Spiritual Wisdom:

"This earth is a product, a picture so to speak, of the longing of the spirits who have fallen off and who have lived in darkness for a long time. And I have also said that this earth is equally a product of the longing of the spirits who remained in the world of God, for the fallen brothers and sisters to come back into divine light. And thus you can find here on earth beauty, love, and harmony; and you can also find the opposite, again with all the shades in between. This is the proof that this earth sphere is a product of God's world and the longing of the fallen spirits to reunite with God. And on this earth sphere, man has the possibility with his free will to develop and to decide what side to follow. In his own nature, there are of course both currents: the good current that once came from God in its own perfection, and the evil current that was accumulated, so to speak, during and after the fall. And between these two currents, the conscious self stands and has the possibility to decide to either take the line of least resistance, which is always man's lower nature, or to follow his higher self, which must be the difficult and narrow path." (PL #22)

"This world you are now living in is the product of this desire to strive higher, where certain conditions exist in which development can proceed and in which a free choice for God can be made which is impossible in the worlds of darkness. In other words, this earth sphere is a product of the longing of the fallen spirits. But it is equally a product of the longing of all those beings who remained with God, whose deepest desire it always was and is to bring their brothers and sisters back to God. Therefore both the divine worlds and the worlds of darkness helped in the creation of this earth sphere; and thus the influence of both worlds exists and will manifest according to the individual attitude of a being, which again has on this plane the power of free choice. Conditions and circumstances on this earth sphere are different, of course, due to this new form of matter; but, then, circumstances vary in all spheres." (PL #21)