THE GREAT GOSPEL OF JOHN
VOLUME 5
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
Jesus in the region of Caesarea Philippi. (cont.) Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 16
- Chapter 96 -
The demons and their influence.
Raphael says, smiling gently, "Behold, my friend, you also have now got three full beakers of wine in your head, that is, the spirit of it, and therefore you have become even more critical in your reason than before! For your part you are quite right when you claim that the demons are in no position to carry out violence on a person who fully lives in the love for God, no matter how great a number they are; for there can be no talk of a communal power among them, since each one of them is in the greatest selfishness and self-love and it cannot occur to anyone to support his neighbor in anything out of fear that the neighbor could secretly and totally in disguise again gain an advantage which would certainly then bring him a vain regret.
2
If they go out in a certain way to rob together, none betray to the other his highly secret intention and if they come upon a place of robbing together as if by accident, then there is often the bitterest battle among them. For the first to throw himself on the booty is an enemy of everyone who throws himself on the booty beside him and seeks to displace him. A third uses this opportunity with joy at the other's misfortune and steals for himself; and then if a fourth begins beside him to steal for himself, then these two also come to blows, and a fifth then calmly steals for himself. If a sixth then comes up, immediately a new battle begins, and a seventh has then the chance to steal until an eighth comes close. All then fight and none allow the place of stealing and the booty already gained to be taken from them.
3
You see that certainly no devil helps another in anything; but through their highly selfish congestion they nonetheless increase the weight of the general booty, and then it is approximately as if you laid two quite equally large weights in the dishes of the scales, which mutually give no advantage. You however spread on one weight only a highly insignificant drop of honey, and immediately the sweet smell will attract thousands of bees; they will sit on the weight and immediately affect the advantage quite without intending to.
4
Can you blame God for lack of wisdom if He has given the bee the smell and desire for honey and the honey itself the aromatic and attractive sweetness?! Or is the Lord unwise if He has formed His creatures to be not only highly purposeful, but instead also highly beautiful, each after his own kind?! Is it somehow unwise of Him to have given the virgin that highly attractive and alluring form so that she must have the very highest value before the senses of the brusque men in this world, to leave father and mother and attach himself most joyfully to his tender and dear wife?!
5
But as can be seen already in the external world, that a being attracts the other into something, all the more so is the case only in the world of the spirits; and if this was not so, how could an Earth, a moon, a sun exist, and how the other planets in the immeasurable space of creation?! One atom has sympathy with its neighbor; both attract each other. Whatever they both do, then countless eons also do, they attract everything which is just the same, and in the end out of this is created a world, as the Lord in the past night has shown all His disciplines very tangibly and you will also find fully written in the great book that has been given to you all.
6
But if so, then is it unwise of the Lord, if He allows in the very greatest emergency the most unrestricted freedom of will and recognition for every soul and besides also naturally the respective consequences?! Or would you praise God to be most wise if someone wanted to travel from here to Jerusalem and therefore set his feet into motion, but despite all his will and despite the best knowledge of the route did not get to Jerusalem, because God did not want somebody's wish and ability to succeed, but instead the person would go not to Jerusalem, where he had important business to do, but to Damascus, where he had nothing to do at all?! Tell me whether you would find such a divine decision to be wise! Or do you find it inconsistent, if bees, wasps, hornets and all sorts of flies positively cover you by day and eat you up, if you go out into the open air smeared with honey?!
7
But if now your soul spreads some sinful smell of passion in the sphere of external life and the souls which have been freed from the flesh but which still stand in a similar smell of love, smell such things in your external sphere of life in a certain way, finally fall upon you and satisfy themselves on your superfluity, without actually knowing what they are doing, but instead purely only in order to gather around you in greater numbers, because they find the desired nourishment in your sphere, then that is certainly not unwise of the Creator, who respects nothing as much for eternity as the unrestricted freedom of every soul. Indeed, every soul has enough means in his hands to get rid of the uninvited guests as often and whenever he wants!
8
If you do not want to be bothered by stinging insects in the open air, then wash and clean yourself from the foolish smearing of honey and you will have rest; and if you want to keep your outer life-sphere free of demons that weaken and torment your soul, all you have to do is make the well-known order of the Lord your rule of conduct. I guarantee that no demon will then get close to your life-sphere.
9
Believe me when I tell you that demons will not attract, tempt and seduce you unless you attract them through some wicked inclination for which you yourself are responsible. However, once you have attracted them, you have only to blame yourself, if through their pressure that very same passion becomes even more ingrained in the soul without you actually wishing it."