The Great Encounter

- 36 - Now that I couldn’t feel a heartbeat and also couldn’t breathe anymore, my body was in a never expe- rienced state of peace. This condition created within my consciousness a solemn feeling , full of rever- ence, full of high respect for my own death.  Even then I felt cold air, as cold as a grave, enveloping my whole body from the feet up; it was an emotional solidifying of all bloodstreams. This coldness proceeded relatively quickly, like a cold wave, throughout my body until it also reached my head.  Immediately after I felt a very delicate rupturing under my skin, as if the flesh was separating from the skin. But then all my associations with my body ceased completely. My consciousness remained completely unchanged, in spite of this. I was dead, but I remained myself! The great encounter I was incomparably light and free. - Gravity had yielded from me. I was like a light haze, well, even less than that, because I was only consciousness, only thought. This was certainly no dream - this was actual reality , something I could perceive with unusually honed senses. From that moment on, these senses must have worked on a purely mental level, they were not depending on any physical organs anymore. This brought about a complete change to my potential of perception and thereby my whole world. I already heard my supernatural VOICE again, but it was even clearer, better to understand and with every syllable and word mental concepts formed with consummate ease. I tried very hard to see the speaker, but it was impossible. I found myself in extreme darkness, darkness as I have never experienced it before. My psychic eye remained switched off. The voice spoke with unusual clarity, even thou it wasn’t acoustic: “BE CAREFUL, BECAUSE YOU ARE OUTSIDE OF YOUR BODY! TRY TO RECONCILE YOURSELF WITH THE FACT THAT YOU ARE NOW IN THE ASTRAL REALM AND THAT YOU’RE ABOUT TO UNDERTAKE A VERY DANGEROUS JOURNEY, THEREFORE DO NOT FORGET YOUR PRAYERS. I WILL REPEAT THEM ONCE AGAIN FOR YOU: ALMIGHTY GOD AND DEAR FATHER IN HEAVEN, PLEASE SEND ME YOUR HEAVENLY HOST, BE- CAUSE THE DEVIL IS AFTER MY SOUL.”  I had a feeling as if I had to rush through an infinite space. An enormous undertow pulled me irresistibly in a direction I couldn’t tell whether it was up or down. The New Testament calls it “a journey down to hell”. I can therefore assert that my astral journey was going in a downward direction. If this strange death or state was supposed to portray a symbolic DEATH of CHRIST, I was surely on a journey into hell. But for theologians I highlight this fact: What did CHRIST do in hell?