NEUOFFENBARUNGThe spirits of the second region of the air (13 February 1847)
1. In the same way as in a human being, there is a transition from the purely spiritual into the spiritual, in the same way there is also a transition between the highest and the middle region, and the two regions behave like soul and spirit. The spirit acts into the soul, and can penetrate it, but the soul can never step beyond the barriers of the spirit, but must be there to be penetrated by the spirit, while the spirit is not there to be penetrated by the soul; but the soul can be taken up by the spirit where it itself becomes spiritual.
2. In the same way also the spirits of the second region can pass over into the third, if their souls or in a certain way their substantial bodies spiritualize more and more and become completely one with the spirit. The soul for itself as a compendium of innumerable substantial particles of intelligence, is therefore also stuffed with all kinds of drives, which it contains as propertya in itself.
3. If here and there one or the other propertyum becomes more prominent, then all other propertya incline to the point where such a propertyal eminence occurs. Such an inclination then causes some passion in the soul; But this passion can be exchanged with another one as soon as some other property point of intelligence of the soul appears as outstanding, and in a way overpowers and outshines all other property points of intelligence of the soul, and makes them inclined to itself.
4. It is easy for everyone to see from this description how many a soul, in which the spirit is not awake, is driven from one pole to the other by innumerable passions and desires. But what appears in the soul concentrated in one being as in one point, is generally the case in our second region all the more, because there live only souls in which the spirit is not yet completely awake. One soul has this main instinct, another has another, and millions of souls have millions of different inclinations and instincts; one wants to fight, another to have rest; one seeks nothing but the secrets of creation, another botanizes; another again makes continuous journeys, and so each of the millions has an instinct of a different kind.
5. What a colorful turmoil of souls must therefore come together in this second region, and what innumerable, most diverse phenomena must be brought about there, which phenomena must finally pass over, as it were condensed, into the natural world visible to fleshly eyes; and so it is. All the most diverse cloud formations, and still an innumerable quantity of other phenomena in this middle region, originate from it, and there no day and no night brings completely again the same in the form, what was already once there.
6. Just look at the cloud formation once a day and draw it; you may well compare the new cloud formations with the one you once drew every day for a hundred years and much longer, and you will never see it again in the same way as it was once there. So you will also discover a lot of other phenomena, which always remain the same according to the type, but never according to the form, and there is not one snowflake completely like the other, and no raindrop is the same size as the other, and when it hails, compare once two hailstones, whether they are completely similar to each other. There will be a difference both in shape and in weight. Ice will indeed be ice. But the way in which the ice is formed is just as unequal as the passionate forms of the soul-beings are unequal. But this can already be seen on this earth's surface with still living people.
7. Just look at the houses in a city; they are all the same in kind, they must have walls, windows and a roof; but you will not easily meet any two houses that are completely similar to each other, one is a little higher, the other a little lower, one is colored this way, the other that way, and so an innumerable
amount of differences.
8. This difference in design comes from the different inclinations of the soul of the one who built one house or the other. So also every man has a different garment, and no tailor makes it the same as another. And so there is also a great diversity in other artistic products of people; everyone who has learned to write, has a peculiar script that has nothing in common with the other, since certainly no stroke fits the stroke of the other. The design is therefore different everywhere, even if the type remains the same.
9. Or let several equally skilled painters paint one and the same object; each of them will hit it, but the way of representation, i.e. the form, will be completely different everywhere. Or give ten composers one and the same poem, and let each of them set music to it in his own way; then it will be quite striking how each of them has found a completely different melody for the poem.
10. All these differences in the formal representation, lie in the innumerable different propertya- points of intelligence in the soul. Depending on the predominance of one or the other of these points, the way of acting of the soul is also directed. So there is a different wind blowing all the time; There, new phenomena appear all the time, and what has already existed never finds a perfect repetition, especially there least of all, where the producing intelligences are not under any positive judgment, which is just the case with the souls of man, because they have to work their way back into the original freedom; but there is a difference between a soul that has left and a soul that is still living in the body:
11. The soul in the still living body can wander through a lot of passions, and so the human being has almost every day another one; today he feels and thinks like this, and makes himself this or that resolution; tomorrow this is as if wiped away, and he already acts again according to another intellectual substantive-propertya soul emphasis. Today someone is generous, every poor person would have it good, if he would come to him today; tomorrow a miserly emphasis appears in place of this liberal one, and tomorrow every beggar is repugnant to the today generous one, and he even regrets his previous day's liberality.
12. But with the separated soul it is different; with it, usually only one main passion appears, and dominates the soul always more and more, and pulls gradually all intelligence particles into it's area; therefore also Paul says: As the tree falls, so it remains lying; which does not mean that an isolated soul is in a certain way incorrigible, but only that it remains trapped in one of it's main passions until this has in a certain way consumed all other propertya intelligence particles, which then causes a great poverty of the soul, and this then passes over into a state of dying, where it is as if completely naked and in night and fog. Only in this degradation can the spirit become free and begin to penetrate it's soul, and this is then the transition from the second to the third region. But before this state has not occurred, the spirit cannot spread and cannot penetrate the soul, because it's propertya are still too material and therefore still too unspiritual.
13. Since in this way, a multitude of differently tuned souls come together in the second region, where each of them carries it's main passion within itself, and lives and works according to it – then, according to this easily comprehensible principle, it is exceedingly easy to see that the phenomena, which have their origin in this diversity of souls, must also appear very differently in form. Therefore every lightning has a different zigzag, therefore every cloud and every little cloud has a different shape and movement; therefore winds criss-cross, and for this very reason soon a cloudburst, soon a downpour, soon hail, soon a downpour of dust, soon large, soon medium, soon small snowflakes, and a thousand similar phenomena more, occur exceedingly frequently, especially in the tropical regions and in the polar
countries of the earth.
14. This, then, is a necessary general introduction; next, we will consider the matter more propertyally.