By: Mariana Stjerna (Author)

Time Journey to the Origin and the Future

Publisher: SoulLink Publisher, Sweden
Time Journey to the Origin and the Future is the independent sequel to Mariana Stjerna’s well received novel On Angels’ Wings. While the former book is about what happens to us after our physical death, this book discloses the origin of man and what will happen to Earth and humanity when we have passed through the Grand Portal, become wiser, and achieved a higher consciousness. In his own special way Jan Fridegård continues, through his writing medium Mariana Stjerna, to tell about his missions and adventures on the other side. This time he gets to make a time journey far beyond our own Universe.
Language: 🇬🇧 English

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Mariana Stjerna (March 25th 1921 – May 4th 2023) is a highly respected Swedish channel and authoress of spiritual books. Already since childhood she was psychic and had a deep feeling for nature and elementals.

In her five internationally released spiritual novels inspired by Jan Fridegård (On Angels’ Wings, Time Journey to the Origin and the Future, The Bible Bluff, The Invisible People and Mission Space) ancient knowledge and wisdoms are revealed in an entertaining and effortless style. The paradigm-breaking and thought-provoking novel Agartha – The Earth’s Inner World, inspired by the former Canadian Timothy Brooke, is maybe the best example of Mariana’s writing at its finest.

Time Journey to the Origin and the Future is the independent sequel to Mariana Stjerna’s well received novel On Angels’ Wings. While the former book is about what happens to us after our physical death, this book discloses the origin of man and what will happen to Earth and humanity when we have passed through the Grand Portal, become wiser, and achieved a higher consciousness. In his own special way Jan Fridegård continues, through his writing medium Mariana Stjerna, to tell about his missions and adventures on the other side. This time he gets to make a time journey far beyond our own Universe. “It’s time for you to not only visit unknown planets or parts of our infinite beingness. You will travel into what one might call the future. … It will be a mystical journey across all boundaries – I mean technically feasible boundaries, seen from a human perspective. Now you have to throw off all your prejudices and put on a shimmering garment, which brings you into something that you in your wildest dreams could never have imagined,” said Master Melchizedek when he informed us about the mission. “This journey is a lesson about what the cosmos really is,” he continued, “or the original cosmology, if you think that sounds better.” We may, among other things, come along to one of the seven Super Universes, which revolve around a static Central Universe, and make visits to the following cultures of origin: the Mayas, the Maoris, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Sumerians, the Inuits, the Zulus, the Etruscans, the Basques etc., all of which have been or still are represented on Earth. The book concludes with a visit to the Central Race and the WingMakers, who are living in a paradise… without violence, female maltreatment, lust for power, or greed.

Contents

Mariana’s Introduction

Jan Fridegård’s Introduction

1. The Lonely Planet

2. New Time Journey on Angels’ Wings

Inside the Portal in the Super Universe

3. The Planet of the Mayas

Peculiar Interlude

4. The Maori Culture of Origin

Conversation on a Voyage

5. The Incas and the Aztecs

6. The Sumerians

7. The Bön or Bon Religion in Tibet

8. Minoxor and the Minoans

The Gardens

9. The Hittites

10. The Ancient Egyptians 

11. Maorion’s Story

12. Heading for Hunera

13. The Inuits

14. Zuidum and the Zulus

The City of the Slumbering

15. The Etruscans

16. Taoism – The Chinese Original Culture

17. Shinto – The Japanese Original Culture

18. A Leap to the Circassians

A Thought-Provoking Ceremony 

19. The Basques

Unusual Research

20. Back to the Central Race

Unforgettable Beingness

The Central Race – Paradise

21. A Wedding in the Zulu Way

22. Shala’s Story

23. All’s Well … But No End

24. Epilogue

Appendix

Meditation Exercises

 

Mariana’s Introduction

At the request of many people, I finally decided to write a second part of On Angels’ Wings. Jan Fridegård has for a long time let me know that he has more to tell, but not until now have I been ready to listen. Therefore, I sit down at my computer on an overcast day in July and empty myself for the higher energies, so that they can emerge in the form of an exciting story, which brings us beyond time and space and into a universe that we perhaps imagine but don’t know.

I have a small piece of jewelry in the shape of a ball, which has been very important to me for more than 50 years. It always hangs around my neck on a little gold chain. The story of how I got the little ball is so peculiar, mysterious, and enchanting that I have to tell it to you, especially since it has a particular significance in this book. And remember that the story of my little ball is true. I have neither added nor subtracted a single word from the original story, which I was told by my English friend Gerald R. I want to begin with this remarkable story that has followed me for so many years.

It was the year 1948, and I traveled to England to improve my language skills prior to my senior high school graduation as a private candidate. I went together with a female friend to Penzance, which is located in South Cornwall. There we had booked a room at a family guesthouse, a so-called boarding house, which turned out to be a rather strange place. The owner, Mr. Gerald R., had spent a large part of his life in the Far East, including Indo-China. The entire boarding house was characterized by his journeys. There was a unique mixture of precious antiques and hodgepodge, small travel memories from all the world’s bazaars. 

England still suffered in the wake of the Second World War and the food rations at the guesthouse were rather tight – except for me and my friend. We were treated like royalty without understanding why! Nothing was missing on our table and we noticed that the other guests became jealous. Mr. R. and his family made a fuss over us quite openly and we submitted to it and enjoyed ourselves.

Every evening we were invited to the private living room of family R., where we enjoyed Mr. R’s fantastic narrative art, together with a giant plate of delicate sandwiches. We were young, and hungry for both food and culture. Furthermore, Mr. R’s adventurous life prior to the guesthouse was like a first-class novel. He was the son of a clergyman and had received his college education at Oxford. During the years 1914–1915 he was a captain in the 14th Hussar regiment. In 1915 he became a major in the West African Frontier Forces and served in France, Cameroon, and German West Africa. After that, he was appointed an officer of the Special lnvestigation Department SS Police in Singapore, and that job took him all over the Far East.

Mr. R. was a small, skinny man about 55 years old, with a big nose and sparse, brown hair. I constantly had the feeling that he wanted to tell us something more, something that existed deep within him, and when we left there we promised to keep in touch with him and his family. This also happened, though in a very unexpected and remarkable way.

Gerald R. showered me with his letters: long, interesting, exciting letters, and often there were small gifts from his collections enclosed in them. For me it was very beneficial to write English, since I was to graduate as a private candidate the following spring and I had chosen the program for modern languages, so we corresponded quite intensely. The New Year’s weekend of 1949 I traveled to Grangärde to do concentrated study over the weekend before my exams. I was staying at a guest house, and on New Year’s Eve the hostess came panting eagerly with the notification that I was called to the Grangärde post office. I will never forget it!

The postal officials gathered around me and showed me a small, white, very thick envelope, which was open on the bottom edge. There a wad of cotton stuck out – not exactly a clean one! They assured me that no one had opened the letter. It had arrived in this miserable condition. I opened it in the presence of witnesses. The handwriting was familiar to me by now: a letter from Gerald R. Before my astonished eyes, a little ball that appeared to be made of bone rolled out of the cotton. There also was a thick, closely written letter in which he told the story of the little ball, which bore strange symbols.

In 1921, Gerald spent some time in the Indian Army. One day he asked a very highly educated, old Indian official if he knew of any genuine yogi. Gerald knew that there were men still alive who were guardians of the unwritten wisdom through the ages, which had passed from master to disciple in the form of signs and secret words. It had never been revealed to strangers. The official replied that he didn’t doubt that this secret science existed and that there were a few initiated who knew about it. One must not believe, added the old man, that these wise men are the same as ash-covered wizards or juggling fakirs. He told me that there was a sadhu – so the initiated wise men are called – visiting the city. That man was called Sadhu Bisudhanan Dhan, and certainly Gerald would get to meet him. The sadhu believed that all the energy on our planet originates from “our lord the Sun.” All power over earthly things exists in the rays of the sun, if you find the right paths to reach them. He was very modest and didn’t enjoy too much attention. He studied “swabigan,” or “the power of light” that led to a magical knowledge. By concentrating rays of light through a magnifying glass, he had managed to bring dead birds back to life.

It was March 25th when Gerald arrived at the residence of the sadhu. He found the man sitting on the porch, surrounded by his disciples: Bengalis, wealthy intelligent merchants, and officials. The sadhu was sitting on a long, low chair. He had a gray beard and he wore a simple, saffron-colored sheet around his body and the Brahmanical cord. He had a witty, amusing expression on his face and unusually large eyes, full of humor. It seemed as if he saw right through you, right into eternities of space … He pressed Gerald’s hand and asked him to sit down. The silence was almost embarrassing. The disciples stared at Gerald, and he felt uncomfortable.

“Ask him a question and he will answer it,” someone said.

“Why have I come here?” asked Gerald, because he didn’t really know.

“In this very moment,” the sadhu replied seriously, “something is happening that will be of great significance in your life. All I can do for you is to help you to recognize the occurrence when it comes to you. That’s why you have come here. I want you to remember the sign I will give you. Remember it, remember it! So much will depend thereon.” Gerald looked at his watch. It showed a few minutes past nine. The old man sent one of his disciples to pick up a magnifying glass and a piece of cotton cloth. He passed Gerald the cotton cloth, which didn’t smell of anything. The magnifying glass was a double convex lens with a small steel handle. Gerald remembered everything, to the last detail. He sat very close to the sadhu and observed every single move the old man made. The sadhu grabbed the cotton cloth between the forefinger and the thumb of his left hand, while he held the magnifying glass in his right hand. He adjusted the glass so that a sunbeam shone on the cloth patch. After a while, he asked Gerald to smell the cloth patch. It smelled like violet. Then he tore off a piece of cloth and repeated the same maneuver. It smelled like rose.

“Those are two lovely fragrances that you recognize, but they don’t mean anything particular to you. I wanted to show you that I can obtain any fragrance whatsoever. Now you’ll get to experience a fragrance that you will recognize some fine day, even if you don’t do it now. Try to remember it well!”

Once again, he went through the same procedure. Gerald smelled the cloth and perceived an unfamiliar fragrance, a fragrance he would never forget. The fragrance was a Guerlain perfume (Vol de Nuit) that I used on my visit to England. The sadhu now put the magnifying glass aside and sat motionless. On his lips played a gentle smile. There was nothing in his vicinity that could hold the peculiar fragrance. He was naked to his waist. He didn’t know in advance that Gerald would visit him. The whole thing must have been completely unprepared.

Gerald wondered if the sadhu had hypnotic powers. The disciples replied that that was the first skill he obtained at the Great White Brotherhood in Tibet, where he apprenticed forty years ago. But this day he hadn’t used any hypnosis. Gerald stayed long with the old sadhu, and he was told many strange stories. When Gerald left, the old man commanded him to never forget the fragrance. It was a shock when he so many years later recognized it on a young girl from Sweden. But then he didn’t dare to speak of what had happened on March 25th, 1921, between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., in a small Indian city. – On March 25th, 1921, between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., I was born in the southern maternity hospital in Stockholm. It was Good Friday.

That was the first connection Gerald experienced in relation to me. Despite his narrative talents, he was a shy man and had not dared to divulge a word about all this when I was in Penzance.

Now we return to the letter with the ball, the strange little object that always hangs around my neck. It was the year 1930. At that time Gerald was stationed in Singapore (Malaysia), when he was ordered to travel to Saigon (Vietnam) to catch a Chinese who was a drug dealer and a troublemaker. He had had a whole lot of previous quarrels with the criminal, and that was the reason he was given the assignment. He was happy to leave Singapore and even happier about getting to Saigon, since he then might have the chance to get to the ancient temple in Angkor (Cambodia). It took a week before he had time to go by train to Angkor. He arrived in the evening and checked in at a hotel overnight. After dinner, he went on a journey of discovery among the ruins.

The temple city of Angkor, built during the 800–1200’s, is one of the most beautiful ruins in the world. It was discovered in the middle of the jungle in the late 1800’s. The Frenchmen have unfortunately turned the place into a tourist attraction. The ruins are what remain of the Khmer civilization, which disappeared around the end of the 1400’s. The gigantic central temple, with its richly ornamented buildings, fitted with pinnacles and towers, is surrounded by a moat, filled with water, on top of which mauve lotuses form a thick blanket. The lotuses are used for feeding the elephants. A stone-paved bridge leads across the moat and passes through the monastery that forms an outer square. Next comes a small park in front of the stairs which lead up to the giant temple.

When Gerald arrived at this ancient site, he saw the four oddly-shaped towers brood in motionless vigil over this colossal monument to the honor of Brahma, and it felt strange to know that all of it was built over a thousand years ago by an already forgotten people. Heavy clouds welled forth at high speed across the black night sky. Erratic breezes of hot wind came from the southwest. The monsoon season was near. From the distant mountains a low rumbling threat of thunder was heard. Everything else was quiet; it was as if the night stood still, motionless and waiting with a hot, pressing harbinger approaching.

Gerald slowly began to climb up one of the terraces. He felt amazed at the peculiar, ghostly beauty that surrounded him when his attention was caught by a sound, as if someone was moving in his vicinity. When he turned around, he saw an old priest in a yellow cloak. He looked more like a half-caste than a native. He appeared suddenly, as out of nowhere. Gerald had been completely alone on the stairs before this. Gerald spoke to him in two Indian dialects and then in Malay, but the priest didn’t seem to understand him. He looked inquiringly at Gerald and finally he replied in a strange language that resembled Hindustani. Gerald understood pure Hindustani, but the old man’s dialect was tricky. Eventually, however, Gerald managed to understand something of what the old man was talking about.

The priest said he had known that Gerald would arrive one day. The old man had a message for him and asked him to listen very carefully. He told that very soon Gerald would get into great danger, but the darkness would come to his aid. After a number of years, a woman from a foreign country would visit Gerald and he would immediately recognize her. When he met her he would give her the object that the priest now handed over to him. He handed Gerald something that was wrapped in a piece of dirty cloth. He said that he had nothing more to say, but that everything would be revealed in due time. He turned around and walked into the shadows without even having stretched out his begging bowl, which was something very unusual.

When Gerald returned to his hotel, he asked the owner who the old priest might have been. The owner became very surprised and told Gerald that he certainly was mistaken. No native wanted to tread the ruin area after nightfall. Moreover, the description of the priest didn’t fit any type of native that existed there. The dialect that Gerald described was a very old one, and it had absolutely not been in use for several hundred years.

A few days later, Gerald encountered the Chinese man that he was chasing. It was at a terrible, dirty, and crowded tavern down by the harbor. It became an unpleasant meeting, where knives whizzed around him and harsh eyes divulged murderous plans. Gerald overturned a table and hid behind it, while he shot the lamp in the ceiling to pieces. Thereafter, he pounced upon the criminal in the dark. Outside waited Gerald’s police officers, and when they heard the shot they rushed in and dealt summarily with the smugglers. Thus the darkness came to his aid, as the old priest had predicted.

Since that day, Gerald constantly wore the little ball. When I stayed at the guesthouse, he had wanted to give it to me, but he didn’t dare. Now he felt that he had to give it away, and that it was I who should receive it. Since then I have worn it.

I corresponded with Gerald throughout January of 1949, when his letters suddenly ceased. After some time, a letter arrived from an old man who was a close friend of Gerald. He told me that Gerald had suddenly died of bleeding ulcers. His mission was completed, in that I had gotten the ball – at least it felt so. It took more than 50 years before I began to understand the explanation of the ball. I have let it be examined both by jewelers in Stockholm and by a pair of mediums. The material is completely unknown. It has been analyzed, and it just doesn’t exist on Earth! One medium claimed that the ball was from Atlantis, the other medium said it was of extraterrestrial origin. It was the latter claim that proved to be correct. But that is another story, which you will be told in due course in this book.

Jan Fridegård will, as in On Angels’ Wings, tell us further in his own special way. Therefore, I give the floor to him.

– Mariana Stjerna

 

Jan Fridegård’s Introduction

At the end of the book On Angels’ Wings, I said “Au revoir!” to my readers. A continuation of my stories from a world above, around, and inside a world hasn’t come to the fore until now. A lot has happened since the last time – then the year was 1998 – and now I think the world is ready to receive not one, but several, messages about all the possibilities that are available to humans. I’ve experienced a lot more here among the gold-rimmed clouds, where I get around strumming

my harp …

No, I’m just kidding. I hope you got an idea of something completely different in my last book. But one of my tasks in this reality is to travel and learn. I have really done that. To travel at the speed of thought is no obstacle to experiencing things, grand adventures and depth soundings in the dark green, crystal clear waters of philosophy, where all stones are gemstones. The farmer boy from Sörmland is buried and forgotten. Here exist only life, rebirth, and processes of creation of various kinds. The processes of creation I will tell you about, since they are miracles to you. For me, they are works from one single Source, but I will return to that.

We’ll start with looking back upon the beings who have become my friends, teachers, and companions in this life. I call them angels, Masters, and guides to make it easier for you to understand. It may sound solemn, but you know that I have a good time here as well! Humor is a gift that most of the higher beings really possess in the highest degree. Nice for me, who am so close to laughter!

First I met my guardian angel Jolith. She brought me to two beings who would become my teachers and companions in this fantastic paradise jungle. They are Shala and Zar. With their help I’ve gotten to experience my new, eternal life like a bouquet of the most diverse, wonderful, luxuriant flowers. Every day is not just a day, but it imprints its lovely pattern in my soul. Every day is a day without counting of time, without beginning or end. This means that every day is the Day and that the Day is Now. Time spreads out its magnificent carpet without fringed ends, since it has no ends.

One might think that if there is no time, there is no need to learn anything. Time for the Earth humans is a race against themselves – absolutely not against us. Shala and Zar taught me that even here, in the mountains and valleys of Eternity, there are undreamed-of possibilities. There is so much to learn, to study, to experience, and to develop with and develop into. On Angels’ Wings proves this, and the same is true for this book, Time Journey to the Origin and the Future. You will understand that title eventually.

Shala and Zar are still by my side. They go their own ways when they so desire, but they are always willing to help me whenever necessary. They are my teachers and friends and remain so. They will take me forward in this book, both with bombs and grenades, with a quiet rumination, and with a sigh from the south wind.

I told you in On Angels’ Wings about the Nine Elders of Sirius and about the goddess Helia. Even then, the Earth began to get in bad company, since a couple of other globes with malicious rulers sent evil energies to Tellus (Earth). Things have been going downhill since then, first a roller coaster ride, but these days only downhill. Since we wrote On Angels’ Wings, only misery has occurred. Generally speaking, that is. Seven years ago the EU wasn’t quite as crazy as it is now. The power seeps over, that’s just the way it is. We can’t do anything about it and the question is, what you can do? The small countries are running off their legs, they lie down in the foam from EU’s champagne bottles and crawl with dripping knees, with their hands outstretched in prayer and the corners of their mouths wetted by life-saving water, ever closer to the Big Brother who will give them manna from his abundant horn.

The EU is a colossus on plastic feet, which is staggering around in its own greatness. In the past you talked about feet of clay, but they wouldn’t last today. The plastic feet are more flexible, strong, and sharp, until they are worn out by all the irregularities up there in the seething colossus. The goal, which is one single ruler for all of Europe, then becomes a new Christian Tyrant. Europe gets filled with slaves.

When Earth looks like that, you just have to accept it and be grateful that you are on the right side. But since you earthlings don’t understand how you’re getting on, we have to intervene in one way or another. The way things look now, it will indeed be in another way, but first we’ll have to try to reach you through the written word. The next step will be the screaming word, and after that it will be silent.

I intend to cheer you up with some playful angel batter in your faces. I don’t mean that I’m going to throw cakes at you – we don’t think that’s funny – but apparently you do. Your humor has also reached its peak when the violence plays back in the direction of the laughter. The angels are pretty distressed. Happy and sanely thinking as they are, they dance around and try not to watch what the earthlings are up to. However, it is their task, so eventually they have to both watch and intervene. If only you could understand that when something soft strokes your leg, when something clicks where it shouldn’t click, when a tone sounds from a place where it shouldn’t sound, then there is an angel on the go. You have them all around you, but even if they threw a dozen cakes in your face, you wouldn’t notice. However, you are noticing the violence, whether it plays back as a clown or a dead man in a garbage can.

The violence seems to have made inroads into the TV sets of the family homes to stay. Small children are crouching when the knives fly like sparks over terror-struck heads, when the blood flows in rivulets on walls and on the actors’ outstretched bodies. For the children the blood is real, even if the adults reassure them that it’s ketchup. Don’t you understand that you are making the task more difficult for us to reestablish peace, to save the children, when you mess up your movie screens and TV shows so terribly? When sex, violence, obscenity, power, and pure evil are permitted even for children’s eyes, then the earthlings are really going downhill. To fight is a natural thing for you since the beginning of time … but what about all the rest?

This is a warning cry in the minor key, which in turn is triggered by a look in our earthly binoculars.

Now we are leaving Earth, and I am going to tell you about journeys in other spheres, which at least partially play their notes in major.

 

1. The Lonely Planet

I was sitting in my comfortable house, pondering. I certainly didn’t ponder over Earth, rather the stars. In On Angels’ Wings I could tell a lot about them, that many planets are inhabited and that there are many humanoids in outer space. That’s hard to believe on board planet Earth, isn’t it? To think that people can’t get into their sluggish brains that Earth is one of millions of inhabited planets. Not all of them house humanoids. There are many variations of life. Star Trek and Star Wars are quite passable, even though the romance kindles too much – I think I’ve mentioned that before.

Opposite where I was sitting pondering is a wall where all messages are received. It is our mobile phone, our radio, our TV – in short: our all-in-one. We don’t always have to sit and look at that wall. If it’s something important, the message will instantly arrive as a mental projection in our brains. On this occasion, Zar’s image appeared and he called out to me, “Can you come right away? You are called to the Angels’ School.”

There was nothing to do but to obey. I immediately went to my dear school, where I had spent a timeless time of joyful, exciting, and enriching studies. Zar awaited me in the hall. His snow-white hair flickered a bit when I opened the door. His young face was as open and cheerful as always; he looked like a walking statue of Apollo. The contrast between his white hair and his whole youthful, vigorous character gave a peculiar charm to his apparition.

“We’re going to the observatory!” he said and took my hand. Hardly were his words spoken, when we found ourselves in the middle of the gigantic observatory hall, where ingenious instruments were lined up around the enormous telescope. There was no ceiling; it was completely open. Above us the sky was pitch-black and star-sparkling. I had learned of many stars and planets, but much, much more still remained. Above all, the inhabited celestial bodies were important to keep track of. I sighed. This myriad, this eternal, dizzy star world, how would I be able to learn more about it? As usual, Zar read my thoughts.

“Nobody can,” he said, smiling gently. “I don’t even think the Great Spirit knows the name and the circumstances of it. But you’re here because it’s time to go out on a mission. I will accompany you, because it’s not without dangers. We’re going to the Pleiades, but not the part one usually speaks of. The Pleiades are known as seven stars, but they are many more, and there are small planets behind them that no astronomer has yet found. It’s to such a planet we’re going.”

“Which one?” I asked, of course. It felt good to embark on an adventure again; it was a long time since the last one.

“We call it Cesteion,” answered Zar.

“Is it inhabited?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Yes, you might say so; in any case it will be soon,” Zar replied cryptically. He wrapped his yellow cloak around both of us and then off we went upwards.

“Cestius was plebeian,” I cried in the roaring wind, while I felt solid ground beneath my feet.

“Bravo!” Zar replied, amused. “That’s where the name originates. Cesteion is an outcast planet, a very small ball in the grand play. Despite its exclusion and its position outside the Pleiades, so far out that the nearest Pleiadean star is hardly distinguishable, this little planet struggles for its value in the cosmos. Thus, a true plebeian.”

“I seem to remember,” I continued, as the learned man I thought I was, “that the plebeians in Rome struggled to gain equality with the patricians. Eventually they won it, but they were underestimated by many, who only saw their poverty and low status. The dark crowd, as they were called, wasn’t allowed to wear white togas like the patricians. We call them poor and uneducated, but that wasn’t actually the case.”

“Quite right,” nodded Zar. “Exactly the same thing happens here. Now look around.”

I popped out of his cloak flap and looked properly around. How interesting with a plebeian planet!

However, what I saw could hardly be called plebeian. We stood high up on a cliff and had an incomparable view of the neighborhood. I couldn’t help but compare it with Earth. The cliff wasn’t entirely gray, in places it was shiny black and glistening red and here and there it was covered with the most emerald green moss I’ve ever seen. The cliff descended rather abruptly on our side, and below it was a great waterfall, but when I turned around and took a few steps in the opposite direction I discovered that the river, which the waterfall came from, made a turn in another direction so that it formed a U. On both sides of the U there were settlements. Roofs next to roofs formed a pattern from up here, and it was a beautiful, green-and-copper shimmering pattern. I realized that the red color on the cliff had to do with copper. Zar was standing smiling the whole time, and then he beckoned me to follow him.

“It’s time to have a closer look at the village down there,” he said. “If you look carefully, a narrow path runs over there. Do you want to see if it leads downwards?”

It did. It was cramped and had thin steps carved between small ledges. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for a human to get down from the cliff alive. We floated, of course, as usual, but to float downwards doesn’t feel as comfortable as floating upwards. I concentrated on avoiding stumbling in my long blue garment and Zar laughed at me.

“How much time do you really need to become an angel?” he teased.

At last we were standing at the upper part of the village. The stairs continued all the way down to the water, and the upper section of houses was connected to the lower one with a very primitive bridge of logs, half flooded by the waves of the river.

“Where are the humans?” I asked the question loudly to Zar.

“We have come here to find that out,” he replied, “in case they are humans. We don’t know that either.”

“The houses have to be built by humans,” I protested. “They are simple, but appear to be fully habitable.”

There was a narrow passage between the houses, which stood so close that their roof edges met. Zar chose a house at random – they looked the same, but this one had a green sign on its low door. Nobody opened. Zar took the liberty of opening the door and we looked inside. The only room was empty. There were four long, wooden bunks that presumably were beds, a low table, but no chairs. The inhabitants probably sat on the floor. In the middle of the floor was a fireplace, and a smoke vent, which we hadn’t noticed before, was found in the ceiling.

“Do you think there are humans living here?” I asked.

“I see leftovers on the table, the wood glows at the bottom of the fire, and it smells warm somehow,” replied Zar like the worst Sherlock Holmes.

We looked into more huts, but it was empty everywhere. In many places there were signs that there had been life recently. Where could everyone be?

“We have come here to lay the foundation of a new race,” explained Zar. “After all, somewhere there surely must be someone or some …”

We had come all the way down to the river, at approximately the center of the U. Zar lifted his cloak and tiptoed carefully over the wet, slippery logs. I followed him, while saying a little prayer that I wouldn’t stumble into the water. I had completely forgotten that I was an angel, and I felt only human limitations, until Zar grabbed my arm, pretty roughly.

“We’re going in there!” he whispered, pointing at one of the huts on the other river bank. A narrow streak of smoke rose up from the roof, and a tiny bit of light was seen through the open door. Windows didn’t exist; the huts were completely smooth, built of clay and twigs. We ventured right up to the doorway and stuck in our heads. But we withdrew them just as quickly.

In there, a birth was going on. A being lay on the floor on her own. Her stomach was swollen and her legs were spread. The being whimpered and howled. The woman (in case it was a woman) had a human body, but her skin color was grayish and her head quite large. Her eyes were large and black and right now filled with fear. Not a soul was in her proximity; she seemed totally abandoned. A long drawn-out scream was heard and we looked inside again. The birth was in full swing. Zar entered the hut and stood at the foot end of the woman. He motioned for me to walk to her head end. The pain must have been unbearable, since the poor mother screamed and yelled as the child was pushed out in small, careful twitches. I grabbed the woman’s arms while Zar helped the child leave the secure womb of the mother. Then it was all over.

The mother lay with closed eyes; it seemed as if she was asleep. Zar wrapped the child in a cloth lying on the table. He rubbed it and then motioned for me to come. I didn’t want to leave the woman’s head, she looked so dangerously dead. But when I saw the little boy, I was amazed. It was a completely human, most delightful baby, who welcomed the world with a howl, like most children do. Zar cut the umbilical cord with a knife and then he left the room, while I was standing with the little one in my arms, absolutely not knowing what to do. The mother was some kind of humanoid, quite different from a human. Her nose and mouth were compressed into a nose, and her chin was nonexistent. The baby in my arms was rosy and fair-skinned, and when he opened his little mouth to make an angry cry, I saw a most human little tongue, which resembled a rose-leaf, move in there.

“We have come here to establish a new generation,” I heard Zar’s voice behind me. “I’ve searched everywhere, but there is no life anywhere. The planet might be inhabited in other locations; we have to find that out.”

“The mother seems dead; how will a lonely baby survive here?” I asked, terrified. “Do you think she has … she has been with an ordinary fellow, an earthling? The kid looks like a quite ordinary human baby, perhaps from a southern country, since his hair is so black.”

“Now she wakes up!” Zar remarked calmly. “We’d better materialize ourselves a bit better, so she can see us.” We did, and it resulted in yet another violent cry.

Zar smiled kindly and laid the baby next to her. She stared at us with her huge dark eyes. Her mouth/nose was half open and she breathed heavily. Zar tried to talk to her in different languages that I didn’t understand. I had had other things to do than to engage in language studies. The woman stared uncomprehendingly at Zar. Then after a long while came a cooing sound that perhaps was a laugh.

“Finally she understands what I’m saying,” said Zar. “It was the eleventh or twelfth language I tried that made her listen. I don’t think it’s exactly her language, but at least it resembles it. Now we need to find out what has happened.”

I observed Zar’s face while he conversed with the woman. The sound was guttural and was accompanied all along by gestures. The child lay at the mother’s breast and imbibed his first meal. Everything was all right now, and I wondered why in heaven’s name we would be here? What kind of task was this? But Zar turned around and looked at me. His countenance showed that my thoughts were wrong.

“Jan,” he suddenly cried, “now I’ve got to know why it is deserted here and why the woman has given birth to a baby of earthly breed in the midst of the outskirts of the Pleiades.”

“It might be interesting,” I replied a bit sarcastically, “to stay in an earthen hut in a deserted village without understanding why and how come. What is my role in all this? You’re nosing around here and there, you can even speak their language.”

“This woman and the baby are the only living humanoids on this planet,” he told me. “All humans – for that is what they are – have been eaten up by dinosaurs. At least, it sounds as if she was talking about these ancient giant animals. She managed to escape into this hut and has lived here in fear the last month of her pregnancy. A few days ago she heard a number of terrible crashes and assumed it was a natural disaster approaching. She hasn’t ventured out of the hut.”

“We were lucky to avoid the dinosaurs,” I muttered. “But how can the child be so different from the mother?”

“She claims that nine months ago, before the dinosaurs had found this side of the planet, a stranger arrived at this village. He looked like us, she says. He was tall, brown haired, and handsome, and he gathered the inhabitants of the village around himself and warned them of the upcoming disaster. He spoke their language. All agreed that he was a god, especially when they witnessed his departure. He chose this very woman and cast his seed into her. Thereafter, he called on a craft that fetched him. I know who he was, but that’s another story. Now we must explore the rest of this planet.”

“Are you crazy?” I exclaimed, terrified. “Are we voluntarily going to expose ourselves to man-eating dinosaurs?”

“We are not of flesh and blood,” Zar answered patiently. “Stop seeing yourself as an earthling. Now you’re actually a kind of extraterrestrial! The dinosaurs can’t do us any harm. I’m going to precipitate a craft for us. I believe something has happened on this planet to make it so devoid of organic life, but I might be wrong. That’s what we are going to find out.”

“And leave this poor woman to starve to death with her kid?” I asked angrily.

“By no means!” laughed Zar, and he made some gestures over the table top. There were now a large bowl of fruits and vegetables, a cheese plate, and a pitcher of milk. Next to the woman stood a pail of water, and on the floor lay clean pieces of cloth to wrap the baby in. Zar winked at me and then we hurried out of the hut.

Our craft swept along at low altitude above the beautiful, but a bit gloomy, landscape. There were mountains, forests, lakes, rivers, and smaller deserts, but no oceans. Everywhere the traces of the dinosaurs were seen, in the form of overturned trees, huge footprints on the shores, and the occasional gigantic carrion.

The farther away we got from the woman with the newborn child, the more desolate it became. It seemed as if her particular side of the planet was the most habitable and as if there had been an earthquake or some other major disaster, which had opened large cracks in the mountains. In several places rocks were still falling from the cliffs, and the river, which we could follow from the original U, had in some places flooded rather exhaustively. Waterfalls plunged down into a furious fizz, and here and there we saw traces of settlements half-buried or overthrown. The farther away we got, the more dead dinosaurs we discovered. It didn’t seem as if they had survived, not a single one of them.

“A meteor may have been rushing by and perhaps only needed to graze this planet in order for these disasters to occur,” sighed Zar. “It will take thousands of years to get it properly fixed!”

“Who is going to fix it?” I asked snappishly, because counting in thousands of years wasn’t really my cup of tea. But Zar didn’t respond. He had spotted something. High up on a mountain, at the brink of a deep crevice, a small figure was moving. We lowered our speed and descended to such a low altitude that we could land. There was a small plateau behind the figure, and soon we were standing on solid ground and were able to step out of the craft. The scenery wasn’t beautiful here. Broken mountains, landslides, and floods were the only things we saw. The figure on the mountain was a man. He was holding an infant in his arms.

“It is teeming with kids here,” I hissed at Zar, who impatiently waved off my silly remark. Perhaps it wasn’t that unjustified after all.

When the man caught sight of us he almost lost the baby in amazement. Then tears came to his eyes, and when Zar began talking to him he answered eagerly and happily. Of course, I understood nothing. The man beckoned us to follow him, and he led us to a cave in a nearby mountain. Between ten and fifteen children were sitting huddled there. The man was their teacher, and he had hidden them and himself when the great quake came.

The man was called Porrn (the R’s were pronounced with a hissing sound). His appearance differed very little from the woman we had first met. The children had similar compressed noses and mouths; they appeared to be both boys and girls of different ages. There were no more adults. Porrn had searched everywhere where it was possible to get around. No cries for help had been heard. They had believed that they were alone, thrown out into a new and frightening world. The children had been sitting in the cave for at least a week, and the older ones had been taking care of the younger ones when Porrn left them to search for survivors. Was there any help available?

Zar sent for reinforcements from the space fleet. When the crafts sailed in after a few minutes of waiting, Porrn didn’t believe his eyes. Soon both he and the children were loaded into the crafts, to be shipped to the part of the planet where the woman with the newborn child lived. Many well-preserved houses were there, and Nature wasn’t damaged by the disaster.

“Let’s take a ride to see if we can find more life,” decided Zar, and so we were soon up in the air again. We watched out for dinosaurs, because they were as dangerous as natural disasters, but we couldn’t see any. We passed a jungle area that also had survived from overly severe damages. There we saw several birds and some small mammals resembling monkeys. To my great surprise, Zar talked with them, too. What he told them I don’t know, but it resulted in the birds taking off in the direction Zar showed them, and inside the cabin of our craft there was a dreadful wildlife. We took care of five monkeys – two adult couples and a kid. They chattered and bustled about, as they certainly had never traveled by spaceship before.

We encountered a desolate landscape that seemed scary. It was in some places shrouded in snow, in other places only sand. There was no vegetation at all. I thought it felt very depressing.

“Aren’t we going home soon?” I asked, but Zar just laughed and shook his head.

“We must return to the newborn child,” he said. “You and I are here to found a new race and the regrowth of an entire planet; I’ve already told you.”

“Surely we can’t do magic, you know,” I objected, a bit sour.

“What have you learned over these years?” Zar asked sternly. “Do you remember when you and Henry had learned to precipitate and produced an awful cake castle? It was at play, wasn’t it?”

I laughed. Henry was a friend from the Angels’ School, and we had been up to some stupid prank, despite the angels we were. Surely I remembered his abominable palace that was a forbidden toy for angelic students thirsting for knowledge.

“To be sure, you know that I can precipitate,” continued Zar. “That’s why I was sent with you, in case your desire of creation would manifest in far too extravagant expressions! Here we must strictly abide by the original method: We can anticipate an interesting development, but yet it finds itself in its initial stage. The newborn child, begotten by an angel, is the helper and the leader who this people needs in order to get their planet back on its feet. It was a blessing that we found all the children; I hadn’t counted on that. Now everything will occur at a faster pace.”

We had reached the small village on the mountain slope and in the valley. The teacher and his school class were already there.

“You’re not afraid of more dinosaurs, are you?” I asked. “We believe they all have died.” Zar translated for me.

“The fear of dinosaurs was quite exaggerated,” explained Porrn. “Certainly they existed and certainly they ate humans if they had the chance, but there weren’t as many as people believed. It was possible to protect yourself against them. There was only one variety, and they kept together at a particular location on the planet. Occasionally it happened that one or several of them went hunting. That was when it was hazardous to be out at night, because they only attacked during nighttime. I saw from the craft that there was a big hole left at the location where they had lived. All of them are certainly gone. But we had enemies, too. There were often battles between the dark people and us. We don’t really understand why and it was always we who were attacked. Then we, of course, had to defend ourselves. Surely they are also gone; they lived in the inaccessible mountainous areas where the disaster occurred.”

Inside, with the recently-become mother, it was quite homey. She had apparently recovered and sat surrounded by adoring children and fed her son. The table was weighed down with food, so that all the newcomers had a good meal. Of course, Zar had arranged it. The fire in the middle of the earthen floor crackled and sparked and sent its beautiful light on all the happy faces.

Zar spoke to them. I later found out what he said. He commanded Porrn to take the baby’s mother as his wife and together with her ensure that the village became populated again, when the children had reached the appropriate ages. The baby would be a good leader, and one of his offspring would in future generations inherit his abilities. Thereafter, Zar named the little one Cestius, after the earthly plebeian leader. It was time for Cesteion to evolve into a thriving planet, with a population that lived in symbiosis with Nature.

While Zar talked, I sneaked out to our craft. I remembered the little monkeys. When I let them out of the cabin they chattered happily, and one of them came up to me, smacking his lips. I realized that they were hungry. Now I also had to precipitate. What do monkeys eat? Bananas, apples, pears, grapes, and other fruits, whispered a not entirely unknown voice in my ear. It was Shala’s voice. She wasn’t here, but apparently she had followed our journey from the observatory in the Angels’ School. I pondered for a moment, and then I found out how to do it.

When the monkeys got to see all the fruits materialize in front of their feet, they took as much as they could in their arms and hurried to climb up on the rooftops. It was an amusing sight, especially for the children who came gamboling from several directions and, wide-eyed, admired the munching little animals. They would certainly be good friends, I thought. Then came Zar.

“Now let’s go home,” he said. A couple of hours ago those words would have sounded like music to my ears, but now I was beginning to enjoy this planet. Zar certainly saw what was going on in my brain. He took my arm and gave me a friendly shove towards the craft.

“We have established a new human tribe that will populate this planet,” he said, smiling gently. “Our mission here is accomplished.”

“I can’t understand; what was I supposed to do here?” I hissed sulkily when we boarded the craft. “To be sure, you did everything.”

“Jan, you have to understand that you are still learning, and this was a lesson in how to found a society based on love and cooperation. Porrn is a good fellow; he is getting away with this task. You were certainly mostly spectator, but sometimes that is more beneficial than being a participant. There are always possibilities for a restart for all planets, but not all of them get the help they need.”

“I have a feeling that there’s something fishy about the whole thing,” I muttered, and peered at Zar’s beautiful profile, where he sat at the flight controls. “Has it something to do with Earth?”

“We hope not,” replied Zar. “But if the worst would happen, you can help out, thanks to your newly acquired experiences. The Earth is not bigger than Cesteion, but it contains more evil than this planet has ever experienced. Surely there was evil on Cesteion too, but not in the same way, not so highly developed. Fortunately, the evil ones were wiped out on Cesteion, and we hope that the good triumphs and thrives there now. We don’t know the children, but we know that children imitate the adults. There are only two adults now, and they are good people, both of them. Already in ten Earth years we will travel here again and find out what has happened.”

We had risen above the village, and Zar let the craft circle a little before we took off. It wasn’t far to the ground. Suddenly we got to see about a dozen beings rush out of the forest that lay beyond the lower village. They were equipped with bows and arrows, and they rushed towards the village. Zar flew back to the landing site and landed. We had thought that we left a peaceful village without any enemies, without any other life than what existed there now.

The children who played with the monkeys were the first to detect the intruders. They ran screaming into the house. The unfamiliar beings discovered us and came running towards us with raised bows. They didn’t know that we were a bit difficult to catch, I thought contentedly. I wondered what Zar was going to do. He stood perfectly still by my side, and the arrows that hailed towards us didn’t affect us. Zar raised his hand and called something to the beings. They weren’t really of the same kind as the others. These beings were in reality more humanlike, except that their faces were wide, their foreheads very high, and their eyes deeply sunken, below bushy eyebrows. Their skin color was very dark. Other tribes obviously remained on the planet, even though we hadn’t seen a shred of life as we circled above it.

When they noticed that the arrows didn’t cause us any harm, they fell on their knees and began to sing. I thought it was a strange reaction.

“It was interesting that there are several tribes,” whispered Zar. “They probably think that we are gods, and it’s better that way.”

The leader of the unfamiliar tribe came gently up to us when Zar beckoned him. The warriors had stopped singing and stood still, observing us. Zar afterwards told me about their conversation. Since time immemorial, the black people and the others had been enemies. The cause lay far back in time, when a black woman married one of the others. The black people had been considered at a disadvantage, at least they had felt so. You see, the black woman had died in childbirth very soon after the wedding, and the baby also died. The black people considered this to be an accidental sign. Thereafter came the suspicions that were followed by hostility. The woman in confinement, called Baila, and Porrn called themselves Cesteians, but the other group had no other name than the Black People.

Zar had spoken with the black leader about love. He had explained that as the situation seemed right now, there were no other humans on Cesteion. If any more had managed to hide in some crevice, it would sure enough be noticed eventually. To be sure, nobody wants to starve to death. Love between the two tribes was necessary for the build-up of the planet. Zar assured that Porrn and Baila were friendly tuned and that they wished to live together with the Black People.

The conversation’s result was that the ten warriors debated with each other for a moment, and thereafter five women were fetched who had survived together with them and who had been hiding in the forest. There were plenty of dwellings for all of them. Porrn and Baila, with the baby in her arms, ventured out of their house, and Zar and I got to see a moving scene of reconciliation. The Black People were singing again. Apparently it was their way of expressing feelings – not the worst, right?

Now we could finally leave the planet Cesteion and hope that light and dark were blended, not just on the surface, but also in the hearts of the humans.

I sensed why we had been there. I took it as a warning signal to Earth.

 

2. New Time Journey on Angels’ Wings

I wanted to begin by telling about the trip to Cesteion, because in some way it was the introduction to a whole variety of other events. I must say a few words about time, so that you will understand me better. The concept of time was invented by humans, because in reality everything exists simultaneously. You surely must have heard that before, right? It doesn’t get into far too narrow heads, because it’s so tricky that the wrinkles slide in the forehead. Time doesn’t exist, you can do time travel, and it is technically possible to bend time so that changes in the cosmic system can be achieved. You wouldn’t have guessed that, would you? It’s a cannonade of contradictions, isn’t it?

You are accustomed to look at the clock and to conform to it completely. I reacted exactly the same way when I got here. I stared constantly at my watch that I didn’t have and I looked for wall clocks everywhere. But once I got it all explained by Zar and Shala, it wasn’t that difficult to comprehend. I had to get out of the habit of time.

We are occupied a lot with time traveling here; it’s going like clockwork. On Earth you look differently on time travels, but let us assume that these would be discovered by your scientists now. How would the world view this? Of course, the first question would be: How are we going to avail ourselves of such travels? Not avail ourselves in the best way, but how are we going to take advantage of them? Can you make money on time travels?

From here we make journeys in time, both in crafts and without. One single person doesn’t need a craft, he only uses the power of thought, but if you are several people it is most convenient to make the journey in a craft. There is a hangar adjacent to the observatory in the Angels’ School. From there, many trips depart. I told you about many of my excursions in On Angels’ Wings. But before I venture out on the next one I want to come up with yet another explanation.

Time here and on Earth must be calculated in completely different ways. Ten years can pass with you, while a second passes here – or why not ten seconds? When we visit a planet such as Earth, we have to be familiar with your chronology. This also applies to Cesteion, which has a similar time system to Earth. I said that time doesn’t exist for us, but for you it’s different. We have special meters – watches if you like – indicating the time differences on different planets. They are adjustable to more or less any time you like, and they calculate astronomical numbers in order to come up with that particular planet’s or star’s way of calculating time. There are major differences, depending on the number of suns, the positions of the stars, etc. We have to start from such calculations when you, dear readers, follow me on my journeys and visits to the most diverse environments and ages – some in completely different worlds, far beyond our own universe.

Again I was called to a meeting in the Angels’ School. On my way there I suddenly felt a presence next to me … Sure, it was Shala. She giggled when she saw that I got surprised, then as usual she put her little hand in mine.

“Now it’s my turn to go out on a mission with you.” She smiled so that the deep dimples in her cheeks became visible.

“To Earth?” I wondered, intently and hopefully. She shook her head.

“Jan, you’ve got to partly keep your memory of your last earthly life,” she pointed out. “Firstly, you have constant contact with your writing medium and have to be aware of her work, and events and news in the world. Additionally, you must also remember certain things in order to depict others. But our mission doesn’t deal with Earth.”

It was obvious that I wouldn’t get to know more. In the Angels’ School were several meeting rooms, and you were always called there when a new program was to be prepared. Shala brought me to a gathering room that I had never been in before. It was a spacious, beautiful room, decorated in green and gold. A low round table was placed in the middle, and around it were low sofas in a circle, upholstered with a gold-glittering green fabric. I was asked to sit down and wait. Zar was there, but after a short while the one I least of all expected arrived: The Master Melchizedek. He came up to me smiling and grabbed both of my hands.

“My dear Jan!” he exclaimed, and I shivered inside with joy at the word “dear.” What an honor! Of course, it was wrong to think in that way, but Melchizedek was high on my admiration list.

“It’s time for you to not only visit unknown planets or parts of our infinite beingness. You will travel into what one might call the future. You have much to learn there. Shala will be your traveling companion, but I won’t participate in that journey myself. It will be a mystical journey across all boundaries – I mean technically feasible boundaries, seen from a human perspective. Now you have to throw off all your prejudices and put on a shimmering garment, which brings you into something that you in your wildest dreams could never have imagined.”

My goodness, I thought, as usual the contemplative Janne. Would I be herded into new worlds and states that the humans of Earth might not understand? As you know, I’m telling this to an earthly woman, doesn’t it have to be limited, then? Those who are walking around down there on their more or less sturdy legs surely don’t crave an entirely unphysical circumnavigation, do they? Would I become a new Captain Nemo or Flying Dutchman? The cosmos is so infinitely great that just the idea of its size may frighten the life out of a poor human.

“Partly you are not a human anymore, partly it isn’t for the purpose of frightening that you and Shala are going out on this tour. It is a lesson about what the cosmos really is,” assured Melchizedek, “or the original cosmology, if you think that sounds better. We are just soldiers in an army of beings that can’t be compared with anything else you can imagine. We feel equally subordinate to them as humans feel subordinate to us or Christ or God.”

“What are you saying!” I exclaimed, terrified. “Now you really cut it fine. We teach our children reverence before the Highest. What more can you teach us angels?”

“Reverence before the Creation as it really is. Reverence before the ingenious Force that you will get to know. I can’t say more than that. We’ll meet again at the end of your journey.”

“Are we going to fly with a craft?” I wondered.

“I know a better means of transportation!” Melchizedek smiled gently, and at the same moment Jolith appeared. It was a joy of reunion. A journey without luggage can’t be done better than on a pair of angel wings. Shala and I crawled up on Jolith’s unfolded, downy, lovely wings. When you aren’t of flesh and blood you don’t slide that easily, so I followed Shala’s example, I laid down on my back and stretched out my legs in the eiderdown. It was a royal feeling.

I had no idea that this would be the greatest adventure of all: a dizzying journey through the worlds of the worlds, the philosopher’s stone, the absolute of the absolute. I didn’t anticipate that the solution of all riddles was out there in the cosmos and that it would be revealed to us in its incredible, marvelous beauty. The future of Earth was lying in my hands to convey to the humans of the present day – and I didn’t grasp it yet.

Where we lay with our hands under our heads and our feet in the down, we only saw the firmament. We saw stars and planets shine with different strengths, we saw comets and shooting stars, and a cacophony of sound was heard all the time. We had seen this before. We felt really blasé. To travel in the Milky Way – or wherever we found ourselves – was nothing new. But Jolith turned her head and smiled:

“This is just the beginning,” she said. “We will soon enter into other universes.”

“How many universes are there?” I asked anxiously. It seemed like we had ventured into an endless undertaking.

“I can answer that,” twittered Shala. “A great many! So there! But we have a definite goal: it is the Central Universe that lies in the middle, surrounded by seven so-called Super Universes, which contains many galaxies and planets (see picture on page 43). It is everything’s beginning and everything’s end.”

I yawned. All this astronomical information was tiring. Not that you became wiser from it, either. I’d better take a nap while lying this comfortably, I thought, and the nap turned up instantly.

I woke up with a start. It was a terrible start; the whole me jumped high, rolled over, and fell hard. Jolith helped me up and, confused, I opened my eyes. My long legs shook after the thud and I looked around in amazement. We were no longer out in space. We stood on solid ground in a lush green meadow, which indeed reminded me of earthly ground. A moderately cool breeze stroked my cheeks, the sky was beautifully blue without any clouds, but some strange celestial bodies moved up there. They shone and glistened and they seemed pretty close.

“What an anticlimax!” I exclaimed. “To turn a somersault on good old Earth! Now you really have pulled my leg, girls! Admittedly, I don’t recognize those objects in the sky over there, but they are of course UFOs! Judging by the green grass and the small flowers of different colors, we are somewhere in the Nordic region and it’s summer.”

Shala laughed until she choked. Jolith put her arm around my shoulder. She had shrunk to normal angelic size and she looked deep into my eyes.

“I have brought you to meadows before, Janne!” She smiled gently. “But no meadow has been like this one, this I promise you!”

I swung around and looked in all directions. I only saw the meadow; it was without beginning and without end. Not a tree was seen, no mountains, no water, only the green, green meadow. But suddenly there was a rapid flash of light and I heard music. Shala took one of my hands, Jolith the other. It was like at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, when a backdrop was lowered from the machinery upstairs. I thought of the Pilgrim’s Chorus from Tannhäuser. That was one of my absolute favorites. When the tones began to wash over us I tried to give them names, but they were nameless and indescribable. They increased in intensity, and at the same time the radiant phenomenon was brought down. It was a portal, a golden portal, a portal of golden rays, of light, of light rays … I knelt in humble awe.

“We’re going through the portal,” whispered Shala in my ear. “Stand up and come with me.”

“You will not see me until the return trip,” said Jolith and hugged us both. “Then we’ll meet here again, at the radiant portal.”

Hey presto, and she had disappeared: She rose up into the air and then she was just gone. I stroked my forehead. Time of wonders apparently existed here too, and we would step into it! But Shala impatiently pulled my hand, and so we slid through the amazing light of the portal. It was like dying once again, I thought.

Inside the Portal in the Super Universe

When my eyes had gotten used to the bright light, I was able to discern both Shala and the scenery around me. We were no longer in a green meadow. We were standing in a square – but what a square! The buildings around the square were shining in pure, clear, bright colors, and they resembled no buildings I’d seen before. There were humans all around us – yes, I couldn’t see anything except that they were ordinary, decent humans. They were dressed differently than what I remembered from my last Earth trip.

“Humans?” I breathed in Shala’s rosy ear.

“What else do you think? Did you expect monsters?” she whispered teasingly back.

The humans were dressed very casually. Some wore long garments, some short. The colors were bright and cheerful and with many beautiful patterns. Their skin color and hair color varied, but all were, at least at a hasty glance, beautiful. They seemed happy and friendly. They nodded and smiled at us all the time.

“Welcome to the future!” said a voice behind us. I turned around. A man in a pale blue-green cloak was standing behind us. His hair and his beard reached down to the ground and were snow white. His face was younger than what you might think and his deep blue eyes seemed to be able to see at any distance. He embraced Shala as if they were old friends and reached out his hand to me.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Jan,” he said. “Now it’s time that we get to know each other and for you to get the opportunity to wander and study in the Kingdom of the Central Race. There is plenty to see and ponder upon here. The Central Race has existed longer than man, and what is more, we created the humans.”

“I thought that God created man,” I dared to object. The man nodded and smiled.

“Sure, Jan, certainly he had a finger in the pie. But we are not going to talk so much about creation as of the kingdom that you find yourself in right now – the Kingdom of the Central Race.”

“Never heard of it,” I muttered, but followed kindly on the heels of the man and Shala, who went a step ahead in eager conversation. I didn’t understand where I was and neither what we were doing in a country which resembled Earth so very much. But I was soon to see where the similarity ended.

So far we walked on streets. Not cobblestone, but smooth as asphalt, and much brighter in color. We could just as well walk in the middle of the street; there were no sidewalks, but neither any traffic. No matter how hard I tried to catch up with Shala and the white-haired man, I didn’t succeed. All the time they were several steps ahead of me. I cheered and cried, but they didn’t seem to hear me. I still have long legs, so I started running. Still, I didn’t manage to catch up with them. I suppressed my desire to say an ugly word – angels don’t do that – and instead I slowed down. Surely I could go exploring by my own steam? But no, that wasn’t possible either. The two up front immediately slowed down and so it came about that the distance between us was the same all along. Then things started spinning. Suddenly I felt Shala’s hand in mine again, and on the other side a larger hand. We were spun around in a spiral and were sucked into something … I don’t know how or what, because when I woke up to my senses we weren’t in the city anymore. I supported myself on the arm of the white-haired man, and Shala’s sparkling laughter was the signal for awakening. What an awakening!

The air around us was dense and at the same time transparent. It shone in various shades of yellow, pink, red, and more colors that are difficult to describe in human words. There was a motion in the air that resembled energy waves, shimmering, shining constantly in a certain, steady rhythm. It seemed as if these energy waves produced sound, since mighty tones sounded as from the innermost of a dome. The tones filled our breasts so that our breathing deepened and followed the lovely, unfamiliar rhythm. Our companion put one arm around Shala’s shoulders and the other around mine. A wondrous heat spread within me and the whole time I felt how I was growing – not physically, but it was my consciousness that was growing.

“It is necessary that you grow in here,” the man whispered wordlessly. “I, Oshio, feel the same way as you, even though I’ve been in here several times. Look around you some more!”

I wasn’t slow to follow his exhortation. My head was clear as crystal and I felt myself being opened in the same way as a flower bud opens in the sunshine, after the damp caress of the dew. I paid attention to something that I hadn’t recognized before. An enormously great object rested as in a lap of soft, pale rose-colored cloudlike wads. The object was deep red, and currents were flowing through it that seemed to match with the rhythm of the music. I was flashed through by a trembling and I felt that Shala reacted in the same way. Oshio’s hands pressed our shoulders reassuringly.

“You are in the Heart of God,” he whispered, barely audible. “The heart of the Great Spirit sings for you. Few beings have access to this sacred place. Let us be embraced by the healing tones from the Center of all life.”

We stood like that, motionless and with heads uplifted towards the ceiling in a living cathedral. That is, there was no ceiling. Above the heart-point where we stood only flowing energies were seen that whirled around and back and forth in the never-ending breathing music. I don’t know how long we stood, captured in the magnificent turbulences of non-time. Eventually, we were transferred again into a spinning spiral.

When I woke up to my senses, we found ourselves in a tunnel with steps that ascended, and Oshio climbed first, thereafter came Shala, and I was behind as usual.

“Are we still inside … inside … Him?” I panted. Shala turned around and smiled, mildly indulgent.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, Jan,” she replied. “It was the proof of an existence that creates worlds in its own image. If you ever have doubted, you are not doing it now.”

“Are you allowed to see the Creator as a whole?” I dared to ask. This time Oshio responded.

“In the Wholeness, you mean? It is the Wholeness that is revealed to you through millions of creations. It has only been words to you before, perhaps divine wisdom – now you are supposed to understand reality, that reality which lovingly builds the parts.”

We came up on a giant platform and could take a breather after the arduous stairs. In the middle of it was a huge table, and on that table lay something that I realized represented a map. The table was about 25 feet (8 meters) long and equally wide, thus a gigantic square. Every corner was supported by an enormous pillar, of which the uppermost part was a sculpture. One part was a human head, another part was a lion’s head, the third part a large lotus flower, and the fourth an enormous, beautifully-shaped crystal. Thus the four kingdoms prevailed even here, I thought. The map, which was oval in shape, was in sparkling colors and seemed to be alive – or made a vivid impression. The colors pulsated, but each line was as clear as if it was etched.

“Here you have a map of our eight universes,” explained Oshio (see picture on page 43). “Right now you find yourselves in the Central Universe, and around it float seven other so-called Super Universes. The Central Universe is stationary and eternal, while the other seven are created by time and rotate counterclockwise around the Central Universe. Around these seven Super Universes exists an outer space that is unphysical and which constitutes the possibility for them to expand. It is a space that is a void. You will visit one of the Super Universes with one of my friends, and I promise you, Jan, it will be a fantastic adventure.”

“The cornerstones of this table,” he continued, “represent the four kingdoms even here: the Mineral Kingdom, the Plant Kingdom, the Animal Kingdom, and the Human Kingdom. They are the foundations of Creation. Everywhere you encounter these kingdoms and the four elements – earth, fire, water, and air. The latter are more extensible, as we enter into various forms of ethereal and solid elements as yet unknown on Earth.”

“Physics was never my cup of tea,” I muttered. “That sounds complicated.”

“That’s exactly why you’ll get to experience it,” said a deep voice behind me. I turned around. A man in a violet cloak smiled gently at me. He had black, slightly grizzled hair and clear, dark-blue eyes. His face was quite broad, with high cheekbones, a straight, wide nose, and a beautifully-shaped mouth.

“My name is Maorion,” he continued, “and it is I who will be your guide on the different planets …”

“Sorry,” I interrupted, “your name is reminiscent of an ancient culture on Earth: the Maori.”

“That’s right,” replied Maorion. “That culture, together with a few others, is ancient. We who were involved in instituting them thousands and thousands of years ago have also retained the names of our creations. Some of them have moved to some of the universes you can see here on the map. Thus they are still unknown or forgotten on Earth. Cultures come and go, but some are too good to be allowed to completely disappear. Those we make use of, with the help of the Creator. There is always room for good and evolvable energies around here somewhere.”

“As we know, the Maori still exist on Earth,” I objected. “Will they come here if they become extinct on Earth?”

“Sure,” replied Maorion. “I thought you should meet some of the cultural creators in a while; they can tell you interesting things. Now you’ll continue your journey.”

He spread his cloak around Shala and me, and at a stroke, the beautiful room with the chart table was gone. Oshio had also disappeared, and I was sorry that I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to say goodbye to him. The air was empty again – the void was full, I thought cryptically. But if you travel under the sign of mystery, you begin to think strange things. The tiny grain of sand in the universe that I am blew off to the next adventure.

 

3. The Planet of the Mayas

I don’t know in what order our new friend Maorion chose our visits on the planets in any of the seven universes. They are presumably equivalent, I thought, and only the Central Universe, where the Creator resides, is above the others in rank. Now suppose there was a hierarchy in this construction, I thought further, in the empty air that soon wasn’t empty anymore.

We had “flown” in gliding flight in Maorion’s cloak and the haze that constantly obscured our view was torn apart by an invisible wind that exposed a landscape below us. Slowly we glided down towards the high mountains and the fiery green plateaus that actually looked almost earthly. Small blue and green lakes shone like jewels in the landscape below the mountains. There were many lakes, and they appeared to be very small. I would rather like to call them ponds. Some of them steamed, and I understood that they were hot springs, as in Iceland and New Zealand.

We landed on the green velvet blanket on a plateau. When the mists dissipated even more, I discovered that there was a city below us. City or village – it doesn’t matter, I thought, because it resembled neither. The settlement was crossed in several places by streams, which flowed like shimmering silver strips in a seemingly unplanned pattern. It seemed as if the houses had been built between the waterways, and spider-thin bridges hung like peculiar jewelry everywhere. I had never seen so many bridges before. One might liken all of it to a giant spider web, where the buildings were the victims and the bridges and streams constituted the very web.

“You can interpret all the bridges as a pattern for how the wholeness is tied together,” said Maorion, who probably had listened to my thoughts. “Nothing that you find in any of these seven universes lacks significance. Everything is connected, in order to prove the interconnectedness of all living things.”

“Bridges are not alive, and these look so fragile that they may break at any time,” I dared to object. Maorion looked at me with his head slightly tilted and with a humorous twinkle in his deep blue eyes.

“How long have you lived in the Angelic Realm?” he asked. “Everything here is alive. Do you remember the four legs that supported the chart table? The lesser parts form or join the greater parts. Has nobody told you that minerals have souls like plants, animals, and humans? The silver bridges that you see everywhere down there live as fully as the humans who walk on them. The bridges serve the humans, but the humans, who do they serve?”

“God,” I suggested. “The Great Spirit or Creator who we just visited. He rules over all things in worlds without limit, right?”

“Rules!” Maorion exclaimed and threw his arms about. “You are using the wrong words, words that have to do with power and governments. The Creator is no ruler, he is a creator. That’s quite another thing. The silver bridges serve humans in the way that they help them to cross the water. It is easier with bridges than with boats, even though boats are used here also in quite a few places.”

“Living boats?” I asked sarcastically. But the irony didn’t work on Maorion.

“That’s exactly what they are,” he replied seriously. “Boats that are built with insight become a type of living being. Insight flows through everything on this planet. A deeper insight than the humans of Earth imagine, because no one has taught you that it exists. Insight is wisdom from the individual’s own inner space. It is innate wisdom that exists in every DNA pattern, but which is ignored and rarely utilized.”

“Maybe because no one knows about it,” I put in. “Enlightenment is needed on Earth.”

“One must know how to open it; you must have a key,” Maorion explained and began to climb down the mountain. “The chromosomes have their own voice. Follow me and you will meet the elders who are young!” He began to whistle, and I couldn’t ask any more questions. Chatting chromosomes, I suppose! I hid a faint smile in my hand. It was probably inappropriate to laugh and it was tricky enough to walk on the rough surface of the mountain, which fell away rather abruptly without any holes or bumps to get a foothold on.

“Don’t walk as an earthling!” giggled Shala. “You can float just as well as we can, but you seem to stumble around in your own thoughts! Just wait, and you will get proof that Maorion is not talking through his hat!”

The fact of the matter was that I didn’t feel extraterrestrial here at all. I actually had fallen back into the role of the earthly Janne. Maybe that was due to the fact that everything here was so different, so unearthly beautiful and remarkable, and yet it reminded me of our beloved Earth in a way that I in reality didn’t understand. It was as if everything was vibrating. The houses were vibrating, the streets were vibrating, the bridges were vibrating … It was a vibration that existed in the air but which wasn’t disturbing, just soothing and comfortable. Somehow the vibration fell into one’s own rhythm. I felt the same way a physical human being feels when she is just so incredibly happy. When you experience something positive very strongly, it somehow catches hold of you and you start to vibrate, don’t you, dear readers? To be able to walk around in this euphoria all the time was truly a gift of God.

“It’s not a gift of God, it’s your DNA and your cells that find communion with all other DNA around here,” Maorion said in a friendly way. “Do you know that you have closed your eyes the whole time? It’s time to look up now!”

We were standing on a street, or perhaps one might call it an avenue. There were buildings in the shape of pyramids, and others were square or round. Lush vegetation surrounded us, both in the middle of the street and on the sides. There were flowers, bushes, and trees everywhere. Here and there it gave the impression of a jungle, but I saw neither wild animals nor other dangers. The street – or whatever you might call it – ran like a wide silver river straight through the splendid vegetation. One could catch a glimpse of the gable of a house or any other part of a house that flashed inside the “jungle.” I saw humans hurrying back and forth, all with determined expressions on their faces. Their skin was light brown and their hair color varied, but they gave the impression of being Native Americans.

“Some kind of Native Americans?” I wondered.

“Yes, here you have the original planet of the Mayas,” Maorion said, smiling gently. “From here they originated and here they have returned after having left their cultural heritage on Earth. Come, you’ll see!”

It wasn’t long before the street opened out to a circular place. In the middle was a giant stele, full of carved signs and figures. A fence ran around it, that was made of stone and quite low. It was no ordinary fence, but low, sculptured human figures that probably represented persons from the history of the Mayan kingdom. A towering temple rose in the background. It was of pyramidal shape, built in steps, and the material appeared to be of silver. In any case, it glistened so that it hurt my eyes. I was completely blinded.

“Welcome to the Mayas’ culture of origin!” exclaimed a voice in my ear, and when I rubbed my eyes I saw a man and a woman standing in front of me. At some point in my earthly life I probably saw pictures of the Mayas, but these persons didn’t resemble anything that I could recollect. They were two brilliant, beautiful beings. Certainly they were humans in their whole appearance and behavior, but still I thought they seemed godlike. Both of them smiled very kindly, and it was the man who had spoken. He was wearing a bright, long cloak that hung loose and exposed a gold knit sweater and a knee-length skirt – no let’s call it a kilt, that’s more like it. His headgear was decorated with embroidery of gold thread and gemstones. The woman wore a long, pale-green dress with a beautifully embroidered belt. At the bottom on the hem was a multi-colored pearl border. She was bareheaded and had long, black hair that shifted into red. The most remarkable thing of all was their teeth. When they smiled, an even white row of teeth occupied with gemstones was exposed! Every tooth had a gemstone applied on its smooth surface. Indeed, their mouths literally sparkled!

“You may have thought that we were more like the earthly Mayas?” The man laughed and took me kindly under my arm. “They degenerated when they settled down on your beautiful Earth. The memories of the Mayas are filled with horror stories of murder, torture, and human sacrifice. So it became eventually, but it was by no means like that from the beginning. Follow us into the temple and you will see.”

Outside the silver shimmering temple ran a long staircase with landings. When I looked at Maorion he winked at me, and Shala giggled slightly in her usual manner.

I really wondered how the temple would look like inside, and the way up was quite long and tedious, at least for those who couldn’t float. But I floated, of course.

The building was probably the very archetype of the Mayas’ stepshaped pyramid temples. I sighed blissfully at the thought of how privileged I was to see this. At the top were two floors. The lowermost had a magnificent gate, framed by exquisite sculptured ornaments. The uppermost entrance gate, at the very top, looked almost ethereal and was embedded in a luxuriant framework of climbing plants. What existed underneath them was hard to discern, but it glistened and glittered, so it was probably something fancy. Our gold-shimmering guide pressed at some place on the lowermost gate so that it went up. We followed him inside.

This really doesn’t look like a church, I thought, and looked around, astonished. I had expected that there would be altars and benches, but I just saw the most beautiful paintings from floor to ceiling, and along the walls ran a long row of comfortable sofas. In the center, on a small podium, stood a sculptured chair with very beautiful upholstery.

“Here the priests are gathered for discussions about the problems that exist,” explained our guide. “I am one of them, and my name is Zalanki. My wife here is called Miyra. She will later show you a common dwelling, such as our home. The public has no access to these two floors. They have their own gathering room in the lower part of the pyramid. There are also several small rooms for ill and distressed people. We have priests who are physicians for both body and soul. We have treatment rooms at the far end of the pyramid and a device that can cure most diseases.”

“X-rays, for example?” I put forward as offhanded as I could, since I was very impressed.

“Do you mean radiation?” asked Zalanki. “We have developed a very advanced system for it, which the Earth’s humans haven’t yet found.”

“How can that be possible?” I asked. “The Mayas were rather primitive, if you disregard their calendar. Didn’t they bring along any

knowledge from here?”

“Yes, they brought along a voluminous baggage, but they preferred to forget their previous existence in this universe, so the knowledge quite quickly became wiped out, rather than developed. It was their art of writing and their architecture that remained and which have preserved parts of their culture.

“Written characters and mathematical signs and formulas lingered on in some of the Mayas’ minds. Likewise, they had an outstanding prophetic ability that was handed down from father to son and never became extinct like all the rest. The thirst for blood that existed in the false religion and the violence, they invented themselves. At that time there were other tribes who were hostile and who waged war against them. In that way, the fighting and the killing came into their culture. These don’t exist here. But we didn’t even remain as gods; they created gods and idols themselves that their ancestors, i.e., we, didn’t know of.”

“You also have to understand,” interrupted Maorion, “that not all humans were well educated, even if they came from here. Here we show the capital or the main site of the original Maya culture, but there is on this planet, as well as on other planets, a back side.”

“Where?” I wondered, and looked around in the room. Everyone laughed.

“Not here,” said Shala. “You must realize that a universe is grand. We only visit one of the planets here.”

“What exists above here?” was my next question.

“It’s the high priest’s sacred room,” replied Zalanki. “Nobody except him has admission there. It’s a room that on Earth was used for sacrifice. The only thing we sacrifice here is flowers. Let’s make our way down to the public halls instead.”

Down there it was also fantastic, I thought. I was astonished at the techniques exhibited in both natural medicine and psychology. The rooms couldn’t have been more comfortably furnished if they had existed in present Earth time; the equipment in the medical department seemed so advanced to me that I didn’t dare to ask about it.

“Everything seems so calm and fluent here,” I remarked instead when we went out from the pyramid.

“We have no wars, no hostility, but of course we aren’t spared from problems,” Zalanki said, smiling. “The earthly Mayas were moved here when their culture came to an end on Earth. Some incarnated, a few came here by other means. We took care of our people and we felt great sorrow that they had failed. Yet, their left-behind writings and engravings bear testimony of a far advanced culture, such as their famous calendar. When they returned here, we wished they would be incorporated in the original culture that we have here. It didn’t work at all. They had become stubborn and narrow-minded after their terrestrial lives. They wanted autonomy, and so it became. War, violence, and other damage are prohibited on this planet, but we can’t answer for all our inhabitants. The seeds that are sown on Earth must heal completely, rather than growing stronger. We send out teachers to every corner of the planet and things are beginning to improve now. Quarrels and fights are becoming less common.”

During our conversation we had exited the pyramid and wandered into the jungle-like vegetation behind it. Zalanki had left us for the moment and his wife, Miyra, led us to one of the hidden houses. It was circular, a cupola of silver and glass, where the plants were reflected and shone through like a pattern on the walls and roof. Inside it was simple, but the simplicity shone with beauty.

“We always try to consider the wholeness,” Miyra explained, when she saw my amazement as I looked around. “All things belong together, hence we don’t split up the house into small units, but allow the different parts to fuse.”

Now I understood that the “jungle” had meaning and purpose. Inside the house, flowering trees and branches formed a kind of roomarbor. The whole thing was exceptionally cleverly planned. In the center was the gathering room for the family, and from there the various living, flowering screens proceeded. In an alcove, the family’s three-year-old twins were sleeping, in another, a five-year-old boy was playing with an adorable animal that resembled a small dog, except for its very pointy nose and big eyes.

I thought that all this appeared as paradise.

“You think of paradise,” Shala whispered in my ear. “This is an ordinary idyllic family in the Mayas’ world of origin.”

A smiling, graceful Miyra served us a wonderful drink, and with it we got small, delicate, airy pastries. At first I didn’t believe I could eat, since my ethereal body doesn’t need any food, but it worked perfectly well, and Shala probably saw that I was surprised, because she gave a laugh.

“Janne, you are not ethereal now! You have the same consistency as the people here, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to see us or associate with us. So it will be from now on, too. As soon as we put our feet on this planet, our bodies became firmer. But of course we can float, yet.”

“Fun!” I said and meant it. Maybe I should ask to stay here for a while. I really liked this variety versus the ethereal spheres.

“Why are you only showing me the best of your planet?” I asked the beautiful Maya woman.

“If you were to show us Earth, would you bring us to the places where suffering and destruction reign?” was her gentle counter-question. “I am sure my husband will show you other less beautiful parts of the Mayas’ kingdom if you really want to see them. Otherwise, you can be content with looking at pictures of them.”

Quite right; the Mayas had a sort of TV also! But I soon learned that there was an infinite difference between terrestrial TV and this one. With the Mayas, it served as a holographic teaching aid. Besides, it didn’t resemble anything I had seen before, but it was a kind of image device.

“Can an ancient initial culture be this enormously well developed?” I asked, and it was Maorion who answered:

“From the very beginning, the populations of some of the seven universes got to live primitively, because it was up to them to develop a culture. In the matter of the Mayas, it went surprisingly easily – here. It was quite a different matter on Earth, where there already existed other people who were hostile to each other. Here existed all the prerequisites to build a world of light and love, as it was imprinted in the DNA of this people from the beginning. The Father, the Great Spirit, has never downloaded evil, hatred, and other negative predispositions in his creation. Humans have been good at creating those themselves, by means of the power of thought that has been developed among them that easily can turn to the negative.”

“How about the animals?” I persisted. “I saw a dog in here. There are farmers here, you said, so I suppose there must be animals?”

“Yes, but far from all the species that exist on Earth,” replied Maorion. “We have retained species that voluntarily agree to make themselves available in our service or wish to live in symbiosis with the rest of our planet. Therefore, we have very little hostility between the animals.”

“What about the soul, then?” I whispered my question, since I didn’t know if I was on thin ice. A boisterous laughter was heard, and Zalanki suddenly stood there again, as if launched from the ground.

“Dear friend,” he exclaimed, “do you think we seem soulless? There are quite soulless creations and beings in other universes, but we are definitely not among those. The Creator has given us souls in the same way he did with all other humans.”

“Not with the animals?” I asked quickly.

“Sure.” He smiled. “We love our animals and treat them well. All species have their group soul, just like on Earth. Some species are so well advanced in intelligence that we are considering asking for individual souls for them. We have a type of horse that we know humans dream about sometimes. To you, they are legendary beings. To us, they are completely real and perfectly common. Incidentally, I have ridden here on such an animal.”

Outside the cupola house stood a unicorn. It wasn’t white, like the fairytale unicorns, but jet black. The single horn in its forehead was white as ivory. It had a white sock on its left hind foot. It was more slender than a horse, and was equipped with a soft, elegant white saddle and silvery reins. I walked up and patted it, and it rubbed its black velvet muzzle against my shoulder. It was an adorable animal.

“It wouldn’t be possible to deploy unicorns on your Earth,” said Zalanki. “They’re far too fragile and very shy before you have become friends with them.”

“I noticed no shyness, it cuddled with me,” I remarked.

“You may take that as a compliment,” Miyra said, smiling. “It took several weeks before I became friends with mine. Unicorns are the most common means of transport here, and a very environmentally friendly type.”

“Even at longer distances?” I wondered, surprised. “Are there neither flights nor train traffic? Then, how are you getting to other places on the planet?”

“There are boats,” replied Zalanki. “We also have flying boats that are powered by a very clean energy. For us, it’s sufficient with boats and unicorns. All children learn to ride when they are little, and they love it! It is as natural to them as learning to walk.”

Such motives couldn’t be contradicted. It was strange, I thought, that these humans seem both developed in their culture and retrogressive at the same time. Probably they read thoughts as well, because Zalanki looked very amused when he motioned for me to follow him. I looked at Maorion and Shala, but they shook their heads and signed for me to follow our host. We headed out into the bushes again.

Peculiar Interlude

Zalanki led me to a gigantic, tube-like house, which rose high above the treetops. Again we stood in front of a beautifully ornate gate. Apparently there were plenty of talented carpenters here.

“This is our prison,” he explained. I peeked upwards, but I saw no windows.

“Do you need to have such things in this ideal society?” I asked, a bit sarcastically.

“I will tell you,” Zalanki said with a smile, “that the ideal society is a utopia. Such a thing doesn’t exist anywhere. We have come as close as possible, but there are surely criminals even here.”

“I remember,” I said thoughtfully, “that someone mentioned, even in my day, that Earth would become a paradise. Someone believed we would be entirely without problems at one point in the future, that everyone would live happily and be comfortable.”

“Without evil there is no good,” replied Zalanki and pushed open the heavy door. “You just have to reduce the evil as much as possible. Presumably our jail doesn’t look like its counterparts on Earth, and there are not as many criminals here. We don’t have any drugs, violence, or rape, no major thefts or fraud, no murder …”

“Then what do you have?” I asked, surprised. “Is there more evil than what you enumerated?”

“Yes, evil thoughts,” was the reply. “We read thoughts here. Therefore, we can avert crime so easily. But the carriers of the evil thoughts must come to their senses for some time. Then they come here, where education and therapy are provided.”

We entered a circular room in whose center a spiral staircase led up to the next floor. A guard welcomed Zalanki and pointed at the stairs.

“Down here are various treatment rooms, a dining room, and a kitchen,” Zalanki explained, and so we went up the spiral staircase. “The rest of the house is inhabited by the prisoners.”

I shuddered a bit when we got upstairs. It resembled a prison, with a fence around the center, where the staircase was, then numbered doors. I staggered, and my head was in a whirl …

I sat in a gray cell, and I was dressed in gray. The bunk I sat on was hard and narrow, and there was only a small opening at the very top, a chamber pot in a niche, and a sink with a pitcher of water. A worn-out enamel mug stood next to it. A Bible, a hymn book, and another small morally-strengthening writing were the only readable literature existing there. I knew that I was unjustly treated. I had confessed in order to help my companions, and since I had seen what they did – which in and of itself was just a trifle – I felt involved. I was the only one who was punished. Johan From I called myself in one story, Lars Hård in another.

I brooded on an unfair fate. Yet, perhaps it was the prelude to my celebrity as a writer. I wrote down my feelings, my fears; yes, the fear and the shame that I thought I had to carry with me all my life. How long would it take before I saw my beloved rectory meadows again, my cattle, my groves of trees, all the flowers and birds and small animals that I daily spent time with at home? They were me – I wasn’t the sad, gray figure that sat half-starved, staring at the naked cell walls with obscene sentences, scribbled down by previous visitors.

I started to cry in uncontrollable despair over my fate and my self-imposed martyrdom. The rats shrieked and fought at my feet, they scurried across my legs, they squeaked and scratched, and above all, they were smelly. The bedbugs were equally distasteful. I used to remove them in the darkness of the cell, one by one, and drown them in the chamber pot. I didn’t even feel any regret for this macabre act, only relief.

“Jan, Jan, wake up!” Someone shook me lightly on my arm and I looked up in Zalanki’s worried face. “You fell on your knees here above the stairs and disappeared into a memory or a horrible dream. I just wanted to show you how comfortable our prisoners are.”

I stood up and felt ashamed. An old, painful memory had clung to me and woken up in this environment. I asked Zalanki for forgiveness and gave the excuse that there had been too many new impressions. He just laughed and motioned for me to follow. When the door to one of the “cells” was opened, I was amazed at the comfort that this prison showed. A comfortable bed, a private toilet room with a shower, a desk, a cozy chair, a bookcase, and other amenities.

“Remember that these prisoners haven’t committed any serious crimes,” Zalanki pointed out. “It’s easier to deal with them when they are clean and healthy – yes, and in fact satisfied, at least most of them. They usually realize their missteps rather quickly and promise to mend their ways. We know which ones we can trust and which ones are unreliable.”

It couldn’t be helped that I breathed a sigh of relief when we left the prison. Not even in my present light body can I entirely agree with punishment and imprisonment. I took the opportunity to ask:

“Was it crime and violence that ended the culture of the Mayas on Earth?”

“No, Jan,” was the reply. “It died out because of a terrible drought.”

Shala welcomed me with her usual happy laughter. I told her about my ignominious fainting fit.

“As you know, we have let you retain some of the memory from your last earthly life,” she explained, “because it can be of benefit to inspire your medium on Earth. Sometimes the memory comes up to the surface at the wrong time, as now, and we have forgotten to teach you how to tackle such an experience. You were shocked by a memory that you didn’t want to retain, but maybe your medium benefited from this. Now we will move again, Janne! We will visit at Maorion’s place.”

“On a new planet?” I wondered.

“No, at another location on this one. Earth is a planet. Does only Sweden exist there? This planet is about the same size as Earth.”

“I certainly think wrongly,” I apologized. “Thus we are going to the original Maori?” She nodded. Now Maorion appeared with his cloak again. We said goodbye to our recently-become friends Zalanki and Miyra, and invited them to visit us at our ethereal latitudes.

After that, we were off.

 

4. The Maori Culture of Origin

What a convenient way of traveling, I thought, but I didn’t have time to finish my thought and we were there … but where?

Again, a lush landscape that from above displayed forests, mountains, and hot springs, which squirted their steaming water up into the air. As in New Zealand, I thought and wondered why I never had time to go there during my Earth time. We landed softly and then we stood in the midst of a landscape that just as well could have existed on Earth – a landscape old as life itself. This was also an Earth – not ours, but still a kind of sister to Mother Earth.

It didn’t resemble the Mayas’ jungle-like plantings at all. This scenery was softer, more inviting, despite its wildness. The wild fits in well with the soft, I thought with a smile, because there is no soft and modest human who doesn’t somewhere deep down have a wildness that he or she doesn’t want to admit. There is also no wild and intractable soul who can’t feel the soft, tender caress of the moment.

These thoughts were brought about by the fact that we had arrived at a waterfall which by far surpassed Niagara. We stood below its violent, deafening roar, just where the foam whirled at its worst in order to, a bit further down, bring together its glittering pearls into a soft and calm lagoon, where I thought I saw dolphins fly up out of the foam and make wild somersaults in the lukewarm, pleasant air. The light was very clear, and although I couldn’t see any sun, it glowed. Something was shining!

“I just had to take a look at my beloved waterfall,” Maorion confided to us. “I always went here when I was young and felt that my interior was close to giving in to the rebellion that constitutes the teenager’s trauma. The violence of the waterfall corresponded to my own violence and calmed me down totally. Contradictory, don’t you think?”

I nodded thoughtfully in mutual understanding. For me, the calmness had made its appearance at home in the pasture among the cows and with the damp soil beneath my bare feet. Each person has their own favorite spot.

“As you can see, the waterfall forms a nice little lake,” Maorion pointed out. “From the lake, a river flows that has branches to the ocean. I have made many canoe trips on that lake, and I wouldn’t mind doing such a trip again! But now we shall find our way to more inhabited areas.”

We crawled into the cloak, and hey presto, we were at the next place. I knew very little of the Maori culture and their ways of life, so it would be difficult to compare. Somehow, I always associated them with the Aborigines in Australia, and I imagined that the two cultures resembled one another. It turned out that on that point I was completely wrong.

We were no longer in Nature. The city or village around us was hard to describe. There were palaces of marble and glass, and houses in different forms. They weren’t located close to each other, like the houses of a modern city, but rather sparsely. I watched for huts, which I had gotten the idea that the Maori lived in.

“Where are the little huts?” I asked. Maorion laughed heartily.

“You have Native American cultures on your mind,” he said. “There they have huts. The Maori are descended, just like the Polynesians and the Filipinos and many more, from Atlanteans. At its time, Atlantis was a far-widespread land area, larger than what is suggested in the various myths about that continent. Their culture was higher than you could ever imagine. There is evidence that Atlantis has existed; it just gets too arduous for the scientists of the Earth to redraw their maps. It’s easier to call Atlantis a utopia. But in fact, there were a great number of people on Atlantis, and when the continent perished many of them saved themselves and created new tribes on the parts of the Earth that still remained. They couldn’t rebuild their unique culture; many had lost their memory after the disaster. They were stranded on a foreign continent and had to start all over.”

“Strange,” I thought. “Surely they must have retained something?”

“If earthlings were stranded on a desert island, do you think that the first thing they would invent was a mobile phone or a TV or a radio? What is first and foremost then is to survive, to get shelter and get food in the stomach. Development towards a highly advanced civilization takes a very long time, perhaps hundreds of years.”

“But to remain at the native stage,” I protested.

“What’s wrong with being a native?” asked Maorion severely. “You don’t know what goes on inside the brain of a native, do you? Many of those you call natives and who live in New Zealand now are lawyers, doctors, and politicians in leading positions. They don’t go around in loincloths, beating drums.”

I kept silent. The snob in me had gone on a silly little excursion. I would probably rather forget my objections. Maorion looked at me and smiled.

“It’s good that you don’t take everything for granted,” he said. “Now, let’s look around properly. The entire city is surrounded by orchards and vineyards, and everywhere you see humans making use of these riches.”

Humans, yes. I have never met any Maori before Maorion, so I don’t really know at all what is typical for their appearance. Small, plump, brown, and curly-haired, I had imagined. Here my gazes met tall, slender, muscular men with light brown skin and a hair color ranging from black to medium brown. The curly occurred sparingly! The women were beautiful, and they had the most peculiar hairstyles. I’ve never seen anything like it. Shala saw how I was staring at a young woman who had her reddish hair into a knot right on top of her head. From the knot, curls were dangling all around her head. Shiny metal threads were interspersed everywhere, together with flowers of different colors. On top of the knot rested a crown, which also was made of hair.

“The crown is surely made of hairpieces,” whispered Shala. “Isn’t she lovely?” She giggled loudly at my terrified glances. You see, the woman wore a very low-cut top, with one long and one short sleeve. Moreover, she was bare far down on her hip, while her skirt was long and wide with a little train.

“She is probably rich and noble, too,” continued Shala, but Maorion interrupted her.

“No class distinctions occur here,” he said. “Unusual outfits only show signs of fantasy. Here we appreciate that. We also like unusual thoughts. When we gather around the fires at night, which is pretty cold here, the favorite pastime is to listen to unusual ideas and exciting stories. Then we have discussions. Sometimes we have pantomimes and guessing games. We have many gorgeous ceremonies and tonight, you and Shala will be allowed to attend one. We will praise the Highest Spirit. Guests will be Fear, Evil, and the Lust for Power.”

“How are you with sports, then?” I asked.

“We have many types of sports, where both men and women participate,” replied Maorion. “Even if we are competing, there will never be fights, and it will never be a matter of money, as on Earth. To be sure, money is used for the necessities of life, but never for a competitive purpose. Boxing doesn’t exist here. Wrestling can occur in an attenuated version, if compared to Earth’s raw performances. Swimming is a must; there is so much water here. Running is a popular sport. We have different games, which you are unfamiliar with on Earth.”

“I’m no longer on Earth,” I informed him patiently. “You talk all the time as if I was a stupid earthling.” Maorion burst out in a roar of laughter.

“Sorry!” he exclaimed. “No offence was intended. But I consider that among the sports practiced on Earth nowadays, there are many who are not at all good for the human body. It’s often only a contest to hold out, to stretch the body into abnormal functions, and to try to fool and overtrump your fellowmen. Here the sport is something beautiful and beneficial. Some are good and some are bad practitioners, but everybody helps each other. It’s the community and the mutual respect that counts here. Nobody looks down upon anyone else.”

“Then you surely don’t have bullying in your schools, either?” I asked. Maorion frowned and Shala giggled.

“What is bullying?” he asked. Imagine that this high spirit didn’t know that word. Although spirit … was he a spirit or a physical person? I decided to ask. Otherwise one can’t find out anything.

“Bullying is, for example, that school children are mean to each other – very mean, that a child is exposed to the other children’s offending words of abuse, that a child is ostracized from the community. The child can even be battered by his comrades. Excuse me, but are you physical or psychical, since you don’t know about this?”

“Nothing like that occurs in our schools, or anywhere else on this planet,” replied Maorion seriously. “The children learn from the beginning to respect each other as the souls they all are – and have. On your second question, I answer that I am neither the one nor the other, counted in earthly terms. I can move around freely in our universes and I materialize myself without difficulty when needed. My transition from the Maori occurred thousands of years ago. I don’t count myself as a spirit, but in earthly eyes, maybe that’s what I am. Actually, I belong to a group in the universe of the Central Race, but thereof we shall speak more, eventually. I was appointed as your guide here because of what you need to learn.”

“Are there any scientific institutions and laboratories here?” I wondered.

“Yes, many,” replied our guide. “They are scattered here, there, and everywhere within our land areas.”

“Land areas,” I repeated. “Do you mean countries, or the Maori borders?”

“There are no visible borders here,” Maorion told us. “Indeed, different cultures inhabit this planet, but we know where our borders are and it wouldn’t occur to anyone to doubt or mistrust that. You call them countries – we say land areas – and their size is totally dependent on their fauna and flora. The landscape on this planet varies enormously, and the various inhabitants have adapted to different types of Nature. Then it becomes natural for us to speak of areas. Borders are a form of barrier and restriction that none of our people like.”

“If only the humans on Earth realized this!” I sighed. “Borders of all kinds prevent community and create violence. The violence is spreading across the borders anyway. Aren’t there any violence or police here?”

“There are prefects who are elected by the people. Of course violence can occur; the Maori aren’t exemplary, either. We have specific individuals within the prefects who take care of such cases. You saw the prison of the Mayas, right? Similar places exist here for rehabilitation and psychological treatment. We have remedies for such things, that haven’t been invented on Earth, yet.”

In the course of our conversation, we had arrived at a beautiful building. In several places I had seen that the roofs of the Maori houses were like gardens, with abundant vegetation that sometimes found its way down along the walls.

“In here, those who want meditation and devotion are gathered,” explained Maorion. “This now gives you a taste of the immemorial culture! We shall be present at the ceremony that I mentioned earlier.”

He put his arms around Shala and me and led us through the, as usual, beautifully sculpted gate. In there was hustle and bustle. At first I didn’t understand how a ceremony could be accommodated in the crush of humans, scents, and voices. It seemed as if everyone was speaking at the same time, and some kind of incense hung from the high ceiling in long chains with containers that someone occasionally swung. Streams of lovely fragrance slipped like a thin smoke through the entire premises. It was a large, giant room. Certainly it was very beautiful, too, but it was hard to see anything more than humans moving back and forth – no, pushing their way forward between each other. We thronged, we also, and I held firmly onto both Shala and Maorion, because in here any of us could easily get lost and be hard to find again. Suddenly a tone was heard, and it was all quiet. Everybody stopped, as if an invisible force had stagnated all movement.

Now I could see a little more of the hall we were in. In a remarkable way, the crowd of humans had organized themselves into small groups on the outskirts of the room where we stood, with a close ring in the middle. Those who were in the ring had been given masks for their faces. The masks were unusual; they seemed to be carved from gemstones. Maorion nodded when he read my thought.

“Jade, crystal, ruby, turquoise; lots of gemstones exist here in the mountains in abundance,” he whispered. “There are stones unknown to Earth here too, which are incredibly beautiful.” He pointed at a mask that moved past us. It was reminiscent of opal, but I had never seen those very color combinations before; it was stunningly beautiful.

Now the inner ring opened up and let a series of characters pass that apparently represented the gods, or phantoms of some kind. Their headgear was fantastic, moreover, they were dressed in short or long garments in different colors. Those who wore short kilts had painted their legs in amazing patterns. While I was observing these remarkable phenomena, tones began to sound. It was no ordinary music; it was impossible to describe it. It was sacred tones that went directly into the bone structure (which I apparently had now!) so that the whole body began to shake. Then something even more remarkable happened.

Small figures – they must have been children – floated in the air. They were dressed up, some as animals that I recognized, some as shining beings that I’ve never seen before. They sailed in the air, somehow swam, and did soft, floating movements. Occasionally sparks emerged, and on these occasions the people cheered. In other respects it was perfectly silent: Only the tones were heard, and they were so peculiar that I couldn’t manage to stand on the floor, so I sat down and pulled Shala with me. As usual, the little lady had a hard time to keep from laughing. She put her hands to her mouth, and I watched as her shoulders shook and I heard her hiccups. Her eyes, which looked at me, were shining with merriment. I didn’t think it was appropriate at all, so I got up and pulled her up. The bystanders had begun to move, and an older man nodded at us to make way. Maorion had completely disappeared.

I pressed Shala close against me and pulled her with me right behind the man, since the whole audience seemed to move in a certain direction in a particular pattern. The man turned around and motioned for us to follow him. He did some moves, like bowing, kneeling, lifting arms, etc. Of course we did the same, and I was careful to ensure that Shala was in my wake. Then she put out her tongue at me. She truly was a little rascal angel. Sometimes I wondered if she had passed over at a very early age, thirteen, fourteen years maybe, and not been allowed to live out her childishness.

Now something happened. The floating children formed a ring in the air above the humans, who stood in a ring on the floor. The god characters – if it was gods they represented – began spinning round and round, and more sparks were formed. It was hot in there, and the odor from all the incense containers started to become suffocating, together with the strong transpiration from the humans. I started to feel sick, and Shala held her shawl over both her nose and mouth. The man in front of us pointed forward, but then I decided to make a quick maneuver. I aimed at the door, and with a rapid movement I swept up Shala from the floor and carried her with me between compact human bodies to the door and out into the fresh air. There I let her down, not entirely gently, and took a deep breath.

“Surely the ceremony was wonderful,” I panted, “but I couldn’t manage it any longer. One must be child born with such crowding. And all you do is guffaw …”

“It’s almost understandable when it comes to the uninitiated.” A voice was heard, and when I turned around, Maorion was standing there. “Too bad you didn’t get to see the whole ceremony; it is worth seeing. But I will try to explain the meaning of the various figures that appeared.”

“Those floating children,” I began, but Maorion interrupted me.

“They were not real children,” he said, smiling. “They were holograms. Making holograms is quite common, both on this planet and others. It is convenient, because they don’t need solid ground beneath their feet, as we do; they float really excellently at fairly great heights.”

“But the air was dense,” Shala put in. “You could barely breathe.”

“The Maori are used to it,” replied Maorion. “For them, both the tones and the incense imply a raising of their consciousness, and then their bodily functions are changed to a reset behavioral pattern. They are simply not aware of their body.”

“Have they brought that skill to Earth?” I wondered.

“Maybe to some extent, at the very beginning,” he replied. “But they intermingled so quickly with Polynesians, and then with other people who visited New Zealand, that the old lessons were forgotten and new were created. Hence, the religion that is their present tradition on Earth is not their original culture, although it is very old, too. The children you saw, who sailed in the air and triggered sparks, refers to a rite from here. They represent unborn children who are looking for their parents, and the sparks emerge when they find their family.

“On Earth, the Maori believe that when a baby sneezes at birth, it is proof of its life force. They call this life force ‘mauri’ and that word actually originates from here. When the people in there first formed groups, and then rings, it meant that the fellowship of the groups eventually changes into the fellowship and cooperation of the close circle, and there the life force is also mixed in and becomes a joint manifestation of power. It is so strong that it can move mountains – and it has actually happened.”

“I’ve heard that the Maori have rituals in water,” said Shala. “What do they stand for?”

“As I mentioned before, here we consider that water is a part of life,” replied Maorion. “It’s no ritual here, just an essential part of our procedures, such as swimming, water games, washing, and purification. The Maori priests on Earth stand up to their waists in water in order to protect themselves against the forces they evoke. They didn’t receive that from here. We don’t call on forces that we’re afraid of, and moreover, we have no priests. What do we need them for?”

“Priests have existed in various forms on Earth in all times. Even during the heathen times, there were priests who performed their dark rites,” I objected. “Humans need something to believe in, but they can’t think along those lines themselves; therefore, they get help from priests. Isn’t that the case here?”

“Nowhere on this planet will you find priests.” Maorion smiled. “There are spiritual leaders, various sorts of helpers to turn to when necessary, but we are not divided into different religions. The entire planet is permeated with one single belief – namely the belief in the Creator. Everyone knows about the Central Race and the creating God. No one would ever bring oneself to doubt this. That thought is introduced into the baby with the mother’s milk, so it’s almost innate.”

“Indoctrination on a high level,” I muttered. “Why can’t everyone, as on Earth, decide what they want to believe in? Do you have group thinking here, just as well as group force?”

“Good question,” nodded Maorion. “In that case, we would be a team of puppets in the skilled hands of the Creator. However, that is not the case. Whoever grows up here and starts wondering, doubting, and questioning, we fully understand. That individual may undergo an initiation, which fully answers all his questions in such a satisfactory way that it is impossible to challenge, even by the most skilled pettifogger.”

“What about the individual’s feeling?” I asked in a firm tone. “Does he keep his feeling in that initiation, or is it completely removed, so that he only understands what others want him to understand?”

“Now you have said something important,” Maorion replied contentedly. “Feelings control man. I’m totally clear about that. Feelings can be processed, controlled in different directions, and raised to enormous levels – if one chooses. Everybody knows that if you go against your feelings, things can go wrong. It’s the first thing a child is taught here before starting school. Obey your feelings, listen to your subconscious mind, listen to your feelings, and find out where they come from; all parents must teach their children this, and it is checked, be sure of that.”

“It sounds as if a Big Brother exists here, after all,” I couldn’t help but say. Again Maorion looked uncomprehending.

“I don’t know what you mean. What I tell you are the pillars of the ancient culture. Without the individual’s participation in this, our culture would have fallen, in the same way as all cultures did, more or less, as they came down to Earth. We have freedom, Jan – an outstanding, wonderful freedom. Everybody is free. There is no compulsion anywhere. The different manifestations of the culture have arisen from free individuals and have been accepted by free individuals. Our creation took place earlier than that of the terrestrial human. We are no beginners, but most of us are teachers. Teachers that teach one another.”

I couldn’t argue with him. While we were talking, we had moved away from the city and gone out into the country. Maorion purposefully walked a path that brought us down over a green hill that led down into a valley where the river flowed. Down there was a small harbor with a variety of boats. An older man came out of a little shed and greeted Maorion cordially.

“Now we will probably go by boat,” whispered Shala. She was right. The man showed us a large sailboat that was really gorgeous. It was pink, with oval landscape paintings in nice colors along the boat’s long sides. In the bow an extraordinarily beautiful figurehead stood up that represented a dolphin with a lovable, golden child on her back. The sails were yellow and pink. The boat was a little wider than our average sailboats and seemed to be stable. I’ve always preferred stable boats, and I saw in Shala that she was thinking the same thing. We went on board.

Conversation on a Voyage

“I’m happy to continue to account for life on this planet,” said Maorion, when he had settled himself at the helm. “According to what I can calculate, we are quite a few hundred years ahead of you in time. As you can see, the external appearance of humans hasn’t changed that much. Skin and hair vary; as to the rest, we have remained Maori, with that culture’s special characteristics. It was the same with the Mayas, as you noticed. Now look at the landscape passing by; it’s the most beautiful

scenery I know of.”

I could easily understand that. Shala and I alternately gave off admiring exclamations. It was a mixture of riding in a Norwegian fjord with high, forested mountains on both sides and coming out on a shiny, silver lake with surrounding lush, tropical vegetation, and then back in among the mountains again. The scenery varied between seductive softness and sacred, solemn feeling, but everywhere there was such joy. I don’t know whether it was due to the light, which sometimes lay as sheer, pastel-colored veils over the water and sometimes played in violent color cascades in the sky above us. It was almost a shame to talk.

Maorion sat with his hand on the helm, and the love for what he saw was shining around him. His whole figure was surrounded by a special light, mildly, but still fully visible. I wondered in my mind if it was in this way the love light manifested. Shala and I didn’t shine, this I stated coolly by looking at my sweet companion and by stretching out my arm over the water.

“You are shining, Maorion,” I pointed out.

“It is because I feel at home,” he laughed, “together with two good friends out on the waves. This is my boat, I’ve had it a long, long time. I always take a ride with it when I’m home, but this time it won’t be a little ride. My boat gets the opportunity to try its wings – or should we say sails? Do you have something to ask, Jan?”

“I am thinking about death,” I replied, and almost felt ashamed to talk about death in this vivid scenery of exquisite beauty. “How old do humans get here? What happens when they die?”

“Good questions again, Jan!” Maorion replied, smiling. “We have a lot of visits to make on this planet, and after that, we’re returning to the location where we first arrived. Then you will get to know a great deal, but I’ll try to answer your question as thoroughly as I can.

“The Maori here mostly get very old. Several hundred years is nothing unusual. It must be hard for an ex-earthling to understand. But they live in the right way and have few or no enemies. When one of us dies, a rather lengthy ceremony is held. The deceased is placed in an open coffin, surrounded by a sea of flowers. Only the head is free from the floral splendor. We embalm our dead so that they look as if they were asleep. An agreement was made, while he or she was alive, if they want to be cremated or not. Together we sing for the deceased, little children dance a ritual dance, and thereafter we raise a cup of sorrow. We do everything together. Nobody is allowed to go forward and cry individually. If you want to cry, you do it during the ceremony, together with the others. Candles and incense are available in abundance. The tones are also included.”

“Do you mean the tones we heard at the ceremony where it was so suffocating?” I interrupted.

“Yes, exactly. It’s a kind of music that we’ve had with us for eternity. The tones exist and are their own music.”

“Their own music?” Now it was Shala who interrupted. “Music surely must be played by someone or something, right?”

“Not this music,” Maorion replied quietly, and his face was as if glorified. “It takes care of itself. It’s alive, and it appears when we ask for it. It can also come when we least expect it and when we need it the most.”

“Music that is alive and takes care of itself,” I repeated. “You’ve got to be kidding! No way.”

“Yes, here and over there in the Central Universe,” replied Maorion. “You don’t choose. It just comes, and it is always the right music.” I refrained from asking further. I probably wouldn’t understand the answer, anyway. The tones were lovely; that was enough.

“I won’t let you visit all land areas on the planet, or all cultures,” resumed Maorion. “A few will suffice. We want Jan to see and learn the true origin so that he can pass it on through his medium.”

“Who comprehends this?” I exclaimed, terrified. “The readers will only believe that I have made it all up in order to give them entertainment.”

“There are certain connections between the Earth people’s cultures and ours,” Maorion replied patiently. “More isn’t needed in order to be able to imagine the origin. It’s soon time for us to visit another culture. My boat has the same properties as many other things in these latitudes: It brings us to a new goal.”

“My head is in a whirl,” I said, a little sulky. “It will be too much. When are we going to return to the angelic base?”

“When you have learned what is necessary,” was the reply.

The river had widened, and I assumed that we would arrive at a new lake. We didn’t. We arrived at the ocean. On one side suddenly were sandy beaches with high dunes, and I saw a whale fin sticking up out of the water a little farther away, where the ocean stretched out its endless wave crests. Some dolphins played their silver glittering play in the foam from our boat.

“Dolphins are almost humans,” Shala whispered in my ear, while Maorion made a sharp turn with the helm. The wind had been rising and was quite strong.

“There were plenty of dolphins in Atlantis,” Maorion told us. “They were sent out by the hundreds, just before the land went under. The dolphins warned the humans, but the humans didn’t care about it. They had learned the dolphin language, since the wonderful animals often played in the bays and weren’t at all shy of humans. The children especially loved them – and they loved the children. Boats like this one were common in Atlantis. The Maori first settled there when they were sent to Earth, but they didn’t contribute too much to save the land. They had brought their culture from here, but it wasn’t very popular among other Atlantean inhabitants. Since they still retained knowledge from here and were able to predict the disasters that would happen, they departed from there before the ocean took its toll of the beautiful land.

“Since their country of origin had so many lakes and oceans and other waterways, they were skilled sailors. Some of them ended up in New Zealand, others in Polynesia.”

“That was a new view of history,” I interrupted. “The children in our schools are not allowed to learn such things.”

“Your schools teach much that is wrong,” Maorion confirmed, smiling. “If the true course of history would be known, then your world would be completely different, with the power of thought in focus for all kinds of learning. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and therefore, difficult things must occur again on Earth so that humans shall learn to understand.”

“Where are we heading now?” Shala wondered, but she only got a smile in reply. The ocean embraced us with its deep blue-green arms, and in the sky the sun colors had faded and deepened into something that resembled a sapphire, with a shimmering white glow in the middle, a light that lay hidden in the innermost beingness of the gemstone. There were no other stars, only this deep lying sapphire.

“Only one star in the sky,” I observed. “But indeed it’s uncommonly beautiful!”

“It’s your Earth, seen from here.” Maorion smiled. “You wouldn’t have guessed that, would you? Isn’t it beautiful? Just hope that it remains so. There’s an ongoing race to destroy your lovely globe, and that must be prevented.”

“By who?” I asked gloomily.

“It becomes apparent when the outermost limit has been reached,” was the cryptic reply. I received no time for more comments, because a sudden haze surrounded the boat. It felt damp and cold, just like a mist would be felt out at sea. We didn’t see each other, so we sat perfectly still, but I felt Shala’s hand in mine. Whether it gave me or her security, I don’t know. But I know that the mist was torn apart like a piece of paper and that we still were sitting in the boat. Now we found ourselves in a channel. It was narrow and winding and the Nature on both sides gave me an impression of Peru. I have never been there; I just knew that Peru must look like this, with high forested mountains as far as you could see.

“No, you are not in Peru, Jan,” assured the thought-reader Maorion. “This landscape is mountainous, but there are forests and plains here, too. We’ll visit the Incas and the Aztecs, who also lived here before they incarnated on Earth. The tribes were sent there around the same time. But they changed in the most dreadful way when they established themselves in Mexico and Peru. The riches and the beauty that they brought from here became a religious pomp that was used at their horrible sacrificial ceremonies. As a punishment, they had to die out on Earth. They could have become culture bearers of high rank, just like the Mayas, but none of them became that. In the present day on Earth, pretty much the same thing is about to happen. Innocent humans are sacrificed in a never-ending terror.”

A jetty built of stones protruded from the shore a little further away. Maorion immediately steered to the jetty and moored the boat. Now we disembarked in a new unknown land.

Customer reviews, Amazon.co.uk:

Carolyn
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five Stars
Absolutely fascinating!!! A must read!

Customer reviews, Amazon.com:

Seth
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Mysteries Revealed!
I’m an avid reader with a passion for spiritual insight and this book is amongst one of the very best I’ve found. I couldn’t put it down and read it straight through. Fact or fiction, it’s well written and shares a much bigger story about our origins and the broader universes – all eight. Delightful in every way and, once again, hats-off to Mariana and Jan for another amazing book that rings of truth.

Madeline Rodriguez
5.0 out of 5 stars
The truth is revealed finally
What an inspiring journey to multiple worlds. All the Earthly old cultures are still alive in other realities and centered by the One creator. That truth never faltered except with a few that still had areas of negativity. Jan and Shayla are so humanly comforting. I’m in love with everything I read. Thank you so much!