Rising Up into the Divine - World Mystics on the Ascent of Your Soul

PREFACE

In this work we will investigate The Grand Mystery of you and me—specifically, who we are at higher levels.

Many of you may feel as do I that it is often unsatisfying to pray to a God who is only a murky thought or a vague feeling, or even to pray to a single person in history who was said to have been one with that God. This underlying sense of incompleteness drew me to the perennial spiritual quest many of us undertake at some point in our life.

My own journey began around the age of twelve, when I had a singular experience which, although lasting only a few minutes, was to influence me deeply for the rest of my life. I was sitting on the side of my mother's bed by her sewing machine and saying a rosary, when I remember feeling the need to look up. As I did so, I had a surprising realization that almost all of the adults I knew had forgotten about the most important Person in the world. I could sense but not see that Presence, and I was moved to make this promise: I will not forget You. And then I looked up a bit higher and realized in awe that some part of me actually was God. Stunned, I walked around for the next few days holding my head up in the air, trying to be as silent as possible so as not to break the spell. After all, I was somehow one with God. I couldn't comprehend how that could possibly be, because the sisters in my Catholic schools had taught us that only Jesus was this way. And besides, I was painfully aware that I certainly wasn’t perfect like he was. At the time I didn't tell anybody, because it was so unlike anything I had ever read or heard that I felt certain no one, no matter how good they were, would have any idea what had happened to me. They might even say I was crazy.

The feeling gradually faded but the memory of it did not. Nor did my desire to try to remember that Being that had overwhelmed me above my head. The veil had parted only a miniscule fraction, but it was enough to set me off on the search of my life. Why was God above me? And why did I feel for these few moments that I was It? Since I was a strict Catholic for my first twenty or so years, I began to read about the lives of various Western saints. I soon discovered that certain men and women called mystics claimed to have personally and directly experienced the Divine. And so I dug books out of the library and visited a bit with each one because I simply had to know—what did they experience?

In many cases, the writings of these noble adventurers are now in public domain and freely available online, thanks to the impressive work done by internet archivists such as those at Archive.org and Sacred-texts.com. This has given me the liberty to pass on to my readers longer quotes than the usual bits and bytes which often keep us from pondering deeply on a subject. My hope is that longer passages will give you a more visceral feel for the language and crystallized thoughts of these insightful ancestors.

Three overarching goals formed in my mind as I wrote this book. The first reflects my Catholic heritage, and my desire to introduce people of all faiths to some astounding mystics who literally flew under its banner. I yearned to unleash them from the dusty shelves of religious libraries, because they have much to share with us that is relevant to our own lives. All were dynamic, courageous, and passionate about life, and many were astonishingly unorthodox. Far from being cloudy-headed or lacking a firm grip on reality, most were engaged individuals of their times who produced notable achievements in a variety of fields. I feel this lends credibility to them, and it is why you will also find a bit of history here about each of the major players.

After attending a Catholic college, I began another phase of independent questioning. In spite of twisting and turning and occasionally bumping into dead ends, my widening hunt exhilarated me. I went through twenty years or so of training in a form of mantra yoga under Elizabeth Clare Prophet in her theosophically based organization, The Summit Lighthouse. Yearning for a more inward approach, I have spent a similar period after that meditating on the inner light and sound in the tradition of Sant Mat, in a movement called Know Thyself as Soul. Along the way, I came to realize that the saints of the West had planted their feet upon a track to the Divine that was surprisingly like that trodden by holy people of the East. The more I learned, the more I saw these similarities as a type of linkage between the two hemispheres of humanity’s collective brain.

This understanding propelled me to my second goal—a desire to share with readers my discovery that most mystics seek and discover a deep inner and upward union with the Divine using analogous methods and techniques. Whenever possible I have used their own words, since a good English translation of each passage is much more powerful than any paraphrasing I or anyone else could ever attempt. You may find some archaic and challenging, but I trust you will also see them as far better containers for the unique spirit of each mystic. If I have made my selection properly, perhaps you will even long to read more of their rich, original works.

My third goal reflects the fact that after six years of college training in science, my logical mind could not stop grappling with the interface I knew science must share with religion. Whenever I read a story about a saint who could levitate, saw paintings of saints with upraised eyes, or came across a chart of my Higher Self with a rainbow around it, I couldn’t help but wonder about the concrete reasons behind these phenomena. Thus was born a desire to sample and examine the writings of a wide swath of mystics from different religions. I wanted to see how they viewed the concept of a Higher Self, and to learn if they taught similar things about reaching conscious awareness of that Self through a mystical ascent into heavenly realms.

We begin our pilgrimage by examining various cultures that considered heaven to be up above. We then will explore the Trinity a bit—an important concept whose relevance only gradually evolved for me as I dove into the material. Admittedly, it is not the easiest of subjects, but one that I think is not as difficult as some have made it. Other subjects that intertwine in this cosmic collage include the power of the inner sound and the far-ranging and ubiquitous nature of spirals. Quarks, too, stage an appearance.

In closing, I’ll scatter a few words here about how this book developed. The process was akin to fashioning a stained-glass window. The metal structures of the frame are the three key questions we will consider shortly; the beautifully colored pieces of glass are the writings of the various mystics. I had been collecting some of these passages for over a decade, hoping to one day piece them together. But as happens with us all, daily life kept getting in the way. When the coronavirus pandemic came along at the end of 2019 (aka Covid-19), I started materializing my dream in earnest. Through forced isolation, I had a lot of time on my hands and simply no more excuses. All I could think of was how much I wanted to share these insights that I had been accumulating like precious gems, should God and the virus decide to take me out of my physical body. Intense summer wildfires and choking smoke near my home in 2020 and 2021 fueled my desire to complete this project as something of a legacy.

Thus began a routine. Each day I would read a bit of a mystic’s work and then meditate or sleep on it. When I came out of either state, I would say a prayer for inspiration and then write or research the first things that occurred to me. What I found almost always delighted me, and so in this organic way the project flowed along, keeping my mind off of the outer woes of my world.

It has been now over three years of pleasure learning how each of these great ones reflected a bit of the beautiful light of the One in their own particular shade of vibrancy. I have come to realize that ultimate Truth is not relative but rather a Divine constant, analogous to the speed of light which shines true in all frames of reference. It is for this reason these mystical pioneers, seen through different lenses of time and place, were all attempting to describe the same sparkling truths. What they discovered eased my soul, and I sincerely hope you find a similar satisfaction. You will also find stepping stones to assist you in navigating your own important quest up into the Divine.

INTRODUCTION—Higher Self? Higher Than What?

Sometime in the 60s and 70s, as the word karma was making its debut upon the popular linguistic stage, another term began to creep into the English vernacular that probably caused many to scratch their heads. Amidst the comings and goings of hippies, Eastern gurus and non-conformist truth seekers, I noticed the words Higher Self erupting from the pages of books on spirituality. If you lived at that time and were anything like me, you may have foggily woken up one day during a book by some New-Age author and asked yourself:  Higher Self—what is that? Is it my soul (whatever that is)?

I assumed it must have something to do with who I would be someday in heaven—perhaps my heavenly self. My mind flitted around the concept for a while until I began to wonder why I had always heard heaven described as being in an upward direction. And then another fundamental question of this book came roaring into my head—Why exactly IS heaven higher?

As fate would have it, in 1980 I picked up the first book where I began to harvest clues to help answer these questions. Appropriately, its title was Climb the Highest Mountain—The Path of the Higher Self.[1] I sensed in that book the presence of great truths, but its spiritual terms and concepts there were so foreign to my mind that I could barely grasp them. I would sit outside in the woods and try to let their concepts percolate into my brain. From that point forward, gradually, very gradually, the silt started to settle.

Perhaps it was my tiny glimpse into the Divine, a background in science, or even my traditional Catholic upbringing that led me to even consider this subject in the first place. I began by ruminating upon the teaching that Jesus Christ had somehow miraculously ascended upward into heaven, and according to Catholic tradition, his Mother Mary did too. The Old Testament mentioned that Elijah had flown up into the sky in a fiery chariot. And, of course, countless religious paintings from the time of Jesus onward depicted Father, Son and Holy Ghost up in the clouds, many in full technicolor splendor.

Then there were angels to ponder. These same painters captured them for us with feathery wings—to fly, I assume, up (not down) to the throne of God. But where did the angels soar up to? Obviously not to another planet or even to faraway galaxies our modern instruments now spy upon. So, I figured, it must be something symbolic. But what? And why couldn’t heaven be down? No answers were apparent.

Next, I brushed off the mental dust from memories of my high school world history class, and recalled that Christians weren’t the only ones who portrayed paradise as up in the sky. There was Mount Olympus of the Greeks and Asgard of the Norse Vikings, both described as being up in the clouds somewhere. Much older still were Egyptian hieroglyphs of the sun god Ra and the sky-god Horus. I also remembered having seen colorful tapestries from Tibet portraying multiple buddhas floating in the clouds, usually above a larger buddha sitting cross-legged on the earth. And in all of these cultures, the bad guys went in the opposite direction, to some type of underworld. Being an educated, twenty-first century kind of gal, I thought somewhat smugly that heaven was a state of consciousness, and so I chalked them all up to interesting creative myths.

But I couldn’t let it go, and these questions pursued me into the next millennium. Why did all these early peoples portray heaven as being up? Perhaps they based it upon the most obvious facts of their physical life. The sun is up, and we would all be lifeless without it. The plants we and the animals rely on for food make that sustenance by overcoming gravity and climbing upwards towards the sun. Even the fire early humans used to heat their food and warm themselves rises upwards. Or, I pondered, maybe our ancestors patterned the concept of heaven after something even closer—our body, with that very important head and brain of ours perched right up on the top.

Something else in the back of my mind kept nagging me, prompting me to not accept these obvious examples as the complete truth. My dear husband had died a few years earlier after a wrenching illness. During that time I had read stories to him of near-death experiences, many full of lovely places and people the dying had seen on the other side. He assured me such tales gave him solace, and they certainly consoled me as well. In putting together readings for him, I was impressed by the multitude of books about near-death experiences. In fact, it seemed to be an entirely new literary genre, which for a time was expanding almost exponentially. These narratives came springing up from all kinds of men, women, and children worldwide, facilitated by a medical science that could now resuscitate many from the jaws of death in ways undreamt of by our ancestors. Consequently, more and more soul travelers were returning wide-eyed from the state of clinical death with similar stories to share.

If you have ever read such accounts, you may recall that the person who has temporarily died often rises above their body and looks down on themselves at the hospital or accident scene, surprised to find they are still themselves but not their poor traumatized body. Sometimes they can fly. They hear what the nurses, doctors or first responders are saying about them even while they are technically dead, and they relay these details and stories to others after their resuscitation. Many in this state, often before an angel or other spiritual being comes to escort them through a tunnel of light, are not yet in what we would classically refer to as a heaven with God and the angels. They just see themselves as the same me/myself/and I—above, but without their dense physical body.

And so, since there were multitudes who went upward and not only Jesus, Mary, Elijah or a special few, my question haunted me:  Why did everyone seem to rise upwards, and where exactly did they go? Perhaps other cultures or religions could tell me why. Lord have mercy, I thought, I have to get to the bottom of this.

In light of the above, this book considers how mystics—those who many agree have had a more direct experience of the Divine—have answered the following questions:

Where does my soul go after I die?

What is my Higher Self, and is it the same as my soul?

Why have so many felt  God and heaven are somewhere up above?

Before we forge ahead, a few housekeeping details are in order. Structurally, a Timeline is provided as Appendix A to glue key players onto a field of historical context. And because the book contains quite a few quotes, some a bit long, I have used bolding to make certain main points of these players more digestible. I realize this may be disruptive to some, but hopefully it will be helpful to a larger number of readers.  And since so many spiritual topics often appear related to everything else and thus have a potentially fluid placement, you will often see a reference to either what we have already read or we will read in the future.

Ethically, I wish at the outset to expose at least three dangers involved with a moderated collection of spiritual passages of this sort. First, although the Christian Bible is fairly straightforward and contains a small number of codified and non-codified books, other major religions have sacred writings consisting of hundreds of manuscripts. At times these can conflict with each other, and this represents a lurking danger of skewing information by selecting certain manuscripts over others. A second, more obvious vulnerability lies in the act of lifting each quotation out of its original context, an aberration I have tried to limit as much as possible by providing extensive footnotes to help anyone who wishes to read the material in a fuller context. My sincere hope is that this book will begin a conversation, rather than provide the last word on the subject.

Finally, a note regarding content:  the religious world is large, and my apologies in advance for having left out any individuals or groups the reader may feel are important. Perhaps in future revisions.

If you relish mysteries, I invite you to step into the pages of this book and explore with me some that can shake you to the roots of your beliefs about yourself. It will take personal courage to venture outside the bounds of what you have been taught, and flexibility to open your mind to some of your grandparents from the past.  If you can do this, I think you will be pleasantly surprised where you end up.

PART I––––––––WHO THOUGHT HEAVEN WAS UP?

Chapter 1—Capturing Unwritten Beliefs About Heaven

So why is God up? And what exactly is our Higher Self? Before delving into some stories from our ancestors or the books they wrote as clues for us to follow, I invite you to consider two fascinating little side trips into human expression.

Did You Say Up Feels Good?

One day, as I was contemplating these ideas about heaven and up, it began to occur to me that the English language seemed to have a multitude of words equating the upward direction with positive attributes. The more I mulled this over, the more I discovered. I poked around a dictionary and pieced together the list below, noticing something else that may strike your interest as much as it did mine. As you read the words below, can you tune-in to how they make you feel in your physical body?

apex

highlight

rise above

ascend

highness

rising star

ascendant

height

soaring spirits

above

heighten

super

buoyant

lift

supernatural

elevate

levity

superconscious

enlighten

levitate

supernormal

exalt

lighten

superlative

high

lofty

superb

high-minded

overcome

superior

high road

overshadowed

supernal

high regard

overview

surmount

high life

pinnacle

top flight

high-ticket

raise a standard

top notch

high five

raise the bar

towering

There are also these interesting variants of the word up:

cheer up

upfront

upturn

dress up

upgrade

upward

fess up

uphold

upper class

keeping up

uplift

upper crust

lighten up

upright

upscale

raise up children

uproarious

upper hand

straighten up

upside

uppermost

up and coming

upstanding

upturn

upbeat

uptake

on the up & up

upbringing

up-tempo

Do you feel uplifted now that you have read these words? If you’re not sure, try reading them again slowly, perhaps visualizing examples as you do so.

If you want to test the reverse, say I am with these words or phrases that indicate a downward direction:

depths of despair

down in the dumps

a fallen woman

downcast

downtrodden

inferior

down and dirty

feeling low

a sinking feeling

downhearted

lowdown

subpar

down and out

a low life

substandard

So as not to leave you in a depressed state of mind, try finishing this little exercise with the following affirmation: 

I uphold the highest standards for myself and for each person I meet, knowing this can help them elevate their spirits and rise above their problems.

There now. Do you feel better?

Those who have read about a medical technique called Applied Kinesiology will realize that our own body is teaching us the inner meaning of these words on a subliminal level. In the vast majority of us, for a short period of time the positive terms will make our muscles stronger and the negative words will make them weaker.[2]

But why do so many words and phrases about up in the English language evoke strength and positive feelings? Wondering if their history might hold a clue, I learned that the bulk of the earliest English language came primarily from a West Germanic tongue which was first spoken sometime around the fifth century AD. This was just after communities in England were large enough to maintain Christian churches and bishops. Roughly a thousand years later, more modern English began to develop about the same time the printing press was introduced into London and people began reproducing large quantities of the most popular book of the time, the King James Bible. Could many of the above words have developed in tandem with the spread of Christianity in England? If so, they may have reflected believers’ understanding that much of the good in their lives was based upon the upward resurrection and ascension of their Lord. Yet even if history did play a role in the evolution of these words and phrases, it still does not explain our bodies’ unconscious responses to them. Another mystery for the back burner, I  thought.

Sacred Architecture Solidifies Beliefs

Sacred structures. From time immemorial, men have either studded them onto mountains or built them tall enough to catch the eye for great panoramic distances. Ziggurats, pyramids, pagodas, stupas, obelisks, towers, totem poles, steeples, spires, and minarets have all summoned the faithful to worship their Creator. In fact, until the materialistic nineteenth century, all of the world’s tallest buildings served spiritual functions. Leading religious interpreter Mircea Eliade taught that they were viewed as a connection between the higher and lower realms of heaven and earth.[3]

Many Westerners are familiar with feeling awe and wonder when stepping inside a magnificent Christian cathedral, but there are also stunning examples of sacred architecture in other religions. Following are four vignettes of such gems from non-Christian faiths, each displaying in wordless confirmation their builders’ belief in upward spiritual realms.

The first is Borobudur, a Wonder of the World and the largest of any Buddhist temple. Built on Java around the middle of the ninth century, it was then oddly deserted sometime after the tenth and later shrouded under tons of volcanic ash and dense vegetation. It was not until 1814, when a British governor ordered the excavation of a mysterious mound, that this surprisingly colossal pyramid with thousands of buddha statues and bas-relief panels carved out of volcanic stone was exposed. The panels depict the life of Gautama Buddha alongside those of an anonymous pilgrim. Devotees on a pilgrimage would walk up the temple along a spiraling path lined with such stone artwork portraying higher and higher realms of consciousness one would expect to encounter on the way to Buddhahood. About a hundred feet up, a huge bell-shaped pinnacle crowns the top. Scholars now realize believers had designed the entire structure as a map to Buddhic enlightenment, and as we will see, its spiral pathway reflects a key element of the Divine ascent.

Farther north on the Asian main-land in Cambodia, a complex called Angkor Wat lies in silent yet eloquent splendor. This architectural marvel, measuring over four hundred acres, is considered the largest religious monument ever built. Hindus constructed it in the twelfth century as a temple to their god Vishnu, and placed within it carved panels illustrating their belief in thirty-two hells and thirty-seven heavens. A central tower is surrounded by five others over 180 feet tall representing the five peaks of Mount Meru, Hinduism’s ancient abode of the gods.

One of the oldest works of Islamic architecture is the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Old Jerusalem, completed in AD 69. Both Muslims and Jews hold sacred this octagonal building capped by a huge, golden dome. For Muslims, it is the place where Muhammad ascended. For Jews, it is the Foundation Stone of the second Jewish temple as well as the site where Abraham lifted his son Isaac upward, preparing to sacrifice him on its altar if so commanded by God.

More definitive of typical Muslim architecture is Hagia Sophia, situated on a strategic hill overlooking the Istanbul strait that links the East and West. The Byzantine emperor Justinian christened it as a cathedral for the Eastern Roman Empire in AD 537, and at that time it was the world's largest building. Eight hundred years later in 1204, the Fourth Crusaders converted it into a Roman Catholic cathedral. Another two hundred years saw it captured and transformed into a Muslim mosque. Many believe Hagia Sophia is an engineering wonder which changed the history of architecture and set the pattern of  Ottoman mosques for hundreds of years. Forty windows around its base reflect light throughout the interior, giving the large central dome an unearthly appearance of magically hovering overhead. This effect speaks silently of a further inner construct we will consider in chapters to come.

Chapter 2—Written Beliefs in a Heaven Above

As humanity progressed, it continued to reflect beliefs in an upward Divinity, not only through language and physical structures but also in the sacred writings of many faiths which sang the marvels of realms above. This chapter touches lightly upon some of those texts, as we set the initial stage for our questions by examining how various cultures described the location of paradise.

Hinduism

We begin with the Rigveda, likely the most ancient text in any Indo-European language. Linguistic evidence indicates it was composed in Sanskrit on the northwestern Indian subcontinent sometime between 1500 and 1200 BC. The following verse discussing the origin of the universe is one of its earliest and most foundational sections:

Then there was neither death nor immortality

nor was there then the torch of night and day.

The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.

There was that One then, and there was no other . . .

Whence all creation had its origin,

the creator, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,

the creator, who surveys it all from highest heaven,

he knows—or maybe even he does not know.[4]

We see here that sometime before 1200 BC, Hindus were referring to a creator abiding in the highest heaven. Later, their cosmology expanded into a belief in many planes above the earthly one. They saw the Good Kingdom or Loka as a heavenly paradise of pleasure, where most of the beatified mortals and angelic devas resided with their king, Indra. Their hell was Naraka, a place located beneath the earth and in the south of the universe, where unfortunate sinners were tormented after death.

According to some Hindu texts, God made seven upper worlds and seven lower ones. In the Vaishnava tradition, the highest heaven loomed above the lower six heavenly lokas and far from the physical world. It was densely populated with liberated souls who had attained enlightenment and resided there in eternal, sublime beauty.

Buddhism

Springing up in the fertile soil of Hinduism, Buddhists came to honor many buddhas, but it is Siddhartha Gautama (c. 563–480 BC) with whom we associate the largest number of sacred texts. As in Hinduism, many Buddhists recognize several vertical planes of an impermanent material universe consisting of various heavens above the earth and hellish planes beneath it. Tibetan Buddhism describes seven generally pleasant heavens, each with various subdivisions.[5] Beings here were thought to have long lifespans, gradually freeing themselves from the cycles of birth and death until they finally reached  enlightenment at the top.

The Mahayana branch of Buddhism describes Pure Lands which were created by enlightened buddhas. For a devotee on the threshold of death, good karma and a devout mental attitude was thought to help that one ascend from an inferior realm into one of the Pure Lands. For those who had not properly emptied their lower self into the Divine while on earth, one could descend from the human level or even from a lower celestial world, becoming stuck again in material states of existence.

It also seems that at least some Buddhists believed such an ascension could occur while one was still in the body. The following passage reports that Gautama Buddha ascended to a certain heavenly level without telling his disciples. But, it notes, three months later he descended back to them as they were making a pilgrimage to a well-known site. The quote is drawn from the translation of a Chinese text dating from around AD 400 called Buddha's Ascent to and Descent from the Trayastrimsas Heaven, and Other Legends:

From this they proceeded southeast for eighteen yojanas, and found themselves in a kingdom called Sankasya, at the place where Buddha came down, after ascending to the Trayastrimsas heaven, and there preaching for three months his Law for the benefit of his mother. Buddha had gone up to this heaven by his supernatural power, without letting his disciples know . . . when he was coming down, there were made to appear three flights of precious steps. Buddha was on the middle flight, the steps of which were composed of the seven precious substances . . . An innumerable multitude of the devas followed Buddha in his descent. When he was come down, the three flights all disappeared in the ground, excepting seven steps, which continued to be visible. . . . Though Buddha having for three months partaken of the food of heaven, his body emitted a heavenly fragrance, unlike that of an ordinary man. He went immediately and bathed; and afterwards, at the spot where he did so, a bathing-house was built, which is still existing.[6]

This is the first of many examples we will see of a staircase or ladder linking the earth and various heavenly realms. This passage also references the importance of three levels (three flights of precious steps), each composed of seven precious substances. Both are concepts that will appear repeatedly in different guises as we progress.

Elements of this story parallel several from Christianity. Just as Moses and Elijah materialized next to Jesus after his transfiguration on the mount, so benevolent, supernatural beings called devas followed Gautama down into the earth. And just as a very physical Gautama descended from a heavenly place to bathe and preach to his followers, Biblical texts narrate that after his own resurrection, Jesus too performed physical actions, such as eating and teaching during a forty-day stay with his disciples.

Taoism

Scholars often consider Taoism more of a belief system than a religion, since it lacks rituals or religious hierarchies. One of its central tenets is that life’s goal is to achieve perfection by becoming harmonious with the rhythms of creation. Followers call this The Way or Tao. Its chief founder, Lao Tzu, is believed to have written a small book in Chinese called the Tao Te Ching sometime between the sixth and fourth century BC, summarizing the essence of Taoist teachings.

Here is a passage from the sacred Taoist "Canon of Purity and Tranquility":

The Great Tao has no form;

It brings forth and raises heaven and earth.

The Great Tao has no feelings;

It regulates the course of the sun and the moon.

The Great Tao has no name;

It raises and nourishes the myriad beings.

I do not know its name,

So I call it Tao. . . .

Descending from the origin,

Flowing toward the end,

The myriad beings are being born.[7]

Whatever the Great Tao is, it is seen as coming from above and raising things up.

Native Americans

Halfway across the world from the Orient, native peoples of many tribes in the Americas were sitting around campfires, recounting similar stories of heavens and gods somewhere in vertical realms above. In Mesoamerica, the Mayan civilization flourished for a surprisingly long span of time—from around 300 BC until the Spanish conquest in early AD 1500. Its beliefs pictured the earth resting on the back of a turtle or reptile floating in an ocean, with thirteen heavenly layers stacked above it and nine layers of an underworld below. A key myth featured the twins Popul Vu, who ascended into the sky before transfiguring into the sun and moon.

The Aztec culture began a bit later and further to the west. Earliest documentation of the feathered serpent-god Quetzalcoatl in Meso-America is pegged between 100 BC and 100 AD. The next somewhat gruesome creation scene portrays gods also residing somewhere higher up:

She was alone, the goddess Tlalteutli . . . observed by the great gods, Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent, and Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror . . . together they ripped her asunder. From their parts they fashioned, not only earth and heavens, but also all the gods. And then to comfort the maiden for what had happened to her, all those gods came down and, paying her obeisance, commanded this and that there should come from her all the fruits that men require for life.[8]

Later Aztec mythology relays that after six hundred years of inactivity, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca organized the horizontal and vertical universes. The horizontal formed the cardinal directions and the vertical was composed of three stacked planes. As in the Mayan worldview, there are further subdivisions of thirteen celestial layers above and nine underworld levels below leading to Mictlan, the place of the dead. At the fulcrum was the plane of earth.

Several native American tribes in what is now the southern United States also described a three-layered universe: an Above World of creative, perfect spirit beings and the souls of ancestors, a Middle World of humans, plants, and animals, and a Below World of imperfect and destructive spirits. The following Osage creation story recounts how their forefathers’ spirits came to the earth from among the upper worlds of the stars:

In the upper worlds, the Osages existed first as spirit beings and in their humility they called themselves the Little Ones. The Little Ones decided that they should go down to earth to become a people. After receiving help and advice from four gods: the god of day, night, male star, and female star, the Little Ones asked Hon´-ga A-hiu-ton, the immature golden eagle, to lead them below to become a people. Hon´-ga A-hiu-ton led the Little Ones down through the four divisions of heaven. As Hon´-ga A-hiu-ton approached earth, he came upon the tops of seven red oak trees. The Little Ones followed closely behind in three separate groups. As they approached the earth, the Little Ones floated down with outstretched legs and arms up like the wings of an eagle and landed in the seven treetops. Water covered all of the earth below the tree branches. They asked Radiant Star, their messenger, to seek help.[9]

In sum, a group of spirit beings depart with their eagle guide from realms above and then filter downward through several levels of a heavenly realm, landing in the tops of seven trees and asking a star being for help with their desire to become a people.

Much farther to the north, the Iroquois of North America were sharing their own creation stories about the origins of the first people. They told of a celestial race of immortal beings clothed with light, who knew no sorrow or death in a Sky World before the dawn of time:

Long, long ago, where we are now, there was no land, just water and creatures of the water. But, up above, there was a place called Karonhiake or The Sky World. Now, in The Sky World there were beings who were in some ways like human beings and in some ways they were different. The beings in Sky World had more powers than human beings have. For instance, they could make things happen just by thinking about it.[10]

Once again, the gods resided somewhere up above.

Sumerian

In the Middle East, the ancient civilization of Sumer rooted itself in the mud of Mesopotamia sometime between 4500 and 4000 BC. It produced an extensive body of some of the oldest literature in the world, dating from around 2900 BC.[11] This society portrayed a heaven divided into three domes:  the lowest the home of the stars, the middle the land of the younger gods, and the highest the personification of their sky god, An. Earth was considered the ground plus the region of the dead beneath it, which they called the nether world and viewed as the dwelling place of their god Enki.

Following is a quote from perhaps the oldest epic poem, a Babylonian myth called The Descent of Inanna, which scholars believe was first composed sometime between 3500 BC and 1600 BC. Painstakingly pieced together by archaeologist Samuel Kramer from clay tablets, the work witnesses both a great above and a nether world:

Inanna, from the great above

she set her mind toward the great below.

My lady abandoned heaven, abandoned earth,

To the nether world she descended.

The poem continues by relating that next the pure and heavenly queen Inanna was murdered and stripped of all her gold, lapis jewelry and fine clothing. Then the plot takes a surprising twist:

Inanna ascends from the nether world,

The Anunnaki fled,

(And) whoever of the nether world that had descended peacefully to the nether world;

When Inanna ascends from the nether world,

Verily the dead hasten ahead of her.[12]

Unlike so many Sumerian stories of a bleak and gritty underworld of no-return, this myth of peaceful dead raised up by the resurrection and ascension of their redeemer queen is much more palatable. The text also relays that Inanna was led through seven gates of the nether world, showing that even in this earliest of texts the number seven played a significant role.

Zoroastrianism

Scholars have determined that the Persian prophet and reformer Zarathustra (aka Zoroaster) was born in Northeast Iran or Southwest Afghanistan. The actual date of his birth, however, is shrouded in the mists of time and could have been anywhere between 1500 BC and 600 BC. They also know that Zarathustra rejected the religion of the Bronze-Age Iranians, taking exception to their animal sacrifices, many gods, and oppressive class structure of princes and priests who controlled the ordinary people. During a purification ritual at around age thirty, he had a vision of God that transformed his world, and as he taught his insights to others, the faith that eventually bore his name flourished.

For more than a millennium, from roughly 600 BC to AD 650, Zoroastrianism served as one of the state religions of the pre-Islamic empires. After Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 333 BC, he tried to suppress the religion by destroying most of its written texts. Nevertheless, it remained the dominant faith of the Arab world until the overthrow of Persia by the Muslims in AD 633–654, after which time Islamic beliefs gradually supplanted it. During the Islamic conquest, many followers migrated to southern Pakistan and western India, where devotees known as Parsees still exist in small groups. Today, along with other modest Zoroastrian communities concentrated chiefly in central Iran, about one million followers remain worldwide.

This ancient faith influenced both Judaism and Christianity during their long centuries of cohabitation in the Middle East. According to one prominent scholar, both religions borrowed Zoroastrian beliefs in an individual judgment, an everlasting life, and a resurrected soul and body.[13]

Zoroastrian cosmology depicts four levels of paradise ascending upwards from a bridge which spanned the worlds of the living and the dead. In counterbalance, four levels of hell descended downwards to the lowest plane, a pit of absolute darkness where a soul would always feel alone.[14]

The following quotes are from the most sacred Zoroastrian text, the Zend Avesta. They indicate Zarathustra viewed the dwelling place of Ahura Mazda, their Supreme Deity usually depicted symbolically with wings, as a bright place high above the earth:

FARGARD V. 24-26 (71). As high as the great tree stands above the small plants it overshadows, so high above all other utterances in greatness, goodness, and fairness is this law, this fiend-destroying law of Zarathustra. . . . As high as heaven is above the earth that it compasses around, so high above all other utterances is this law.[15]

FARGARD XXVII, 106. Should the heavenly wisdom in the earthly man be a hundred times greater, it would not rise so high as the heavenly wisdom