God's Plan of Salvation

BY Pastor Johannes Greber, 1932, (chapter from book)

“And yet, what we say as true wisdom, although it
is such only in the eyes of those who are ripe to
receive it; not the wisdom of this world or of its
rulers, who are far from being wise. We proclaim
the mysterious plan conceived by God in His
wisdom, a plan which was hitherto lain hidden, but
which was perfect by God, before time began in
order that we might be led back to glory.”

1st Corinthians 2:6, 7.

"AFTER the revolt of a great part of the
spirit-world, God determined upon a plan
for saving the unfortunate beings which
had fallen into the Abyss, and for bringing them back
into His Kingdom. His clemency would be extended
first of all to the less guilty, those countless hosts
which had deserted Him when they were subjected to
trial in the sphere of Paradise. Only after these had
been saved, would their corrupters, Lucifer and his
lieutenants, be allowed to return to the house of the
Father.

“God is just. Those who had been misled were guilty
of weakness only, but those who had led them astray
had sinned with premeditation, and since their offenses
had been fundamentally different, so too would be their
punishment, and so too would be their respective roads
of escape from the Abyss.

“God’s first step toward salvation was the creation of
spheres of progress or amendment, disposed in stages
after laws incomprehensible to you and conceivable
only to the infinite wisdom of God. In his letter to the
Ephesians, Saint Paul hints at these steps by which
spirits may ascend out of the darkness toward God, by
Whom they were created in order to insure the
execution of His decree providing that all would once
more be reunited with His Son. At this point the
original text of the Bible makes use of the metaphor of
the erection of a house with its several stories. If you
will apply this metaphor in a spiritual sense you will
more easily understand what I am about to tell you of
the spheres of amendment for the fallen spirits.

“What you call “Hell” is the lowest stage into which
they sank. But even Hell has its spheres of progress
through which a spirit may climb upward by a change
of heart, until it reaches the lowest of the terrestrial
spheres. These begin in the lower forms of animal life
and advance through the stages of rocks, plants, herbs,
flowers, and the higher beasts, arriving at last at the
highest of animals known to you as “man”. Such
terrestrial spheres exist not on your earth only, but also
on the other heavenly bodies. There are, therefore,
many stages parallel to those on your earth. Moreover,
the terrestrial stages exist not only in material shape as
you see them in animals, plants and minerals, but there
is also a corresponding spiritual shape, and, in
consequence a spiritual animal, plant and mineral
kingdom embracing all orders and species of living
beings, which in the spirit kingdom are clothed in odic
bodies, the counterparts of the material bodies which
you see on earth.

“Spirits, parted from their material bodies by corporeal
death, enter into the respective parallel spirit-spheres
where they remain until they are reincarnated by
rebirth on earth. Spirits which have not progressed are
reincarnated in the same stage as often as may be
necessary to fit them for reincarnation in a higher one.

“Each stage of advance required a special act of God to
permit of the desired physical shaping of the spirits,
and to this end He created the odic shapes of pairs of
spirits corresponding to the shape in question and
endowed with the power to reproduce the body
peculiar to that stage. The spirits themselves are
incorporated in the bodies thus procreated, according
to fixed laws which prevail in the spirit-world.

“You mortals cannot indeed understand “how” these
processes came about, any more than you really
understand the processes of Nature which go on all
around you, although you witness them daily with your
own eyes.

“Your science concerns itself with the problem of
descent, particularly with that of the descent of man
from the apes.

“There is no such thing as physical descent of a higher
form from a lower one. Plants do not produce animals,
nor do the lower animals produce the higher forms.
Every form of life breeds true to kind, although within
each species there are many races, the individual
belonging to races of the same order being mutually
capable of reproduction among each other.

“Man belongs to the order of the apes. He is the
highest race of this order, and you are correct in saying
that the ape is the lowest stage of humanity and that
man is the highest of the apes. Man is, therefore, the
highest animal on earth. Nevertheless, he has not
descended physically from the ape, in spite of the fact
that in point of physical development, the ape most
closely resembles him.

“Before the first incarnation of the spirit of man in the
human body, that spirit inhabited the body of an
animal, and is, therefore, the same spirit rising through
the different stages of Nature in constantly increasing
perfection.

“These stages undergo no physical changes. They are
the same today that they were millenniums ago, even if,
in the course of the ages, certain orders died out
because spirits were no longer incarnated in them. For
this reason God created other and higher forms
incarnating in them those spirits which had previously
inhabited the extinct species, which had served as
intermediate stages in the evolution upward. When
they disappeared and the higher forms took their
places, the spirits in question were compelled to wait
until the replacement had been effected.

“So it is that you find to this day the remains of extinct
species of plants and animals that lived in former ages.

“There is no retrogression of the spirit from one stage
of process to a lower one even though a spirit may
remain at the same stage for a long time. As I have
already told you, a spirit which, when its body dies, has
not progressed during its incarnation, must be
reincarnated again and again until it is fit to enter the
next higher stage. That is true of man also; if, during
his life on earth he has made no advance on the road
leading to God, he must go through life again as a
human being. Every life is an examination: whoever
fails to pass, must try again until he succeeds. That is a
Divine law which applies with equal force to all
Creation: there is nothing capricious about the ways of
God.

“When I tell you that a spirit does not retrograde into a
lower stage, the reason is, that although it may have
degenerated in one respect it will have advanced in
another, so that a balance is struck. Here too you can
see the working of a Divine law.

“Of the ages that elapsed from the days of the fall of
the spirits to that on which the first fallen spirit was fit
to be incarnated in human shape, you can form no
conception. “One day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2nd Peter
3:8.)

“Of all these facts Christendom of today is ignorant,
and they run counter to your own previous ideas. But
why conceal the truth from you even if you may find it
beyond belief and because it may be scoffed at by your
fellow men? You have the opportunity of inquiring into
these truths during the spirit-communications at
spiritistic services, and if you do so you will find my
statements confirmed in every particular.

“Unfortunately the important facts which I have
revealed to you have been deleted from the Biblical
account of the Creation, until scarcely any of them
have been retained. This account says nothing the
creation of spirits by God, nothing of the revolt and
secession of the spirits, nothing of the spheres of
progress, nothing of the shaping of the odic bodies of
the fallen spirits into their various stages, and nothing
of the incarnation of those odic bodies into earthly
substance. Your Biblical story of the creation of the
world describes an original and entirely independent
creation, quite unconnected with the creation of the
spirits and their fall.

“The original Scriptures contained all of these facts,
but when they were revised later, the Powers of
Darkness were at work to deprive men of the
knowledge of the links in the chain of God’s plan of
salvation and to withhold from them the consolation of
knowing that ultimately everything will return unto
God.” “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God
our Savior; who would have all men to be saved, and
come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1st Timothy 2:3.)
It was for the very purpose of leading everything back
to God, that the material world was created.

“The Powers of Darkness were, of course, much better
served by the doctrine of hopelessness and despair, and
by the belief in an “eternal Hell” of which your poet
has written the dreadful words: “All hope abandon ye
who enter here.”

“Such sentiments were far more acceptable to the
rulers of Hell than was the belief in a merciful God,
Who may, indeed, be angered, and punish with just
cause, but Who, at last, will forgive His children and
call them back to Him. The conception of a Deity has
been debased by the doctrine of “eternal damnation”
designed only to inspire terror. What is more, that
doctrine added to the difficulty of carrying out the plan
of salvation conceived by a God Who sent to sinful and
suffering humanity this message of all forgiving
affection: “Can a woman forget her infant, forget to
pity her babe? Yet even were a mother to forget, never
will forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15.)

“Many passages in your Bible have shared the fate of
the paintings by the old masters placed upon the walls
of some of your ancient churches. In later times, so-
called “church decorators” came and daubed their
commonplaces over the masters pieces, so that if today
you remove the outer layer of paint carefully from the
walls, the ancient pictures are once more revealed,
leaving the beholder enraptured over the great painter’s
art.

“In the same way the truthful picture presented by the
original Bible was defaced in later times. Erring
mortals revised the Biblical accounts, omitting what
they could not understand or adding their own
mistaken explanations. Their successors “improved”
further upon the previous work, supplementing and
abridging at will. In this way was not only the truth
crowded aside, but many things crept into the
Scriptures that tend to make a travesty of the word of
God. One of your poets coined the phrase: “Books
have their vicissitudes,” and unfortunately this is true
of the Bible also. Much that it should contain has been
eliminated, and much of what it does contain should
never have been admitted, because it conflicts with the
truth.

“The various “churches” which refuse to acknowledge
this fact and persist in regarding your version of the
Scriptures as “authentic” are serving the cause of God
but poorly. In fact they are doing that cause more harm
than good, for even the least intelligent reader of the
Bible, and of the account of the Creation in particular,
must realize that much of it must be inaccurate, to say
the least.

“The falsifications introduced into the Old Testament
called forth the protests of God Himself, voiced
through the prophet Jeremiah, as witness the passage:
“How do ye say, we are wise, and the law of the Lord
is with us? But behold, the false pen of the scribes has
written falsely. The wise men are put to shame, they
are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the
word of the Lord and what manner of wisdom is in
them?” (Jeremiah 8:8, 9.)

“Elsewhere in the Holy Writ the truth has suffered at
the hands of translators who have rendered certain
words and phrases of the original text so inadequately
as to distort their real meaning beyond recognition.

“From what I have said you can see the reason for the
great obscurity and the many misstatements to be found
in the story of the Creation as you have it today. Only
occasional references retain a faint glimmer of the
truth. It is true that some of the stages of the evolution
of material creation are indicated, but these are not
consistent with facts, in point of number or of
sequence.

“The same is true of the Biblical version of the creation
of the first human beings, a passage in which the
creation of spirits is hopelessly confused with their first
incarnation in the human body.

“In the first chapter of the Bible you are told that God
brought man into existence as the last act of Creation,
after the earth, plants and beasts had already been
made. Then follows the statement: “And God created
man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them. And God
blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply...” (Genesis 1:27.)

“It is perfectly true that the two spirits which were the
first to be incarnated as human beings and which, as
such, bore the names of “Adam” and “Eve”, had been
formed by God and in God’s image previous to their
apostasy. It is also true that He had created them male
and female spirits, and had blessed their union. This,
however, did not happen after the earth with its plants
and animals had been made, but at the time of their
creation as spirits. Anything made by God in His image
must perforce be a spirit, for God is spirit, and spirit
only, and hence, not substance. Therefore, whatever He
creates in His image must likewise be purely ethereal,
and not partly ethereal and partly material, as is the
case with mortals.

“The rest of the Scriptural account of the creation of
man contains contradictions even more flagrant, for a
few lines further on you are told that God made man
out of clay, and, moreover, only the male, at a time
when there was no other living thing on earth, whereas,
according to what went before, man is said to have
been made after all other life had been created. Thus,
according to the second statement, God placed man
upon a barren earth, and not until then did He create
the Garden of Eden into which He “put the man whom
He had formed.” Still later, it is said that God caused
this “Paradise” as you call it, to grow up in trees
bearing luscious fruits of all kinds, and that He put the
man into the garden to dress it and keep it. Inasmuch as
there was no living thing on earth to endanger the
garden, it is hard to understand the need for such
keeping. Every single sentence contradicts the one
which precedes it!

“Compare this picture with the facts as I shall relate
them! You now recognize in Paradise that spiritual
sphere into which God, after the revolt of the spirits,
sent the least guilty of the rebels, partly as a
punishment, partly to try them once more. Within this
Paradise grew the spiritual tree of the knowledge of
good and evil; this was nothing else than God’s
commandment, which had been given for the purpose
of proving the spirits in this sphere and the significance
of which they did not grasp. The observance or the
violation of this commandment or rather, of this
prohibition, would show whether the spirits in the
sphere of Paradise were prepared to take sides with
God, or whether they had fully determined to join
Lucifer. Should they respond to this test by obeying
God, the commandment would become for them the
tree of life in God’s glorious kingdom; should they
disobey, it would become a tree of death. They would
be driven from Paradise into the realm of Lucifer, and
on that day, the day of their spiritual “death”, their
severance from God would be complete. “For in the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
(Genesis 2:17.)

“Now you will understand why Adam was commanded
to keep Paradise, namely, to protect himself and others
against succumbing to the temptation to sin by
disobeying God. Now you will also understand what
the Scriptures mean by saying that after the expulsion
from Paradise of the spirits which had shown
disloyalty, they were prevented from returning thither
by Cherubim “and the flame of a sword.” The die had
been cast: they had given their allegiance to the Ruler
of the Pit. Henceforth the spheres of Darkness were to
be their lot; they had no further claim upon the fields of
Paradise, which will remain closed to those fallen
spirits until the day on which they are once more
admitted to them as a step Heavenward, on their return
to God. Then they may re-enter the spiritual Garden of
Eden, and from it ascend to that glory out of which
they were once driven because of their own sins.

“The mocking remark said by the Bible to have been
uttered by the Lord on this occasion is also the reverse
of the truth. By the Scriptural account, God, at the
moment when countless hosts of His children were
being driven into the unspeakable woe of utter exile
from His kingdom, exclaimed: “Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of
life, and eat, and live forever, therefore, the Lord sent
him forth from the Garden of Eden...” (Genesis 3:22.)
These are the words of a fiend, not those of an
infinitely benign God, and as a matter of fact they were
spoken by Satan in mockery of the deluded spirits. On
the contrary, God wished that even after their fall,
those spirits would reach out after the tree of life, in
obedience to His will and in an effort to return unto
Him.

“But the Powers of the Abyss are intent upon
preventing the spirits which were the first to benefit by
God’s clemency, shown by the creation of the spheres
of regeneration, from extending their hands toward the
tree of life and from returning to God. Could Lucifer
have had his way, those stages would never have been
created and no material world would ever have existed.
He would then have been able to exercise his despotic
sway over those spirits without restraint and without
having to fear the loss of a single one of his subjects.

“Furthermore, I must take exception to the way in
which the creation of the first woman is described.

“As told in the Scriptures, God resolved to give to the
first man a helpmate in his isolation. To this end He is
said to have formed out of the ground “every beast of
the field and every bird of the heavens; and brought
them unto the man,” in order that he might find, a
helpmate among them. “But for man, there was not
found a helpmate,” Then God is said to have caused
the man to fall into a deep sleep, during which He
“took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead
thereof, and the rib, which the Lord God had taken
from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto
the man.” (Genesis 2:21, 22.)

“As you know, this story has been made the butt of
ridicule, especially among the irreligious. It is a sad
thing to see the act of creation so grossly
misrepresented and converted into a laughing-matter
for mankind. In this instance also, Evil has turned the
fair image of truth into a repulsive caricature, through
the instrumentality of its human agents and with the
view of converting the conception of a sublime and all-
knowing Deity into something ludicrous, since to make
a thing an object of ridicule is to forge the deadliest
weapon for its destruction. God did not prevent this
distortion of the truth, as indeed He never intervenes in
misdeeds contemplated by man. Seekers after the truth,
and the righteous generally, always had means at their
command to allow them to discriminate between the
true and the false in the altered versions of the
Scriptures, being free to communicate with the good
spirit-world from which they could learn the truth at all
times.

“What, then, is the true story of the creation of the first
pair of human beings?

“Adam was the first spirit to reach the point at which
he could emerge from the higher orders of beasts and
be incarnated in the form of man, although his
incarnation did not proceed in the manner incorrectly
related in the Bible. God did not fashion a human
figure out of clay and blow life into its nostrils, thus
making man a living soul. On the contrary, the
formation of the first man proceeded according to the
identical laws which still apply today in the
materialization of spirits.

“This is a subject in which I have already instructed
you at length, so that you know that nowadays the od
of so-called “materialization mediums”‘ is required for
converting the spirit-forms into matter.

“This same law was applied by God in the incarnation
of the first human spirit. Since, naturally, no human
materialization mediums were available to supply the
required od, God took the od of the earth, and,
incidentally, in a composition which corresponded to
that of the human body. The odic mixture was the same
as that by which the formation of the human body
through growth, takes place today. In the words of
Saint Paul: “But God gives to the plant its body as he
pleases, to each according to the seed. Neither are the
bodies of all living creatures alike. The body of man is
unlike that of the four-footed beast, as this again is
unlike that of a bird or a fish.” (1st Corinthians 15:38,
39.) The preparation of the od for the incorporation of
the first man was undertaken by God’s spirit-world.

“The body of the first man whom you call “Adam”
was, therefore, literally taken from the earth, although
not in the manner in which you have heretofore
believed. No figure was fashioned out of clay, but the
ethereal members of that human spirit were covered
with a material garment, with the aid of the condensed
od of the earth, and that same body of Adam, formed
as I have described, was again dissolved into earthly od
after his death. It had been taken from the earth in the
form of od, and in the form of od it was returned to the
earth. That is the law which rules all material creation.

“The first man who thus came into existence was the
only one of his kind. As your Bible quite rightly says,
he was lonely, surrounded as he was by nothing but
plants, and by the beasts of the earth, and longed for
the hour when another spirit should have progressed to
the point at which it could be incarnated in human
form. He, therefore, looked about among the higher
animals to find one which at its death would be
considered worthy in God’s sight of being advanced to
the human stage. Your Scriptural account hints at this
when it tells you that God brought all the beasts unto
the first man that he might choose a helpmate from
them.

“The day came at last on which another spirit had
reached the human stage. This time it was a female
spirit, the same one which had been Adam’s consort in
God’s kingdom and later, in the sphere of Paradise,
where it had been the first one to disobey, and in so
doing had caused Adam to fall likewise.

“As her guilt had been the greater, so too had been her
punishment. Her ascent from the depths had, therefore,
been slower, and she did not reach the level of human
existence as soon as did her male dual spirit.
“The story of the incarnation of this female spirit as
given in the Bible of today gives a faint inkling of the
truth.

“The incarnation of “Eve” as the first woman is called
in your Bible took the same course as do all spirit-
materializations. In her case it was no longer necessary

that God should take the od of the earth, since a
materialization-medium, namely Adam, was available.
The possession by Adam of unusual mediumistic
powers is to be ascribed to the circumstance of the
materialization of his own body by the spirit-world,
with which he was in constant mediumistic contact.

“Just as today the materialization of a spirit is possible
only when the materialization-medium is in a deep
trance, so was it in those times. The deep trance into
which Adam went is referred to in the Bible by the
words: “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall
upon the man, and he slept.” (Genesis 1:21.) This was
a mediumistic sleep, in which Adam’s spirit left his
body. As is the case today, the od of the
materialization-medium, is not sufficient to effect
complete materialization and must be supplemented by
substance drawn from the medium’s body in dissolved
form, so, in materializing Eve, the spirit-world
dissolved a part of Adam’s physical substance and used
it to fashion Eve’s body. This proceeding gave rise to
the Biblical account of the removal of one of Adam’s
ribs: “and he slept: and God took one of his ribs, and
closed up the flesh instead thereof: and the rib which
the Lord God had taken from the man, made he a
woman...” (Genesis 2:21, 22.)

"As a rule, the materialization of spirits lasts for a
limited time only, after which dissolution again takes
place and the physical substance lent by the medium is
returned to him. However, in the case of Eve,
permanent materialization was aimed at, and for this
reason, none of the od nor the part of the physical
substance taken from Adam could be restored to him.
Hence the spirit-world had to make his loss good,
which it did by drawing upon the od of the earth, as it
had done when it first formed Adam’s body. This is
indicated to you by the Bible in the words: “...and he
took one of his ribs, and closed the flesh instead
thereof.”

“In this way was formed the first pair of human beings,
from whom the whole race of man was to descend by
reproduction.

“In physical reproduction, the germ alone, out of which
the offspring’s body is to grow, is transmitted. The
spirit is united with that body only moments before
birth, in conformity with laws unknown to you. The life
of the child within its mother’s womb originates with
her. It is her blood which circulates through the child’s
body and sets its organs in motion as soon as they
become partially ready to function, which generally
happens in the fifth month of pregnancy. This
movement of the child’s organs while it is still in the
womb is necessary, to accustom them by times to the
part which they will have to play, and is not, therefore,
produced by the child’s spirit, which is not embodied
until later, but to the mother. It is a process similar to
that used in breaking in an engine after it has been
finished and assembled: at first it is set in motion by
outside power, before being allowed to run under its
own. It must be broken in before it is ready for service,
and the same thing applies to the bodies of terrestrial
living beings.

“God’s omnipotence and wisdom are nowhere more
evident to thoughtful minds than in connection with the
great natural secret of the coming into the world of a
new human life, the same thing being true, of course,
as regards all other living creatures. In all instances it is
fallen spirits which are incorporated in bodies
produced by procreation, in conformity with the laws
of God conceived with such wisdom that your human
understanding could not grasp this Divine secret, even
were I to try to explain it.

“Adam and his wife had sons and daughters. (Genesis
5:4.) The brothers took their sisters as wives, so that
when you read in the Bible that Cain, after slaying
Abel, fled into another country and “knew” his wife
there, this does not mean that he became acquainted
with her in the ordinary sense of the word, or that there
were in existence people not descended from Adam
and Eve. According to the usage of the Hebrew tongue,
the word “to know” also connotes having sexual
intercourse; hence, as you are told: “and Cain knew his
wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch.” (Genesis
4:17.) The same words are used in speaking of Adam:
“and the man knew Eve, his wife; and she conceived
and bore Cain.” (Genesis 4:1.)

“Thus all of mankind is descended from the first pair of
human beings and constitutes the highest terrestrial
stage of progress in the ascent of the fallen spirits. This
was the frontier of Lucifer’s jurisdiction, and before
the Redemption, this was the point beyond which no
spirit was allowed to pass. Being lawfully Lucifer’s
subjects, none could escape from his rule, since he was
unwilling to waive his right of sovereignty even in the
case of those spirits which had repented of their
misdeeds and longed to return to God’s kingdom. The
surrender of this right had to be forced upon him by a
Redeemer, prior to Whose coming all human spirits
would be obliged to remain in the human sphere, either
as corporeally existent human beings, or as spirits in a
sphere of the same level as that of mankind.
“Beyond this lay the great gulf dividing Lucifer’s
kingdom from that of God. To bridge this gulf, a
victory over Lucifer must be achieved. As to how the
Redemption was conceived and carried out I shall tell
you presently.

“Once Redemption had been accomplished, God
contemplated the creation of the spirit-spheres through
which the spirits of men could, after their earthly death,
ascend to the sphere of Heaven step by step. To create
such spheres before the Redemption would have served
no purpose, since none of the fallen spirits could have
reached them, and through them attained to Heaven.

“In this connection I will call your attention to another
matter of great importance, namely, that before the
Redemption there lived a great many people who were
the incarnation not of fallen spirits, but of spirits from
Heaven to whom God had granted permission to be
born as human beings, in order that they might help
others to attain the true faith in God and thus prepare
themselves for redemption. Of these spirits which lived
in human form were Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Moses, Joshua, Caleb, most of the prophets, Mary, the
Mother of Jesus, and many others whose names do not
figure in the original Scriptural documents. After their
death on earth, these spirits returned to God’s
kingdom, since, having taken no part in the secession
from God, they had not fallen under Lucifer’s
jurisdiction.

“As for the spirit-spheres which had been provided for
in God’s plan of Salvation and through which, by that
plan, the souls of men were to ascend to God after the
Redemption, these are thirteen in number. I need not
describe each in detail. What you, as a mortal, can
understand of this subject has already been told to you
personally in the many communications imparted
through mediums for your enlightenment, by spirits
from the several spheres. From their manner of
appearance and from their speech you were able to
form an idea of their lot in each sphere, as well as of
the general appearance of the spheres themselves.

“You have seen those suffering souls which after death
went into the lowest of the thirteen spirit-spheres, and
in them you have learned the meaning of Christ’s
words: “Cast him out into the outer darkness; there
shall be the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth.”
From them, also, you learned the meaning of those
words of the Bible: “The dead know nothing.” Those
spirits, severed from God and condemned to spiritual
death as a result of their unbelief during their life on
earth, knew nothing. They were ignorant of their
identity as human beings, of their former place of
abode, and of the significance of the horrors which
they were experiencing in the darkness and which
rendered their lot so wretched.

“You could also see that as the spirits rose into higher
spheres their consciousness broadened and their
attitude toward God became less refractory. You were
able, likewise, during these communications to
distinguish the different light-effects pertaining to the
individual spheres, the colors ranging from the deepest
black of the lowest stage, through all hues, to the most
radiant white of the uppermost sphere. The thirteenth
sphere is of a white too dazzling to be endured by
mortal eyes. This is the color that prevails in the sphere
inhabited by God’s pure spirits, or that which you call
“Heaven”.

“From what you have seen of the spirits of the lowest
spheres you will have gathered how hard it is for them
to struggle upward from their lamentable state, since
their ascent within those spheres is possible only if they
will turn to God. But you yourself have witnessed the
rebellious attitude taken by these very spirits toward
any thought of God, and in their case it is a great act of
clemency on His part to allow them to reassume human
form with the least possible delay, for as human beings
it is easier for them, from what they see of God’s
Creation and learn from their own reflections or from
the precepts and example of others, to acquire a belief
in God, than it would be in those low spirit-spheres.

“Most human spirits must go back to earth repeatedly,
seeing that their lives there again and again leave much
to be desired and cause them to fall back instead of
fitting them for the higher stages in the Beyond.
Consider the lives of most men. Are they not wholly
centered on worldly matters? How many ever even
think of God? How many firmly in Him and live
righteously? Ever since the Power of Evil introduced
money into the world it has an instrument which gives
it an unrestricted dominion over the majority of
mankind.

“The time which the spirits of the lower spheres must
spend in the Beyond before they are re-incarnated in
human form varies in each individual instance. It is
determined in part by that spirit’s transgressions during
its last preceding stay on earth. God is just, and every
sin must be atoned for, but He is also charitable, and
never punishes His creatures beyond their deserts.

“The spirit-communications from which you learned
what you know of those thirteen spheres came through
mediums of the most widely varied types. The purpose
of this was to convince you of the truth of these
communications, for had you received the accounts of
all the spirits through one and the same medium, you
might have thought that they proceeded from his
subconsciousness. As you know, your up-to-date
science is always ready to resort to the word
“subconsciousness” when asked to explain anything in
this field for which it cannot account on purely human
grounds, and which it is unwilling to attribute to the
working of spirits.

“The creation of the thirteen spirit-spheres was the last
act in God’s plan of Salvation, and before it could be
effected, a far more difficult problem had to be solved.
Of what avail were the stages of progress from the
deepest infernal spheres to the highest terrestrial the
human-stage, and of what avail were the thirteen spirit-
spheres contemplated for the further ascent to the level
of God, so long as Lucifer refused to release any of the
spirits which had deserted to him, and so long as he
insisted upon exercising his sovereignty over them, as a
right which God had conceded?

“Who, indeed, could force Satan to waive his rights
over those, at least, who longed to return contritely to
God? It is true, God Himself could have done so, but
from a sense of fairness He had conceded that right to
Lucifer, and for the same reason He was now unwilling
to withdraw it.

“Only a spirit willing to enter the realm of the Prince of
Darkness and to expose itself to the rigors of his
tyrannous rule would have the right to do battle with
him. The same situation holds good in your
international law, when a nation which is oppressed
and harassed by its rulers, rises against its tormentors
in an effort to shake off their yoke.

“But it must be a spirit which would not, by deserting
God, become subject to Lucifer, and thus fall
irretrievably into his clutches.

“It must be a celestial spirit which, after assuming
human shape, would invade Satan’s dominion in body
only, for every incarnated being is exposed to the
influence of the Powers of Evil. Hence Evil has so
great a hold over all earthly creatures, even over those
which are not evil minded. The most righteous of men
daily experience the influence of Evil over them, and
often stumble under its impulse.

“Thus the undertaking would be a great act of daring
on the part of the celestial spirit which would venture
upon it. Born, as it was to be, in human form, it would
necessarily, as a mortal, remember nothing of its
previous existence in Heaven. It would, therefore, be
ignorant of its own identity as well as of the mission
for the performance of which it had been incarnated,
and would be tempted by the Evil One to sin.
Moreover, God would not give it any greater spiritual
aid than He gave to others, for this would have
offended His sense of justice. It would have to earn
whatever special Divine aid might be needed for
solving its task, by repelling all advances of evil, and
hence would receive such assistance only in the
measure in which it withstood such attacks. That is true
of all men. On the other hand, as the measure of Divine
aid increased, the assaults by the Powers of Evil would
grow in violence. God permits temptation
commensurate with the power to resist it; children must
not be as severely tempted as are adults; shoulders able
to bear only half a hundredweight must not be called
upon to carry twice that amount.

“By the same token, the celestial spirit that was to
assume human form would not be exposed in
childhood to the evil influences with which it was to be
brought into contact at maturity. Only after it should
have discovered its identity and the purpose to be
served by its incarnation was Hell to be permitted to
unleash its full strength. Then the life and death
struggle was to begin, a war to be waged by that spirit
as a mortal defensively, against the attempts on the part
of Evil to induce it to abandon God. It must be a war
ending in the bodily martyrdom of the incarnated
celestial spirit, provided it remained steadfast unto
death, since it is the recognized procedure of the
Forces of Evil, when their light and intermediate
artillery fails to reduce a fortress, to bring up their
heaviest batteries in the shape of physical torture, and
thus to compel surrender. For this purpose they never
lack human instruments and helpers.

“If, in the face of the greatest torments of mind and
body which the spirit could suffer as a mortal at the
hands of the Powers of Hell and their human agents, it
remained faithful and true to the last breath, then
indeed it would have earned the final measure of
Divine aid and strength which can be granted to any
spirit. Armed with this Divine power it could, after its
earthly death, enter upon a war of offense against the
Powers of Hell, which as a mortal it had been able to
meet in defensive combat only. Its victory over Lucifer
was then assured, since the warring hosts of Heaven
would be at its disposal.

“Then indeed there would be a war like that which had
raged in Heaven when Michael and his legions
overthrew Lucifer with his satellites.

“This time, however, the war was to be fought in Hell,
which the celestial redeeming spirit would invade, in
order to overcome Lucifer on his own ground. It was
not intended to deprive the latter of his sovereignty
over the apostate spirits or to condemn him to utter
impotence; the victor was to content himself with
merely curtailing Lucifer’s previous authority, for
theretofore he had exercised it not only over those who
were with him at heart, but to an equal extent over
others who had deserted to him deliberately, it is true,
but who now repented of their step and longed to be
discharged from Satan’s Foreign Legion, in order that
they might return to the house of God. By the victory
of the celestial spirit, Satan was to be forced to release
the penitent spirits from his despotism, retaining the
right, however, to employ every means of corruption,
as before, in order to bring about another change of
heart in them and to bind them to himself anew. But no
longer might he keep them under his scepter by force
as he had done in the past. He was to be compelled, as
it were, to retire his frontier guards from the bridge to
be built by the Redeemer, so that no spirit desiring to
return to its homeland would be forcibly prevented
from so doing.

“Should the Prince of Darkness consent to this
limitation of his rights, which, as the vanquished, he
was bound to do, and should this limitation be
embodied in the terms of the treaty of peace, its
observance by Satan would thenceforth be obligatory,
since God Himself was to be the omnipotent and just
guarantor of that treaty, even Hell being subject to His
might and helpless against His arm.

“The consequences of such a peace would in the end
be disastrous to Lucifer and his kingdom, for by it, he
would lose his subjects one by one, and in the end, be
in the position of a captain whose entire forces have
deserted to the enemy and who, when at last reduced to
utter helplessness, has nothing left but to admit defeat,
and surrender.

“In the same way, Lucifer, after having been
abandoned by all, would ultimately recognize his
impotence before God and be forced to tender his
submission.

“This, then, would be the day on which under God’s
plan of salvation there would be no more separation
from Him, no “death”. On that day all limbs broken
from the tree of life would be re-grafted to it, woe and
wretchedness would be no more, and all the tears shed
in such numbers by His erring children on the long
road of their wanderings, would be dried by Him. That
was to be the day on which the kingdom of God would

once again shine in the full glory which it had before
the fall of the spirits, and on which all of His children,
who had returned home, would resume the places
which once had been theirs in their Father’s house.

“Even Lucifer, the last and most penitent of all to cross
the bridge built by his Conqueror, would again be the
glorious Light-Bearer of old, by the side of his brother,
Christ, whose love and benign rule he had so
contemptuously spurned, and the Heavens would
resound with peens of joy.

“Such was the plan of Salvation conceived by God
after Lucifer and his angels had fallen, but it was
revealed by Him only to His first-created Son and to a
few of the holy spirits of Heaven, one of which was to
declare itself ready to undertake, when called upon, the
dangerous mission of being born of woman, and as a
human being, vanquishing the Prince of Darkness. All
knew what it meant to assume the human shape. All
knew that as human beings they would incur the risk of
being overpowered themselves by the very foe they
had set out to conquer, and that, in this event, the
coveted Salvation could not be accomplished. They
knew, too, that a defeat of that spirit sent to earth as a
redeemer, would make necessary the sending of a
second, perhaps to be followed by others, until the
effort was successful. Nevertheless, every one of the
high heavenly spirits eagerly volunteered to undertake
the venture.

“However, Christ, as the highest of created spirits and
as God-appointed king over the spirit-world, begged to
be the first to be allowed to make the attempt. It was
against Him that Lucifer had revolted, and it was on
His account that the great secession had come about. It
was on His account also that the gulf between the
kingdom of God and that of Darkness had opened, and
for these reasons He felt that He, and no other, should
build the bridge across that gulf to enable all of God’s
wayward children to make their way home.

“God consented to the incarnation of His Son, to take
place when the fallen spirits, in their ascent through the
spheres of progress had reached the highest terrestrial
stage, that of man, and had thus advanced to some
extent, and when, as men, they had given evidence of a
desire to return to God.

“The plan was kept secret from all other spirits of
God’s kingdom as well as from the Powers of
Darkness, in order that Hell might have no opportunity
of thwarting it. Had the Forces of Evil known the true
purpose of the human birth of the Son of God, had they
known that His desperate struggle against the assaults
of Evil, and His agonizing death were prerequisite to
his victory as a spirit over Lucifer, they would never
have tempted Him, and would have done their utmost
to prevent, instead of bringing about, His death upon
the Cross.

“Only after Christ had died a redeemer’s death would
the time be ripe to reveal to all Creation God’s plan of
salvation in its full, inconceivable grandeur, for then its
revelation could no longer do harm, but only good. The
outer structure of the edifice of salvation being
finished, it would be safe against destruction. The
completion of the inside work would rather be hastened
by proclaiming the plan, for this completion would lie
in the fact that the spirits which had forsaken God
would now return home over the bridge which the
Redeemer had prepared for them.

“Every part of God’s plan of salvation that might be
revealed to mankind as an anchor for its hopes was to
be found in the original Bible, including the truths
concerning the creation of the spirits, their revolt, their
fall, the creation of the spheres of regeneration as the
means for a gradual ascent from the Pit, and the
coming of a great, God-sent Envoy as Deliverer.
Except for the announcement of the Messiah to come,
everything has been expunged from the sacred writings
of the Old Testament little by little. Mankind no longer
understood these truths, and what men do not
understand, they as a rule regard as folly and dismiss
from their minds.

“This was true also in the days of Christ. Whatever lay
outside of peoples’ daily experience or conflicted with
the creed inherited from their ancestors, could not be
brought home to them then any more than it can today.
For this reason Christ did not devote Himself to
expounding the foregoing truths at length, but confined
His teachings to proclaiming the truth concerning God
the fulfillment of the Divine will, and His own mission
on behalf of the Father. Everything else He left to the
truth-bearing spirits which He intended to send to visit
mankind.

“But even after God’s spirit-world had arrived in the
role of teachers, only men who had made progress in
the knowledge of the truth were able to comprehend
the Divine plan of redemption. For the others, it was a
diet too hard to digest. There were even many
Christians who considered Saint Paul beside himself
when he preached on the subject, (2nd Corinthians
5:13) and when Paul spoke before King Agrippa in the
presence of the governor Festus, about the revelations
which he had received, Festus said with a loud voice:
“Paul you have lost your wits. Too much study is
making you mad.” (The Acts 26:24.)

“You also, when you lay my teachings before your
fellow men will be told that they are absurd fancies,
and that you have gone out of your mind. It has been
the fate of the truth in all ages to be branded as untruth
and folly, while at the same time palpably incorrect
doctrines as to the Beyond are thoughtlessly accepted
as true, are preached broadcast and raised to the rank
of religious creeds.

“What I have told you of the Divine plan of salvation
you will find confirmed in every detail on a later
occasion, when I shall disclose to you Christ’s whole
doctrine in due sequence as revealed to the faithful,
partly by Christ Himself, partly by the truth-bearing
spirits speaking through the Apostles and through
mediums. Then we will also draw a comparison which
will be most instructive to you, between the real
teachings of Christ and the Christianity of today."