| The reader is asked to bear in mind that the subsequent material is a synopsis only, a summation of the content of a greater work and not a cohesive excerpt from the work itself. If the reader should feel that the information provided or conclusions reached are in any way unsubstantiated or incomplete, then he or she is kindly requested to consult the source directly, only there to seek out the desired information. And if the reader should feel the urge to pass judgment on Toward the Light on the basis of this synopsis alone, then it should be the reader’s duty to consult the true narrative first, of which the subsequent material is merely a rendering. |
1. The struggle between darkness and light, the beginning of human history, and its origin.
1.1 General.
"Through all eternity Darkness was everywhere. In the Darkness was the Light; in the light were Thought and Will. But Thought and Will were not in the darkness. In the Light was the seed of all that is good, but in Darkness was the seed of all that is evil".
Thus begins "Ardor’s Account," the initial segment of Toward the Light (subsequently referred to as TTL) which in many ways serves as the foundation for the work's comprehensive message. The first part of the account attempts to clarify for all mankind how, prior to the beginning of time, the universe was created. Life and its possibilities were still in a state of latency. The universe rested in a state of complete tranquility. Nothing had been created and nothing had been brought to life. Only the primordial forces of darkness and light - enormous, cosmic energy sources - in collusion with primordial thought and primordial will, existed in balanced equilibrium.
An eternity of absolute calm transpired before the primordial balance.was displaced. Thought and will, with a murmur of unrest, reacted to the emanations of darkness. Unknown eternities passed, and after an infinitely slow but ultimately progressive struggle out of darkness, primordial thought and primordial will emerged as a consummate spiritual being comprised of light - God arose as personality. God, therefore, was never created as such, but has existed throughout eternity - although he/she, in an infinitely distant past, did not yet exist as a consummate subjective being.
Light and darkness, in the transcendental sense, are for humanity mere abstractions, but for God and all spiritual beings they are reality - forces both powerful and alluring. Although invisible to the human eye, these primordial forces are highly active here on earth. The composition of darkness and light, the degrees of strength in which they coexist, how they manifest themselves in the heavens as well as here on earth, and the system of laws that governs these manifestations, all these and many other relations are thoroughly dealt with in TTL and related works. In the context of this brochure, darkness and light will be referred to exclusively in terms of the pre-historical and historical events they have influenced - although the established scientific community here on Earth are as yet unaware of their existence (it is only by virtue of the creation of new fields of study such as parapsychology that science has begun to recognize the respectively positive and negative effect of these forces on people's spiritual - and physical lives).
1.2 In the beginning.
When God arose as personality, He was the vanquisher of darkness and the ruler of light. Of light’s ethereal matter God created a tremendous host of magnificent beings characterized by consummate beauty and love. For millions of years God, in true bliss and harmony, lived a transcendental existence in the company of these spiritual entities. Surrounded by splendor and beauty - of a scenic as well as artistic and architectural sense - God - by way of his all-comprehending thought, the epitome of logos - taught His creations to delve into and explore the laws that He, after his ascension, had ordained for the planets - their orbits and their material composition. He taught them about the many seeds of life and the manifold possibilities that lie hidden in the light, and the many children of God continued to make great strides, throughout an eternity, towards the acquisition of wisdom and the conceptualization of love.
Upon reading these segments in TTL, it is necessary to remember that it would be impossible for any human being to conceive the manner in which this transcendental existence manifested itself for God and the children He first created; to begin with, the spiritual beings referred to here existed, intellectually as well as emotionally, on a totally different level than even the most gifted intellect here on earth, and what is more - as Ardor explains in his account (pg. 4) - ". . . compared with the glorious Kingdom of God even the most beautiful place on Earth is fog-ridden and cold."
1.3 The fall.
Upon realizing that his children had reached an exceptional level of spiritual development, God acknowledged that the point in time had been reached when they themselves would be able to lead spiritual minors to a level of spirituality equal to their own, and God was to select those best suited for the educational task at hand. For a long time the children first created pondered the difficult task to be assigned them by their Father. Among the large host of spiritual personalities referred to in TTL as "the Eldest," there were many who began to believe that they would be chosen to carry out the father's task. The eldest were of the opinion that they were better qualified than their younger siblings (the equally large host of God's children first created referred to in TTL as "the Youngest"), and through the passage of time, pride slowly crept into their consciousness - the first sinful thought in the history of all things created. In the spiritual world - a world that is invisible for all mankind - a constant law exists stating that any form of base and ignoble thought attracts darkness, and that loving thought attracts light. As a result, the Eldest - due to the arrogance of their thoughts - quite naturally attracted the primordial forces of darkness. Impatient and obstinate, the Eldest wondered as to why God still hesitated to choose them. And in this manner darkness won serious inroads into their souls. In spite of God's repeated warnings, the Eldest made no attempt to protect themselves from the pollution of darkness infiltrating their minds, and as a result of the rash confidence they had in their own abilities, the Eldest eventually abandoned the kingdom of God. They relocated to an ethereal realm of light that enveloped a distant planet created by their Father, a planet designated as habitat for the new beings He intended to create. This distant planet was earth.
Within the confines of their new abode, the Eldest decided to create spiritual beings from the light, but were unable to solve the mystery of life. They therefore decided to create from darkness. Once again God let his voice be heard and warned the Eldest about their misdeed, only thereafter to realize that the obstinacy of their ways was irreversible.
With immeasurable sorrow, the Youngest came to accept that their older siblings had fallen into darkness and subsequently asked their Father to command the Eldest to return home, but such an action would have been incommensurate with God's fatherly being, "for God compels no one to do that which is right, and no must compel his neighbour."
Note: Through thousands of years, God's envoys have tried to enlighten Man about the fall of the Eldest. The Religions of the world and the mythologies handed down through millennia tell of a prehistoric fall. These accounts, each developed from the same kernel of truth, recount the fall of the Eldest (see TTL, esp. pg. xxx).
1.4 Prehistory and the creation of the first humans.
In their effort to create life, the Eldest were in need of an enormous concentration of darkness wherefore they used their awesome powers of thought and will to envelop Earth therein. The manifold seeds that God had planted on earth, originally intended by Him to serve as catalyst for an array of heterogeneous beings (by way of His will) were thereby "inseminated" by darkness and not by light, as was God's original intent.
The fall's organic result was therefore a completely degenerative, abhorrent plant and animal life, an aberration of life forms that, upon inspection, horrified the Eldest the first time they descended to Earth from their ethereal abode. As a result of recent scientific research concerning the behavioral patterns, appearance and living conditions of dinosaurs, we have moved a little closer to an understanding of these first inhabitants of Earth and the terrifying world in which they lived.
In spite of the horrific life forms that greeted them on earth, the Eldest were undeterred in their desire to create life out of darkness, to create beings they themselves would be able to lead. The Eldest's attempts at creation lasted some two thousand years. After having experimented with the possibilities of life that material darkness and the materials of Earth had to offer, the Eldest were finally able to create the first beings capable of long term survival. But as the Eldest's sense of form and beauty, due to the confusing and distorting influence of darkness, no longer equaled the ardor of their individual wills, a variety of highly primitive and physically repulsive prototypes was created. TTL (pg. 179): "Some of the oldest races of human beings have in the apes left a visible reminder of the primitive stage of development in which they languished for many millennia (. . .) Through many ages of time human beings remained, bodily as well as spiritually, at about the same level as the animals, and since Darkness had reigned practically everywhere on Earth at the time of their creation, they also became related by blood to all the mammals extant at that time. By mating with several different animal species the first apes came into existence."
"Through the inter-breeding of the early apes and their own and their off-springs cross-breeding, partly with human beings and party with other mammals, there gradually developed the profusion of ape species that are now found spread throughout the Earth, and of which certain species are more or less directly descended from human beings."
"Thus: the human race did not descend through various evolutionary stages from the animals, but evolved from created beings. The manner in which the Eldest accomplished this act of creation will never be divulged to mankind" TTL (p.178).
1.5 Humans become the Children of God and the Light is brought to Earth.
Approximately one million years after the first humans had been created, God once again called upon the Eldest, many of whom had grieved through eons over the terrible life forms that they had created on earth. In spite of the almost impenetrable darkness that now surrounded them, the darkness that had been responsible for breaking down their once so incandescent personalities - some of them, unselfishly, were able to find it within themselves to implore God to provide help for their creations. For the sake of their prayers, God allowed an ethereal life force to emanate from His being and flow into the spiritually unawakened and unconscious shadows that were the early souls of mankind - and by way of His almighty will, He presented humanity with a gift: a faint essence of His own will and thought. In that all life emanating from God is immortal, He thereby introduced mankind to the realm of eternal life.
When God in said manner had assumed paternity for the primitive species of mankind, he called upon the Youngest to assist him in leading humanity out of darkness - the realm of ignorance, evil and death - and toward the light - the realm of wisdom, love and life. Due to his omniscience, God realized that the only means whereby the immensely backward species of man could be transported toward the light was reincarnation; in that all matter on Earth was transitory - qua the rule of darkness on and around the globe - the human bodies created by the Eldest were unable to serve as vessels for the souls of mankind for more than a severely limited period, and as the process of maturation inherent to the souls of mankind takes millions of years (see section 3.6), it goes without saying that it would be necessary for each and every being to experience an innumerable series of earthly lives in different bodies.
In order to provide the souls of mankind with a place of rest between their many incarnations, God, after having adopted the wretched creations of His Eldest children, created six astral light spheres around earth. These spheres were appropriately distanced from the ethereal abode destroyed by darkness in which the Eldest now lived.
The Youngest allowed themselves to be bound to human fetus' in order to be born in the midst of humanity. They realized that this was the only way they would be able to effectively help mankind. The Youngest were afraid of the colossal educational task that lay before them, as well as of the terrible world of darkness into which for many eternities they were to be born, but by way of their overwhelming compassion for humanity, as well as God's solemn promise of support, they overcame their fears. A project of immense proportions would soon begin.
During the first many thousand years of the Youngest's life on earth, God made it so that their enormous intellect, emotionality, and the memory of their idyllic existence in God's bountiful kingdom was severely reduced. If God had not implemented such a limitation of the immense personalities of the Youngest, their incarnation as humans on Earth would have become unbearable for them. In primordial times, the Youngest were therefore only a few gradients above people.
In that the standing of the first humans was exceptionally low - in the physical as well spiritual sense - the Youngest, in order to attain discernible results, were obliged to limit their cultural work to certain races of man and within certain geographically demarcated areas.
In an infinitely slow manner, step by step, generation by generation, the Youngest led humanity forward to a new and ever greater state of knowledge - providing them with more and more tools to be used in their daily lives.
After millions of years of physical and intellectual development, mankind reaches the culmination of several aspects of their maturation process. In TTL, these are elucidated in relation to the three long vanished prehistoric civilizations - the first real fruits of the Youngest's concentrated efforts: The Pacific realm, or Lemuria, the Atlantic realm, also known as Atlantis, and the African realm in East Africa, (In TTL, the location of these civilizations and other aspects of their cultural circumstances are expounded upon in detail).
1.6 The Eldest begin their illegal Incarnations.
Fully aware of the intentions of God and the Youngest in relation to the enormous cultural undertaking mentioned in 1.5, the Eldest - from the vantage point of their astral home above earth - observed the undeniable progress of light amongst humanity. Following the lead of their older brother, Ardor (referred to in TTL as the oldest of the Eldest) they decided that Earth should remain their world and humans their creations - that they should remain the children of darkness. In order to understand how the Eldest were able to make such a selfish and gruesome decision, one has to remember that they had been under the influence of darkness for millions of years and had therefore evolved into ruthless, internally subdivided and truly horrifying personalities.
Up until this point, the Eldest had attempted - by utilizing their tremendous willpower - to hinder the progress of humanity by enveloping the regions where the work of the Youngest had been most successful in torrents of darkness; but around 12,000 B.C. a decisive change occurs.
As a result of the darkness that was perpetually attracted by the evil thoughts and deeds of the Eldest, their home surrounding Earth had been laid to waste. Existence within the confines of this Destroyed Kingdom was so dismal and oppressive that, for the Eldest, life there had become almost unbearable. As a result, some of the Eldest suggested that they should let themselves be incarnated on Earth only there to seek refuge from the horrible existence left them in their astral realm of darkness. God let his voice be heard and warned the Eldest against their imminent plans. He fully realized how harmful the consequences for the work being carried out by the Youngest in the realm of humanity would be if these highly ranked and corrupt personalities were to let themselves be born on Earth as humans. But once again the Eldest ignored God's warnings. A new era in the history of humanity had begun.
In relation thereto, one may read, amongst other things, the following in TTL (p. 202-203): "When the Eldest against God's Will incarnated themselves on Earth, their ability to draw Darkness closely about human beings was enhanced, since all the evil of Darkness and all base passions were concentrated in the spiritual selves of the Eldest, and their lust for power drove them to seek the most prominent positions in all walks of life, even though they attained their objectives through countless crimes, through the breaking of both divine and human laws. As far back as history can be traced one can find accounts from all the countries on Earth of such figures, men as well as women, who in hatred, evil, crime, and lust for pomp and power infinitely exceed the average human being."
1.7 The struggle between the Eldest and the Youngest in the human World.
Where the Youngest in human form had tried to teach humanity respect for the lives and property rights of others, and had tried to teach them to care for their children, the elderly and the weak, there the incarnated Eldest taught humanity to organize themselves in armies, to kill, to pillage and take by force - they taught men to take many women and show disdain for their own offspring. Where the Youngest in the context of their earthly life had taught humanity about a loving, merciful and fatherly God, there the Eldest taught humanity about a plurality of gruesome and jealous gods that had to be bought off constantly with sacrificial offerings. These incongruous teachings left indelible marks on all aspects of life, the scientific aspect as well: where the Youngest ceaselessly sought to expand human knowledge in relation to the forces and laws of nature as well as those of the universe, the trajectories of the planets, there the Eldest - not satisfied with distorting and polluting the teachings of the Youngest - themselves presented humanity with knowledge, a knowledge grounded in the nefarious forces of darkness. All significant inventions in the art of war were thereby derived from the teachings of the Eldest, just as the origin of the most refined implements of torture, as well as pathogenic chemicals and bacteria are the result of these ingenious representatives of darkness.
As titans in the service of darkness and light respectively, the humanized Eldest did battle with the humanized Youngest. Wherever contact between the Youngest and humanity had reached desirable results, the Eldest implemented countermeasures by allowing themselves to be born into these places - the intention being to negate the progress incurred by the Youngest. In this way, many of the great ancient civilizations were led to their decline and imminent fall.
Approximately 800 years B.C., the Youngest started to become seriously disillusioned - primarily due to the fact that humanities' low standard of ethics made it much easier for the Eldest to exert influence on them. As a result, fewer of the Youngest were willing to be born in the midst of humanity. Among the Youngest who allowed themselves to be incarnated on Earth from this period up until the birth of Christ, TTL mentions Mesopotamia's Zarathustra - who sought to provide humanity with a greater understanding of light's battle with the powers of darkness and evil - Buddha, Lao-tse, Kong-tse, and Meng-tse as well as - from the cultural ranks of Europe - any number of the Hellenic and Roman philosophers, artists, statesmen and scientists.
1.8 The Message of Love and the Advent of Christianity.
During this period, several of the Jewish Prophets were of the Youngest as well. God had set them the task of paving the way for their brother and leader, the oldest of the youngest. In the form of Jesus of Nazareth, he brought humanity the message of love. Another primary objective related to the fifth (and final) incarnation of the oldest of the Youngest was for Christ as human being to pray for Ardor, the oldest of the Eldest. (1 Note) It was God's plan that the light and thereby contrition should thus be brought to the conscience of the fallen. The account in the Gospel of the temptation in the desert is in reality about this key event in the life of Jesus (see sec. 2) and a detailed chronicle of the actual events and their true meaning is to be found in TTL (pg. 39-40).
Jesus was unable to pray for Ardor and thereby failed in his mission. The crucifixion as well as the distortion of Jesus' sublime transcendental teachings of love that took place during the first few hundred years after his death are the result of this victory of darkness over the oldest of the youngest (see sec. 2.1).
During the next few centuries, in that Christianity primarily wandered West and North, the work of the Youngest was concentrated in Europe. In a variety of ways, they tried to bring Christianity back to its point of origin. But they suffered many and great defeats; led astray by the obfuscating thought control excerpted by the oldest of the Eldest, there were many of who in their earthly work began to defend the very theological ideas that they had been assigned by God to attack. And the servants of darkness did not suffice in doing battle with the youngest through their thoughts; they did so by way of incarnated states as well: for example, by assuming powerful positions within the church, the Eldest were able to force Christianity in the wrong direction. The many holy wars, first the crusades, thereafter the European conflicts caused by the reformation, all were the result of the teachings of the Eldest. For Ardor continued to incarnate his brothers and sisters in the places where he - by way of his tremendous intelligence and spirit - saw the opportunity to effectively block the mission of the Youngest - whose primary purpose was peace, education, and culture.
1.9 The Progress of Human spirituality and God’s shorter path to the Victory of the Light.
Nevertheless, darkness began ever so slowly to shy from the light. As a result of the natural, spiritual and intellectual process of maturation - the inevitable result of reincarnation, more and more humans were able to wield the knowledge they had received from the Youngest, more and more were able to turn away form the false teachings that the Eldest had interjected into their many belief systems, their philosophical structures and scientific disciplines. Concurrently, more and more people's eyes were opened to the beauty revealed to them by the Youngest in the fields of architecture and the arts in general; music, poetry and pictorial art slowly elevated humanity's conception of the divine, ennobled the emotions of the many, and provided joy in the minds of man. And it was with horror that Ardor realized that he would be unable to impede the progress of light forever - that light, in the end, would conquer.
The realization that the powers of darkness would inevitably be broken did not become apparent until, in accordance with our calendar, the beginning of the 20th century. Under the guidance of God, a large host of the Youngest - with their oldest brother Christ at the forefront - began to make way for the realization of God's plan for the final victory of the light. In order to spare the Youngest from any number of debilitating incarnations, God had provided them with a new method, a shorter path to the ultimate goal: the Youngest were to locate on Earth a human with the ability to serve as medium, someone who would be able to act as intermediary, as mouthpiece for the messenger of God. The idea behind this direct mode of communication was to provide mankind with an awareness of the transcendental world and the eternal truths of the light.
After having been turned away countless times as liars and deceivers by uncomprehending spiritual groups across the globe, the Youngest were finally able to find - after a search of more than fifty years - a small circle of gifted mediums that had complete faith in their words. It was the most important medium within this circle, Johanne Agerskov, along with her husband, Michael Agerskov, that published the received message in the book Toward the Light - A Message to Mankind from the Transcendental World.
1.10 The Power of darkness is broken.
In the year 1911, while a large group of the Youngest was working with Agerskov's circle, God decided to provide even greater support to his emissaries in their efforts to advance the cause of light. And God attained the goal by way of extraordinary effort. In that the triumph hereby attained in the service of the light played itself out in the transcendental world, the occurrence avoided - at least in the immediate sense - being registered here on earth, and in the present context a short explanation as to its requisites is required.
By way of their illegal incarnations, the Eldest brought many laws of God into turmoil and disarray. Among them were the laws for the human spirits' connection with and dissolution from their earthly frames. In order to retain control of humanity, the Eldest - during the full period in which they countered the efforts of God and the Youngest - inundated the astral spheres of Earth in darkness. The dense concentration of darkness that was thereby accumulated hindered for long periods at a time the Youngest in bringing the dead people's souls to rest in the astral spheres of light above earth. The many bodiless souls that thereby remained on Earth due to the emanations of darkness were responsible for a great deal of havoc among the "living" by appearing in front of them, and - by means of suggestion - imbuing within them criminal thoughts that were often carried out in the material world. From the earliest of historical times and from cultures all over the world, authentic accounts of these spirits have been passed down to us. At certain points in history, their numbers have been overwhelming: TTL points out that "at times there were more "dead" than living upon the earth" (pg. 204).
While Christ and the Youngest, invisible to humans, had wandered the Earth in search of suitable mediums for the work that would eventually become Towards the Light, he - as a result of his untiring love - had returned any number of these human souls, that had been chained to Earth by sin and darkness, to their astral resting places; but in 1911 God let his mighty voice be heard by all the spirits still wandering the earth. And God's summons to return to life and the light in the astral places of rest was heeded by all. Yes, God's voice addressed itself even to the discarnated Eldest in the destroyed kingdom, "the sphere of hell," and even they were moved by the fatherly summons. After millions of years of vice and sin, the Eldest returned to their lost home.
Only Ardor, the oldest, remained behind as he feared that his innumerable evil deeds would condemn him, and that he would be crushed by his Father. It was then that he was approached by the oldest of the Youngest, Christ, who - led by God's thought - found him in the depths of darkness, and Christ reminded Ardor of what he in his darkened thoughts had forgotten: that God's love and mercy never fails - irreverent of the depths to which the sinner has fallen. It was then that Ardor followed Christ.
It was with intense joy that the Youngest received the news that their innumerable efforts had finally borne fruit, that their much loved brother had finally returned home, that the prince of darkness would no longer obstruct their benevolent work for mankind.
After having received in His bountiful realm and subsequently having forgiven the son who had been lost for millions of years, God required of Ardor, as his first act of penitence, to go to Earth for there, via Agerskov's circle, to formulate a message to all mankind, a message that should in part be a confession of past sins, and a heartfelt plea for forgiveness for all the horrors and all the pain and suffering to which he, Ardor, as the penultimate representative of darkness on earth, had subjected his creations.
1.11 The Future of Humanity.
With the return of Ardor and the Eldest as well as the sinbound human spirits' removal from the earthly sphere, the light was able to conquer darkness. But this by no means implies that the power of darkness has been expunged from the earth: right until the time of his return to God (in 1912), Ardor incarnated thousands of his brethren who continued to realize the monstrous plans for the advancement of the cause of darkness amongst humanity put forth by their older brother. (2 Note) The death of the last of the incarnated Eldest therefore did not occur until sometime in the 1980's. The tragic wars and catastrophic events the last century has been witness to should therefore be perceived as the final results of the direct influence of the Eldest on the fate of humanity - henceforth spiritual beings will not be directly responsible for the manifestations of darkness here on earth; the manner in which the future will evolve is for the first time entirely in our own hands. "Ardor has returned to God, to his Father, and mankind is no longer subject to Ardors rule, to his direct influence and direct inspiration. But mankind has still far from attained in full unity, a mutual love and trust in God acknowledgement of Him as the Father of their spirit, as the Supreme Leader of life on Earth (. . .) Not until the greater part of the Earth's many millions of human beings have learnt to know the true God, as He really is, have learnt to love Him, and submit to Him alone, have fully learnt to forgive Ardor, the creator of the human body, not until then will it truly be felt that Satan's throne stands empty!
In Toward the Light God has called upon all His beloved children; for He longs for the fullness of their love; He yearns for their perfect trust! (. . .) But - when will they heed His calling voice? When will they answer him?" (3 Note)
End of Chapter 1, jump to Chapter 2
Towards the Light - as the fulfillment of Jesus' teachings.
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