The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 143 -
The nature of electricity.
Now Raphael stood up and walked to the door where a few house cats were lying in wait for a mouse, took one of them and carried him into the hall.
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There he put him on the table and (Raphael) said to the captain: "Just look to the tame cat whose hairs still have that specific weak glow. Just take him and caress him from the tail to the head, then you will immediately see in the now already weak light of the lamp a phenomenon that will strike you."
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The captain did that, and especially because this air still contained much electricity, a lot of fierce sparks jumped crackling off the back of the cat.
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Then a disciple of John, who secretly carried still many old bits and pieces of superstition in his heart, said: "Yes, yes, there you can see that the elders were right when they claimed that an old cat has the devil in his body."
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But Raphael said: "Oh no, friend, you are really not seeing this here, but from your words can be concluded that you - although you are a disciple of John - are still not free from all superstition. I could show you the same phenomenon with other animals and even on your own head, and you certainly will not claim that you also have a devil in your body?"
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The disciple said: "This I do not believe and hope, but from where comes actually the hail of sparks from the back of the cat?"
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Raphael said: "If you did not interrupt me with your old superstitious words I would have explained this matter now for already half. But in this manner I can only continue now with the explanation and this means to have patience, because no tree can fall with one blow, except when it would only be as strong as a straw.
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Look, these sparks do not come out of the body of the cat, but only from the surface of his hairs to which the fire of the air spirits in the nature can in a certain way easily stick - in order to speak in this respect understandably to you. This fire of the air spirits in the nature we want to call - from the old Egyptians, Phoenicians and Greeks - the well-known 'electron' or electric fire, which is usually slumbering, but under specific circumstances it is easily awakened and will then actually manifest itself.
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This fire is the actual life element of the air by which finally the whole Earth itself and everything that is and exists on and in it develops into creatures and maintains its natural life, and it is also its most important food. But it does not develop itself in a certain rest of the air, the water, the minerals, the plants, animals and men, but it remains just as passive, and we rightly could call such electrical rest the death of matter.
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This fire fills however God's whole endless space of creation and in its complete rest it forms the ether in which all those countless big celestial bodies are floating around, more or less as fishes in the water. If the celestial bodies in the endless big space of creation and also space of ether would stay motionless in one point without any movement forward or backward, thus completely at rest, then they soon would decay as a dead body, perish, dissolve completely and pass into the calm ether. But surely, for this reason the Creator has taken care with His wisdom and might that all those countless many celestial bodies in the big space of ether would move continuously and in all kinds of manners, bringing them to a high degree in a continuous restless movement and consequently forcing them to an active awakening.
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But it would take us too much time here to clearly explain to you the big 'how', and you all can hear all that - explained very precisely by the Lord Himself - from all His disciples who are the only ones who are initiated in the great secrets of creation. Therefore, we will only have a closer general look to this Earth of ours.
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Look, this atmospheric air in which we breathe and are naturally bodily alive, reaches only - speaking in your way of expression - a few hours of walking above the solid surface of the Earth. Then above the surface of this air rests the ether, which is in a certain way dead and thus completely without resistance.
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In order to speak completely truly and correctly, and not to think according to the old, very incorrect manner of the old and blind astrologers, astronomers and year counters: the Earth moves in - let us say - 365 days and a little time more, around the big sun, and besides that, still in about 24 hours and a little more around its own central axis, which the disciples will explain to you more precisely, because now it is sufficient that I only draw your attention to the very fast movement of the Earth in its wide orbit around the sun. Even if you still cannot understand this with your intellect, then for the moment you can still believe me that in 1 hour the Earth moves forward averagely about 5.760 hours of walking in its wide orbit, and moreover it turns around its own axis, more specifically at the equator, which you call the glowing sun line, in 1 hour to a distance of about 474 hours of walking.
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From these speeds of movement of the Earth, which I have now pointed out to you, you surely can conclude that already by that, the ether spirits are brought into an extremely restless movement and resulting activity. By that, they will in the first place saturate the air that surrounds the Earth, and then by means of the air, the whole solid Earth itself and everything upon it.
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With those 2 movements that were shown to you, comes still the very much faster movement of the light of the sun, by which the ether spirits come also into a high degree of restless movement and are driven in very great numbers downward to the Earth. But because of that, it happens during some days in the spring, summer and autumn that the air of the Earth is too much saturated, and by that also the Earth and its inhabitants. On such days it usually becomes sultry, and men, animals and plants feel exhausted, become slow and are more longing for rest than for one or the other activity.
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And look, this feeling is thus the result of the ether spirits that are present to a large extent in the air and the soil, because, as already said, these spirits have the eternal dominating tendency for a complete deadly rest, although they are not dead in themselves.
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But by such a forced piling-up, the mentioned ether spirits feel an ever-stronger oppressing pressure and begin therefore to move also in order to free themselves of this pressure, to then receive back their sweet and comfortable rest. This movement manifests itself first in the form of winds, which then become more violent when the in a certain way oversaturated body of the Earth drives its inner still unfermented natural ether spirits upward to the surface of the Earth and its lower atmospheric layers.
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This intermingling of higher and lower ether spirits in the air of the Earth result in the formation of mists and clouds, which become increasingly more dense. Its resulting heaviness burdens the ether spirits more and more, and these begin to search for a way out and to flee to where they can find the least of resistance, and this escape of the more and more pressured ether spirits - which in their oppression will then involuntarily in a certain way connect themselves with the already more dense spirits of the air of the Earth - will cause a heavy windstorm that by its thrusting force destroys trees and houses and stirs up the waves of the sea mountain high.
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But if, despite such an escape, the mentioned ether spirits continue to pile up themselves more and more somewhere in the background near the surface of the Earth - which you easily can notice from the clouds that become more and more black and dense - then the pressure becomes unbearable for them. Suddenly they will develop into a kind of furious rage from their slowness to the greatest activity, and their very great activity is then the destroying fire of the lightning, which shoots off far away with great roaring from the cloud, that was too much burdened, with nearly the speed of a thought and destroys with irresistible force everything that it finds on its way. However, the Earth- and air spirits are on such an occasion as if pushed with huge thrusts against each other in such a way that they by necessity have to grip each other, become more and more dense and materially heavy, and fall to the Earth as heavy rain or, if it comes up very furiously, as hail.
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But when the pure ether spirits are to a large extent too much offended by the impure earthly ether spirits, as was the case just now, then they let their activity increase to the highest point. In that case they destroy the ether- and air spirits by their general fire activity, and at such rare occasions there is neither rain nor hail."