PSYCHO-SCIENTIFIC FRONTIERS Selected publications from a variety of subjects of psycho-scientific research. Editor: Rolf Linnemann (Certificated Engineer) * Steinweg 3b * 32108 Bad Salzuflen * Tel. (05222) 6558 Internet: https://www.psygrenz.com Translator’s email : evak30@optusnet.com.au E-Mail: RoLi@psygrenz.de Pastor Johannes Greber Communicating with God’s World of Spirit – its laws and its purpose Personal experiences of a Catholic priest Index Chapter 6 6. 0 Messages from the good World of Spirit concerning religious questions ......................... 2 6. 1 Introductory remarks ..................................................................................................................... 2 6. 2 God ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 6. 3 God’s Creation and Its Fate .......................................................................................................10 6. 4 God’s Plan of Salvation ...............................................................................................................22
- 2 - 6. 0 Messages from the good World of Spirit concerning religious questions 6. 1 Introductory remarks (By Priest Johannes Greber) And they will all be taught by God. (John 6:45) The teachings received by me relating to the laws governing spirit communication with the material Creation, as well as all my personal experiences in that connection, shed so much light on events related in the Bible that I had not been able to understand theretofore, that all obscurity was dispelled. Moreover, they enabled me to understand many things that I heard or read of afterwards, concerning occurrences of an extraordinary nature. However, the great religious questions were what concerned me most of all. It was with respect to them that I most wanted certainty. I was a clergyman, and had devoted my life to the religious instruction of my fellow believers. Hence, it was but natural that I should be primarily interested in discovering whether everything that I had so far believed and taught was true, or whether among the tenets of my church there were any that were at variance with the truth. Although I could scarcely have foreseen that such discrepancies would prove as numerous and as wide as I subsequently to my great surprise found them to be, I was prepared for some such discovery from the first. In later years I read that the Catholic Church itself and Catholic writers had, in their writings about “spiritism”, issued urgent warnings against so-called “revelation spiritism”, that is to say, precisely against that which any earnest seeker after the truth is most particularly desirous of. Whoever, like myself, conducted spiritistic gatherings as genuine Divine services in the manner of the early Christians was not looking for spirit phenomena that were as interesting as possible, which is the aim of ordinary occult séances. Rather, I wanted to get in touch with the same good spirit world that had instructed the people of Biblical times. It was from this spirit world that I hoped to learn the truth concerning the most important questions of human life. • I wanted to be enlightened about the relationships between the Here and the Beyond. Everything else was of secondary importance to me. Looking at the question from the standpoint of the “churches”, I could see why they would warn people against a “revelation spiritism” as practiced by me. • For, once we acknowledge the possibility that human beings can be initiated into the full truth by direct communication with God’s spirits even today, the foundations of the churches begin to totter. Considering their self-contradictory creeds, the churches will then be in danger of losing their adherents, for mankind will no longer have to depend on the clergy in their search for the truth, but will, through their communication with God’s spirit world, be in possession of the same direct path to the source of truth that the people of Scriptural times had.
- 3 - • It is the instinct of self-preservation that drives the churches to oppose spiritism in general and “revelation spiritism” in particular. The battle waged by them is the same as the battle Herod chose to fight in defence of his kingship when he learned of the birth of the King of the Jews. The battle of the churches against Divinely ordained spirit communication will, however, be as futile as was Herod’s battle against God’s emissary. The truth, that the good spirit world can communicate with human beings and enlighten them concerning the great and important questions of the Beyond independently of any church or clergy, will prevail with mankind. As for the churches, it will one day be said of them: Matthew 2:20: ‘For they who sought the child’s life are dead.’ • What the churches of today are preaching to the ignorant multitude is not the truth. The answers given by God’s spirit world to questions about • God, • God’s Creation and its fate, • about Redemption, • about Christ, his life and work, • about the church and the sacraments, • about heaven and hell, • and about the origin and final goal of all of Creation, differ greatly from what today’s churches preach.
- 4 - 6. 2 God (Indoctrination from the SPHERES of LIGHT) Can you attain the original principles of God or fathom the infiniteness of the Almighty? (Job 11: 7) You want me to enlighten you concerning God, but what can I tell you that you would understand? You do not understand even the lowest creatures about you; you do not understand yourself even. You cannot comprehend the smallest stone by the wayside, or the most insignificant worm of the fields. You are utterly ignorant of the most commonplace objects that meet your eye, and yet you ask me to teach you about the Supreme Being, to give you understanding of something purely spiritual! That is impossible, seeing that you lack all the concepts required to enable you to grasp these highest of truths. Wisdom 9: 15-16: ‘For the ephemeral body weighs down the soul, and its earthly body encumbers the thinking spirit. You hardly fathom what is upon this earth and only with great effort do you find things that lie right in front of you. But who has penetrated the secrets of heavenly things?’ “There is only one thing that each of you can reason out for yourselves by logical thinking: • There must be some Cause for the existence of everything in Creation. Just as it is impossible to conceive of a clock without assuming the existence of a clockmaker, so it is impossible to conceive of the greatest and most accurate timepiece of all, the Universe, without assuming the existence of a great master who built this timepiece with its trillions upon trillions of wheels, all of them so perfectly geared and running so accurately that the astronomers of today can calculate what the exact relative positions of the various wheels will be thousands of years from now. Psalm 14: 1: ‘The Creator of this timepiece, whose greatness surpasses the grasp of the human mind, you call ‘God’. It should, therefore, be obvious to everyone that a God must exist, and only fools say in their hearts: There is no God.’ But as to the nature of God, that is something I cannot explain to you, any more than I can explain the Cause of the Divine existence. It would be like trying to explain the calculations of a planet’s orbit to a four year-old child, who would naturally lack all knowledge of astronomy and mathematics and of all the principles, formulas and equations involved. If it takes even your greatest astronomers years to calculate the orbit of a single star, a person unfamiliar with the first inklings of that science would be driven mad if one attempted to teach him something utterly beyond the reach of his understanding. In the same way, you would be driven out of your senses if I were to try to fill your mind with ideas that are quite incomprehensible to you and that your understanding could not assimilate. You yourself would be forced to admit: Psalm 139: 6: ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot comprehend it.’ Other than what you already know about God, there is little I can tell you. Your own reasoning teaches you that God is a creative spirit, endowed with a will, that orders all things sagely; similarly, it shows you His omnipotence, wisdom and greatness, so far as the human mind is capable of grasping it. The Scriptures enlighten you further as to the way in which He rules the world, as to His wonders and His love and mercy for His creatures. All I can do is offer you a
- 5 - more precise explanation of the truths contained in the Holy Writ concerning God and call your attention to erroneous interpretations contained in the teachings of your various creeds about God and His attributes. The fact that God is a spirit is one thing on which all religions agree, and for which you have the word of Christ: John 4: 24: ‘God is spirit, and those who worship Him should worship Him in spirit and in truth.’ A point on which they do not agree, however, is that this highest spirit has form. Many people think that form is associated with matter only, but not with spirit. This is wrong. • The material world is a copy of the spiritual world, and since all material things have form and shape, so, too, do all spiritual things, including God. In fact, there is nothing that has no form, in the material or in the spiritual world. Beauty is perfection of form, a statement that is equally true of the realm of spirit. God is the perfection of beauty and, hence, also the perfection of form. God as an integral, thinking and planning being is a personality, and there can be no such thing as a personality, an ‘ego’, without form and shape. God as the highest spirit differs from all created spirits, and difference is possible only where distinguishing features exist. Again, features can exist only where there is shape and form. Because God has form, He can be seen by the other spirits. All who go to Him will see Him face to face, as He is. For this reason, Moses begged God to travel in person with the people of Israel: Exodus 33: 15: ‘If thou dost not come with us in person, then let us not leave this place.’ And the Lord said unto Moses, ‘This request, too, will I grant you.’ (Exodus 33:17) And again, Moses asked: Exodus 33: 18-20: ‘Show me, I pray Thee, Thy face.’ ... But God said, ‘Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me and live.’ God therefore has a figure and a countenance, and can be seen by spirits, though not by human eyes. “Inasmuch as God possesses personality and form, He is not omnipresent in the sense in which you understand the word. It is true that He is aware of all things and of all events through the force that emanates from Him, for everything in existence owes its being, its perpetuation and its functions solely to the force disseminated by God. ‘In Him we live, move and are.’ Through His power He maintains contact with everything that exists; nothing can escape His influence. But as a personified spirit He is not everywhere. That is why you pray: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’ Psalm 33: 13-15: ‘The Lord looks down from heaven and sees all His human children; from His throne He overlooks all the inhabitants of the earth, He Who fashioned the hearts of them all, who pays attention to all that they do.’
- 6 - Psalm 53: 2: ‘The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of man, to see if there are any that understand, that seek after God.’ And regarding God’s dwelling we read: Psalm 46: 5-6: ‘There is a river; its streams provide pleasure to God’s city, the holy residence of the Most High. God is in the midst of it; it will not waver.’ (Verses 4-5 in Protestant Bibles) What the Holy Writ tells you about God in so many places is not figurative or allegorical, but true, with the difference that what you understand in a material sense from what is written is spiritual as it pertains to God. God’s throne and God’s habitation exist in fact. God is able to visit all parts of Creation in person. It is true when it says in the Bible: Genesis 17: 22: ‘When God had ended his conversation with Abraham, He left Abraham and ascended to heaven.’ You are, of course, familiar with the many passages in the Bible in which mention is made of the coming and going of God. I cannot even begin to tell you how wonderfully God has planned the government of the Universe, for this far exceeds the limits of human comprehension. • You cannot picture to yourselves that spirits of God stand watch over each living being and that they report everything that happens. Therefore, nothing can take place without being known to God. For this reason, you speak of God as being omniscient. In this you are right, although in one respect you exaggerate His omniscience, perhaps through fear of detracting from His greatness. You teach, namely, that God also knows what decisions people will make of their own free will at some future time. But in this respect you are misinformed! God knows everything that has taken place in the past and that is taking place at present. He knows every thought. As for the future, He knows those destinies that He Himself has planned for His creatures. • But God has no foreknowledge of those future events that they may shape by the exercise of their free will. He does not know beforehand what a creature of His will do of its own free will in all circumstances. For this reason, He tests His creatures. To do this would be superfluous and to no purpose if the outcome of the test were known to God beforehand, and God does nothing without purpose. Again, any foreknowledge on God’s part of actions within the control of His creatures would have to be predicated on laws that make future decisions compulsory and, hence, eliminate the exercise of free will.
- 7 - To assert that something shall occur as a free exercise of will and at the same time be predestined is in itself a contradiction. Anything of which God had a definite foreknowledge would necessarily happen, for even God’s knowledge is subject to eternal laws, and, hence, the law that 2 times 2 is 4 applies to God as well as to every other spirit. • In the absence of anything which might serve as a basis, there can be no knowledge or foreknowledge, not even on the part of God, for even He is bound by the axiom: ‘Nothing exists without a cause.’ If God knew for certain how His creatures were going to act of their own free will in future situations, there would have to be a reason for His knowledge; and the only possible reason would be that God so forcefully influences the exercise of that free will, that only one course is left open. This, however, would eliminate any freedom of choice on the part of His creatures. • Ignorance of future decisions to be freely made by His creatures does not indicate that God is in any way imperfect. It is the necessary outcome of the freedom of will, the greatest gift God could have bestowed upon His creatures. Just as there are many things that God cannot do because they are self-contradictory, as, for example, not even He can make 2 times 2 equal 5, so He cannot create a free agent whose future actions He can foresee with absolute certainty, in which case those actions would be bound to occur. Freedom to decide and being forced to decide in a certain way are two things that conflict inherently, and absolute certainty that an event will take place is invariably tied to the absolute necessity of its taking place. This is an axiom that none of your theologians can refute, let them write what books they will teaching the contrary. Their conclusions are fallacies that serve only to bewilder mankind. They are utterly in the wrong when they assert that for God there is only a present, that for Him there is no future, and that everything that is going to happen, even the voluntary actions of His creatures, is an accomplished fact in His eyes, and therefore known to Him. • No more than a house that you may be planning to erect is already built are the events of the future accomplished facts with God. I might add that the very idea of freedom of choice means that there is a question whether the events dependent on such choice will occur at all, and if so, just how they will occur. You know that I am telling you the truth also in this, as I have done in all else. You have had plenty of proof of the fact that I am a truthful spirit. For this you have my oath, taken in the name of the Almighty, the true God. When I tell you that God has no foreknowledge of the voluntary actions of men, I am not detracting from His greatness; it is you who would dishonour God by teaching the contrary and thereby picturing Him to man in an odious light, for there are many people who deny the existence of God because they cannot conceive of a deity capable of creating beings, knowing them with absolute certainty to be predestined to everlasting unhappiness.. You teach, although you are wrong in this, that the damned will remain eternally damned. According to this doctrine, God is supposed to have created millions of human beings with the full and unalterable assurance that they would be everlastingly damned. Such a God would not be a God, but a monster!
- 8 - Not even the most degenerate human father would knowingly send his child to absolutely certain never-ending torment, and yet you are asked to believe that your Heavenly Father, with His infinite love, is capable of a barbarity that in a human father would be unthinkable! • Read the Holy Scriptures! They teach that God sends His trials in order to learn how men will act when put to the test, and what course they will choose. Deuteronomy 13: 4: ‘The Lord, your God, puts you to the test, in order to ascertain whether you love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.’ (Verse 3 in Protestant Bibles) When God spared certain nations from falling into Joshua’s hands, thus allowing them to survive, His reason for doing so is given in the Bible as follows: Judges 3: 1-4: ‘These are the nations that God allowed to survive, to put Israel to the test through them, namely those that had not taken part in any of the battles over Canaan: the five princes of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, the Hivites.... It was through them that He wanted to put Israel to the test, in order to find out whether they would obey the Lord’s commandments, a duty which He had imposed upon their fathers through Moses.’ Of King Hezekiah, who was faithful to God, it is told: II Chronicles 32: 31: ‘When the ambassadors appeared whom the princes of Babylon had sent to him to inquire about the miracle that had happened in the land, God left him, in order to put him to the test, so that He might know what was in his heart.’ In the Psalms you find: Psalm 11: 4-5: ‘His eyes look around and His eyelids test His human children. The Lord tests the righteous and the godless; and whoever loves violence, him God’s heart hates.’ And in Proverbs: Proverbs 17: 3: ‘The melting pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold; but it is the Lord who tests hearts.’ And the Prophet Isaiah tells us: Isaiah 48: 10: ‘Know ye that I have purified you, but not found silver; I have tested you in the fiery furnace of suffering.’ The tribulations of Job as related in the Bible were only a test by which God sought to learn how that righteous man would behave toward Him in the hour of greatest suffering. • All trials to which humans are subjected by God would be mere farces, if their outcome were known to Him in advance.
- 9 - Obviously, God who knows His creatures inside out, can say in all probability what course they will decide upon, and we spirits also have this faculty to a great degree. Even you mortals, if you know the character of a fellow creature, are able to predict with reasonable certainty how he will behave and decide in this or that case. But all of this is mere conjecture, and is not the point at issue. I was speaking of an infallibly certain foreknowledge of a decision that depends on the exercise of free will. • Such unerring foreknowledge is possessed by no spirit, not even by God Himself. Hence, God could not foresee that some or a great many of the spirits He had created would forsake Him, and naturally could not know in advance which of them would do so. He knew only that there was a possibility of such defection, by reason of the fact that the spirits were free to act as they might choose. Had God had the positive foreknowledge, as your doctrines teach, that beings which He had created would abuse their liberty of action by deserting Him, He would not have created them at all, but would have created only such of whose loyalty He could be certain. There are two other grave errors in the concept of God entertained by your creeds, and of these I shall speak only briefly here, because they will be discussed at greater length on another occasion. You teach of the union of three persons in one Godhead, You maintain that there are three spirits, each of which is a true Deity, but which, when united, constitute only one God. This is human madness and the greatest absurdity. • There is no union of three persons and no Trinity in the sense in which you teach it. God is only a single personality. Only the Father is God. All other holy spirits are God’s creatures. None of them is the Father’s equal. Furthermore, you teach a God who inflicts eternal punishment and you teach of an everlasting hell. • Hell is not everlasting. God is love. He does not condemn any creature eternally. All those who have incurred the guilt of deserting Him will ultimately return unto Him. That is the truth, as I shall prove to you on another occasion.
- 10 - 6. 3 God’s Creation and Its Fate (Indoctrination from the SPHERES of LIGHT) But Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight. For Thou canst show Thy great strength at all times when Thou wilt. (Wisdom 11: 20-21) God is spirit, and everything created by Him is spirit. It was in His image that He called into existence spirit beings in numbers so vast that no figures devised by man can even begin to express them. In what manner the infinitely great and almighty God created the spirit world is something that you as a mortal could not understand, if I tried to explain it. Knowledge of this is not necessary to man and is of no value to the good of his soul. It is sufficient for him to know how he stands with regard to God’s Creation; from this he may learn why he was placed on earth and what tasks he has to fulfill during his stay here. To teach you these things is the purpose of what I am about to tell you of the Creation. God did not create the spirit world at one stroke. God is the great Creator Who, by observance of laws conceived with infinite wisdom, out of little things makes large ones, out of one makes many, out of a single seed produces the tree out of whose billions of seeds new trees grow, who builds up the family, not by calling parents and children into existence simultaneously, but by first creating the parents and endowing them with the power of reproduction, so that in time the family may grow through the birth of the offspring, and out of this family new ones may arise without limit. God proceeded in the same way with His spirit Creation. Every law that you find on earth exists in the spirit world also. I have told you this repeatedly and insistently and shall emphasize it once more, because it is the basic truth underlying all knowledge of the Beyond, whether you believe it or reject it with a derisive smile as unbelievable. So, you may shake your head in disbelief when I tell you that the law of reproduction through the union of male and female, which prevails in all of nature on earth and with all living things, must and does apply to the same extent in spirit Creation. Matter is merely the incarnation of the spirit and, hence, merely another state of the spirit, in which the spirit laws are not abrogated, but applied in a way adapted to matter. Just as in material Creation there are males and females in every species, so too there are male and female spirits in the spirit Creation. There are as many male spirits as there are females, a female spirit being allotted to each male, according to God’s law. They are perfectly mated and find their greatest personal happiness in complementing each other and in their faithful collaboration in the task that God has assigned to them. • Such spirit couples created for each other are known as ‘duals’, a term intended to express: ‘two who belong together.’ Sirach 33: 15: ‘So look upon all the works of the Highest; always there are two and two (=couples), one belonging to the other.’ These are the marriages that were made in heaven. • No one but God is exempt from this pairing of male and female. This law thus also applies to the ‘Son of God’ who was the first being to be created by God and whom you call ‘Christ’.
- 11 - The words of the Bible: ‘Male and female He created them’ and ‘Be fruitful and multiply’ apply to all created spirits. Christ is the highest spirit God in His omnipotence could create. He is in every way God’s most perfect image, in so far as any created spirit can possess the Creator’s perfection. Hence, Paul rightly calls him ‘the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all Creation.’ (Colossians 1: 15) • Christ is therefore not God, as is so generally taught today, but the first created ‘Son of God’, His highest and most perfect creature. Following Christ, six further spirits, also called ‘sons of God’, came into being, but they owe the existence of their celestial bodies to the first created Son and cannot equal him in greatness, power and glory. The second ‘son of God’ was the one you call ‘Lucifer’ – the Bearer of Light’ – after Christ the greatest of created spirits, who later deserted God. Another of ‘God’s seven sons’ you meet in the story of Tobias, in which the great celestial spirit that had accompanied young Tobias in human form made itself known to the youth’s family with the words: Tobias 12: 15: ‘I am Raphael, one of God’s seven sons.’ Except for the first created Son of God, the whole created spirit world was brought into existence not by direct Divine Creation, as was God’s first-born Son, but came into being through that Son by way of progressive spiritual procreation. Thus, Paul writes in his Epistle to the Colossians: Colossians 1: 16-17: ‘Through Christ were created all things in heaven and on earth, things visible and things invisible, thrones and rulers, powers and forces; all things were created through him and for fellowship with him, and he stands above all things, and all have him as the source of their existence.’ Just as the whole human race owes its physical existence to the first human being, so the whole spirit world owes its physical existence to Christ. As humans have inherited only their material bodies from their first ancestor through many generations, while their spirit is united with their body in every instance without any collaboration on the part of their procreators, so the celestial beings owe their celestial bodies to the firstling of celestial Creation, to the first-born Son of God, while their spirits, coming from God, were in each case joined by God to their celestial bodies. From what I have already told you of the difference between ‘celestial’ and ‘material’ bodies, you know how to distinguish between the two. In spirit beings the body exists in spiritual form, a subject to which Paul alludes in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: I Corinthians 15: 40-44: ‘There are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies: but the outward appearance of the celestial bodies is different from that of the terrestrial ones.... Just as there is a material body, there is also a spiritual body. The spirit receives its form in what is called the ‘odic body’. The spirit itself is a spark of God and shines according to the body in which it dwells.
- 12 - I am now speaking metaphorically only. But there is no other way of presenting spiritual matters to you mortals than by employing incomplete metaphors. As you have, in terrestrial Creation, the most widely divergent genera and species of living organisms, high and low, although each one is inherently perfectly designed to fulfill its functions, so too there is a wonderful variety of genera and species among the spirits God has shaped into individual beings endowed with celestial bodies. In your Bible, you yourselves distinguish among cherubim, seraphim, archangels, angels, dominions, powers and principalities in the spirit world. The spirit world created through Christ and united in fellowship with him formed a wonderful living organism in which all spirits were members of one spiritual community, although they differed in kind and perfection. Just as the limbs of a material body, though having different shapes and functions, nevertheless constitute an organic whole in which no part is superfluous while none is independent of the others, so also the created spirits formed a spiritual body of which Christ was the head, the other spirits being the limbs. In a well-ordered kingdom on earth the king, as the head of the country, together with his ministers and his officials high and low, and the mass of his subjects, constitute a single great family in which everyone works for the common good, upon which, in turn, the welfare of the individual depends. The same was true of the great family of the spirits. Every spirit had its allotted task, great or small, but together they all formed one great and glorious unit, in which no spirit was superfluous and in which no spirit worked for itself alone, but in which all collaborated with each other at the wonderful task to be fulfilled by God’s Creation. They were to share in the labours of God and, consequently, in the happiness and beauty of Him Who had called them into existence, in the glory of God and of Christ, their king, whom God had anointed. That is why the Apostle Paul in his epistles constantly refers to the ‘secret of the body of Christ’. Romans 12: 4-6: ‘Just as our bodies have many parts and not all parts have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ. In relation to one another we are all body parts, yet such that the gifts granted to us by the grace of God differ from each other.’ Ephesians 4:15-16: ‘That we may progress in everything through him who is our head, Christ, for in him the whole body is joined together as a unit in which each part has its assigned function, as a result of which the whole being grows.’ Colossians 2: 19: ‘Christ is the head through whom the whole spiritual body, united and held together by its joints and sinews, grows and flourishes in God.’ This great communion of spirits is also referred to by Paul as the ‘church’. Colossians 1: 18: ‘Christ is the head of the body – of the church.’ Ephesians 1: 22-23: ‘God has put all things under his rule and has made him the supreme head of the church, the ‘church’ being his body, and the fullness of him who fulfills all in all.’
- 13 - The ‘church’ is therefore the communion of spirits loyal to God under the rule of Christ. The word ‘church’ signifies the ‘rule of the Lord’.. Whoever pledges his allegiance to this rule and, consequently, to God, belongs to the ‘church’. • The true meaning of the word ‘church’ therefore has nothing in common with your worldly churches and religious denominations, which are the work of man, conceived in human error, and, like all of man’s handiwork, ephemeral. What Paul describes as the ‘spiritual body of Christ’ was a literal fact in the spirit Creation. All spirit beings brought into existence were members of the great spiritual organism and were subordinate to Christ, its head. They were, however, under no compulsion, enjoying perfect liberty and being free to follow their own free will in all things. All of them were truly devoted to Christ, God’s regent and their king, and through him, to God. This great spiritual family was closely united in the bonds of love. Christ’s rule as God’s regent was not that of a despot, but one of brotherly protection. It was the protecting hand of the strong extended to shield the weak. Their free will, which was the highest gift conferred upon the spirits by the Creator, made it possible for them to refuse obedience to the orders of the king whom God had set over them. The words of the Bible: Job 4: 18: ‘The Creator cannot trust even His servants, and His angels, too, are guilty of error.’ and Job 15: 15: ‘Consider: Even on His holy angels God cannot rely, and heaven is not pure in His sight.’ And yet, they are holy spirits so long as they recognize God’s and Christ’s sovereignty over them and do not, by apostasy, separate themselves from God’s kingdom. • Unhappily the defection of a large part of the spirit world from God came about through rebellion against Christ’s kingship. It was not, as you teach, a direct rebellion against God Himself, but against the regent appointed by Him. This was the first revolution. It took a course more human than you can imagine. It was an exact counterpart of the revolutions you have on earth. In your own uprisings, it is not the physical bodies of the revolutionists that lay the plans and attempt to carry them out, but their spirits. And if you follow the origin and history of human revolutions in all their details, you will get an essentially accurate picture of what happened during the first revolt in God’s spirit world. All revolutions are planned well in advance. They do not arise suddenly. They usually originate with some ringleader, who wins as many adherents as possible to his cause, unfolds his plans to them and promises them high offices and positions of influence in the event of success. Those so initiated next go to work, carefully at first but gradually more openly, on the great mass of the people, without whose help no revolution is possible. This mass of so-called followers, who do most of the raging and shouting in earthly revolutions, generally know nothing of what it is all about. They join the movement because others do, and shout because others shout. They are, therefore, less guilty than the ringleaders, who considered their plans with all of the consequences thereof
- 14 - beforehand and carefully prepared all the details. They know exactly what they are doing and are, hence, even when judged by human laws, subject to the greater penalties, whereas the mass of their followers are judged and dealt with much more leniently. The ringleader in the revolt in God’s spirit kingdom was Lucifer, the ‘light-bearer’, the second son of God, and after Christ the highest and fairest spirit in Creation. What was his aim? He was ambitious: he wanted to be the supreme ruler, being unwilling to occupy a second place, subordinate to a superior. He wanted to take Christ’s place and to reign in his stead. He wanted to usurp his brother’s place. This plan did not come to him suddenly; it matured gradually within him, until his determination became fixed and found consummation in the sin which besmirched this high spirit. • God did not interfere to nip the revolt in the bud and to prevent it by force as He could have done. He leaves His creatures free to act as they choose, just as among men He does not intervene when they begin to plan a crime and prepare for its execution. So, He allowed Lucifer and his fellow ringleaders to proceed and did nothing to hinder them from trying to beguile the higher and more influential spirits and to lure the masses of followers with promises. It was the supreme test to which God desired to put the whole created spirit world, leaving it free to decide whether it would remain true to Christ as its lawful king, or whether it would desert to Lucifer. One of the followers, of whom there were many in all ranks of the spirits, was a prince known in your Bible as Adam, the name he bore as a human being. There were countless princes like him in God’s spirit kingdom, each of them, like Adam, the ruler of great numbers of subjects. Many of the princes became ringleaders to help Lucifer in his preparations for the revolt. Others, of whom Adam was one, merely supported the movement, along with greater or smaller contingents of their adherents. The moment arrived when Lucifer and his party considered themselves strong enough to usurp control of the spirit kingdom, the more so as a large part of Michael’s forces was ready to throw in its lot with them. As is also true of your revolutions on earth, great efforts had been made to win over the army to the side of the rebels. In this, Lucifer had succeeded to a great extent. God had maintained these forces, which were, in a sense, a standing army provided against any possible future need, as you also keep standing armies as a safeguard against sudden emergencies. When the battle began and the spirits had made their choice whether to fight for or against Christ, God intervened. The hour of trial was over. Inner and open desertion had become a fact. And the punishment followed. Prince Michael received orders to overthrow the rebels with the legions that had remained loyal. Armed with the might of God, he carried out the command. Terrible was the fate that now overtook the one-time light-bearer and his chief henchmen. They were banished into the lowest spheres of Creation, into darkness and horror that you cannot imagine. I cannot make the real nature of the
- 15 - depths of darkness comprehensible to you. This is true also of your earthly darkness. You mortals experience darkness where light totally disappears. The more the light fades the greater the darkness becomes. It therefore owes its being to the withdrawal of light, but what it consists of is beyond your comprehension. You also know from experience that a mixture of all colours produces white and that all colours are contained in the ray of light; you know, further, that black is merely the absence of all colours. Translate these human observations to the exile of the fallen spirits from all contact with light and, consequently, with all colour, and you may form an idea of the impenetrability of the gloom to which they were consigned, even if you cannot conceive of the true nature of darkness. The Holy Scriptures contain frequent references to this battle of the spirits and to the overthrow of the evil ones. Christ himself says: Luke 10: 18: ‘I saw Satan toppled like lightning from heaven.’ The Apostle John had a vision of the battle of Michael and his legions with Lucifer: Revelations: 12: 7-8: ‘Then a battle ensued in heaven; Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels offered resistance. But they were not victorious and could no longer remain in heaven.’ Peter writes: II Peter 2: 4: ‘God did not spare even the fallen angels, but drove them down to hell, into the caverns of darkness, where they will be held captive until they turn their hearts to God again. • The original Bible contained as its first report an account of the spirit Creation and of the defection of part of the spirit world that was similar to the description I have given you here. Subsequently, however, it was deleted. In considering the defection of a great part of the spirit world, men may well ask: How was it at all possible for spirits, high in rank and enjoying perfect happiness, to fall? The reason in the case of these spirits was the same as that which so often leads your own souls astray: the craving for more. He who has much wants still more, and he whose power is great desires to see it augmented, even at the risk of losing everything at one stroke. Do you not see the same thing exemplified in the great leaders in the history of mankind, and in a small way in everyday life? At God’s behest Ezekiel sang a lament about the king of Tyre. In it, he pictures in stirring words the reason for the king’s defection from God as a spirit at the time of the great spirit revolt under Lucifer, which he had participated in as a follower and, in consequence, had been defeated: Ezekiel 28: 12-19: ‘You were the image of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Your robes were covered with an array of precious stones: sardius, topaz and jasper, chrysolite, beryl and onyx, sapphire, ruby and emerald. Wrought in gold were your edgings and ornamentations; they were prepared on the day that you were created. You were an anointed, protecting cherub; I had appointed you thereto. You dwelt on the holy mountain of God and walked amid fiery stones. You were
- 16 - irreproachable in all your doings from the day you were created, until you sinned. By consorting with Lucifer, your heart became filled with wickedness. And after you sinned, I drove you from the mountain of God and cast you, my protecting cherub, out from amid the fiery stones. You had become arrogant because of your beauty, and you ignored your wisdom in favour of your splendour. That is why I cast you down to earth.... By the multitude of your sins and the unfaithfulness of your doings, you have defiled your sanctuaries. Therefore, I brought forth a fire from within you, which devoured you, and I have turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who beheld you. You have come to a horrible end and are lost for an indeterminate time.’ ‘You had become arrogant’ - these words best express the reason for the defection of the spirit world. The desire to rule, not to serve, brought about its downfall. What, however, was the fate of the great mass of the rank and file? They were far less guilty than the horde of ringleaders, and since God’s punishments are always commensurate with the offense, He could not, in justice, commit them together with Lucifer to the same pit of darkness. God dealt very leniently with them, condemning them to a relatively light penalty. He did, indeed, cast them out from their former glory, but only to transfer them to a sphere that, if you could see it, you would regard as heaven. It may not have been comparable to the splendour that they had enjoyed in God’s kingdom, yet it answered your conception of paradise. The sphere to which the followers were transported was the ‘paradise’ of your Bible. • It was not on this earth, as you incorrectly assume, for at that time, material Creation had not yet come into existence. The Biblical account of paradise as a beautiful garden, with its rivers, trees, flowers, and fruits, has led you to think of it as being on earth. You do not know that everything you have on earth in material form is also to be found in spiritual form in the spheres of the Beyond. There, too, there are shapes, habitations, rivers, trees, bushes, flowers, fruit, food and drink, gold and jewels, mountains and valleys, music and song, fragrances, colours and sounds. You will find this statement of mine confirmed in many passages of the Holy Writ. You find therein descriptions of the City of God with its walls and gates, its flowing waters and its blooming flowers, and all the treasures that gladden the heart. You look upon these things as metaphor. They are not imagery, but reality. Did not Christ himself say: John 14: 2-3: ‘In my Father’s house there are many dwellings. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there now to prepare a place for you, and when I
- 17 - have been there and prepared a place for you, I will come back and take you with me, so that you also may be where I am.’ Did Christ not also say: Mark 14: 25: ‘I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day on which I drink it anew in my Father’s kingdom.’ In the Old Testament did not the angel Raphael tell Tobias: Tobit 12: 19: ‘I partake of invisible food and a drink human eyes cannot see.’ Finally, does not the description of the fallen cherub given by the Prophet Ezekiel expressly mention the beautiful garments set with jewels and embroidered with gold, in which that spirit was clothed before its fall? Have I not told you, when speaking to you of od, that every spirit possesses an odic body as its spiritual body, and that your earthly bodies are merely condensations of the odic ones? The most perfect state of od is, therefore, not that in which it is condensed into matter, but the spiritual state. It is not the material body, but the spiritual body that is the more beautiful; not the material gem that is the most splendid, but the spiritual one; not material but spiritual gold that has the greater value. • Gold and jewels, in both material and spirit form, are nothing but wonderfully prepared od, which in one case is present in its condensed, and in the other in its uncondensed state. This may be hard for you to understand since you are accustomed to thinking in terms of the material world, having no true conception of a spiritual state, about which you were taught nothing in your youth. But clairvoyants, whose spiritual vision enables them to see the ethereal, can understand perfectly what I have told you. They can also comprehend the description of paradise with its trees, plants, fruits and rivers as applying to a spiritual sphere. • Also, what you experience, see, and hear in your dreams you do not perceive physically; all this appears to the dreamer in spiritual form and shape. Such was the spiritual sphere of paradise into which the rank and file of the rebels were sent, not only as punishment, but also to try them once more. It was an act of justice and kindness on the part of God to give these spirits one more opportunity to redeem the transgression of which they had been guilty through weakness. They were mere followers, who had sinned not out of malice, but because in a moment of weakness they had yielded to the tempter’s enticements. They had outwardly renounced their allegiance to Christ’s authority, but at heart they were still divided between Christ and Lucifer, as is the case even today with so many people. In a way, they were leaning in two directions. But God’s justice demanded that they choose one way or the other, even with regard to their convictions. By transporting them into the sphere of paradise, He therefore put them into a ‘neutral zone’ where they could make up their minds. The choice would have been easy enough, had they still retained their mental faculties to the extent to which they had possessed them while dwelling in God’s kingdom. This, however, was not the case. • For as I told you when speaking to you of od, every act of insubordination to God on the part of a spirit is attended by a change in its odic body, which becomes clouded, losing its purely
- 18 - spiritual nature and undergoing a certain condensation. This not only impairs the intellect, but above all deprives the spirit of all recollection of its previous existence. Consequently, the spirits in the sphere of paradise were unable to recall the splendour in which they had lived in God’s kingdom before their fall. Could they have done so, the test to which they were submitted in paradise would have been impossible, for had they possessed any conscious recollection of their past happiness, and compared it with their actual lot, their choice would have been made without a moment’s hesitation. But they remembered nothing whatever of the splendours they had forfeited, or of the spirit battle that had been fought, or of their own defection in that battle. They were aware only of their existence at the moment, just as you mortals are aware only of the life you are actually living and have no recollection of any previous state of existence, most people believing that their present birth as human beings is also their first life. They know nothing of their erstwhile dwelling with God or of the subsequent incarnations of their spirit on earth. Only a few have a dim awareness of having lived before. The test provided for the spirits in paradise consisted in a prohibition laid upon them by God, the purpose of which they could not understand, and which the Bible pictures as a certain fruit which they were forbidden to eat. This prohibition extended to all partisans who, like Adam, had participated in the revolution, who dwelt in the same sphere with him and who were clothed in a similar odic body. These spirits were the object of particular attention for the loyal hosts of heaven as well as for the sinister powers of the abyss, the former seeking to persuade them to remain steadfast and to observe God’s command, the latter sparing no pains to convince the spirits that it would be best for them to ignore that command and dangling alluring prospects before them. It was the same battle that rages today for every human being. On the one hand he hears the insinuations of Evil, counselling the violation of the Divine laws and picturing sin in an advantageous light, and on the other, the inner voice of conscience, warning and admonishing him not to yield to temptation. • It is for him to decide, which of the two he will follow. Whenever you humans wish to attract the great mass of the people to your cause, you seek first of all to win over persons of standing in the community, and those whose judgment and course of action are likely to be the deciding factor with the masses at large. Such also was the case with the hosts that dwelt in paradise. Among whom towered Adam, once a high prince in heaven, stood out prominently by virtue of his great spiritual qualifications. It was, therefore, natural that his attitude toward God’s prohibition would decide the course to be taken by the other spirits in paradise. For this reason, Evil was primarily concerned in bringing about his downfall, and for that purpose made use of a female spirit, the same one which had been allotted to Adam as his dual, and which is known in your Bible as ‘Eve’. Eve fell victim to the temptations of Evil and in her downfall caused Adam’s as well. Their example was followed by all the hordes of spirits dwelling in the sphere of paradise. Through this second sinful fall, Adam and the other partisans became the property of the Evil One, and fell almost to the level of Lucifer himself. Driven from the sphere of paradise, they were hurled into the darkest depths, and from then on Lucifer was lord over them. In his own realm he was an autonomous ruler. It is true that he was still subject to the might of God, and, hence, not entirely
- 19 - free to do as he chose, but God did not restrict his authority over those who had voluntarily become his subjects. It was the terrible consequence of God’s justice that Lucifer was allowed to call his own all those who had joined him. For them, there was now no escape. Even if they repented their defection to Evil, they could not go back. They had indentured themselves to the Ruler of Hell for all time. That is the contract of indebtedness of which Paul says in his epistles that it was an ‘insurmountable obstacle’ to the salvation of the fallen. Things are no different in your earthly states. Whoever becomes the subject of a country must yield to its authorities. He may not leave its boundaries without their permission, and if the country in question goes to war with another country, he will never be allowed to join the enemy. The same thing is true of Lucifer’s realm. It is in a constant state of war with the kingdom of God. So, it was out of the question that Lucifer would ever allow a subject of his to return to the kingdom of God. Let me cite another example: Whoever volunteers for service in the Foreign Legion is held to the terms of his enlistment. He may regret his step a thousand-fold; he may weep over and lament the hardships he has to endure, but it will avail him nothing. He is under a harsh discipline that knows no mercy. He must stay, for if he tries to desert he will be overtaken and recaptured by the legionnaires, after which his lot will be harder than ever. There is no bridge to carry him back to the home and country he left of his own accord. Satan’s dominions are a foreign legion of this sort. For those who had entered it, there was no retreat, no bridge spanning the gulf between the foreign legion of darkness and God’s kingdom. • Not until later was this bridge built in the Redemption through Christ. That is why Christ, in the parable of the rich libertine and the beggar Lazarus, causes the same truth to be uttered through the words of Abraham: Luke 16: 26: ‘But aside from all this, a great chasm has been put between you and us, so that those who want to cross from our side to yours cannot, nor can you come to us from there.’ By way of a third illustration: Consider the fate of a soldier who deserts his own side in wartime and goes over to the enemy. However bitterly he may subsequently repent his desertion, and much as he may long to be back in his native country, he will not be released. I have now taken you in my teachings to the point where you have two antagonistic realms standing in unbridgeable opposition to each other: the realm of those who are separated from God or the ‘kingdom of the dead’ - and the kingdom of God. The realm of darkness against the realm of light. Lucifer’s kingdom against that of Christ, here Lucifer, there Christ. Nevertheless, God loves all His children, even those who were driven from their Father’s home because of their own transgressions. Since He had created them through His Son, and had implanted
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