We left the Land of Hatred.

Gradually the inky black darkness changed to a grey mist.

This is why this land which we are now entering is called ‘Land of Twilight’.

The landscape here is less barren and terrible than in the Land of Hatred.

The further we go, father says, the more the mist will rise and the landscape will change, there will be plants growing.

Those who live here have released themselves from the darkness.

The life of the soul already possesses some feeling.

The people here have usually entered this place directly from the earth.

Many of them knew God, prayed to Him there, but did not live according to His laws.

Lying and cheating, a longing for possessions still lives in their souls.

Even although they are not capable of a murder, they still did not surrender their slight feelings of hatred.

Beings also enter this place from the Land of Hatred, the Land of Twilight is connected to it, as I already said.

It is understandable that those who released themselves from that darkness are not able to tune in to the light immediately.

The sphere here takes account of this and gradually changes from darkness to a twilight.

‘You see, Theo’, father remarks, ‘how naturally the laws are accomplished in this respect as well.’

In the distance we see human beings.

I would like to follow these people.

I am curious how they live, think and feel.

I see some who are sitting completely alone, hidden away in a hole in the ground.

They do not usually come out of there for quite a while, father tells me.

They are souls, which have finally released themselves from the dark spheres.

Those who come here from the earth are at a more evolved stage.

They search for each other and build big houses for themselves, like they do on earth.

I can hardly believe this last thing and yet I also have to accept this reality.

See the inhabitants of this sphere, they are earthly in their behaviour.

Their houses are like on earth, their clothing is like on earth.

Is this so hard to understand?

They are still tuned completely to the sphere of the earth, do not know any other world yet, and the result is that they recreate their earthly life here as it were, driven by their longings which are tuned to the earth.

The sermon which I hear a minister giving amidst a group of listeners proves to me how earthly their feeling and thinking still is.

Dressed in a black suit, he begs them to think of their souls.

Because, he calls out, God will punish those sinners severely, eternal hell fire awaits them.

He and many along with him do not even know that to the earth they have died and they now live on the other side of the grave!

They have still not been able to release themselves from their earthly feelings and thoughts.

They have to be given the proof that they have entered a new life.

Only if a loved one comes to them, a family member or a friend, about whom they know that he died before them on earth, they can be convinced.

Even then many of them are still not prepared to accept the spiritual help which is offered to them.

Many flatly refuse this.

Since they are bound to the earth, they do not have any longing in them for a higher spiritual life.

The church-goers who believed that they could enjoy their Lord and be able to sit at His feet after their death also have a very difficult time.

They do not meet God in this world, they are not in the hells either, because they do not notice any trace of fire anywhere.

What now, they wonder.

They feel cheated by their ministers and priests.

Are they really dead then, the question occurs to them.

It seems extremely unlikely, there are houses here like on earth and they wore these clothes there as well, didn’t they?

They are not prepared in any respect for the eternal life which they entered.

‘The poor and the rich live here, the intellectual next to the manual worker, the faithful next to the pagan’, father says.

‘All of them are bound to this dry, barren land since the love does not yet live in them which can make a paradise blossom for them.

They are devoid of every spiritual possession and as a result of this they are inaccessible for a higher consciousness.

As soon as something awakens in them spiritual aids rush to them, sisters and brothers, who want to devote themselves entirely to them.

They do everything to show these souls the way, to let them penetrate a higher life.’

I give my attention to a group of people, which is sitting talking.

Their conversations are completely like on earth.

They do not possess love.

They only think about themselves, there is not a single warm thought left for the other life.

They are small and narrow-minded in their thoughts and feelings.

I begin to sense their mentality and I am overcome with fear.

These souls are like my wife was.

Will I find her again in this place?

I do not dare to ask father and just prefer to wait until he connects me to her.

There are no children anywhere here, I notice.

‘No’, says father, ‘children live on this side in another, higher sphere.’

When I ask him where Liesje lives, he replies that we must also go higher in order to visit her.

We walk around a bit more in the Land of Twilight.

With father’s help I tune in to the people and I can determine their nationality.

All nationalities are here together.

Father tells me that I will soon have the opportunity to follow and analyse these souls as well.

I am gripped again by the feeling which already overcame me before: what a lot I still have to learn, there are so many miracles here, so many laws which require analysis.

First of all I have to get to know the other side, if I want to be able to do something myself.

Now that I am here, I feel completely like Theo.

Since he has something to experience here, Jack has had to withdraw.

Later on he will come forward again and be able to start his investigations.

This experiencing of two degrees of consciousness all happens of its own accord.

I still have a lot to learn, of course, but I am aware that I am alive, that I am part of God’s creation, the universe belongs to me, I can move, I may serve and experience, I am growing.

How much I wish this realisation of eternity on the wretches who sit hidden away here, wander round and behave like lost people, act as if they are still in the middle of earthly life.

Father says that they are psychopaths, and he is right.

They are on the other side of the grave and do not know it.

As a result of this they live in an unreal world.

They take their earthly clothing with them, their jewellery, in the life of the spirit.

I already told you: in this life your longing creates.

As a result of this they are even capable of populating their spheres with beings who still live on earth!

They talk and see their relations, their friends, whom they left behind on earth, and no one could convince them at this stage that they are not here ...

Tears come to my eyes when I see these wretches, who really do not behave any differently to your mentally handicapped.

How clear their situation and the sphere which binds them, is to me.

Now father demands my attention.

He takes me by my arm and says:

‘Now listen well, Theo.

I will connect you to Annie.

Annie lives here and, what is a comfort to her, her mother lives here as well.

I ask you to control yourself properly, when the time comes.

Your wife lives here, she is sitting down and thinking.

It is still not possible for you to talk to her.

That can only happen later.

I ask you, show respect for these lives.

You have it in you, but I still have to tell you.

Show that respect by being in complete control.

Too much diligence, too much feeling can only be harmful here.

Now I will connect you to her.’

I follow father and feel excited.

Now I will get to see her.

There, hidden between some bushes, I see a number of people gathered together.

My feeling tells me that I will find Annie there.

Father does indeed go in that direction and a moment later I am standing before the woman who was my wife on earth.

I cannot think now.

This moment is incredible.

Annie is sitting there, her head in her hands.

What is she thinking about?

I follow her.

She is not thinking, I notice, but her thoughts are fluttering in different directions.

She still cannot really think.

There is emptiness in her soul, poor, poor Annie.

She is alone, but now I see that her mother is approaching.

She is also wearing her earthly dress.

Nothing has changed.

I look at father.

Then I hear her mother saying:

‘They keep trying to make me believe that we have died on earth.

That man talked just like that husband of yours.

It is blasphemy.

I told him once and for all that I want nothing to do with that devilish carry-on, that we had already been contaminated with that before.

That husband of yours does that, he sent those devils to us.’

The words give me a shock.

Good heavens, have those people still not learned anything?

They do not believe that they have died for the earth?

Do they still hate me like that?

Will I really not be able to help and convince them?

After all, all of us are on this side now.

But it must be possible to bridge that gulf, after all, mustn’t it?

What if I were to show myself to them?

Would they not come to accept it then?

Father makes it clear to me that they would only be frightened and run away.

They would think they were seeing a devil, after all, they still do not know that they are one the side beyond, do they?

These souls cannot be helped at all, they would only get a terrible shock.

‘Her mother got that wisdom from a brother on this side.

Carefully, bit by bit, he shows them that they are in life after death.

Nothing happens here without thought and in haste.

She still thinks that a devil is talking to her.

You will have to wait.

You cannot do anything for them; if you wish to know, we have to wait until life begins to come to them.’

My wife is sitting here, in a misty sphere.

She is trying to think, but cannot.

She still does not know where I am, or her child.

I do not find any thoughts about us in her.

The shock – I now start to sense – with which they were thrown from their bodies, has paralysed them.

They have no realisation now of how their life is.

Since no love lives within them, their souls are empty.

That emptiness is the reason that they cannot think.

It keeps them imprisoned, and that state will continue until they start to feel that they are actually somewhere.

Because now they are really living nowhere, not on earth or in the spheres.

They are not tuned in to any existing sphere.

I see spirits of love busy everywhere.

They also follow my wife and her mother.

They are waiting until their paralysis disappears.

Then they will feel earthly.

They can then be reached in those feelings.

While I was thinking like this, I did not pay attention to father for a little while.

I now experience a great miracle.

Father has disappeared next to me.

And then I suddenly see him walking towards mother and daughter.

I myself am invisible, since the sphere which I am tuned in to is invisible to them.

Father knows I am connected with him, so that I can follow him.

Now he approaches the two women and addresses them.

I can clearly understand him.

‘You know’, he asks them, ‘that you died on earth?’

They do not even give him a glance.

Father does not give up and says: ‘Do not fear.

May I convince you?’

The women ignore him.

I am trembling, my heart is in my throat.

Do they not feel anything then?

Do they not hear father?

He continues undisturbed.

‘May I help you?

Is your Rotterdam not destroyed?

Poor city.

Shall I take you to the earth and show you that you died there?’

He does not get an answer, they do not even react to the word Rotterdam.

Father continues and I feel how he wants to convince me that they still cannot think.

‘Will I fetch Theo and bring him to you?’

I am so shocked by these words that I can not longer control myself.

Father senses this and he lets me know as quick as lightning that I have to control myself.

I make an intense effort and I manage to regain my calm.

Dead, Rotterdam, Theo, it means nothing to them.

It cannot mean anything to them either, they first have still to awaken and rest.

The anaesthetic is still working, only when it has disappeared will they come to life and feel again like on earth.

As if to convince me even more deeply of this, father continues to say to them:

‘Shall I bring you some reading material, so that you can read about life after death?’

To my great amazement, they react to these words, by jumping up and running away.

They are also swearing.

They call father a possessed person.

They are psychopaths, Jack concludes within me.

Both women have sat down further away, they fall back into their depression.

They are still the living-dead.

Father approaches them again.

Now he tries to get them to speak in another way.

‘How long have you been here?’

Something awakens in mother.

She looks at father.

Then she says: ‘I do not know, sir.

We are sick.

Where are we?’

And father immediately answers: ‘In life after death, mother, nowhere else.’

As if bitten by an adder, both women jump up and run away, so far away that I lose sight of them.

They have disappeared in the eternity of the universe.

I do not need to follow them, father is right.

They cannot be helped.

I have to accept this.

But one day they will recover from their shock, after all.

By asking them similar questions again and again, they will awaken from their anaesthetic.

Father shows me that we will now leave the Land of Twilight.

One day I will be able to go back with him to her and her mother in order to convince them of their death on earth.