The Astral Territories – Die Quelle
Translation of a chapter from “Worlds of the Soul – Trance Messages of a Medium” (page 135 ff)
Causal High Teacher: Die Quelle (The Source)
German original title “Welten der Seele – Trancebotschaften eines Mediums”,
von Varda Hasselmann und Frank Schmolke, © 1993 Goldmann Verlag
Translation: Dr. Torsten Sohns
Editorial support: Bill Getman, Kathryn Schwenger
Translation authorized by Varda Hasselmann, December 2019
The Astral Territories
THE FIRST TERRITORY:
Souls who have never incarnated
So far we have used the terms “layer”, “plane” or “area” to describe the astral world, but we still want to make it clear that these are not qualitatively different or hierarchically ordered dimensions, but rather equal areas arranged side by side, which are populated like different, large territories by different beings, nations and populations. We are talking about nations here because this term tells you that nations do not differ qualitatively from each other, but by their way of existence, their worldview and their habits. We would like to explain the territories of the astral world to you in such a way that you understand that they have different concerns, different goals and tasks which they accomplish by establishing contacts with the physical world, but which are also very different in kind.
1.1 On the first territory of the astral world there are beings who either have no intention or do not yet dare to embody themselves on the physical plane and to perfect themselves in this way. We have already indicated that this requires a certain courage, and it can be said that there are many souls who, although they have already separated from The All Whole in order to split into fragments, do not yet dare to make the big step of embarking on the Great March in the body of an infant soul.
These already fragmented souls are among the most fearful and confused imaginable. And you experience them as so-called spirits, beings who do not yet manifest themselves in matter, but do not really find peace in their astral homeland either, because they feel fascinated and attracted by the possibilities of physical development while still not taking the step.
These spirits sometimes appear to you as dwarves or kobolds (“in Germanic mythology a spirit that haunts houses or lives underground in caves or mines” Wikipedia) and sometimes as tormenting troublemakers that you are frightened of because they try to scare you. This happens because these fragments which have never been incarnate are themselves so driven by their fear that they give it over to humans to relieve themselves a little of that fear. They try out, so to speak, what it would be like to be in a physical body. Instead of enduring the fear that is usually associated with being incarnate, as you know, they try to turn it away by scaring others. They play all sorts of tricks and dress up in robes that correspond to the culture and society of those to whom they want to give a fright.
These beings, who, as we said, cannot take life quite seriously out of sheer fear of the seriousness of life, need two conditions to manifest themselves. They need certain places and circumstances and also, in order to be perceived, they need certain people with a psychological structure that considers such phenomena possible. This is the reason why such a manifestation will most probably never occur to a scientist or a philosopher, i.e. people who are predominantly intellectually centered. Where such beings manifest, or where not yet incarnate souls dress in the shape of kobolds, must be places where they feel comfortable and protected because they are so anxious. And these are usually places of a still intact nature that have vibrations similar to those that provide the prerequisites for materializations of this kind. Or rather, the vibration of the place creates the prerequisite for materialization. However, such still intact places, landscapes and peaceful places with special natural phenomena should not be excessively visited by humans, because humans tend to destroy their integrity. As soon as a place where kobolds have been seen becomes a kind of spiritual place worthy of pilgrimage, these spirit beings retreat because the vibration of the place changes. It is rare for a kobold to be seen by more than one or two humans at a time.
Large cities and densely populated regions are avoided because their accelerated lifestyles and hectic vibrations do not meet the materialization requirements of these low vibrating spirits. These spirits prefer to appear outdoors rather than indoors. And we said that even a human being who can perceive such beings must have a certain naive psychological structure, and this structure is becoming increasingly rare in your time and culture.
In the Western world, whether civilized or not, the willingness to regard such beings as real decreases with the degree of schooling and the degree of intellectual capability.
The more emotional and unspoiled a person is, the more willing it is to see without censoring what it is seeing. And the more a person is involved in the transmission of those who were still naive in other ways than him – naive in the sense of unprejudiced or unspoiled – the simpler that person thinks, and the more it adheres to the traditions and lore of its culture instead of pursuing progress as its goal, the easier it is also for these fear-laden, simple spirit beings, who temporarily overcome their fear through all kinds of jokes and absurdities, to show themselves and reach those who are as fearful or simple-minded as themselves, namely primarily younger souls. If it is therefore stated that very simple, less conscious and strongly emotional people often speak of having experienced and seen such beings in certain places of undestroyed nature, then this is correct.
But it shows prejudice, distorted perspective and ignorance of these phenomena when they are dismissed as delusions precisely because they are more accessible to simple, uneducated people than to educated ones.
1.2 Yet another population is found in this first territory of the astral world. It consists of those who have no intention of ever incarnating as humans because they have chosen another path that has little in common with the development of a fragmented soul in the human body. We speak of the devas, that is, those energy manifestations that emanate from rivers, trees and flowers, from mountains and oceans, and that sometimes take the trouble to show themselves to you in the form of transparent charming or even dignified beings.
It is, as we have said, not their plan to walk the path through the incarnations, a path that offers an individual incarnate human soul the experience indispensable to its journey. They follow a different path which usually expresses itself through a single material manifestation as a stone, plant or watercourse.
It is appropriate to reserve the term “incarnation” for a being that has not only a physical body of flesh, blood and bones, but also an awareness that is exclusively characteristic of a human soul and allows only humankind to have those experiences which are for the benefit of this particular type of soul.
THE SECOND TERRITORY:
Souls in the incarnation cycle
Let us now turn to another territory of the astral world and thereby to another great nation with different populations.
2.1 The first nation of the second territory in the astral world accommodates those beings who, between their individual incarnations, retreat from the excursions to the physical plane – not only on your planet. They return to the realms of non-physical existence, of soul recreation, which allow them to regenerate in a manner no longer hampered by the body and to envisage new plans. In other words, there are those who you call the “deceased”. They stay there only until they have turned to a new body. On average, this does not last more than seventy years according to your conception of time but can sometimes be much longer or much shorter. To give you an example: When a child dies, it will usually not retreat to this astral area for longer than about ten years in order to catch up as quickly as possible with what it could not accomplish during the incarnation which ended untimely, unless such a short life was planned from the beginning.
This is also where those sojourn who, after long suffering, challenges and hardships, have overcome the great growth pains of a difficult incarnation. They often allow themselves a little more time, sometimes more than a hundred, in exceptional cases more than two hundred years, to discuss what they have experienced, to come to terms with the horrors of what they have lived through (or done), and to take new courage to cope with another incarnation.
So, if you imagine that you will meet there all those who are familiar to you from your present life, or the beloveds you left behind, that is not entirely correct. You will often not see again those who died a long time ago, unless you had reached an agreement with them that they would wait for you until you too have crossed the threshold of your home of souls so they can receive you. But for a fragment that died years ago this usually means an amount of discipline that is not easy to achieve. For the interest of a deceased in his recently completed life gradually diminishes and after some time vanishes more and more so that a great effort is needed to remember those that he left behind in the body.
The laws of time and space are no longer valid on this second astral territory and in this nation, as well as in the one described above (translator’s note: the first territory), in the same way as on your planet. However, they are not suspended to such a degree as they are in the third nation. One could describe it in such a way that the disembodied souls who in the meantime have returned home from their life journey still have both possibilities. Time and space are not of much concern to them. But it is possible for them to remember the conditions of time and space and to approach their laws so far that they can imagine how it will be when they submit to them again.
And they also have an awareness of time and space that enables them to contact those who reside in the sphere of the space-time bond. They know when this is easiest, namely in times when relaxation or highest tension occurs, in moments of rest or in moments of highest physical or mental stress. They are even ready to observe certain times in order to make these contacts, and they preferably resort to fixed places for these contacts as well which are arranged, so to speak, with those in the body in order to facilitate the visits. For a sleeper who, in a dream, moves into the astral world, has to master and do so much of his own that he rarely manages to come into contact with one of the many who belong to the second nation just described. That is why these disembodied or deceased people themselves visit those with whom they want to share something at certain times and places, mostly during the night.
2.2 Let us now look at the second nation of the second territory, which you know and are familiar with, but which is also a little scary. It consists of those who have not really detached themselves from the body, but only make short temporary journeys to this or that sphere: the astral travelers. There is a lively exchange between the souls embodied on the physical plane and those who sojourn in this astral territory, as the commuters of a big city do, who go home in a daily or weekly rhythm. This rhythm of the astral travelers is similar to that of the working commuters in that it can be divided into a day world and a night world. The people who go to rest go to an area where they can recover and regenerate.
Coming from the physical plane, the astral travelers transition into the astral world during an altered state of consciousness whenever it seems necessary, pleasant or worthwhile to them.
Temporarily disembodied beings of the second territory, in turn, like to visit their friends in the physical world – former blood relatives, soul siblings, soul twins or souls with whom they are karmically connected by a common destiny. This occurs in a dream, and it also happens when a person is in an altered state of deep relaxation, e.g. during a meditation, but also in association with anesthesia, a severe fever, coma or in chemically influenced states, which take control of the waking consciousness from it and prepare it for a journey into the zones that give it an attachment to its inner truth, without having to completely detach itself from its body, as happens at death.
THE THIRD TERRITORY:
Souls after completed incarnation cycle
To the third nation of the astral world belong those who have gone through and completed their incarnation cycles. They sojourn in this territory as if in a large waiting room, awaiting those who are still struggling with using their bodies for experiential purposes, to finally release themselves together with them from the state of fragmentation and to reunite into a joint soul family.
So, they are still in a fragmented state, but much more serene and calm, joyful and loving than those of the second nation who are still struggling with their fears and who feel much more attached and bonded to the physical plane because they know they will return there. This third nation consists of those who have walked the path of cognition and purification, the path of experience and pain to the end, and have now passed through the first gate of the final home. Imagine it as a great castle with various gates, ditches and ramparts. The knowledge of not having to return to planet Earth, of not wanting to and not being able to, is such a first gate, a gate with a drawbridge.
However, the knowledge that many members of one’s own soul family, i.e. other fragments of one’s own oneness, are still out there, struggling for their experiences, unprotected and mostly under difficult circumstances, causes these already purified and liberated souls to take care of their brothers and sisters and to be willing to enter into an almost incessant contact with them, which is often only hindered when an embodied fragment refuses to acknowledge this desire for contact and to gratefully engage in it. This does not mean that contact under such circumstances is completely prevented, because this is not possible. There is always a longing on both sides to be supported and to help. Only this longing does not always enter the awareness of the embodied fragment. But the unconscious is always reachable, be it during the day or during the night in deep sleep.
There is a firm bond between the members of a soul family who have finally detached themselves from the body and those who still master their self-imposed tasks. Only when the last fragment of a large soul family has completed the physical experience do all the fragments unite on the territory of this third nation and then leave the astral world to enter the causal plane in a new unified state.
You can imagine that contacts with already liberated fragments take on a different characteristic than contacts with the spirits of the first nation described and also with the fragments that sojourn between incarnations on the second territory. The touches and the uninterrupted exchange of energy between those who belong to the third nation and their brothers and sisters, the fragments in the body, are marked by great warmth, love and compassion. This contact is liberated from all the needs of the ego and from all fear. What you call the “guardian angels” is here.
It is not the case that every person in the body has a single guardian angel exclusively assigned to him. Rather, what you call a guardian angel is a fragment of the many that are here. And every fragment at any time has the possibility of advising, guarding and protecting several of its siblings. However, this will only happen to the extent that the need for protection does not collide with the desires of the embodied fragment for experience, which may include suffering and pain. Rather, it is a matter of averting the unplanned and the unhelpful for the development of the soul and preventing the unwanted when it would make important experiences impossible that are still to be made.
The first of the members of a soul family to enter the territory of the third nation has a great and responsibility-laden task, but one which is still not difficult for it because, due to its accelerated growth, it has gained experiences and energies which it now makes available to those it guides, advises and protects. In other words: Not every soul at the early stages of incarnation already has such protection. Moreover, such protection and guidance only become necessary when a fragment, out of the security of its soul siblings, sets off on the path of individuation and therefore, and as a result of this, falls into dangers they are spared in the early stages of soul development.
Souls of a family develop to quite different degrees and at different speeds, and they are also in constant contact with each other on the horizontal level of incarnation via telepathic connections, which in the early stages of development only reach the unconscious, but later penetrate more and more into conscious awareness.
All of you are thus connected to your soul family, to your sibling fragments, on two axes. On the one hand on the horizontal with all those who belong to your family and at the same time inhabit a body with you; and on the other hand on the vertical with the deceased of the second territory who belong to your soul family as well as those of the third territory who have already successfully worked their way through the incarnations, protecting you and waiting for you. And just as those who are already in the dimension of the third nation guide and counsel you, on the horizontal axis of the physical plane there are always those of your soul family who are a little more advanced than you are, and who take care of you in many situations of life to give you help.
