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Rum we angels peered into Sheol, as we passed into it, invisible, our essence causing no disturbance in a realm that was purely souls at that point . . . souls and nothing but souls . . . we realized these souls were strengthened in their survival by the attentions of those living on earth, by the love being sent to them by humans, by the thoughts of them in human minds. It was a process.
"And just as with angels, these souls were individuals with varying degrees of intellect, interest, or curiosity. They were hosts as well to all human emotions, though in many, mercifully, all emotion was on the wane.
"Some souls, for example, knew they were dead, and sought to respond to the prayers of their children, and actively attempted to advise, speaking with all the power they could muster in a spiritual voice. They struggled to appear to their children. Sometimes they broke through for fleeting seconds, gathering to themselves swirling particles of matter by the sheer force of their invisible essence. Other times they made themselves visible in dreams, when the soul of the sleeping human was opened to other souls. They told their children of the bitterness and darkness of death, and that they must be brave and strong in life. They gave their children advice.
"And they seemed, in some instances at least, to know that the belief and attention of their sons and daughters strengthened them. They requested offerings and prayers, they reminded the children of their duty. These souls were to some extent the least confused, except for one thing. They thought they had seen all there was to be seen. " "No hint of Heaven?" I asked.
"No, and no light from Heaven penetrated Sheol, nor any music. From Sheol one saw the darkness and the stars, and the people of Earth. "
"Unbearable. "
"Not if you think you are a god to your children and can still derive strength from the mere sight of the libations they pour on your grave. Not if you feel pleasure in those who hearken to your advice and anger at those who don't, and not if you can communicate occasionally, sometimes with spectacular results. "
"I see, of course. And gods they seemed to their children. "
"Ancestral gods of a certain kind. Not the Creator of All. Human beings had distinct ideas on both questions, as I've said.
"I became greatly absorbed with this whole question of Sheol. I traveled the length and breadth of Sheol. Some of these souls didn't know they were dead. They knew only they were lost and blind and miserable and they cried all the time like infant humans. They were so weak I don't even think they felt the presence of other souls.
"Other souls were clearly deluded. They thought they were still alive! They chased after their kindred, trying vainly to get the oblivious son or daughter to listen, when of course the kindred could not hear or see them; and these, these who thought they were still living, well, these had no presence of mind to gather matter to make themselves appear or to come to the living in a dream, because they didn't know they were dead. "
"Yes. "
"To continue, some souls knew they were ghosts when they came to mortals. Others thought they were alive and the whole world had turned against them. Others simply drifted, seeing and hearing the sounds of other living beings but remote from this as if in a stupor or dream. And some souls died.
"Before my very eyes, some died. And soon I realized many were dying. The dying soul would last a week, perhaps a month in human time, after its separation from the human body, retaining its shape, and then begin to fade. The essence would gradually disperse, just as did the essence inside an animal upon its death. Gone into the air, returned perhaps to the energy and essence of God. "
"That's what happened?" I asked desperately. "Their energy went back into the Creator; the light of a candle returned to the eternal fire?"
"I don't know. And that I didn't see, little flames wafted to Heaven, drawn aloft by a mighty and loving blaze. No, I saw nothing of the kind.
"From Sheol the Light of God was not visible. For Sheol, the consolation of God did not exist. Yet these were spiritual beings, made in our image and His image, and clinging to that image and hungering for a life beyond death. That was the agony.
The hunger for the life beyond death. "
"If that was absent at the time of the death, would the soul simply be extinguished?" I asked.
"No, not at all. The hunger seemed innate. The hunger had to die out in Sheol before the soul would disintegrate. Indeed, souls went through many, many experiences in Sheol, and those who had become the strongest were those who perceived themselves as gods, or humans passed into the realm of the good God, and attentive to humans; and these souls gained power even to sway the others and strengthen them sometimes and keep them from fading away. "
He paused as if not sure how to proceed. Then, he went on: "There were some souls who understood things in a different way. They knew they weren't gods. They knew they were dead humans. They knew they didn't really have the right to change the destiny of those who prayed to them; they knew that the libations essentially were symbolic. These souls understood the meaning of the concept symbolic. They knew. And they knew they were dead and they perceived themselves to be lost. They would have reentered the flesh if they could have. For there in the flesh was all the light and warmth and comfort that they had ever known and could still see. And sometimes these souls managed to do exactly that!
"I witnessed it in various different fashions. I saw these souls deliberately descend and take possession of a stupefied mortal, take over his limbs and brain and live in him until the man gained the strength to throw the soul off. You know these things. All men do¡ªwhat is involved in possession. You have possessed a body that wasn't yours, and your body has been possessed by another soul. " "Yes. "
"But this was the dawn of such invention. And to watch these clever souls learn the rules of it, to see them grow ever more powerful, was something to behold.
"And what I could not fail to be frightened by, being the Accuser as I am, and horrified by Nature, as God calls it, what I could not ignore was that these souls did have an effect on living women and men! There were those living humans already who had become oracles. They would smoke or drink some potion to render their own minds passive, so that a dead soul might speak with their voice!
"And because these powerful spirits¡ªfor I should call them spirits now¡ªbecause these powerful spirits knew only what Earth and Sheol could teach them, they might urge human beings on to terrible mistakes. I saw them order men into battle; I saw them order executions. I saw them demand blood sacrifice of human beings. "
"You saw the Creation of Religion out of Man," I said.
"Yes, insofar as Man can Create anything. Let us not forget Who Created us all. "
"The other angels, how did they fare with these revelations?"
"We gathered, exchanged stories in amazement, then went off again on our own explorations; we were more entangled with the earth than we had ever been. But essentially, the reactions of angels varied. Some, the Seraphim mainly, thought the whole process was downright marvelous; that God deserved a thousand anthems in praise that his Creation should lead to a being who could evolve an invisible deity from itself who would then command it to ever greater efforts at survival or war.
"Then there were those who thought, 'This is an error, this is an abomination! These are the souls of humans pretending to be Gods! This is unspeakable and must be stopped immediately. '
