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.

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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