The Harvest

by John David Krygelski

  “The soul…my offspring…provided and continues to provide, the overview…the larger picture, not just of life on Earth but of a connection to the entire universe. It is that view, that connection, which makes ethics and morality much more than just another set of concepts. They become a necessary part of life. A person who is in tune with his or her soul will react ethically and morally to all situations, even though the outcome may prove to be detrimental. This same person will also act ethically and morally when his or her actions will never be known by another person, even if temporarily suspending these standards could bring much gain.”

  “Is that the case because the soul is aware You are watching?”

  “No.” Elohim paused and grinned. “At least I don’t believe so. I do grant I may be as guilty of parental blindness as you, but I believe what I describe is the case because the soul and the body, when they are truly connected and profoundly influenced by each other, recognize the critical essentialness of those two traits, an importance which transcends the self.”

  “Then what happens? Why isn’t everyone like this?”

  “At last we have returned to your original question. Why can I not make all people worthy of Heaven? I believe you now grasp the variables and the forces at play. The joining of each identical soul with each unique person results in a lifetime of negotiation and compromise between them. The temporal, sensual world is a powerful influence. The soul is a subtle force. All too often the wrong path is chosen. Add to this the pervasive and, at times, malignant influence of Lucifer. His learned resentment of his lot and his acquired hatred of me have transcended to a hatred of all that is mine, including my children. It is his eternal quest to divert as many of my children from the path of Heaven as he is able. He is driven by that impulse as well as the desire to feel, to see, to hear, to taste, and to smell as much as is possible through the bodies of men and women.

  “I have already told you that both entities are changed by the intimate combination of the body and the soul. The farther from the path the body strays, so it takes the soul, tainting it, changing it, corrupting it, and occasionally destroying it.”

  “A soul can be destroyed?”

  “In a sense, yes. Energy is never lost. That is a true rule of the universe. However, it can change. As you have seen with your own eyes, it can change from its initial state to become matter. Existing within a body, contributing to the process of the body’s life, it is gradually dissipated. Without a steady supply of new energy, it is weakened. Lucifer understands this. He knows that if he can encourage a person to squander energy in a never-ending search for gratification, that soul becomes weak. The weakened soul can be replenished, recharged by the reservoir of energy to which he has access, rather than the energy it would take from its own body. This recharge is offered freely by Lucifer. Accepting his offer provides the person with an easy source for replenishment and the freedom to pursue his or her chosen lifestyle.

  “What the person does not realize is that this bargain has a great cost. If the soul is recharged enough by Lucifer, by the single polarity which is all he has to offer, the soul loses its balance and becomes as is he – a pure negative energy.”

  “Which cannot ever be allowed into Heaven,” Reese said.

  “Yes.”

  “So what we always thought was a metaphorical battle between good and evil has its roots in physics?”

  “That is true. And these lost souls, those who have become negatively charged and unable to join their kin in Heaven, are destined to remain on Earth.”

  “What happens to a lost soul when its body dies?”

  “As the soul remains without benefit of the sensory input it so craves, it struggles to regain this input through others. It will, in fact, attempt to replace the soul of a newly born child with itself.”

  “Can it do that?”

  “It can and does, all too frequently.”

  “So the child begins its life with a soul linked to Lucifer? Barred from Heaven from its first day?”

  “Although your statements are essentially accurate, the outcome is not completely hopeless. The child does begin its life with a purely negative soul and therefore faces far greater difficulty in returning to the balance, to a point where entrance to Heaven is physically possible. The option to embrace the negative is always present for the child, always urging him or her to remain in that realm. However, a few, albeit very few, have found the strength and have been fortunate enough to find the guidance to persevere. Those few have been an immeasurable joy for me.”

  “These recoveries are rare?”

  “They are quite rare, unfortunately.”

  “I just want to make sure I have an accurate picture in my mind. You come down here periodically and skim off the good, taking them to Heaven. The bad or the negative, who are influenced by Lucifer, must remain. Either they are still alive and being bad, or their bodies have died, in which case either they are trying to kick out our souls and take us over or, at the very least, they are constantly attempting to live through us vicariously, trying to lead the rest of us down the same road to ruin. And the longer this goes on, the more of them accumulate here until pretty soon we’re up to our eyeballs in badness.”

  Reese expected his summation to elicit a chuckle or at least a grin. Instead, it was met with a somber expression from Elohim.

  “Does that about sum it up?”

  “Yes, Reese, I’m afraid it nearly does. The only exception I would take to your description is the timetable.”

  “You mean it isn’t pretty soon. It’s going to take more time?”

  “The opposite, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re saying our time is up?”

  “At the risk of becoming melodramatic, I would say that your ‘pretty soon’ has arrived.”

  Reese slowly dropped back into his chair. Studying Elohim’s face, he saw worry and sadness. “What does it mean?”

  Elohim, appearing uncomfortable with his response, spoke slowly and softly. “I don’t know. As I have said many times, this entire construct was created and nurtured to encourage free will, unpredictability. What I can tell you is that it has become harder for those who wish to join me in Heaven to reach their goal.”

  “How many are there around us? The negative souls?”

  “In my presence, none. They avoid me.”

  “Why is that? Are You a pure positive energy, like the angels? Would being near You destroy them?”

  “No, my spiritual being is in balance, as is yours. Were this not so, I could not have created Lucifer, and I could not create each new balanced soul. I do not know why they avoid me. However, they are constantly surrounding others. As we speak, just in the room where Claire and your children are, there are twenty such souls, tirelessly testing and probing, incessantly seeking access.”

  As Elohim described this scene, a shiver ran up Reese’s spine. He felt an urgent need to leave Elohim, to join his family and somehow protect them.

  Reading his thoughts, Elohim said, “There is nothing you can do. Nor is there anything which needs to be done. Your loved ones are strong. They have been tested from their births and have never once allowed an incursion into their beings.”

  “Can we sense them?”

  “Yes, you can. Have you not noticed the peace you feel in my presence? I am not the source of that feeling. It is the absence of them.”

  “I have felt it, as have the others. It’s strange because the only other occasions when I have felt anything similar were at certain times in certain churches in my past.”

  “You said ‘certain churches’ and I know of what you speak. Not all of the holy places are filled with the holy, and the various faiths have much work to do to remedy this. However, in the ones which are, the stranded souls do not enter. This is true of a Catholic church, a Jewish temple, or the houses of many of the other faiths, so long as the very beings of those who fill them are good.”

  Reese continued his attempt to read the impassive face o
f Elohim. Finally, he asked, “What’s next?”

  “I am afraid the remaining good are soon to be overwhelmed. I do not know this for certain, yet I fear it to be true. The day may be upon mankind where a turning point has been reached, where the forces of evil, of bad, of the negative are too strong, too pervasive to resist.”

  Elohim finished his thought and lapsed into silence, uninterrupted by Reese. Both gazed off to the side with unfocused stares, trying to visualize the future. After several minutes, Reese broke the quiet by asking, “This seems to be such a strange question to be asking You, but isn’t there anything You can do?”

  Distracted from his reverie, Elohim’s blue eyes again focused on Reese. “Do you ask me if there is anything I can do or anything I am willing to do?”

  Understanding the profound significance of the question, Reese said, “Let’s start with ‘can’ do. I mean, let’s go down the list. At this point, let’s not rule anything out – for the purpose of the discussion, anyway. Can the others be removed from Earth?”

  “Of course. That is within the realm of the possible. In fact, I have tried that in the past.”

  “What happened?”

  “They returned. They are energy forms, not confined by gravity or locale. They simply migrated back to Earth.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “It is their home. This is also where they can find people whom they so desperately need. No, the only way to disperse them throughout the universe would be to destroy the Earth, which I am also capable of doing.”

  “I don’t think that would be a solution.”

  “We are in agreement on that point.”

  “Can they be destroyed?”

  “Again, remember, no energy can simply be destroyed.”

  “But what about what happened to Lynn Sheffield? That surely looked as though his soul was destroyed.”

  “My dear angel, Michael, deliberately removed Sheffield’s soul from the body. Although Sheffield traveled the wrong path, his soul had not reached the level of purely negative. Michael’s positive essence absorbed the remaining positive and neutralized the negative at some expense to Michael himself.”

  “I still don’t understand the difference between destroyed and neutralized.”

  “Destroyed is just that…something existed, and now it does not. Matter, which is higher on the ladder than energy, is destroyed by breaking it down into its constituent parts. If you burn a piece of wood, you are merely converting it into other materials and releasing some of its energy. All of the things which made it wood still exist, yet the wood itself does not. There are no constituent parts of energy. It is the basis for all things in the universe. The positive energy which is my angels and the negative energy which is Lucifer cannot simply go away. If the Archangel Michael, to remain with our example, were to confront Lucifer in person, he would simply be absorbed by Lucifer, for Lucifer’s energy is far greater.”

  “You mentioned the discomfort Michael felt when he absorbed Sheffield’s soul?”

  “It is a difficult concept to describe to a biological being. But, just as there is a violent arc between a positive electric charge and a negative one, the collision between Lucifer and Michael would create a massive disruption within Michael, the closest an energy being can come to personally feeling pain without the aid of a human body. Lucifer would also be weakened because strength of energy is best visualized as its distance from neutral. The more purely positive or negative the energy, the stronger it is. A conflict with Michael would bring Lucifer closer to the neutral status.”

  “How did Lucifer become so much stronger than the angels?”

  “It is their love for me, as well as for mankind, which through the ages has caused the angels to share their energy…their strength, just as parents will willingly give their own strength to their children – as parents literally do.”

  “Literally?”

  “Yes. Loving fathers and mothers not only nurture their children, they freely transfer their own strength, their own energy, to them – a transaction which is occasionally, though not frequently, reciprocated.”

  “We weaken ourselves?”

  “Yes. Lovingly and with an open heart. The absence of reciprocity is not always due to the children not also loving the parents, but rather, at the point where the children can begin to return this strength, it is demanded by a new family of their own. Such is the case for my angels. There has not yet been a single day when mankind has not needed their strength, their energy. And, throughout thousands of years, as my beloved angels have been giving of themselves so freely, Lucifer has never once given of his own energy. He has always taken. The negative energy he uses as a lure for the new converts is taken from others who are already hopelessly within his camp. Much of the strength needed by man…given to man by the angels…was strength sapped by Lucifer. So we are now at a point where Lucifer has usurped the strength, the energy, and the power from many, leaving my angels far weaker than they once were. It is at that point where I now find myself.”

  The sadness from Elohim was palpable, washing over Reese like waves. Elohim’s eyes once again diverted away, lost in an unspoken vision, and Reese felt himself slipping into a profound depression.

  Forcing his mind clear, Reese said, “It is quite a paradox. In many ways, You have put into motion a situation You no longer control.”

  Without looking up, Elohim answered, “I have. My dream for a family, not realized without the creation of mankind, is now fouled by the very seeds which I planted. When we earlier discussed the attributes which you crave in your God, I told you it was your wish for God to be filled with the very emotions you have sought to control within yourself.”

  “I remember. I’m still not sure I agree.”

  “Nor am I certain you should. It may be that you are right. The dilemma from which I suffer today was caused by the decisions made from those emotions. I knew intellectually that not neutralizing Lucifer was a mistake. My own pride, my own compassion, and my own love for my creation kept me from doing it when I could. Those same feelings, those same emotions, caused me to put him on this Earth when I could have banished him to a distant place before he became addicted to mankind. My emotions caused me to allow him to mingle and eventually begin to corrupt my beloved children on Earth. Had I not done this, he would have been nothing but another discreet energy form in the universe, rather than the blight upon humanity which he has become. Mankind…my own children are suffering, and the fault is mine.”

  Reese stared at Elohim, uncomfortably. These revelations, coming from Elohim, disturbed him deeply. To break the silence, he asked, “Why are You telling me this? Why me? Why now?”

  Once again Elohim’s eyes slowly raised to meet Reese’s. In a voice so soft it could barely be heard, Elohim answered, “Because I am afraid I am at a loss. Because I seek your counsel.”

  Reese was, again, staggered by Elohim’s comment. “You want my advice? Why me? You have the benefit of the thoughts of billions, the wisdom of the ages. Surely any conceivable idea I may have has paraded before You countless times.”

  With a dismissive wave of his hand, Elohim replied, “The vast majority of thoughts I have received from others are worse than a waste of time; they are tedium beyond description. Of the few whose minds are devoted to subjects more profound, the information is never on point. All which I have told you today is new to all of humankind and, as such, has not been the basis for scrutiny, analysis, and discussion. You must remember, all that happens on Earth is but a book to me. If the topic has not yet been written, there will be no thoughts from which I may gain insights.

  “You, my child, are indeed a rare combination. Your intellect is nearly beyond compare. Your personal experiences…in fact, the most intense of them…directly dealt with a very similar dilemma, a dilemma you resolved both cleverly and compassionately. Your chosen field of study is precisely the area we are now discussing. You have mastered the skill of balancing your emotional urges w
ith your intellectual conclusions, dismissing neither, nor being a slave to either – a skill I do not share.”

  “What of those who have joined You in Heaven? Certainly they must be aware of what’s happening, the direction we are going. Is there no wisdom within that pool which You may tap?”

  “Reese, would it be Heaven for you if, after you arrived, you spent your time immersed in the lives of the friends and relatives you left behind?”