The Astral World, Our Future Home

What do spirits tell us about their world, their home, our home after we die? There are few accounts I have enjoyed more than the little classic, Testimony of Light. The medium, an English woman named Helen Greaves, was a best friend in earth life of Frances Banks, who for 25 years was an Anglican nun. Frances had been dead—or transitioned, as we say today—a month before she breaks through in December 1965.

Here is a summary of some of the main points that Frances is eager for us to understand:

1.Most of us here on earth are reincarnated souls. We descend to earth from our astral home in order to be tested and proved in a challenging material environment. Soul-building, or character development, is the point of our sojourn on earth. 

2. Many of us have ambitious plans for self-improvement when we start out at birth, but the density of earth’s matter, including our own brain, causes us to forget what we came for. Subject to material concepts, we lose our way. We die, only to discover to our disappointment that we mostly failed to accomplish the goal we had set for ourselves. But for many of us it’s OK, for there has been much growth in unpremeditated ways. 

3. We are thoroughly ourselves when we come over at death. Our personalities and habits, for better or worse, are completely intact. The old or decrepit or injured bodies we left behind do not follow us into death. Yet we are embodied. And we are recognized by others who knew us on earth.

4. Frances does not refer to her world as heaven. Her world is a spectrum of worlds stretching from the lowly joys and satisfactions of a novice like herself, newly come over, to spheres of unimaginable radiance, perfection, and fulfillment. 

5. The astral world – and it has many levels – is the very opposite of static or restful. “All is progress.  Nothing is static,” Frances tells us.

6. The astral world provides opportunities for every wholesome interest or avocation – from science to music to theology to astral architecture. It is a joyful, endlessly fascinating place for those who desire to grow.

7. Physical danger does not exist in the astral. Neither does physical illness. Eating is optional and sleep unnecessary. The calls of nature do not get even a mention.  

8. Life in the astral is more vivid and intense than on earth, not more ghostly. Astral beings have fewer limitations. They can communicate telepathically and with much greater precision than through the cumbersome medium of speech. They can move from place to place by willing to be at their destination, though they can walk if they want to. Their minds are sharper, their emotions more acutely felt, both positive and negative. “I realized that I could both see and hear as before, only now in a more intense way,” she writes.

9. “We are not allowed to overreach in the world to come, but must grow in wisdom and love gradually. We cannot enter a vibration we are not ready for,” she says. This can be humbling for over-eager souls like Frances. There is justice in where we end up at death. There is definitely a law of karma. We gravitate to our rightful place. We can move ahead only when we are changed enough to do so.

Francis’ motive in speaking to us from her astral home is the same as mine speaking from our earth: to remove the fear of extinction at death. I have read dozens of these spirit-based accounts—enough to remove all such fear. I don’t know of many blessings greater than this. May you live free of such worry and give the best of yourself to the world we live in now. 

In my next blog we’ll look at the remainder of Francis’ testimony—for there is much more she has to say. 

Stafford Betty, Professor of Religious Studies, CSUB, (ret) is the author of When Did You Ever Become Less by Dying?, Heaven and Hell Unveiled, and novel, Guardians of the Afterworld. His latest novel Out of Hell will be published in 2026 by White Crow Books.
Stafford can be found at staffordbetty.com.