Survey: A Wanderer in the Spirit Lands

(Note: The information in this series of articles isn’t corroborated by ITC contacts that I consider to be accurate and reliable. So readers’ discretion is advised.)

Franchezzo’s popular book, Wanderer in the Spirit Lands (published in 1896 and summarized here on this site), gives a penetrating look at the spirit worlds around the Earth, especially the darker realms… what the author calls the 7 levels of hell, where the most malevolent thought-forms from Earth spin terrible afterlife scenarios. He only gives glimpses of the 7 levels of heaven, where our noblest and most caring thought-forms feed into gleaming realms of paradise and beyond (and where most of the technical spirit communications posted on this site originate).

Why the dark focus of the book? Because Franchezzo tells us his neglectful life of self-indulgence caused an early death, from which he awakened in a dark, ugly place. With the help of his soulmate still alive on Earth and his spirit guides from the finer realms, he struggled, soul-searched, and sometimes scrapped his way out of the darkness and into the light. The book is about that struggle.

What I’d like to do now is to try to put Franchezzo’s grueling experiences into perspective of the bigger picture, based on what I’ve learned about life and afterlife over the past 45 years or so.

• Life. Our thoughts, words, and actions from day to day and year to year help make the world a better place or a worse place. Our choices and their effects on other people are gathered up in the course of a lifetime to form a sort of ethical homing signal by the time we die, and then that signal pulls our spirit into an appropriate afterlife scenario… for better or worse. So as individuals, our personal choices shape our afterlife destiny. As societies, our political and economic policies shape our planetary fate and help to form the worlds of spirit around us. Our leaders who enact sweeping policies that affect the lives of many people might be lovingly welcomed in paradise after they die, or they might be stuck in sordid spheres among tormented souls, depending on whether they spread good will or malice during their lifetimes… whether they made the world a better place or a worse place through their decisions.
• Afterlife. Once we get settled into our new life on the other side, our next adventure begins… again, for better or worse. While Franchezzo’s book offers remarkable insight into the darkness, I’ve learned more about the afterlife from modern researchers like George Meek and Maggy and Jules Harsch-Fischbach… especially through ITC research as I experienced it with INIT, whose spirit friends at Timestream sent us information that is both life-changing and world-changing. While Franchezzo woke up in a dark place after he died (probably level -1 or level -2 of hell), I’ve learned through ITC that most people are basically decent and caring enough during their lifetimes to awaken at level 3 of heaven after they die, which is a bright, beautiful, paradise realm. By the end of Franchezzo’s book, he has worked his way to the very threshold of that level 3 heaven. Essentially, then, where Franchezzo’s journey ends is where true ITC research begins.

In the three diagrams below I try to depict the spirit worlds around the Earth, according to Franchezzo.

Left: For us carnal humans, probably the two most fundamental elements within the massive, multidimensional omniverse are 1) the central source (God, the creator and sustainer of this omniverse) and 2) the Earth that we call home (with its invisible spirit realms superimposed over it, all jumbled together in the same “space,” but each remaining distinct by its “frequency” or vibration.)
Right: If we could start pulling the various spirit realms apart from each other like an accordion file, the Earth would be in the middle. The spirit realms above Earth in the diagram are what we typically call heavens, and the realms below Earth are typically called hells. From the Earth downward, the vibration of each level gets denser and darker. From the Earth upward, the vibration gets ever subtler and lighter… until we reach the central source, which emits a pure, nonvibrating light or consciousness. That “breath of God” flows through the entire omniverse, vibrating slower and slower as it moves out-beyond… endowing everything in its path with life force. Apparently the life force gets a little weak and unstable by the time it gets all the way out to the material universe, which probably accounts for the “7 levels of hell.”

Here are some of the names that have been given to the various spirit levels. According to Franchezzo, the levels (or spheres) can each be divided into 12 sublevels (circles). While this is the model that he and his Brotherhood use, he says other spirit groups sometimes divide things up differently, creating a slightly different model or map of the spirit worlds around Earth. Most people, regardless of their religious beliefs, are basically decent during lifetime and awaken at level 3 after they die, as I mentioned. They go through a rejuvenating sleep lasting about 6 weeks of earth time, during which their worldly blemishes and shortcomings are polished away. The earthplane or shadow world of Earth is a spirit realm superimposed so closely with the physical planet that it’s not practical to try to separate the Earth from the shadow world conceptually. The spirits of that shadow world move in and out of our physical world, meddling in human lives and human affairs, for better or worse. ITC in its purest form involves a stable communication bridge between Earth and level 3 of heaven.

So let’s look at the life and afterlife implications of these spirit realms and how they interplay with our world, according to Franchezzo’s book… starting with the afterlife.

Afterlife

As the life force from the central source streams out-beyond (downward in the diagram above, full of celestial music and ethereal wisdom), its vibration becomes slower and probably more impure and unstable. By the time it reaches the dense material universe, the vibration is probably unstable enough to allow areas of darkness to form… like dim figures in the late-night woods beyond the flashlight beam. Hence the dark realities in the realms of “hell.”

The levels in the diagram, and the sublevels between them (not shown), are not really detached from each other as the bottom-most picture suggests, but blend into each other. If we were to drive a car on Earth from one place near the equator to another place near one of the polar icecaps, we’d pass through many cities and towns, states and provinces, countries and regions. Even though each place is marked with a boundary and given a particular name on a road sign, it’s obvious that they really just blend into one another. The same is true of the spirit realms and levels shown in the diagram. Franchezzo refers to the Twilight Land, Land of Dawn, Land of Remorse… as well as the seven levels (spheres) of heaven and hell and their many sublevels (circles in spirals). These are all just names and concepts that Franchezzo and his Brotherhood use to describe a vast, complex spirit world “landscape” that’s superimposed over the Earth like radio signals.

Our Timestream spirit friends, during the years of INIT, sometimes referred to “negative spirits” in their communications with us, warning us of their disruptive influences on spirit communication bridges, and urging us to avoid those negative spirits by overcoming our own fears, doubts, envy, and other savage thoughts (because we naturally attract spirits who resonate with our own disposition). Over the years I tried to avoid the term “negative spirits” because it sounded judgmental and dualistic. Now, since reading Franchezzo’s book, the term makes more sense to me:

• Spirits from the 7 heavens have more noble thoughts than the earthly norm, and so they could be considered “positive” spirits.
• Spirits from the 7 hells have more savage thoughts than the earthly norm, and so they could be considered “negative” spirits.

Franchezzo lived in a Christian culture in Italy, and even though his main guides (Ahrinziman and Hassein) were Zoroastrian during their lifetimes, the spirit worlds they show to Franchezzo have familiar Christian characteristics, such as the Christian hell. In my agnostic years I (like Franchezzo) rolled my eyes at old religious terms like “fire and brimstone,” but now it’s apparent to me that lots of those old terms are probably based on truth. The sulfurous flames in that darkest of hells are formed by the vile thought-forms of its inhabitants.

Likewise, the bright, luminous realms of heaven are formed largely by the thought-forms of their inhabitants… their dispositions of love, empathy, trust, and service to others.

Life

So the practical lesson from all of that is simple: the more we can purify our thoughts and dispositions during our lifetimes, the nicer our afterlife will be. The more we can replace our selfishness, suspicion, and malice with caring, trust, and good will, the happier we’ll be not just during our lifetime, but also during our adventures to come after we die.

Harboring strong feelings toward another person in this world also has afterlife implications:

• Feeling deep love for a noble friend or family member or pet or a compassionate religious leader might pull us into the same heavenly spiritual community with that person after we die and get settled into the afterlife.
• Resenting or judging others harshly has spiritual repercussions, too. If we harbor contempt or disgust toward certain individuals, again, there is a good chance that we will be pulled into the same, hellish afterlife community after we die. That experience will probably not be pleasant.

The main rule of thumb for enjoying a happy afterlife is simple:

Live a happy life on Earth and help others to be happy. Anchor in the reality of God while navigating the illusions of Earth. Forgive. Be tolerant. Have empathy.