He thinks the one that took it in mostly was Lionel. Yes, it seemed to sink in mostly; he was turning it over afterwards, though he didn't say much. He's more ready for that than the others. He says he would never have believed it when he was here, but he is.
He hasn't been to that place again, not that same place. But he's been to a place just below it. He's been attending lectures, at what they call, "halls of learning": you can prepare yourself for the higher spheres while you are living in lower ones. He's on the third, but he's told that even now he could go on to the fourth if he chose; but he says he would rather be learning the laws ap-per-taining to each sphere while he's still living on the third, because it brings him closer—at least until you two have come over. He will stay and learn, where he is. He wouldn't like to go on there and then find it to be difficult to get back. He will wait till we can go happily and comfortably together!
Would it interest you for him to tell you about one of the places he's been to? It's so interesting to him, that he might seem to exaggerate; but the experience is so wonderful, it lives with him.
He went into a place on the fifth sphere—a place he takes to be made of alabaster. He's not sure that it really was, but it looked like that. It looked like a kind of a temple—a large one. There were crowds passing into this place, and they looked very happy. And he thought, "I wonder what I'm going to see here." When he got mixed up with the crowd going into the temple, he felt a kind of—(he's stopping to think). It's not irreverency what he says, but he felt a kind of feeling as if he had had too much champagne—it went to his head, he felt too buoyant, as if carried a bit off the ground.
That's 'cos he isn't quite attuned to the conditions of that sphere. It's a most extraordinary feeling. He went in, and he saw that though the building was white, there were many different lights: looked like certain places covered in red, and ... was blue, and the centre was orange. These were not the crude colours that go by those names, but a softened shade. And he looked to see what they came from. Then he saw that a lot of the windows were extremely large, and the panes in them had glass of these colours. And he saw that some of the people would go and stand in the pinky coloured light that came through the red glass, and others would stand in the blue light, and some would stand in the orange or yellow coloured light. And he thought, "What are they doing that for?" Then some one told him that the pinky coloured light was the light of the love-colour; and the blue was the light of actual spiritual healing; and the orange was the light of intellect. And that, according to what people wanted, they would go and stand under that light. And the guide told him that it was more important than what people on earth knew. And that, in years to come, there would be made a study of the effect of different lights.
The pinky people looked clever and developed in their attitude and mentality generally; but they hadn't been able to cultivate the love-interest much, their other interests had overpowered that one. And the people who went into the intellectual light looked softer and happy, but not so clever looking. He says he felt more drawn to the pink light himself, but some one said, "No, you have felt a good deal of that," and he got out and went into the other two, and he felt that he liked the blue light best. And he thinks that perhaps you will read something into that. I had the other conditions, but I wanted the other so much. The blue seemed to call me more than the others. After I had been in it some time, I felt that nothing mattered much, except preparing for the spiritual life. He says that the old Raymond seemed far away at the time, as though he was looking back on some one else's life—some one I hadn't much connexion with, and yet who was linked on to me. And he felt, "What does anything matter, if I can only attain this beautiful uplifting feeling." I can't tell you what I felt like, but reading it over afterwards, perhaps you will understand. Words feel powerless to describe it. He won't try, he will just tell you what happened after.
We sat down—the seats were arranged something like pews in a church—and as he looked towards the aisle, he saw coming up it about seven figures. And he saw, from his former experience, that they were evidently teachers come down from the seventh sphere. He says, they went up to the end part, and they stood on a little raised platform; and then one of them came down each of the little aisles, and put out their hands on those sitting in the pews. And when one of the Guides put his hand on his head, he felt a mixture of all three lights—as if he understood everything, and as if everything that he had ever felt, of anger or worry, all seemed nothing. And he felt as if he could rise to any height, and as if he could raise everybody round him. As if he had such a power in himself. He's stopping to think over it again.
They sat and listened, and the first part of the ceremony was given in a lecture, in which one of the Guides was telling them how to teach others on the lower spheres and earth plane, to come more into the spiritual life, while still on those lower planes. I think that all that went before was to make it easy to understand. And he didn't get only the words of the speaker, words didn't seem to matter, he got the thought—whole sentences, instead of one word at a time. And lessons were given on concentration, and on the projection of uplifting and helpful thoughts to those on the earth plane. And as he sat there—he sat, they were not kneeling—he felt as if something was going from him, through the other spheres on to the earth, and was helping somebody, though he didn't know who it was. He can't tell you how wonderful it was; not once it happened, but several times.
He's even been on to the sixth sphere too. The sixth sphere was even more beautiful than the fifth, but at present he didn't want to stay there. He would rather be helping people where he is.