All this sounds curious to you, I expect, but it is most certainly true

Our life here is just as real, just as full of duties and pleasures and educational advantages, as life on your plane. There are schools of learning here, of all grades, and everyone must attend one or other of them, if it is needed for their development. You are by no means free of temptation in certain parts of the spiritual world and there are some very, very sad places indeed, where the soul has to fight its way up, step by step, with infinite labour and ever-present temptation. Nothing more or less than that our life here is the reality and yours is the shadow. At the same time the shadowy life on your earth is of the greatest importance because the ego is sent into a physical body to learn certain lessons that only earth life and conditions could teach and on the way in which he conducts himself during his earth life depends his state of advancement in the spirit world.

The Witness