Science speaks about life, about soul, spirit, but the psychologist does not know the human being.

Mrs To van Houten asks: ‘Soul and Spirit!

I have asked a question about this several times and yet I still do not know it.

Must I understand that the Spirit transforms everything for the feeling, which is still the soul?’

Jozef: ‘Madam, the soul is the Divine part in us and you are that yourself, as God also is!

But the spirit, I already said before, closes off the soul, that is the body for the soul and you yourself are the personality, but you react by means of your emotional life.

Mr A. Brand asks: ‘In the wonderful books ‘Spiritual Gifts’ it says: God is Spirit!

However, the Spirit of God had to accept a world of existence, which is the ‘heaven’ built up by the first people, therefore the kingdom of the spirit for the human being.

What does this mean?

May I have your answer?’

Jozef says: ‘You say it already, Mr Brand, God is Spirit and we people also got that Spirit of God, but that is our casing for the soul on the other side.

Therefore the soul becomes closed off there by the ‘spirit’ and that is the Spirit of God, for the human being the spiritual astral life.

We possess three bodies, actually two, one for here and one for there.

Here we live in the material and there in the spiritual world, for which our spiritual organism closes off the soul, because the ‘soul’ for all the life of God is the Divine core in us!

You are all the divine core, madam, it lives in your feet, even a part of your corn, in the grey hairs, in your neck muscles, your blood, your life.

What keeps you alive here on earth is the divine core.

And now ‘behind the coffin’, madam, what is it there?

So the spirit as a human being is the casing of that life ‘behind the coffin’, as a human being, and has eyes, teeth, nose and hands and legs and feet.

But the divine life again, which lives in everything, is the soul as the divine spark in attunement for the human life of feeling as man and wife.

In the previous books which we passed onto this medium, you read that the human being possesses two bodies, of which the spiritual body is the eternal which lives on.

You also read about spheres, from the dark to the highest spheres of light and spiritual attunement, about cosmic mentality in degrees and about universal conditions.

You were able to measure your own life attunement from this, at least if you got that far and have the feeling for it.

You were able to test your earthly life on those who found the light from the darkness.

Mrs Brands asks: ‘When the human being loses a leg or an arm as a result of an accident and yet sometimes complains of the pain in that lost body part, what is that then?

Is that not imagination?

My friends said, that it was because the life aura of the human being still has attunement or connection with those removed limbs and we could not understand that.’

Jozef says: ‘Madam, that is not the aura, but the spiritual leg itself.

My brother Bernard felt more pain in the leg which he had lost than in the material right leg; the left, which was run over, kept reacting and he could not even sleep because of it.

Therefore those limbs are still there, you have your arms and legs back again ‘behind the coffin’.

I will tell you a nice story about that, experienced by my master.

My master was expecting a friend, who came over.

And that friend, master Alcar said, was missing his left arm.

My master collected him from the earth and put him to sleep.

When the man awakened in his spiritual attunement, the Land of Twilight, Master Alcar was standing before him and asked: ‘What did you discover now?

And how do you know that you died on earth and that you entered the spiritual life?’

Immediately there came: ‘I have both my arms and that cannot happen on earth after all, I experienced the most wonderful revelation of my life.’

‘How can it be that you are so young, father?’

‘Our emotional life determines the shape of our bodies, my son.

The more love we possess, the younger and more beautiful our form becomes.’

But if you would want to see yourself ‘beyond the coffin’ ...

I also gave those images already, and then we would be talking in the evening about curls, the curls of the ladies, here they have a perm, and there they take care of them like that, but what does it mean?

If a human being ...

I want to give all the mothers the proof; I am a difficult customer, madam, if you have to do with me, then I do not look at your perm, but I look at the inner perm.

I say: if you gave those same colours and that same mouth and that staying power to that and that. Very nice, yes. You must not let it become dirty, but now you get the inner embellishment for the outside, the inner spiritual expansion for the material, for the action, the deed.

And then you will look, ladies, how you miss that perm on the other side.

And then you can go to a hairdressers there, but she will burn everything away.

You cannot get a curl in it.

Because that curl has gone, you have the same hair, but spiritually; because in these hairs of ours the spiritual source lives as hair, you have your teeth there too, your nails.

The human being is absolute.

And then you must see the mother, the mother from the first sphere, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth and the seventh sphere, a woman who lived here on earth and is now cosmically conscious in the seventh sphere, already possesses a universal, macrocosmic love, a personality, a ‘wings’, they know everything.

You should see that mother, men, that woman.

Now.

And then, Mr Berends, you get down on your knees, and then you may say: ‘Oh, Father, give me the strength that I do not think wrongly.’

Because then you will be standing before something sacred, something wonderful; because her hair is wavy.

You see, the ladies are laughing again.

You like that, don’t you.

Because that hair is wavy, the universe lies over that as a radiance.

And it is remarkable, they saw the Christ, but the Christ had spiritually wavy hair.

And He did not have them from a curl, He had them by means of His personality, by means of His consciousness.

The eyes start to shine, the hands become like statues, that figure, there is not a wrinkle, Mr De Wit, not a spot, nothing more.

André saw six young men come forward who had been standing behind Alcar in the blue light.

They greeted him warmly and he saw that they looked happy and that their features were handsome.

‘In reality they are not as young as they seem, as they have all inhabited the spheres for some centuries now.

Over here the spirit takes on the appearance of the inner being, and a person who leaves the earth at the age of eighty and who has led a bad life, will appear even older on the other side of the grave.

Over here a person’s appearance is the mirror of the soul and he will be marked according to his inherent power.

So those who lost control over themselves on earth will be found to have aged even more over here.

Down there one cannot tell when behind drawn-in cheeks a soul lies hidden that has sunk to a very low spiritual level.

But here that soul stands naked, and the spiritual body takes on the shape it really has.

That is why it becomes unrecognizable and terribly old.

Such a person made little of life on earth and went spiritually astray.

You see the beauty my friends possess, André. They are young, in spite of their two hundred years.

You can’t tell that here, because their spiritual power rejuvenated them.

Look at their light and their aura. These are signs of wisdom and of their love for God.

And yet there will be many who need a thousand years before they acquire this wisdom, this light.’

He was standing in front of the sickbed of an old man.

He was seriously ill.

Beside the bed he saw a young woman who radiated a beautiful light which lit up her surroundings.

She kept her eyes fixed on the patient who lay there, plunged into a deep sleep.

He hadn’t long to live.

His death-struggle had already begun.

Nothing was visible to earthly man.

Yet André sensed his heavy battle with death, a death which meant life.

A battle which wasn’t necessary but from which he couldn’t escape.

He neither felt nor knew anything about a life that continued forever.

And in his struggle, the struggle between life and death, she descended from within her high sphere to help him.

Again he saw how great love was.

Links of love could not be destroyed.

Sacred love of the spheres, as pure as she sensed it, as she radiated, as she herself was, as life itself could be.

‘Is she his child, Alcar?’

‘No, his mother.’

‘What did you say?’

‘His mother, André.

She is a spirit of light.

Young and beautiful, whereas her child is old, physically old and spiritually old.’

André understood: His mother was young and beautiful, whereas he would be an unhappy spirit when he shortly arrived on this side.

The man had messed up his life.

‘Everything is possible in the spirit, André.

On earth we can concentrate on our own life.

If we couldn’t, no-one on earth would recognize his loved ones because we look much younger now.

A spirit of light who has left the earth at an advanced age must concentrate on his past life if he wants to be recognized on earth, and that will make them see him in his ripe age.

Yet in the spirit he is young and beautiful.

As you see, this is also possible to us.

Everything is concentration and strong will power!

If my body can change, then why shouldn’t my clothes change too?

My appearance takes on whatever I desire within; even my tone of voice will be changed.’

She wore her earthly clothes, but how was that possible?

She lived in eternity, didn’t she?

Another new problem!

Now I looked at myself.

That I had not noticed this before.

I also wore my garment as on earth.

It had not changed at all.

How was this possible?

What a miracle!

I was dead and yet I wore my earthly garment.

That belonged to the earthly life.

I had not thought about it for a moment.

However, that was also clear to me, because I would only experience what I thought about.

This did not take away the fact that it belonged to the earth.

I was not naked, wore clothes, felt as on earth and yet I was spirit.

When you leave the first sphere, then those garments already begin to become grey, and then the skins hang, lets say – really and truly, madam – the skins already hang here, and the ribbons, like that, I think: now, it is starting to look like a rag-and-bone man.

And then you see thousands and millions of those rag-and-bone men and women there, because every characteristic takes them to that raggedness.

How is it possible, he thought, that I did not feel it.

He, too, wore a spiritual robe.

His earthly state he had dropped; he had now entirely passed into Alcar’s life.

His robe draped from his shoulders like the former Roman robe.

He felt very happy; but what would people on earth think of it?

Yet, it was very simple, because he would not be able to enter here, if he did not entirely accept the sphere in which he now found himself.

His soul life spun it, wove the threads into this pattern and it was his characteristics which produced the colours.

In this way the emotional life of a person is attached to the spiritual garment.

When the human being comes here, the human being does not need to look for himself, you immediately see yourself there, in colour, in attunement, in light, in everything.

You see people there with beautiful garments, and a frill hangs next to that, in a manner of speaking.

So you see thousands of millions of people there whose personality spiritualizes itself, and that garment is still not finished.

You see the strangest manifestations on the other side.

You can buy a beautiful suit; we cannot do that.

Because the spiritual garment was not there either, because he was walking in an old coat, such long shoes.

Then they say: ‘Is that a clown?’

Sir, your feet are so big – I once talked about it already – your hands, they are no longer hands, they are claws.

Your eyes are so far open, and your mouth is horribly ugly if you think about gossip and nonsense and want to live in that.

Someone who with a word ... the divine laws go that far – if you by means of a word ... This is dangerous if I bring the wrong thing.

If you touch and deform the human being and the divine law for the human being, then you deform at that moment not only yourself, but your whole world.

Now you must consider, and then you do not even need to do it yet, but if you think, you feel and you gossip, you talk nonsense, you talk, you destroy, you deform, then you are deforming yourself.

On one of my journeys to the dark regions I met a princess who bore that title on earth.

She had arrived there only recently and she boasted about her beauty, which caused her to be ridiculed by everyone.

But she didn’t understand this and would have done anything to punish these scoffers. They didn’t give her the chance though.

And when they had laughed enough to their liking, they held up a mirror so that she could take a look at herself.

You should have seen her, André.

She screamed and covered her face with her hands.

Then she fled, because it was an awful mask, a terribly mutilated face that looked back at her out of that mirror.

So much for her spiritual beauty.

I saw her again, lonely and deserted, some time afterwards.

She no longer wants to show herself, and for the time being she won’t boast about the position she once held on earth.

‘Where does all that blood come from in the life after death?’

His leader smiled and said: ‘You’re not the first one to ask such a question; I will try to explain this to you.

Does it strike you as strange that their bodies appear to be material?’

André thought it over.

‘No, not really, after all, I was allowed to behold this in the sphere of the earth?’

‘Doesn’t my son feel his own heartbeat?’

‘But they died, didn’t they, Alcar?’

‘All the same, they’re earthbound in their feelings and they will remain earthbound until they have changed within.

I have blood flowing in my body too, even if its substance is spiritual.

They have built themselves an animal-like, coarse-material body, which finds attunement to this condition.

Now rout around in the ground and take some of it in your hand.’

André did what Alcar wanted of him and then looked at his leader.

‘Is this soil, André?

Of course, but its essence is spiritual.

And the wine?

Why not wine, and knives and revolvers, if they possess everything here?

You saw how their jewels sparkle, and yet to me it has no value, nor to any other higher being in the spirit.

It’s the same with everything you perceive in the spirit and with the things you will yet perceive beneath the first existential sphere.

You were surprised to see no white, no other colours than that piercing red and that malicious green, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, Alcar.’

André realized that his leader had been able to follow him in spite of all the uproar.

‘They wear clothes that match their concentration and their strong will power, and some are more apt at this than others.

Their will power can’t uphold either blue or white, because they lack the necessary power, nor do they possess that purity.

So when you meet a being in a beautiful garment, it means that this being has sunk low.

The poor, who are wrapped in rags, are therefore the fortunate, they are the rich ones in the dark spheres.

They will soon pass on; no influence will keep them back.

They have cast away all that gold and silver, as well as their garments.

Consequently, no being can enter another sphere if he hasn’t done away with his acquirements, the inner feeling that belongs to that lower sphere.

Is everything clear to you?’

‘Yes, Alcar, everything is perfectly understandable to me now.

So everything is built up through inner attunement, concentration and strong will power.’

‘In the higher spheres, people, along with their clothes, will have changed, and as they ascend, so will the spheres in which they dwell.

On this side we know of spiritual, cosmic and even Divine attunements.

Here they are capable of doing anything, André, yet they can’t change their sphere into light, because this requires attunement.

André saw the first beings in this terrible town.

He was entering the Land of Hatred.

‘Are those human beings, Alcar?’

‘Indeed, my boy.

Once upon a time they too lived on earth and were young and handsome.

Then they grew old, because in their subsequent life they disgraced themselves and entered this place.’

André stared at them and couldn’t believe his eyes.

Wild and shifty they looked.

These were no longer human beings, they were beasts of prey.

Their bloodshot eyes protruded out of their sockets.

They were distorted, body and soul.

Human beings transformed into monsters.

Their gaze was scathing.

They were consumed by the fire of their passions.

How deeply they had fallen.

He saw men and women together.

Beauties of the earth dwelt here.

How terrible they were now.

His thoughts went back to earth, and in his mind he saw them, dressed in beautiful garments.

How beautiful a woman could be.

But what were they like now?

Now, sir, then you see the face changing, the human being changing, the lips changing, the arms are claws, and the legs are not there at all anymore, they have grown together; a human being has disappeared.

Until we are lying like a jellyfish on the beach.

Do you not know that?

Isn’t it honest?

The deeper we go, the more rotten it becomes in our aura.

It not only starts to darken, sir, but it stinks in our aura.

A human being with normal consciousness can no longer stand it in that sphere.

It becomes an animal-like carry-on.

You cannot even send that to a tiger, to a lion and a crocodile; they have not done as much harm as we people.

It is simple anyway.

And then you should see what then remained of the aura and the human being: everything, but completely dissolved in those pieces of trash which we do, that stealing, that destroying, that destructive part which still lives in us.

We will now descend and also return into our own condition.’

André felt how he was assimilated by a different sphere, as a terrible coldness came over him, and the light, which just a moment ago had enabled him to perceive, had vanished too.

He got a frightful shock, because there in front of him stood an abominable being, and he immediately prepared himself to return into his own condition.

Where had that being appeared from so suddenly?

The very moment he intended to vanish, he heard: ‘Stay, André, it’s me.’

However can this be, he thought.

Is that Alcar?

‘Doesn’t my son recognize me?’

No, André wouldn’t have recognized his leader if the latter hadn’t spoken to him.

The thing standing in front of him was a coarse-material being.

‘I’ve changed, haven’t I, André?’

‘You look terrible. How did this happen?’

‘This is my spiritual body, but are you still able to recognize me as a spirit of light?

Do you now understand what connection in the spirit means?

It also tells you that one cannot simply barge into this place.

Those who want to work in the sphere of the earth and have descended from the higher spheres to help unfortunate beings here, must have reached a certain stage in their development and possess the appropriate powers; otherwise they cannot hold their ground.

This requires a lot of effort and holy conviction, but what it needs most of all is the love for our work.

‘How terrible you look, Alcar!’

‘Why terrible?

Am I not the same?

I carry my possession within; nobody can take anything away from me.’

André thought of Alcar’s spiritual radiance, which he had been allowed to behold in the higher spheres.

Where was his beautiful garment and everything that made him light up?

What miracles was he witnessing.

‘Who could make me change, André?

After all, I don’t want to live like them; none of them can or will influence me.

If I were to take part in their animal-like life, I would be one of them, but I remain who I am because I neither like nor want their kind of life; I remain in my own attunement.’

Alcar’s well-shaped hands had changed into claws and his beautiful eyes had lost their gleaming lustre.

All the loving glow had gone; he and also he himself had turned into a deeply ill-fated being.

What powers did man possess who lived on this side?

How great his powers must be, to be capable of all this.

Who would still recognize him as a joyful spirit?

Alcar looked at him and André knew that his leader had caught his thoughts.

‘So that’s what you believe, André?

A higher attunement would empathise with me and know which attunement I possess.

But everything will soon become clear to you, because you’re about to experience it.

And now on we go.’

We’re far from your home here, André.

Yet you could be back in your body and awake again within seconds.

We can move about, take any action or do our work with the speed of our thoughts.

We could also, if we wanted to, go through the earth to reach your body, go straight through the earth, because that presents no problems to us either.

It would enable us to see what lives and works in the bowels of the earth.

Another experiment, André.

Concentrate your mind on me, wherever we may go.’

Alcar moved away at a terrific pace.

‘I just told you, as I also showed you during our former trips, that we can move about in a flash.

Where does my son believe he is at this very moment?’

André looked around but only saw a grey mass.

After a long thought he told his leader that he couldn’t find his bearings.

‘Then listen to me.

We’re in the innermost parts of the earth.’

André looked at his leader and thought this was impossible.

‘Is this incredible to you too?

I’m showing you that the spirit can move through all matter and that nothing can block its way.

If you had focussed your attention on me correctly you would have known where we were going.

You now know that everything is possible to us.

All the same, it must be marvellous for you as an earthly human to be allowed to experience this.

We can move up or down as we please.

We have our intellectual thinking capacity just as we once had on earth.

We own a body which is more beautiful than man possesses or knows of on earth.

We can link up and tune in with all the things our inherent powers, which is love, allow.

We can link up with everything that lives.

We who are without a body are capable of everything!

And all this in accordance with attunement in the spirit, the power of love which is in us.

We cannot rise higher.

We will possess wisdom according to our feeling.

‘Before we leave here’, Alcar said, ‘I want to perform just one experiment to convince you how fast we can travel about and link up.

You know how faraway the dark spheres are, how terribly deep the Valley of Sorrows is and how distant all other conditions are from here.

But we can move along in a flash and link up with the Valley of Sorrows.’

‘It seems to me like years away from here, Alcar.’

‘Give me your hand and hold on to me tightly, and don’t forget to link up with me with all the powers of concentration you possess.

Nothing, and I mean nothing at all, is allowed to interfere.

No other thoughts may occupy your mind, only think of me.

Is that understood, André?’

‘Yes, Alcar.’

‘Get ready.’

André felt an enormous power surging up within.

At that same moment he felt himself being taken up and swept away in a flash.

He awoke from a slight trance and saw to his dismay that he was in the Valley of Sorrows.

A miracle had happened?

‘Concentration and strong will power, my son.

There, in front of you, are the ones we linked up with.

We arrived here in a flash and can return, right through all the spheres I showed you.

That’s the way we get to earth and link up with everything that lives.

Wherever man may be, we will find him.’

What a strength, what a power of love.

In the third sphere he had seen the dark spheres pass him by, and now he had returned to this misery in a flash.

‘We will return in a flash too.’

Again André felt himself sinking, yet he was aware of everything.

They had soon reached the third sphere, the spot they had just descended from.

It was wondrous what he experienced on the side beyond.

To a spirit in the light depths and distances no longer existed, they were one in everything.