“I was taken unconscious from the earth, in order to awake in the spheres.

There I would fall back into a similar situation many times, in order to awake one day for eternity and to remain consciously awake.

I slept for three weeks according to earthly time.

When I awoke, I thought that I still lived on earth.

After all, I was not dead and had slept really well, I was alive and felt rested.

Now I will soon be better, I thought, but where is my wife?

I did not see anyone around me and I found that strange because I was sick after all and people had to take care of me; I was not used to being left alone.

Where was she?

I called, but did not get an answer.

I rubbed my eyes and noticed that I was in a strange environment, unknown to me.

Oh, I thought, what does this mean?

I looked at myself and felt frightened.

I was wearing my ordinary earthly clothing and lay with my shoes on the bed.

What would this mean?

With my clothes on the bed, I thought, how can it be?

I was wearing the horrible black suit with which I was sitting on the coach box.

Then I started to think at a furious rate.

The walls were bare and the familiar things, which I had hung on the wall, had disappeared, I did not see a single painting.

Where was I?

This was not my room.

Was I in a hospital?

Had my illness become worse, so that people had to take me to a hospital?

No, that was not possible, because they would not lay me in bed like that.

But then what was this all about?

I wanted to get undressed, but reached the terrible discovery that my clothes were elastic and I could not take them off.

I thought that was really horrific. I thought I noticed that my clothes were made of rubber and however much I pulled, I could not get undressed.

Imagine such a thing!

Yet, I wanted to have them off, because I did not want to be lying in bed with clothes and all, and I wanted to sleep again because I felt that it had done me good.

I had not slept much the last few days and I already felt myself becoming tired again.

My illness was not yet completely over and would come back if I became upset.

However, my surroundings did not give me any peace, I kept on thinking about them.

Where was my wife?

I called very loudly, but did not hear any answer.

Yet, she belonged to me, or would she have gone somewhere?

While I was thinking, I felt my pains and fever returning.

Then I started to pull at my clothes again, but they were attached to my body, as if I had grown into them.

They were a part of me, I lived in them and my whole being lay in them.

But I did not understand it; it was only later that I understood the meaning of all of this.

I not only found it horrific, but also amazing.

I had never worn such clothes before.

What in heaven’s name had happened to me?

I thought about it for a long time, in order to understand it.

Of course, that was it, how could I not have thought of that before!

I had left home with a fever and I had been put in an institution.

This was why I was now in a strange environment; it could not be any different.

Those who had to look after me had left because I was asleep and they therefore did not want to disturb me.

By experiencing that, I became a bit calmer.

Around me was a hazy light, I therefore thought that it was still early.

Then I will make it light, I thought, and got out of bed, which was more of a couch, in order to look for the switch, but I could not see a lamp or a switch.

Yet, there was light, a shimmering light.

The walls were in a greyish haze, a sort of damp, which I found a very strange phenomenon.

Where am I in heaven’s name, where I am?

If a solution does not come soon, I will go mad.

My head was bursting from exertion.

I went back to my bed and started to think about my circumstances again, because I wanted to know the truth.

After a short while I started to pull at my clothes again, because that horrible black suit would not leave me alone.

The pain in my throat became more intense; I felt my fever and that horrible fear returning.

I was therefore not better because I felt all that misery again.

Yet I wanted to remain calm, I had to, and I started to reflect on everything from the very beginning and I recalled everything.

When I came to the moment when I became unconscious, I could no longer remember anything and I felt myself becoming dizzy.

I felt myself sinking away deeply and knew nothing more.

I awoke again.

I did not think of the fact that I had died and no longer belonged to the living on earth.

How could I have thought of it; I was alive, was I not?

How can you think of death and accept your own death if you are alive?

Can that be?

Is that possible?

I awakened and felt rested.

That sleep had done me good, I felt refreshed and lively.

Will that terrible illness soon disappear?

You understand, Jozef, how earthly my thoughts were.

I lived in eternity, but in feeling on earth and I therefore thought earthly, because nothing had changed about my inner state.

I reflected again.

But where is my wife?

When they had brought me to the hospital in an unconscious state, then she would have waited until I had reached consciousness again.

I would have acted like that and why did she not?

Perhaps she was waiting in another hall; I therefore decided to call her again.

I screamed loudly and listened carefully, but I did not hear the slightest noise.

The walls of my room reverberated everything again and my calling was therefore smothered.

Then I could no longer be stopped, I became angry, I jumped from my bed and kicked the walls, but that did not help me either, because I heard nothing else but a dull thump, which surprised me.

Where they not walls?

Were they papered with material?

I felt them and felt that they were not stonewalls.

I went from one amazing thing to the other, everything was strange here, horrific and secretive.

Then I wandered back and forth and looked for the entrance, but I could not find that either.

Damn, where am I, and who has locked me up?

I am as a bird caught in a cage.

That made me feel even worse.

I would have beaten everything to pulp, if only I could have, but there was nothing to vent my anger upon.

Everything was bare and misty.

If only it would become daylight, I thought, then they will come to me.

Once I thought I heard voices; would there be people outside?

I started to pull at my clothes again, but I had to stop, for I was dead tired from exertion.

Everything was secretive, unreal, and unnatural.

The room was not real, I could not take off my suit, there was no light and the walls had no exit.

Suddenly, I received another thought.

I was in a madhouse, yes, I was mad, really mad.

The fever and effort had driven me mad and what I was wearing was a straightjacket.

It is no wonder that my wife was not with me, but she would soon come and visit me.

Then she would see that I was not crazy.

All my suffering would be over then and I could go home again.

They had to lock me up, because I was wild and savage and I was still not calm.

Keep quiet and calm, Gerhard, otherwise they will think that you are not yet better and you want to leave here, don’t you, far away from all that secretiveness?

In this way I calmed myself, but for how long?

I soon started to think again; I felt that I had satisfied myself with something unnatural, because a straightjacket was different.

This, what I was wearing, was my suit that I wore for burials.

I started again and would have continued in this way year in year out, if no help came to convinced me of my strange surroundings and situation.

In this way the human being who lives, feels and thinks earthly arrives in eternity.

I did not think of you and spiritualism, and the things you think of take you over completely, so that you pass into them and no other thoughts can penetrate you.

I lived in the spirit, but I thought as on earth.

It kept me caught, it was my life and I therefore sat in my own hermitage and could not think differently.

I felt hopelessly unhappy and thought that no more salvation would be possible for me.

There was so much I did not understand and had changed.

Everything had changed, only I had not, I had remained the same, the same as on earth.

But that was unknown to me and I could not think about it either because I did not know any better.”