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                                                         This is copied directly from Johannes Greber's 1932 book

                                "Communication With The Spirit World of God -It's Laws and Purpose" (1932)

Note: The entire book is available on the first page found on the left column of resources, of the same title.  Please download a copy for yourself and to share with all.  Thank you .

            God's Plan of Salvation

                                   "What we say is wisdom in the eyes of those who are ready to receive it,

                              but it is not the wisdom of this world.… We proclaim God’s mysterious,

                            hidden plan, which He conceived before all time began for our glory." (I 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 pre-meditation,

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 incom-
prehensible 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
[ 281 ] 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 conse-
quence 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 per-
mit 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 incor-
porated 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, par-
ticularly 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
[ 282]  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 milleniums 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
progress to a lower on.e 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 incarna-
tion, 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 suc-
ceeds. 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 oppor-
tunity of inquiring into these truths during the spirit-communica-
tions at spiritistic services, and if you do so you will flnd my state-
ments confirmed in every particular.
[ 283 ] " 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 of 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 I
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 master-pieces, so that if

today you remove the outer layer of paint care-
[ 284) CONCERNING GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION fully 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 Bib-
lical 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 intel-
ligent 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
l 285 ]  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 a re told that God brought
man into existence as the last a ct of Creation, after the earth,
plants and beasts had already been made. Then follows the state-
ment: " And God created ma n in hi s 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 multi-
ply . . . " (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 per-force 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" a s 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 under-
stand the need for such keeping . Every single sentence contra-
dicts 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
[ 286]  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 ea test 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
( 287]  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 laugh-
ing matter for mankind. In this instance also. Evil has turned the
fair image of truth into a repulsive caricature, through the instru-
mentality 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 [ 288]
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 a ll 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 there-fore 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
[ 289]  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, so 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
[ 290]  

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 rig.ht 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.
[ 292 ] "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
[ 293 ] 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 believe 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 ac-counts 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.
[ 294 ] "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 evilly 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. re-
member 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 what-
ever 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
[ 295]  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 delib-
erately, 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.
[ 296]  "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 peans of joy. " Such was the plan of Salvation                                                  conceived by God after Luci-fer 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
[ 297]  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 king-dom 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 re-generation                                                   as the means for a gradual ascent from the Pit, and the
[ 298 ]  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.