Jakob Lorber

Who is the author of the New Revelation?

The author of the New Revelation is, of course, superficially Jakob Lorber, even if he claims that the work was dictated to him by his inner voice. It is only reasonable, in view of the undoubted existence of false prophets and all kinds of misuse of religion, to carefully examine character and lifestyle of the scribe. Since we cannot do this in person for natural reasons, the testimony of trustworthy contemporaries of Jakob Lorber remains. In comparison to other persons acting as prophets, there is a relatively large amount of material, with Jakob Lorber receiving the best testimonies from intellectually educated, critically thinking contemporaries. Anyone who knew him personally from many years of personal contact, or visited him and critically examined him, came to the conclusion that he was a sincere, kind-hearted and mentally healthy person who was not expected to be deceitful or mischievous. He did not do business with his writings, which also excludes financial motivation. He lived, as far as he could not sustain himself, from voluntary donations. As a human being, Jakob Lorber remained accessible and had no need to hide. There was nothing to hide, which would of course have been the case if he had been a cheater or any other evil-minded person. Only the writings had to be kept hidden because of the political situation in the state. It should not be too difficult for an unbiased judging person to accept Jakob Lorber as trustworthy. Of course, anyone who does not believe in God, or who denies God the ability to dictate to someone, has no choice but to consider Jakob Lorber as a cheater or mentally ill person contrary to all testimony. This does not, however, provide a conclusive assessment of Jakob Lorber, but merely a testimony, first of all, to a world view in which there is no room for someone like Jakob Lorber, and secondly, to the arbitrary act of the judge, who simply ignores all serious witnesses.

If Jakob Lorber had been mentally ill or a cheater, his educated friends would inevitably have noticed this. That is why this assumption is unacceptable. Moreover, the content of the New Revelation by far exceeds the educational horizon of the writer. Although Jakob Lorber was intelligent and not uneducated in higher spiritual matters, he had mastered some Latin and had completed an education as a secondary school teacher, he did not receive a higher education. The New Revelation is a work that provides material for whole generations of researchers. It is theologically and philosophically consistent in itself, contains a grandiose view of the world that goes far beyond the ideas of the 19th century, describes a multitude of people, explains things from all kinds of fields of knowledge. To write a work such as the New Revelation, Jakob Lorber would have had to be far more than a 19th century Leonardo da Vinci. In fact, however, he was a simple man who was only talented in music. He did not even have a library of scholarly and highly intellectual writings. After his vocation he hardly read at all any more. He had not traveled much either. However, the New Revelation contains detailed information on the history and geography of many places in the world. The way in which the New Revelation is written in one go is also a clear indication of a dictation, and not of the work of an author: there are no drafts, revisions, amendments and deletions, only minor orthographic corrections. In addition, the works were often revealed in parallel, so Jakob Lorber would have had to work on several works at the same time. In short: To accept Jakob Lorber as the author and not only the scribe of the New Revelation is outright unscientific.

The assumption that Jakob Lorber only imagined his inner voice, because he may have suffered from schizophrenia, is unacceptable, because no mentally ill person is capable of creating a coherent work such as the New Revelation. The Protestant theologian Hellmut von Schweinitz wrote:"To dismiss the phenomenon of Lorber with the interpretation of depth psychology is not a convincing explanation. For what comes to the surface of consciousness in his writings are realizations that cannot come from the sphere of his limited human knowledge. A human life would not suffice for their appropriation and all creative imagination would not suffice... Nor can the life's work of Lorber be explained by philosophical or theological speculation. As with all prophetic phenomena, there remains an inexplicable remainder." What can be questioned with a certain justification is the assumption and statement of Jakob Lorber that the New Revelation had been dictated to him by God or Jesus Christ or an angel of God.

So there was another intelligence, a spirit that spoke to Jakob Lorber. We have two ways to judge the nature and essence of the spirit of Jakob Lorber: How did the spirit treated his instrument and what are his statements? The following can be said about the first question that Jakob Lorber was treated well and fairly and dearly loved the one who spoke to him. His only complaint was to be kept too short in existential matters. To live a life like the lilies of the field and the birds of heaven has not exactly pleased the apostles of Jesus either. The statements of the New Revelation also bear witness to the goodness and kindness of the author, who continually reveals himself as Jesus Christ and God the Father, and in accordance with the Gospel asks for love of God and love of neighbor. If an evil intelligence had spoken to Jakob Lorber, he would certainly not have loved him in view of his good lifestyle, but would have fought against him. Nor would an evil spirit call us to love God and neighbor. The reproaches that Satan or any other devil would have spoken to Jakob Lorber are without any objectivity, even if one assumes that Satan had dressed up as God or angel in order to mislead Jakob Lorber and his friends. Through the New Revelation many people have already found faith, Jesus and God. If such is the work of the devil, then at most in the eyes of determined enemies of God.

The book Robert Blum (2.261.5) states that the New Revelation was dictated by an angel to Jakob Lorber. It is quite common for God to be represented by an angel. The Old Testament already provides testimonies on this several times, and the revelation of John in the New Testament is also given by an angel as the Word of God. Which angel it was who spoke to Jakob Lorber can only be assumed. The transmitter of the New Revelation was probably Archangel Raphael. He occurs remarkably often in the later works of the New Revelation, moreover, the healing of the soul through the awakening of the divine spirit in it is a determining theme of the New Revelation. Raphael is known as the angel of healing, his name means "God heals (the soul)". Now our angel has imparted the New Revelation, but in some cases he used already existing heavenly books. The fact that there are also writings in heaven is confirmed by the Bible in Ezekiel 2:9 and Revelation 5:1, so we can only conditionally regard Raphael as the author of the New Revelation. What is more apt is the statement that the New Revelation itself makes, namely that it was given by Jesus Christ, whereby one could also say that it descended from heaven. Nevertheless, it remains a question of faith, of course, whether God or Jesus spoke in Jakob Lorber. And this is also in the sense of the New Revelation, which does not want to force anyone to accept it. It provides many clues which are quite clear, but not compelling evidence. The freedom of the human being is completely preserved.

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