- 16 - irreproachable in all your doings from the day you were created, until you sinned. By consorting with Lucifer, your heart became filled with wickedness. And after you sinned, I drove you from the mountain of God and cast you, my protecting cherub, out from amid the fiery stones. You had become arrogant because of your beauty, and you ignored your wisdom in favour of your splendour. That is why I cast you down to earth.... By the multitude of your sins and the unfaithfulness of your doings, you have defiled your sanctuaries. Therefore, I brought forth a fire from within you, which devoured you, and I have turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who beheld you. You have come to a horrible end and are lost for an indeterminate time.’ ‘You had become arrogant’ - these words best express the reason for the defection of the spirit world. The desire to rule, not to serve, brought about its downfall. What, however, was the fate of the great mass of the rank and file? They were far less guilty than the horde of ringleaders, and since God’s punishments are always commensurate with the offense, He could not, in justice, commit them together with Lucifer to the same pit of darkness. God dealt very leniently with them, condemning them to a relatively light penalty. He did, indeed, cast them out from their former glory, but only to transfer them to a sphere that, if you could see it, you would regard as heaven. It may not have been comparable to the splendour that they had enjoyed in God’s kingdom, yet it answered your conception of paradise. The sphere to which the followers were transported was the ‘paradise’ of your Bible. • It was not on this earth, as you incorrectly assume, for at that time, material Creation had not yet come into existence. The Biblical account of paradise as a beautiful garden, with its rivers, trees, flowers, and fruits, has led you to think of it as being on earth. You do not know that everything you have on earth in material form is also to be found in spiritual form in the spheres of the Beyond. There, too, there are shapes, habitations, rivers, trees, bushes, flowers, fruit, food and drink, gold and jewels, mountains and valleys, music and song, fragrances, colours and sounds. You will find this statement of mine confirmed in many passages of the Holy Writ. You find therein descriptions of the City of God with its walls and gates, its flowing waters and its blooming flowers, and all the treasures that gladden the heart. You look upon these things as metaphor. They are not imagery, but reality. Did not Christ himself say: John 14: 2-3: ‘In my Father’s house there are many dwellings. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there now to prepare a place for you, and when I
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