829. Since religion dwells in the highest levels within us, and our lower levels draw their life and light from those highest levels, and because the idea of Muhammad is always uppermost in Muslim minds along with their religion, there is always some Muhammad who is set visibly before Muslims in the spiritual world. To get them to turn their faces toward the east, the region closest to the Lord, this Muhammad is placed below the center of the Christian region. This is not, however, Muhammad himself, the writer of the Qur'an, but someone else who plays the role of Muhammad. It is not always the same person either; it changes. One of the Muhammads had come from Saxony but had been taken captive by Algerians and had become a Muslim. Because he had originally been Christian, he was encouraged a number of times to tell the Muslims that the Lord was not the son of Joseph but rather the Son of God himself. Later on, other Muhammads took over from this one.

In the place where that representative Muhammad is to be found there appears a fire like that of a burning torch, so that people will recognize who he is. That fire is visible only to Muslims, however, and not to others.

228. It stands to reason, then, that people who read the Word without a body of teaching are in the dark about every truth. Their mind is meandering and undecided, liable to go astray, and even susceptible to heresies. Such people will in fact embrace heresies if those heresies have gained any popularity or authority and their own reputation is therefore not in danger. To them the Word is like a lampstand that gives no light. In the shadows they think they see many things, but in fact what they see is practically nothing, because a body of teaching is the only oil lamp.

I have seen angels examining people like this and discovering that they were capable of using the Word to support whatever they wanted. The angels also discovered that these people do in fact support whatever they want, especially things that feed their love for themselves and for others they are partial to. I saw them stripped of their clothing, an indication that they had no truths. In that world, clothes are truths.