Lavater’s unpublished correspondence with Empress Mary of Russia(Continuation – see March 1868 issue)
Third Letter
Most revered Empress,
The exterior fate of each soul stripped of its body will correspond to its interior state, that is, everything will appear to it as it is itself. To the good, all will appear good; evil will only appear to the souls of the wicked. Loving characters will surround the loving soul; the hateful soul will attract hateful creatures. Each soul will see itself reflected in the Spirits that resemble it. The good will become better and will be admitted into circles composed of beings who are superior; the saint will become holier by the mere contemplation of purer and holier Spirits than themselves; the loving Spirit will become more loving still; but also, every wicked being will become worse just by their contact with other wicked beings. If already on Earth nothing is more contagious and more enticing than virtue and vice, love and hatred, so is beyond the tomb, all moral and religious perfection, as well as all immoral and irreligious feelings, must necessarily become even more catchy and more contagious.
You, much honored Empress, you will become all love in the circle of benevolent souls.
What remains in me of egoism, of self-love, of lukewarmness for the kingdom and the purposes of God, will be entirely swallowed by the feeling of love, if it has been predominant in me, and it will purify again incessantly by the presence and the contact of the pure and loving Spirits.
Depurated by the power of our ability to love, widely exercised down here; purified still further by the contact and radiance upon us of the love of pure and elevated Spirits, we will gradually be prepared for the direct sight of the most perfect love, so that it cannot dazzle us, frighten us, and prevent us from enjoying it with delight.
But how, much revered Empress, could a weak mortal dare get an idea of the contemplation of this personified love? And you, inexhaustible charity! How could you approach the one who draws love from you alone, without scaring him and without dazzling him?
I think that in the beginning he will appear invisibly or in an unrecognizable form.
Hasn't he always acted this way? Who loved more invisibly than Jesus? Who better than him knew how to represent the incomprehensible individuality of the unknown? Who better than him to make himself unrecognizable, he who could make himself known better than any mortal or any immortal Spirit? He, worshiped by all heavens, came in the form of a modest worker, and retained the individuality of a Nazarene until death. Even after his resurrection, he first appeared in an unrecognizable form and was not recognized until later. I think he will always retain this mode of action, so analogous to his nature, his wisdom, and his love. It was in the form of a gardener that he appeared to Mary, in the garden where she was looking for him, and where she was already hopeless to find him. Unrecognizable at first, he was only recognized a few moments later.
It was also in an unrecognizable form that he approached two of his disciples, who were walking full of him and longing for him. He walked for a long time beside them; their hearts burned with a holy flame; they felt the presence of some pure and elevated being, but someone else and not him; they did not recognize him until the time of the sharing of bread, when he disappeared, and when they saw him in Jerusalem in that same evening. The same took place on the shores of Lake Tiberias, and when, beaming in his dazzling glory, he appeared to Saul.
Like all our Lord's actions, all his words and revelations are sublime and dramatic!
Everything follows a continuous march that, always pushing forward, approaches more and more a goal that is not the final goal, though. Christ is the hero, the center, the main character, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, in this great drama of God, so admirably simple and complicated at the same time, that will never have an end, although having seemed finished a thousand times.
He always appears, unrecognizable first, in the existence of each of his worshipers. How could love refuse to appear to the loving one, just when this needs it the most?
Yes, you, the most human of men, you will appear to men in the most human way! You will appear to the loving soul to whom I write! You will appear to me also, unrecognizable first, and then you will make yourself known to us. We will see you an infinite number of times, always different and always the same, always more beautiful as our soul improves, and never for the last time.
Let us rise more often to this intoxicating idea that I will try, with God's permission, to clarify more fully in my next letter, and to impress you more by a communication given by a deceased.
September 1st, 1798
Lavater
Forth Letter
In my previous letter, much revered Empress, I promised to send you a letter from a deceased person to his friend on Earth; it will be able to make you understand better and grasp my ideas on the state of a Christian after the death of the body. I take the liberty of attaching it to this one. Judge it from the point of view that I have indicated to you, and please direct your attention to the main subject, rather than to some details surrounding it, although I have reason to suppose that these also contain something true.
For the understanding of the matters that I will present to you in the following format, I believe it necessary to point out to you that I am almost certain that, despite the existence of a general, identical and immutable law of punishment and of supreme happiness, each Spirit, according to their individual character, not only moral and religious, but also personal and official, will have sufferings to endure after their earthly death and will enjoy the happiness that will be only appropriate to oneself. The general law will be individualized to every person, that is, it will produce in each one a different and personal effect, just as the same ray of light, passing through a colored glass, convex or concave, draws its specific color and direction from it. I would, therefore, like it to be accepted positively: that although all the blessed, less happy or suffering Spirits are under the same very simple law of similarity or dissimilarity with the most perfect love, we must presume that the substantial, personal character, of each Spirit constitutes a state of suffering or happiness, essentially different from the state of suffering or happiness of another Spirit. Each one suffers in a way that is different from another's suffering and feels pleasures that another would not be able to feel. To each of the material and immaterial worlds, God and Christ present themselves in a particular form, in which they appear to no one except oneself. Everyone has their own point of view. To each Spirit God speaks a language that is understandable only to him. To each one he communicates in a particular way and grants him with pleasures that only he can experience and contain.
This idea, that I consider to be a truth, serves as the basis for all subsequent communications given by the discarnate Spirits to their friends on Earth.
I will be pleased when I hear that you have understood how each man, by shaping his individual character and perfecting his individuality, can prepare for himself special pleasures and appropriate bliss for himself alone.
As nothing is forgotten so quickly, and nothing is less sought after by men than this happiness, appropriate to each individual, although each has every possibility of obtaining and enjoying it, I take the liberty, wise and respected Empress, to beg you to deign to analyze with attention this idea that you certainly cannot regard as useless for your own edification and your elevation towards God: God placed himself, and placed the universe in the heart of every man.
Every man is a particular mirror of the universe and of its Creator. So, let us make all our efforts, much venerated Empress, to keep this mirror as pure as possible, so that God can see in it himself and his thousand-fold beautiful creation, reflected to his entire satisfaction.
Johann-Kaspar Lavater
Zurich, September 14th, 1798
Letter of a deceased to his friend on Earth
About the state of the discarnate Spirit
Finally, my beloved, it is possible for me to satisfy, although only partially, my desire and yours, and to communicate to you something concerning my present state. For this time, I can give you very few details. In the future, everything will depend on how you use my communications.
I know that you have a great desire to get news from me, as well as about the state of all the discarnate Spirits in general, but it does not surpass mine to teach you what is possible to reveal. The power to love of the one who has loved in the material world, increases ineffably when he becomes a citizen of the immaterial world. With love, the desire to communicate to those he has known also increases, what he can, what he is allowed to transmit.
I must begin by explaining to you, my beloved, to you whom I love every day more, by what means it is possible for me to write to you, without being able to touch the paper and lead the pen at the same time, and how I can speak to you in a completely earthly and human language that, in my usual state, I do not understand.
This single indication should serve as a ray of light to you, to be able to understand how you should consider our present state.
Imagine my current state different from the previous one, much like the state of the butterfly fluttering in the air, differs from its state of chrysalis. I am precisely this transfigured and emancipated chrysalis, having already undergone two metamorphoses. Just like the butterfly hovers around flowers, we often hover around the heads of the good people, but not always. A light invisible to you mortals, at least visible to very few of you, gently radiates or shines around the head of every good, loving, and religious person. The idea of the halo that surrounds the heads of the saints is essentially true and rational. Considering that every blessed being is blessed by this light, such a light attracts us to them, according to the degree of compatibility of their enlightenment with ours.
No impure Spirit dares to or can approach this holy light. That light resting above the head of the good and godly man, we can immediately read his mind. We see him as he really is. Each ray that comes out of it is for us a word, often a whole speech; we respond to his thoughts. He does not know that we are the ones answering. We excite in him ideas that, without our action, he would never have been able to conceive, although the disposition and the aptitude to receive them are innate in his soul.
The man worthy of receiving the light, thus becomes a useful and very valuable organ for the sympathetic Spirit who wishes to communicate his lights to him.
I found a Spirit, or rather a man, accessible to the light, to whom I was able to approach, and it is through his organism that I am speaking to you. Without his intermediary, it would have been impossible for me to speak with you humanely, verbally, palpably, in one word, to write to you.
You thus receive an anonymous letter in this way, on behalf of a man whom you do not know, but who nourishes in him a strong tendency towards occult and spiritual matters. I hover above him; I rest on him, almost as the most divine of all Spirits rested on the most divine of all men, after his baptism; I give him ideas; he transcribes them by my intuition, under my direction, by the effect of my radiation. With a slight touch, I make the strings of his soul vibrate in a manner consistent with his individuality and mine.
He writes what I want him to write; I write through him; my ideas become his. He feels happy while writing. He becomes freer, more animated, richer in ideas. It seems to him that he lives and that he hovers in a more joyful, clearer element. He walks slowly, like a friend led by the hand of a friend, and this is how you receive a letter from me. The one who writes supposes himself to be free, and he really is. He does not suffer any violence; he is free as two friends are, who walking arm in arm, nevertheless lead one another.
You must feel that my Spirit is in direct relation with yours; you understand what I'm telling you; you hear my innermost thoughts. That's enough for this time. The day that I dictated this letter is called by you September 15th, 1798.
Fifth Letter
Most revered Empress,
Again, a little letter from the invisible world.
In the future, if God allows it, communications will follow each other more closely.
This letter contains a very small part of what can be said to a mortal about the appearance and the sight of the Lord. It is simultaneously and in millions of different forms that the Lord appears to a myriad of beings. He wishes, and he multiplies himself through his innumerable creatures, individualizing himself, at the same time, for each of them in particular.
To you, Empress, to your Spirit of light, he will appear one day, as he appeared to Mary Magdalene, in the garden of the sepulcher. From his divine mouth you will hear one day, when you feel the greatest need, and when you expect the least, he will call your name Mary. Rabbi! You will respond to his call, imbued with the same feeling of supreme bliss as Madeleine was, and filled with adoration, like the apostle Thomas, you will say: “My Lord and my God!"
We hasten to cross the nights of darkness to reach the light; we go through deserts to reach the promised land; we suffer the pains of childbirth to be reborn to true life.
May God and his Spirit be with you and your Spirit.
Zurich, November 13th, 1798.
Johann-Kaspar Lavater
Letter from a blessed Spirit
To his earthly friend, about the first sight of the Lord
Dear Friend,
Of a thousand things I would have liked to talk to you about, this time I will only say one thing that will interest you more than all others. I have obtained permission to do so. The Spirits cannot do anything without special permission. They live without their own will, in the sole will of the Heavenly Father, who transmits his orders to thousands of beings at once, as if to one, and responds instantly to an infinite number of subjects, to thousands of his creatures who address themselves to him.
How can I make you understand how I see the Lord? Oh! In a very different way from what you, still mortals, can imagine.
After many appearances, instructions, explanations, and pleasures bestowed upon me by the grace of the Lord, I once crossed a paradisiac land, with about twelve other Spirits, who had roughly ascended the same degrees of perfection that I had. We hovered, hovered next to each other, in a soft and pleasant harmony, forming like a light cloud, and we seemed to experience the same drive, the same propensity towards a very elevated goal. We approached one another more and more. As we went along, we became more and more intimate, freer, more joyful, more enjoyable, and more able to enjoy, and we would say, “Oh! How good and merciful is he who created us! Hallelujah to the Creator! He is the love that created us! Hallelujah to the loving Being! Animated by such feelings, we continued our flight and we stopped by a fountain.
There we felt a light breeze approaching. It was not carrying a man or an angel, and yet there was something so human about what was coming towards us that it caught our attention. A resplendent light, similar in some way to that of the blessed Spirits, but not surpassing it, inundated us. "That one is also one of us!" we thought simultaneously and as if by intuition. It disappeared, and at first it seemed to us that we were deprived of something. “What an extraordinary being!” we said to ourselves; “What a royal behavior and at the same time what childish grace! What amenity and what majesty!"
While we were talking to ourselves like that, suddenly a graceful form appeared to us, emerging from a delicious grove, and gave us a friendly greeting. The newcomer was unlike the previous apparition, but there was something superbly elevated and indescribably simple at the same time. - “Welcome, brothers and sisters!”, he said. We answered with one voice:
- "Welcome, you, blessed of the Lord! The sky is reflected in your face and the love of God shines from your eyes."
- “Who are you?”, asked the stranger.
- “We are the happy worshipers of the Almighty Love”, we answered.
- “Who is the Almighty Love”, he asked with a perfect grace.
- “Don’t you know the Almighty Love?”, we asked in turn, or better, I was the one who asked in the name of all.
- “I know him”, said the stranger, with an even sweeter voice.
- “Ah if we were worthy of seeing Him and hearing His voice! But we do not feel pure enough to deserve to directly contemplate the holiest purity.”
In response to these words, we heard an echoing voice behind us, saying: "You are cleansed from all filth, you are cleansed. You are declared righteous by Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of the living God!"
An inexpressible bliss spread through us while turning to the direction from which the voice was coming, wanting to rush to our knees to worship the invisible interlocutor.
What happened? Each of us instantly heard a name, that we had never heard spoken, but that each of us understood and, at the same time, recognized to be our own new name, expressed by the voice of the stranger. Spontaneously, with the speed of lightning, we turned, as one being, to the adorable interlocutor, who addressed us thus with an unspeakable grace:
- "You have found what you were looking for. Whoever sees me, also sees the Almighty Love. I know that are mine and those that are mine know me. I give my sheep eternal life, and they will not perish in eternity; no one will be able to yank them out of my hand, or out of my Father's hand. My Father and I are one!"
How could I express in words the sweet and supreme bliss in which we blossomed, when the one who, at each moment, became more luminous, more graceful, more sublime, extended towards us his arms and spoke the following words, that will vibrate eternally for us, and that no power would be able to remove from our ears and from our hearts:
"Come here, chosen of my Father: inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the beginning of the universe.”
After that, he embraced us all simultaneously, and disappeared. We remained silent, feeling ourselves closely united for eternity, we spread, without moving, one into the other, gently and filled with supreme happiness. The Infinite Being became one with us, and at the same time, our whole, our heaven, our life in its truest sense. A thousand new lives seemed to enter us. Our previous existence vanished for us; we began to be again; we felt immortality, that is, an overabundance of life and strength, that carried the stamp of indestructibility.
Finally, we recovered our speech. Ah! if I could communicate to you, even if only one sound of our joyful adoration!
He exists! We are! By Him, by Him alone! - He is - his being is life and love! - He who sees Him, lives, and loves Him, is inundated with the scent of immortality and the love coming from His divine face, from His gaze filled with supreme happiness!
We have seen you, Almighty Love! You showed yourself to us in human form, You, God of the gods! And yet You were neither man nor God, You, Man-God!
You were only love, almighty only as love! - You support us with your omnipotence, to prevent the force, even softened by your love, from absorbing us into it.
Is it You, is it You? - You whom all heavens glorify; You, ocean of bliss; - You, omnipotence; - You, who once embodied yourself in human bones, carried the burdens of Earth, and streaming with blood, hanging on the cross, made yourself a corpse?
Yes, it is You, - You, glory of all beings! A Being before whom all natures bow, that disappear before You, to be called to live in You!
One of your rays contains the life of all worlds, and from your breath only love springs!
This, dear friend, is only a very small crumb that fell to the floor of the table filled with an ineffable bliss on which I was nourishing. Take advantage of it, and soon more will be given to you. - Love, and you will be loved. - Love alone can aspire the supreme bliss. - Love alone can give happiness, but only to those who love.
Oh! my darling, it is because you love that I can approach you, communicate myself to you, and lead you faster to the source of life.
Love! God and heaven live in you, just as they live in the face and in the heart of Jesus Christ!
I am writing this, from your earthly chronology on November 13th, 1798.
Makariosenagape.
(Ends in the next issue)
