"The world of spirits is neither heaven nor hell but a place or a state of being between the two. It is where we first arrive after death. From there in due course we are either raised into heaven or thrown into hell, depending on how we have lived in this world. It became clear to me that it is a halfway place when I saw that the hells were underneath it and the heavens above it, and that it is a halfway state of being when I learned that as long as we are in it, we are not yet in either heaven or hell. In the following pages, where I say "spirits," I mean people in the world of spirits; while by "angels" I mean people in heaven. There is a vast number of people in the world of spirits, because that is where everyone is first gathered and where everyone is examined and prepared..."