NEUOFFENBARUNGThe activity of the spirits in the interior of the Earth (1 March 1847)
1. You have already seen in the natural representation of the earth how the earth, as an organic living being, takes it's food, digests it within itself, and then conducts the nutritive juices through innumerable organs out to the surface, and how, on the other hand, the coarser indigestible excrements are conducted towards the south pole. This nourishment or food of the earth, as you now easily understand, is only material in appearance, but spiritual in essence; for an innumerable number of spirits and spiritual propertya of a better kind, are continually penetrating into the innermost part of the earth, where the worst spirits are usually banished.
2. This penetration of the better spirits into the innermost of the earth-being, has a multiple purpose. Firstly, the souls and spirits of evil people will be judged there and, as you like to say, will be exposed to an eternal hellish captivity; For such mutineers against the divine order must be kept in deep and firm custody, so that they cannot disturb the divine order again, since before such incarceration, many thousands of attempts at reform, have remained fruitless.
3. A second reason for this penetration of spirits and spiritual propertya into the innermost part of the earth-being, is that in this innermost part, there are spirits again, which, as you are accustomed to say, have already paid a fair price for their rabies in this captivity, and have been very strongly provoked, and again have a most ardent desire to reach freedom; Such spirits are then freed from their imprisonment by the entering better spirits on the proper ways, and led up to the greater freedom, where they are then again used for activity, and must there first – because there is still something evil in them – take care of the poisonous plants, as also of poisonous animals themselves, and arrange the psychic primordial propertya necessary for growth, and thereby give to such a poisonous plant or poisonous animal that form and constitution in which they must continually duly appear. If such spirits then do well, they are led to the management of better plants and animals; If, however, they do not do well – since they often get out of hand – and instead of passing the harmful propertya into the plants, they immediately pass them into the animals or humans, which then causes epidemic diseases, they are taken away from such business again, and put into closer confinement in the earth, where they have to deal with the formation of metals and stones, which work is naturally much harder and more tedious, and a liberation from such a state can only take place when such a spirit, after very many years, has carried out his assigned business faithfully and for the benefit of the redemption of souls trapped in matter. So this is again a reason for which the better spirits go down into the interior of the earth.
4. Another reason is that the imprisoned primordial souls are freed, and as propertya – admittedly still very strongly divided in appearance – they are led up to the surface of the earth by all kinds of fluids, and there they are guided on their path of redemption through the stages of the plant- and animal kingdom known to you according to the guidance of the spirits supervising and directing this business; For in the earth there are imprisoned spirits everywhere, which have either already gone through the way of the flesh, or which have manifested themselves without this way as complete spirits, which spirits have already been made known to you more closely. There are earth-, mountain-, water-, fire- and air-spirits. Besides these two kinds of spirits, however, there is still an innumerable quantity of soul-propertys, which must first be made free, and then collected and arranged into a being, which corresponds to them at every stage of their ascent.
5. Since such spirits and soul-atoms are worse the deeper into the earth they are – must be led with even greater supervision, and especially with the soul-particles which come together from all over the earth's surface, only the purest are used for the completion of the actual soul, but the coarser and more evil ones are chosen for the formation of the material bodies.
6. So also the human body consists of pure soul particles; but those that make up the body are still coarse, bad and dishonest, therefore they still have to come into the earth again, decompose there, and from there only then rise out of decomposition in the way already made known to you, in order to prepare themselves for the completion of that being to which they once belonged bodily, which usually, as already made known to you, happens in the third or uppermost earth-spirit sphere, through which then, of course, every pure spirit becomes perfect only when it has absorbed all that is in it again, which absorption is the so-called resurrection of the flesh, and justifies the saying of Paul, who says: "I will see God in my flesh.”
7. That the spirits in this first region have to work over their heads and necks, is self-evident; for this reason, times of rest have been arranged on earth, in which such busy spirits have rest and recreation, i.e. they do not have so much to do as in a time of activity.
8. Such a rest period is the winter, which of course lasts much shorter around the equator than towards the poles; therefore, the more towards the poles, the weaker spirits are employed, just as in the higher regions of the earth, and the lower down, the stronger the workers must be, which the products also show quite graphically.
9. Now you already know some of how angels, spirits and also nature-spirits are active in the formation of the beings; but because these activities are connected with exceedingly great difficulties and combinations, so we will still have so many things to say about this very point, until the matter becomes completely clear to you; therefore next time, more in this sphere.