“I already knew for some time that I was allowed to come back to you.

It gave me the strength to endure everything.

Only that knowledge has made me endure everything.

How difficult it is for you to know so much about our life and yet to have to live on earth, however, you are conscious, you can see and feel; otherwise, it would not be possible.

On earth, it was a mystery to me, now I know that mystery: it is I myself.

You will sense what this is to me.

Now I know that eternity already reigns on earth.

Keeping that in mind you can bear and deal with everything and I admire you for it, Jozef!

I already find it a wonder alone that you can hear and see me and that I can see that my words are already on paper.

That will be wonderful, because I have much to tell, but I will start with our conversation at the churchyard.

I know that I was sorry about it and you granted me forgiveness.

I knew then that I had hurt you, and I do not know how that was, but I did it wilfully.

I liked touching you in your soul and yet I did not know why, which I found very strange.

Now I know all of this; they were influences, to be able to hurt you by working on me.

An instrument of this side has to suffer under it and I will be attacked constantly.

You did not go into my mockery deeply and everything you said passed me by, as so many things that can enrich life on earth inwardly.

I did not know any better, Jozef.

People often hurt each other, consciously and unconsciously, but mostly intentionally and that is terrible.

Only later, you feel the horror of it, when everything dissolves for you and you start to understand the problem.

But then you feel rightly for the first time how far away you are from that other person.

If you see and feel that you have sullied the most sacred thing, it is only then that something deep inside you begins to awaken.

This is how it happened to me on this side.

Such an awakening hurts very much, you feel remorse so that it eats away at you inside, and you feel it like whiplashes on your naked body.

You long to make up for everything again, but then the great suffering comes that you cannot do that.

You denied yourself that possibility and only then do you feel how far you are removed from them.

You would want to crawl on your knees to them, but they are invisible to you.

They live on this side in other and higher places and are happy, and they, the mockers, live in darkness and will remain there if they are not capable of making up for everything.

And all that time you feel it; it is eating your soul away, so that you can come to grief.

I felt like this when I understood; the people must have felt like that when they nailed God’s perfect child to the cross.

It is the eternal truth that the human being will learn and will bow his head, when the truth is shown to him, until his personality has been snapped and broken to the core.

I felt respect for this great unknown Greatness, for God.

I therefore took back my words and I buried my old self.

Now I know what spiritualism is and means, now that I am a spirit myself and am alive.

When I left you I sat trembling and shivering on the car.

I did not know why.

I thought that I had caught a cold, but wondered where that suddenly came from and I found it very strange.

It was not normal and I felt afraid.

But why that feeling of fear so suddenly?

Different thoughts flew through my head, but I could not get to the bottom of it.

There was something that influenced me and I thought: ‘That comes from him, as a result of that cursed spiritualism and the dead.’

I continually felt those cold shivers and thought that something hot would do me good.

Yet, I kept going back to you in my thoughts and then I felt that fear rising in me again.

A few days passed in this way, but I could not free myself of that fear.

Strange things haunted me.

Now imagine, I thought, that I must die soon?

If I am alive then, as he says, then I will come back to him and say: ‘Here I am’, and I will knock, so loudly, that he will have no more peace in his own home.

I still did not understand why I was so angry at you.

Then I became more and more anxious and the anxiety became increasingly intense, so that I thought that you had put a spell on me.

I wanted to visit you but did not get the chance for it.

Who knows what would have happened then, because I no longer knew myself.

Would it be the dead, I wondered, who are making me afraid?

No, because that is nonsense, isn’t it?

Another few days passed, but I remained in that inexplicable state.

When I felt sick, really sick, I thought that it was a fever and yet I did not give into it.

I lived in this state for a few days and meanwhile I felt my anxiety increase.

It was as if the devil was at my heels and I put it all down to the fact that I had talked to you about spiritualism.

I felt myself becoming more and more anxious and more ill.

How many times does it happen that you are too sick to keep your eyes open and that you have to work until you collapse?

You have to work, because they will take another person in your place.

Therefore, I dragged myself onwards, onwards and onwards, and did not know what to do with myself since my anxiety remained.

One moment I blamed you, then my illness.

Yet, this mystery did not solve itself for me and it became increasingly unnatural.

If only I had never called to him, he placed that anxiety in me, I thought.

It cannot be any other way, because immediately when you left, I started to feel it.

I asked for my own fate, I should not have mocked.

My anxiety became greater and greater; yet, I did not let anyone feel any of it, but tried to get to know more about spiritualism.

When I had to wait with friends then I brought up the subject.

I asked them whether they knew anything about spiritualism.

‘Spiritualism’, a few said, ‘that makes you neurotic.’

There you have it, I thought, that is to blame for my anxiety.

My nerves are already mixed up because I talked to him about it.

However, I, who was afraid of no one, should I then surrender to that cursed carry-on?

Yet, it kept coming back to me and I could not do anything about it, so that I thought I would go mad.

But now that I know and understand everything, Jozef, everything is wonderful and educational and has a deep meaning.

I did not know any better, and even if I had known better, I do not believe that I would have felt the deep meaning of it.

It worked inside me; the anxiety lay within me and that anxiety meant that I would soon die.

I did not think about it for a second, that truth lay far away from me.

I put that vague feeling down to my illness and all those other things.

Many people will experience something similar and if they experience such a thing, then it is their death on earth.

It was a warning, an inner voice that spoke to me, but which I did not understand, did not want to understand, because I rejected everything, which had to do with that other life.

There were natural forces at work and those forces had to do with me.

Something started to break inside me; I was connected with a spiritual problem and that was my earthly death.

In this way, many people will feel their death beforehand, and yet not understand this because they are unnatural and have smothered those natural forces.

All of that is because we do not want to get to know the spiritual life.

The eternal flame, which is within us, cannot burn because we do not give it spiritual food.

Then the human being on earth is like the living dead.

Do you feel what I mean, why I was afraid and what that anxiety meant.

How natural it is, and how deep.

You possess the feeling for it, Jozef, and I should have possessed that in order to be able to sense all of this beforehand.

Your feeling, your inner self finds attunement to this life.

You and all those other people who possess the same attunement are open to those natural forces.

It is a great happiness, to possess this feeling inwardly.

On this side, it is light and light means wisdom of spirit.

How could I have sensed that spiritual influence?

After all, to me death was death!

I had to feel eternal life in my deepest inner self, but I did not feel it.

Thousands of people will not feel those forces and yet it lies so close to them, because it is they themselves.

People can only feel it and when they want to destroy themselves bit by bit, want to bow their heads, search until they have found themselves, only then will another world open to them and will they see beautiful natural scenes, will they hear beautiful music and will they feel the silence of the spirits.

Is it not worthwhile to receive all of this?

For this reason the human being had to search for himself, because deep, very deep within him lies the eternal attunement.

Old and young, poor and rich, learned and not learned, all of us have to learn it; we are children of one Father.

The prediction, which now lay within me and made me anxious, the prediction that I would die, was therefore lost as a result of lack of spiritual attunement and the power of love.

Up to the last day I kept on going and when I awakened in the morning, it was the last day of my life on earth.

But I will not go on ahead.

The last day that I worked and came home in the evening, I soon went to bed, because I had a fever and felt seriously ill.

I did not want to call a doctor; I did not like doctors.

My wife advised me to after all, but I continued to refuse.

That night I did not sleep a wink.

I kept thinking of you and tossed from one side to the other, but I could not get to sleep.

Yet, I started to feel, by continually thinking about it, that it was the illness, which had upset me so much.

In the morning, my throat was so swollen that I could hardly breathe.

Then a doctor had to come.

But when cosmic laws and powers put an end to our earthly life, could the doctor have saved me if I had called him on time?

A question, Jozef, which thousands will ask themselves and to which there is just one answer: no!

Strange, people will think, but it is the truth, the sacred truth, because it is God’s will.

I threw off the compresses again, which my wife had placed around my neck, because I thought I would suffocate.

After the medicines that the doctor gave me, I slept for a few hours and awoke a bit relieved.

I was sorry that I had not called him sooner, how conceited and stubborn a human being can be.

That stubbornness made me difficult to handle and has cost me many a battle on this side.

Half an hour later, I felt much worse, I could no longer keep my eyes open, my throat burned and I felt a severe fever.

My whole body was burning as if it was on fire, so that I felt that it was becoming more and more serious.”

Gerhard now waited for a moment and said after a short while: “I have to concentrate strongly but everything is recorded on a spiritual film and the master shows that film.

None of it is lost.

My entire earthly life is recorded on it.

I am therefore being helped; I would not be able to tell all of this on my own because I am not linguistic.

However, where there is a will there is a way.

In the afternoon, the doctor came back to me and shook his old and sensible head.

He could not work it out apparently.

I heard everything that was said, and I was aware of what was going on around me.

It became evening.

I thought that my head would burst; yet, I kept calm and started to think.

Then my anxiety returned, which I had not felt that whole day and I understood that I would die.

I wanted to speak and tell it to my family members, but I could not.

Oh, that torture, to have to die and to want to say that and not be able to speak.

I will never forget that terrible inner battle.

I did not want to sleep, even if I could have, but I did not want to die either.

I hated death and everything to do with it.

I saw everything in my surroundings shrouded in a haze and I saw shadows in that haze.

When I saw those shadows I wanted to scream, but could not.

I lay there like a broken person and I could not move.

It was awful, because my anxiety was dreadful.

Those shadows walked back and forth around my bed and did not let anything disturb them.

I could see lips very clearly talking to me and which I could not understand, and eyes which looked at me and devoured me, which asked and laughed at the same time.

Then I saw that those shadows were human forms that made me tremble.

Those forms floated around me, above and below me, but however much effort I made, I did not get to see them clearly.

They remained shadows, shrouded in a haze, and they were busy spoiling my last hours on earth.

At least, I thought that, because later in the spheres it was explained to me that they were brothers from the Other Side who come to collect the dying people.

I made an effort with all the strength within me, I wanted to stay calm and not make myself even more afraid.

Everyone who is conscious to the end will see shadows.

That seeing and perceiving is the connection with life on this side.

He starts to feel the spiritual life, he passes into it and slowly but surely, this process is going to take place.

It is the separation from the earth; earthly life falls away from you and you pass into that where those shadows live.

However, for millions of people dying is different, because all these people also feel different and are not the same.

Everyone has his own attunement and a separate state, and according to the feeling and the love, which he possesses, he will experience the passing over into this world.

For one person this is happiness, light, love and warmth, for the other person a horror.

But what is the same for everyone – and everyone will encounter and experience this – that is that they will live and arrive here alive.

When my end was approaching, the shadows became clearer.

I saw that they were people, people like you, I, and thousands of others.

I wanted so much to tell my family members, but I could not, my throat was closed and I no longer had any power over my material body.

I saw my wife and child and heard them weeping, and then to think that I had to die!

An unbearable feeling overcame me, because I still could not move, so that I thought that I would go mad.

I lay there so still, but my spirit worked and suffered terribly.

Nothing escaped me and yet I had to say farewell to the earth.

It made me furious, because I did not want to die; I was still so young.

I became angry and wild because I could not speak.

Yet, it had to be; I wanted to sit up, but I could not do that either.

None of the people around me felt any of my terrible battle.

My chest tightened and my heart was in my mouth, yet, I was aware of everything and remained so until the last second.

Shortly before my end, I could suddenly sit up.

I did not understand where that strength came from so suddenly.

Yet, I was also convinced about it on this side and I got to know the working of the emotional body during those hours.

I wanted to tell them that I was dying and uttered a few sounds, but my words were lost.

They did not understand me; they could not hear me.

During all that misery I could still think.

Then I called to you, to you alone, because the mystery was solved for me and I thought I understood it.

Suddenly it occurred to me and I knew that those shadows drew through you, that you received those paintings through those shadows.

Thousands of thoughts flew through my brain at high speed; they could not be stopped.

I gathered all my willpower and wanted to speak, but it was as if my throat was being torn apart.

I thought of my earthly life, of family and acquaintances; I did not want to die and resisted it.

Throughout everything I felt my end approaching.

If I had closed my eyes and lay down calmly, I would have died in silence, in spiritual peace.

However, I told you a moment ago, I did not want it, I hated death.”

Gerhard waited a short moment again and I saw that he had sunk into deep reflection.

With his hands on his forehead and bent forwards, he stood next to me.

What was going on inside him at this moment?

After a short pause he said: “I was in thought and you felt it.

Now I am coming to the end of my earthly life.

I will now experience that terrible battle again and I have to concentrate seriously on it.

I have to be able to express myself clearly, otherwise, it is no good to you and the beautiful part is lost.

Because it is beautiful, however terrible it was.

That calling for you was the last thing I said on earth.

At least if it was talking, it seemed more like a hoarse scream, a terrifying sound.

I died at that moment.

I felt myself sinking away and thought I was falling into a deep background.

There seemed to be no end to it and while I was falling, I thought quickly and my whole earthly life passed me by, until the moment of falling and dying.

Then I thought I was being pulled apart, felt an intense shock, my spiritual body left my material body and I was free.

I screamed for help, but no help came.

Then I felt myself becoming dizzy and sinking even deeper.

Then I knew nothing more and I was dead for the earth.

Dead on earth, but born in the spirit, I was alive in the spirit and that meant eternity.”