THOSE WHO CAME BACK
FROM THE DEAD

Jozef Rulof

World Wide Web version
© 2014 'De Eeuw van Christus'

In an unconscious state I was passed from the earth to wake up in the spheres. There I was to become unconscious many times until I became eternally awake. I slept for three weeks according to time on earth.

When I woke up I thought I was still on earth. I was not dead and had had a good sleep, I lived and felt rested. I’ll soon be better now, I thought, but where is my wife? I saw nobody around me and I found this strange for I was ill and should be cared for, I was not accustomed to be left alone. Where was she? I called but received no reply. I rubbed my eyes and I noticed that I was in an unfamiliar place. What does that mean, I thought? I looked at myself and was shocked. I was wearing my ordinary clothes and I was lying in bed with my shoes on. What’s the meaning of this? Lying in bed with my clothes on, I thought, how is that possible? I was wearing the nasty black suit I wore when driving the funeral wagon. Then I began to think fast. The walls were bare and the familiar things I had hung on the walls had disappeared, I did not see any picture. Where was I? This was not my room. Was I in a hospital? Had my illness deteriorated so that I had been taken to a hospital? No, that couldn’t be, for they would not put me to bed like this. But what then? I wanted to undress myself and came to a horrible discovery; my clothes were elastic and I could not get out of them. It was eerie, it was as if my clothes were made of rubber and however hard I pulled I could not take them off. Just imagine! Yet I wanted to take them off for I did not want to lie in bed fully clothed and I wanted to go back to sleep because I felt it had done me a lot of good. During the last few days I had not had much sleep and I felt getting tired again. I had not recovered yet and my illness would get worse if I got upset.

But my surroundings gave me no peace. It occupied my mind all the time. Where was my wife? I shouted very loudly but I did not receive an answer. She should be here with me, or had she gone away somewhere? While thinking about this I felt my pain and fever return. I began to tear at my clothes again but they were stuck to my body as if they were part of me. I belonged to them, my whole being lived in it. It was a mystery to me, not until later did I understand the meaning of all this. I found it not only horrifying but also amazing. I had never worn such clothes before. What had happened to me for goodness’ sake?

I kept thinking about it until I suddenly understood. Of course, that’s it, I should have thought of that before! I had run away from home in a fever and had been taken to an institution. That is why I am now in a strange place, it could not be otherwise. The people who were looking after me had gone away because I was asleep and they did not want to disturb me. Accepting this I became calmer.

There was a dim light around me, so I thought it was rather early. I’ll turn the light on, I thought, so I got out of bed, which was actually a couch, to find the switch, but I did not see a lamp or switch. Yet there was a dim light. The walls looked a greyish haze, a kind of vapour which I found a very strange phenomenon. Where for heaven’s sake am I? If there isn’t an explanation soon, I’ll go mad. My head was strained. I went back to my couch and I again contemplated my condition because I wanted to know what it was all about. After a while I once more tried to pull off my clothes because that awful black suit irritated me. The pain in my throat became worse, I felt my fever and that terrible fear taking hold of me again. My illness was not gone yet for I felt all that misery again. But I wanted to keep calm, I had to, but my thoughts went over everything again and all kinds of ideas went through my mind. When I got to the moment that I lost consciousness I could not remember a thing and I felt dizzy. I felt myself sink away and lost consciousness. I woke up again. It never crossed my mind that I had died and did not belong to the living on earth any longer. Why should it, wasn’t I alive? How could you think of death and accept your own death when you are alive? Was that possible? I woke up and felt rested again. Sleep did me a lot of good, I felt refreshed and cheerful. Will that terrible illness have gone soon?

You understand, Jozef, how earthly my feelings were. I lived in eternity but my feelings were as on earth and that is the way I thought, because my inner condition had not changed.

Again I thought things over. Now where is my wife? If I had been taken unconscious to a hospital she would surely wait for me to regain consciousness. That is the way I would have done, so why didn’t she? Perhaps she is waiting in an other room, so I decided to call her again. I shouted at the top of my voice and carefully listened, but I did not hear the slightest sound. The walls of my room were echoing everything back to me smothering my shouting. Then I lost all control, I was furious, jumped off my couch and kicked against the walls. But this was no help, I just heard a dull thud, which astonished me. Were these no walls? Were they covered with material? I touched them and realized that they were not brick walls. Everything here was strange, eerie and mysterious. I walked about back and forth, searching for the entrance but I could not find it. Damn, where am I, who has locked me in? I am imprisoned like a bird in a cage. This made me feel more miserable. I would have destroyed everything if I had been able to, but there was nothing I could vent my rage on. Everything was bare and misty.

If only daybreak would come, I thought, they’ll come to me then. Once I thought I heard voices, would there be people outside? I began to pull at my clothes again but it made me tired and I had to give up. Everything was mysterious, unreal and unnatural. The room I was in was strange, I could not take off my suit, there was no light and the walls had no door.

Suddenly another thought struck me. I was in a mental hospital, yes, I was mad, really mad. The fever and the tension had made me lose my mind and what I was wearing was a straitjacket. No wonder that my wife was not with me. But she would soon come to visit me. Then she would see that I was not mad. All my suffering would be over and I could go home again. They had to lock me up because I was wild and violent and I had not calmed down yet. Easy now, Gerhard, otherwise they will think you are not better and you do want to get out of here far away from all this mysteriousness? This was how I tried to come to my senses, but for how long?

Soon I started to think again, I felt I settled for something unnatural, because a straitjacket was different. This what I was wearing was my undertaker’s suit.

I started again and would have gone on like this for years if no help had come to convince me of my strange surroundings and condition.

That is how people who live, feel and think as on earth arrive in eternity.

I did not think of you or spiritualism and I was completely occupied by what I was thinking, so that it absorbs you and you are not able to think of anything else.

I lived in the spirit but I thought the way I did on earth. It kept me captive, it was my life, it imprisoned me and I was unable to think of anything else. I felt terribly unhappy and thought that there was no way out for me. There was so much I did not understand and had changed, but what? Everything had changed, but I had not, I had remained the same person I was on earth. I was not aware of it and could not realize it because I did not know any better.