Review: Elysium Unveiled

Elysium Unveiled

by Jurgen Ziewe

Today I'm reviewing Elysium Unveiled by Jurgen Ziewe. The subtitle is A Visual Odyssey of Life Eternal. The copyright is 2023. The book is 162 pages, chock full of stunning images.

I read most of this book from the seat of an airplane. This is the first book I've reviewed for my blog that wasn't a printed book. It is an eBook. In the past I've always confined my reviews to printed books, but due to unusual circumstances, I decided to make an exception. (The book is available in print, as well as a German edition).

This is not a teaching book.

"Jurgen Ziewe sees himself not as a teacher but as a reporter, delivering a
down-to-earth narrative of his remarkable experiences." (pg. 162)

And that's basically what it is. This book is a travelogue: a written description of the author's travels alongside images to illustrate his points. But unlike the travelogues from my old website, this is for non-physical places, astral locations, consensus realities.

The book is rich with verbal descriptions of non-physical realms, including some all-important example OBE narratives that give the book a great deal of credibility. Some of these reminded me of a childhood experience where it seemed like I spent years in a non-physical city. You can read the full account from my first book at this link. Compare what Ziewe says:

"Our earth life appears like a distant bad dream from which we have awoken." (pg. 130)

...to my narrative:

"...I had gone to sleep and dreamed of a little place called "Earth" and now I was awake. "That was a silly dream" I thought, and I soon forgot all about "Earth." I continued my life, just like before I fell asleep. I lived in that fantastic city for years and years--centuries it seemed. I lived there so long that I COMPLETELY forgot all about Earth. For hundreds of years I had forgotten Earth. If someone were to ask me about it, I couldn't remember, since it happened so long ago." (pg. 11)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Extrapolate that to the next level: an out-of-body experience is worth a thousand pictures. So alongside  the text, this book has a plethora of full-color near-photo quality images produced by the author with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) similar to the cover photo above. In fact, there are images on every page, and many additional images with no text.

But Ziewe admits that the images don't do them justice. They are only "approximate" visual representations of non-physical places he has seen firsthand in his many years of out-of-body experiences. In an OBE, you can hear incredible music and see thousands of colors more vivid than the physical, and there's often a lack of words to describe what you experience. I could feel his frustration: Even though he's a professional graphic artist, using state-of-the-art AI design tools, and despite having spent countless hours refining and honing them, the images are just crude shadows of the places he visited. The images are analogous to stick figures etched into cave walls by our ancient hominid ancestors: They only give a crude idea of what Ziewe actually saw.

Some of them looked vaguely familiar, and as I stared into them, sometimes I felt like I had been there, too, even if I didn't consciously remember.

And Ziewe's images in the book are mind blowing. As I read, my wife Kathy watched a movie on her iPad, occasionally glancing over my shoulder. Several times she paused her movie and interrupted me saying, "Wow! Those images are just phenomenal! If they're supposed to represent what he's seen in his OBEs, it's just incredible and amazing to think." One time she added, "All of those images--every one I've seen so far--are good enough to put into a frame and hang on our walls! They're amazing!"

But it's more than just art. It takes the reader deep into the non-physical worlds of the astral plane. It's a visual odyssey, much like Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy is an odyssey of words, describing the various regions of the afterlife from heaven to purgatory to hell (Paradiso to Purgatorio to Inferno). But where Dante was limited to around 96,000 words, Ziewe gives visual representations to the afterlife.

The book can also be compared to Charles Leadbeater's 1895 book The Astral Plane (which I will review next time) but so much better. Leadbeater's book mostly describes the inhabitants of the astral plane, but in a matter-of-fact way, without the emotions, narratives or descriptions of the places themselves.

Near the beginning of this book, Ziewe recommends the readers study the images and try to draw themselves into them, and imagine that they're standing there. Many of the images drew me in like a magnet. While they weren't OBEs, it was almost magical, as if I was somehow propelled by the image into a higher vibration. It was weird and hard to explain. No other book has had that effect on me.

The book starts out describing the lowest of the lower astral, where the worst of the negative souls confine themselves to a hellish environment, wallowing in their own hideous negativity, greed and selfishness. He describes how he was accompanied to this dangerous place by his "silent companion" very similar to beings I've encountered.

Then he describes "Earth II", and areas of the "middle astral" and "higher realms" that are stunning.

According to Ziewe's direct observations, he asserts that we--our individual personalities--live on in the afterlife. In other words, we don't just get re-absorbed into the infinite consciousness without a sense of self. This is contrast to the ages-old Occult belief that a suitable "Body of Light" needs to be created and cultivated in the astral plane or else our personalities will dissolve into the infinite.

Ziewe also asserts that reincarnation is a fact. And like William Buhlman and other authors, he asserts that we go to the places that best suit our vibrational level. Negative people go to negative places, and positive people go to positive places, etc., and yet we are free to choose where we go.

In past reviews I've compared Ziewe's words to Eckhart Tolle: simple but profound wisdom, like gold coins casually fall from his pockets as he walks. This book is no exception. It's a simple book, not complex or wordy. In fact, it has short, simple, powerful messages like:

"Appreciation and gratitude are the most important faculties to nurture while still on earth to get our passport into Heaven." (pg. 128)

Here's another example:

"We all share one consciousness, and the demarcation lines are only inside our heads. We are living with an epic illusion and delusion, thinking that there is a Now and After and a Here and Beyond. There is only a constant Now and a persistent Here. Thinking there is an Afterlife is still one of our greatest delusions, even among the stanchest believers in “Life After Death”." (pg. 22)

Throughout the years I've told this to many people: All our beliefs in the afterlife come from someone's firsthand experience. So why do so many people today cling to the cryptic descriptions of heaven and hell from people who are separated from us by thousands of years of time, radical evolution in science and culture, and badly distorted by translations from an ancient language? Why do people viciously defend their religions when they can read (and now see) modern accurate descriptions of the afterlife, undistorted, from someone in their own culture, in their own time, and in their own language? Jurgen Ziewe is much too humble to say it, but I will: his books are just that.

I loved this book. Its short messages are deep and profound and its art is visually stunning. I give it one of my rare 5 star ratings. It's not only "deep" and thought-provoking, it's emotion-provoking.

Bob Peterson
24 September 2024

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