Unpublished correspondence of Lavater

Presentation.

— Preamble.

— First Letter: On the state of the soul after death.

— 2nd Letter.

— Commentary.

— Communication of Paul I.

— 3rd Letter.

— 4th Letter.

— Letter from a deceased man to his friend on Earth on the state of disincarnate Spirits.

— 5th Letter.

— Letter from a Blessed Spirit to his friend on Earth on the first vision of the Lord.

— 6th Letter.

— Letter from a deceased man to his friend on the relations existing between Spirits and those whom they loved on Earth.

— Commentary: On the importance of these letters of Lavater.

— Lavater's present opinion on Spiritism.

[April Review.]

THIRD LETTER.

(Continuation. — See the issue of March 1868.)

Most venerated empress, The outward lot of every soul stripped of its body will correspond to its inner state, that is, everything will appear to it just as it is itself. To the good soul, everything will appear in good; evil will appear only to the souls of the wicked. Loving natures will surround the loving soul; the hateful soul will draw to itself hateful natures. Each soul will see itself reflected in the Spirits that resemble it. The good will become better and will be admitted into the circles composed of beings superior to it; the saint will become more saintly by the mere contemplation of the Spirits purer and more saintly than he; the loving Spirit will become still more loving; but, likewise, each wicked being will become worse solely through its contact with other malevolent beings. If already on Earth nothing is more contagious and more captivating than virtue and vice, love and hatred, in the same way, beyond the tomb, every moral and religious perfection, as well as every immoral and irreligious sentiment, must necessarily become still more captivating and more contagious. You will become, most honored empress, all love in the circles of benevolent souls.

Whatever still remains in me of selfishness, of self-love, of lukewarmness toward the kingdom and the designs of God, will be entirely swallowed up by the sentiment of love, if it was predominant in me, and will be further purified unceasingly, by the presence and the contact of pure and loving Spirits.

Purified by the power of our aptitude for loving, largely exercised in this world; purified still more by the contact and the radiation, upon us, of the love of pure and elevated Spirits, we shall be gradually prepared for the direct vision of the most perfect love, so that it may not dazzle us, frighten us, and prevent us from enjoying it with delight. But how, venerated empress, could a frail mortal, would he dare, form an idea of the contemplation of that personified love? And you, inexhaustible charity! how could you draw near to him who drinks in you only love, without frightening and dazzling him?

I think that at first it will appear invisibly or under an unrecognizable form.

Has he not always acted in this manner? Who loved more invisibly than Jesus? Who, better than he, knew how to represent the incomprehensible individuality of the unknown? Who, better than he, knew how to make himself unrecognizable, he who could make himself known better than any mortal or any immortal Spirit? He, whom all the heavens adore, came under the form of a modest workman and preserved until death the individuality of a Nazarene. Even after his resurrection, he first appeared under an unrecognizable form and only afterward made himself recognized. I think he will always preserve this mode of action, so analogous to his nature, his wisdom, and his love. It is under the form of a gardener that he appears to Mary in the garden where she was seeking him and where she no longer had hope of finding him. At first unrecognizable, he was only recognized a few moments later. It was also under an unrecognizable form that he approached two of his disciples, who were walking full of him and breathing him in. He walked a long time at their side; their hearts burned in a holy flame; they felt the presence of some pure and elevated being, but of another being, and not he; they recognized him only at the moment of breaking the bread, at the moment of his disappearance, and when, still on the same night, they saw him in Jerusalem. The same thing happened on the shores of the lake of Tiberias, and when, radiant in his dazzling glory, he appeared to Saul. How sublime and dramatic are all the actions of Our Lord, all his words and all his revelations! Everything follows an incessant march which, ever pressing forward, draws nearer and nearer to a goal which, nevertheless, is not the final goal. The Christ is the hero, the center, the principal personage, now visible, now invisible, in that great drama of God, so admirably simple and complicated at the same time, which will never have an end, though it has seemed a thousand times to be finished. He always appears, at first unrecognizable, in the existence of each of his adorers. How could love refuse to appear to the being who loves it, at the precise moment when this one most needs it?

Yes, you, the most human of men, will appear to men in the most human manner! You will appear to the loving soul to whom I write! You will appear to me also, at first unrecognizable and then you will make yourself recognized by us. We shall see you an infinity of times, always other and always the same, always more beautiful, as our soul improves, and never for the last time. Let us raise ourselves more often toward this intoxicating idea which, with God's permission, I shall try to clarify more fully in my next letter, and to make more moving for you, by a communication given by a deceased man.

September 1, 1798.

Lavater. n

FOURTH LETTER.

In my preceding letter, most venerated empress, I promised to send you the letter of a deceased man to his friend on Earth. It may enable you to understand better and to grasp my ideas on the state of a Christian after the death of his body. I take the liberty of joining it to this one. Judge it from the point of view I have indicated to you, and direct your attention rather to the principal subject than to certain particular details that surround it, although I have reasons to suppose that these latter also contain something true. For the understanding of the matters that I shall expound to you in what follows under this form, I believe it necessary to make you note that I am almost certain that, despite the existence of a general, identical, and immutable law of chastisement and of supreme happiness, each Spirit, according to its individual character, not only moral and religious, but even personal and official, will have sufferings to endure after its terrestrial death and will enjoy happinesses that will be appropriate to none but itself. The general law will individualize itself for each individual in particular, that is, in each one it will produce a different and personal effect, in the same way that a ray of light, passing through a colored, convex, or concave glass, takes from it, in part, its color and its direction. I would wish, then, that it be positively accepted; that, although all Spirits, blessed, less happy, or suffering, find themselves under the same very simple law of resemblance or dissimilarity to the most perfect love, it must be presumed that the substantial, personal, individual character of each Spirit constitutes for it a state of suffering or of happiness essentially different from the state of suffering or of happiness of another Spirit. Each one suffers in a manner that differs from the suffering of another, and feels pleasures that another would not be capable of feeling. To each of the worlds, material and immaterial, God and the Christ present themselves under a particular form, under which they appear to no one except to him. Each one has his point of view that belongs to none but himself. To each Spirit God speaks a language understood by it alone. To each one he communicates in particular and grants pleasures that it alone is in a state to experience and contain. This idea, which I consider a truth, serves as the basis for all the following communications, given by disincarnate Spirits to their friends on Earth.

I would feel happy if I knew that you have understood how each man, through the formation of his individual character and the perfecting of his individuality, can prepare for himself particular pleasures and a happiness appropriate to himself alone.

As nothing is forgotten so quickly, and nothing is less sought by men than that happiness appropriate to each individual, although each one has every possibility of procuring it for himself and enjoying it, I take the liberty, wise and venerated empress, of entreating you insistently to deign to analyze with attention this idea which, certainly, you cannot regard as useless for your own edification and your elevation toward God: God has placed himself and has placed the Universe within the heart of each man. Every man is a particular mirror of the Universe and of his Creator. Let us, then, exert all our efforts, most venerated empress, to keep that mirror as pure as possible, in order that God may there see himself and his thousand times beautiful creation, reflected to his entire satisfaction.

Johann Kaspar Lavater.

Zurich, September 14, 1798.

LETTER FROM A DECEASED MAN TO HIS FRIEND ON EARTH.

(On the state of disincarnate Spirits.)

At last, my beloved, it is possible for me to satisfy, though only in part, my desire and yours, and to communicate to you something concerning my present state. This time I can give you only very few details. In the future, everything will depend on the use you make of my communications.

I know that the desire you experience, to have notions about me, as in general about the state of all disincarnate Spirits, is very great, but it does not surpass my own desire to teach you what is possible to reveal. The power of loving of one who loved in the material world increases inexpressibly, when he becomes a citizen of the immaterial world. With love increases also the desire to communicate to those whom he knew that which he can, that which he is permitted to transmit. I must begin by explaining to you, my beloved, to you whom I love more and more, how it is possible for me to write to you, without, at the same time, being able to touch the paper and guide the pen, and how I can speak to you in an entirely terrestrial and human language which, in my habitual state, I do not understand.

This single indication should serve you as a ray of light, to be able to understand how you should regard our present state.

Imagine my present state, different from the former, more or less as the state of the butterfly, fluttering in the air, differs from its state of chrysalis. I am precisely that chrysalis transfigured and emancipated, having already undergone two metamorphoses. Exactly as the butterfly flits around the flowers, we often flit around the heads of the good, but not always. A light, invisible to you mortals, visible only to very few of you, radiates or shines gently around the head of every good, loving, and religious man. The idea of the halo with which the heads of the saints are surrounded is essentially true and rational. This light, sympathizing with ours — every blessed being is so only through light — draws it toward it, according to the degree of its brightness, which corresponds to ours. No impure Spirit dares and can approach that holy light. Resting in that light, above the head of the good and pious man, we can read at once in his spirit. We see him just as he is in reality. Each ray that issues from him is for us a word, sometimes a whole discourse; we respond to his thoughts. He is unaware that it is we who respond. In him we excite ideas which, without our action, he would never have been in a condition to conceive, although the disposition and the aptitude to receive them are innate in his soul. The man worthy of receiving the light becomes, thus, a useful and very profitable organ for the sympathetic Spirit, who wishes to communicate his lights to him.

I found a Spirit, or rather, a man accessible to the light, to whom I was able to draw near, and it is through his organ that I speak to you. Without his mediation, it would have been impossible for me to converse with you humanly, verbally, palpably, in a word, to write to you.

In this manner, then, you receive an anonymous letter from a man whom you do not know, but who nurtures in himself a strong inclination for occult and spiritual matters. I plane above him; I have placed myself over him, more or less as the most divine of all Spirits placed himself over the most divine of all men, after his baptism; I arouse ideas in him; he transmits them under my intuition, under my direction, by the effect of my radiation. By a light touch, I make the strings of his soul vibrate in a manner conforming to mine and to his individuality. He writes what I wish to make him write; I write through his intermediary; my ideas become his. He feels happy writing. He becomes freer, more animated, richer in ideas. It seems to him that he lives and soars in a more joyful, clearer element. He walks slowly, like a friend led by the hand of a friend, and it is in this manner that you receive a letter from me. He who writes supposes himself free and is so in reality. He suffers no violence; he is free as are two friends who, though walking arm in arm, lead one another mutually. You must feel that my Spirit is in direct relation with yours; you conceive what I tell you; you listen to my most intimate thoughts. It is enough for this time. The day on which I dictated this letter is called among you September 15, 1798.

FIFTH LETTER.

Most venerated empress, Once again a little letter arrived from the invisible world.

In the future, if God permits, the communications will follow one another more closely.

This letter contains a very small part of what can be said to a mortal, on the apparition and the vision of the Lord. It is simultaneously and under millions of different forms that the Lord appears to the myriads of beings. He wills and multiplies himself by his innumerable creatures, individualizing himself, at the same time, for each one of them in particular. To you, empress, to your Spirit of light, he will appear one day, as he appeared to Mary Magdalene, in the garden of the sepulcher. From his divine mouth you will hear him one day, when you feel the greatest need and when you least expect it, call you by your name, Mary. Rabbi! you will answer his call, penetrated by the same feeling of supreme happiness that penetrated Magdalene, and, full of adoration, like the apostle Thomas, you will say: “My Lord and my God!” n We hastened to traverse the nights of darkness to reach the light; we passed through the deserts to attain the promised land; we suffered the pains of birth to be reborn into the true life.

May God and your Spirit be with you and your Spirit.

Johann Kaspar Lavater.

Zurich, November 13, 1798.

LETTER FROM A BLESSED SPIRIT.

(To his friend on Earth on the first vision of the Lord.)

Dear friend, Of a thousand things with which I would wish to converse with you, this time I shall tell only one, which will interest you more than all the others. I have obtained authorization to do so. Spirits can do nothing without a special permission. They live without their own will, only in the will of the celestial Father, who transmits his orders to thousands of beings at the same time, as to a single one, and responds instantaneously to an infinity of subjects, to thousands of his creatures, who address themselves to him. How to make you understand in what manner I saw the Lord? Oh! in a manner very different from that which you, beings still mortal, can imagine.

After many apparitions, instructions, explanations, and pleasures that were granted by the grace of the Lord, once I traversed a paradisiacal region, with about twelve other Spirits, who had ascended, more or less by the same degrees of perfection as I. We soared, we flitted one beside the other, in sweet and pleasant harmony, as if forming a light cloud, and it seemed that we experienced the same impulse, the same propensity toward a very elevated goal. We pressed more and more one against the other. As we advanced, we became more and more intimate, freer, more joyful, more pleasant, and more and more apt to enjoy, and we said: Oh! how good and merciful is He who created us! Hallelujah to the Creator! it was love that created us! Hallelujah to the loving Being! Animated by such sentiments, we pursued our flight and halted at the foot of a spring. There we felt the approach of a light breeze. It brought neither a man, nor an angel; and yet, that which advanced toward us had something so human about it, that it drew all our attention. A resplendent light, in a certain way similar to that of the blessed Spirits, but not surpassing it, flooded us. “That one too is one of us!” we thought simultaneously and as if by intuition. It vanished, and at first it seemed to us that we were deprived of something. “What a singular being! we said to ourselves; what a regal bearing! and, at the same time, what childlike grace! what gentleness and what majesty!” While we were thus speaking to ourselves, suddenly a gracious form appeared to us, coming out of a charming grove, and greeted us amicably. The newcomer did not resemble the preceding apparition, but he too had something superior about him, something elevated and, at the same time, inexpressibly simple. “Be welcome, brothers and sisters!” he said. We answered in unison: “Be welcome, you, the blessed of the Lord! heaven is reflected in your face and the love of God radiates from your eyes.” — Who are you? asked the stranger. — We are the joyful adorers of all-powerful Love, we answered.

— Who is all-powerful Love? he asked us with a perfect grace.

— Do you not know all-powerful Love? we asked, in our turn, or rather, it was I who addressed the question to him, in the name of all.

— I know him, said the stranger, with a voice still sweeter.

— Ah! if we could be worthy to see him and hear his voice! but we do not feel sufficiently purified to merit contemplating directly the most holy purity.

In response to these words, we heard ringing out behind us a voice that said to us: “You are washed of all stain, you are purified. You are declared just by Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of the living God!”

An inexpressible happiness spread within us, at the moment when, turning ourselves in the direction whence the voice came, we wished to throw ourselves on our knees to adore the invisible interlocutor.

What happened? Each of us heard a name instantaneously, which he had never heard pronounced, but which each understood and at the same time recognized to be his own new name, expressed by the voice of the stranger. Spontaneously, with the speed of lightning, we turned, as a single being, toward the adorable interlocutor, who addressed us thus, with an unspeakable grace: “You have found what you sought. He who sees me, sees also all-powerful Love. I know my own and my own know me. I give to my sheep eternal life and they shall not perish in eternity; no one shall be able to snatch them from my hands, nor from the hands of my Father. I and my Father are one!” How could I express in words the sweet and supreme happiness in which we expanded, when he who, at each moment, became more luminous, more gracious, more sublime, stretched out his arms toward us and pronounced the following words, which will vibrate eternally for us, and which no power will be able to make disappear from our ears and our hearts: “Come here, you, the elect of my Father: inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you since the beginning of the Universe.” After this, he embraced us all simultaneously, and vanished. We kept silence and, feeling ourselves closely united for eternity, we spread, without moving, one into the other, sweetly and full of a supreme happiness. The infinite Being became one with us and, at the same time, our all, our heaven, our life in its truest sense. A thousand new lives seemed to penetrate us. Our former existence ended for us; we began to be anew; we felt immortality, that is, a superabundance of life and of forces, which bore the mark of indestructibility. At last, we recovered speech. Ah! if I could communicate to you, even a single sound, of our joyful adoration!

“He exists! we are! Through Him, through Him alone! — He is, his being is nothing but life and love! — He who sees him, lives and loves, is flooded with effluvia of immortality and of the love that emanates from his divine face, from his gaze full of supreme happiness!

“We have seen you, all-powerful love! You showed yourself to us under the human form, You, God of gods! And yet, You were neither man, nor God, You, Man-God!

“You were nothing but love, all-powerful only as love! — You sustained us by your omnipotence, to prevent the force, even attenuated by your love, from absorbing us into it.

“Is it You, is it You? — You, whom all the heavens glorify; You, ocean of beatitude; — You, omnipotence; — You, who once, incarnating yourself in human bones, bore the burdens of the Earth and, bathed in blood, suspended on a cross, made yourself a corpse?

“Yes, it is You, — You, glory of all beings! Being before whom all natures bow, which vanished before You, to be called to live in You!

“In one of your rays is found the life of all the worlds, and from your breath nothing gushes forth but love!”

This, dear friend, is nothing but a minute trifle, fallen to the earth, from the table full of an ineffable happiness on which I fed. Make use of it, and soon more will be given to you. — Love, and you will be loved. — Only love can aspire to supreme happiness: — Only love can give happiness, but solely to those who love.

Oh! my dear, it is because you love that I can draw near to you, communicate with you, and lead you more quickly to the source of life.

Love! God and heaven live in you, as much as they live in the face and in the heart of Jesus Christ!

I write this, according to your terrestrial chronology, on November 13, 1798.

Makariosenagape.

(To be concluded in the next issue.)

[1]

[v.

Lavater.]

[2] Translator's note: John, 20:28. For some exegetes of the Good News, such words would not have been pronounced by the apostle Thomas, but interpolated into the Gospel of John to justify the dogma of the divinity of the Christ.