NEUOFFENBARUNG15 March 1842
[Fl.01_003,01] What we have learned about the fly so far is certainly wonderful, indeed more than wonderful. But one of the much greater wonders of this little creature lies in its purpose and in the way it fulfils it.
[Fl.01_003,02] How many purposes does this little creature have? Can it have only one? If so, how little that would be! Can it have many?
[Fl.01_003,03] Nowhere in all creation is there anything that has more than two polarities, one affirmative and one negative. So there is only an above and a below, opposed to each other, for what lies between is simply their union. Likewise there is an outer and an inner, a material and a spiritual, a good and an evil, a true and a false.
[Fl.01_003,04] When we speak of the purpose for which a being exists, it can therefore extend only to one of these two polarities. Let us see, then, what the fly is good for.
[Fl.01_003,05] Let us take the outer pole first.
[Fl.01_003,06] You must have wondered why in winter you very rarely see a creature of this kind, whereas in the warmth of summer everything buzzes and teems with these little winged inhabitants of the air.
[Fl.01_003,07] See, My dear little children, we are about to draw another wonder from our little creature!
[Fl.01_003,08] We saw how the fly is covered with hairs and points when we discovered the first wonder and I explained how it walks. But that is only one reason why the little creature is covered with hairs and spines. You will soon learn why each of these creatures was also given a pair of wings with which to fly.
[Fl.01_003,09] By drawing in the electrical substance in the manner already described, this little creature becomes so light that it no longer exerts the least weight against the attraction of the earth. Its little pair of wings can then carry it easily in every direction through the air.
[Fl.01_003,10] Why is it carried about in this way? Why must the fly dart more briskly to and fro in every direction the warmer it gets? Pay close attention and we shall soon find out.
[Fl.01_003,11] These millions upon millions of flies are charged with consuming the so-called electrical fire that streams so abundantly from the sun. In this way they weaken it so that, through its own excess, it cannot discharge within itself and put an end to an entire world. For this electrical fluid is an exceedingly powerful fire, of course in its positive sphere. As long as the negative electricity of a planetary body is in balance with the positive electricity generated by the sun’s rays, the positive electricity cannot discharge. But if the positive electricity exceeds the negative by even a thousandth, its free discharge is almost impossible to prevent. How, then, is such widespread devastation averted?
[Fl.01_003,12] Look at our little creatures darting industriously back and forth in every possible direction. In their rapid flight they draw in the excess positive electricity, whose polarity is at once reversed within them. They consume the positive part, which corresponds to oxygen, and breathe out the negative part again, just as a person breathes out the nitrogen in the air after the lungs have taken up the oxygen to nourish the blood.
[Fl.01_003,13] But here you might ask Me: “Can these little creatures really accomplish so much?”
[Fl.01_003,14] And I answer: Oh yes, My dear ones! On a hot summer’s day a single fly reverses so much positive electricity within itself that, if it could be collected in a vessel, it would suffice to reduce a mountain ten times the size of your Schlossberg to dust in an instant. Likewise, if the air one person breathes in and out in a day were to ignite, it could destroy all Europe so completely that it would lose its present form and no one would recognise it as the well-populated and fertile land it once was and now is.
[Fl.01_003,15] So that this may not sound too fabulous to you, consider how slight the cause was, in natural terms, of a great earthquake felt over nearly half the earth and beyond. The cause lay in a thousand cubic feet of enclosed air that ignited under the known conditions of external pressure.
[Fl.01_003,16] If you suppose that in four breaths a person consumes, or rather alters and exchanges, one cubic foot of air, consider how often a person breathes in a day. You will be astonished at the volume one person consumes, or rather alters, in the course of twenty-four hours. If you judge this in the light of what has just been said, it will surely seem less strange that I spoke of all Europe as capable of being destroyed by the air a person breathes in and out in a day.
[Fl.01_003,17] Nor should you be surprised by what I said about the electricity one fly reverses in a day. If one fly does this much, what will those millions upon millions accomplish?
[Fl.01_003,18] Now, My little children, is it not a wonder that through such tiny and seemingly insignificant day labourers I preserve an entire earth from sudden destruction?
[Fl.01_003,19] Yet all this is only a small secondary purpose of the creature, so it is still far from the greatest wonder. Be patient. The principal things are still to come. Let this be enough for today.
Source: Jakob Lorber, Die Fliege, German text based on the sixth edition (1988). The English translation preserves the source’s paragraph identifiers. It presents the work as a nineteenth-century spiritual text, including its historical accounts of nature.