In the last two lectures I explained the happenings in the planes of medium coarse matter, formerly called the astral plane by those who knew about it, which are directly connected with men’s existence upon earth.

There are many other happenings besides those mentioned therein which also belong to the fields of activity of the essential beings. But since these types of work only touch humans' souls indirectly, we do not yet want to speak about them but first to consider what lies nearest at hand: the human soul itself in connection with what has already been explained.

Therefore follow me for a short distance along the path upon which a soul must wander after departure from its physical body. Let us, then, observe its first steps.

We are standing in medium coarse matter. Before us we see threads of fate of various colours and strengths, of which we talked in the last lectures when considering the activities of the little essential beings. Let us eliminate everything else this time; for in reality there exists in this region much more, flowing closely together and through each other, than just these threads. Everything swings in the strictest order in accordance with the Laws in Creation. We look neither right nor left, but stay only by these threads.

These threads appear to trail along with only slight movement, showing no particular activity; for they are such as were already spun a long time ago. Suddenly one of them begins to quiver. It vibrates and increases its movement more and more, swells out, deepens its colour, and starts to become more active in every respect... A soul has detached itself from an earthly body, a soul bound to this thread. It is drawing nearer to the place where we wait.

It is an image similar to a fire hose into which water is suddenly forced. One can observe precisely the path of the approaching water as it pushes further and further forward in the hose. This is the process with the threads of fate, which come into play when the soul must travel the path predetermined by them. The emanation of the spirit within the soul flows ahead of it and animates the thread of its path, even if this thread had been only weakly active until then. This invigoration increases the tension and draws the soul more energetically to where the next anchor point of this thread lies.

At this anchoring point, there is a profusion of similar threads, which are in turn connected to souls still residing on Earth in the physical bodies of the earth. Other souls are already at this point, having already separated from the Earth and now forced to partake here of the fruits that ripened under the care and attention of the small beings, according to the nature of these threads, which act like seed strands.

The forms of these fruits are of a very specific, uniform kind at this one place. Let us assume for a moment that it is a place of envy, which is so widespread on earth and finds fertile ground among humankind.

Therefore, the place of anchoring these threads is immensely vast and diverse: landscape upon landscape, cities and villages with their corresponding activities of all kinds.

But everywhere, envy lurks, loathsome and repulsive. Everything is permeated by it. It has assumed grotesque forms that move and operate in these regions. To exert this influence on all souls drawn to this place, in the most pronounced and heightened way, so that the souls there may experience more intensely what they so obtrusively inflicted upon their neighbours here on earth.

We will not concern ourselves with individual descriptions of this place; for it is so multifaceted that a fixed image of it is insufficient to even begin to convey the shadow of its essence. But the expression "disgusting" is a gentle and immensely euphemistic description.

This is where the thread leads that we observed, which we suddenly saw becoming more mobile, more vibrant, more vivid with the approach of the soul separated from earth.

As the soul now moves toward the place itself, everything there, at a very specific point where the thread is firmly anchored, gradually becomes more mobile and vibrant—let's just call it more alive. Everything flickers to life.

This revival, however, originates entirely unconsciously from the spirit of the soul; it comes through its emanation, even if, as in most cases, the soul travels the path with its eyes still closed. It awakens on this very spot where, upon its approach, the emanation had just brought the place to life; for these are the fruits of that thread, or perhaps of various threads, that are connected to this very soul, because they were conceived by it.

Through the awakening in its own emanation, the spirit inhabiting this soul imprints a certain personal note of its own on its new surroundings, which were already awaiting it, a character that is always different from that of other souls. Thus, it is, so to speak, always a very specific world for each soul, even though everything is interwoven, mutually bothering one another to the point of weariness, and everything can be viewed as a single, large, shared plane.

This is why the experience shared by so many souls simultaneously in this place, and essentially in the same way, is nevertheless always experienced and lived through by each individual soul in its own unique way! Thus, each soul receives a completely different impression of it than the other souls who must experience the same thing with it. Indeed, even more, it will see it differently than a second or third soul that has the same scene before it.

Picture this. A soul awakens in such a place. This place or this plane has a very specific form and everything that moves within it. The processes within it can also be called uniform, because they too are subject to and operate within a single, great law.

This soul we are considering now sees the other souls already there or arriving there after it experiencing the same thing that it itself is compelled to experience. However, it sees it, and that of the others, in a very specific way, unique to it, and experiences it correspondingly.

One must not come to the conclusion from this that the other souls too see and experience everything in exactly the same way as does this one soul which we named; for this is not the case, but each of these souls sees and experiences things in accordance with its own individual nature and quite differently from the others! They see the happenings differently, likewise the colours and the landscapes.

This is because the radiation of the inherent spirit also lends to the environment there the personal expression which belongs only to this particular spirit, and the expression is animated according to its nature. In the first moment this may seem very strange to you.

But perhaps I can furnish you with a few similar although much more clumsy illustrations from the heavy terrestrial World of Matter, which will give you an idea towards a better understanding.

Let us take two persons who are visiting a beautiful park. Without a special understanding between them it is seldom that both will designate the same point as being the most beautiful therein, even if they walk through the park side by side. Each will find something different as beautiful for himself. One of them perhaps nothing whatever, but he only says otherwise out of politeness, though he prefers the wild forest to the cultivated park.

This is then simply done away with by saying that the one has no “sense” for what the other declares to be beautiful. This, however, does contain a certain wisdom. The “sensing” of the one simply goes in another direction! Therefore the scene looks different to him from that viewed by his companion.

In the recognition of a picture, in the way as to how one sees it, it is the purely personal sensing or the direction of the sensing of him who looks at it which is decisive, not the picture or the landscape which is being observed. One person experiences it differently from another.

That which becomes evident here in such a clumsy way is more lively and impressive in the more easily mobile layers of matter. This is why it happens that the same place with the same events calls forth different experiences in the individual souls, depending on their own particular natures.

But we can delve deeper into this.

Let's take two people as an example again. In their youth, they are shown a colour and told that it is blue. Each of these two people then always considers the specific colour they see to be blue. However, this does not prove that they both see this specific colour in the same way! Quite the opposite is true. Each person actually sees the colour they call blue differently than the other. Even here in the physical body!

Even if you examine the physical eyes closely and find them perfectly identical in their structure, this similarity is not decisive for determining how we perceive colours. The brain also plays a role, and above all, the individual nature of the human spirit itself!

I will try to expand on this explanation. Let us stick with blue. You yourself have a very specific colour in front of you, which was once described to you as blue, with all its gradations. And if your neighbour, who has been similarly instructed, always selects the same colour from among all the others when you ask him about it – the colour you yourself call blue – that is no proof that he sees this colour, which he calls blue, in exactly the same way as you do!

For him, this very specific kind of blue is precisely what he sees. You don't know what it actually looks like to him. He will, and must, of course, describe everything that bears this colour he has seen and thus described as blue, just as he would call white black if it had been named that way from the beginning. He will always say blue for the one specific colour that you also call blue. But he still does not see it in the same way as you do!

It's no different with tone. A specific tone that you hear is, for example, an "E" for you. For everyone! Because they have learned to hear and describe it as such. They will also form it with their own mouth. But always according to his own sense, which will naturally always bring out the same note for it that applies to you for "E". But this by no means implies that he actually hears it the way you hear it. Rather, he always hears it only according to his own way of thinking, differently than his fellow humankind.

Now I come to what I want to explain. Colour itself is fixed in Creation, and each colour remains unchanged, as does tone. But the experience of this colour and tone is different for each person, according to their own nature. It is not uniform!

And this experience also includes perception, whether physical in its various forms, or ethereal, essential, or spiritual. Just as with colour and tone, so it is with form.

Each of you experiences your surroundings differently, sees and hears them differently than your neighbour. You have simply become accustomed to finding uniform terms for things, terms that lack the vitality of life! You have thus forced the dynamic into fixed forms and think that with these fixed forms of your language, all movement in creation must also become rigid for you!

This is not the case. Every person lives and experiences life entirely according to their own nature! Thus, they too will one day see and recognize Paradise differently than their neighbour.

And yet, if one of them were to produce a picture of it as he sees it, then the others would immediately recognize in the picture as correct and see what they themselves experienced as Paradise; for they, too, see the picture according to their own way, and not as the one who depicted it sees it.

The thing itself is always the same; only the way people perceive it differs. Colour is colour; but it is received differently by people. Tone is tone, and form is form, in all of Creation of a very specific kind; but individual people experience them differently, always according to their maturity and their nature.

This is how it happens that a person can suddenly experience Spring and all the awakening in Nature in a completely different way than they have experienced it in decades, as if they had never truly observed or "enjoyed" it before. This is especially true when a person has had to undergo some kind of profound change that caused them to mature inwardly! Nature and Spring have always been like this; But he has changed, and depending on his maturity, he experiences it differently!

Everything depends on him alone. And thus it is with the entire Creation. You humans change and not Creation! Therefore you could already have Paradise here on earth if you were mature for it. Creation can remain the same but you, you and always again only you, must change in order to see it differently and therewith to experience it differently. For seeing, hearing and feeling belong to experiencing, are part of it.

That is why the World is seen and experienced in millions of different ways by human spirits. These differences, however, are put into it by men alone; for Creation itself actually has quite simple basic forms, which always repeat themselves, and are formed, ripen and decay in accordance with one uniform law in order to arise anew in these same forms. Everything which is real is simple, but this simplicity is experienced by humans in a thousand-fold ways.

Now, with this knowledge, you are approaching the process of what happens to the soul when it is detached from the weight of earthly matter. The so-called afterlife is experienced according to its own nature; for it animates, through its own radiation, the forms that had to be connected to it, enlivening them in its own way, which must find expression therein!

That it can thereby come to the realization of whether what it has created was right or wrong, that is, which paths it has taken, remains a special act of grace in itself. One of those that the Creator wove into everything so that the struggling soul always has anchors of safety, in all places and at all times, to rise again from its confusions, and, with truly good will and timely recognition, need not be lost.

The manifold necessity of everything that exists in Creation always offers, in some way, even in the greatest chaos created by humankind, the possibility of ascending again. Whether the soul recognizes and utilizes these possibilities is entirely its own affair. The lifelines are there! She needs only to grasp them with goodwill to soar upon them. —

Thus, as the saying goes, with a change in one's inner nature, a person also sees everything differently. This is not merely a proverb, but in reality, a person then truly perceives everything differently. With the inner change, their seeing and hearing change to a certain degree; for the spirit sees, hears, and feels through the corresponding instruments on the various planes, not the physical or subtle eye itself. When the spirit changes, the way of seeing changes with it, and consequently, so does the way of experiencing. The instruments play no role in this; they are merely intermediaries.

The radiation of the spirit absorbs the resistances it encounters and directs them back to the spirit in a kind of interaction. This redirection in the heavy physical realm occurs through the physical organs created for this purpose, such as the eyes, ears, and brain. The brain is the central point for the mediations of all the sub-organs.

We will discuss this in more detail later.

Today, I am simply trying to make it clear to you that the nature of the impression we have of the external world, that is, our surroundings, depends on the particular spirit itself! For this reason, one and the same form always affects different observers differently, even if they have recognized its beauty. And if one person sees a particular form differently than another, then when drawing it, the form seen by one person must appear to the other exactly as the form itself does.

At this point, everything must converge into one; for only the perception differs, not the actual form.

Humans have created a uniform name for every form. Only the name itself is uniform, but not the way we recognize or see it!

You have been mistaken in your views on this as well. But if you now seek to approach the so-called afterlife from these newly revealed points through experience, much will become clearer to you. You will find it easier to understand many things as I continue my explanations, and so much that is enigmatic will be clarified.

It is also due to what I have shown you that two or more people with mediumistic abilities can see, hear, and describe one and the same thing quite differently, without any justification for reproaching them; for they see it according to their own nature, and therefore always differently from one another. The matter itself, however, exists only in one very specific way. And only those who have learned to reckon with these processes, with knowledge of the Laws of Divine Will in Creation, can accurately discern the connection between the various accounts and thereby recognize what is right, as it truly is.

But you have tried to force Creation and yourselves into rigid, fixed forms through the language with which you make yourselves understood. You will never succeed in this; for Creation is mobile, just like your inner life. Yet when you try to reflect on this, you think in the fixed words of your language!

Just think how absurd that is. Fixed language is never sufficient to accurately represent what is dynamic!

Here, once again, your obstacle is the intellect, which can only operate in very specific words and is only capable of receiving very specific words. You see in this how you have chained and enslaved yourselves by imagining the intellect as the highest good for humankind, while it is only useful and applicable to the heavy, material world of this earth. And even then, only to a limited extent, not for everything. You are gradually realizing how impoverished intellectual beings truly are.

For this reason, I have often called out to you that you should strive to receive my word, the message from the Light, in such a way that you see pictures of it before you as you read it! For only in pictures can you understand it, not with the impoverished words of these earthly beings, which I am forced to use to tell you about it.

You will never learn to understand Creation in words, nor that which is within you, because all of it is mobile and must remain so, while words only force everything into fixed, rigid forms. And that is impossible, a completely futile effort in everything and for everything that moves. Words cannot convey this to you!

But as soon as the soul sheds all the earthly weight of this physical body, it enters into the movement of Creation. It is drawn into the constant surging and surging, and then experiences its surroundings much more dynamically, environments that often change in the transformations that await every soul, to which it is drawn by the animation of all the threads that hang from it.

And all of this is reciprocal. When the soul withdraws from the physical body, when it strives away from it and lets it fall back, thus no longer radiating through it, its emanations, which intensify with its liberation, then flow in their full force only in one direction: towards the medium of materiality, where the threads of fate are most closely anchored.

This gives the threads a much stronger impetus, brought about by the soul's emanation now directed in one direction, and in this impetus, their attraction is also strengthened, which in turn strikes the connected soul and draws it more sharply. All of these are automatic, entirely lawful, and therefore entirely natural processes, which you too can easily understand if you try to think about them.

Thus, the soul is drawn along its path by bonds that it itself animates through its emanations, which it cannot restrain or avoid. And in this, it moves toward its purification or even its demise. All this always through itself. The essential beings merely form and build according to the law. The souls themselves anaimatesf the forms and their release through their emanations. And corresponding to this kind of emanation, the forms enlivened in such various ways then also act, to a greater or lesser degree, in return upon the soul.

Here, too, the saying applies: "As you shout into the woods, so it echoes back". In this case, it is like this: as it radiates into the forms, so they are animated and act accordingly. In all this lies a great, lawful simplicity and unwavering justice! —

What I have described to you here applies to human spirits alone; for it is inherent in the exercise of free will. With the essential beings, it is different again! —

Let these processes come vividly before your eyes. Strive to do so; for it is worth the effort and will bring you rich rewards in return. You will thereby become knowing as regard a part of this Creation. —

This was the course I have described to you so far. But now it comes like a lightning bolt from the light! Divine power strikes suddenly, unexpectedly, into the threads of fate of all earthly beings as well as all souls that dwell in the realms of Subsequent Creation.

Thus, everything now comes directly and unexpectedly to its final resolution! The essential beings are newly strengthened to unheard-of power. In their actions, they turn against all people whom they, through their deeds and actions, previously forced to form ugly things in accordance with the laws of creation. But now the power of God is above all human will in all of Creation—the will of God, which allows only what is pure, good, and beautiful to be formed, and destroys everything else!

Divine Force has already penetrated into Subsequent Creation to work here Itself, and all beings, supported by this Supreme Force, swiftly and joyfully grasp the countless threads of humanity's fate, to bring them to their triumphant end!

Obeying the command of the Light, they tear the threads that are only weakly anchored in the Spiritual Realm, so that souls remain completely detached from the light when the dark cords snap sharply back at their originators with everything that hangs from them!

But even the tearing of these threads proceeds in a perfectly lawful manner, with the nature of humanity itself being the deciding factor; for beings do not act arbitrarily.

Divine Light Force now flashes into all the threads! The threads, which in the Light-striving nature bear similarities within themselves and, through the truly strong will of those who are linked to these threads, have also become strong enough to endure the sudden penetration of this unfamiliar Force of the Light, thereby achieve an immense firmness and freshness, so that the human souls linked to them are torn up by strong attraction from the dangers of darkness, and thus also from the danger of being drawn into disintegration.

Weak threads of light, however, born of weak will, cannot withstand the sudden, immense pressure of Divine Force. Instead, they scorch and are torn from their essential helpers, leaving those connected to them exposed to darkness. The cause of this natural occurrence is their own lukewarmness, which prevented them from creating threads strong and firm enough.

Thus, you will find only justice in every event! Therefore, it is promised that the lukewarm will be spat out, as literally happens from the light.

All essential helpers, great and small, are now freed from having to form darkness in fulfilling the law under the compulsion of evil or false human will. And from the separated darkness, all essential beings are simultaneously drawn back by the Force of the Light, to which they join closely in jubilant joy, in order to form and hold what the Light wills. In this way, they are strengthened with new power, to resonate in the resounding chord with all creation, amidst the flooding Light of God!

Glory to God, who sows only love! Love also in the law of the annihilation of darkness!