Toward the Light (in Danish, Vandrer mod Lyset!) was first published in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1920 by the Danish author Michael Agerskov. The content of the book is said to have been received through intuitive thought-inspiration from the transcendental world by Michael Agerskov's wife, Johanne Agerskov, who was an intermediary. Johanne Agerskov was the daughter of the Danish inventor Rasmus Malling-Hansen.

The three golden fruits

The couple became involved with spiritist circles in the beginning of the 20th century, and soon experienced some extraordinary events. From the transcendental world, Johanne Agerskov was told to be a mediator, and before her birth, she had promised to be the instrumental to bring some eternal truths to mankind. Together with two other couples they formed a circle, and during séances they had spiritual contact with spirits of the light. The circle was asked to form questions concerning ethics, religion and science. During the séances, Johanne Agerskov was given answers to the questions by the means of intuitive thought-inspiration. Very early in their work, they were told that the work was initiated by God, Himself, and that they would be given "three golden fruits."

The spirit lives on after the death of the body

The first "golden fruit" turned out to be a collection of poems written by deceased Danish poets. Johanne Agerskov's spirit learned the poems by heart during her sleep, and the day after, the poem was transferred to her physical brain through inspiration while she was awake. The purpose of the poems was to prove that the human spirit never dies, but lives on after the death of the physical body. The book of poems was published by Michael Agerskov in 1915, with the title "Hilsen til Danmark," (Greetings to Denmark) and was sent out to a great number of literary skilled people. The hope was that they would recognize the authors of the poems based on their knowledge of the poet's literary works as human beings. Unfortunately, the expected reaction failed to appear, and the publishing of the book did not lead to any public interest to any extent. The few people who publicly mentioned the book suggested the probability that the poems were written by either Johanne or Michael Agerskov, themselves, or maybe by their subconscious selves.

A message to mankind

The second "golden fruit" was the great ethical, religious, philosophic and scientific work, "Toward the Light", published in 1920. This book was the result of weekly seances during 1913–1918, and is said to be a message to mankind from the transcendental world. The content is divided into several parts.

*Preface

*Ardor's Account

*Speech of Christ

*Speech of God's Servant

*Parables

*Commantary to Ardor's Account

*Concluding Summary

*Postscript

In Ardor's Account, the spirit former known as Lucifer, who has now returned to the Kingdom of God, in solemn and poetic language, tells the story of how time began, and about the two powers of the universe, the light and the darkness. In the light rested the possibilities of the good, and in the darkness rested the possibilities of evil. Ardor tells how God and his 12 servants arose from the light, about the creation of the planets, and of the angels, God's first children. And they lived a life of joy and no worries in God's Kingdom. Then God created our planet, the Earth, and He wanted to give to the angels the task of guiding the immature spirits He planned to create in their wandering toward greater maturity. When He told this to the angels, some of them could not resist the self-admiring thought that they must be God's chosen ones. They went to the beautiful planet on their own, not being aware that they had fallen into darkness, and that in their glorification of themselves, they had released the darkness, which little by little streamed all over the planet and destroyed the lovely landscape. The fallen angels, called "the Eldest," soon began to experiment with the darkness, to see if they could themselves recreate what the darkness had destroyed, and to create their own beings, who would obey them.

Thus, they created the first man, and hoped that he and his fellow men would be able to control the darkness. But the humans were afraid, and escaped from the evil they felt from the Eldest. When they saw the sun, they held out their arms and asked for help. When the humans died, their spirits arose from their bodies, but the Eldest had not been able to give them Will and a Thought, and they continued as shadows — alive, but still dead, without consciousness. These zombies eventually outnumbered the living humans, wandering the earth like an army of ghosts. When the Eldest saw this, some of them felt terrible about what their experimentations with the darkness had led to, and they pitied their creations. When God called for them, they asked Him to help their creatures, and God agreed to take responsibility for the humans. He gave all the dead spirits a spark of light, and gave them Will and Thought, and they became conscious beings. And God made laws for man's existence, ordaining that they again and again must incarnate on earth, to grow in maturity until they have learned to resist the darkness. Upon maturity, they will end their living on earth, and continue their development in the kingdom of God.

The task of guiding the human beings in their development, God gave to the angels who had remained in his kingdom. The task was such a challenge that the angels did not know whether they would be able to leave the kingdom of the light to live again and again in the darkness of the earth for so long. But then one of them stepped forward and said that he would take on the task — and he became the leader of the Youngest, as these angels came to be called. And God made worlds around the earth for the Youngest to live in while they teach the human spirits during their rest between incarnations, and as they guide them during their lives on the earth. God chose among the Youngest the first ones to be incarnated as humans, and allowed them to incarnate with a small part of their genius minds available; enough to make them pioneers among the humans. Their task was to bring the human kind forward in all areas. In history we know these Youngest as pioneers; wise and strong leaders, religious reformers, inventors, and brilliant artists.

When the Eldest saw what happened, they decided to work against the Youngest. They had become slaves of the darkness, and they would not give up their world of darkness without a fight. In history we know them as cruel and evil persons, and power-seeking, unscrupulous leaders. In this way a great struggle between light and darkness began. The leader of the Youngest, who worked with God, was Christ; and the leader of the Eldest, the prince of the darkness, became known as the Devil.

Then comes the speech of Christ, in which he stands out as the leader of all human beings and promises that he will not give up on anyone before they all are assembled in God's kingdom. He urges us to follow him, and to reject the darkness. The picture that is drawn of God is of the almighty, all-loving father of our spirit, whose love for us is without limits. He would never let any of us be doomed to be eternally lost. Everyone, in the end, will be gathered in God's kingdom; but it is up to each one of us to determine how long or short our road will become.

And then there is a speech made by one of God's servants; one of the twelve spirits that God created in His mind even before He was Himself embodied. The speech takes the form of an intense prayer to mankind, to grow in maturity and to stop the gruesome wars.

After a number of parables, follows the Commentary, where all the themes of Ardor's Account are explained further. Many more details are given from the development of human life on earth, the early cultures, the sending to the earth of the leader of mankind, Christ, and his life as Jesus of Nazareth. We also learn more about the work of the spirits of the light, as they, incarnated as human beings in many lives, have worked to give mankind greater skills in all matters, to make life on earth easier, and to give us greater knowledge about our true relation to God.

In the Concluding Summary, the whole story of the great work is told, and the spiritual guide of Johanne Agerskov confirms his identity from his last incarnation as her late father, Rasmus Malling-Hansen.

The Shorter Road on our wandering "Toward the Light"

The third "golden fruit" was a book called "The Doctrine of Atonement and the Shorter Road." In this book, the spirit who once lived on the earth, incarnated as Saul of Tarsus, tells about how he, in his great love for Jesus, in his own mind formed the idea that Jesus' mission was to sacrifice himself to save mankind. But now this spirit wants to tell us that he, himself, was the originator of this theory; that it never was Jesus' intention to die to save us. It was his intention to pray for the Devil, to show us the true love of God, and to teach mankind that everybody can reach God at any time through prayer. It was people who crucified Jesus, because they did not understand his message; not God! Jesus in no way died for our sins. For our sins and evil actions, we must each regret and ask forgiveness of those we have sinned against, or meet the consequences of our actions in later incarnations.

This book also contains a speech by Christ, in which he asks us not to look upon him as God, but as our beloved brother; and to turn to God, the true Father of our spirit, when we are in need of help or comfort.

The last part is of another spirit, who once was incarnated as Ignatius Loyola. He tells about how we can take the shorter road toward the light by forgiving our enemies and everybody who has done wrong to us; and most of all, to forgive the fallen angels and their leader, the Devil, now known as Ardor, who are responsible for all suffering on earth. In reality, the Eldest are those who have suffered the most, because, for millions of years they have been without contact to God, convinced that God would destroy them if He could. Ardor has now turned away from his sinful life and returned to God's Kingdom. The darkness is still present on earth, but no longer has a leader. In "Toward the Light", Ardor tells the true story about his fall into darkness, and of all his gruesome sins. Now he asks us all if we can have the heart to forgive him. And if we do, we will participate in bringing mankind a giant step "Toward the Light"

The planned reformation did not take place

"Toward the Light" was sent to all the bishops of the Danish church and to 60 ministers. The Agerskovs had been told that the men to whom they sent the book had, before incarnating, promised to contribute to a reformation of the Danish church, based on the knowledge given in "Toward the Light" But they all kept quiet, and even though "Toward the Light" had many followers among the common people, there was not much public interest in the book.

Even though the story of "Toward the Light" had started with Johanne and Michael Agerskov's interest in spiritism, they appealed to all spiritists to stop their activities and not to call upon their dead ancestors' spirits any more. They said that this only causes problems for the dead, as they need to rest and to make preparations for their next incarnation on earth. If the spirits of the light call upon us, we should be prepared to help them; otherwise God tells us not to try to call on the spirits of the dead.

In 1922 Michael Agerskov wrote the story about the events that had led to the creation of the "three fruits" in his book, "Some Psychic Experiences." "Toward the Light" has been translated into several languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Swedish and Norwegian.

 References

*Hilsen til Danmark, Copenhagen 1915

*Toward the Light, Copenhagen 1920

*The Doctrine of Atonement and the Shorter Road, Copenhagen 1920

*Some Psychic Experiences, by Michael Agerskov, Copenhagen 1922

*Questions and answers I and II, Copenhagen 1929–30

*Hvem var Skrivekuglens Opfinder? by Johanne Agerskov, Copenhagen 1925