in this heaven, and the ideals for the outer that were held before me were always superior to all the lures of the Garden.

It brings one to the contradictory puzzle of having apparently to exalt the earth consciousness above that of “heaven,” and that creates another gap in all attempts to explain.

I have been going to all this lengthy explanation to try to convey that my impression of the soul home, represented in the realm described, is not the “useless existence” which you surmise, but merely a place of temporary recuperation for hard-pressed souls here in the outer. All this time I have been trying to penetrate into the real working existence of the soul; but it only comes through in disconnected bits, useless for scientific analysis.

That there is such a work, I am sure, for I am conscious of meeting and consulting with three or four individuals every so often. One of them would correspond to a “master of armed men”; another to a leader of “torch bearers”; another to a director of “creative workers”; another to what seems to be the commander of “the invisible ones.” Whatever they are, but they seem to stand highest in authority.

OUR REPLY follows:

It would seem to us that those souls you contact on the plane you describe are those who are going through the purifying and refining process preparatory to a spiritual awakening or rebirth. Their soul lives witnessed consciously enjoyed on the soul plane were indeed temporary periods of rest and relief, as your Argentine friend stated; probably permitted by the Higher Self to encourage and inspire the human mind to go on despite outer hardships and trials.

It is most interesting that such were “fully conscious of it all on both planes.” This is most unusual—for our observation of similar cases. Further regarding the soul home being built from unconscious ideals formed in the past; it is not so much from ideals that they are built as from actual words and deeds (thoughts and feelings expressed).

The soul does not lag behind the human self, but precedes it and outmanifests all things first on the soul plane in the form of desires realized (on that plane desires are no sooner expressed