity of God-praise, will be my spiritual home.” 

His Journey Into Outer Space 

“I was having what we call a rest period here, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, now I have learned to travel by swift thought – to wing the spirit – and I can arrive very quickly anywhere on the surface of the globe.  I really would like to go out and look into space.’

“As soon as I had put forth this desire, I suddenly was conscious of a figure by my side.  This figure was taller than I and it had the shape of a physical body with head, shoulders, arms and legs, but it was made of beautiful, vibrating light.  The light was similar to the shades, the colors, and the transparency that you see in a crystal.  Some of those who come to help us have the milky-lookingness of a pearl.  I understand they are nearer to the earth than those beings that come with the appearance of crystal.

“I knew that this being was going to help me have my desired view of the universe, the cosmos.  He held out his right hand and I placed my left hand in his.  Immediately I was filled with a sense of lightness and expectancy.

“Suddenly – I don’t know how it happened – the two of us were out into the deepest of indigo blue, and yet we could see.  When I looked around me, all above and around me, there was the deepness of the night sky.  I could see the stars – really not a great deal larger than when I used to see them on earth, looking up into the sky from earth.  However, they seemed more alive and they were vibrating out at me.  I was conscious of the fact that they were moving and that there was an auric light around them – mixtures of gold, blue, pink, and red light – that seemed to be part of the power that was generating around them.

“Suddenly I was flying on my face, looking down.  There below me was the moon, with a very slow-moving, milky kind of mistiness around it.  As I looked down, I could also see the earth and it was blue.  It was moving and revolving and there were parts that I felt I could distinguish as Africa, the North Pole, and other geographical areas of the earth.  Around the earth were not only clouds but also lines of fine light – latitudinal and longitudinal lines of power.  They were of varying colors, like miniature neon lights.

“Suddenly I saw a streak of light come and it was absorbed into the earth.  I thought, ‘A shooting star!’  No, it was impressed on me, it was not a shooting star, but it was a stream of power coming to the earth from the celestial bodies.  These streams of power were coming down from all angles to the earth.  There were also streams that were going between star and star and star like a tremendous web.  These streams of power had a set pattern like a web of a fishing net, which was all continuous with the power of lights pulsating backward and forward.  I felt caught up in all of this to the very depths of my being.  I felt myself expanding and expanding until I thought, ‘I’m going to burst!’

“The moment I thought, ‘I’m going to burst!’, I suddenly found myself alone, back where this being had met me, and he had gone.

“Then I became conscious of different sounds of bells ringing and music.  I realized that I had been hearing these bells and music while I was out in space.  In the midst of this sound I became aware of the fact that at the present time I may see and I may observe, but my consciousness will have to expand further before I may know how all of this takes place, and why.”

Betty Andreasson Luca 

Aliens, Angels and Earthlings

One of the most well-documented and believable cases in ufology is the experience of one woman’s abduction aboard a UFO.  Her name is Betty Andreasson Luca, a devout Christian, and during her experience with the extraterrestials she was taken before a Being she called the “One”, a Being amazingly similar to the Being of Light encountered in near death experiences. Led by a number of teams of highly-credentialed investigators, her experience is one of the most thoroughly investigated cases ever reported in the annals of hypnotherapy.  This page is mainly focused on her experience with the Being of Light she calls the “One”. 

Her Abduction

On the evening of January 25, 1967, Betty Andreasson was in her kitchen at South Ashburnham, Massachusetts.  Her seven children, mother, and father were in the living room.

At about 6:35 pm, the house lights suddenly blinked out for a moment.  Then, a pulsating reddish-orange light shined in the kitchen window.

Betty calmed the frightened children while her father rushed to look out the kitchen window.  He saw a group of strange-looking small creatures approaching with a hopping motion.  Five small humanoid creatures entered the house, passing right through the wooden door!

Betty’s family were immediately placed into suspended animation.  One creature went over to her father.  The leader of the other four established telepathic communication with Betty.

The leader was about five feet tall.  The others were about four feet tall.  All had large pear-shaped heads, wide catlike wraparound eyes, and diminutive ears and noses.  Their mouths were immobile slits that reminded Betty of scar lines.  Each wore a coverall blue uniform adorned with a Sam Browne-type belt.  An insignia of a bird was affixed to their sleeves.  Their hands had three digits.  (Later, on the craft, they were gloved.)  They wore bootlike attire on their feet.  They floated rather than walked.

Betty’s initial fright was immediately calmed by an overpowering sense of friendship.  When she displayed concern for her family’s welfare, the creatures temporarily released her eleven-year-old daughter, Becky, from this strange state of unawareness to assure Betty that she was all right.

Then Betty was taken outside and brought on board a small craft resting on the side of a hill that sloped into the back yard.

The machine was about twenty feet in diameter.  It looked like two saucers, one inverted upon the other, with a small superstructure on top.  The small craft accelerated and apparently merged with a larger parent craft, in which Betty was subjected to the effects of strange equipment and a physical examination.  Then she was taken to an alien place and given a bizarre object lesson that caused her to undergo a painful yet ecstatic religious-like experience.

Later that night, a 10:40 pm, Betty was returned home by two of her alien captors.  At home, she found her family still in a state of suspended animation.  One being had stayed behind to watch over them during her absence.  Then the beings put the family – still under some type of mind control – to be, and the aliens left.

Several times, the aliens had told Betty that certain things had been locked in her mind.  She was instructed to forget them and her UFO experience until the appointed time.  She consciously remembered only a fraction of the strange encounter; the power failure, the colored light flashing through the window, and the aliens entering the house.

Betty, a devout Christian, interpreted the creatures as religious or angelic in nature.  The subject of UFOs was largely unknown to her.  Her education had been limited to ten years of schooling, her basic interests included family, church, and community-related activities.  Not until much later did she think of her experience as a possible UFO encounter.

In 1975, Betty responded to a local newspaper story about UFO researcher Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who was soliciting personal UFO experience information from the public.  Betty’s letter contained such few data, however, that it was filed and forgotten until an investigation in January 1977.

The investigating team consisted of a solar physicist, an electronics engineer, an aerospace engineer, a telecommunications specialist, and a UFO investigator.  They employed the services of a professional hypnotist and a medical doctor trained in psychiatry.

During a twelve-month investigation, they conducted an extensive character-reference check, two lie-detector tests, a psychiatric interview, and fourteen lengthy hypnotic regression sessions.  Under hypnosis, Betty and her daughter relived a consistent, detailed UFO experience with genuine physiological reactions.

Their three-volume, 528-page report concluded that the witnesses were reliable and sane individuals who sincerely believed the experience had really occurred.  Their findings are published in classic series of works called “The Andreasson Affair”. 

Her Experience with the One

The following are the exact transcripts from her hypnotic regression:

BETTY:  “We’re coming up to this wall of glass and a big, big, big, big, big door.  It’s made out of glass.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Does it have hinges?”

BETTY:  “No.  It is so big and there is – I can’t explain it.  It is door after door after door after door.  He (the alien leading her) is stopping there and telling me to stop.  I’m just stopping there.  He says: ‘Now you shall enter the door to see the One.’  And he says, ‘Fear not.'”

(Then Betty appeared to undergo an out-of-body experience!)

BETTY:  “And I’m standing there and I’m coming out of myself!  There’s two of me!  There’s two of me there!

HYPNOTIST:  “Are you looking at yourself?”

BETTY:  “Uh, huh.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay.  Do you see the One yet?”

BETTY:  “The One?  No.

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, go on.”

BETTY:  “I’m coming up to the door, and the little person is saying: ‘Now you shall enter the Great Door and see the glory of the One.’  And I’m standing face to face with that door.”

(Betty now stood before the strange door.  Again she described its appearance and her out-of-body experience.)

BETTY:  “There’s a big door there, and it is big, but it is strange.  It is like deeper and deeper and deeper.  And it’s bright, really bright.  And I have to stand before the door.  But, before that, I came out of myself.  I was just standing over there, and I was standing over here.  There were two of me, but that one over there was stiff.

HYPNOTIST:  “Have you tried to talk to you other self?”

BETTY:  “That won’t work, because I’m over here, and that one is over there.”

HYPNOTIST:  “She looks exactly like you?”

BETTY:  “Yeah.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Is she making motions to show you she is alive, like breathing, moving her arms?”

BETTY:  “No.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Would you say she looks like a wax museum piece or something?”

BETTY:  “No, it looks just like me.”

HYPNOTIST:  “All right, go on.”

BETTY:  “I was told to come forward.  I went in the door, and it’s very bright. I can’t take you any further.

HYPNOTIST:  “Why?”

BETTY:  “Because.”

HYPNOTIST:  “What do you mean, because?”

BETTY:  “I can’t take you past this door.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, I’ll tell you what.  You go past that door alone then for a few minutes, okay?”

Time and again, the hypnotist tried in different ways to induce Betty to tell him what was behind the door – all in vain.)

HYPNOTIST:  “Sometime maybe, if you change your mind, would you tell me?” BETTY:  “I can’t change my mind.  It is set.”

HYPNOTIST:  “What would happen to you if you did tell me?”

BETTY:  “I can’t tell you.  I’m sorry.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, let’s proceed to the first thing you can tell me.  Fair enough?

BETTY:  “Oh!”  (Betty’s face glows with joy)

HYPNOTIST:  “What’s happening now?”

BETTY:  “I’m coming out of that door, and it was wonderful!”

HYPNOTIST:  “Did the One say something exciting?”

BETTY:  “I can’t tell you.  I’m sorry.

HYPNOTIST:  “Would you say that the One was God?”

BETTY:  “Do you really know what God is?”

HYPNOTIST:  “I don’t know.  I was hoping that you had seen Him and could therefore tell me.”

BETTY:  “I can’t tell you about that.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, let’s proceed.  What’s happening now?  You just came out of the room, and you feel great.”

BETTY:  “I come out of the door, and there is a tall white-haired man standing there and he’s got on a long nightgown.

(The next session took place on May 15, 1980.  Determined to find out what lay behind the Great Door, the hypnotist again brought Betty back in time to where she was standing before it.)

HYPNOTIST:  “Where are you?”

BETTY:  “I’m before this huge great big door.  It’s glass. Layers and layers of glass.”

HYPNOTIST:  “What are you standing on?”

BETTY:  “Glass.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Let me ask you now: You’re going to see the One now, right?”

BETTY:  “Yeah.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Why are you going to see the One?”

BETTY:  “Because it is time for me, they said, for me to go home to see the One.”

HYPNOTIST:  “All right, in other words, does this imply that the One is someone that you have seen before?”

BETTY:  “I don’t remember.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay.  Do you know why it is time to see the One?”

BETTY:  “No.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Why haven’t you asked questions?”

BETTY:  “They haven’t been there very often.  Those little people haven’t been there very much for me to ask.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Yeah, but they are asking you to do a lot of things, shall we say.”

BETTY:  “I know.  But, I’m in their place.  I can’t do anything.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay.  In a moment you’re going to see the One, right?  We don’t want to waste the experience.  We want to get the most out of it.  So when you see the One, I want you to ask yourself:  ‘What am I getting out of this?  Why am I here?  And, what will this mean to me later on in my life?’  It’s like any big experience a person is allowed to have.  Okay?  I want you to progress to where the door is open and you are seeing the One.

BETTY:  “Oh!”

(At that very moment, an indescribable smile came over Betty’s face.  The only adjective that the investigators could think of to describe it is rapturous.  This expression of pure, unrestricted happiness remained on Betty’s face as the hypnotist continued to question her.)

Her Experience of the One

HYPNOTIST:  “You seem happy.  Why are you so happy?”

BETTY:  “It’s just – ah, I just, I can’t tell you about it.”

HYPNOTIST:  “All right.  I know you can’t tell me, but I want you to do a few things.  I want you to ask yourself why you are being shown that which you are being shown.  In other words, you weren’t given this trip just for a free ride, so to speak.  They want you to see what you are seeing.  Does that make sense?”

BETTY:  “Yes.”

HYPNOTIST:  “All right.  Now that you’re there, ask yourself: ‘What am I getting out of this?  Why am I here?  What am I supposed to think about after I leave here?”

BETTY:  “Oh, it matters not what I get from it.”

HYPNOTIST:  “What do you mean?”

BETTY:  “It’s – words cannot explain it.  It’s wonderful.  It’s for everybody.  I just can’t tell you this.”

HYPNOTIST:  “You can’t?  Okay, why can’t you?”

BETTY:  “For one thing, it’s too overwhelming and it is – it is indescribable.  I just can’t tell you.  Besides it’s just impossible for me to tell you.”

HYPNOTIST:  “All right.  Are you capable, when looking around you, to tell yourself?”

BETTY:  “I see it.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Right.  That which you can see, you have a grasp of even if you don’t understand it.”

BETTY:  “I understand it.  I’m sorry.  I’m just sorry.  I wish I could share it with you.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Were you told not to share it with me?”

BETTY:  “It is like even if I was able to speak it, I wouldn’t be able to speak it.  I can’t.  I’m sorry.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Were you specifically told not to speak it?”

BETTY:  “Partly, yeah.”

HYPNOTIST:  “How was it expressed to you?”

BETTY:  “I can’t tell you those things.  I’m sorry.”

HYPNOTIST:  “All right.  Can we let the beings speak through you?  Suppose you just relax, and I’ll put my hand on your shoulder and with each number you will go deeper and deeper.  When I reach three, you will just relax and allow the beings to speak through you.  One, two, three.”

(Betty began speaking in a strange tongue.)

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, Betty, can you explain to me so that I could understand what you have just said?”

BETTY:  (Begins crying) “Father loves the world so very much.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Yes?”

BETTY:  “And so many reject Him.

HYPNOTIST:  “Uh huh, okay.  You said a lot of words.  Can you explain more of what you said?”

BETTY:  “They will be felt by those who believe and have faith.  They will feel the love radiating from them.

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, where are you now?”

BETTY:  “I’m where there is light.”

HYPNOTIST:  “And what do you see?”

BETTY:  “I cannot tell you this.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, that’s all right.  Let me ask you.  Do you feel much love, the same love, or any different degree of love now than you have before?”

BETTY:  “It’s a greater love.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay.  When will I understand all of the words that the being said through you?”

BETTY:  “When you allow the Spirit to come upon you and you are filled with that love.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Do you understand all the words that you have said?”

BETTY:  “I understand them, but they will not come forth.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, I’m trying to understand.  I’m not trying to ask you to divulge anything, all right?  You understand them, but you can’t express them?”

BETTY:  “They’re in my heart.”

HYPNOTIST:  “More like a feeling than a concept?

BETTY:  “They’re in my heart, in my mind, in my body.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, could you explain this to your children?

BETTY:  “What children?”

HYPNOTIST:  “If you have children someday.  The words that you spoke, while they had a message of love in them, did they also have a warning?”

BETTY:  “Yes.  Those that do not have love have nothing.  Love is the answer.”

(Again the hypnotist failed to elicit the information that he sought regarding what Betty had experienced while behind the Great Door.  With endless patience, he tried yet again.)

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay.  You’ve seen the One.  Do you feel different about anything now than you did before?”

BETTY:  “Everything is so wonderful!”

HYPNOTIST:  “Is there anybody that you don’t like?

BETTY:  “No.”

HYPNOTIST:  “There are some people, shall we say, that aren’t as nice as other people, right?”

BETTY:  “No, everybody is nice.  They are just growing, that’s all.  If one doesn’t understand another one, they are just growing, that’s all.”

HYPNOTIST:  “Okay, just relax.  You’ve been to see the One and now everything is a little nicer, right?”

BETTY:  “I understand that everything is one.”

HYPNOTIST:  “What do you mean?”

BETTY:  “Everything fits together.  Everything is one.  It’s beautiful!  No matter what it is!”

(Here her description of her experience ends.)

Ufo’s and the Near Death Experience

Betty Luca’s description under hypnosis of her experience of “the One” in the preceding page is instantly recognizable as the same type of experience reported by many NDErs, and even in many cases the same IDENTICAL experience.  It is a very basic kind of spiritual experience, which has also been consistently reported throughout history by saints, mystics, and various types of ecstatics.

The similarities between UFO abduction and near death experiences have been explored by a number of writers and researchers, the most famous and credentialed of which is undoubtedly Kenneth Ring.  Dr. Ring did an extensive series of clinical studies on NDE and published his results in “Life at Death” and “Heading Toward Omega”.  Then he did a follow-up project in which he studied UFO experiencers (primarily “abductees”), and specifically compared this phenomenon to that of near death.  His full report can be found in “The Omega Project”; he found strong similarities between the two types of experience, and hypothesized that they may actually be two variants of a more basic underlying phenomenon.

Ring also quotes other commentators, who make the following remarks:

“According to polls, we live in an age where now most people believe that UFOs are real and that ‘people like us live on other planets.’  In that context, since angels and demons are out of style, they now dress in the costume of our own epoch’s archetypal figure – the extraterrestrial alien – whom we can see precisely because we can now CONCEIVE of him; he conforms to and expresses our current ideas of possibility.”

“Abductions may represent a contemporary form of shamanic journey – one that fits and is phrased in terms of a highly technological society which has already turned its imaginative attention to star flight … Perhaps the (ancient) otherworld journey motif is ‘camouflaged’ in the modern lore of space travel which, like the fantastic voyage legends of the past, exemplifies what might be called the lure of the edge.”

“These ecological and millennial themes have been part of the canon of the UFO world and its literature for a long time, and many persons have already commented on their quasi-religious character.  Indeed, in an age where secular thinking has come to be the standard but from which the religious impulse has never disappeared, it is psychologically very understandable why traditional religious images of salvation have come to be projected onto the screen of a universe where, for some, it is easier to believe in Ets than in God.”

Betty Luca does believe in God very strongly, being a devout Christian; yet a striking difference between her experience quoted on page 2 and that of NDErs is that she was escorted to it not by dead relatives nor Christian spiritual figures, but by small gray bug-eyed space aliens.  Yet, at the end of this first even, which occurred when she was only 13 years old, there appeared figures of a different type: a number of entities who were human-looking except for their size, being about seven feet tall; they were dressed in long white robes, had pale-colored skin, and hair that was blond to white.  In a word, they looked exactly like the Christian image of angels, except that they had no wings.  Betty called these beings the “Elders”, after the Christian term used especially in the Book of Revelation, denoting the angelic beings surrounding the throne of God.

After some three decades of further experiences, reported in a total of four books by researcher Raymond Fowler, there came a point when the Elders seemed to completely take over Betty’s encounters.  All the earlier events, including her first experience of the One, took place in mysterious locations which seemed to be underground, or else on or near the surface of the Earth.  But now, as reported in the last of Fowler’s books, “The Watchers II”, the small Grays came again for Betty in a saucer, and for the first time took her into outer space, where the small craft docked with a huge cylindrical mothership.  This was the domain of the Elders, who apparently commanded the Grays in a symbiotic relationship.  This journey climaxed for Betty in another ecstatic experience of the One, though this time the events leading up to it were very different.

Betty asked why she was here with the Elders, and they said, “Don’t you remember your blessing?”  She didn’t know what they were talking about, and in response they used a machine to show her a scene from earlier in her life.  It was at a church service, and what happened was this: Betty stood up and gave testimony and pledged to use her talents for the glory of God.  This was probably not unusual for this type of service.  But then the minister suddenly began speaking in tongues.  His wife jumped up, ran down the aisle to Betty, put her hands on Betty’s head, and began speaking in tongues herself.  Then the minister interpreted his wife’s tongues; it was a message for Betty: “You have given all that you have … thou shalt be blessed above women…”

This was evidently the scene as Betty remembered it from when she was younger.  But now in the strange replay on the mothership, she noticed some differences.  Some of the people had “a light around them” – these included Betty, the minister, and his wife.  And two Elders were present in the room, unseen by the congregation.  One of the Elders stood behind the minister and put his hand on the man’s shoulder – and this is when he began speaking in tongues.  Then the Elder whispered in the ear of the minister’s wife, and this is when she jumped up and administered the “blessing” to Betty.  Evidently the whole scenario had been orchestrated by the Elders.

After being shown this scene from the past, Betty witnessed “live” what clearly seems to have been an act of ritual magic performed by the Elders.  Three of them stepped into a circle drawn on the floor, subdivided by straight lines into size equal parts.  They touched their hands together, and then, as they concentrated, beams of light came out of their foreheads, and formed a triangle.  At length, in the center of this triangle, there appeared a ring of light, floating in the air.

Three more Elders stepped into the circle, and they all began chanting “Oh”.  Three more beams of light appeared, forming a perfect hexagram.  A larger circle of light formed around the heads of the Elders.  Then this light-ring moved upwards, shrank to the same size as the ring in the center, and floated down and interconnected with it, forming a revolving spherical object which finally condensed into a beachball-sized orb of lavender-purple light.  This was then taken and placed in a four-pronged stand which had obviously been designed specifically to hold such spheres.

The term “Elders” is Betty’s name for these beings.  When on an earlier occasion she had asked them who they were, they had answered that they are “the ambassadors of Oh, masters of rings, cycles, and orbs.”  Now, after witnessing the creation of this magical orb, Betty asked an Elder: who is “Oh”?  He replied that Oh is “the internal, external, eternal presence.”

The next thing that happened, to Betty’s extreme startlement, was that the Elders induced an out-of-body experience in her.  This is similar to what happened in her experience at age 13, before she entered the Great Door and saw the One.  Now, on the mothership, as soon as she emerged in her subtle body, one of the Elders hand her her the orb of purple light, and another led her through a portal made of rippling waves of energy.

On the other side of the portal, Betty and the Elder seemed to be on Earth, in a woods at night.  Some hoboes were sleeping on the ground.  One of them awakened and approached the two visitors; he glowed with light.  The Elder wore little rings of light on his fingers.  He allowed the hobo to take some of them, and they turned into a single tiny ball of light, which the man kept.  Meanwhile, the larger orb in Betty’s hands changed color momentarily, evidently in resonance with the transaction.  Every once in awhile, Betty’s attention was drawn into the ball: “Oh,” she said, “it’s just so beautiful!  Something in it keeps on moving …”

Now the Elder touched Betty’s shoulder.  There was a little explosion of white light, and then they were in a different place: a hospital room, where a very old man lay in a bed, with a nurse keeping vigil beside him.  And there was more: two small entities which seemed to be made of darkness where tugging at the man, as if trying to pull his soul out of his body – this was Betty’s impression.  But there was also present a light-being; this was a type of entity Betty had encountered before in her experiences – it had no visible human features, but appeared as a bodily form made of white light.  This being was also tugging at the dying man; it was clearly a battle for his soul between these opposing entities.  The Elder resolved the conflict: he threw two tiny balls of light at the black entities, and they flew away.

The Elder and Betty next transported to a woods again, where a small saucer and two of the Grays awaited them.  They went on board, and evidently flew up into the sky.  Betty asked where they were going now, and the Elder replied that they were going to see the One.

Betty had to give the purple orb to one of the Grays; she was very reluctant and sorrowful to give it up.  The craft came to a stop, and they emerged into a place filled with bright light.  Above them was the Great Door, which was the source of the light.  The Elder touched one of the Grays on the shoulder and spoke to him, and he came along with the Elder and Betty as they walked toward the Light.  Their walk turned into a run, as they moved swiftly into the pure radiance.  Betty was overwhelmed with the ecstasy of the One, which she re-experienced on the hypnotist’s couch, and the several people in attendance were all profoundly moved by the visible effects of her transformation.

Betty, the Elder, and the Gray all turned into light-beings as they went into the One.  Each was a different hue: the Elder’s light-body was pure white, the Gray alien’s was light blue, and Betty’s was golden.

Betty said: “Oh, there is such love … Oh, there is such peace … I’m just engulfed in light and blending into that light.  Oh! … Oh, this is everything, everything, everything … I cannot explain the wonder and beauty and love and peace.”

And then came a heartbroken cry as Betty realized that she would have to leave this beatific state of Oneness: “Oh, I’m going to have to go back.  I have to go back for others so that they too will see, will understand and know …”  And Betty, the Elder, and the Gray emerged back out of the Light, turning back into their normal forms in the process.

The Elder gave three of the tiny balls of light to Betty; then she was escorted into the saucer and taken home by the Grays.  She found her physical body sitting up on the side of her bed next to her sleeping husband, and re-entered it.  The experience had ended.

The four books by Raymond E. Fowler about Betty Andreasson Luca are available from Blue Water Press:

BlueWaterP@aol.com

1-800-366-0264  

Joseph Kerrick

Imagians@aol.com

This document may be freely retransmitted electronically, as long as the author’s name, email address, and copyright notice are included.  Please contact the author for permission to reproduce in hard copy.  To avoid theft of the rights to this document, a hardcopy version has been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.  Any attempts to steal the rights by affixing a false copyright or falsely claiming authorship will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

Answers to the Meaning of Life and Death

Here are the facts plain and simple about life after death.  These are the main conclusions drawn from my research and they describe the afterlife as a whole.  These are the most important truths revealed from all the near-death experiences I have read.  Some of my conclusions I verify with sacred writings.  There is one word to describe what the afterlife is all about and that word is “Love”.  From these conclusions, you will see that Love is truly the answer to all questions concerning life and death.  In the end, Love conquers all and even the gates of hell will not prevail.

You existed before you where conceived into this world and you will continue to exist when your soul leaves this world.

You have lived many lives on earth throughout history and you can remember these lives in your dreams.

You existed before the universe began and you will continue to exist when the universe ends.

Your soul has always existed as a part of God and your soul will continue to exist throughout eternity.

Our souls are indestructible.

Jesus said “you are gods” (John 10:34) meaning that we too have divinity within us.

God is Love, Life, and Light, in other words, totally unfathomable.

All souls are holy in the Light of God. All souls are deeply Loved.  All souls are sparks from the Mind of God.

All souls are connected together.  Separation is only an illusion.  We are in reality all one with God and each other.

There are many dimensions to the afterlife and earth is only one of them.

Each level of the afterlife is a different school for learning the many lessons of Love.

You are currently living in a level of the afterlife right now.

The levels of heaven and hell begin right here on earth within us and continue on after physical death.

Our earth lives are gifts from God for us to learn to give and receive Love.

Life is a road full of lessons teaching Love.  When Love is learned, you will forever have eternal paradise within you.

At death, the next level of the afterlife you go to is determined by the level of spiritual development you have attained on earth.

Death is merely the doorway to the next level of spiritual evolution.

Only Love is real.  Death is the Grand Illusion.

Sin is believing you are not a part of others and God – and acting accordingly.

God does not judge you when you die.  In the awesome Light and Love of God, some people judge, condemn and punish only themselves.

God has already forgiven us. God Loves us infinitely.  We must forgive ourselves and others which may be hard for some to do.

After death, you will review your entire life, every thought and deed.  These will flash in an instant before your spiritual eyes and you will understand your life in it’s entirety.

During your life review, you will see yourself and your life completely from God’s perspective.  However, there is no judgement except the judgement you level at yourself.

During your life review, you will experience every thought and feeling of everyone you came in contact with during your entire earthly life.

Those with evil thoughts flee the Light of God at death because they are too ashamed to have their entire lives and inner nature revealed.

Communication in the afterlife of the spirit world is by thought.

In the spirit realm our thoughts and feelings cannot be hidden from others.  This is can be heaven for some and hell for others, depending on your inner nature.

In the Light of God and Truth, it is impossible to lie to God, yourself or others in the afterlife.  There is no place for secrets to hide.

On earth we have an inner nature (our conscious) and an outer nature (our personality).  In the afterlife, your inner nature becomes your outer nature.

In the afterlife, Love is Light.  The reason Jesus can be seen emanating tremendous Light is because of the tremendous Love that emanates from Him.

Every soul shines this Light of Love in various degrees.  The Light of souls who Love very little are very dim and dull.

Love in the afterlife can be compared to money in the physical world.  The more you have to give, the greater you are.

The Kingdom of heaven is within you as Jesus said.  If you have Love on earth, you have heaven within you.  You are already living in heaven.

If you have not Love on earth, you are already living in hell.

You create your own heaven or hell within you.

There is no devil to blame for your transgressions.  The hell of hells is knowing that you were your own “devil”.

God doesn’t force anyone to heaven, hell, or anywhere.

Hell is not literal flames.  It is a temporary spiritual state of total separation from Love, joy, God, light, peace, sanity, etc.  We put ourselves there until we no longer refuse to love others and ourselves.

The Love of God is a “consuming fire” that burns the darkness of hell out of the soul.

Living where God is fully manifest can bring an overwhelming experience of Love and ecstasy that many people are not prepared for and cannot endure.

It is Love, not religious dogma or ritual, that creates spiritual growth and saves us from a hell of our own making.

Love is the Way to heaven, God, the Spirit of Jesus, the Law of the Universe, the gospel, God,  Light, I AM, YOU ARE, WE ARE … ONE.

Learning Love is what life on earth is all about.

Religions are cultural institutions only.  God is Love and Love is universal.

The only true “religion” is Love according to Jesus.

Everyone, no matter their religion, who Loves has been born of God and knows God because God is Love. (1 John 4:7)

Love, being God, transcends religion and culture.

The Spirit of Jesus is Love.  No one can come to the Father except thru Love. Love is what Christ and true “religion” is all about.

Jesus came to show the way to heaven.  The way to heaven is Love.

The gods and deities of other religions are the saints and angels in other religions.

Love surpasses knowledge. (Eph 3:19)

Love is greater than faith. (1 Cor 13:13)

Love removes sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

Love is God. (1 John 4:8)

Love, being God, keeps no record of wrongs. (1 Cor 13:5)

Love is the Law of God. (Rom 13:10)

God is Love.  Love is patient, kind, doesn’t envy, doesn’t boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil, rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, never fails. God is Love. (1 Cor 13:4-8)

If you live in Love, God is in you. (1 John 4:16)

If you do not Love others, you do not know God. (1 John 4:7)

If you do not Love others, you do not Love God. (1 John 4:20)

We know we are saved if we Love others. (1 John 3:14)

People are in hell because they refuse to Love. (2 Thes 2:10)

Love, being God, is our salvation from a hell of our own making. Love is the Truth.

Nothing can separate us from the Love of God, except self. (Rom 8:39)

If you have Love, you have been born again of God. (1 John 4:7)

You can have the faith that moves mountains, but if you have not Love, you are nothing. (1 Cor 13:2)

You can give all you possess to the poor and surrender your body to the flames, but if you have not Love, you gain nothing. (1 Cor 13:3)

You can speak with the tongues of men and angels, but if you have not Love, you are only a resounding gong. (1 Cor 13:1)

Faith without Love (actions) is dead. (James 2:17)

The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through Love. (Gal 5:6)

We Love God, not because we Loved Him first, but because God Loved us first. (1 John 4:19)

Love is the gospel.  Love is the Light of the world.  Love is the Word of God.

It was not nails that held Jesus to the cross.  It was Love.

If we seek God and His Kingdom of Love within us, we fill find.  If we knock on the door to our hearts, it will be opened.  If we ask for Love, it will be given to us.  We will find eternal Love within ourselves.

All we really need is Love.

Love conquers all.

Love is the Teacher.  When you are ready, your Teacher will appear.

Lisa Baker

TAB CORRESPONDENT 

Children and near-death experiences

On an August day in 1947, 11-year-old Brad Steiger nearly died of multiple skull fractures after being caught in the metallic blades of a piece of machinery on his family’s Iowa farm. He felt his “essential self” drift away from his body. He watched his sister run for help and realized he was simultaneously in his father’s arms being carried from the field, and above himself, observing.

While “out” of his body he was shown a geometric design of colors and seemed to see the patterns inherent in all of life. He came back to his body just as the surgeons were about to operate.

Although he did not understand it, he felt he had been shown a plan of the universe, and that he had a mission “to testify to others that the human spirit is eternal and that we are not alone in the cosmic scheme of things.”

In their new book, “Children of the Light”; Steiger and his wife Sherry Hansen Steiger present a broad spectrum of cases of near-death experiences in children. Steiger, college lecturer and author of over 130 books on various topics, says his own experience led him into this topic of research, which he has pursued since he was a teenager.

His wife and co-author began her career training in nursing, later switched to child and family counseling, and is an ordained Baptist minister. She has had six near-death experiences herself, three of them before the age of 10. She says she often hears children she counsels tell of dreams and memories pertaining to near-death experiences that they have been afraid to share with anyone else. Her shared experience of such phenomena adds a therapeutic advantage to her counseling.

“We need to pay attention to the individual mystical experience,” says Steiger. He says children need to be able to share these experiences as part of the context of their lives, and not be made to feel weird or expected to be holy. He says it’s helpful if a parent knows of their child’s near-death experience to tell the child’s teachers, so that child may share the experience with peers in a way that is validating without overemphasizing it.

The book contains testimonials about childhood near-death experiences from the Steigers’ interviews and questionnaires, as well as historical cases documented by earlier researchers. The modern respondents represent all walks of life including psychologists, an architect, an artist, an investment banker and a teacher. They cover topics ranging from near-death experiences and spontaneous healing by prayer, to visitations from angels and incidents of clairvoyance.

Children report being taken on a tour of heaven, seeing angels, colorful geometric patterns, and dead relatives and pets. One 9-year-old boy, after 36 hours in a life-threatening fever, reported seeing his sister during a tour of heaven. It was she who told him he had to come back to life. His father assured him he couldn’t have seen her there as she was safely away at college. The following morning they found out that the daughter had died the night before in a car crash.

Such stories are common, says Steiger Hansen. One of her professors at the Chicago Theological Seminary once told of a girl who was dying and reported seeing her brother right in front of her in the hospital, telling her it was “OK.”

When told of this after her death her parents were stunned. They had never told her she had had a brother who died years before she was born.

“Children know when they’re going to die,” says Hansen Steiger. She feels they are more open to precognitive insights about death because their minds are less cluttered with worries than an adult’s. Besides, she adds, “Children have no reason to lie. Why, at the moment of death, would a child make something up?”

Hansen Steiger speaks both from observation as a counselor and researcher, and from personal experience. She survived pneumonia in infancy, rheumatic fever at age 6, an accidental overdose of ether during a tonsillectomy at age 9, a shark attack, a hole in her heart and a near-fatal kidney infection in her 20s and 30s. She has seen the same geometric pattern of colors as her husband and many others have reported. Like most other near-death survivors, she has come away with a conviction that “We have a spiritual life that continues after physical death.”

Hansen Steiger has also survived the death of her own child. Her son died in 1974 at the age of 9 when the jeep she was driving skidded off the road in a blizzard. In the split second before the accident she recalls, “I felt my son — with a different intensity than one would say ‘oh, I can see him look at me.’ I felt him, like pierce me, look at me and say ‘Mama, it’s OK. Mommy, I love you.’ … It was like he knew.” She feels he probably didn’t even say the words physically, but that it was a spiritual or telepathic communication.

Both of the Steigers, and the people they interview, say more and more people will be living through near-death experiences as our medical technology continues to improve. They feel that reports of these NDEs must be greeted with acceptance and integrated into a holistic perspective on life — encompassing body, mind and spirit. Says Steiger, “If spirit and technology are going to have the balance that we must have on the earth plane, then we need to be cognizant of both.” 

Tony Crisp

I was born – prematurely in 1937 before antibiotics and child care – so I was weak and dying. Because my systems were not developed to breathe or digest properly, I existed between life and death. So I knew death and was reaching for life. 

Some of My Writings

Meetings with the Christ – Interviews with Tony – The Secret Bible – The Kabbalah – Beware of Love – Opening to Life – The Healing Experience – I Had Been In That Direction A Thousand Times – Learning to Love – Features-Found-on-Site

Rudolph Steiner 

His Philosophy of Life and Death

WHILE engaged as a tutor for a mentally backward child, Rudolph Steiner studied its inner life. He was able to do this through being able to observe clearly things though not by physical sense organs. This clairvoyance, he says, gave him entrance into the soul life of the child. He found that mental retardation, showing as physical malformation also, was due to an unbalance in the moral qualities of the soul. Working with the child and aiding it inwardly and outwardly, the child reached normalcy. In adulthood, the once-backward child became a doctor. As an example of what can be done with a child who is diagnosed by experts as mentally backwards, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNZVV4Ciccg

As a child, Steiner clearly experienced a non-physical world and beings as real to him as the physical world of his body. At first he could not reconcile this spiritual world with his experience of the physical, or with the education he received. Over the years, however, through constant attempts to understand modern science, while not denying his spiritual awareness, he found a unity.

In his early years, his spiritual experience had existed as something apart from his physical life. But through 40 years of constant search, contact with Goethe’s writings, and a self-imposed discipline of directing his attention to the physical world, he broke through to a vision of the spiritual reality permeating physical existence. The inner and the outer were then united in a common reality, not a duality. Only then, after so many years of discipline and search, did he begin to teach. In a huge number of lectures and books, covering the whole compass of existence from child education to farming, from past history to development of spiritual sight, Steiner gave his teachings.

In such books as Theosophy, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, and Life Between Death and Rebirth, he gives his observations on man’s past, his life and his death. Because his descriptions of death are so detailed, they have been given here as well as could be done in such a small compass.

Levels of being

Steiner says that man has three levels of being the physical body, the soul and the spirit. The physical body is permanently under process of change. Its keynote is impermanence, and between its birth and its passing away stretch a continuous process of change.

At death it is no longer conscious in the same way as in life, or even at birth. This consciousness, that is absent at death, and undeveloped or unformulated at birth, is the soul, our individual awareness. Just as the body feeds upon matter in the form of food, and thus gradually builds up a defined physical body, so the soul feeds upon the sense impressions and experiences gained through the body. With them it builds up a defined ‘body’ of perception or self-awareness. The sense impressions are in themselves impermanent. As soon as the smell of cooking bread is removed, the impression has gone. But the soul faculty of memory gives a certain permanency to one’s physical existence.

Before the soul or body can be properly understood, one has to grasp an idea of the spirit. As can be seen from the very casual analysis of the soul above, it experiences and is rooted in the transitory world of the body through the senses. Yet if it only partook of the body, we would have no enduring personality, but wander from one sense impression to another, and be moved hither and thither by these. But an element of permanence penetrates these impressions in the form of memory, thought and understanding.

Through these a person can gain something that is more durable. Through many sense impressions regarding physical existence, mankind have built up an understanding of gravity, physics, medicine, music and religion. Even without sense impressions, man can live in these thoughts, which can be passed onto other men and women. Such are the things the soul builds its ‘body’ with, but it does so only through the influence of permanency introduced into it by the spirit. If the keynote of the body is impermanence, the keynote of soul is balance, and that of the spirit changelessness. Through the influence of the spirit, the soul brings understanding and some permanency to the ever-changing sense impressions. And just as the soul feeds on sense impressions, so the spirit feeds on soul realisations, and extends them into universal consciousness and applicability. There is also a flow from spirit to body, for the chaotic mineral substances gain a measure of permanency in form and organisation through the power of spirit expressing through consciousness. The human will can also act from its feelings and thoughts, thus metamorphosing the physical world.

Experience into knowledge

The body gains form by repeatedly eating substance. The soul gains definition of consciousness by repeated daily experiences of sensory impressions, and feeding on ideas, feelings and actions given in books or other cultural products. The Spirit self defines its own realm by feeding upon the higher experiences and realisations of the soul, through repeated earth lives. These past lives are not remembered easily because the new soul that developed in the new body had no past connections and has a new brain. Such memories of the  past can only be attained by a deep awareness of the spirit.

We can gain a clearer idea of Spirit if we observe certain dreams or meditations. The images and emotions, worldly or personal concepts grasped by our soul, in some dreams or meditations, are suddenly transformed into a universal truth. For instance, the experience of fatherhood can be transformed into a realisation of a general principle that permeates all living things. The personal is thus transformed into the universal and timeless. The supernatural or cosmic thus enters into the mundane daily events of our life. This is the work of the spirit. The organs of perception in the body are the senses, in the soul they are attributes such as patience, morals, understanding, and in the Spirit its universal realisations.

In sleep and death, consciousness gradually withdraws from the physical into its own centre, rather like a snail withdrawing into its shell. At death, Steiner says, the influence of soul and spirit are disconnected from the body. It is left with only its own forces, and breaks up due to lack of a unifying and enduring influence. The Spirit is no longer immersed in the physical world through the soul, but it is still locked to the soul world through the soul. The soul may be saturated with physical concepts, desires and impulses, which as they are, cannot be integrated into the spiritual ‘body’, just as food, without digestion cannot integrate with our physical body. As such it usually sees itself as the body and gender it lived in and as, but it may realise itself as a younger and healthier person.

The spirit however is neither male or female but everything, so the newly dead may only develop into the old state of wholeness slowly. An example of this appears in the book House of the Ancestors

This communication was unlike any other I had experienced with Shaun previously.  I started by asking my usual question as to what he was meeting now in his after death life.  He told me that the process of losing himself had continued and he was now on a boundary, which if he passed over, he would no longer be the Shaun I had known.

I was trying to understand this and asking questions when suddenly Shaun was a woman, and engulfed me in wonderful female love.  This was so unexpected and beautiful I wept.  To be loved in that way by somebody I had known as a very masculine male was an extraordinary experience and very moving.

Gradually I recovered from the surprise and the feelings, and saw that Shaun was now male and female at the same time.  He had not switched to becoming a female, but had enlarged to being both male and female.  The losing of himself as he had been, and the adding of things that he could not experience while in the body, had led him to become this fuller very loving being.  Now, he/she was a whole person.

As I experience this I wondered what the border was that he/she was now ready to cross, so asked him/her if she/he knew what was over the other side.  She/he replied that it was very simple.  “It is a life without boundaries.”

Although those were the only words spoken, I received a flow of impressions or insights helping me to grasp something of a dimension of experience.  And as this was happening Shaun said something in a manner typical of him in life.  “And you, you bugger, have already been there before me.”

I could sense the smile and love in this, and understood what was implied and stated in the words.  Shaun was saying that during his life, and even since his death, I had been like a guide to him, making it easier for him to find his way in life and death.  He was also directly referring to a dream I had experienced.

From what I had gathered from Shaun, and from the dream, I believe I understand the level of experience Shaun was about to enter. “

Usually the first thing experienced at death is a vivid re-experiencing of one’s whole life in reverse order. These memories, Steiner states, are only experienced in this way when the formative energies of our being are separated from their action upon the matter of our body. Occasionally, he say, a temporary separation is brought about by a shock, a bad fall, or electric shock, and the person then has the same experience. Bennet, writing about his experiences in Subud, tells how he was able to actually enter into his wife’s experience of her past memories as she died. Some Gurus of the East, such as Ramana, say they help their disciples by giving them strength as they face these memories. But in fact it has also been seen that some ordinary people deeply share the death experiences of those they are with,

The essence of a lifetime is thus extracted. Now begins what is for most people a purifying experience. In life we can choose to act from the direction or impulse given us by our whole being, or spirit: or we can choose to act from impulses arising from just one aspect of self, such as the body, sexual desire, intellect, emotion etc. Steiner points out that the desire to eat, for instance, is basically an urge arising from the Spirit, as it wishes to take part in physical experience. But frequently we extend this urge and eat just for the pleasure of tasting, or being in company, through insecurity and so on. This also applies, of course, to sexuality, emotions and thinking. If our activities had arisen purely out of spiritual impulse, we would experience no purification. However, we have built into our soul nature, many longings and desires that can only be fulfilled through the body, which are out of harmony with the spirit. There is thus experienced a period of burning desires; as these longings consume themselves in their own fire. During this time, one lives again through memories of life, but only those that were out of harmony with one’s innermost nature. Not only does one remember such deeds and emotions, but also experiences them as happening to oneself. Thus pain given to others, destruction wrought in the world, loneliness and fear sown, are now gone through personally. As with all these experiences, many people go through them during life, and are thus already cleansed.

In succession, similar cleansings occur in regard to one’s likes and dislikes, the idea of body and its form being oneself, and other connections with corporeal life. Steiner says that suicides particularly suffer such inner reactions.

Love dissolves barriers

In the body, our relationships with friends, family and strangers, is coloured by our emotions, angers, wisdom and so on. After death, our relationships with dead family and friends is seen to be much more influenced by these things.

As the negative aspects of self are burnt out, there opens depth upon depth of entrance into other beings. From within begins to emerge the flow of direct knowledge and love that we blocked by our dislikes, prejudices and desires. As the ideas of self-being a physical form drops away, as’ the realisation that lasting pleasure arises from within, and is not dependent upon physical objects or activities dawns, one begins to become and to see others as beings of light and tones. These streaming colours and sounds, one gradually realises, are not separate or distinct from all else. They begin to be seen as flowing from greater beings, or a greater being, than oneself, and flowing through all. But through one’s own activities, loves, and thinking, one has woven these tones and colours in a unique fashion. Barriers of separation between others and ourselves melt away, and real union and love exists at this level. We can then, Steiner says, ‘live in each other without that separation which all companionship must experience in the physical world.

What Steiner is presenting in these descriptions, is the detailed activity of the spirit withdrawing into itself the fruits of experience gathered in the body. The difference between sleep and death is seen to be that in sleep, the process is frequently interfered with by fresh bundles of waking physical experience. In death, there is an uninterrupted withdrawal into Self. As can be seen, this consists of a gradual gathering of all the fruits – memories – a sifting and cleansing of them, and then a transmuting them into the universal and formless life of the Spirit. Steiner does not say this, but from other sources it seems that only inasmuch as we have built into conscious waking life, some experience of the spirit, can this be a conscious thing.

So far, what has been done is, Steiner says, all part of the soul world. With the achievement of experiencing oneself and others as beings of light and tone, there comes now an entrance into the lowest levels of the spiritual world. What had been a vision of tones and colours, is now seen to be ordered and enclosed by the archetypes, the non-physical moulds of Spirit. Here we break through the outer appearance of sound and colour to the underlying intelligence, power and love, in their creative moulds. These are the gods. Steiner tries to arouse in us an understanding of this by asking us to have before us the image of a physical and alive person. We must then imagine the actual physical matter of the person disappearing, leaving a vacuum in space. We must then imagine we are seeing all the exchanges of energy, flow of sensation, motivating forces, moving and flowing through the body, there apparent in the space the physical body, occupied. In this way, he says, we have a concept of the archetypal forms we meet in this level of the spiritual world. We meet the building blocks of all forms, all plants, all creatures, all mental and artistic creations here. This is the most formed, the most material level of spirit.

The second level of Spirit is akin to, not forms, but the blood flowing through the body. The archetypal energies are unified by one life flowing through all. The experience of this unifying life is the second level. In the third level is that of unified feeling.

Steiner points out that in fact, there are no levels in the soul or Spirit experience. There are only finer more rarefied aspects of our one being. They are spoken of as levels simply because the more refined levels do not appear to consciousness until we have matured through the others. Talking about the unifying life in the second level, Steiner says, ‘It is there the living Unity which is present in everything. Of this also only a reflection appears to man during earthly life. And this reflection expresses itself in every form of reverence that a man pays to the whole, to the Unity and Harmony of the Universe.’

He goes on to say, ‘While in the first region, one is in company with those souls with whom one has been linked by the closest ties during the preceding physical life, in the second region one enters the domain of all those with whom one felt oneself to be united in a wider sense: through a common reverence through a common religious confession, and so on,’ But one is not torn from intimate contact with one’s family by entrance into the other contacts. They are simply additions to what already exist. We do not ‘enter’ these regions, but attain in ourselves the capacity to perceive that which previously we could not see.

The fruits of awareness

The third region of spirit is where we became aware of the drives that in life have led us to give ourselves to our fellows. One here is immersed in a communal feeling. ‘All that a person has carried out in his life on earth in the service of the community, in selfless devotion to his fellow men, will bear fruit here.’

Through these regions of experience, a soul is gradually seeing the fruits of its life in wider and wider contexts. Slowly the soul sees itself as it relates to the universe as a whole. In the fourth region, there confronts the soul, what it has gathered of the universal creative ideas and impulses. Works of art, scientific discoveries, music, architecture, have universal and eternal appeal, only inasmuch as a man or woman embodies these universal creative forces in their individual work. But such creative impulse can also be in regard to parenthood, farming, literature, or even washing dishes, as brother Lawrence proved. He brought the eternal into kitchen work.

When we come to the fifth region, we come to what is frequently called, ‘the Self.’ Here we find the matrix, not of our personal karma, but of our eternal selfhood, the divine individual we could become. It is the awareness and impulse behind all the many earth lives, and is the essence of all these lives, yet not them. This it is that often appears to us as our guardian angel or Christ or a great spiritual being. Here is the archetype, the architectural plan, for our real self, our maturity in God. When we come to this region we see how well or badly we have realised these eternal attributes of our eternal selfhood in our physical life. We gain a view of the many past lives, and how we have again and again sought to become this being that we potentially are. A summary of the past, and a plan for the future comes into being when we measure the fruits of our life against our Self. These fruits are also seen in the light of the eternal wisdom, love and power, shining through the Self. Due to the fact the Self dies to its realm, and is nailed to matter, suffering the loss of awareness of existence in the divine, life after life, that our soul may achieve eternal life, it has a Christ like love, patience and gentleness. Here too we meet those great beings of all nations, religions and times who have trod the path before us. If we remain conscious at this stage, the wisdom and experience of these saints and masters, comes to us as fully as we can receive it.

In the sixth region, one sees how our life has accorded not only with our own Self, but with the ‘true being of the world’. We see ourselves as we exist, in or out of harmony with that world consciousness, that essence of all beings, sometimes called the Christ, or Krishna. Here is the judging, the self judging, of the ‘quick and the dead.’

And finally, in this withdrawal, the seventh region is reached, ‘quick or dead’, asleep or awake to the highest in us. For some are asleep at this level.

‘The man stands here’ says Steiner, ‘in the presence of the “Life-kernels”, which have been transplanted from higher worlds into the three (body, soul, spirit) bodies which have been described, in order that in them they may fulfil their tasks.’ These ‘tasks’, expressing through the self, mediated by the soul, and materialised by the body, usually motivate us unconsciously through our body organs. In this seventh region, if consciousness remains, we know ourselves as the whole cosmos of sun, moon, planets, and stars; as all beings, creatures and kingdoms. When we look at these through our physical eyes, we are looking at our own wholeness. The ‘Life kernel’ is the doorway to other ‘cosmic beings’. ‘The life between death and a new birth,’ Steiner writes, ‘is really a living through the world of stars: but this means, through the spirit of the world of stars,’ not the physical stars.

Having made this ascent to the innermost of its nature, the essence of the whole cosmos, there now comes for most of us, a return to a fresh physical experience.

The return

There awakens a ‘desire’ or direction, to perfect one’s own being and that of the earth. ‘Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,’ is an impulse from this region. Depending upon what fruits were brought to each region, this descent enables certain things, qualities or strengths to be ‘claimed’ from each level of our being. A new spiritual ‘seed’ or ‘germ’ is fashioned which will play its part in fashioning our body. The essence of the future personality chooses the hereditary line and its parents. Steiner says the parents provide a seed bed of physical substance, impregnated with their own characteristics of body and psyche. At conception, the material substance is broken down into the germinal level of chaos, in which all physical form is dissolved. The spirit ‘germ’ of the new being takes hold of this.

At birth the ‘germ’ of the future personality and body, is clothed with physical substance drawn from the parents, along with inherited temperamental qualities. Working with these as materials is the essence of the past life and death experience. This spiritual impulse, takes the ‘model’ given by the parents, and works into it the pattern it brings from its central experience. So there comes into being, through life and death, another life upon the earth.

Just as there was a reliving of life at death, so just prior to birth there is a reliving of death. ‘He sees a tableau which this time displays all the hindrances he must remove, if his evolution is to make further progress. And what he sees becomes the starting point of forces that he must carry with him into a new life.