The following is a transcript from a recording made in 1978 of a guided meditation led by Li Chang Su:

In front of us there is a hill to climb. The colour force of the aura lifts us up as though we are weightless, our feet helped to move swiftly on the grass. This phenomenon is made possible by the quietness of mind that enables us to visit here in the first place.

Our head guide today is a teacher. He was a schoolteacher when upon earth and is accompanied by a young woman, who also was a teacher. As we follow them up the hill, very bright colour imbued with light begins to enfold us. We turn to look at a blue stretch of water near the bottom of the hill. It is glistening, not from the sun as in the earth plane, but from the life force that is in the ethers, that touches the rippling wavelets and dances on the top of it.

There are boats upon the water, one with a woman trailing her hand in the water, then lifting her hand to watch the sparkling diamond drops as they fall from it. Our guide tells us she will feel as though electricity is moving through her which will vitalise the whole body, as does all water once one moves away from the astralised part of the spirit world.

We do not feel tired from climbing the hill to the top, and gaze open-mouthed at the panorama laid out in front of us. The country is undulating, not entirely flat. Sweet-flowing streams run through little valleys that are full of flowers, reminiscent of the English countryside at its most beautiful.

A child comes to join our party. Her name is Dorothy. She is dressed in a plain white shift with no shoes. We too are invited to remove our shoes and so to find the succour the body needs from walking on the green of the grass and feeling its softness. In this place, the first plane of life above the astral, all things including the air itself are life-giving. Dorothy takes an outstretched hand and dances along with us as we continue our tour, following behind the two guides.

We meet a nurse with a young boy. He is crippled, his arms and legs both twisted, his eyes not open very wide, his intelligence appearing to be limited. We ask the nurse why a child would be crippled in such a place as this. Her reply is that the boy died at birth. His passing was a relief to himself, and in some ways a relief to his parents too, for had he lived his earth body would have been severely disabled without the fuller help now available to him.

Disability in the body one has here shows there is a great deal to do for the mind itself. Being in this place means he can go to a school where he will be looked after until the mind is strong enough to support the body and so bring the limbs into straightness. How long does this take we ask. The nurse replies that regrettably one doesn’t quite know. It depends very much upon the child, some needing a year or two, whilst for others it is seven or eight. The time is not the same as in earth, however, and no one watches the clock. The nurse says goodbye and goes on her way, taking her charge into the school a short distance in front of us, and our guides turn us in another direction.

Quite suddenly a small fairy comes very close to us, laughing melodiously. In this plane of life where children believe in the Little People, both flower fairies and flower elves show themselves from time to time. Even in earth this is possible where there is innocence and belief. The fairy curtsies and passes over a bouquet of flowers to one in our company, a musician, thanking her for the music she sometimes performs here when asleep to the earth. Those who are learning how to be harmonious in mind, we are told, can find enhancement through both the art of music and the enjoyment of music.

The lady happily accepts the bouquet, greatly surprised to know she has been here before.  Our guides explain that joy can be found when asleep to the earth because of what is known and done during waking hours. For example, one who understands animals and who loves them, will be much in demand in the states of the spirit world immediately above the astral levels, where many animals from earth are taken to and nurtured.

Of course it is possible sometimes to have unpleasant experiences when asleep because of the thoughts of others or even one’s own doubts, when there is nothing positive to take one to where protection and help is at hand. Know, therefore, that one has the ability to do something constructive during the night-time as well as spending a short period of time in school to learn what is possible – and necessary ­– towards one’s own progress.

We are coming near to a lot of trees. They do not look quite like trees upon earth. One might say as one approaches them that they hardly look real because of the sensation of light that they give, which would never be seen or felt in the atmosphere of earth. Where the bark of the tree upon the earth is often quite rough, here we find the trees smoother. Rubbing our hand on the bark does not hurt us, but as we stand underneath the branches we feel as though a protection is over us.

Looking up we see birds. Here there is nothing for them to fear or to make them hide. We listen to the soft chorus of birdsong, which is gentle upon the ear, not raucous in any way. Occasionally we hear the slight fluttering of wings as birds move from one branch to another. One would like to linger in such a beautiful place but our guides, who give their names as Cyril and May, wish us to move on for there is more yet to see.

We continue on, wondering if we might see cows and sheep, but there are none. These animals are more closely related to the astral parts of the spirit world where people still find it necessary to eat meat. Here no one eats meat for very little is eaten at all, as if it were the Garden of Eden. Most of the trees are fruit-bearing. Water though taken from the stream is good to drink, and after drinking it one feels as though one has had a good meal. So much of life force is in the water that the body does not need additional food.

The fruit, however, is most delicious, and has no pips or stone in it, even that which looks like a large plum. The fruit does not fall from the trees, and there are no grubs or insects that feed off it. We do see butterflies here and there, adorned with exotic colours. There is nothing crawling on the ground or flying in the air that might sting or bite, to give hurt or bring sickness.

We come within sight of a building which has what appears to be a veranda all around it. The building itself seems to be more of an open space. It has no walls like we see them in earth, and no windows either, for there is no need to protect from the outside world. But should one want to enter who is not welcome there, they would find resistance. They would not be able to get in although from the outside it would appear to be open to all the beauty of its surroundings.

The building is a school, and as we watch we note the children are about to enter in. Many have been playing on the grass. There are not roads as the earth plane has them, and no cars. Motor vehicles are not seen above the astral. When the astral planes are passed one does not need the transport that is upon the earth and in other astral planes of consciousness. Those who meet together in this first state of the etheric have no need for transport other than their feet, for their feet allow a very fleeting movement, and one can enjoy the walking experience and the speed with which one can move along.

The children all look very healthy. Their hair is glossy, their eyes are shining, and there is no jostling or pushing one another. They do not carry satchels as children in the earth might do, and none feel the stress of learning as some on earth who are literally afraid of not being able to learn sufficiently to please their parents. Here the eyes show intelligence. Not the intelligence of learning things that are about the place in which they live, but the intelligence that comes from being taught to understand one another. They are taught to perceive with the mind. They are taught to understand the deeper essence of all things, and even to observe people upon the earth plane. The time will come when their work among people in the earth will give them a great deal to do. It would be then that the full test of the quality of their understanding comes into its own.

And so we move into this seemingly open place. Within the precincts of the building it seems to be much larger than we had observed from outside. Looking out one can feel a sensation of space, with nothing to hem one in at all. The children are not boisterous, but are laughing and happily talking to one other. We can see their heads nodding but not their mouths opening and shutting. What these children are actually doing is practising the art of throwing their voices as thought vibrations toward the mind of another, and being able to receive the same. In the earth one might learn Morse code, or semaphore, so that a very quick message could be passed from one to the other. Here there are no radio sets, no flags, but each has mind and each knows how to concentrate mind and throw the inward voice so that it can be picked up by someone else, even one upon the earth plane.

Some of the other teachers have come to talk to us. A young lady says that one must understand that when a tiny infant passes over, the mind that it has was from a past incarnation. And so certain ideas, certain feelings, have to be erased to leave the mind entirely clear of anything that might disrupt their learning. So, while the little one is growing it is as if it is in a cocoon of colour. Like an oxygen tent in a hospital of earth that helps a patient unable to breathe very well, so we find these little ones encased. Yet one can look through and see them, the mind is quietly being fed, quietly it is receiving tuition. From being very tiny it has thought vibrations built up in its auric field. As people on the earth have an auric field coming from the feelings in the subconscious mind, sometimes building it up, sometimes taking it away, sometimes breaking it down altogether by the emotions that show themselves all too readily at times, here, all these things are taken away from the young infant.

The child begins to grow under the colour force that continually surrounds it and feeds it. It can move its limbs, and has a freedom of consciousness perhaps not realised by people looking on. The nurses that look after such children do not lift them up or take them out of the cocoon in which they are. The cot on which they lie is never dirty and does not have to be changed. The child knows no pain whatsoever, and is content when it sleeps, during which a certain experience of mother love warms it and comforts it, being embedded within the unconscious so that the child is not devoid of senses that a child on the earth plane might know and understand from the time it is born.

At about the age of five or six years old the child will enter into a class and begins lessons that are more upon the surface, because by this time the auric field has grown considerably – perhaps much wider than people might ever know at all upon the earth plane, because the continual experience of the small child is more subtly and aptly given, and there is no emotional duress to destroy its progressiveness.  Such children could almost be envied by children upon the earth world, who have to learn the very hard way of having the rough edges of their personality taken off through emotional duress. And the more emotion that is in the child the more it has to go through, even to adulthood.

In this place the child has every opportunity to receive into itself and to be prepared for the task of teaching others. If electing to help people upon the earth plane then that will be the time of proving of their patience, their tolerance, their understanding, their kindness, their peacefulness and their utmost generosity of thought. People living in the earth are susceptible to thoughts in the ethers around the earth world that are not generous, not kind, not peaceful, not contented, not happy. All of these things unfortunately dwell closely within the astral part of the consciousness, of which the earth is a part. And so many doubts are sown within the earth child’s mind, denying them the knowledge of the beauty and the wonder of things out of the earth.

Now it is time for us to leave. We say our farewells and find ourselves back in the earth, feeling privileged to have taken such a journey, and knowing ourselves very blessed to realise that such places exist.

Li Chang Su is a teacher from the spirit world who spoke to students in the earth plane through the mediumship of Gladys Franklin. He was and is known for his wisdom and his warmth of character.