Otherworldly experiences by the departed

8 of a life in spirit, they are completely ignorant about the fact that they have entered a different state of being. Deprived of their physical senses, terrestrial light no longer shines and due to their lack of understanding about a higher aim in life, these people are spiritually blind and find themselves in a twilight – called ‘extreme darkness’ in the Bible – and roam around in the region called earthly sphere. • Death doesn’t turn a sinner into a saint or a sage into a fool. The attitude still remains the same and all individuals take their passions, habits, opinions, false indoctrinations, indifferences or doubts across to their otherworldly existence. ‘People are the way they think within their heart!’ By adopting spiritual form, the result of their terrestrial ideation, millions of the deceased remain for some time within the Earth’s sphere or often even at the scene of their terrestrial life, detained there by their habits and declinations. ‘For the heart will always be where your riches are’ (Matthew 6, 21). But those deceased on the other hand, those that progressed in their development thereby gaining a higher level in the world of spirit, assiduously endeavour to teach earthbound souls. The latter are however imprisoned in delusions due to false ideas about conditions after their demise, so that they maintain that those that died before them are indeed ‘dead’ or ‘ghosts’! This is why they often refuse to recognise their friends and refuse to become clear about their own situation. • A lot of them find themselves in a state of deep sleep. • Others believe that they lost their way or they are confused. Those with a confused mind are being harrowed by fear inside the strange darkness they find themselves in. • Others are affected by conscience and suffer fears and pangs of conscience because of the lifestyle led on Earth. • Some are urged by their selfish and evil stirrings to find opportunities to confirm their inclinations. They will remain in this state until the corroding effects of their desires have been exposed and the soul screams for better insights and enlightenment so that advanced spirits can approach them and help them.” 6. Healing of negative influences (Umsessenheit) and possessions Dr. Wickland now describes how he made contact with earthbound and possession causing spirit entities via his psychically gifted wife and how he caused the first mentioned to turn away from their secular ties (P. 47): “The transfer of the pathological mental state from the patient to the medium (My wife) is made easier if we electrically charge the patient with the help of an Influence-Machine, something we do quite often in the presence of the patient. Even though the electricity is completely harmless to the patient, it nevertheless has an extraordinarily powerful effect, because the possession spirit cannot endure this electrical treatment for too long and this chases it from the patient. The so expelled spirit can now find its way into the medium in this way and this with the help of our invisible helpers. This makes it possible to directly engage the concerned spirit in a conversation whereby one endeavours to make the spirit realise the true situation it is in and to inform it that a far better life await it. The more advanced spirit will then guide it away and look after it whilst my wife returns to her normal state of consciousness. Completely in accord with the narrated experiences we held regular meetings with my wife as medium and in many cases received extremely remarkable evidence that a disembodied spirit was the originator of the patient’s pathological mental state. We often succeeded in driving the possession spirits from its victim even though the patient lived far away from us to then bring it to our circle with the help of our invisible spirit helpers, where they were allowed to take possession of the body of the medium. Such spirits often lamented the fact that they were chased away. But they have no inkling that they are deceased and that they possessed and tormented people as spirits.