Editor's prefatory comment:

The content below was originally presented in the “Omega Point” book. There, it served to highlight the principle of mutual cooperation and development seen throughout all of the natural world, but taking to itself highest form within the sphere of eternal Twin Soul love.

Twins are given to each other for many reasons, not the least of which is their delight concerning darling companionship. However, from the perspective of a Superintending Universal Intelligence, Twins are given to each that they might reach the highest levels of spiritual evolution; in other words, many would not bother to change and grow if it weren’t for a desire to please, and to be with, a darling mate.

For our purposes here, I would direct our attention to the inset-box near the bottom of the page which features the story of Franchezzo. We would be well instructed to realize that he was required to “atone for his own sins” without a particle of aid from any external absolving entity. With great suffering, he succeeded brilliantly, but only because, by his own admission, he wanted to perfect himself that he might one day be with his true beloved.

I called out wildly and struck myself and tore my hair in passionate horror

The following is channeled information from the other side offered in the book, A WANDERER IN THE SPIRIT LANDS, by spirit-author, FRANCHEZZO; transcribed via the mediumship of A. FARNESE, 1896.

Editor’s note: This is a story of a young Italian man who had seduced many women. Before his untimely death, however, he had fallen genuinely in love. Upon arriving in the next world, he encountered total darkness and silence. The following excerpts reveal a portion of his misery, especially, his dreaded realization of having lost the love of his life.

On Earth, and in my life of Earth, I lived as those do who seek only how the highest point of self-gratification can be reached…

And then? Ah! then there came for me an awful, an unexpected day, when with no warning, no sign to awaken me to my position, I was suddenly snatched from life and plunged into that gulf — that death of the body — which awaits us all...

Overcome at last, I called out aloud. I shrieked — and no voice answered me. Then again and again I called — and still the silence: — still no echo, even from my own voice, came back to cheer me. I bethought me of her I loved, but something made me shrink from uttering her name there...

'I call your name but you're not there'

I called to her by name — I told her that I was there — that I was still conscious — still the same — though I was dead. And she never seemed to hear — she never saw me. She still wept sadly and silently…

Again I waked, and again it was the presence of my love that awaked me. She had brought more flowers, and she murmured more soft tender thoughts of me as she laid them on my grave. But I did not seek now to make her see me. No, I shrank back and sought to hide myself…

I know not how long this lasted; it seemed a long, long time to me — I was sitting wrapped still in my despair when I heard a voice gentle and soft calling to me — the voice of my beloved — and I felt compelled to rise and follow that voice till it should lead me to her…

It was the home of my beloved one, and in that room I had passed ah! how many peaceful happy hours in that time which seemed now separated from me by so wide and awful a gulf.

She sat at a little table with a sheet of paper before her and a pencil in her hand. She kept repeating my name and saying, "Dearest of friends, if the dead ever return, come back to me, and try if you can make me write a few words from you, even 'yes' or 'no' in answer to my questions."

Editor's note: Franchezzo's book deserves very high marks in terms of accurately presenting natural law in the next world. So many of the channeled writings veer into error, for example, the misguided teachings of reincarnation, but Franchezzo has a clear view as to how things work. In the following section, we find him entering into service work, helping those on the Earth beset with temptations to which he once fell victim. This altruism began a healing process for Franchezzo. He desperately wanted to improve himself so that, one day, when his true love came to the other side, he could meet her as a mature individual. Notice how he emphasizes that her image served as prime motivator for his rehabilitation:

The work upon which I was now engaged will seem no less strange to you than it did at first to me. The great Brotherhood of Hope was only one of a countless variety of societies which exist in the spirit world for the purpose of giving help to all who are in need. Their operations are carried on everywhere and in all spheres…

A message would be sent to the Brotherhood that help was required to assist some struggling mortal or unhappy spirit, and such one of the brothers as was thought to be most fit would be sent to help. Such a one of us would be sent as had in his own earth life yielded to a similar temptation, and had suffered all the bitter consequences and remorse for his sin...

And our task would be to follow and control the one we desired to help, till the temptation had been overcome. We would identify ourselves so closely with the mortal that for a time we actually shared his life, his thoughts, everything, and during this dual state of existence we ourselves often suffered most keenly both from our anxiety for the man whose thoughts became almost as our own, and from the fact that his anxieties were as ours, while in thus going over again a chapter in our past lives we endured all the sorrow, remorse and bitterness of the past time…

Many a weak-willed man and woman who in pure surroundings would lead only good and pure lives, are drawn by evil surroundings into sins for which they are but partly responsible, —sins for which indeed those controlling spirits who have thus made use of these weak mortals, will be held responsible as well as the mortal sinner himself. For thus tempting and using another's organism those evil spirits will have to render a terrible account, since they have been doubly guilty. In sinning, themselves, and in dragging down another soul with them, they sink themselves to a depth from which many years, and in some instances many centuries, of suffering cannot free them.

Editor's note: See the dozens of case histories, testimonies from the other side, concerning how each person must, as Jesus said, "pay the last farthing" for debts incurred while on Earth. No one can or will pay this debt for another, and those who think otherwise have been made fools of by Big Religion. In some cases, the tab owed can be very high, requiring even "centuries" in a "dark closet without walls" in the "rat cellar." Franchezzo was lucky. He decided to make amends fairly quickly and, by his own report, was in a dark place for only eight months until he commenced his service work.

In my work I have had to act the part of controlling spirit many times, but I was sent to do so only in order that I might impress the mortal with a sense of the terrible consequences of yielding to sin, and also that I might, when not actually controlling the mortal myself, act as guard and watch man to protect him from the control of the wandering tempting spirits of the earth plane. My work was to raise the barrier of my strong will-force against, theirs, and keep them back so that they could not come sufficiently en rapport with my charge to control him…

his own sufferings, endured as service work to help others, became an atonement and healing for his own past vices

Over this particular phase of my experiences I shall not dwell longer now, since it is one familiar to many on this side of life. I will but say that I returned from my mission with a consciousness that I had saved many others from the pitfalls into which I had fallen, and thereby had atoned in part for my own sins.

the image of his beloved led him forward into rehabilitation - a degree to which, he himself realized, he would not have attained but for his desire to be with her

Several times was I sent upon such missions and each time returned successful. And here I must pause to say that if my progress in the spirit world has been so rapid as to surprise most who knew of my first condition on entering it, and if I again and again resisted all the temptations that befell me, the credit is not so much due to myself as to the wonderful help and comfort that was given to me by the constant and unvarying love of her who was indeed my good angel, and whose image ever came between me and all harm. When all others might have pleaded to me in vain, I ever hearkened to her voice and turned aside.

When I was not helping someone yet in the earth body, I was sent to work amongst the unhappy spirits of the earth plane who were still wandering in darkness even as I had at first done. And to them I went as one of the great Brotherhood of Hope… I would see poor unhappy spirits crouching on the ground two or three together, or sunk in helpless misery in some corner by themselves, too hopeless, too unhappy, to heed anything.

To them it was my work to point out how they could either be taken to such a House of Hope as the one in which I had been, or in other cases how they might, by trying to help others around them, help themselves and earn the gratitude of those who were even more hopeless than themselves. To each poor suffering soul a different balm of healing would be given, for each had known a different experience and each had had a different cause for his sins.

When my period of work in any place was finished, I used to return to the Twilight Land to rest in another large building which belonged to our Brotherhood. It was somewhat like the other place in appearance only not quite so dark, nor so dismal, nor so bare, and in the little room which belonged to each there were such things as we had earned as the rewards of our labours.

For instance, in my room which was still somewhat bare-looking I had one great treasure. This was a picture of my love. It seemed more like a reflection of her in a mirror than a mere painted image, for when I looked intently at her she would smile back at me in answer, as though her spirit was conscious of my gaze, and when I wished very much to know what she was doing, my picture would change and show me.

This was regarded by all my companions as a great and wonderful privilege, and I was told it was as much the result of her love and constant thought for me as of my own efforts to improve...

Another gift from my darling was a white rose-bud, which I had in a small vase and which never seemed to fade or wither, but remained fresh and fragrant and ever an emblem of her love, so that I called her my white rose. I had so longed for a flower. I had so loved flowers on earth and I had seen none since I saw those my darling put upon my grave. In this land [of recovering spirits] there were no flowers, not even a leaf or blade of grass, not a tree or a shrub however stunted—for the dry arid soil of our selfishness had no blossom or green thing to give to any one of us.

And it was when I told her this during one of the brief visits I used to pay to her, and when through her own hand I was able to write short messages—it was, I say, when I told her that there was not one fair thing for me to look upon save only the picture of herself, that she asked that I might be given a flower from her, and this white rose-bud was brought to my room by a spirit friend and left for me to find when I returned from earth…

Editor's note: Poets speak of the power of love to transform, but many in our world have no idea of the extent to which this is true. Further, we, all of us, are required to "work out our own salvation" and this will be accomplished -- not by some magic hand-sign or secret word from a BlackRobe, not by some fraudulent promise of absolution by any external authority, but -- by entering into, if need be, severe service-work to help others.

Franchezzo's book can be found and read for free on the internet. It is one of those high quality works in terms of accurately describing natural law and how life works over there.