296 - (32). What confidence may we put in the descriptions of different worlds given us by spirits?

"That depends upon the advancement of the spirits by whom such descriptions are given; for spirits of low degree are just as incapable of giving any such information as an ignorant man would be, among you, of giving you lessons in geography. You frequently ask questions about other worlds of ignorant spirits who know no more about them than you do. If they are well-meaning, they give you descriptions in accordance with their own ideas, whatever these may be; if they are addicted to joking, they amuse themselves by giving you fantastic descriptions drawn from their own imagination, a faculty of which they are in as full possession in their wandering state as they were upon the earth, and which supplies them with the various stories that they tell you on all manner of subjects, but that have no foundation in fact. You must not suppose, however, that it is absolutely impossible to obtain from spirit.; true information concerning other worlds. More advanced spirits are happy to tell you of those which they inhabit, in order to aid your progress by descriptions that may decide you to follow the road by which they are reached. Such information is also useful, by fixing your ideas in regard to the future, and thus giving you something more definite than the vague perspective which is all that you have hitherto had in prospect."

- What proof can we obtain of the accuracy of these descriptions?

"The best proof is the agreement of the various descriptions with one another; but you must not forget that they are only given with a view to aiding your moral advancement, and that it is therefore in regard to the moral state of the inhabitants of those globes, rather than in regard to their physical or geological nature, that you may expect to obtain truthful information. In regard to the latter, even if truthful descriptions were given to you, you could not, with your present intellectual faculties, understand them. Such inquiries cannot conduce to your advancement in your present life; and you will have every facility for learning the nature and history of those other worlds when you are living in them."