There are two points I would like to tell you about here which are certainly of interest to you and which I decided to write down as soon as I emerged from drowsiness. But since there are other more pressing matters, I will write later.
What I am seeing this evening:
An immense expanse of land. As boundless as a sea. I say “land” because there is earth, as on fields and roads. But there is not one tree, stem, or blade of grass. Dust, dust, and more dust.
I see this in a light which is not light. A barely outlined, leaden brightness of a green-violet hue as is seen at the time of a very heavy thunderstorm or a total eclipse. A light prompting fear, of burnt-out stars. That’s it. The sky is devoid of stars. There are no stars, no moon, no sun. The sky is empty, as the earth is empty. The former is stripped of its flowers of light; the latter, of its plant and animal life. They are two vast remains of what was.
I have every opportunity to see this desolate vision of the death of the universe, which I think will have the same appearance as at the first moment,127 when heaven and earth already existed, but the former was devoid of stars, and the latter, deprived of life - a now solidified globe, but still uninhabited, flying through space, waiting for the Creator’s finger to give it grass and animals.
Why do I understand that it is the vision of the death of the universe? Through one of those “second voices” - I don’t know who they come from, but in me they do what the chorus does in ancient tragedies: the role of indicators of special aspects which the main actors do not clarify on their own. This is exactly what I want to say to you and what I will say to you later.
As I turn my gaze over this desolate scene, for which I do not grasp the need, I see Death,128 springing from I don’t know where, standing upright in the middle of the boundless plain. A laughing skeleton, with her teeth bared and empty eye sockets, the queen of the dead world, wrapped in her shroud as if in a cloak. She does not have a scythe. She has already cut down everything. She is turning her gaze over her harvest and leering.
Her arms are joined over her breast. She then separates these skeletal arms and opens her hands with nothing more than naked bones and, since it is a giant, omnipresent figure - or, rather, omniproximate - sets a finger, the right index finger, upon my forehead. I feel the chill of the pointed bone, which seems to perforate my brow and penetrate into my head like a needle of ice. But I understand that this has no meaning other than to seek to call my attention to what is happening.
Indeed, with her left arm she gestures, indicating to me the desolate expanse we - she, the queen, and I, the only living being - are dominating: At her silent command - given by the skeletal fingers of her left hand and by turning her head rhythmically to the right and the left - the earth splits into thousands and thousands of clefts, and in the depths of these dark furrows scattered white objects appear. I don’t understand what they are.l29
As I strive to figure out what they are, Death continues to plough the glebes with her gaze and her command, as if with a ploughshare, and they go on opening increasingly as far as the distant horizon; and she furrows the waves of the seas devoid of sails, and the waters open in liquid eddies.
And then from the furrows of earth and the furrows of sea there arise the scattered, disconnected white objects I saw, which are being recomposed. They are millions and millions and millions of skeletons surfacing from the oceans, rising straight up from the ground. Skeletons of all heights. From the minute ones of infants with little hands like small dusty spiders to those of adult men, and even giant ones, whose mass brings to mind certain antediluvian beings. And they stand in astonishment, as if trembling, like those who are suddenly awakened from a deep sleep and do not grasp where they are.
The sight of all those skeletal bodies standing whitely in that apocalyptic “nonlight” is tremendous.
And then around those skeletons there slowly condenses a nebulosity like mist rising from the open ground, from the open seas; it takes on shape and opacity and becomes flesh, a body like the one we who are alive have. The eyes - rather, the eye sockets - are filled with irises; zygomas are covered with cheeks; gums extend over the exposed jaws, and lips form again, and hair appears once more on the craniums, and arms become shapely, and fingers, nimble; and the whole body becomes alive again, just the way ours is.
The same, but different in appearance. There are very beautiful bodies, with a perfection in shape and color which make them resemble artistic masterpieces. There are other horrible ones, not because of any real crippling or deformity, but because of their overall appearance, which is more proper to a brute beast than a man. Grim eyes, contracted faces, a savage appearance, and, what strikes me most, a darkness emanating from their bodies and increasing the lividness of the air surrounding them. Whereas the very beautiful ones have laughing eyes, a serene visage, and a gentle appearance and give off a luminosity which forms a halo around their being from head to foot and radiates out on all sides.
If they were all like the former, the darkness would become total to the point of concealing every object. But by virtue of the latter the luminosity not only endures, but increases, to the extent that I can observe everything.
The ugly ones - concerning whose destiny of accursedness I harbor no doubt, since they bear this condemnation as a mark on their brows - remain silent, casting frightened, surly glances up and down around them, and group together on one side at an inner command which I do not understand, but which must have been given by someone and perceived by the risen ones. The very beautiful ones also gather, smiling at one another and looking at the ugly ones with pity mixed with horror. And these lovely ones are singing - they are singing a slow, sweet chorus of blessing for God.
I see nothing else. I understand I have viewed the final resurrection.130
What I wanted to say to you at the outset is the following. You asked me today how I had been able to know the names of Hillel and Gamaliel and that of Shammai.131
It is the voice which I call the “second voice”132 that tells me these things. A voice even less perceptible than that of my Jesus and of the others who dictate. These are voices - I told you before, 133 and I repeat - which my spiritual hearing perceives as just like human voices. I hear them as sweet or irate, loud or soft, laughing or melancholy. As if someone were speaking right next to me. Whereas this “second voice” is like a light, an intuition speaking in my spirit. “In,” not “to,” my spirit. It is an indication.
Accordingly, as I approached the group of those disputing and did not know who that distinguished personage arguing so heatedly alongside the old man was, this inner “something” said to me, “Gamaliel. Hillel.” That’s right. First Gamaliel and then Hillel. I have no doubt. As I wondered who they were, this internal indicator alluded to the third unpleasant individual just when Gamaliel was calling him by name. And I was thus able to know who the one with the pharisaical appearance was.
Today this internal indicator has me understand that I was seeing the universe after its death. And so it often happens in the visions. It is what leads me to comprehend certain details which I would not grasp on my own and which need to be comprehended.
I don’t know if I have made myself understood clearly. But I will stop because Jesus is starting to speak.
Jesus says:
“When time is over and life is to be exclusively Life in the heavens, the universe, as you thought,134 will again become as it was at the beginning, before being dissolved completely. This will take place when I have judged.
“Many think that there will be just an instant between the moment of the end and the universal Judgment. But God will be good until the end, O daughter. Good and just.
“Not all of those living at the final hour will be holy, and not all of them, damned. There will be some among the former who are destined to Heaven, but have something to expiate. I would be unjust if for them I annulled the expiation which, however, I had inflicted on all those preceding them who were in the same state at their death.
“Therefore, while justice and the end come for other planets and, like torches upon which one blows, the stars in the sky fade out one by one and darkness and cold progressively increase in my hours, which are your centuries - and the hour of darkness has already begun, in the firmaments as in hearts - those living in the final hour, dying in the final hour, deserving of Heaven, but in need of cleansing themselves further, will go into the purifying fire. I will increase the heat of that fire so that purification will be more expeditious and the blessed will not wait too long to take their holy flesh to glorification and have it, too, rejoice on seeing its God, its Jesus, in his perfection and in his triumph.
“That is why you saw the earth devoid of grass and trees, animals, men, and life, and the oceans devoid of sails, a still expanse of still waters, for movement will no longer be necessary for them to give life to the fish of the waters, as warmth will no longer be necessary for the earth to give life to crops and beings. That is why you saw the firmament empty of its stars, with no more fires, no more lights. Light and heat will no longer be necessary for the earth, now an enormous cadaver bearing in itself the cadavers of all the living from Adam until the last son of Adam.
“Death, my last handmaiden upon the earth, will perform her last task and then cease to exist as well. There will be no more Death, but only eternal Life. In blessedness or in horror. Life in God or life in Satan for your selves, recomposed in soul and body.
“That is enough for now. Rest and think of Me.”
And this evening, too, when I did not want to write because I was exhausted, I had to write twelve pages...! No comment.
I forgot to tell you that the bodies were all naked, but there was no sensuality, as if malice had also died: in them and in me. And, furthermore, the bodies of the damned were shielded by their darkness, and those of the blessed were robed in their light itself. Therefore, what is animality in us disappeared under the emission of the inner spirit, the quite joyful or quite wretched lord of the flesh.
126 We omit the text written on January 28, which contains the episode involving “Jesus’ Discussion with the Doctors in the Temple”; it is found in the Preparation cycle.
127 Genesis 1:1-2.
128 1 Corinthians 15:26.
129 Ezekiel 37:1-14.
130 1 Corinthians 15:35-58
131 The reference is to the episode mentioned in note 126.
132 Referred to above in this entry.
133 For example, see the entry for May 13 in The Notebooks. 1943.
134 At the point in the text where note 127 is inserted