by Ruth Mattson Taylor, Margaret F. Tweddell (channel)

My father, the Reverend Alvin Daniel Mattson, S.T.D., a Lutheran theologian, died on October 19, 1970. Affectionately known as “AD” by hundreds of former students, colleagues, and friends, he was a pioneer among the clergymen who sought to awaken the organized church to its responsibilities in the area of social justice.

Not quite five months after AD died, Margaret Flavell, a close friend from London, was visiting us. She is one of the most respected clairvoyants in England and has a remarkable record of accomplishments in the field of psychic communication. On the morning of March 2, 1971, we decided to see if we could get in touch with AD from the world beyond and to tape-record our attempt. We had expected to make contact with him and to get evidence that he does survive, but little did we expect the quantity and quality of very significant communication and information that we received.

AD always believed that truth, wherever it is found, is universal. In keeping with this belief, this material is intended for all men, whatever their religious or philosophical beliefs. A widely respected theologian, AD speaks bringing us his message from the spiritual world.

Heaven and Hell

Concerning heaven and hell, AD stated, “It is not true that when we die we wait for a judgment day.

“Heaven and hell are not places – they are spiritual states of being. They are not static states but are states in which there can be growth and progress toward ultimate wholeness of being. As there are degrees of heaven or hell on earth, so there are degrees of heaven or hell in the spiritual world. The spiritual state of being you have on earth is the spiritual state you take with you to the world beyond when you die.

“There is no sudden metamorphosis from an idle person into an active person, from a nonreligious person into a religious person, from a money-centered person into a God-centered person. This is not an automatic thing. Your personality – your likes and dislikes, your hopes, your fears – are still attached to you, although in a more nebulous form than when you are on earth in a physical body.

“I see people come over. They arrive and have high hopes that everything is going to be different for them. However, nothing can be different for them because they have brought with them what they are. There is so much harmony here, and if they have brought a disharmonious personality with them, they find it very difficult to link in with the harmonious existence that we have. This is something that grieves me when I see it.

“It is not true, as some people think, that if we only give verbal assent to belief in God, well, that’s fine – that is our passport to heaven and everything will be all right. What we have to remember is that Jesus showed us the path by which it will be all right. He doesn’t say, ‘It’s all right, Brother, come along in. Sit down now and relax and do nothing.’ He says, ‘It’s all right. You are on the path. There are a lot of stones in it, but you are on the path. If you ask me, I’ll help you over the stones.’ The old teachings that ‘as you strive, so you’ll be helped’ are right. The Lord helps those who help themselves.

“Heaven is not sitting down and ‘casting down your golden crowns’ and singing ‘Hallelujah.’ However, I did notice that there is a tendency among certain sects or religious people over here to congregate in their little groups and have their little sessions of what they feel are ‘heaven.’ This is an interesting fact. I am told by my teacher here that eventually they become very bored with this narrowness, and then their own helpers and teachers here try to give them another thought and another idea and help them to break away from this narrow approach.

“We tend to feel that when we die, heaven is as we thought it – and it certainly is. As I’ve said, you can be received in exactly the same way you always thought you would be received. You may remain in that narrowness if you want – you need never change unless you wish. God gives us perfect freedom in spirit.

“The old notions are that you go ‘up to heaven,’ you go ‘down to hell.’ We have not understood that it is merely a matter of vibration. The finer the vibration is, the nearer we are to heaven. Heaven is a state of being joyous, light, loving, harmonious, vibrant, God-centered and others-centered. The heavier the vibration, the nearer we are to hell. Hell is a state of being heavy, dull, dismal, gray, and glum – as when you are heavily depressed and self-centered.

“People who have an orientation of hate, for instance, find themselves unable to appreciate a realm of love and harmony. Therefore, they continue in their state of bitterness and are ‘closed’ to the glory which exists around them. I am told by my spiritual inspirer that they have to wait. These people wait and gradually they appreciate the fact that it is very destructive to hate like that. When they have had real hates and have been emotionally upset like that, or have had a real bitterness toward someone, then it takes them quite a period of time to get the Light and the power around them again, to be able to appreciate this place or that, or go to the Valley of Praise, or go and hear beautiful music. They just hear discords, and eventually they come to the realization that ‘this isn’t much of a life, is it?’ And the moment that happens, those who are dedicated to work with this sort of person come and they have their methods of easing them away from the state they are in. It is like taking a skin off an onion. They will gently peel off this layer that is formed by hate – this shutting-in, restricting coat that comes on them with their violent, negative emotion.

“For someone who is bigoted and intolerant to come here when they lose their physical bodies, it is also a very painful and very uncomfortable life. It is very lonely. It is almost as if they are encased in a hard shell or hard covering and there is great difficulty in finding a chink or a crack and bursting out.

“If you are tolerant, sympathetic, and easily touched when you are on earth, you may find that your sympathetic tears and emotion for other people may make you a bit uncomfortable sometimes. You may feel a bit ashamed at having to blow your nose and dab the tears from your eyes, feeling that other people may not understand. However, you may have the consolation of knowing that when you get here, you will have less work to do because you will not have to undo and dispel and disintegrate a hard shell of indifference or intolerance.

“This plane is so full of different people, so many different people, that one must learn tolerance very quickly. Otherwise you meet someone and, if you are not tolerant toward them, you are immediately consumed by annoyance and your spiritual body becomes upset. You can get mental indigestion. You then need to go and find somebody to calm you down and sort you out. In the same way that you go to a doctor for an upset physical body, so you can go to a clinic or healer here and get your astral body sorted out. It is an odd sensation to go talk and be smoothed down, as it were. It always reminds me, when I watch it being done, of how a bird, a seagull in particular, will come down to land. Just as it touches water it is protected and buoyed, and the bird folds all its feathers and its wings down until it is smooth and sleek. This is exactly how our aura has to be smoothed down – until it is smooth and sleek.”

Is There a Devil?

We asked AD if he could enlighten us about the existence, or nonexistence, of a devil. He stated, “Just knowing the bad mistakes you made through your carelessness or your selfishness is a hell. You don’t need a devil prodding you with a fork. Believe me, your own anguished mind is a prod that is more hurtful than any prodding with a devil’s fork.

“I met a man over here who said that he would gladly exchange good old Dante’s Inferno for the mental anguish he was experiencing over guilt feelings from wrong actions he had taken on earth in certain business matters. In Dante’s Inferno he would be able to complain that the devil was doing this to him, whereas now he had no devil to complain of because the devil was himself.

“Whether there is a negative personal being who can be called the devil I cannot say. I have not seen anyone personified as the devil. There certainly is an evil force which builds up from the negative aspects of life and has a tremendous influence. Thought forms which are evil certainly play a part, but I don’t think they are the whole answer.

“The problem of evil is a very perplexing one. We have not solved it here, either. There is a negative aspect in existence which causes man to react contrary to God’s will. What the original source of that negativism is, we do not know – only God knows. This is a theological question that has bothered man through the ages. If we get further thoughts on this, we’ll bring them through.”

The Depths of Hell

We were also curious about what happens to people who have been hardened criminals on earth, and asked AD about this. He stated, “There is a condition which could be termed the ‘depths of hell.’ People who have deliberately chosen to live debased or cruel lives and have turned their backs on the Light of God find themselves in a state similar to groping in a dark and depressing fog. Everyone there is wrapped up in his own cruel thinking. These souls wander around in this lost state until they, of their own volition, make an attempt to turn toward the realm of Light. Some may be lost for eons of time.

“There are souls called the ‘shining ones’ who dedicate themselves to going into this dark realm and bringing spiritual light. The souls who are dedicated to this work of rehabilitation are clothed in protective garments so that they are not harmed or pierced by the dagger-like thoughts of hatred which those in the dark realms are throwing out. The shining ones are not allowed to go and talk to these people, but they stand nearby and call to them through thought – prayer, if you like. The moment souls in this dark area respond in a positive way, the ones who have come to help are able to bring them out into a less dense, foggy world and eventually out into the realm of Light.

“Some people find themselves ‘earth-bound’ after death. This is a lower astral state. For example, people who die suddenly by accident, perhaps when they are young, are often loathe to leave the earth as they feel a sense of incompletion of their earthly life. They stay close to the earth, ‘haunting’ the homes and places they have left. It is only through a process of education that they can be urged away from this unhealthy condition and helped to progress and grow in the new state in which they find themselves. Prayers made on behalf of these people from those still on earth can be a great support and help. These prayers help release them to go on and partake of the ever-expanding life in the world beyond.

“Among others, the lower astral planes also contain people who have been alcoholics or drug addicts, who find these cravings still with them in the astral bodies. They stay near the earth to be near alcoholics or drug addicts who are still in the physical body, in order to participate vicariously in the sensations which alcohol and drugs give. They can be helped in the world beyond to clear their astral bodies of these cravings so that they, too, may go on and progress. However, this is a long and tedious process.

“We have to try to convey to people still in the physical body that they can’t expect a sudden change for the better. They must help themselves while they are on earth.”

Drugs and the Dangers of “Back-Door” Knowing

“Drugs are a back door to knowing. Some mistakenly think they can take a drug to see what it is going to be like when they die. The trip they experience on drugs is not going to be anything at all like the experience after death. Feel sorry for those whose minds are in such a sad state that they have to take the back doors of life, when knowledge can be gained safely through the front door of sincere spiritual seeking.

“In addition to damaging the physical and astral bodies, there are grave dangers in taking drugs. As I said, there are many astral figures hovering around the drug users on earth. In this hovering around they vicariously participate with the drug user. They are linking in and, like leeches, they are experiencing what the earthly drug user is experiencing. If such a one attaches himself to a drug user, that drug user is in far worse condition afterward.

“You can see some of the drug users on earth sitting around in various states of hallucination. They have a very pathetic look as if they have no soul – vacant behind the eyes. Many times they actually are vacant. During a trip they may actually be out of their body, and temporarily it is just a shell that is sitting there, being motivated by the mechanical processes of the physical body. Often there are astral entities trying to get into that vacant body, and the drug user’s guardian from the astral realm has a terrible battle trying to keep these astral entities from possessing the body of the drug user. This is a grave danger. There have been times when the wrong entity has slipped in, and then there has been great trouble in removing that entity so that the owner of the physical body can come back. This is always a grave danger if a person takes a drug which causes that person to vacate his physical body.

“We talk about pollution and cleaning up nature. I believe in cleaning up nature, but I also feel that we have got to start with cleaning up the nature in man. Man has got to face life through the front doors and not seek back doors into life’s experiences.”

Excerpt from Witness From Beyond

See Part I here. See Part III here.