Beyond the Threshold
Deathbed scenes
Appendix
A message from the Beyond
18 February 1861
A man in the beyond, who during his lifetime knew Lorber, was allowed to turn directly to Jakob Lorber and report to him of his transition to the world beyond and his first sojourn in the sphere of the
spiritual earth, which surrounds our natural earth, for the first time on February 18, 1861.
B: "Greetings, dear friend! In my somewhat unpleasant loneliness I have been thinking of you and of all the other friends and often remembered those hours when we discussed spiritual matters for our consolation. However, the Lord's almighty will called me away from the world - and I arrived here under rather unpleasant circumstances, which were only due to my own fault. I wanted to make amends for all the errors committed in my earthly life and tried hard - but in vain. And this is why - to speak in an earthly way - I could not take the time to appear to one of you, although I knew that I could have appeared to you or to someone else, had I wanted to do so. But now I am freer, thanks to the Lord, and finally I have begun to realize that all my efforts and work attempted according to the earthly rule was nothing else but a veritable effort and work in a dream, and so I desisted from it. You see, for me, the dying of the body was only a sweet going to sleep of a laborer tired from work, and I found myself at once as in a lucid dream in a pleasant region and at once met several good old friends, mostly from Trieste, who met me in a very friendly and decent manner and talked to me, but mostly on unimportant topics. I had no idea that this was a dream; during my time on earth I often perceived it in a dream as a kind of foreknowledge.
My attention was attracted only by one of my friends from Trieste; I realized at once that he had died on the same day as my wife of the cholera. I had often discussed spiritual matters with him while we drank a glass of Triestine on his lovely country property, and I asked him how he had come here? I said: "Friend, I know only too well that you died on the same day of the evil epidemic as my D. and were buried watched by my weeping eyes - and now you are alive just as I am - and I hope it is not a dream?"
And the good old friend gave me a very serious but friendly look and said: "Friend - let us be glad from the bottom of the heart that we have overcome and left the world with all its evils behind. You see, you have departed this miserable life for all eternities and your decrepit mortal shell will return to the soil tomorrow, for which I am truly not sorry." When I heard this, I became a little scared and I said: "Well then, in the name of God, if it should really be so! But my children, and my possessions - I have still not arranged all my matters satisfactorily!" Said the friend: "ever mind about that, those left behind for a short while will attend to it."
To this I agreed at once, and as by some magic I suddenly found myself in my friend's inn looking in delight at the sea with all its wonders, so that I said: "Friend, surely all this is pure nature, and we are supposed to be mere spirits?" And then he said to me: "Friend, when we still dwelt in our bad flesh, we also perceived as living souls the actual nature, not our dead body. If that was the case when the body's burden and dark denseness was a great obstacle, why not now, in the most unfettered state of life?"
I agreed to this and began to feel that I had shed my body, however, not how and in what manner. But I began to worry about how to find my wife and reestablish my bookshop - and this caused me much pain and sorrow. But thank God also this is now behind me and I have begun to occupy myself exclusively with higher things; I will now visit you a few more times and will tell you many a thing of my present adventures and experiences for the benefit of the faithful on your earth. For the moment, farewell in the Lord God."
25 February 1861
B: "Good morning, good morning - dear friends! My most sincere greetings also to all the other friends! There is no need for me to ask how they are, for here one knows quite well how one or the other of our dear friends is faring on the old earth since we can perceive this in every detail from the outer life-sphere of the person concerned, if we want to. Still, it gives me great pleasure to become aware on the spiritual and thus better earth that every one - with the exception of a few - makes progress in the light of the Lord from the heavens. For those whom the Lord loves, He always visits with all sorts of little crosses. With the aid of these crosses the Spirit of the Lord unites with the, as such, always miserable soul. For without a prop it is a very miserable being. And this is why most souls rely on their decayed and decrepit flesh, having to accept all the sufferings, because they have no inkling of nor do they recognize the most firm and eternal prop of the Spirit out of God! And for this very reason these particular little medal crosses from the Lord's hand are so good and beneficial for the true and eternal welfare of the soul, for thereby it is coerced to let go of its fleshly desires and with its faith turn to the spirit. Once a soul has begun to turn around, it is provided with all sorts of little crosses by the Lord until such time when it has begun to completely unite with its spirit. When this is the case and there is no longer any danger of a soul's returning comfortably to its flesh, there is an end to all the little crosses and the whole human being can pass into a true bliss already on this earth.
I myself did not realize it by far in my earthly life, as I now realize it in my totally pain free and really true life. And this is the reason why I was always wavering between the brittle and transient prop of the soul-life and that of the eternally permanent, true and immensely strong one of the spirit, where I was constantly given some suffering to bear. However, the Lord decreed it so in His love, and only now do I more and more feel the great benefit of all the tribulations borne by me, which often tasted rather bitter. For, where and what were I now without them?
Oh, dear friend, I, who now have the opportunity to observe and recognize the misery and great distress of certain worldly souls, cannot ever thank the Lord enough for sending me always such guardians and watchdogs, who prevented me from turning into a complete worldly person. Therefore, bear everything in gratitude and patience out of love for the Lord, for the true California of life you will only find here forever. For every faithful laborer in the Lord's great vineyard of life will here find his most splendid reward for eternity!
We know from the Lord's own mouth that His true followers on earth are crucified in Him, i.e., as it were together with Him, thus to be resurrected with Him to eternal life.
My very dear friend, I well know that you are aware of this, but I mention it to you and the other dear friends for the simple reason that the word of one who speaks from experience surely carries more weight than the word of a prophet, who is still a dweller in the flesh.
You probably want to learn from me many a thing concerning the conditions of life in the spirit world, and I am glad to tell you as far as it is possible for me in my present state. You see, I am still on this earth, i.e., mostly in the coastal area around Trieste. I have also been several times here in Graz and I can see the earth much better than a human being who still walks in his flesh. I also see the people still living here and am able to make contact with them. For my words become in them like unexpected and suddenly arising thoughts; and their own thoughts arising are my concrete answer. However, the earth, which I here see clearly, is not the material earth proper, but only as it were the spiritual one, without which the material one cannot exist. For everything material is actually nothing but the Spiritual under judgment or imprisoned.
But it is rather strange that in our case the "spiritual earth" as it were arises out of the soul through the all-enlivening and allcreating might of its spirit out of God, like a completely mature tree which arises from the spirit of the seed and vessel in the unpretentious grain of seed, only it is more ready-made than with the development of the tree out of the grain of seed. Of course, you would now think and say: Well, if so, there are in the spirit realm as many spiritual earths as there are spirits. But this is by no means the case; miraculously, every spirit brings "his" spiritual earth along into the beyond. However, as soon as it arises out of him, it unites with the spiritual earth of all spirits, and so there is only one spiritual earth, in everything completely identical to the material one; but it is far more sublime, distinct and perfect for the physical eye, which is unable to perceive the great wonders in the structure of the atoms. For this reason the "spiritual earth" presents to us a totally different aspect than the material world does to you.
Our roaming about is, of course, also different from yours, for we have nothing to do with the material time and its dimensions. Row it is achieved with us, I shall show you in detail in an easily comprehensible manner next time. And so farewell in the lord."
4 March 1861
B: "Good morning, and greetings in the name of the Lord! Spring is beginning again on this earth and it will be a rather good one. We can notice it from the special activity of the nature spirits, who are beginning to wheel about in colorful profusion. It is truly strange in how many forms of the greatest diversity they suddenly develop, as if by magic, in the air of our ether, organize themselves and at once become active. The mixed forms and groupings in their greatest diversity present a new form, as a new whole. One can now see the new form, but at the same time also its structure with its wondrous connections, which by far surpasses anything that can be seen and discovered on earth, even through the most perfect microscopes. For, what can be seen with the physical eyes are already well-defined forms, at least in the tenth potency on the gamut of the progressive combining of forms and beings. It is already as it were an enveloped Spiritual, a pupa which then manifests correspondingly in the material world. But what an immense number of the strangest preliminary forms and groupings precede such a pupation in the spiritual-natural world!
This activity on the part of the special nature spirits prior to their pupation is actually the most extraordinary thing we spirits can observe here, provided we have our hearts in the matter. But things happen here mostly as among the people on the material earth: unless the one passing over brings along aspirations for higher things, he still has the same inclinations as he used to have on earth. The man of gold and money remains also here an agent and speculator, and so the merchant, the tradesman, the farmer and so forth - every one in his own peculiar way, and the saying holds good: Many are called, but few are chosen.
As for me, I remember how in the first time after my arrival here I began to be again concerned with worldly things. It is only due to the influence of good friends, who have much experience here, that I abandoned these ideas and early enough recognized the actual, true purpose of my being here and that I now find myself on a higher level of purer cognition and vision. Oh, here it is even more difficult to extricate oneself from the spurious matter than on the real material world, and atheism is here a thousand times more prevalent than in the material world - and according to my experience so far, he who is stuck in it, can, in my opinion, be hardly or not at all freed. Having tried to discuss, as one would say, transcendental matters, the immediate answer was: "Shall we also perhaps here make the fools for the priests and rulers? Let us be glad that we are at last in a world where every one is a free master of his space!" Only recently I asked one of them whether the thought did not sometimes cross his mind that the great teacher of Nazareth might after all be the Lord and Creator of the entire visible and invisible world. Well, I was soon quiet; he started to become coarse and violent and passed remarks concerning the Lord which I dare not repeat here. Nothing can be done with such spirits, and the best thing is to go out of their way as far as possible.
I have seen the Lord several times, but only from a certain distance, and felt a great longing to speak to Him, but it did not come to pass as yet. My friend told me that soon He will come again; perhaps it will happen then?!"