1938-1941: Revision of the Grail Message, final authorised edition

Chapter 04

Already at the end of 1938, Abd-ru-shin began classifying his lectures. In the years 1939 to 1941, he arranged his entire work in the manner described by Irmingard Bernhardt in her Declaration of 15 May 1956.

The transcript of the Declaration before the District Court in Schwaz:

The Grail Message was revised by its author himself, Mr Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, in the years 1939 to 1941.

In September 1938 we – Mr Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, his wife Mrs. Maria Bernhardt, my brother Alexander and I – were banished by the Gestapo to Schlauroth near Görlitz. In March 1939 with the permission of the Gestapo, we relocated to the spa town Kipsdorf in the Erz mountains. In that year Mr Oskar Ernst Bernhardt began revising the Grail Message. At the end of May 1941 the revised manuscript was ready for printing.

The revisions were based on different kinds of changes. In part it involved the correction of punctuation marks, the shifting around of words, and the deletion or shortening of entire sentences or paragraphs, that contained the repetition of concepts, which had already been expressed in prior sentences or paragraphs.

However, he also deleted words, sentences, as well as entire pages, if he was of the view that the reader would simply not understand the concepts given in them. His experience of the last few years before his departure was decisive for this opinion.

Oskar Ernst Bernhardt undertook the corrections by writing his references, carrying out cancellations and making notes where he desired alterations or amendments, with a pencil in a copy of the Grail Message designated for this purpose. He wrote these alterations and amendments, respectively, on a special sheet of paper. I then transcribed these pencilled notes with a typewriter onto strips of paper, because there was the risk that they would fade easily and become illegible, erased the corresponding writing in pencil, in the alteration copy of the Grail Message, and inserted the typewritten strips by pasting them. I pasted over the pages of the Grail Message from which larger paragraphs had been deleted, as far as the deletions went, or I completely rewrote the page in the new version with the typewriter and pasted in the new page.

Since the sequence of the lectures was also changed, it would happen that a lecture would have to be taken out of the sequence and inserted in another place.

I carried out all changes exactly in accordance with the instructions of the author of the Grail Message. He checked every change.

These proceedings are the reason that only a few manuscript pages with the handwritten changes of Mr Oskar Ernst Bernhardt still exist.

Vomperberg, 15 May 1956
Irmingard Bernhardt

In the Grail Message final authorised edition Volume I, Abd-ru-shin inserted mainly those lectures in the sequence of the 1931 edition, that appeared in the periodical Die Stimme in the year 1937, though not in the order of their appearance. This concerned the lectures Cult, Rigidity, Childlikeness, The First Step, Salvation! Redemption! and The Language of the Lord.

The lecture The mystery of the blood from Booklet I followed in Volume III between The physical body and Temperament.

Lectures from Reverberations of the Grail Message Volume I, and from the collection of individual lectures, were also included in this first volume.

Some of the titles were changed for this. Thus the lecture A final word appeared as A necessary word, the lecture The Last Judgement received the title The World, and The call for the Leader was named The call for the Helper (the concept of leader had been degraded through its use by the National Socialists).

The second volume of the Grail Message in the final authorised edition predominantly contained lectures from the 1931 edition that had been revised in the manner described by Irmingard Bernhardt. The lectures The Son of God and the Son of Man and Called were no longer accepted by Abd-ru-shin for publication and were dispensed with, as was the lecture And thus it was fulfilled …! and Closing words. The lecture Life, from the annex, concluded Volume II.

Volume III contained those lectures from Reverberations of the Grail Message Volume I and from the collection of individual lectures, that Abd-ru-shin had selected for further publication.

Also the lecture The mystery of the blood from Booklet 1 of The Voice was inserted here. The lecture Whoever does not wish to know my word … appeared under the title The name. The epilogue How the Message is to be absorbed concluded Volume III.

Five lectures from Reverberations of the Grail Message Volume I and four lectures from the collection of individual lectures were not inserted in the Grail Message Volumes I, II, and III. These were the lecture, The necessary balance, Jesus and Imanuel, Christmas (not identical with the lecture Christmas in Volume III of the final authorised edition), The sounds of Christmas vibrate warningly through the universe, I send you!, The gate is opened!, The wound, New Year 1935 and The sacrifice.