The sphere we’re in now is the place where man awakens.

The human being who dwells here has finally made his way through the dark and has awakened.

It’s already a different attunement, but it can’t yet be compared to the first spiritual sphere.

His life becomes imbued with warmth, which it needs to develop.

Yet you won’t see anything growing here; no greenery, no trees, no blooming life can be perceived here.

Nothing of the kind until we enter the sphere that lies directly above.

The human being who dwells here is still attuned to the dark spheres and he may fall back again if he doesn’t fight this with all his might.

That’s why many regress into their previous state.’

Beneath him he saw a primitive landscape; the houses they had built here looked, like the barracks back on earth.

They lay spread about all over and were occupied by people who had arrived there from the dark spheres.

He knew all about this from his previous journey. Alcar had explained it to him.

That’s where they received their first spiritual lessons; they were taught how to spread love.

From there, they would set off for the spheres of light, which were difficult to reach.

This required struggle and sacrifice.

Nonetheless, they were prepared to enter upon a different life.

There too, men and women lived together, but they harboured no warmth yet, nor was it felt in nature; the possession of that holy fire was still far beyond their reach.

Many of them fell back into their previous condition and would have to start all over again.

‘Yes, Alcar, I understand everything you say.

Are the beings we are going over to now all from the dark spheres?’

‘Yes and no, André, so both.

Many arrive here from the earth, others have travelled the long road from darkness into the light.

Those who came from the earth live in an unconscious condition; they’re living dead because they think they still dwell on earth; their development begins here.

You notice how it’s getting darker and darker. We’ve reached the land of twilight.

This dull grey sky is the sphere which borders on the dark areas.

But we’ve got yet another twilight land. That one borders on the spheres of light, where the higher areas commence. It’s used as a purification sphere.

And then you have a sphere which has attunement to the Land of Hatred, then you are therefore just outside of that hatred, outside of that lust, and if you then come higher, then you will get a world of spheres, a misty state, which once more takes you to higher thinking and feeling.

Because there in that Land of Hatred, that is a brownish world, that is a sphere of brownish, dark, it is not black light, black light does not exist, but a dark state, where there is no light, nothing more, not a blade of grass, it is a barren, barren, empty, bare surface, with hills and valleys.

But if you enter that land of spheres, where that borders on the first sphere, then once more you get to see those little blades of grass.

But there is no spring, there is no summer, there are no birds, you do not hear any chirping, madam.

You do not get to see the feeling there of those people, which takes you right upwards and is cordiality, and gives a little bit of heat; there is still snapping and kicking and hitting there.

‘Where are we going to now, Alcar?’

‘To the sphere of purification, a coarse-material condition.

It borders on the first existential sphere in the spirit.

We’ll see light there, yet in a grey, autumn-like mood, to use an earthly comparison.

Over there everything lives in a coarse-material attunement, just as the human beings who dwell there.

They have passed away on earth, yet without being aware of it.

It’s cold and bleak there too.

It has the feel of autumn on earth, when everything in nature is dying.

It’s the likeness of their inner power of feeling.

They don’t feel the warmth either, which a happy spirit feels.

Their coarse-material feeling dominates everything.’

‘Do they all live together there too?’

‘This oneness applies to every condition on this side.

Wherever you enter, all ranks and classes live together.

Those who possess the same attunement, which is love, will be one.

This has nothing to do with earthly scholarship or titles.

Here love is the only thing of value, the feeling which finds attunement in the spirit.

If their love isn’t spiritual, everything is worthless.’

I followed my master outside.

How strange I found all of this!

I saw that it was a very large building in which I now was, also that it had been built in an earthly way.

Thousands of people could be accommodated here.

Everywhere I saw people and many were dressed in earthly clothes.

A few wore garments that were very different to all those others.

Were they masters, like the brother who taught me how to pass into this life?

They wore a garment similar to my brother’s, from which I thought I recognized him.

Then I saw people who had adorned themselves with earthly jewellery and wore beautiful clothes, but I also saw people who were shrouded in rags.

There were old and young people, the young people had reached the age of twenty, but I did not see any children.

The nature was approximately like autumn on earth.

Was it already becoming winter here?

What month of the year did I actually live in?

I had no idea and found it cold and dull here.

It was not a nature in which to have to continue to live in, and possibly would not to get any better.

In autumn on earth, people saw greens and yellows, but I did not even see that here.

This nature was so strange, so unnatural.

It looked as if everything had faded and the crops were not yet ripe.

I could not picture it any other way.”

The brother had told me that I had to concentrate, but on what?

I also had to think and I therefore kept on doing that; I even thought too much, and was already tired from it.

Now I must be busy discarding the earthly life of thoughts.

He would think it was wonderful that I was really doing my best.

I had never thought so much in my life as now.

I saw nothing but long faces and people who were sick.

Others, I felt it clearly, were mourning; nothing escaped me.

Everything had my full attention, but I did not think of the things, which really should have had my attention.

I lived in eternity and yet I thought in an earthly way.

I did not see any flowers; but in autumn the flowers die, that is the reason, I thought, I certainly cannot see them.

A ditch ran along the path and the water in it was grey, the greyness of the landscape lay over everything.

I was curious where the brother would take me.

He had already walked on ahead of me.

I also saw people who were different to those I had already noticed and I did not understand why they were like that.

These people were not so pale and I thought I saw more health and life in them because the colour of their faces was different.

Were they not like the others?

I did not see that greyness in them, which I saw in the nature.

I looked at them full of interest, but they also behaved as if I did not exit.

Was I not a human being like them?

Was I not a brother in the spirit?

Were they more than I was?

Here no distinction was made, but what did they do?

Were they the rich of the earth?

Did those people not want anything to do with me?

They are all wretches, I thought.

What were they imagining?

A few of them brushed past me and yet I was apparently nothing to them.

Finally, the brother waited for me and said that I had to sit down.

I found a lovely spot on the edge of a hill and sat down there.

Would the brother tell me about those people?

I had felt well for the brother said: ‘You are already busy taking over thoughts; these were really my thoughts.’

‘Your thoughts?’ I asked.

‘Yes, my thoughts.’

I thought it was amazing, yet I had not realized it, since those thoughts came to me like all the others.

‘Listen’, said the brother, ‘to what I will say.

I asked you to think about everything which we discuss; otherwise we will not get any further.’

I was already pleased; I had done my best?

However, he continued.

‘All these people whom you met have come here like you, they therefore also died on earth.

They wear their earthly clothes and know no others, because they do not know how to concentrate and do not possess the love necessary for this.

When they arrive in the first sphere, they will start to discard them, not before.

They therefore wear clothes just like you, because they do not know any other life.

Our life, I already made that clear to you several times, is a life of thoughts and according to the love the human being possesses and feels, he finds his attunement in this spiritual existence.

Their lives, just like yours, were not bad; we already talked about that.

I followed you in your train of thoughts.

The people with a different colour of face will soon leave here.

Those who live here have therefore mastered nothing on earth.

Your love for others saved you from a general destruction; otherwise, you would have entered another sphere.

Here everything is bare and grey, is it not, but we know other lands which are more beautiful and where the human being meets nothing but happiness.

There are also flowers and greenery and people wear spiritual garments there.

It surprises me what you think of the nature and how you make comparisons.

However, you described this nature nicely, but do not forget that you are describing your own image.

You are like the nature.’

‘What did you say, am I like the nature?’

If that is the case, I thought, then autumn lies in me and it is also misty inside me.

I had to laugh at myself.

But the brother remained serious and said: ‘Do not laugh, dear friend, just wait, I have other things to tell you.

Your thoughts about the life and nature on this side are priceless.

However, I advise you to start to think differently.

In this way, you will not make it.

I repeat, you have described your own image; just think about it.

The nature is the image of your inner attunement.

The nicer you think and the purer your thoughts are, your surroundings will also change and become more beautiful.

The nature is as you feel yourself.

There is life, yet there is no spiritual love and no consciousness.

Therefore, everything is grey and misty, and you are like them, sick inside.’

I trembled from the thought, however, the brother continued to speak: ‘It will not start to rain here, as you thought, but it will remain so for thousands of years, until this sphere dissolves into the Sphere of Light.

There is no light here and there is no light in you either.

‘To possess light on this side, dear friend, is to know.

To possess light is happiness, sheer happiness, and that is to love the life that is in everything.

That is to feel love for others and to understand the seriousness of life.

Then people do not talk of wretches; then people respect life everywhere and always.’

I thought I would sink through the ground; he knew what I had been thinking.

‘Then those other thoughts lie far from you’, the brother continued calmly and looked deep into my soul.

‘Then we bow our heads and we pray from the depth of our soul and beg God for forgiveness.

Then we continue to think and another person does not need to repeat something ten or twenty times.

Then the human being is filled with respect.

Then people do not play with life, but people feel respect for that of another and pass into it in love.

I hope that you will become serious, because the terrible part of your own situation still does not get through to you.

You were thinking, but what were your thoughts like?’

I got a terrible fright.

‘The life in the nature’, the brother continued, ‘will therefore only be able to mature when another source of heat warms it.

There is no sun here, no light and everything therefore remains sad and pitiful.

It will also remain so for the time being in those whom you met and in yourself.

You will have to stay here for a while and that is up to yourself.

That is in your own hands, likewise for the people whom you met.

Do not look at me so anxiously; it was necessary in order to show you the seriousness of the life.

Do not be afraid of your situation, because there are already powers in you and not everything was lost of what I told you.

However, you will start to think deeper and deeper and follow the path step by step, which we have taken.

The people walking round here think about their life on earth and about the life in which they now are.

They think and reflect upon all their experiences that they have had in this life.

They start to compare both situations of life and they try to master the spiritual treasures of them.

They meditate, they therefore reflect upon everything and try to bring themselves to another but higher situation.

They sense deeply what the brothers and sisters explained and showed to them.

What they experience on this side becomes their possession.

They therefore gradually start to think spiritually and pass into this life.

They do nothing else but release themselves from their earthly lives and no one will interrupt them in that.

They felt and knew that you walked past them, but they are too buried in themselves to watch you.

They do not want to be disturbed and here people have respect for the human being who is searching for himself.

However, there are also thousands living here who do not yet want to search for themselves and they have already been here for years.

I will show you them later; you already saw a few of them.

The people who search for themselves ponder and separate the good qualities from the wrong ones, until they have discarded their material feelings and have turned them into those of the spirit.

Do you feel the meaning of this life?’

I felt sorry and was already sad that I had thought so indifferently about these people.

Those we’re about to visit now dwell in eternal life but still want to pay with earthly money for the things that are done for them, and for many other things.’

‘What did you say?

With money?’

‘Yes, André, after all, they believe they’re still on earth.

Their feeling, nature, everything is attuned to the earth.

After all, it couldn’t be otherwise.

It proves how true our life is on this side.

There are many other conditions which are even sadder than that innocent habit of repaying things with money.

We know of others.

There are clergymen from earth here, who even in the life after death keep on talking about hell and damnation and confront others with this.

Right here, while they’re in eternity.’

‘You really mean that, Alcar?’

‘What I say is nothing but the sad truth, nothing else.

They have thousands of followers.

You will get to know them when we get there.

They set up their parishes and preach eternal damnation.’

‘It’s hard to believe, Alcar.’

‘Unfortunately it’s the truth.

On earth their followers get stuck in their doctrines and follow their preachers implicitly, whatever they proclaim.

They look down upon people of other confessions whom they would tear to pieces if they had the nerve.

Including the clergy; they’re all cold and barren.

And now that we know, that man feels in accordance with his utterances and the deeds he performs, they are all unhappy, cold-hearted beings.

How could it be otherwise?

If they acknowledge a God of violence, they neither want to see or sense a Father of love.

Hence they will possess the same attunement here as they had on earth.

That’s the way they feel and that’s all they want.

Is that love?

Is God a Father, could God be a Father if He damned His children?

No, fortunately not; the God we know is very different from the God they feel and know.

They spent their whole life on earth just preaching about damnation.

Does that offer man the warmth which makes him happy on this side?

What is their possession worth if their God is a God of violence?

Their belief and their knowledge lack spiritual power.

The way they feel, my son, makes everything cold and barren, and this applies to the clergy on earth too.

Those who speak of hell and damnation are all cold inside.

They spend their entire life praying, yet it’s void of any power.

Their prayers are cold and stripped of life.

Everything about them is dead, just as they are themselves.

That’s why we call them the living dead over here.

Indeed they’re dead, because they don’t feel life; life doesn’t damn or murder and knows no violence, because life is God and stands for Love.

Their smooth sermons are worthless too.

Their discordant singing is just a moanful plea for warmth and light and merely betokens their weakness.

It sounds like a storm, but it’s a howling hurricane, it’s destructive because it’s a fake.

Deep within they sense a God of vengeance, so everything is phoney, nothing is real, not even their own life.

Everything will appear to man just as he feels and that’s the attunement he will find here.

Their prayers will become powerful only if they’re in harmony, one with life.

At present they’re fine-sounding words which lack the feeling and the power which could offer warmth to mankind.

These are the sermons of those who preach about a God of vengeance, about hell and damnation.

That’s why their attunement equals a coarse-material condition.

One day they will know that God is a Father of love.

One day they will feel it, André, in the life on this side.’

At the moment we’re in a different sphere, there where the living dead of the earth dwell.’

André saw a country that resembled the earth, just as his leader had explained to him.

It was enveloped in a grey haze.

The atmosphere here was cold and bleak.

There was more life here than in the other spheres, but everything was still in an unnatural state.

On earth everything was green, here all of nature seemed to be clothed in grey.

He saw people, all of them old, with bent backs.

They bore the sorrow of the earth.

It weighed on their shoulders.

It was turning them into wrecks.

He didn’t see any young, fresh-looking people here, they were not to be found in this place.

Only old people dwelt here, deep-down they were all aged and beaten.

There were no children here either.

It was strange to see only old people.

Where people lived, surely everything lived, children too and young people?

It was very strange to him.

How had this come about, how was this possible?

What was the meaning of this?

It was terrible to see them like this.

Now he thought of Alcar’s explanation of all the other spheres.

They bore this old age within.

It was their spiritual attunement.

He also saw many houses and buildings.

Churches too, and in the distance he saw a small town.

Everything was barren and old.

On earth everything had more beauty, and to think that he was in eternity.

It was a sad situation.

On earth they were a hundred times better off than in eternity.

‘We’re lucky’, Alcar said, ‘they’re holding a meeting.

They do that on earth too.

You see how natural their life is.

We will stay here, maybe they’ll listen to us.

I want to try to speak to them and you, my boy, will help me in this, won’t you?’

André looked at his leader as if he wanted to say: Must I really address them?

‘Yes, André, don’t you want to tell them what I have shown to you and will yet show you?

If we succeed, then open up; I will help you.

I want to see whether you have learnt during all those years.

André felt nervous.

How would it all turn out?

Alcar told him: ‘My son, right now you’re already under their influence.

Let them think as they choose, embrace them in your heart, enclose them in your feeling, feel love for them; love works wonders.

If you’re in doubt, then we must travel on because they will regard us as intruders and attack us too.

Why fear, André?

Can they teach you anything?

Don’t overestimate yourself, but above all don’t belittle yourself.

It would mean your downfall.

There is nothing to fear if you feel more love than they do.

I leave you to it.’

André was alone.

There, before him, hundreds of creatures were gathered, and in the distance there were more to come to this place.

Would they be gathering down here?

They were living dead.

He, a man from the earth, knew more about eternity than they did.

In Summerland he had met his aunt, who had left the earth as an old woman and had arrived there rejuvenated and beautiful.

Immediately after she had cast off her material garment she had taken on her spiritual state.

She was beautiful and young in this life, but what did these creatures look like?

They had bent backs, they were old and this was all due to their lack of love.

Oh, he already longed for the moment he would be allowed to begin.

He longed fervently to open their eyes.

He felt himself growing calm inside, and a wonderful feeling of peace came over him.

There in front of him he saw a tall human being, dressed like a clergyman on earth.

Was he one of those who preach about hell and damnation over here too?

The man moved away from all the others and went to a raised pedestal.

Would he be speaking too?

And where was Alcar?

He didn’t see his leader anywhere.

The clergyman looked at him and André sensed how the other regarded him as a stranger who didn’t belong here.

He seemed to demand to know what André was up to, all on his own in this place.

His gaze was fixed upon him as if he wanted to pierce him.

He withstood the cruel gaze and sensed the man’s coldness.

Then he saw Alcar, his leader appeared right out of their midst.

Alcar went up to the clergyman and exchanged a few words with him.

He clearly heard Alcar say: ‘May we address your congregation?’

From his raised pedestal the clergyman looked down defyingly at his leader, his arms across his breast, and a few seconds went by before he replied.

Finally he asked, in a harsh tone of voice:

‘Who are you?’

‘We’, he heard Alcar say, ‘are your brothers, and we come to you from a different country with love in our hearts, in the true sense of the word.’

The clergyman smiled sarcastically.

He was still standing there, gazing down on him, just as Nero once on Rome.

His old face was creased with wrinkles.

At last he spoke.

It was a tense moment.

How simple Alcar was, waiting in all simplicity for his decision.

André sensed a lesson in life in Alcar’s attitude; things could only be achieved with love.

‘Are you here in the name of God?’

The words lashed at his soul due to the chill in the man’s voice.

This unfortunate man was asking his leader whether he came in the name of God.

It typified the man.

How he felt himself.

Alcar looked at him respectfully and replied: ‘We come to you in the name of God, in the true sense of the word, as I already told you.’

‘I’ll give you half an hour’, was his reply.

In a flash it came to André: ‘Talk about nature and link them up with life.’

He began immediately and he sensed that he was being helped.

‘Sisters and brothers!

We come from a different country to tell you about the beauty there, and we invite you to visit our land.

Our country is full of beauty, even nature shows itself in a different way than here.

The colour of the sky is bright, and everywhere flowers grow and bloom and they remain fresh forever and never wither.

We build our own homes, in the way we wish them to be.

None of them look alike.

That’s because also every creature is different and possesses his very own personality.

As we imagine our home to be, so it will be.

We can build wherever we want to, between mountains, in the plains, on the waterfront or on riverbanks.

But we cannot obtain the necessary materials from other countries.

We can use anything that grows and lives in our own country.

We also know that in other countries where people also live, building materials cannot be obtained from abroad either.

We are bound by laws.

Those laws correspond to the inner condition of the person who lives there.

This means that we may not and cannot transcend our own powers.

We can’t put materials from other countries to use, for the simple reason that we have a different climate, and everything would fall to pieces.

We live together like sisters and brothers.

We live for each other with love in our hearts, and we would never lie to each other or deceive one another, not even in our thoughts.

You will think this strange, but we would immediately be aware of it, because we can follow each other’s thoughts.

That’s why everyone is honest and why a brother or sister is open, entirely open, to all others.

When we see a sister or a brother we see ourselves, because we possess one love and are one in that love, which means that our life is nothing but happiness.

You have all lived on earth and you died there.

You are living in eternity, but you wasted your earthly life because your life was centred on matter, which caused you to get into this situation; you have no knowledge of a spiritual life because you closed yourself off to that life.

Pray that God may open your eyes.

Where are your children?

They too live on this side, but in other countries.

They are purer and more beautiful and they possess a higher attunement which is why you can’t see them.

Sense your unnatural state and compare your life with a higher, a spiritual life where you will one day live forever.

At present you are at odds with everything in that country, even with your own children.

You won’t see your children again here, never ever in this region.

Over there, where there is nothing but happiness, you will find them again, in heavenly beauty.

It is God’s will, my friends, that you follow His path.

God is love, my friends. God is light, happiness and life.’

Look, André, we are in the Land of Twilight, I lived here.

When I had died on earth I awoke in this place which was my spiritual attunement.

Most people arrive here from the earth and they are all not good or bad, though they have no spiritual possession.

I, too, was convinced of my life, here I was stirred up and my inner being awakened.

Awaken and admit that you are wrong, because this little being wrong, this trivial little self as a character trait places you in a twilight, in a twilit world and means nothing else but: the Land of Twilight, the being unconscious, the not wanting, being too lazy to accept that awakening, the flatly refusing to absorb this becoming conscious, the pride, the insanity, the thickness of the human being who feels himself social and material ... well.

And yes, a mother of eighty, a boy of sixteen and a girl of eight years old changed the earthly for the eternal.

The old grandmother will return to the Earth and her family members on the other side have to accept that, they do not need to collect that soul life now, but they brought both the boy and the girl to the two different spheres; the first sphere for the girl and the Land of Twilight for the boy, where this life has to conquer the little lies, deceptions and hatreds, in order to also then prepare himself for the happiness, the first happy sphere beyond the coffin, the life after death.