128. In a state of wakefulness I was led as to the spirit by the Lord, by means of angels, to a certain earth in the universe, accompanied by some spirits from this world. Our progress was made toward the right, and lasted two hours. Near the limit of our solar system, there appeared at first a shining bright cloud, but dense, and beyond it a fiery smoke ascending out of a great chasm. It was a vast gulf separating our solar world on that side from some worlds of the starry heavens. That fiery smoke appeared at a considerable distance. I was borne across the middle of it; and then there appeared beneath in that chasm or gulf very many men, who were spirits; for spirits all appear in the human form, and actually are men. I also heard them speaking with one another; but whence they were and their quality was not given me to know. Yet one of them said to me that they were guards, lest spirits should pass from this world into another in the universe without leave having been given. That it was so, was also confirmed; for some spirits who were in our company, but had not received the ability to pass over, when they came to that great interspace, began to cry out vehemently that they were perishing; for they were like those who are struggling in agony with death, and therefore they stopped on that side of the gulf, nor could they be taken any further, as the fiery smoke that exhaled from the gulf enveloped them and thus tortured them.