Gifts of Heaven · Volume 1 · Chapter 70

Fata morgana

18th October 1840, Sunday from 10:45 morning until 1:30 afternoon

Writers: K.G.L. – S. And Ans. H. – The Lord gave us this morsel of bread through His servant J.L.

[1] So then take note! Among the many phenomena, of whose reason of origin no worldly scholar has ever dreamed anything of (and if he had also dreamed it, then he could only dream the very barest nonsense about it) – also belong the aerial images, named quite incorrectly by the scholars.

[2] For not only these aerial images, but also countless other phenomena in the field of nature, are in their origin of such a kind that all scholars of the whole earth – if they would occupy themselves for a thousand years in succession with nothing but only these phenomena – would know at the end of it just as much as at the beginning of their great researches.

[3] What would you say to a person who is looking for his glasses when he is wearing them on his nose? You would say to him: "Friend, what are you looking for?" And he would answer: "My glasses!" – then you would certainly laughingly tell him that he wears them on his nose. But if he would erupt in anger and annoyance about your opinion about the whereabouts of his glasses, which he assumes to be "completely bad under all criticism" – say, what could one call such an extraordinary person? You would certainly decide among yourselves after not long consideration to send such a person to the madhouse as soon as possible.

[4] And look, what would you think if I tell you that such a madman could still make a quite capable professor for those great world- and natural scientists, who – if they have "swatted a gnat" by calculating the orbit of a central sun to a minimum and also worked out a lunar or solar eclipse through many years of experience with the necessary precision, shout: ‘Now the whole universe is already revealed before our eyes!’ I say, the time will come, yes, and it is already completely here, that these great natural scientists will still have to make themselves comfortable, instead of running through the universities with pompous foreheads, to go quite humbly to a simple cradle of a child, in order to recognize there the extent of all their nonsense. Yes, truly I say: A child who asks his parents for a piece of bread with teary eyes betrays more wisdom in this slurred request than all the worldly wise since Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras.

[5] Now then, since we had a small contemplation in this way, by which the insufficiency of the world's wisdom was put before your eyes, I will attempt to show you that also not only one, but several reasons for the clearest explanation of the so-called "Fata morgana" are always at My disposal.

[6] See, there are three such kinds of phenomena, which vastly differ in their reasons of origin, although they present in their appearance almost completely one and the same form.

[7] The first, common type of these phenomena is that which in the air represents the objects below it in an inverted way, sometimes the image appear quite pure, sometimes somewhat cloudy and distorted, sometimes enlarged, sometimes diminished. This happens in a quite natural way, but always at a very low barometer reading, when a complete rest has occurred in the air. For the air, by virtue of it's specific gravity, forms a sharply cut mirror surface on which the ether rests, just as the air rests above a still water surface.

[8] When the air acquired such a condition, the objects below are reflected just as if you had erected a large mirror parallel to the surface of the earth several hundred fathoms in the air above the object. If the air is completely calm, the image will also be completely pure, but if it has any small undulations on it's surface, the image will be impure and unclear, like an image in a somewhat

agitated lake. If, however, the air makes a bulge towards the earth, the image is reduced; if, on the other hand, the air-mirror is raised, it makes a cavity towards the earth and in this way represents a concave mirror, whereby the objects below appear either more or less magnified, depending on the degree of the cavity.

[9] Yes, even another phenomenon of this kind can form, namely that one and the same object is seen multiplied. This can happen only with reductions. If the air-mirror gets several bulges towards the earth, then each such bulge forms a separate mirror, in each of which the object appears just as if you had several glass balls in front of you and would notice your image on the bulge of each individual ball, and that, as already noted, in a ratio always reduced according to the degree of the bulge.

[10] Behold, this is now the origin of the first type of this phenomenon.

[11] From the spiritual point of view, this calmness of the air comes from a certain calm expectation of the spirits, which well feel that with a slowly growing lifting of the earth's surface, great things are happening in the interior of the earth, and therefore are calmly waiting until they are to break loose with great storming force at a hint given by Me through an angel for the restoration of the disturbed order in the interior chambers of the earth. That is now everything what the first kind of this appearance presents materially and spiritually.

[12] But that the objects always appear upside down, means that the spirits see the things of nature in correspondences and become aware of them. And so an upright image is the sense of the letter, but an inverted image is the inner, spiritual sense.

[13] This appearance is completely similar to the second one, by which otherwise very distant objects, such as mountains, cities, rivers and lakes, are represented as if close. The difference consists in that they appear only upright. Now, how does this happen?

[14] An example shall explain the whole thing sufficiently. If over a distant place, as e.g. Marburg, a first kind of mirage would take place, but at the same time, however, many fathoms higher, a similar surface would have formed at Ehrenhausen, and a few hours from here a third one, yet very low, and in such a way that the straight, angled line would not be interrupted by any material object, what will happen now? The mirrored Marburg is reflected by the second mirage, but the image reflected is, depending on the inclination of the mirage, continued at the same angle to the third mirror-surface, where you must then naturally see this image standing upright. In this way, objects that are a day's journey away can often appear as close as if they were only hours away. Your telescopes are in miniature almost nothing else than such a mirage, because by this also everyone thinks to see the real object, while it sees only the image on the mirror-surface of the glass.

[15] By such mirages, very distant objects can appear to you surely often also inverted which, however, happen only very rarely. This would only take place if a high air-level would also come to rest. Then you would notice on the horizon, as it were, as for example from Africa, distant islands – of course only under a certain angle, outside or within which you would see nothing more. Such an appearance happens in the following way:

[16] If you could imagine that the air had become so calm just above the Choralpe at an altitude of several hundred fathoms, you would discover Klagenfurt, for example, in this air-mirror, and that inverted, which is the same as if you looked sideways into a mirror and did not see the objects standing straight in front of it, but only those that were turned away from the surface of the mirror in the same way as you, in the opposite direction, at an angle.

[17] As for the spiritual sphere in this second phenomenon, it has completely the same reason as in the phenomenon of the first kind. Only when it is found in great heights after the latter kind, the attention of the spirits is directed to a local, not too deep lying disorder either in the interior of the mountains or also of single islands (which are also nothing else than mountains in the sea).

[18] Now look, as far as these two phenomena are concerned, some more modest natural scientists have already made similar speculations here and there. But now comes the third kind of such mirages, by which objects are presented to the eye of the wanderer, which are not to be found on the whole surface of the earth at all.

[19] Behold, neither the simple – much less the pompous – natural scientists could explain something or were able to untie this Gordian knot like Alexander with a blow – which blow, of course, did not cause such scientists much trouble, because they quickly deny such extraordinary phenomena, or at most let them pass as dream images of a tired wanderer. Of course, this is the easiest explanation!

[20] But how should also a thing be explained, which is not at all? And yet I say that the great natural scientists have not come closer to the truth with any of their explanations than with this one. Thereby they have at least stated that they know nothing, while in their other explanations only their complete ignorance lies at the basis. He who does not speak, knowing nothing, does not tell a lie. But he who speaks, knowing nothing and seeing nothing, is guilty of lying, and the more he has spoken, the more he becomes a debtor to the truth.

[21] But I say that such phenomena of the third kind exist quite well and occur most frequently in the southern regions, namely immediately after sunset, but also now and then before sunrise.

[22] You will now be astonished and wide-eyed, when I will reveal this secret to you with a different blow than the naturalists! Behold, people have already made the largest possible telescopes and wanted to devour the whole starry sky with one gulp with them; but I have always been so free and have drawn definite lines through their calculation, by which they had to realize again in the end that My construction is more magnificent than their instruments, yes, that I have placed world-bodies so far away from you with the least effort that they will never succeed to bring them closer to their lofty noses even with telescopes a thousand times bigger. But see, what I often and always withhold from the wise, I give in great clarity to the underage shepherds and wanderers.

[23] This is also the case with this phenomenon of the third kind. Behold, when in these southern regions the air, for the reasons already mentioned, has spiritually and physically reached the highest rest, and that above large, sandy plains, where there is neither a mountain nor any other elevated object, it often happens that the mirror of the air comes to stand so low above the surface of the earth that it barely reaches over half the body of the wanderer, and, languishing, instead of the atmospheric air, he must be content merely with the inhalation of the ether, which, of course, forces him to catch his breath very quickly and after a short time forces him to sink down on the ground, stunned.

[24] Then it happens that such a wanderer sees in this mirror of the air spread out before him things never imagined. What are these things? Look, now I will strike the blow! They are nothing else than very faithful reflections of the regions and localities of other planets and earth-bodies.

[25] The scholars will tear themselves apart and will say: How is this possible, since we cannot perceive anything similar through our best telescopes? But I can answer nothing else than what they will allow Me, if I will dare to claim that I am also of a somewhat better optician than they are.

[26] At the same time, however, I would also like to ask them a question: They should only show the mathematical formula according to which I have constructed, certainly with the greatest ease, the eye of a vulture, which is better than all the instruments of sight invented up to now; because it sees from the greatest height with the greatest ease and sharpness, the mites which attack carrion lying somewhere in a ditch. And if they should not be able to develop this formula, under which an eye is able to look both far away and near with the same sharpness, so I must assert on the other hand already that it is just as easy for Me to create such a reflection-mirror on the earth out of the air, which can faithfully reproduce an area of a planet, no matter how far away, under a certain degree of illumination.

[27] But that this is possible, I will immediately show you tangibly! Take any house standing there on a wide area! If you move away from it more and more, the image of it will fall on your eye at a more and more acute angle, according to the proportion of the size of your eye, by virtue of the outgoing rays which fall on your eye from all points of this building in the mentioned direction. The fact that the building becomes smaller and smaller is only due to your eyes, with which you are able to take in a smaller and smaller amount of the outgoing rays, the further you move away from the object.

[28] But now let's assume that your eye is not convex (due to which convexity only a very small surface is capable of perceiving any object, while the other, more averted surfaces are also capable of other receptions, so that you can overlook many things at once). – so, as already said, if your eye was very large and not convex, but completely flat, look, you could move a thousand or a million miles away from this building, and you would nevertheless always see it the same size, because from every object there are simultaneously rays flowing together and diverging in all directions. The image of an object must remain faithfully the same even in the greatest distance.

[29] Now look, that is also the case here! This large air-mirror is an optical tool of this kind, that it picks up the parallel rays due to it's extraordinarily bright, shining surface. If, in addition, the eye of the wanderer gets the right expansion into the ether, then he sees such objects as faithful images of other world-body regions, for example, often fairy-tale looking cities, grand palaces, mountains, forests, rivers and lakes, yes, sometimes even living beings and the like more, which are found on a distant world-body.

[30] See, there you have now everything about the mirage! Since also here with the third kind, the spiritual reason is the same as with the earlier ones, nothing more remains for Me to say than that you should also bring the air of your desires and cravings around and in you to such a rest as soon as possible. Then you will experience quite different mirages than the weary wanderers on the glowing sandy deserts; for all seeing is a shining and counter-shining.

[31] Therefore, soon make yourselves capable of receiving the rays that flow from My sun, so that you may behold the mirage of eternal life in you! Amen.

[32] This say I, the great Master in all things, who is called Jesus-Jehovah. Amen!