Posted on 26 March 2025, 14:48

In his book Elysium Unveiled, Jurgen Ziewe shows pictures of wretched men and women whose souls are impoverished. They live in an astral world of overcast skies, tumbledown buildings, and litter. I asked him via email what produced this outcome. Did they choose their environments? Did someone, maybe God, send them there?  Was it their karma? Jurgen wrote back and gave me permission to share his answers to these questions. You might recall that he claims to be an astral traveler and has witnessed in full consciousness what he reports.

They are in no position to choose their environment, he says. It’s influenced by ‘their character, attitudes, and personal choices” formed during their physical life. 

“Their environment is determined by the quality of their vibrational energy. High vibrational energy flows from unity consciousness. Unity Consciousness, or the capacity for empathy, gives rise to love, liberation, freedom, and joy. If flows from the pure light of the Absolute—God if you like—the source of all light and energy, expressed in bliss.

“The more these qualities are excluded from their awareness, the darker and more disharmonious they and their environment appear. We can even observe it in the physical world. Chronically angry people often display distorted facial expressions.

“I could clearly observe this during my travels in the lower astral world. A dark environment was always supported by an unpleasant negative atmosphere. The atmosphere is mostly determined by the mindsets of the inhabitants who cling together in accordance with their synchronising mindsets. That applies to all levels of consciousness. For example, the distorted figures in my book cannot be found on the higher dimensional levels. They would be tortured if forced to go there because they wouldn’t be synchronised to the higher vibration.

“That’s why they avoid the light and would flee it if taken there. On the other hand, a person from a higher vibrational level can do two things when choosing to enter one of these dark worlds: they either retreat upon entry, or bravely carry on and harness the inner energy of higher consciousness for protection. At this point they can either render themselves invisible or create a protecting aura around themselves. I usually used invisibility as a protection unless I was there to interact and interview. I saw helpers who adopted a disguise in the form of cloaks when trying to interact, even changing their appearance.

“So the more a person is dominated by negative character traits, the more asymmetrical and unattractive is their physical appearance, which can show up as emaciated, dressed in rags, being dirty, soiled, with skin disease, or even no skin, resembling a zombie. Their habitation is synchronised with their appearance. They can be found in ruined cities, caves, dirty swamps, slums, or anything which is dominated by poverty and devoid of life. The more impoverished, the lower their positive mental qualities. The absence of empathy or love and the presence of negative feelings and attitudes, such as resentment, anger, hatred, bigotry, envy, and all the sins pointed out in the Bible and other places, determine not only their physical attractiveness but also their clothes and their environment.

“Happily, love can have a transformative effect as well, as I described in one of my chapters describing a zombie-like woman rescued from her fate. I also came across music bands on the lower Astral planes trying to lift the atmosphere. They were usually surrounded by a sphere of light, just like the flood lights at a concert.

“As I frequently stated as a rule and summery of my work, The inner feelings and attitudes determine the external appearance and environment.”

So there you have it from the astral traveler, Jurgen Ziewe—a contemporary example of the renowned 18th century astral traveler Emanuel Swedenborg. Yes, there is a law of karma of sorts. But it’s not so much the specific sin or crime you committed. It’s the impact it has on your character. St. Paul killed Christians in his early life but repented and became an apostle of love. He was utterly transformed. Many people regret and repent the “sins of their youth” and are similarly transformed. Unfortunately, some do not. These are the people who make their homes in dark worlds.

I think Ziewe’s reports confirm but are more scientifically articulate than the many reports we get from spirits communicating through our best mediums. I am impressed by the care he takes to contrast the worlds of darkness and light. Be wary of those glamorizers who promise heaven to all alike!

May we all live our lives in unity consciousness with a capacity for empathy and forgiveness.

Stafford Betty, Professor of Religious Studies, CSUB, (ret) is the author of When Did You Ever Become Less by Dying?  and Heaven and Hell Unveiled. His latest novel, Guardians of the Afterworld is published by White Crow Books.
Stafford can be found at http://www.staffordbetty.com.

NOTE: If your browser will not accept a comment at this blog, send it by email to Jon at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and he will post it.

Dear Hans Wilhelm,

I wanted to second your recommendation of ‘A Wanderer in Spirit Lands’ by Franchezzo. This is a book I had in my collection for many years without properly engaging with it. Such is the fate of any book collector whose collecting outstrips his reading. I recently reencountered the book through James McQuitty’s ‘Escape from Hell’, which includes additional supportive material. As conveyed in the latter book, the protagonist and narrator of the account, Antonio, was, in life, a nobleman who made a habit of seducing women of lower social station, one of whom he got with child whom subsequently killed herself. Later, he fell in love with a young woman, real love for the first time, who loved him in return. Upon his death, it is this love, both his for her and hers for him, which is a kind of lifeline that renders his eventual climbing out of the dark realms possible. For he finds himself after death degraded, disfigured, and in darkness.

I will not say more about the account except to say that it seems to occupy, so far as I can recall, a unique place in the discarnate literature. The closest I can think of, which is not particularly close, is that of T.E. Lawrence’s account in the beginning of Jane Sherwood’s ‘Post-Mortem Journal’, where Lawrence finds himself immediately after his death in a rather negative corner of discarnate existence, but is quickly rescued from the situation by a helper, as his unfortunate initial fate was due more to his negative state of mind at death than to his true character, which, while unperfected was considerably more ennobled than that initial state warranted. We have numerous accounts of those from relatively higher realms or levels descending, as it were, to lower realms or levels in order to assist or rescue those spirits who found themselves degraded in those states. What makes this account remarkable is that here we have a first-hand testimony, as it were, from one who found himself degraded and was able to emerge from that state of degradation to a state of grace by quite literally working out his salvation. How was he able to accomplish this? Through his love for the young woman whom he loved, through her love for him and her prayers for him, through his self-judgment and self-reformation, through his purgatorial suffering, through his service to others and through his own self-transformation. At one point in his purgatorial struggles, he is invited to join a brotherhood of sorts, except these brothers are fallen just as he is fallen and striving to work out their salvation just as he is striving to work out his salvation, and so he and they gradually advance, gradually transform – quite literally in that they become less disfigured, both morally and in appearance, as they progress – in mutual support and service.

I am reminded, in describing the book, of Martin Lings great book of spiritual insight into the plays of William Shakespeare, particularly his tragedies. This book was published under a variety of titles and editions but in its final edition as ‘Shakespeare’s Window into the Soul’. Lings understood Shakespeare’s great tragic characters as ‘purgatorial pilgrims’. Such a description applies exactly to the case of Antonio in ‘A Wanderer in Spirit Lands’. The course of the book’s account is none other than the course of Antonio’s purgatorial pilgrimage, a pilgrimage quite literally from darkness to light, from disfigurement to restoration, from disgrace to redemption. It is ultimately a book of profound hope as well as profound warning.

Best,

Paul

Dear Stafford,

I’m not at all sure that what Jurgen means by ‘channellers’ is in any way representative of what we would consider the best of the posthumous or discarnate literature. In particular, his points about there being night and sunshine, infinite states of consciousness, and discarnate experience being rooted in one’s psychological or inner state are all perfectly familiar reportage from the posthumous literature. His comment about his experience of cold is indeed unusual, but putting that aside, his other points suggest that he is speaking of something quite different than what you and I recognize when we speak of the literature in question.

I’m quite sure that if one dialed into, say, a TV mental medium conveying communication from some newly arrived discarnate, the description might well be in line with what Jurgen is gesturing toward. I don’t know how much familiarity Jurgen himself has with that literature and he may well have taken the decision to not immerse himself in that literature in order to keep it from having any bleedthrough effect, as it were, on his OBE experiences, which would be perfectly understandable. As for NDE accounts, that is a different matter, as NDEs, while certainly real, are, in a certain sense, like a day pass to discarnate reality or even, in a certain sense, a kind of curated experience to serve a particular purpose, rather than being representative of posthumous existence in full.

It is natural that Jurgen, being an experienced OBE explorer, would epistemically prioritize OBE experiences over other types of evidence for the nature of discarnate reality. However, from the perspective of one who does not have such first-hand experience, the epistemic prioritization is quite different. From the latter perspective, there is no natural reason to epistemically prioritize OBE reportage over that of discarnate accounts. To the contrary, there is a natural reason to epistemically prioritize the latter over the former, given that in the latter case one is garnering testimony from those who are actually citizens of the undiscovered country rather than from tourists (or possibly visa holders), even ones of long-standing and experience. With that said, however, I can readily admit to cases where an experienced OBE explorer may have a more thorough grip on the nature of discarnate reality that a discarnate who is a relative newcomer.

To expand my point slightly, consider the case of clairvoyants/spirit-seers such as Emmanuel Swedenborg or Rudolph Steiner. These two particular named individuals are no less than intellectual and spiritual giants among men for whom it is impossible not to have the highest respect. And yet, when I read ‘Heaven and Hell’ or ‘Knowledge of the Higher Worlds’ I find incongruities with the consistent bulk of the discarnate testimony as represented in that literature. I could epistemically prioritize Swedenborg and Steiner’s testimony over that of the discarnate literature, but that would seem a clear error and for reasons very similar to those outlined in the prior paragraph. So I am forced to bracket those aspects of the aforementioned books that do not fit well with the bulk of discarnate testimony.

I would say the same about OBE literature: to the degree that it conforms closely with the bulk of discarnate testimony, then I take it very seriously indeed as independent and supporting testimony. And indeed this is what I find consistently in Jurgen’s accounts as well as those of other OBE explorers such as Mike Marable. Jurgen’s account of his encounter with the young prostitute in the lower levels that you mentioned in your post is both poignantly moving as well as perfectly in keeping with the discarnate literature, particularly the many reports of rescue missions being sent to lower levels. On the other hand, when Jurgen reports of being subject to death rays while on an alien planet, having been whisked there by a UFO, as he does in one of his books, I have no reason to doubt that this is what he experienced, but I also have to bracket it insofar as it simply doesn’t conform with the bulk of other testimony. That’s quite different from saying that it didn’t happen, just to be clear.

All of the above is not to throw any shade, as the kids say, in Jurgen’s direction. To the contrary, I hold him in great regard and indeed affection. Let me just say in conclusion of too long a comment that in building up a picture or tapestry of the next world and what it is like, we necessarily must consult a wide range of testimony from a wide variety of sources, everything from deathbed visions to near-death experiences to shared-death experiences to induced or spontaneous after-death experiences to out-of-body experiences to discarnate testimony in all of its varieties of communication, from mental mediumship to trance mediumship to direct voice mediumship to electronic voice phenomena to instrumental transcommunication and so on and so on. We have to consider the entire panoply of testimony, of which out-of-body experiences are absolutely an essential part, but their importance and epistemic prioritization must be held in the proper balance.

Best,

Paul

Jurgen’s views and words give real meaning to the term “moral specific gravity,” as first mentioned, I think, by Professor Robert Hare.
Michael Tymn

Paul, I was thoroughly delighted by your response and found nothing to quibble with except your own quibble. In my extensive communication with Jurgen, he leaves me with the feeling that the world ahead is so astounding that it almost escapes description. Listen to this:

I found a problem with the way channellers used their information of the non-physical planes to spread it across like gospel. I became frustrated, annoyed even, when I found that what they reported, in my eyes, was at least not giving the full picture.

For example, I found, despite what was claimed, that I clearly encountered night and sunshine. The idea that “there” was an even temperature throughout was at least not universally true. There is no “there” in infinity, like a unique place, simply because there are infinite “there’s”, in the same way as there are infinite states of consciousness. For example, I once experienced cold so severe, that it cannot be replicated even in our physical arctic. The reason was that the root of this perception was psychological, a coldness of feeling which translated into a “physical” sensation, like the proverbial ”cold heart”, a more intense form of cold even than the experience of the physical sensation. Although non-physical experiences are not quite the way their physical counterparts are here, but that doesn’t alter the experience.
Some statements made by NDEers, who wrote best-selling books, I found to be based on conjecture, beliefs and assumption rather than actual first-hand experiences, the way I and others reported in their notebooks and written work. To my delight though, I found many NDEs and even channelled reports to be congruent with my diary entries. On the other hand, when reading reports by fellow astral travellers I found there to be a consistency and alignment leading to confirmation of what the greater reality may actually “look” like. So much so in fact that they could possibly form a statistical scientific base for drawing a kind of “reality map“ of what the non-physical dimensions may consists of.

I like the way Jurgen warns us not to take NDE and mediumistic reports at face value. They are more like dependable estimates than photographic images. In no way do they lessen my confidence that there is an afterlife. They heighten it. That their world is fascinatingly different from ours in significant ways—it even seems quite mysterious— is what I’ve always been inclined to believe.

Stafford

Dear Stafford, thank you for sharing Jurgen’s reply which totally reflects my understanding. A wonderful book that I have read over and over again and which gives very vivid and detailed description of these lower levels is “A Wanderer in Spirit Lands” by Franchezzo. It also shows the positive influence our prayers can have on these temporary lost souls. Best, Hans

Dear Stafford,

You have performed a real service in eliciting this reply from Jurgen Ziewe. Thank you very much. Certainly, for those familiar with his writings, there are no surprises in what he has to convey here but it is very good to have such an on-point treatment of this very important topic.

There are five great interwoven and interconnected themes that underpin the understanding both of the nature of a given discarnate level and of the distinction between levels. These may be stated under the following headings: a) quality of consciousness (elevation or degradation of individual ‘quality of soul’, or character; relative domination by negative or positive character traits); b) vibration (also termed vibrational energy, energy or frequency, expressed as ‘lower’ or ‘higher’); c) imaginal exteriorization (the attraction to and expression of one’s environs in accordance with one’s ‘quality of soul’); d) light (the relative brightness of one’s environs from intense darkness to intense illumination); e) sublimity (the relative splendor of one’s environs from negatively inflected, disharmonious, cramped ugliness to positively inflected, harmonious, expansive beauty).

All of these themes are present in Jurgen’s response here. My view is that all of these may be organized and understood as interrelated aspects of a single dominating conception that might be termed resonance, attunement, synchrony or synchronization. This applies a) to a given discarnate individual and his or her ‘gravitation’ to a given objective level of discarnate reality, b) to a given discarnate individual and his or her experienced environment, as well as c) to the relationship between multiple discarnate individuals. In this regard, it is very significant that Jurgen states that, with regard to b) that “the atmosphere is mostly determined by the mindsets of the inhabitants…” and “…their habitation is synchronised with their appearance” and with regard to c) that individuals “…cling together in accordance with their synchronising mindsets”. My present understanding is that the ‘law of attraction’ [not to be confused with the New Thought / New Age notion] or ‘of affiliation’, which is a universal theme encountered throughout the discarnate literature, is an expression of this same dominating conception of what I have termed ‘resonance’.

The only point I would quibble with in this otherwise extremely valuable post is your penultimate para: “I think Ziewe’s reports confirm but are more scientifically articulate than the many reports we get from spirits communicating through our best mediums.” Without taking anything away from Jurgen’s extremely important contribution, this is simply not the case. Jurgen’s statements are wholly in line with the best and most insightful statements from the discarnate literature and, equally importantly, support them from an independent angle – that of extended OBE exploration – but they are not superior in ‘scientific articulation’, although perhaps on-par with them in certain respects. [As an aside, in this regard, I was counting up the other day the number of physicists whom I am aware of having discarnately communicated, very often extensively. My present count is six: Dr. George Mueller, Dr. W.F.G. Swann, Dr. Raynor Johnson, Sir William Barrett, Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge.]

Nevertheless, the overwhelming point that one should take away from Jurgen’s statement in this post, in concord with the same to be found in the discarnate literature as a whole, is the absolutely critical importance – both for oneself personally as well as more broadly to society – of the refinement of one’s character, of the expansion and ennoblement of one’s soul. Everything depends on this, everything hinges on this. I have made many comments to this point in the context of past posts of your blog and of Mike Tymn’s blog. It may be worth, in conclusion, reiterating a portion of one of these here:

We, through our maturation, purification and expansion, are meant to become ‘like’ God [note here Jurgen’s initial comments on ‘Unity Consciousness’], in growing into, instantiating and embodying the Divine qualities. This is our path of return. We return to the Divine by becoming more and more ‘like’ the Divine – in degree, although never in kind. Our journey is that of our own self-transmutation. This is why one’s discarnate ‘placement’ in an appropriate level – as analyzed so thoroughly by Robert Crookall in ‘The Supreme Adventure’ as well as by Paul Beard in ‘Living On’ – is dictated by one’s quality of being or of consciousness. The ‘levels’ are so many ‘rungs’ of return on what the discarnate F.W.H. Myers termed the ‘ladder of consciousness’. One ascends the ‘ladder’ through a metaphoric ascent in the quality of one’s inner being. As one is fitted, so may one approach. Such is our entelechy. Could we wish for anything else, anything finer?

Best,

Paul