Like deepest night, ethereal darkness has blanketed this earth! For a very long time already. So dense and firm is the suffocating embrace that every ascending light-perception is like a flame which, without oxygen, loses its power, quickly fades and collapses in on itself. Dreadful is this ethereal condition, now manifesting its worst effects. Anyone permitted to glimpse these happenings for even five seconds would, from sheer horror, be deprived of all hope of salvation! —
And all this has been brought on through the fault of men themselves. Through the fault of their propensity for what is base. Here mankind has been its own worst enemy. Now even those few who are again earnestly striving upwards are also in danger of being swept into the depths, towards which others are now developing at an amazing speed.
It is like an entanglement which is followed by inevitably being sucked up. Sucked up into the sultry, tenacious swamp, in which everything disappears without a sound. It is no longer a struggling, but only a silent, mute, eerie choking.
And man does not recognize it. Spiritual indolence blinds him to this fateful happening.
But all the time the swamp is sending forth its poisonous emanations, which slowly weary those who are still strong and alert, so that they too will fall asleep and, lacking strength, perish.
That is the state of affairs on earth today. It is not a picture that I am unfolding, but life! Since all ethereal matter bears forms, created and animated through men’s intuitive perceptions, such a happening is actually taking place continually. And this is the environment that awaits men when they must leave this earth, and cannot be led upwards to the more luminous and beautiful regions.
But the Darkness grows ever denser.
Therefore the time draws near when for a while this earth must be left to the reign of the Darkness, without direct help from the Light, because humanity through their volition forced it upon themselves. The consequences of the volition of the majority were bound to bring this ending. – It is the time which John was once permitted to behold, when God hides His face. —
Night is all around. Yet in the deepest distress, when everything, even that which is better is in danger of sinking, at that same time a new dawn will break! But the dawn will first bring on the labor pains of a great purification, which is unavoidable before the salvation of all serious seekers can begin; for a helping hand can not be offered to all those who pursue base ends! They shall fall headlong into those terrible depths where alone they can still hope for an awakening through such torments that they must come to loathe themselves. Those who with sneers and apparent impunity have hitherto been able to hinder the upward striving ones will become silent and more pensive, until finally, whimpering, they will beg for the Truth.
Then it will not be so easy for them; they will be relentlessly led through the millstones of the inexorable Laws of Divine Justice, until in experiencing they come to the recognition of their errors. —
In the course of my travels I could see that a firebrand was hurled among indolent human spirits with my Word, which declares that no man can lay claim to Divinity; while just at this time many efforts are made to discover God within oneself, thus ultimately to become God!
Hence uneasiness frequently arises through my Word, with mankind rebelliously seeking to defend themselves against It, because they only wish to hear soothing and reassuring words that seem pleasant to them!
Those who so rebel are simply cowards, who would like nothing better than to hide from themselves, only to remain in the darkness, where they can indulge in sweet and peaceful dreams to their heart’s content.
Not everyone can bear to be exposed to the Light of Truth, which clearly and mercilessly shows up the defects and stains on their garment.
With smiles, derision or with hostility such people would like to prevent the coming of the day when the feet of clay supporting that flimsily constructed idol, their “ego” will be clearly revealed. Such fools only play masquerade games with themselves, which will be relentlessly followed by the gray of Ash Wednesday. With their wrong views they really only want to idolize themselves, make themselves feel good and be comfortable on earth. From the outset they regard anyone as their enemy who disturbs them in their indolent placidity!
However, this time no amount of rebellion will be of any use to them!
The self-idolatry evident in the assertion that there is Divinity in man is a base attempt to grasp at the sublimity and purity of your God, thereby defiling what is most holy to you, to which you look up in the most blissful trust! —
There is within you an altar for the worship of your God. This altar is your intuitive faculty. If this is pure it is directly connected with the Spiritual Realm and thus with Paradise! At these moments you too can fully sense the nearness of your God, as often happens in times of deepest sorrow and greatest joy!
Then you perceive His nearness in the same way as it is constantly experienced by the eternal Pure Spirits in Paradise, with whom you are closely connected at such moments. The strong vibration caused by the stirring of great joy or of deep sorrow pushes everything earthly and low far into the background for a few seconds, thereby setting free the purity of the intuitive perception, thus immediately forming the bridge to the homogeneous purity that animates Paradise!
This is the most supreme happiness for the human spirit, this crown of all Creation. The eternal ones in Paradise live in it continually. It brings the glorious feeling of being safe and secure. They are then fully conscious of the nearness of their great God, in Whose Power they stand, while realizing as a matter of course that they have reached their greatest height, and will never be able to behold God.
This, however, does not depress them, but in the recognition of His unapproachable Majesty they find jubilant gratitude for the inexpressible mercy he has always shown towards the arrogant creatures.
And this happiness can already be enjoyed by man on earth. It is quite right to say that in deeply solemn moments earth-man senses the nearness of his God. However, using this wondrous bridge of the consciousness of God’s nearness as a claim to possessing a spark of divinity becomes sacrilege.
Hand in hand with such a claim goes debasement of Divine Love. How can God’s Love be measured by the standard of human love? Moreover, how can It be valued even below this human love? Look at those people who picture the highest ideal of Divine Love as simply enduring silently and also forgiving everything! They would recognize Divinity in the fact that It tolerates any misbehavior from far lower creatures, such as only the greatest weakling or the most cowardly human being would do, for which he is despised. Just reflect what a monstrous indignity this implies!
Men would like their sins to go unpunished, and then finally even to please their God by allowing Him to forgive their sins without having to atone for them! Such presumption shows either the height of narrow-mindedness, unpardonable laziness, or the realization of their hopeless weakness in summoning the good volition to strive upwards: The one, however, is as reprehensible as the other.
Imagine Divine Love! Crystal clear, radiant, pure and great! Can you then imagine It to be as sentimentally weak and degradingly indulgent as mankind would like It to be! They want to build up a false greatness where they wish for weakness, they give a false picture only to deceive and reassure themselves about their own shortcomings, which make them willing servants of the Darkness. Where is the freshness and power that unquestionably belong to the crystal purity of Divine Love? Divine Love is inseparable from the utmost severity of Divine Justice. Indeed It is such severity itself. Justice is Love, and Love in turn lies only in Justice. In this alone lies Divine Forgiveness.
The churches are right in saying that God forgives everything! And truly forgives! Contrary to men, who go on condemning a person even after he has atoned for some trivial offense; and by such thoughts they burden themselves with twice the guilt, because they do not act according to the Will of God. Here human love lacks justice.
The effect of the Divine Creative Will is to purify every human spirit of its guilt as soon as it strives upwards, whether through its own experiences or through its voluntary efforts at improvement.
If it returns to the Spiritual Realm after having gone through the mills of the World of Matter, it stands pure in the Kingdom of its Creator; it matters not what its guilt may have been! It is just as pure as one who has never sinned. But first its path will take it through the effects of the Divine Laws, and in this fact lies the guarantee of Divine Forgiveness, of His Mercy!
Do we not often hear today the horrified question: How could God allow such years of tribulation? Where does love, where does justice come in? The question is asked by mankind, by nations, often by families and the individual human being! Should this not rather prove to him that God’s Love is after all different from what many would like to imagine? Just try to visualize the all-forgiving Love of God all the way through to the end in the way man insists on portraying It! Without personal atonement, tolerating everything, and ultimately even offering generous forgiveness. It must produce a pathetic result! Does man consider himself so precious that his God should suffer under this? Thus more precious even than God Himself? What all is contained in this human presumption. —
On calm reflection you must stumble over a thousand obstacles, and can come to a conclusion only when you belittle God and make Him imperfect.
But He was, and is, and remains perfect, regardless of man’s opinion.
His Forgiveness lies in Justice. In nothing else. And in this unconditional Justice also lies the great Love which hitherto has been so misunderstood!
Rid yourselves of the habit of measuring according to earthly standards. God’s Justice and God’s Love concern the human spirit. Material substance has nothing whatever to do with this. It is only formed by the human spirit itself, and has no life without spirit.
Why do you so often torment yourselves with mere earthly trifles which you perceive as being sins but which really are not.
Only what the spirit wills in any action is decisive for the Divine Laws in Creation. This spiritual willing, however, is not thought-activity, but the deepest intuitive perception, the actual volition within man, which alone can set in motion the Laws of the beyond, and indeed does so automatically.
Divine Love cannot be degraded by men; for in It lie the inexorable Laws of His Will in Creation, which is borne by Love. And these Laws take effect according to how man comports himself therein. They can connect him with the proximity of his God, or they form a dividing wall that can never be destroyed unless man at last adapts himself to them, which means obeying them, through which alone he can find his salvation, his happiness. It is cast in one perfect piece; the great Work shows no flaws, no gaps. Any fool or simpleton who would have it otherwise will smash his head thereby. —
Divine Love effects only what benefits every human spirit, not what pleases and seems agreeable to him on earth. Divine Love goes far beyond this, because it governs the entire existence. —
Nowadays, many a person often thinks: If tribulation and destruction are to be expected in order to bring about a great purification, then God must be so just as to send out preachers calling for repentance in advance. Man must certainly be forewarned. Where is John the Baptist to proclaim what is to come?
These are unfortunate ones who think themselves so great in their empty-mindedness! Such cries merely conceal an utterly hollow presumption. They would only scourge him and throw him into prison!
Do open your eyes and ears! Aren’t the increasing natural phenomena and catastrophes sufficient warnings? Do the conditions in Russia and in China not speak a serious language? Even lamentations from Germans in the nearby border regions can be heard often enough under the scourge of their, our enemies! But heedlessly man goes on dancing frivolously and ignoring all the suffering and misery of his fellow-men! He does not want to see and hear! —
Already two thousand years ago a preacher of repentance led the way and was followed on his heels by the Word Incarnate. But mankind tried hard to efface and obscure the pure luster of the Word, so that the magnetic power of Its radiance should gradually become extinct. —
And all those who wish to disentangle the Word from the clinging vines must soon perceive how desperately messengers from the Darkness try to prevent any joyful awakening!
Today, however, nothing will occur in the same way as it did at the time of Christ! At that time the Word came! Mankind had its free will, and the majority then decided to reject and repudiate this Word! From that time on-wards they were subject to the Laws, which were automatically linked to the free decision as it was made at that time. Thereafter men found all the fruits of their own volition on their self-chosen paths.
Soon the cycle will close. Things are piling up ever more, rising like a wall which will soon collapse and crash down upon mankind, which goes on living unsuspectingly in spiritual apathy. Finally, at the time of fulfillment, they will naturally no longer have the free choice!
Now they must reap what they sowed at that time, as well as on their subsequent wrong paths.
All who once rejected the Word at the time of Christ are today reincarnated on this earth to settle accounts. Now they no longer have the right to be forewarned, and to decide again. In the two thousand years they have had time enough to change their minds! Also he who accepts a wrong interpretation of God and His Creation, and does not exert himself to grasp It more purely, has not absorbed It at all. Indeed, it is far worse, for a wrong belief keeps one back from grasping the Truth.
But woe unto him who, in order to attract followers, falsifies or alters the Truth, because men find a more convenient form more pleasant. He not only burdens himself with the guilt of falsification and misleading but in addition he also bears the entire responsibility for those who he was able to pull along by making it more convenient or acceptable. He will not be helped when his hour of retribution comes. He will fall into the abyss from which there can be no return, and rightly so! – This too John was permitted to see and warn against in his Revelation.
And when the great purification begins man will have no time to rebel this time, or even to stem this happening. The Divine Laws of which man so much likes to form a wrong picture will then take effect inexorably.
It is just in the frightfulness of the times, the worst which the earth has ever experienced, that humanity will at last learn that God’s Love is far removed from the softness and weakness which man presumed to ascribe to It.
More than half of all the men living at the present time do not belong on this earth at all!
Already for thousands of years men have sunk so low, and live in such dense darkness, that through their unclean volition they have built many bridges to dark spheres which are far below this earth-plane. In these dark spheres live those who have sunk low, whose ethereal weight never permitted the possibility of their rising to this earth-plane.
In this was contained a protection both for all those living on earth as well as for these dark ones themselves. They are separated by the natural Law of Ethereal Gravity. Down below they can give full vent to their passions, and all baseness, without doing harm. On the contrary. There, their unrestrained indulgence strikes only those of a similar nature whose base way of living in turn affects them in the same way. Thus they suffer mutually, which leads to maturing but not to further guilt. For through the suffering, self-loathing may awaken in time and with it the desire to escape from this region. The desire gradually leads to an agonizing despair, which may finally lead to the most fervent prayers and therewith to an earnest volition to do better.
This is how it was meant to be. But through men’s wrong volition things developed differently!
Through their dark volition men built a bridge to the region of Darkness. Thus they held out a hand to those living there, making it possible for them to rise to the earth through the power of attraction of similar species. Here they naturally also found the opportunity for a fresh incarnation, which was not yet intended for them in the normal course of world events.
For on the earth-plane, where through the medium of gross matter they can live together with those who are more luminous and better, they only do harm and thereby burden themselves with fresh guilt. This they cannot do in their lower regions; for to their homogeneous kind the depravity is only beneficial, because ultimately they only recognize themselves for what they really are, and come to abhor their baseness, which abhorrence helps towards improvement.
Man has now disrupted this normal course in all development through the base use of his free will, with which he formed ethereal bridges to the region of Darkness, so that those who had sunk there could be thrown onto the earth-plane like a mob, which now joyfully populates the greater part of it.
Since luminous souls must retreat before the Darkness wherever the latter has gained a firm foothold, it was easy for the darker souls, who had unjustly come to the earth-plane, to sometimes incarnate where otherwise only a luminous soul would have entered. In such a case the dark soul has found an anchorage through some person near the expectant mother, enabling it to assert itself and push aside the light soul, even when mother or father belong to the more luminous ones.
This also clears up the puzzle of how so many black sheep could come to good parents. However, if an expectant mother pays more attention to herself and her immediate surroundings, and to those with whom she associates, this cannot happen.
Thus one can recognize it only as Love when at last the final effect of the Laws sweeps away from the earth-plane in full justice those who do not belong here, so that they fall into that realm of Darkness to which they belong according to their nature. Thus they can no longer hinder the ascent of the more luminous ones, nor burden themselves with fresh guilt, but perhaps they can still, after all, mature through disgust at their own experiences. — —
The time will certainly come when the hearts of all men will be seized with an iron grip, when spiritual arrogance will be eradicated in every human creature with terrible relentlessness. Then every doubt will vanish which today prevents the human spirit from recognizing that Divinity is not in him, but high above him. That it can only stand as the purest image on the altar of his inner life, to which he looks up in humble prayer. —
It is not an error, but a sin when a human spirit professes a wish also to be Divine. Such presumption must cause his fall; for it is equivalent to an attempt to tear the scepter from the Hand of his God, and degrade Him to the same level as that occupied by man, a level which until now he has never even fulfilled, because he wanted to be more, and aspire to heights which he can never possibly reach, nor even recognize. Thus he heedlessly overlooked all reality, not only making himself quite useless in Creation, but far worse, making himself a pernicious creature!
In the end, brought about through his own wrong attitude, it will be proved to him with incredible clarity that in his present degenerated state he does not even represent a shadow of Divinity. The whole treasure of earthly knowledge that he has laboriously accumulated over these thousands of years will then prove before his horrified gaze to be as nothing; helpless, he will experience within himself how the fruits of his one-sided earthly aspirations become useless and sometimes even a curse to him. Then let him reflect upon his own divinity, if he can! — —
A mighty voice will sound forth and compel him: Down on your knees, creature, before your God and Lord! Do not attempt to sacrilegiously raise yourself to the level of God! — —
The self-willed indolence of the human spirit cannot continue. — —
Only then can this humanity really think of an ascent. That will also be the time when everything that does not stand on a sound foundation will collapse. Sham forms of existence, false prophets and the organizations formed around them, will collapse upon themselves! Previous wrong paths will thus be revealed. Then many a self-complacent person will be terrified to realize that he is standing on the brink of an abyss and, being misguided, is swiftly gliding downwards when he proudly imagined himself already to be ascending and nearing the Light! He will realize that he opened protective gates without having the full strength of defense behind him. That he attracted dangers which in the natural course of events he would have passed over. Happy is he who then finds the right way back!