While researching Matthew Ward’s messages, I came across this account of Matthew’s work on the astral planes. Matthew started as a welcomer in Nirvana’s medical transition teams and rose through the ranks to become manager of all transition services. Twelve years ago, when it was time for him to move forward in spiritual evolution, he started helping civilizations that invite him to evaluate and upgrade their spirit realms.
Studying medicine and psychology is not at all an unusual thing after one transitions. T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) studied book-binding. (1) Nicola Tesla did not need to study but immediately began teaching. (2) Many people go to college or music or art school.
Matthew rapidly rose because he is a highly-evolved soul to begin with. In writing New Maps of Heaven, I encountered another soul much like Matthew by the name of Philip Gilbert, who also channeled through his highly-evolved mother, Alice, and whose rise in the spirit world was equally as rapid as Matthew’s. (3)
Philip ended up in a refined and noble realm and his transformation by steps was magnificent to hear about. It was also meteoric. Matthew has a job to do. I would imagine that we would find that he has agreed not to go to his appointed place until he, along with the other souls in his group, which he calls his “station,” finish assisting us through Ascension. Then he will likely transition to a place where contact with Earth will subside. Of course I am guessing when I say that. I don’t know that for sure.
The interesting thing for me in reading Matthew’s account of his work is that he reveals, in the course of it, much about life on the spirit planes which is basic information and very good to know. He tells us that death itself is not painful but the individual can arrive on the other side with memories of its circumstances before passing and these may require convalescence.
It took Lincoln six months to recover from his assassination
Abraham Lincoln, for instance, said, when he appeared to Robert Liechtman who was interviewing numerous souls for his 1970s series From Heaven to Earth that it took him six months to recover from the shooting (For Lincoln’s comment on his convalescence, see 4). That is a long time. Winston Churchill recovered in a matter of weeks but he passed over naturally – he wasn’t catapulted out of his body as Lincoln was. (For an account of Churchill’s passage, convalescence and reception on the higher planes, see 5)
Welcomers or greeters typically take the new soul – some are ready almost immediately to explore and others must convalesce (there was no holding my Dad back for instance when he transitioned this last Spring) – around the plane where they are located, showing them the colleges, libraries, music theatres, foreign lands, spheres below and spheres above, etc.
Keep in mind when you listen to Matthew describing the astral planes that you are listening to what is the equivalent of the Fourth Dimension (the Fifth Dimension would be the Mental Planes).
Welcomers help the spirit acclimatize to needing no food, no sleep, to the manner in which water reacts differently with people, to the fact that flowers sing and colors are different than on Earth, to being able to travel by thought or, if one wishes, to fly. They assist them to work out their leftover fantasies – perhaps some will don Greek attire, others will parade around in Shakespearean dress, some children who have been starved will eat to their heart’s content for days, people starved of sexual contact will converge and enjoy what passes for sexuality on the astral planes (see Cocoon for a pretty good approximation).
Lawrence on the morocyle that would one day send him hurtling into the astral planes
Lawrence visited spirit Arabia, Gandhi lived in the Himalayas for a time, some will travel back in time or visit stars. I will go down to the depths of the ocean and look at the strange creatures there; I know I will because I’m attracted to that for some strange reason.
Some people will know they’re “dead”; others won’t. Matthew goes through everything connected with transition here in a wonderful manner. Just imagine that what he says here is one account and then imagine reading 2-300 accounts and you will have what New Maps of Heaven is. If people knew what a wonderful life awaited them on the other side, one source of fear in life would be gone.
Like the irrepressible and spritish Philip Gilbert, the calm and wise Matthew Ward is an excellent guide to the “other world.”
For those who want to read more, New Maps of Heaven can be found at https://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/nmh/nmh-index1.html.
Matthew, Tell Me about Heaven
TRANSITIONING SOULS
https://www.matthewbooks.com/samplematthew.htm
Suzy Ward: Matthew, what do you do as a medical assister?
MATTHEW: I’ve been wondering when you would ask that, Mother! You ask Eric about the progress of his company and ask Betsy about her new store and ask Michael how his sales are coming along. And you’ve asked me about those important aspects of their lives, but until now, you’ve never asked me about MY work!
I know that in the past mediums have told you what I’m doing, but this is the first time you have thought of me in the same natural way you do your other children, by directly talking with me about what I’m doing. Mother, do you see the great difference in how we in this realm are regarded versus people on Earth? Even by you!
S: . . . . You’re right, Matthew. I don’t know what else to say.
MATTHEW: I can feel your heavy distress, Mother, and I didn’t mean to cause that. I overreacted to your question, and I’m sorry. This has given me new insight and a valuable reminder that some things I still expect. Having expectations of others is just as undesirable as making a judgment, which I also was doing. Now I see my need to more readily recognize and avoid these two characteristics, as progress in spiritual growth, here or there, is outgrowing them. You see, just as I’ve told you several other times, you still are giving me opportunities to learn from you!
I’m glad you’re feeling better about this, Mother. So am I. Now then, I’m immensely pleased to tell you what I do! In brief, I help souls who need specialized assistance after their arrival. Like the others in the soul transition assistance field, I think of my work as a service, not as a job.
I didn’t start as a medical assister. After I adjusted to leaving my Earth lifetime, I became a welcomer, which is greeting transitioning souls who arrive in relatively healthy psychic condition. At that same time I was studying medicine and, later, psychology. Then, in addition to my greeting work, I started helping babies and little children adjust to this realm. That experience and my studies led to my initial assignment as medical assister.
When I became proficient at helping the souls whose situations were especially difficult, I was assigned permanently to this specialized assistance. I moved along the ranks quite rapidly to a position of higher responsibility than most of the others. That meant a greater number of assisters to be responsible for as well as personally tending the most difficult arrivals’ particular needs.
Without scanning for an accurate count, I’d say that I have treated about 10,000 people. That’s not counting the ones I helped as a greeter or those who didn’t require much medical attention, but only the more difficult souls whom I helped to make transition. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot for the time I’ve been here, but most of those souls required intensive and lengthy therapy, and, just as physicians there remain with their patients until full health is restored, I do also.
Mother, the reception and care of arrivals is so crucial for people on Earth to know that I want to explain the entire process starting at the beginning, with what you call death and we call transition. When the physical body dies, there is an instantaneous adjustment in the electrical system of the etheric body so it can leave Earth intact and arrive in Nirvana already attuned to the higher frequency here. That adjustment is made in the lightning flash moment when the etheric body separates from the physical body and clothes the soul for its alignment on the way to that light passage often described as a tunnel in the “near-death experience.”
There is absolutely NOTHING stressful or fearful about that journey! But it happens so quickly that the arrival’s memories of circumstances immediately prior to transition are as real upon entry here as they were when the person was experiencing those circumstances on Earth. The memories profoundly affect the arrival’s capacity to adjust to his etheric body, and when the memories are of traumatic experiences, a personalized and usually long healing process is required.
Since the etheric body has been with the soul throughout its physical lifetime, it is intact when it enters with the soul into this realm, but it needs assistance to usher in its strength. When the arrival is in sound condition, that ushering-in process can be accomplished with ease. In the case of a severely traumatized arrival, the process requires the combined energy of a highly trained medical assister and an attendant group of ten aides.
It is the unique soul energy stream of each arrival that lets us know his identity and psychic condition. Through an energy correlation process, each arrival enters the station appropriate for his immediate needs. The energy streams also let us anticipate the number of arrivals so that sufficient assistance always is at the ready.
Although telepathic communication can be understood by arrivals, native speech is important, particularly in a stressful entry, so the welcomers and assisters converse with them in their native tongues. Many of us study languages in order to do this.
The welcomers, who also may be called transition greeters, are the first to meet arrivals at our “regular” entry stations. They’re like hospitality people anywhere who assist newcomers, and they’re present in addition to family and friends on hand. Often emotionally well-adjusted arrivals need only greeting and introduction to the realm.
In this case, the welcomers describe the spectrum of the realm’s accommodations for their immediate needs, comfort and interests. Housing, food, studies, employment, social events, the realm’s governing system—all of that is explained prior to the administrators becoming involved in the actual logistics of helping the arrivals get settled.
Mother, you’ve been thinking how impersonal it is to refer to the arriving souls as “arrivals.” Yes, it is, and I’m doing this only so you can distinguish between persons in arrival status and their own souls, as well as to differentiate between those newly arrived souls and the soul population already here. As you’re thinking, “newcomers” sounds a lot friendlier, but there are constantly newcomers to the realm who are not transitioning from Earth. Our general word for arrivals is “souls,” but every one of them is known by name and addressed by name. So you see, our reception of every “arrival” is intensely personal, and all care is individualized for the specific needs of each.
S: Thank you for mentioning that. Let me get in a question here. You’ve said that we remember our other lifetimes when we enter Nirvana, so why is the same information given about the realm every time?
MATTHEW: Memories of other lifetimes don’t come instantly at the soul’s moment of entry. When there is an easy and quick adjustment, full awareness of previous residency here emerges smoothly and steadily, like molasses being poured, not like toast popping up. Remembering comes more slowly to arrivals who need “regular” medical assistance and much more slowly to those whose death was under traumatic circumstances.
Re-introduction, if you will, to the realm is gracious, considerate and helpful, and I assure you, it is welcomed by the arrivals.
Now then, people who need “regular” medical assistance are those whose experiences immediately prior to transition were relatively free of trauma, but due to debilitated health, their physical bodies have a lingering hold over the etheric bodies. We must treat that condition so the etheric bodies are not injured. These arrivals enter at treatment stations with tranquil, quietly cheerful private rooms and wards, where sweet-smelling natural fragrances lightly fill the air and pastel colors waft like fluttering sheer curtains at an open window.
Outdoors in these areas the sky is softly blue, not its usual brilliance, and there are warm, light breezes. Soothing music is almost inaudible, yet gently stirring for the emotions due to its beautiful chords and fragile harp-like sounds. The entire setting is fluid, with a sensation of soft, warm motion, and all elements are gentle in composition, color and tone.
This restorative setting is ideal for arrivals with relatively healthy psyches and bodies that endured only a short terminal illness, or bodies frail and weary simply from a very long time of functioning. Even though these arrivals don’t require any extreme measures of medical care during their recuperation, always medical assisters are in attendance because this is reassuring to the convalescents.
The reception and treatment environment is much different for arrivals in acute distress. They enter at intensive care stations where they immediately start receiving individualized care. In treating these traumatized arrivals we are dealing with both the body and the damaged psyche.
Whereas the soul is liberated into spiritual awareness, the person’s psyche is still operating at its lowered capacity in the last events experienced by the physical body on Earth. The soul is constant. It grows from the experiences, but it is beyond the captive aspect of the psyche, which has great need for healing. Without the healing, life here, just as anywhere else, would be hell for those people with brutalized psyches.
Some of them endured lengthy illness that caused intense physical pain, vastly restricted activity, and grief. Perhaps fear, also, and sorrowful regret at their conditions’ effects on family and friends. The etheric bodies of those souls who are worn out from battling disease, debilitation and anxiety have to be medically tended because the memory of physical pain is powerful even in the shadow effects associated with loss, mutilation or degeneration of physical body parts. Obviously, these people’s spirits also are in need of tender nurturing for recuperation, so both medical and psychological care is required.
The same is true of arrivals whose physical death was caused quickly by massive injuries, perhaps in vehicle crashes or fires or violent storms or earthquakes. The psyches of people who were tortured and murdered suffer profound trauma, as do war victims—troops maimed and killed in combat as well as the civilian innocents whose Earth lives were ended by the horrors of war. People who made transition during or soon after any of these situations arrive traumatized in spirit beyond description, still psychically experiencing their recent terror on Earth.
Rarely do they understand that they now are safe in this realm. They believe they have been rescued from the hell so recently endured, but usually they think the rescue was on Earth. When they no longer need the ultimate in private care, they are moved to rehabilitation wards where their recovery is aided by therapists in an atmosphere carefully designed to uplift their spirits and give reassurance of their healing progress.
There is another kind of arrival very needful of loving attendance. Those who come with heavy guilt, remorse or sorrow require extensive psychological care to heal their damaged psyches. Generally they respond more quickly than the arrivals from traumatic physical deaths, but not always. When those emotional conditions are in conjunction with other psychic and physical traumas, recovery and adjustment time is far greater.
S: With realigning energy and providing a healing musical environment as your only treatment modalities, I don’t understand where all the individualized care comes in.
MATTHEW: This isn’t a cookie-cutter heaven, Mother. We reach out to each soul in its most recent incarnated personage, and personalized care and conversation is just as essential here as it is for all patients in hospitals on Earth. It’s exactly those same psyches we greet and assist in adjustment here. We have the advantage that the soul remembrance comes forth as soon as people adjust to being here, but as I have told you, it comes much more slowly to those who arrive in seriously traumatized condition.
S: Is there group treatment, like our support groups for people who have suffered similar devastation?
MATTHEW: No. Every arrival’s treatment is customized throughout recovery. Not even families are treated in a group when they make transition simultaneously or within moments of each other. Each soul arrives by itself and is treated individually because each has unique needs requiring instant and intimate attention. Those who were together at the time of death may wish to be reunited, and that happens as soon as they are healed enough to do so.
S: I think it would be beneficial healing-wise and compassionate to treat family members who died at the same time or within moments of each other as a group so they can know they’re all together.
MATTHEW: Mother, I’ll give you an example of why that can’t be done. A mother is in pain from injuries in a civil war she abhors, in shock and grief for her little daughter who has just died in her arms after a brief illness, and in great anxiety because her teenaged son is in the thick of combat. Moments later she arrives here, after a fatal head injury from flying debris, and her anguish, fear and pain are as acute as they were during the area-wide bombing that caused her physical death.
Her son is in excellent health until the moment he is blown to bits in that same bombing that caused his mother’s death. He has no knowledge of what has happened to his mother and sister. He is young, imbued with a sense of indestructibility that tempers his fear in battle. Furthermore, he was schooled in war and taught to consider it his right and responsibility to kill the “enemy.”
You can see that both his psyche and his body would require considerably different treatment than either his mother or his sister needs. That is why group treatment, even for a small family, never would be attempted. It would not even be possible, because it is the individual soul, not unified souls, that makes transition.
(Continued in Part 2)