…all right for you - I thought - you haven't any trouble like I have. Here I am in this - well - had an awful job - not to put words … and I cant get a rise and my boss seems to have a dislike to me, why should I stay here? There are plenty of trees about and a nice rope to throw over"

But I am not saying too much about this, because a thought was put in my mind -saying that if I wanted to, I could get release from what I considered to be the tortures of Earth. If I wanted to, if I was really serious, I could do something for mankind by making my body available to some ghost or spirit - which wanted to hop in almost before I had hopped out. It seemed a lot of rubbish (tullets) to me, but I thought I would give it a whirl and let them talk on. First, they said, as a sign of genuine interest, I had to change my name. They told me a strange name they wanted me to adopt, but-well, I told my wife only that I was going to change my name, she thought I was a bit mad or some-thing and let it go at that, and so I did change my name quite legally.

Then my teeth started giving trouble. I had a horrible time. At last I couldn't stick it any longer and I went to a local dentist. He made an attempt to extract the tooth but it wouldn't come. He made a hole in the thing so he could use an elevator - not the type people use to travel to different floors, but the type which is meant to elevate a tooth by leverage (hevarmprinsippet). This dentist got on the phone to some specialist in London, and I had to go to a nursing home (sykehjem) in a hurry.

My wife told my employer that I had to go to a nursing home, and she was met with the statement, "Well, I have to work when I have toothache!" And that was all the sympathy we got. So I went to this nursing home, at my own expense, of course, there was no such thing as health schemes like you seem to have now, and I had this little operation, which was not so easy after all. The dentist was good, the anaesthetist (bedøvelsen)was even better. I stayed in the nursing home a week and then returned to Weybridge.

There were quite a number of unpleasant little incidents, needlings and all that sort of thing, and unjust accusations (anklager). There is no point in going into all the details, raking up muck, because, after all, I am not a pressman. But there were false accusations, so my wife and I talked it over and we decided that we couldn't stick it any longer, so I handed in my notice. From that moment I might have been a leper (spedalsk), or I might have had an even worse form of plague, because for the rest of the week I sat in my office, no one came to see me, they apparently had been told not to, and no work of any kind was given to me. I just stayed there like a convict (fange) serving out time. At the end of the week, that was it, I was finished.

We left Weybridge with joy and we went to London. We moved about a bit, oh gracious, I forget how many places we tried, and anyway it doesn't matter, but then we found that conditions were intolerable and we moved on to another place, a suburb of London called Thames Ditton.

Oh, I am so anxious to get this silly affair over because I do not enjoy talking about this, but I was in such a hurry that I have forgotten one bit. Here it is: I had been told sometime before that I would have to grow a beard. Well, I thought, what's it matter? Just as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, so while I was at Weybridge, I grew this beard and was jeered (håndet) at quite a bit by my employer and by those who worked with me. Never mind, I thought, I wouldn't be with them much longer.

We moved to Thames Ditton; for a very short time we stayed in a lodging (leie-) house which was run by a funny old woman who just could not see dirt. She thought she lived in a ducal mansion, or something, and was quite incapable of seeing immense cobwebs high up in the corners of the stairway. But she was too ladylike and so we looked for another place. Down the road there was such a place, a house which was being rented as an upper and lower flat. We took the place, we had no thought of how we were going to get money because I had no job, no job at all. Instead I was just doing anything to earn odd bits of money to keep us alive. I went to the Unemployment Exchange but because I had left my employment instead of being fired I was not able to get any unemployment benefit. So that never have I had any unemployment money, I managed without, to this day I don't know how, but I did.

I had an old bicycle and I used to ride around trying to get work, but no, no work was available. The war had ended, men flad come back from the forces, and the labour market was saturated(mettet). It was all right for them, they had unemployment benefit (trygd) and perhaps a pension; I had nothing.

Then one night I was approached by a group of men. They hoiked me out of my body, and talked to me, and they asked me if I still wanted to get out of my body - into what I then thought was Paradise. I suppose it is Paradise, but these people called it the astral world. I assured them I wanted to get out even more than before, so they told me that the very next day I must stay at home. One man, he was all done up in a yellow robe, took me to the window and pointed out. He said, "That tree - you must go to that tree and put your hands up on that branch, and go to pull yourself up and then let go." He gave me the exact time at which I must do this, telling me it was utterly (helt) vital to follow instructions to the letter, otherwise I would have a lot of pain, and so would other people. But worse, for me - I would still be left on the Earth.

The next day my wife thought I had gone bonkers (sprø) or something because I didn't go out as usual, I pottered (ruslet omkring) about. And then a minute or two before the appointed time I went out into the garden and walked over to the tree. I pulled on a branch of ivy, or whatever it is that ivy has, and reached up to the branch as directed. And then I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. I had no need to pretend to fall, I did fall - whack down! I fell down, and then, good gracious me, I saw a silver rope sticking out of me. I went to grab it to see what it was but gently my hands were held away. I lay there on the ground feeling horribly frightened, because two people were at that silver rope, and they were doing something to it, and a third person was there with another silver rope in his hand, and, horror of horrors, I could see through the whole bunch (flokken) of them, so I wondered if I was seeing all this, or if I had dashed my brains out, it was all so strange.

At last there was a sucking sort of noise and a plop, and then I found - oh joy of joy - I was floating free in a beautiful, beautiful world, and that means that having all I am going to about my past life, and now I am going back to my own part of the astral world....

Part 2