NEUOFFENBARUNGThe importance of knowing evil (29 March 1847)
1. I know best that some people will not like these somewhat devilish stories; I also know that some people will find some apparent contradiction in them. But that does not matter. He who sits is better off than he who must stand; a soft bed is also better than a stone under the head. Therefore, he who sits and lies in a soft bed, let him stay, because it is good for him; but we neither want to sit nor lie down, much less remain standing, but walk, and that forwards and not backwards. Therefore, we need not be disappointed if we experience many things that are admittedly somewhat bitter for the mind, but are all the more beneficial for the spirit. But if it is already difficult to fight with an enemy whom one sees and knows, how much more difficult is a fight with an enemy whom one neither sees nor knows! Therefore, it is also necessary to know the enemy, so that one knows how to tackle him, in order to pass the upcoming battle with him jubilantly.
2. Once the grain has been threshed out of the straw and collected in the granaries, then the straw may be scorched and burned, and it will do nothing to the grain and the granaries. But if someone has found grace with Me, he has been stored in the best granaries as a spiritual grain of life wheat, and if his physical straw also gets some scratches from Satan, it will not harm the spirit.
3. That it is certainly not pleasant either for the listener or for the giver of the word to bring satanic situations and effects before the eyes of the living, does not need proof; but a good pharmacist must not only be able to deal skillfully with all life essences, but also with all kinds of poisons, otherwise he will not be a skillful pharmacist. Thus it is of the greatest importance for the eternal life of the spirit to know hell as well as heaven from the bottom up.
4. But which of you will be the Thor, and will fetch a washerwoman for fresh linen? But everyone gets this washerwoman for the dirty laundry; to clean this, is in order and a duty.
5. So neither the angelic spirits nor people are there to cleanse and sweep heaven, but only that which has been dirty from time immemorial and always.
6. That is why it is more necessary to know the place of dirt than the place of purity itself. For only the first must be worked on; once it is clean, heaven comes by itself.
7. It would also be an exceedingly silly foolish doctrine if one were to issue a commandment to any human society that it should constantly emphasize only it's good and praise it beyond measure; but it should never think about the evil and even censure it in itself. The good neither needs to be emphasized nor praised, for it emphasizes and praises itself of it's own accord; But it is extremely necessary that every man hunts for his evil thoughts, desires and works, and hunts them down like an evil game in the worldly forest of disorder, so that the saying may prove true in him: "And when you have done everything, then confess that you are useless servants."
8. And it is also really much better to say, "Lord, be gracious and merciful to me poor sinner!" than, "Lord, I thank You that I am not like other people, such as publicans and all kinds of sinners of various caliber." Otherwise, one really resembles either such a haughty Pharisee, or even an exceedingly stupid prayer brother and pilgrim to an image of grace, who seriously crosses himself before the devil, as before the Crucifix.
9. Or judge for yourself, which of the two is more necessary, to know the ground on which one walks or the firmament, on which certainly no-one has ever received a bruised head? The ground is the support; one must know how firm it is, whether there are no precipices into which one could fall, and if they
exist, how one must avoid them.
10. But what good would it do someone if he had the whole heaven unveiled before his nose like a real encyclopedia, but on the way he bumped into the next best stone and then fell on his nose together with his heaven.
11. It is, of course, much more pleasing, exhilarating and edifying to travel around with one's eyes in the starry sky than on the ground, which is full of dirt and filth; but whoever made it a lofty law to always travel around with one's eyes under the stars, but fell into a rather coarse mud, then one might well ask whether he had seen the dirt in the starry regions, or on the ground by means of pure water from his clothes. I think that all the twelve celestial signs, not even Orion, Cassiopaea and Castor and Pollux will be necessary for this work, but either water or, if the dirt is not so bad, only a brush, a tool made of wood and pig's bristles, which come from the most unclean animal, but are by far more suitable for cleaning soiled clothes than Orion, Cassiopaea and Castor and Pollux.
12. Of course it is nothing pleasant, as already mentioned above, to make any acquaintance with hell, devil and Satan, but if someone has to spend some time in the house of these very rulers in order to get to know the place of his future occupation together with the evil rule of this house, it would surely be the greatest folly to make a cross there, in order to be able to hide like a caterpillar from all devilry, where one should actually only multiply all one's attention tenfold, so that no characteristic of this house escapes you.
13. He who wants to avoid evil must know it beforehand; otherwise he remains like an underage child who makes no distinction between dirt and bread, and snake and fish, and puts one in his mouth like the other when he is hungry.
14. But I want to tell you that such fear has it's reason among you only in the fact that in former times you had no other idea of heaven, much less of hell, than either the lovely, very philanthropically minded Father Kochheim, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and after these two wise men – not from the Morning land, but very much from the Evening land, all Catholic uniformed and non-uniformed priesthood have taught you; These, of course, can only make their sermons imposing, romantic, interesting and shock the dwarf- skin of the exceedingly dull church runners, if they have cursed the whole miserable audience down to hell at least thirty times in a single sermon, which they described earlier together with their natives in a very palpable way and made it so hot, that if such a preacher like Ignatius and Kochheim would have let his sermon loose at the North Pole, he would have cleaned the ice away. Such a sermon, for which even Satan has respect, struck into a child's mind, must certainly produce the strangest effects.
15. The best thing about it is that a thing that has no reason itself, cannot find a reason anywhere; from where it not infrequently comes that among 500 listeners of such a hellish thunderstorm sermon, at least 200 are fast asleep; 200 do not pay attention to the sermon, and 100 have only remembered the Amen of the whole sermon. But all this is caused by the spirit of such a sermon; therefore it is now good to recognize evil in it's basis, so that everyone then easily recognizes it in himself when such is near him, and for this purpose you will be given several different memorials relating to it, of which you do not have to be afraid after this pre-instruction.