The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord on the Mount of Olives. (cont.) Gospel of John, Chapter 8
- Chapter 72 -
The nature of the ether.
1
(Raphael:) "You see here the extremely transparent air and are under the impression, that it therefore barely exists. But if this air is given a strong movement, that through its storm-force wind-power it can uproot the mightiest cedars and stir the sea to such an extend, that it rises to mountain-high, foaming waves, you must confess that air is very much a considerable powerful something. Yes, air is thus a body and contains all conceivable materials and bodies in a still more and unbound primeval state in it.
2
Water, especially rain- and spring water, is the same as what air is, but only in a more bound state. The saltwater of the sea is of course even denser and more bound.
3
But if we climb higher, for about ten hours above the earth, we will find no air as it surrounds us here anymore, but the cleanest ether, which would be for your eyes such an absolutely nothingness, that you cannot easily imagine anything more nothing than this. If you look across the world into the distance of several walking hours, even the very clear air which fills the space between you and the distant mountains, will appear before the very mountains as a blue haze; but if this space were filled by pure ether, you would not see the mountains as blue, but in their completely natural colors. Yes look, the distance between the earth and the sun is so great, that I am truly not be able to give you an understandable and correct measure on this earth, - as the Lord Himself has explained to you already! And this for your concept dreadfully wide space is filled with this for your senses absolutely trifling ether.
4
But this ether is in spite of its apparently trifling nullity, not at all so trivial as its appearance shows to you; since in it all the countless materials and elements are present in a far more unbound state as in the most pure atmospheric air of this earth. But there the forces are even more free and are much more closely related to the primeval fire and primeval light and feed the air of the earth, it in turn the water and the water the earth and everything that lives, weaves and strives on it. If, however, all this is already present in the ether, it must be quite a competent something and not just a nullity as it appears to your senses.
5
However, the ether is still far from pure spiritual, but has more inner resemblance with the substance of the soul, but only insofar it is a spatial medium, where countless primeval forces out of God meet, unite and finally as in complete unison become active.
6
Now of course you will ask me again and say: 'Yes, how can there be any homogeneous activity when there are so many different forces?' And I say to you: Nothing more natural and easier than that!
7
See, we have on the earth of the Lord, under its seas and other waters a, for you, incomprehensible large number of all kinds of plants, shrubberies, trees, animals and also minerals, that even the most famous scholar of this time is not able to write them down and pronounce them! With the whole earth they form a combined wholeness and everything works towards a single principal purpose, but, nevertheless, here on earth and in the earth they are so different in kind and differently ordered, that it would be impossible for you not to distinguish them at first sight, so that you in the end could not take a fig tree for a thistle shrub, an ox for a lion, a swallow for a hen, a fish for a tortoise and lead for gold.
8
On earth you will notice these differences very easily; but in ether, in the air and in water you cannot notice them, and this neither with your sight nor with your hearing, nor your smelling, nor your taste, nor by your feeling via your whole nervous system, despite all the countless different kinds of forces and the primeval materials and elements in the ether, water and in this air as produced by them, are more defined different from each other, than you can notice on this material world.
9
Thus, behind the substance of the ether is the, to your senses, not visible spirit-fire, a forever prevailing force, which, emanating from God, forever fills infinite space and forever on acts and creates. God Himself is the eternal primeval spirit in His center and fills the forever from Him emanating infinity with His great thoughts and ideas, which, filled with His love become beings carrying the same spirit-fire as He Himself, through His wisdom take on ordered form and through His will become separated and as if independent from each other. In these beings the ability is placed to reproduce and develop forever and on the step-ladder of the eternal order of God in time become one and rise to godlikeness.