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[Home]>[The Man-Made Church]>[23. Mind and Soul]

This is the 23. Chapter of "The Man-Made Church."

23. Mind and Soul

by Frank L. Preuss

We have so far – in the previous chapter – looked at the following parts of a human being:

1 body

11 physical body

12 life body

13 soul body

2 soul

3 spirit.

And in form of a table it looks like this:

In the previous chapter we discussed the body and its subparts.

The soul body was there treated as part of the body.

The soul body is just the shell of the soul - it is not the soul itself.

We now want to have a look at the subparts of the soul. There are three subparts. They are the sense soul, the mind soul and the awareness soul.

1 body

11 physical body

12 life body

13 soul body

2 soul

21 sense soul

22 mind soul

23 awareness soul

3 spirit.

And in form of a table it looks again like this:

The sense soul, 21, is our feelings, our emotions. It is here where we are happy or depressed, courageous or scared, peaceful or aggressive.

The mind soul, 22, is the plane of our thinking, the plane where the intellect is active, where we reason, where we exercise our power of judgement, where we rely on our common sense. It is where we use our mind and our understanding. We use our head there.

And the awareness soul, 23, is where we are aware of things, where we are conscious of things. Here we can be aware of our body, we can be aware of our emotions, but we can also be aware of our thinking. This awareness, this consciousness, is our real I.

With the sense soul, 21, we absorb what our senses tell us. From physical objects our sense soul receives information through our five senses. A human being comes across things and the information about them is transmitted via the senses to the sense soul.

The mind soul, 22, stores this information. This information becomes something of his own, has some meaning to him, it matters to him, it concerns him.

In the awareness soul, 23, cognition takes place. Here the human being acquires knowledge about these things. Knowledge is revealed to him. The secrets of the effects of these things and the effects of their beings are unveiled here. Here he strives incessantly to increase this knowledge.

Let us take an example. I go for a walk and pass a field of wheat. I stop and look at an ear of wheat. I might touch it, I might hear what sound it makes as it glides through my fingers, I might smell it and I might take some corns and taste them. I have used my five senses to gather information about the object. My sense soul, 21, has been busy.

I have been using my five senses. With my eyes I saw, with my hands and their skin I touched and felt, with my ears I heard, with my nose I smelled and with my mouth I tasted. I did all this by using my sense soul, 21.

Now my mind soul, 22, gets busy. I enjoy the whole experience and it becomes something that has an effect on me - that has meaning for me, my conscious mind is taking it in.

After this I carry on walking and think about this experience. It becomes a lasting memory and the laws of its nature become part of me. The secrets of living and dying, of natural food and spiritual food, of bread for the body and bread for the soul become reality to me.

The sum of all the different grains from different parts of the field form loafs of bread and the sum of all the members of the true church from different parts of the world form the body of Christ.

The bread we break at communion was originally scattered over the fields of wheat and was gathered in and bread was made out of it. It became one. Many different grains became one loaf of bread. God's assembly experiences the same gathering process. From the ends of the earth God's people are gathered into one body - into the kingdom of God.

My awareness soul, 23, is busy. It has stored this experience and it also is now available to be called upon at suitable situations for comparison, contemplation.

Through my awareness the things my senses experience remind me of some truth - of what it is really all about, of who I really am, that all is One.

Let us compare the parts of a computer to the parts of the soul.

The sense soul, 21, can be seen as the temporary memory that stores the key strokes of my fingers.

The mind soul, 22, can be compared with permanent memory. When I save the keystrokes the information is stored on the hard disk.

The awareness soul, 23, can be seen in action when I use a certain program to process my input.

The mind soul, 22, grows with the absorption of what is true and what is good.

If I would have been walking past the corn field and would have done what I have described above, but would have done this just on the physical plane only, because my mind was somewhere else, then my sense soul, 21, would have been active only. My mind soul, 22, was absent. My senses would be doing all these different things, take the information and transmit it to the brain and it gets all stored in my subconscious. My conscious mind does not get involved, it was somewhere else. If somebody would remind me of what I had done I would probably not even remember it. If somebody could hypnotize me, he could probably get this information out of me. If somebody would ask me if I had seen the cornfield and would like to know if the corn is ripe for harvesting I would have to ask the Holy Spirit to dig out this information for me, to look into my subconscious and there search for it, because my conscious mind has not got it.

My mind soul, 22, and my awareness soul, 23, were not involved in the whole process. They did not gain any experience.

It is like wanting to know what time it is and looking at the watch but not stopping the present thought process. The eyes then look at the watch and report the information to the brain and the information gets registered in the subconscious, but the conscious mind does not have it. It is in the sense soul, 21, but not in the mind soul, 22. A little bit later I remember that I wanted to know the time and I realize that I looked at the watch but that I have not got that information and that I have to look at the watch again. So I stretch out my arm, turn my wrist and do look at the watch again, but this time with my mind applied to the task of requiring the information. Only now do I have it in my mind. It has become my intellectual property. It has become part of my mind soul, 22.

It would become part of my awareness soul, 23, when I would start to make myself aware of the effects that the time has on me, for example. I could for example become aware of how much time I still have got until I have to get up and go to a meeting.

I could also become aware, for example, of the fact that I was inquiring what time it is, of the fact that I looked at the watch, of the fact that I did so consciously and that I really did notice the time. I then was aware of me as a thinker.

I could also become aware, or make myself aware, of the fact that time is a thing that exists in this realm, but that it does not exist in higher realms and that it is, like space as well, a temporary thing of this plane of existence.

And this again would remind me of my aim in life to live in the Now, not to live in the past and not to live in the future, but to live in the presence.

And this again would remind me also of my other aim to expand my awareness, my consciousness, because this being aware of one thing only at a time is caused by me living on the physical plane and needing all my focus to handle this material life, but that this is not so on other planes of existence and that I therefore should expand my scope and advance.

All this however is not done by the sense soul, 21, alone. The use of the mind soul, 22, and of the awareness soul, 23, is here required as well.

Now if I had my mind on what I was doing and if I had got my mind soul, 22, to register all the things I did, then my intellect was becoming richer. I would have gained an intellectual experience. I would know what time it is or I would know much about an ear of corn.

And if I even went further and wanted to get to the secrets of the effects of these things then I would get my awareness soul, 23, involved. I would progress from the intellectual to the spiritual. I would progress from being a knowledgeable person to becoming a wise person.

Let us take another example. I look out of the window and notice that the colour of the water in the river is not the usual blue, but an unusual brown. Later on I take a bath and my bath water is not clear but muddy and after I drained the water there remains a layer of silt in the bathtub. I have used my sense soul to receive and store this information. Now I go further and use my mind soul and in doing so remember that there was a lot of rain the day before and this rain brought earth due to erosion into the river system and made the river water muddy. With my mind I figured out what the reason of the change in the colour of water was. Now I make another step in using my mind and employ the mind soul, 22, and think about the whole situation and its implications and come to the conclusion not to pump water from the river into the reservoir after a strong rain but switch the pump off and so avoid muddy water in my bathtub and the deposit of silt in the reservoir and the consequent need to remove the silt or to have reduced reservoir capacity. And I can go a step further and meditate about the spiritual implications and be reminded that my spiritual system should always by clean and the free flow of energy should be possible to have me in good working order. I could extend this train of thoughts and think about the life of the real church, the body of Christ, and the need to deal with divisive brothers that muddy the church life. But I also could think of the need to avoid the intake of contaminated food and drink into my body and the need to have my physical body in a condition where all toxins are speedily dealt with and removed. So I have employed the different parts of my soul and did this effectively in order to have the right benefits. Now while I was thinking of the implications of all the rain coming down yesterday I started wondering how I would remember the next time it rains to check the reservoir and to switch off the pump.

But then I am shown that I not only receive input from my senses, from below, but that I also receive input from above. From my spiritual side come information and influences and they direct my sense experiences and I simply have to ask and I will receive. So I thank the Holy Spirit for always reminding me to do something about the pumping when it rains and so I am back at singing the song of thanksgiving and being full of joy and anticipation of the activities of the Spirit in my life. Due to my soul receiving not only from below but also from above I am able to learn a lesson and to do the appropriate changes in my life. I live the life of being led by the Spirit.

Another example is the observation of all the negative talk of people around me and how they, with their bad confessions, create the negative circumstances in their life. I hear the sound they make and register it, I also register the miseries in their life, their sicknesses, their sufferings and their dying from a prolonged disease – all this hearing and registering of sound is sense soul activity - and I apply my mind to this and measure their faith - mind soul activity - and I finally put it all together and apply the lesson to my life and decide to be even more careful and watch my own confessions and look for areas of unbelief and limited thinking.

How many people are there who hear words and see things and don't really understand what they perceive? And how much less are there who are able to digest this information and draw they right conclusions and make use of their experiences and be blessed.

A person whose life exists mainly in following his inclinations, his likes and dislikes would have a mind soul, 22, that is of the same size as his sense soul, 21.

A person using the gift of discernment can actually see the sizes of these different soul parts. So the life body, 12, is bigger than the physical body, 11, and the soul body, 13, is again bigger than the life body, 12, and the sense soul, 21, is bigger and extends above the soul body, 13. And so on.

All these different parts and subparts comprise a cloud around the physical body and they all also interpenetrate each other.

Of special interest should be here the fact that thinking and being aware of thinking are two things. To come to a point in life where one becomes aware of thinking, especially where one becomes aware of what one is thinking, is quite something. The next step is then, after one has become aware of what one is thinking to do something about it, to increase the amount of thinking that is good and beneficial and to decrease the amount of thinking that is bad and obstructive. With other words we should take our thoughts, examine them and when they are no good, then we should discard them and replace them with thoughts that build us up. We then lead every thought into the obedience of Christ. This is the formula to success. We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Every thought that sets itself up against the knowledge of God is dealt with.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations (or, reasonings), and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

Now this is the most important Scripture related to our subject: mind. This scripture has really to get absorbed, learned and known by heart, meditated upon, confessed, understood intellectually, and applied. Without using this Scripture all discussions about the mind will remain more or less fruitless. We again and again have to come back to these verses in 2 Corinthians 10. They are the key. They provide us with our spiritual weapons.

These are our real weapons of warfare. They are mighty. Our fight is not with physical things and not against physical things. We are pulling down strongholds which are not of brick and mortar, of steel and concrete, but strongholds that exist in the mind, and not so much strongholds that exist in other people's minds but the ones that exist in our own mind. If we get to grips with these things then we will be mighty. If we know how to conquer ourselves then we will be able to conquer everything else.

Every time we are tempted to be negative, we reverse our thoughts. We do a very simple switch. To do this simple switch is our success formula. We visualize the success we will achieve with this formula. We are turning negative to positive. A negative thought means failure. A positive thought means success. We reverse the flow of energy.

Negative thoughts attract negative things and lead to being possessed by evil beings. I get rid of them by casting them out of my life, by cleaning my inner life, and - and this is important - by replacing the negative with positive. I replace the negative energy with positive thoughts. My mind gets filled with light, is full of light, and darkness is kept out.

If you feel that you are possessed by evil spirits then cast them out. How do you cast them out? Realize that you yourself attracted theses evils. With your negative attitudes and your negative state of mind you drew these negative elements to you. You encourage like-minded minds to attach themselves to you. Get rid of the negative. But do not forget to replace it with light. If you forget this then they will come back, with many others, and attack you. So clean your house and put plenty of good things into it - thoughts of love, life, light, goodness, strength, health.

May be you changed your life recently and stopped buying beer and liquor. And now one of your old friends is visiting you and you have some water or fruit juice to drink. After a while your friend asks if he can have a beer and you tell him to go to the fridge and see if there is some beer in it. He comes back without a can of beer because the last can of beer was taken out quite some time ago and no new beer cans were placed into the fridge. And the result may be that this was his last visit. He doesn't find you anymore interesting. He got bored at your place. It is the same with evil spirits. They get bored when you are not anymore like them. They don't find you anymore interesting. They have a low boredom threshold. They leave. So don't think of spirit possession as something terrible. Just change and you soon will be rid of them.

It is like many human relationships. During a lifetime we meet many people and as we grow and as we change new people come into our circle of relationships but many leave because they simply do not seem to fit in anymore. Our opinions change and people who don't agree with them and get agitated by them will withdraw from us. Usually this happens when we clearly communicate and express our opinions. When we change our consciousness and our actions the results will be there.

But first we must become aware of all this and this study of the different parts of a human being will help us here tremendously.

This awareness, this consciousness, is our real I.

It is our self.

So let us look at the flow of thinking - how thoughts are processed in our soul. The sense soul, 21, keeps a record of our life. Here we are conscious of the happenings to our body and of our emotions. Single moments and the sum of them - our whole life - are getting recorded. It is our conscious mind. From this conscious mind the thoughts go to the mind soul, 22. There they get examined. We let our imagination deal with them. We observe these mental and emotional processes. We compare the thoughts with thoughts that we had before, with thoughts that are related to the same subject, with all that has gone before and that has something to do with it. Our thoughts are getting judged; they are now properly conditioned, put into a certain box. And then the thoughts go to the awareness soul, 23. What happens to them there is much influenced by how much the awareness soul is in contact with the spirit or how they allow the spirit to influence them or how they hinder and quench the spirit. There they become part of the subconscious.

To become wise is to grow in understanding. Understanding grows when we collect knowledge and experience and when we make use of them. Knowledge is obtained via the senses. Perception of things makes us knowledgeable. When we then do this collecting of knowledge intentionally, when we consciously learn about the things our senses absorb, we gather understanding. When we not only experience things and happenings and events, but when we do so with the aim to learn from them, then we accumulate understanding.

The difference between knowledge and understanding can be illustrated by the fact that we can take some of our knowledge and give it to another person. We can transmit it to one or many people. We can't do the same with understanding. These people have to gain it for themselves. We can't do it for them.

I can transmit knowledge by writing it down here and make it available to others. I can't do the same with understanding. I can only recommend and urge that the reader not only reads but that he also applies what he reads in his life. I only can give directions how to obtain understanding.

The gathering of understanding lets faith grow. It is a personal thing. It is based on my experience. My experiences let me gradually know that certain things can be done, can occur. By having seen things happening and by having gained understanding about them, I have gained faith.

I have experienced the results of the teachings of Christ in my life and I would like that others do the same. I would like that others are also happy and full of joy, that they are healthy, and full of peace, that they are prosperous and are led by the spirit. My faith in His words I would like to give to others. But I can only show them the way; I can't walk it for them. I can only be the encouraging agent to such a walk - the example. I can't transmit my faith to them. They have to gain it by themselves.

So we must become wise from personal experience and from acquiring information intentionally. Wisdom and understanding is more than knowledge. Knowledge must be used. By applying knowledge the right way we become understanding. We must strive to understand. We must assimilate knowledge and we must consciously perceive it. Intentionally must we learn about events which take place and which have taken place.

These things must become truths to us. Effects and influences of higher forces and of higher beings must be experienced and believed.

Jesus says in Matthew 10:28, "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

So this means that our soul can suffer in hell. So there might be a purification process necessary after death. If a person has a bad habit and does not manage to get rid of it before he dies, then this purification has to take place on the next level - in the afterlife. Purification is done by means of fire and that is why we speak of hellfire. If a man is a drinker then he suffers here on earth all the problems an alcoholic normally has, but when he now dies and now lives in another realm, then he has got the problem that he has not got anymore a body but he still has got his mind and in this mind he still has got this urge to drink but he can't drink because he does not have a body anymore. So he can't satisfy his bad habit of drinking, but this urge is there to drink, and therefore he is now suffering from this, it is hell for him. This bad habit has to get burned out of his life. And this is the reason why it is so important to get out of bad habits while we are here on earth, to gain control over our senses while we still have them. Our senses belong to the body, and when we are without a body then we also do not have anymore our five senses, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling. The taste and the smell of an alcoholic beverage can't be experienced without a body, but when the strong desire for it is still there then a man suffers because he can't satisfy this desire.

Now Jesus here uses the word soul. And if we go to an interlinear Bible then we find that this word soul has the number 5590 in Strong's Greek Dictionary of the New Testament. We then go to this dictionary and find at the number 5590 the following:

5590. psuche psoo-khay'; from 5594; breath, i.e. (by impl.) spirit, abstr. or concr. (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from 4151, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from 2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Heb. 5315, 7307 and 2416):- heart, (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us, + you.

So this is quite interesting information. The word sentient means having the power of perception by the senses. So Jesus here speaks of that part of the soul that has only the power of perception by the senses. So it is the lower part of the soul. It is the part of the soul that has not the power of perception by the higher self - the spirit. It is the animal part of the soul. It is that part of the soul that also animals have got. Animals can receive input that comes from the senses, from below, - as we can. But they cannot receive input that comes from above - as we can.

So it is this animal part of the soul that gets purified in hell. If a man does not conquer and gets control over his senses then he has to suffer in the hereafter.

Animals automatically behave the right way. They normally don't become alcoholics; they normally don't have to fight obesity. They even normally don't seem to get sick. Normally animals don't smoke. They don't take drugs.

But the human beings can behave in a way that is bad for them. Why is this so? We have the third part of the soul. It is called here "4151, which is the rational immortal soul."

So when we go to word number 4151 we find this:

4151. pneuma, pnyoo'-mah; from 4154; a current of air, i.e. breath (blast) or a breeze; by anal. or fig. a spirit, i.e. (human) the rational soul, (by impl.) vital principle, mental disposition, etc., or (superhuman) an angel, demon, or (divine) God, Christ's spirit, the Holy Spirit:- ghost, life, spirit, (-ual, -ually), mind.

So psyche, or psuche, is something we have in common with animals, but pneuma not. Pneuma is something we humans have and the animals don't have it. It is the rational and immortal soul.

So we can rise above animals because we have the rational and immortal soul, but we also can, because we have this additional equipment, fall below the animals. We can behave like idiots, be gluttons, be alcoholics, we can appropriate sick bodies; we can go in every wrong direction we want.

We can use this additional equipment against our own interests. We have free will.

Now the third word mentioned is the word with the number 2222:

2222. zoe, dzo-ay', from 2198; life (lit. or fig.):- life (-time).

This was "2222, which is mere vitality, even of plants."

So this zoe, this life or vitality, is something that even plants have got. Plants have it, and animals have it and we have it as well. We have it all in common; only minerals do not have it.

A human soul can come from various sources like from other bodies of the universe like suns or planets but it can also come directly from this earth and has previously gone through all the three kingdoms of nature. Every material thing like a mineral or a plant or an animal has a soul body and it is this soul body that undergoes an evolutionary process and develops and grows and several of such bodies form a new more developed one.

Now we also had the following statement: "these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Heb. 5315, 7307 and 2416"

So let us have a look at these as well. The abbreviation Heb. means Hebrew and refers to the "Dictionary of the Words in the Hebrew Bible" by James Strong.

5315. nephesh, neh'-fesh; from 5314, prop. a breathing creature, i.e. animal or (abstr.) vitality; used very widely in a lit., accommodated or fig. sense (bodily or mental):-

And then follow many words into which this word nephesh was translated by the translators of the King James Version.

So the Hebrew word nephesh, 5315, corresponds to the Greek word psuche, 5590.

7307. ruwach, roo'-akh; from 7306; wind,; by resemblance breath, i.e. a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; fig. life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extens. a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being (includ. its expression and function):- air, anger, blast, breath, x cool, courage, mind, x quarter, x side, spirit ([-ual]), tempest, x vain, ([whirl]-) wind (-y).

So the Hebrew word ruwach, 7307, corresponds to the Greek word pneuma, 4151.

2416. chay, khah'ee; from 2421; alive; hence raw (flesh); fresh (plant, water, year), strong; also (as noun, espec. in the fem. sing. and masc. plur.) life (or living thing), whether lit. or fig.:- + age, alive, appetite, (wild) beast, company, congregation, life (-time), live (-ly), living (creature, thing), maintenance, + merry, multitude, + (be) old, quick, raw, running, springing, troop.

So the Hebrew word chay, 2416, corresponds to the Greek word zoe, 2222.

A plant has got just a soul that has life but does not have a psyche, and a plant also has not got pneuma. An animal has a psyche, but it does not have pneuma. A human being has all three: also a pneuma. And this pneuma can make a human being happy or it can cause a lot of problems. The animals only have a psyche but no pneuma and therefore they don't need a psychiatrist for their psyche. So the problems the humans have got are caused by the pneuma - or more exactly by the wrong application of pneuma. They often do not use the pneuma as they should. And then they become like animals. But as animals normally don't have such problems that humans have got they are then not really like animals. They become rather negative animals. Because they make the wrong use of the rational and immortal part of the soul they become sick animals. So it is the prerogative of the humans to become negative animals. If a human being makes proper use of pneuma then he is an advanced animal, but when he misuses his gifts then he becomes a negative animal.

So a psychiatrist should actually be called a pneumatrist because the problem is not the psyche but the pneuma. The pneuma has to get straightened out. The rational thinking is not rational but irrational. Insanity is a human attribute, we seldom find insane animals.

So if we consider a human being just consisting of body and soul then such a being would not be higher than an animal. Such a being would have an instinctive reasoning ability just like an animal but would not have an intellect and therefore could not judge higher things and their relationships to each other.

A human being has this third part – the spirit – living in its soul and this enables man to distinguish between good and bad and between truth and falseness. And man can think in every possible direction and he has free will and therefore he can will and has a choice and can make decisions. And when he makes proper use of his spirit then he can - with his completely free will – make his soul identical with his spirit. And he does so by choosing the good and the true and this again will gradually make the soul to become like the spirit and therefore strong and powerful and wise. And this is what we call to be born again in the spirit. Then the soul has become one with the spirit. But this getting born again also affects the body. Also the flesh of the body turns into something that we could call the flesh of the soul, which is the spiritual substantial body and therefore finally into the body of the spirit. And this is what the Bible calls the resurrection of the flesh. And this happens at the last day. And the last day is the last day of a man’s life. We could also call it the truest day of his life. It is his last day but it also is his first day - the first day as a real spiritual person. And this important day can be the day a man dies – when he dies in Christ. But it also could be a day before he dies and then he spends the rest of his life on earth as a completed soul. And it also can happen after he dies, but then – on the other side – it becomes a long-drawn-out and tedious matter. And only then the human being becomes a complete man. But a man remains – even after being born again of the spirit and after having lost the physical body - a triad or a triplicity, a group of three beings, because he can transform himself into whatever he wants to be – also back into a being with a physical body, as Jesus did when he appeared to his disciples coming through the wall and eating and being touched or as Moses and Elijah did when they appeared on the mount of transfiguration and were seen by Jesus, Peter, John and James.

So this well distinguishable triad of the human being exists for ever: body and soul and spirit.

The soul is in the middle. The body serves the soul as a tool. The spirit also serves the soul – with the aim to get it born again. The job of the soul is to accept the input of the spirit and make it its own. And it is also the soul’s job to serve the body with its mind and will. So the soul uses the body to act on its behalf and is therefore responsible for these acts of the body. But the main responsibilities of the soul are its own acts: thoughts, wishes, desires and lusts.

So if somebody really wants to know himself then he has to know and he has to come to the inner realization that he actually consists of three personalities. The natural life of the body is something that is completely different from the life of the soul but still the body and the soul are one human being.

To look at this difference between a man and an animal makes it more understandable what man is and what man is not.

As this is a nice method to gain more understanding of man, let us look at another such comparison. When we compare man with God then the first thing that comes to mind is that God created man, but that man did not create man. Man is very much like God. He was created in the image of God. God created man. But man did not create man. We are not responsible for our creation, God did it. We have a lot of creative ability, but not this one. But the important thing is to know that in other respects we are like God, and that this fact should give us direction und should let us strive to become more like him.

Everything is a triad. A human being is a triad. It has a body, a soul and a spirit. But if we take something like a stone then also this physical thing is a triad. A stone has a form. The outer form is something we see first when we look at a stone. Without the outer form a thing does not exist. Let us say the form is that of a bird’s egg. The second thing we see is the content. It is what the stone is made of. A stone is made out of a certain mineral and also without this content a thing does not exist. And without the content the thing also could not have a form, an outer shape. And the third thing is the inherent power of a matter. This power keeps the thing together and gives it the actual essence. And this power determines the content as well as the shape and is therefore the essence of all existence whatever it might be. Without the essence everything like a being or a thing would not be conceivable. So everything, and every being, is not conceivable without the essence, without the content and without the form.

If a man stands at the beach and picks up a pebble that has the form of a bird’s egg and takes it in his hand and looks at it he might determine what kind of mineral the stone is made of. If he is a sensitive person he might sense the power in that pebble and he might get a feeling of nature, of the sea, of the surf and its actions. When now this man looks up and sees the ruins of a castle on top of the hill he might walk up to that castle and there he might see similar pebbles and he again bends down and picks up one of these pebbles that have the shape of a bird’s egg. And he finds that this pebble has the same shape and the same content as the pebble he had previously picked up at the beach. And he might come to the conclusion that this pebble’s natural habitat is not on this mountain but that this pebble was brought up to this hill by unnatural means, by humans. And then he keeps it in his hand and starts to listen to his inner voice. And he might also feel the things he felt down at the beach with the first pebble, but in addition to this he feels quite strongly the presence of human emotions like aggressiveness and anger and hostility and hate. And that might lead him to the conclusion that these pebbles were brought up from the beach and used to fight against the castle or to defend the castle – that they were used as projectiles with slingshots in ancient times. At the beach the pebble was just a normal pebble and the essence was that of nature. But up here on the hill similar pebbles had become means of warfare and the essence had become that of human use embodied with human emotions.

If we now go back to the human being then also there we have an outer shape and we call it the body or the flesh. And it does not matter if this body is the material body or already a body that has been spiritualized. And as the human being exists as outer form it also must exist as corresponding content and this content is the soul. And also the third part is there and that is the spirit. Without the spirit there could not be any content or form. These three distinguishable personalities are in reality only one being but they still have to be named and have to be recognized as such. The spirit is the most important part. In the spirit we have the power that produces everything and that is love – the basic component of everything. But there is also intelligence and will. So love, intelligence and will are composing the spirit. And out of that arises the substance of the soul and the body.

The will and the intelligence of the spirit create the soul and after its creation the spirit withdraws into the innermost part of the soul but gives the soul a free will and a free independent intelligence and the spirit does this according to its inner will and to its inner intelligence. And now this free will and the free independent intelligence of the soul is something that has become separate from the spirit and its will and intelligence. And so we have the higher self – in the spirit – and the lower self – in the soul. And the soul acquires the free will and the free independent intelligence by means of the outer senses and also by means of becoming aware of the inner workings. And then the soul perfects these in such a way as if they had become its own work.

This state that makes the soul feel as if it is separated from the spirit allows it to receive outer as well as inner revelations. When the soul then welcomes this information and also accepts it and even acts accordingly then the soul starts to unite itself with the spirit. And the more the soul goes in this direction the more it passes over to the unlimited freedom of the spirit. And this freedom applies to the intellect and to the freedom of the will. And the result is that the soul can bring about everything that it recognizes and that it wills. The soul then has the power and the strength to be unlimited in its creative ability.

So the soul is a thought of the spirit that was transformed into a living substance and is therefore basically spirit itself. But it can be considered as being a second thing that came out of the spirit and that is therefore not different from it.

Now this soul is an individual and has been clothed with a physical body and this is the third personality. And the purpose of the body is to serve the soul as an outer revelation of its inner spirit and to turn the intellect and the free will outside. But an important aspect of this turning to the outside is the restriction that is contained in it. This adoption of direction towards the outside curbs the intellect and also the free will. And having been confined in this way the soul now should try to find the unlimited inner intelligence and inner free will and all the true power and strength that goes with them. And the soul should then find all this and gain the unity with the inner spirit and become a most glorified and complete independent being, because the inner spirit is always the only reality of the human being.

So a human being consists of three distinguishable things. And all other things do the same - even though to a lesser degree. All things are triads. Even God is a triad. We know this when we talk of being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God has three parts.

God is in the primeval centre from which everything originates. But this does not restrict God to this location. There is no necessity to do so. Man is not restricted and he can move freely in all directions of his body and even much more so in all directions of the spirit. God has given his creatures complete freedom regarding their movements and therefore there is no reason that God should restrict himself in any way. So God also has the freedom to walk in the flesh the same way as man does and so give man the opportunity to see and touch him. And man so can see and touch God and realize that this God is an eternally most perfected human being. And in doing so there is no need that God has to become two beings, he remains the one and only God. And there is also no need to become three beings: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit sanctifies and protects and preserves the teachings of the Son and is given him as a co-worker. And the Son was created by himself and is therefore his own eternal Father and his body is therefore the glorified form of his Father so that he can be touched and seen by men and by angels and that they can speak to him and hear him. So in Jesus is the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the power that radiates from him and from his love, wisdom and almighty will, and that fills all space and acts everywhere.

So Jesus is the God that walked on earth and was with his primeval being completely and undivided present on the surface of the earth and at the same time he was nowhere else present, neither at any other location on this earth nor at any location of any other planet or heavenly body. But due to his power generating out of him – the Holy Spirit – he nevertheless filled all heavens and also the earthly material as well as the never-ending space. He saw everything from the biggest to the smallest and he knew everything and knew about everything and decreed everything and created, directed and governed everything.

But God had and has one restriction and that is that he has furnished us with free will and he therefore has to withdraw his omnipotence and allow us to believe whatever we want to believe and to do whatever we want to do.

So the three words Father and Son and Holy Spirit are distinguishable quality names and cannot therefore be used as names of three personal divine beings.

So let me show all this in a table that lets us compare the triads of things and of men and that of God.

The Distinguishable Triad

Now let us have a look at a third comparison. Let us compare man with an angel. An angel is a spirit being but he can become visible to man and can have a body that is similar to the body of a man and when a man touches an angel he might just grasp into empty space but he also might grasp the body of an angel and might feel it as he would feel the body of another man. It is the angel who makes his body appear as the situation might require. But a man’s body was fathered by another man and born by a woman. Not so the body of an angel. Normally an angel is just light and energy. When we see an angel then his body has more or less just the appearance of a human body - it does not have real flesh and blood and he also does not have a soul that makes this flesh and blood alive. And as the angel has no soul he also has no real I. He is not really a personality. He has not got a personality. So what then is an angel? If he has only an apparent body and if he has no I, no personality, then what is he? He is actually just a manifestation of the will of God. He is an idea from God and filled with his will. And he only gets a body – a shape and a form - when God determines that it is necessary. And the body of an angel might appear as that of a mighty heavenly being, but it also might appear as just another man and we might not realize that it is not a man but an angel. And this shape and form might just be visible to certain people, others who are also present might not see him, or might not hear what he says. So when we receive a message from an angel then this message is as if God had spoken directly to us, because the angel speaks directly that what is out of God. It is therefore the same and it does not matter if the angel speaks or if God himself speaks. The angel is an idea that is filled with the will of God. And he brings this will of God to us. So the angel is an idea filled with the will of God and the message he brings to us is the will of God. Now we have said that the angel does not have a soul. Why do we have a soul? We have seen already that it is the same if an angel speaks to us or if God speaks to us directly. An angel therefore is not active out of himself - he is not independent. We have independence, not the angel. Our independence has something to do with our soul. We have said that an angel has no form, just an apparent body. But we have form, we have a real body. And inside of this body is the soul. Now the body and the soul were created by God using ideas that were filled with the power of his will, ideas that are in themselves forms and that create forms and that contain in themselves power and intelligence to do this. But there are two kinds of ideas. The first one is this idea that contains power and intelligence and creates things like matter or a human body or a human soul, and the second kind of idea is an idea that is without form – amorphous – but that can be used by all forms. This second idea is a free acting idea and is available to all forms to be used by them. These free acting ideas also contain the will of God and they can create forms. And we can use these free acting ideas. And an angel does not use them, we however do. And that is a difference. It means that we are self-acting and therefore independent. So we can act in us and for us. We are free and are an idea or a thought of God and are dependent on ourselves. We can for example decide if we want to turn against God or cooperate with him. An angel is not isolated from God, he is identical with God, and therefore he cannot be self-acting and has no independence. We can become children of God due to this ability, the angels cannot. They might also do this later but at the present time it is the privilege of a human being to become a child of God. At the moment an angel is a very mighty being and we don’t seem to be this. But that is a matter of development. The more for example our soul becomes dominated by our spirit the more we will become godlike and will be able to do the works that Jesus did or even greater things. The angel is doing exactly God’s will and we should come to that position as well and when we recognize that God’s will is also our own we will be a lot closer to the angel. But when we have achieved this then we will have achieved more than the angel because we did it out of our free will. We will then also be able to have a thought and the next moment it will become reality and this will be possible because also our thought was the will of God. Then our thought becomes a perfect and complete divine miracle. And we will have achieved this on the basis of our free will. The angel however achieves his miracles due to the fact that he is a direct tool of God and is used by God as we would use our arm and our hand and our fingers to throw a stone. The angel is therefore a being that is directly responding to God’s will as our finger responds to our will. A human being however is not like an angel because it has free will and is independent. But by having a soul man can refuse to let the soul be run by the senses and decide to let it be run by the spirit and then he can do what an angel does.

An angel is like the hand of God and does what God wants. He is like my hand that does what I want. A human being however is free and independent, but it can recognize in itself God’s will. This can happen because of the Good News. When we hear this Good News we can respond to it. And when we have recognized the Good News then we can realize its value and we can make God’s will our own. And then we can act and do what our new will is and because our will is then also God’s will, we do – independently – God’s will. And that makes a child of God out of us.

A child can do what his father wants it to do, but it does not have to. The hand of a man however has no choice; it has to do what the will of the man decides the hand should do. And so it is with an angel, he has no choice but does what the will of God decides that the angel should do.

So we are more than an angel because we have reached our status out of our free will. But an angel is much more powerful than we are, but that is only as long as we have not got to the stage to always do God’s will. So to become as powerful as an angel very much depends on us. We have to work on our own inner development.

And this development is the process of becoming born again. To get born again out of spirit means that the influence of the spirit on the soul is increasing and the influence of the senses on the soul is decreasing. When we are completely born again out of the spirit then our soul is guided only by our spirit, 33, und the guidance that comes from the senses of our physical body has completely ceased. We then have become a perfect and complete spirit. It is therefore the soul that makes us independent and gives us an I, something an angel has not got. And when we have become this perfect and complete spirit then we can do the same things that angels can do. We have then the same qualities and nature as all pure spirits have. We then can create physical miracles and can do so in no time. Any great act of power can be completed in a moment. We can move mountains, heal instantly, or get transported to the end of the universe, pick up a piece of rock there, and come back and retain this sign of our presence there. And all this we create by thoughts of our mind. A first step to understand such things is to consider our thought. I can be physically in my home but I can send a thought of mine to my distant office and there look at a document that is there filed in a folder which lies on a desk and then this thought comes back to me with some information I wanted. And the travelling time there and back is zero. And the same applies to my thought going to the moon and having a look at the footprints of the astronauts they made on the surface of the moon. My thought is there instantly and is also back instantly. And so it is when a thought of mine goes to the furthest part of our galaxy, it does not take any time to travel all this distance. It travels all this distance in a shortest moment and in a shortest moment we will not only be able to travel the longest distance but we will also be able to materialize physical things as well. Our thought will become an accomplished deed. All this is possible because a thought has nothing to do with physical matter but is a thing of the spirit world.

We will be able to accomplish such deeds because our soul will have become free from the influence of matter und is now only influenced by spirit. We have become pure spirit and therefore free from the dominion of the physical world and we can create physical things instantly as all the other pure spirits can do as well. We have become creators as God is and as the angels are. With a thought of our mind we create instantaneously. That is the power of the mind.

So we are independent, the angels are not. We gain our independence by our own effort und self-sacrifice. And this is progression on the way shown to us by Jesus – the Way. And this progress we gain for the here and now and also for the other side. It is the way to become self-active and independent. To achieve everlasting life and perfect happiness we have to gain this independence. Out of ourselves we have to become true children of God.

We have up to now compared a human being with an animal, and also with God and then with an angel. As a forth comparison we will have a look how a human being is different from Jesus Christ. Now Jesus Christ was and is God. But two thousand years ago he lived as a man on this earth and outwardly he looked just like any other man. So what was the difference?

Before Jesus came to earth he was living in heaven. Does this mean that he wasn’t in heaven anymore after he came to earth? Does it mean that God did not exist anymore in eternity – that he existed then in time and space? How can Jesus exist in time and space and as God also exist outside of time and space – in heaven?

There is no difference for the divine self of Jesus between eternity and earlier and now. And that is why he has complete power over all material creation of nature. Time and space and all creation are out of him. Jesus is not out of creation and of time and space. He was first. He is the beginning and the end. In everything he is the most inward thing and therefore sustains and guides and livens up and arranges everything. And this gives him the power to control everything by the power of his will. And this also gives him the power to exist as a human being and walk among men as a man – and still be at the same time the most inner particle of everything. The most basic particle is consciousness and that is God. He still is and remains the One and outside of this One there is nothing in existence. There is only this Oneness. And Jesus and his father are one. And Jesus and his father and we are one. Jesus was in time and space but at the same time he was also outside of them. And there is not much difference to our own situation. Our body is part of time and space but not really our soul and definitely not our spirit. Already with our thoughts we are operating outside of time and space. We are Christians and that means that we are little Christs. We are to be like him. The only exception is that we are not God as he is. But he is our aim and we should be as perfect as he is. Jesus now has a glorified body and so should we have on day. One day also we should have such a glorified body and be able to appear in it like Jesus did. It will be a body over which we have complete control and which we can determine how it looks like and appears to others and becomes visible or not visible - invisible. We will have much power.

So Jesus was God – in his divine part he was the Almighty – and in his earthly part he was a man so that with his body he could be visible to men and accessible to men. He had a body and he wore a body to that men could see him and talk to him and hear him and touch him. And so he was more approachable then when he existed in spirit only. So his body was as limited as is the body of any men but his spirit was penetrating everything everywhere. His spirit was these basic particles out of which everything exists. And that is consciousness. It is life and love. It penetrates everything and therefore knows everything and therefore everything is created and sustained by it. And by his will everything exists or stops to exist. And all this causes him to be almighty. And we are on our way to become like him.

When Jesus spoke of him as the Son of man, as for example in Matthew 8:20 where he said that the Son of man has not where to lay his head, then he referred to this man, to this physical body of his, and to the physical head of this body, and when he spoke of the Son of God then he referred to the spiritual side of his.

Now this seemingly unbelievable power of us is available to us and we should aim for it. But let us look at some details and see the conditions attached to it.

One thing is to come to the stage of self-realization. We have to realize where we are from, what we are and in which direction we are going. Now the study of the different parts of a human being, which we are busy undertaking here, is an excellent method to realize who we really are. Self-knowledge is the highest form of knowledge. The only real and true purpose of life is to fully recognize self and God as the eternal source of all being and to become completely one with and in God. Then we will be masters of all power coming from God and therefore we will be masters over spiritual and material things and will become indestructible and therefore have eternal life. And this is what we call Good News. But this Good News was really taught since the beginning, it has however to be brought to us afresh again and again. Jesus wrought miracles by using his word and his thought and filled them with his will. And his word accomplished the completed deed. And what Jesus did should be done by us as well. And this is so because we should be led by the same spirit by which Jesus was led. But all this will be possible only when we are one in our spirit with the spirit of Jesus. And to be more exact our spirit has to consult with the spirit of Jesus at all time and find out if what we want to do is the right thing to do and will fulfil the purpose of a good deed. If a disciple for example stands in front of a mighty and influential man and this man threatens his physical life and the disciple feels that the only way out of this is to let this man know that he is a messenger of God and to cause a miracle, and he then hears Jesus telling him in the spirit not to act in such a way, then he should obey the will of Jesus. And such an obedience of a disciple is of course then a sign of much strength and self-control. It probably amounts to the same what Jesus did at the cross where he had all the power but did not use it. But if this disciple would attempt to still cause a miracle, despite the fact that he heard Jesus’ objection, then he will not be able to do it because the will of Jesus was not the same as his will. All our power will completely depend on the will of God. We will only then have it when our will is in agreement with the spirit of God and the will of God. And when we have this agreement that our spirit and our will is the same as God’s spirit and God’s will, then we have achieved complete freedom of spirit and will. Then we have achieved the same freedom that God has. He has the highest and most unlimited freedom and power in himself and when we come to a state where we are one with him then we have this same highest and most unlimited freedom and power. The more a person is in disagreement with God the more he limits his freedom. But the person who comes to this complete Oneness with God will be able to do the same things that God is doing. And this complete Oneness with God also brings complete independence. There is no unlimited power and unlimited ability to act outside of God. And when we unite with God then nothing of our free will is taken away from us. There is nothing more advantageous then to be as independent and full of power as God is. And that really can be called Good News.

Now we want to have a closer look at what the soul is. The soul is something that is between the body and the spirit. So the assumption that the soul is something between the physicality of matter on one side and of something spiritual on the other side might not be too wrong.

The vehicle of the soul, which we called the soul body, 13, we even classified right at the beginning as belonging to the body and therefore to be more or less something physical. There might be even now already devices in existence that act as extensions of our senses and that make the soul body detectable to us like there are devices in existence – since more than half a century – that make the life body, 12, observable to us.

There is the possibility that a person that has an out of body experience can actually touch and feel the silver cord and also feel where it is connected to the life body, 12, and therefore to the physical body, 11. As such a person’s consciousness is on another plane he feels this cord as if it is physical matter; but when he is back in his body, and therefore back to the normal conscious state, he can’t feel all this. Now this silver cord is somehow a connective device between the body and the soul. And something similar exists between the soul and the spirit, but this connection is already much more remote from being physical.

We have seen already that the more the soul is connected to and influenced by the body the thicker the silver cord is, and the more the soul is connected to the spirit the less thick this link is - the less bulky it is. When there is a lot of stuff flowing from the body to the soul, materially orientated stuff, then this requires space; but when the flow is more in the other direction, when more spiritually orientated stuff is flowing from the soul to the body, then this spiritual orientated stuff requires only little space.

And when we come to the extreme that only spiritual stuff is flowing from the soul down to the body then there is hardly any link anymore required. And when there is no link then there is no need to disconnect it when the soul finally leaves the body. And that means that at "death" no disconnecting has to take place and therefore there will be no pain and no suffering. So for this reason alone it is worth pursuing the main rule: love God, love yourself and love the neighbour. The application of this rule will cause the silver cord to shrink to its minimum.

It would now be interesting to know in what kind of state a soul is. Is my soul a very materially orientated soul or is it really spiritually orientated? Is the soul of another person fully filled with the spirit or is that person’s soul more or less fully dominated by material ideas? One way to find out would be to have a look at such person’s relationship to death. Does he fear death and does he try to avoid thinking about it or is he looking forward to move over to the other side? If a man feels bitter about death and about not anymore then being part of all the living and not being anymore among the beings that are conscious, then he will have enormous problems getting used to the idea of going to the grave and being in the grave. He will shudder at the thought of dying and may even try to get the most out of life while he is still able to do so and so also gloss over these highly disturbing thoughts. Such a person’s main problem, even if he is a believer and a Christian, is that he does not feel the eternal life of his soul. He must come to the stage where he feels, in quite a clear and conscious way, that his soul will live forever and that it never dies. It was the main aim of Christ when he came to this earth to bring the human beings to the full awareness of the existence of eternal life and that they can obtain it by following his teachings – by living them and by doing them. So a person has to know these teachings and he has to live by them and this then will lead to this inner consciousness of eternal life. So this is a process that will take time. At the beginning of this process the soul will be more or less fully identified with the flesh in which it dwells. The soul then is very much connected to and part of the flesh and feels as the flesh feels and perceives as the flesh perceives. And because the flesh feels and knows that it has to die the soul feels the same way. And even when someone comes along and explains everything about body and soul and spirit it will help very little. The inner consciousness of eternal life will not be obtained. But when a soul, due to its own activity and doing and application of the teachings of Christ, reaches this life consciousness, then no explanation of it is anymore required. It is exactly the same way with being naturally alive in a physical body. We simply know that we are alive in our body. Nobody has to explain it to us. But when we are living like an animal that has a soul that is deeply entrenched in the flesh and that hardly feels anything else than the needs of the flesh, then it is nearly impossible to become aware of eternal life in us. And such a person can even become worse than an animal because he has free will and can therefore go against his own instinct. The only thing that might bring something is to tell such a person that there is something like a soul and that it will live after the death of the body and that there will be reward or punishment and that it therefore should obey the rules.

So people fear death because they do not have this inner consciousness of eternal life. But the real reason why they have this fear is that they live a fleshly life and therefore believe that their soul will die the same way as their flesh will die when their soul leaves this flesh. It is this love for the world that causes this fear and that mixes their soul with the flesh - that causes the soul to be completely orientated towards the flesh. But we do not need this fear of death of the body - we actually long for being released from the body. Because we are spiritually orientated our minds are busy living in the spiritual realm and therefore we walk by faith and not by sight. And these contemplations here about the relationships between body and soul and spirit very much help along this way. But a person who even denies the immortality of the soul and who is very materially orientated and who loves the world and denies the existence of God will fear death. And a person who fulfils the lust of the flesh, especially the sensual lust for sex, suffocates the soul in the mud of the flesh and even kills the flesh. Such a soul can hardly gain any consciousness of eternal life.

In John 8:51-52 we read that when we keep Christ’s word we will not see and taste death. And this does not mean that we will not die physically but it means that when our physical body dies and our soul leaves this physical body then we will not suffer in any way – we will not taste any pain and it will not frighten us. So if you as a reader of this and I as a writer of it carry on doing what Jesus tells us to do then the thought of death will not worry us but we will rather feel good about it and see the hour of death as the hour of liberation from the fetters of the body. For us it is the hour of redemption. We fall asleep in the Lord and we awake on the other side in the light. That is how we pass away. That is a blessed death. So we should not shed tears when our loved ones die but it should be an occasion of inner joy because the soul just exchanges the life on earth with a much better life. So why mourn? So why do Christians then mourn? They mourn because they are not really Christians. They are just religious people. The whole course of events at a "Christian" funeral is a very clear sign that they are unbelievers. For a real Christian it should be a feast of joy because a promotion has taken place – a change to a much better situation has taken place.

So our whole attitude towards death gives us a nice indication how our soul is and in what condition it is.

So doing the will of God will very much help to come to a stage where we will believe that there is a life after death. There is another aspect that will help to believe in life after death and in the survival of the soul, and that is to have communication with souls that have survived and with spirits. To do the will of God has much to do with listening to his voice and to do what we hear and that in itself is already communication with a spirit. When somebody just believes in death and in annihilation then he also feels an ultimate total destruction of his being only when he dies, and not anything else, and he himself only is responsible for it. But all over the world people exist who believe in a continuation of the life of the soul after the death of the physical body and not only do such people believe it without doubt they also are very much conscious of it.

Why are such people so convinced of the fact that their soul is not able to die? Because they communicate with spirits. They communicate with God and with angels and with people who have died. Like Saul communicating with Samuel who had already died physically but who was still alive in the realm of souls.

Real spiritual people communicate with spirits on the other side. Such communication is at the centre stage of a meeting of believers. There the gifts of the spirit are in operation and the people speak to spirits – pray – and they also listen to spirits. They listen to a message in tongues or to a prophecy or to a word of wisdom or to a word of knowledge or to the discerning of spirits or to an interpretation of tongues. All these are messages from spirits.

All over the world there are people who listen to spirits and who have no doubts that spirits exist and that they themselves are spirit and have a soul and will live forever as they know that their ancestors are doing.

The ancestor Samuel spoke to the person on earth, to Saul at the place of the woman at Endor. The ancestors Moses and Elias appeared unto Jesus and Peter and James and John and talked to Jesus on a high mountain. There was communication going on between people living on earth and people not living on earth anymore: ancestors.

Why do then people exist who believe that there is just annihilation when they die? It is arrogance and greed that causes such blindness. Arrogance prevents them to be open to another view. They are not open to advice and therefore nobody can help them. One cannot help a person who is not open to some correction – to some advice.

People turned away from God and therefore from everything spiritual. They turned to matter. In matter they sought for all their answers. All their activities were orientated towards matter. They did not want to hear and listen to messages coming from the spiritual side of life. During Old Testament time and during New Testament time and also today people were called liars who dared to claim to have a message from the spirit world. All kinds of things happened to them. Many were persecuted and killed. The Jews were famous for killing their prophets. And this has not changed today. It is a main activity of the leaders of the man-made churches to fight anything that has to do with the subject spirit. Heresy hunting is their favourite sport.

To search for the spiritual side of life is our most noble task. We have to be busy with acquiring knowledge and skill through instruction and practice. And we have to do this out of our free will. It must come out of us that we want to become young creators and achieve divine completion. Only when it is our own desire will God support us and help us to get there.

People who are orientated towards death and the final complete annihilation of their existence will also feel only these things. They will not feel anything else in themselves. It is their fault. They are responsible for it.

Their arrogance causes them to think they know it all. They think everybody can only receive teaching from them and they themselves cannot be taught anything. It is this arrogance that drives a soul into the flesh of the body. There the soul will inflate itself and will become one with the flesh. And this is a condition that causes the soul to feel and perceive nothing but the death of the flesh.

The remedy is to turn away from arrogance and to practice humility. This causes the soul to isolate itself from the flesh of the physical body and the only contact that remains is the silver cord. And the flow inside the silver cord is not from the flesh of the body towards the soul – bringing fleshly things into the soul - but from the soul, that is filled with all kinds of spiritual things, towards the body - feeding spirit into the flesh of the body.

When this spiritual flow from the soul towards the flesh of the body has commenced real life has started. Love will start to operate. Love towards the neighbour and also towards God. And this again causes to awaken the spirit in the soul. And now the unification of the soul with the spirit begins. Once that has commenced the soul is on its way to eternal life. The soul becomes more and more like God and eternal life becomes a reality for it.

So the soul has two options. It can become completely united with the spirit in it and become spirit or it can sink down into the flesh of the body and into death and become death. It is either love and light and spirit or it is flesh and death and darkness.

Once love has started to operate in the soul, the spirit of love will grow and glow and shine and knowledge of God will increase and completely consume it.

Arrogance causes the soul to crawl away into the flesh, and there the ability to perceive spiritual things is diminished and the spirit inside the soul becomes invisible. But our destiny is to become mighty children of God and we get there by our own activity and our free will.

Our body is mainly a container for the soul. The soul needs the body in order to operate in the physical world. With the physical body the soul keeps in contact with physical matter and the senses of the body transfer information from matter to the soul. Now the soul is something for the spirit what the body is for the soul. The soul is like a container for the spirit. So the soul is like a body for the spirit – like a vessel for the spirit.

The purpose of a man’s life on earth is to build up the soul. When the soul becomes solid and strong then this purpose has been achieved. When the soul has become that what it is supposed to be then the soul is filled with spirit and has actually become spirit.

Such a soul then has become an individual – an individual spirit. With other words it has become a child of God. Another explanation is that when a soul is starting on this road to completion it is very much inferior to an angel, but when it has reached its completion then it is much more powerful then an angel. And that is because it has this independence. An angel is more or less just a finger or a hand or an arm of God, but a completed soul is like a child of God – it can act independently – like a child is independent from the father.

When a soul has become a spirit then it is full of the spirit and this spirit is life. And this spirit or life or power or light creates out of itself all things. It creates time and space and form and sustains them. It also creates its own body.

And all this is eternal. Even the physical body is in a certain sense eternal. Just take the body of Jesus. His body was never left on earth to decay. He took it with him. And he took it with him because his body underwent a transformation.

And the same thing will happen to us. The dead will be raised.

But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthly: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthly, such are they also that are earthly: and as is heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 1 Corinthians 15:35-49.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

There is a gradual growth from the physical to the more spiritual. As the sap in a plant for example rises to the top it becomes more and more spiritual. At every joint or branching off a change takes places in the sap and it becomes more spiritual. When the sap finally reaches the top then the leaves are more spiritual than the branches underneath and much more than the trunk and specifically the roots. And the most spiritual parts of a plant are the blossoms and the bud and the fruit. They are at the end of the chain.

And that is also a reason why a human being should rather eat fruit and leave the rest of the plant for the animals. To eat roots like carrots or radish might be a nice variety but fruit is much more life giving. To eat wheat and corn, which is the fruit of grain, is also very healthy. Also there in the stalk the spirituality of the sap improves at every knot. And every knot is also a point where the parts of the sap that contain negative elements are being eliminated.

And this spiritual nourishment goes even further. It goes not only into the fruit of the plant, it also goes into the soul of the plant, into the plant soul.

The soul is a spirit that develops itself out of matter. It draws spiritual food out of matter. It draws the spiritual stuff that is contained in matter out of the material and absorbs it and uses it for its growth. The purpose is to become one again with the original spirit of God. And this spirit is love. And the soul has to do this work in a self-acting way. And in order to achieve this, the soul has to free itself from matter. It has to free itself from matter and also from all its demands - whatever they are. All its striving, acting and doing has to be directed to gain spiritually. The spiritual side of life is the only thing the soul has to aim for.

All the time the soul has to make sure that it becomes one with the spirit that is dwelling in it – and which is God’s love. These are the only objectives the soul has to pursue.

When we eat fruits then the more coarse elements are used to form and nourish the flesh of our physical body and the more noble elements become spirit which strengthens and livens up the whole person and the loftiest parts are used for the substance of the soul.

One could divide food stuff into three groups. The first group is food that is fresh and healthy, tastes good and is attractive. With other words it is food with a meaning of being peaceful and self-controlled, of purity and calmness, joy and goodness and strength. The second group is food that is salty and sour and spicy. It is food that fosters diseases. This kind of food would have a spiritual meaning of desire and passion and craving and lust and restlessness, aggression. The third group would be food that is unclean, impure, mouldy, old, rotten, tasteless, stale. It is bad food and food that is unclean and food that is not freshly prepared or fruit that is not ripe. The spiritual meaning would be stupidity, ignorance, blindness, confusion, dullness, delusion.

The more food of the second and third kind is put into the body the more the body would suffer and the more the soul would become one with the body. The end result would be a person that is worse off than an animal because an animal would avoid such foodstuff.

Man was created with free will and that means that he must have choices in order to practice this free will. He must not only have the choice to live according to the order given by God but he also must have the choice to act against it. And therefore the material world was created in order to provide a stimulus - to cause an attraction. So all worldly stuff and all materiel stuff is something that is wrong and that is opposed to the true spiritual order from God but it can cause the triggering of the free will due to its attraction.

There is a refining process at work, a process that ennobles things. When the sap in a plant is rising to the top then it becomes more spiritual because the spirit is all around the plant. The Bible describes it this way: And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. It is mainly water that rises as sap in a plant and as it rises it gets more and more enriched with this Spirit of God. And the most noble part of the plant it the flower, the bud and finally the fruit. And it is similar with man. Only that there the final product is the soul. And additionally the fact that man has this choice: he can also let stuff rise to the soul that is not spiritual, stuff that is very earthly and therefore worldly and that makes the soul exactly the opposite of being filled with the spirit. The soul can get completely filled with dead material things and experience death. In biblical terms this bad stuff are the tares that the enemy sowed among the wheat. The ground represents the hearts of people, free will, and the wheat is the Good News, the teaching, the word, the eternal law, and Satan is the enemy, self-love, and his tares are the evil world with all its bad and deadly lusts.

The tares - the worldly stuff, the lusts, the material stuff, the lies, the devil, Satan - are necessary to note the possibility to make choices, to demonstrate the possibility of free will. But it also must be recognized as such by a human being and must – as a choice – get disposed. So it is a necessary means to an end, but cannot become part of the end.

With these choices the ability to gain knowledge is stirred up and the awakening of the free will takes place.

This attraction to act against the order recommended by God makes life interesting, especially when this attraction is recognized as such but not indulged in, and when it is consciously repulsed. So our free will wards off the attraction - the attraction that awakened this free will. And this battle, fought successfully, makes us happy and gives us pleasure, because we now know how this attraction works and we know how to overcome it.

But we also know that our main focus is not on this attraction - it is rather of minor importance. Our real focus is not on stuff like self-love, lust for power, arrogance, not even on fighting these evils.

Our focus is on the spiritual side of life. Our soul craves for the things above. And due to this we can grasp spiritual things. When people have souls that lust after worldly things, like lust for power, money, influence, then it is impossible for them to catch on to things that are really pure and from above. They will just remain worldly and this applies especially to people who think they are spiritual and who think they are spiritual leaders but are busy building their religious empires and businesses and reputation. You will never progress in life if you hang around with them.

As a plant sucks and as an animal eats so seeks the soul of man greedily material food and a worldly life and its self-love increases much and therefore such a soul becomes hardest matter. The harder matter is the more unclean and wild it is because the spiritual parts of that matter are that tares and there is hardly any wheat in it.

When we were considering the physical body, 1, then we saw that the soul body, 13, was the one that really runs everything and that without it the body would disintegrate and fall apart. And so it is with everything in this physical universe. Everything is dependent on this soul substance. Even the parts that formerly formed the body, and that are then apart from each other, still depend on and are this soul substance. Or we can say that the basic material is this soul substance. We can also call it consciousness. And these parts, after having left the previous form, turn then into a form that is more viable.

So when we consider this last sentence of the second verse of the Bible – And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters – then we have a picture of the spirit descending from above into matter and transforming matter and forming matter. And then we have the situation that this matter then evolves spiritually and grows more viable. It ascends. First it descends like on a ladder and then it ascends on the same ladder. And this ladder is called Jacob’s ladder, Genesis 28:12.

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

So here again we have this connectedness between spirit and matter. Matter can’t really be separated from spirit. Permanently one turns into another – the heavenly stuff turns into earthly stuff and then the earthly stuff turns into the heavenly.

Jacob’s ladder is showing us the connection between heaven and earth and how the powers of life and of the thoughts of God are going up and down.

Our souls are on the way up and when our souls remain drawn to earthly stuff then we can’t ascend and we are delaying the process.

A nice summary of all this was given to Bertha Dudde on 29. and 30. October 1938. She wrote it down and numbered it B.D. NR. 0645 and the title is Earthly and Spiritual Activity, Faith, Love:

Every being that comes into contact with the earth has a visible earthly destiny and at the same time has to execute an activity that corresponds with the spiritual meaning. And this will only then be comprehensible when the whole earth life is considered properly. At certain intervals the being separates from its particular form. It has fulfilled its assignment, acted earthly by stimulating the creative work of God, and has used in this form the ripening period that God assigned to it, so that again a new form can receive it for further development. But now constantly greater resistances are to be passed by the spiritual being the more mature and the more extensive the outer form becomes. Every being in the divine creation can only reach a mature state through resistance, because through the overcoming of this resistance it strives upwards and this alone will be assessed by the creator. It cannot as it were test the power without resistance, cannot even then furnish proof of the inner strength and power. When now this being is nearing its completion, which only then makes the embodiment as a human being possible, the urge for earthly activity will increase accordingly, and the soul will therefore continuously endeavour to be worthy of a great assignment in order to increase its own advancement through this. Before its embodiment as human being the soul very well recognizes the situation in which it finds itself and has no other aim but to soon have the time of its walk on earth over and done with and therefore only wants to be active all the time in every possible form so that it can improve as soon as possible the most painfully oppressing earthly situation. Yet still countless opportunities are missed which could alleviate the soul’s suffering. Often without resistance the fight for the last promotion is abandoned, working for the own well-being on earth is not done, but due to the weakness of faith the soul is held back from its actual activity. (30. October, 1938) This is a process which becomes understandable to all when you bear in mind that there can’t be any advancement when the being is always in the same condition in matter - that however this condition is not getting changed when the divine power can’t act, but that this will only then show when the conditions are met, which consist of: first of all a strong faith in a divine power and out of this faith the compliance with the demand of the divine power. Before the embodiment as a human being the spirit being meets all these demands of God because it must carry out the will of God; so doing that what it is supposed to do in every form assigned to it. But as a human being it is fitted out completely different, with the gift of reason, of a mind and with free will. Therefore the human being can examine and accept or reject everything. And because a spark of divine knowledge is laid into its heart it can now think for itself and can put itself into a state of inner belief and only then the ascent starts. But without faith the human being also walks on his earthly way in unchanged spiritual condition and so does not fulfil his assignment on earth. The time now passes by unused that the being was previously striving for, knowing that only this embodiment as a human being can bring deliverance from matter. All demands that the earthly life makes on the human being are properly met and the only most important one, the advancement of the soul, is disregarded. And still the being has to walk this earthly way without knowledge of the actual purpose – it alone must appropriate this knowledge for itself because it also received the ability to do it. Of its own accord it must find the way to the highest deity and long for it because only this way can the full return to the father’s house be accomplished. A forced being could never bring itself into a godlike form and could also not remain in a lasting relationship with the heavenly father because it would not have completely separated from its lusts. It must conquer these in full faith and out of free will and so force its way upwards. And now it also can be understood why the spiritual life of the individual is completely independent from the earthly activity. Spirit is free and unattached and stays where it likes. But often just in this activity and its effects on earth life the mind and the thinking is stimulated in a way that an explanation is sought and found how the spiritual activity is connected with the earthly one. And exactly then faith gets activated and with it starts the redemption of the soul from matter. Because the right kind of faith produces the love for God and for the neighbour and the love again is the only possibility to redeem oneself. Love has a charitable effect in every way; it puts the human being in a state of cognition; it ennobles it and draws all that is spiritual upwards to the top. Love brings about the final unification with the heavenly father, who is but love himself. Amen. B.D. Nr. 0645

Now this is very revealing and informative. But let us look at the following in more detail:

A forced being could never bring itself into a godlike form and could also not remain in a lasting relationship with the heavenly father because it would not have completely separated from its lusts. It must conquer these in full faith and out of free will and so force its way upwards.

We must come off the lusts. We must conquer them. Now when we talk about the lust of the flesh then for many people the most obvious lust of the flesh is the sexual lust. And now we want to have a look at what can happen if this lust for sex is not conquered. So let us look at what can happen to a person who has become a sex addict and who did not get rid of this addiction before he died.

There is a nice report about this in the second book of Robert Monroe, Far Journeys, 1985. Robert Monroe had many out of body experiences and he also must have been a very courageous man and a real explorer. But he did not explore the physical world. He explored the spiritual world and that is something that is much more valuable than the exploration of worldly things.

Robert Monroe left his body one night and had one of the most memorable experiences. As he was emerging out of his physical body he noticed in himself a strong desire for sexual union. He wanted to do something about it - mentally – but he suddenly was relocated and this move was abrupt and short. When he then was able to recognize something he found himself standing in front of a gigantic mass of wriggling bodies. It stretched as far as he could see. In all directions it extended - thousands and thousands of bodies moving around. The wet and slippery forms writhed around each other in this maze and tried hard to achieve something. But they never were successful. He was shocked to realize that these bodies were not the bodies of worms but bodies of human beings. Another shock was the enormous dazing radiation of male and female sexuality that came from this bubbling mass. And the third shock was the realization that they all were physically dead. He wanted to turn around and run away but something in him held him back. He then calmed down to such an extent that he could approach the whole thing in a reasoning and analytical manner. His sexual urge had disappeared. He felt very sorry for these people which were captured in this surging heap and were so fixated on and desperate to strive for sexual satisfaction. He then moved slowly towards the heap and stopped at the edge. The writhing bodies were of men and women of different shape and size and were shining from wetness. Then a naked leg emerged from the tangle and he grabbed hold of the foot and pulled. He succeeded in pulling out the whole body. He could clearly see the features of this man. But the body tried to get back to the heap being blind to the fact that it was prevented from doing so. Then Robert Monroe told him that he wants to talk to him but nothing indicated that he was heard. His face expressed anxious expectation. He was just trying to get back. He could not get his attention. So he let him crawl back to the turmoil. Robert Monroe then sadly returned to his own body.

Then Robert Monroe mentions that from that time on he just had to remember this experience and sexual surges were curbed. He just had to think of all these moving bodies. It was enough.

He also mentions that this episode in the afterlife realms was rather one of the more harmless ones.

So Robert Monroe had this out of body experience: watching this huge pile of ex-physical humans writhing and struggling in an endless attempt to have sex with one another. Now how could he grab with his hand the foot of another body when he actually was not in his body but out of his body and away from it? And how could this man whose foot he grabbed have a foot and therefore a body when he was physically dead? The whole episode took place in another realm, in a realm where souls go after they leave the physical body. Now one important feature there is that all tangible things are existing only as figments of these being’s imaginations. This even applies to some extent to our physical realm and some people therefore call physical things camouflage or maya – the material world, which they consider in reality to be an illusion. But in the realm of souls these seemingly tangible things are much more a matter of the imagination. We could also say that these bodies are not physical bodies but soul bodies, 13. A bad habit like smoking or obsession with sexuality exists in the mind and the mind we take with us when we leave the body. But we do not take the body with us, we leave it behind. And on the other side we just have an imagined body and with that we can’t smoke and we can’t have a sexual experience. But the urge, the bad habit, still exists – in the mind. And what is the result? It is hell. When a man has a sexual dream then this dream might result in him having an orgasm. He can have an orgasm because he has a body. And that is a pleasant experience. When he hasn’t a body then he also can’t have an orgasm. But in the mind this urge still exists and now, without a body, becomes an unpleasant experience, a nightmare – hell.

So we should free ourselves of all attachments to matter while we are still here on earth. Why couldn’t we leave this and do it in the next world? Because in the next world all tangible things exist in the imagination only. The soul there is then still ensnared in all desires and worldly cravings and they become the soul’s enemies and become unbearable because they can’t be fulfilled. And this agonizing state continues until the soul consciously turns away from it and develops a desire for spiritual enjoyment. And this will result in spiritual beings to immediately run to the soul’s assistance because they are operating out of love. But they can’t do anything as long as such a soul does not turn away – consciously – from its carnal desires and turns to spiritual desires and asks for help. Robert Monroe could do nothing to this soul in that sex pile. That soul had to do something. The will had to become active.

So the purpose of matter is to give spirit an opportunity to grow and the more dense matter is the easier this is achieved and the less dense matter is – as it is on the other side – the more difficult it becomes.

When the last desire for the realm of matter is gone then a soul can enter the realm of spirit. And there no matter is needed. And a soul that enters the spiritual realm and still has carnal desires and is therefore an imperfect soul will still be drawn to matter and will create it there in its imagination and will continue to do so as long as it hasn’t freed itself from it. And when the soul is finally free from matter then it will live for love only because love is the epitome for everything that is spiritual.

So people on the lowest level in the beyond are physically dead but they don’t know it. The only thing that they know is that they are now different. And this difference is that they think that they are now not anymore responsible for what they are doing. And this arises from the fact that they are more or less only with people who are of the same frame of mind. This makes them drop their inhibitions. On earth they were surrounded by all kinds of people and that caused them to be inhibited. But now they are free from this inhibition. All the people around them are not much different from them and so there is no need to pretend.

They can only remember their physical life. And to this earthly existence they are very much attached. It is all they can think of. It is all they have – they believe that it is all they have. They actually just have to ask for help. There are others who are waiting for them to do so – to help. As long as they don’t ask for help they will continue with the only interest they have, their sex drive for example. It is all they know and it is all that matters to them. They try again and again but never come to any satisfaction because they need a physical body for it and that is what they do not have.

And this sex drive is just an example. There are plenty of other drives – drives that drive people to hell here on earth and also on the other side. On this lowest level of the beyond the people only perceive the reality of physical matter.

Such people do not realize that they have lost the use of their physical body but they are quite aware that they are now not exactly what they had been before. They do not understand this difference and also are not interested to find out and know about it. They have no intentions to learn something. But they realize that they are now free from a couple of things like responsibilities or limits or roots. These things were restrictions found in earthly life and they are now gone and they make use of their absence. They think they now have achieved perfect liberty. And they make use of this. And they make use of it the only way they can express themselves. Their only way to express themselves is a repetition of earthly activities. That is the only thing that is in their soul. There is nothing that has anything to do with a spiritual activity.

For an observer it looks as if such people are crazy. And they are actually crazy. There is something wrong with their mind. They are insane. They do not know how to use their mind properly. Just try to get such a person – here on earth – to come to a change of mind and then find out that it seems impossible.

So people on this lowest level have only one thing in mind and that are the activities of the physical earth life. They try very hard to get in contact with people here and to participate in our lives. No other way of existence is conceivable for them. And as they are completely physically orientated they are mostly people who have, here on earth, always misused their body. They ate too much or put poisonous things into their body or let poisonous things come out of their body or used their body to poison and hurt others or to damage or steal the belongings of their fellow human beings. They try to continue to do what they did before death. They try to stay close to earthly locations and beings. They might even try to get back into their dead body. They are enslaved to the world of matter.

People on this lowest level don’t seem to have a nice life - it really seems to be hell. But the decision was made while they were here on earth. Here on earth they decided what they wanted. A soul lives according to its will – its free will. So will it live: here or in the hereafter. No injustice is done to a soul when a soul is left to do what it loves to do. The soul does what it loves and what it wants. A soul might get separated from other souls so that it does not harm good souls but otherwise it can do and act in accordance with its spiritual sphere and no wrong is done to such a soul when it is left to its own devices. It is alone their fault, nobody else’s.

On a level a little bit higher than the lowest level there are people who are aware that they have died - that they are now without a physical body. But they are not aware of any other possibility to exist. While they were still on earth they never thought of what happens when they die and what happens after they are "dead." And now nothing comes to their mind. They are also often people who are not much used to think for themselves and to make decisions. They are people who one often finds on earth and who speak of "them" and therefore indicate that their lives are more or less run by others – by "them." They are the victims and the inactive, the typical consumer. So they are not conscious of other possibilities to live and they also do not remember other ways or states of being. They remain passive and dumb and unaware. Death was a shock to them and now they are in a daze. But there could be some expectancy in them and some preparation to learn and some willingness to receive guidance. They might be open to suggestion and helpers might be able to get them to go to the light – to move to a higher level.

On the next level the people are also aware of being dead but have little to no knowledge about spiritual things, about life after death, about how to really go to the light. They might have philosophy or religion or science or politics or human reason or love for nature, but in principle no clear understanding of the way of the spirit. There might be a mixture of material ideas and spiritual understanding. There might be for example a group of people who like religion and they come together and practise some sort of denominational life with living in nice houses in a nice landscape setting and going to church and sitting in a pew and listening to a sermon and going out of the church building and talking about what the pastor has said and talk to others about their church and what is going on there. They have the events of their church schedule in mind and honestly believe they are in heaven. In short: for a spiritual person it would be life in hell to be around such people and to have to listen to their conversations. One would try to get out of there as fast as possible.

Now why are such people not moving to a higher level? Let me suggest one reason – one out of many. Some of these people are the ones that used to say while they were still on earth, "But how do you know this is not of the devil," when they heard about some supernatural occurrence. For them everything that does not fit into their belief system is suspicious and everything that smells of being supernaturally is associated with the devil. And now when somebody comes from another system and tries to help them – help them out of their level of hell – they react negatively and reject the help, accusing the helper to be a devil. So the helper leaves because he wants to help but can’t, and the person to be helped remains in hell.

The whole system of these different levels is a belief system. People are there because they believe in certain things and therefore they land on that level of belief that agrees with theirs. And because all the other people around them have the same beliefs it is difficult to change beliefs there, more difficult than it was on earth because there they had people around them that had quite different beliefs.

We had a look at people who adhere to a belief system that is religious and now we want to have a look at people who stick to a very similar belief system, and that is the belief in science, especially such scientists who exclude from their science the spiritual side of life. Scientists who do research in the field of natural science often continue with their work on the other side and are there very busy looking and searching for similar things they did while they were still here on earth and as they did on earth so their souls are now doing in the hereafter. They fall from one mistake into another. And if an advanced spirit comes to them and tries to enlighten them about spiritual things they prove to be unteachable and they will continue in their delusion and they carry on trying to find the cause of power and energy in the world of matter. But matter does not really exist there. What they consider to be matter is just apparent matter and it exists in their imagination and in their fantasy. And it is an imagination that easily changes all the time. Already here on earth such scientists practise a religion that is called materialism and on the other side they just carry on with it and so with their delusion as well.

And even on the next level there are still people who have an attachment to the world and therefore to the earth. But they are more spiritual orientated and they have already much control over their mind and have learned to control their body while they lived on earth and therefore have also now much control over their emotions and their speaking and communications.

Now how do people get out of these different levels of hell? They might – slowly – start to doubt what they believe. They might start to ask themselves questions if that is really the right way to believe and to live. And then they might change the beliefs they once had held. And that will bring changes to their levels of existence. They might move up. They even might move out. So to consider changing ones belief system is good for you. It is good for you when you are in hell. But if you do it already here on earth it is even better. You can save yourself a lot of trouble. You can save yourself for example the trouble to go to hell.

So these different levels mirror much of life on earth and are some sort of hell that is – on one side - not too bad and on the far end of it, it is really hell. This earthly life here in our realm is like getting addicted to some bad habit and then trying to get out of it. And the bad habit is the love for the world, for matter, for material things. If we realize this while we are still on earth and then take the right counter measures then we will just pass through all these different level of hell after we have left our body and leave them behind us and go straight to the light. And that is what salvation is all about: not having to go to these levels where the unbelievers are going. We go straight home.

We form our life by our thoughts. But on these levels in the hereafter this creativeness of thoughts is more developed and immediate. Everything, including one's own "body" is formed by the thoughts one has. One wrong thought of carnal desire and one ends up with people who are full of it. It is an excellent school for people to learn to control their thoughts. And that is probably what the purpose of these levels is – to learn to control ones thoughts. So the best way to avoid all these levels of hell is to learn to control ones thoughts here on earth. Then one does not have to go through hell. And when one is already there then it is also the only way to get out of it: stop wrong thoughts and think right thoughts only. Think thoughts of life, love, goodness, holiness.

The right way is the way of love. The wrong way is the way of fear. On the lower levels this fear will just attract all the "demons" and "devils" there and that is because the thoughts there are visible and can be felt. And when one has not developed the ability to turn from fear to love then these evil guys will come and push and shove and drag and bite. So develop already here on earth the ability to be free from fear and become inviolable. When you then pass through these levels they will have no effect on you and you go straight through them and up.

Now we want to have a look at exactly such a case. Let us give the man we are going to consider a name and call him Enoch. A very short story of his life could look something as it is described in Genesis 5:18-24:

And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch: And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two year: and he died. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

All the others in that chapter lived a very long live but Enoch was "only" 365 years here on earth. His duration on earth was very much shorter than that of the others. All the others died, but Enoch did not. And he did not leave a body behind.

Twice it is stated that Enoch walked with God and that means that he was led by the spirit. And then it is stated that God took him. God took this man, including spirit and soul and also including the body and he was not anymore seen on earth.

A little more detailed description of Enoch being taken we find in Hebrews 11:5:

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

So Enoch walked with God and he also pleased God. May be both of these two activities are the same. And being led by the spirit of God is probably also very much the same.

Another Bible term for such a life style could be, "he loved God." Enoch really loved God and the activity of his soul was an expression of this. This activity of his soul caused a reaction in his body. His body dissolved. His body was gone. And now without a body his soul was free. And his free soul rose up to heaven. And it rose through all these levels we have considered and was not attracted to them and he therefore could go right through them and go further. Enoch had achieved ultimate liberation. He had become spirit. Out of God Enoch made his most independent freedom, his power, wisdom and strength his own.

And his free will can achieve whatever he wants. And this free will of his is identical to God’s will. He has achieved the ultimate goal. And that is perfect happiness. A biblical term might be everlasting life or salvation. And in this situation he still can and will achieve increase. His salvation will be heightened all the time. All the time there will be improvement because there is unfathomable depth in God and we as created spirits will never fathom this depth.

The best just got better!

And there will be plenty of activity for him. He can now for example go to the planet earth and appear there as man and bring a message to mankind or speak to an individual. As a spirit being he might stand before a human being and appear to a man as a man with a body that is very much like the body of this man. And the man might touch and feel the body of this spirit being and no difference can be detected - it is like the body of a human being. And the next moment this spirit being Enoch might decide not to have a physical body and the man might grab hold of his arm and just grasps air. The spirit being Enoch creates on his own his own physical body by his willpower, and he also sustains it be his willpower. And whenever he wants he can let this physical body disappear and he just appears to the man as a visible shape which has no physicality. And the next moment he might also remove this visible appearance or he might cause some of the people looking at him to see it and others not to see it.

And Enoch might cause the man he visits to have a look into the soul world or into the spirit world. With his will power he opens the inner sight of this man and this man now looks and sees certain situations in the world of the hereafter. Or Enoch opens this man’s spiritual sight and he experiences the world of spirits. And such experiences cause reactions in this man and let the sleeping spirit in his soul become awake and active.

Enoch is a spirit being and he is most powerful. And as he is a spirit he is not dependent on time and space. He can move from here to the furthest planet in no time and come back in no time. And he can bring back a physical object from the other end of the galaxy and the movement of such an object over a great distance and in no time is achieved by simply dematerializing it there and then materializing it here again. He is master of the physical universe and of matter.

And the creation of his own physical body he achieves the same way as we are creating our own physical body. The only difference is that he knows that he does it and that he also knows how he does it and that he does it consciously and we don’t know and we do it unconsciously. He does it by his willpower and decides to do it when he wants and we are not aware of it at all, but still do it all the time: create and sustain our physical body.

This business of creating our physical body all the time becomes a very handy thing to know when we want to have a healthy body. To live in divine health becomes much easier when we are aware of it because then it becomes easier to understand the background of it and to reap the fruit of this understanding: having no pain and no suffering.

So the construction and the keeping up of the physical body of ours is a thing that we do all the time. It is done by a part of our will that is not really known to us. And our soul does not notice this activity because our soul it not yet ready for it. The master builder inside the soul cannot reveal himself to us because this master builder is spirit and the soul is not yet completely taken over by spirit and therefore not mature enough.

But when we will be mature enough then we will will and what we will will be achieved. And the more we practise this here already on earth the more we will be successful already here.

Now all these incredible things a spirit can do are possible because spirit is the only real thing that exists. Only spirit is real and alone truly existing. There was only spirit to start off. There was nothing there except spirit.

Everything that is the material world is just there due to the will of spirit beings. It is a phenomenon that was created to be a medium for the material soul to obtain ultimate liberty.

All matter just exists due to the perseverance of the will of God. All things of matter are thoughts of God – of spirit beings. It is a matter of consciousness. It is a matter of faith. God has ultimate capacity for consciousness and therefore he can be aware of everything, be everywhere and know all things. And he keeps this faith and this consciousness going all the time. And this keeps the physical universe going. It is thoughts, and ideas and intention.

So all physical matter completely depends on spirit beings; they decide that their existence should continue or discontinue or change.

And the difference between such spirit beings and us is the condition of our soul. The spirit in our soul is very busy and tries everything it can to gain complete access to the soul and to become the soul. Its aim is to have a mature soul and a soul that is free. Its drawback is one of the basic laws of the universe and that is that man must have free will. So everything depends on our will. The spirit in us has to respect our will. So we are the decision makers. If this free will would not be such a hindrance for the spirit then everything could be achieved much quicker and without all the effort and pain. But the end result would then not be a really free being. Without free will we would simply become machines or puppets - things that react to compulsion.

The influences of the world of matter around us are teaching devices that have the purpose to let the soul get rid of worldliness. And this has to be done out of free will as an act of self-determination. Only when a soul is permanently fighting this battle can it start to walk spiritual passes and become clean and turn inside.

The more the soul follows cleaner spiritual ways the more it unites with the spirit inside. And this causes the mind to become clearer and this again promotes the will to be even more eager to free itself from the shackles of the world. The more this whole process progresses the more the new spiritual birth is achieved. To be born again is achieved by making Jesus Christ Lord in one’s life. But it is rather a beginning only. The complete new birth will only really be achieved when the spirit has completely taken over the soul and has become one with it.

And when this is achieved then all these incredible things spirit beings can do can also be done by us.

And this period between the point where a spiritual awakening takes place, what is called the born again experience, on one side, and on the other side the full taking over of the soul by the spirit, is a time where many things are happening and where many soul merchants become active and are busy as eternal life salesmen and as peddlers of the word of God who peddle it for profit. These are the people who take away the key to the kingdom – the professional time-servers. They are selling souls and they sell them to hell and its inhabitants. These work-shy people are idlers who are smart and unscrupulous and who realize that much money can be made out of spiritual things and want to get paid for everything they are doing.

The result of the activities of these merchants is that very few people really reach this aim in life to let the spirit take over the soul and therefore we do not seem to have many of such saints.

These peddlers of the word of God are after such people who had this initial born again experience and they try to win them and coax them to join the man-made churches and their denominations and there they sell them heaven – they collect money from them and make them believe that they now are going to heaven – that their church membership will bring them access to heaven. And if such a person does so – and most of them seem to do so – then they are soon not only back to where they had been, but they are much worse off because now they have become religious and are nicely in the hand of antichrist.

And in these man-made churches they of course don’t receive spiritual food but plenty of religion and worldliness. The leaders there are themselves carnal and can therefore not transmit life and they also want to do everything else but not let these people grow spiritually because if they did, if their soul would be taken over by their spirit, then they would clearly see and recognize that these churches are instruments of antichrist.

Henoch was the great exception. He followed the inner leading and walked with God. And while he did it his eagerness to grow spiritually increased. And the result was that his soul and his spirit became one. And the result of this again was that he gained full control over his body - his physical body. He could dissolve it. He could de-materialize it. It became a matter of his will. He could dissolve it to any degree he liked. He could dissolve it to such a degree that nearly all physicality was gone but that so much of it remained that others could still see it – see it with their physical eyes. After he had dissolved his physical body he could have recreated it again but he preferred to not do it because without it he enjoyed being pure spirit without the heaviness of a body. It was even more preferred by him than to be a man with all the power he had at his disposal.

With that power he could have achieve anything on earth but he still preferred to leave the earth. He could for example become the mightiest man on earth and build empires to any extent he wished. But all this was less attractive than to be a pure spirit being and to enjoy the freedom from the shackles of the body.

As a very positive example we had Henoch and him becoming and being a pure spiritual being. As a negative example we had the people in the sex pile and that was just one possibility; more sad examples would be people who have been liars or criminals or tyrants.

The scale of increase might be the following: love for self, selfishness, arrogance, lust for power.

The last one is the worst, especially then, when one even wants to rule over God. Then it is really satanic. Lust for power is a common property of hell.

We now want to have a look at a "normal" man and what would happen to him after he has thrown off his body.

Mr Normal will be a man who is not a completed soul and he will find himself, at least initially, in a location that is very much the same as the location in which he spent his earthly life. But this does not mean that he will see and hear this natural world. He will be there but will not be aware of it. What will happen is that his world will be a make-believe world. He will create his own surroundings and will believe that it is reality. A doctor may create his own surgery nicely equipped with all the necessary furniture and gadgets and a waiting room and a reception with staff and clients. A retired person might create his beach cottage with palm trees and sea and surf and wind and blue sky and sunset and fishing boat. And a shopkeeper his shop and merchandise and customers. A person who died in hospital might create a nice hospital room which gives him peace and where people attend to him and where he can recuperate and get better and where he is cared for.

So Mr Normal lives some sort of a dream life and does not miss the real natural life that is in reality around him. Now such an imagined world might be changed by the higher self or just taken away and replaced by another. This new surrounding might be more appropriate for the changed inner state of Mr Normal. The more he is open to receive teaching the more he will tend to get freed from his bondage to these things he thinks are his and belong to him. He will slowly be cured from his attachment to physical things. The longer it takes to get him out of his addiction to the world the longer he will stay in his make-believe place. The aim is to free him from his believe in vain and worthless things. To reach such a state of mind and to start to listen to reason might take quite some time. It might be a matter of experiencing the uselessness of it all. The turning point will come when Mr Normal starts to really think about his condition and his existence and this might lead to him becoming more and more aware of the fact that he has left the former world and has died. And now a longing for a better life will emerge.

Now more advanced spirits will try to help him and guide him and advise him what to do and this will lead to a situation where he will consider such actions. When he follows this direction, and not just considers such actions but also becomes a doer of them, his soul will start to lighten up and the spirit within the soul will start to penetrate the soul. This then will grow to such an extent that the spirit will take over the whole soul and become one with it. This will awaken the ability to see with the inner sight and let it grow to full ability and Mr Normal will gain clear recognition of spiritual things and his consciousness will become complete and he will also remember everything. He will recollect his earthly life and all his activities and how the world looked like in which he once lived.

Mr Normal will then be able to see the whole of creation and he has become a completed soul.

He will have attained the true, inner completion of life - perfection.

Now this achievement can one obtain in the hereafter or in the now on this earth. After having achieved this one basically determines oneself where one wants to be.

Let us look at an example. Jesus was such a completed soul. He lived on earth and therefore he lived in a realm that he himself had created. The world and the location he lived in was not only determined by him but was also created by him. And he also at the same time lived – as God – in the spiritual realm. And also this spiritual world and its location were created by him and it was also his decision to live there.

This perfection can be reached by us in the world to come. A much better way of course is to reach it in this world we live in now. It is the actual purpose of us being here. And when we have achieved it in this earthly life then we have the abilities that Enoch had when he was taken by God. We also can let God take us but we also can carry on living here on this earth. We then have achieved real freedom. We then can decide where our location is and we also can change this location and go to any location we choose. We can for example choose to go to hell – like Jesus did – and there speak to a soul that is ready to receive some guidance. Or we can go to the more upper levels and there visit deceased friends or relatives and see how they are doing. We go where we want and as we are going there we also create the world to which we go. We already do this actually here on earth in a certain way all the time, even before we become perfect. And that is when we dream. Also there we create out of our intelligence and out of the will of our soul the dream world. Our soul also wills during dreaming. And when we then awake out of the dream world we don’t really change. Also this world of the physical senses, the physical world, is created by us. First we create our own body, and then we created the rest of the physical world and then we perceive all this with our senses and we are impressed and think that all this has very little to do with us and that something else is responsible for what happens in our life and behave as if external events are in control and not we.

Here we have considered the soul, and the spirit has there of course an important input, but nevertheless another chapter should then deal more with the spirit.

This is the end of "Mind and Soul"

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