Masks and Men (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

This wonderful novel in three parts has its very own place in the series of books which Jozef Rulof received mediumistically. This trilogy is not about ‘anything’ but about ‘everything’. It contains a compilation of themes from all the other books from the series and interweaves them in a rich mix of drama and spiritual knowledge. For a good understanding of the book it is advisable to first read most of the other books from the series. ‘Masks and Men’ was written by Frederik van Eeden from the Beyond. Van Eeden was a Dutch writer from the beginning of the twentieth century. When Frederik opened his spiritual eyes after his death, he saw and felt that he had not interpreted spiritual realities with his earthly books. His happiness was unspeakable when he was able to use his writer’s talent as a result of the mediumship of Jozef Rulof for writing this spiritual science trilogy. In ‘Masks and Men’ he analyses the masks which people like us are faced with. He lays down great life questions and looks at what answers the human being on earth has made up for himself. Then he goes into those answers without prejudice, and shows that they only form a superficial explanation of people who think they know something. All those answers are masks, behind which the human being on earth cannot look because he does not exceed his earthly reality. In order to look behind the masks we must first learn to think. The human being thinks that he can think, but usually that is only empty talk, chewing over what other people already thought. Real thinking demands a much greater effort and caution. In this trilogy Frederik shows us how we can really think. He teaches us look into one thought and to see where that thought comes from. Where and when that thought was born. Why we can or cannot believe that thought, or accept it for the truth. Frederik advises us to first throw all our ‘secure’ truths overboard, and then to see what life itself has to say to us. In this book he follows several pregnancies, births and the growing up of a mentally ill child: natural events which bear a university of knowledge within them for those who learn to see behind the masks. ‘Masks and Men’ was written as a spiritual novel. Every character of the compelling story is symbolic for certain characteristics of the human personality. The story has different layers of meaning. The reader who wants to know quickly what the writer means comes out of it deceived, because the trilogy has been carefully built up in spiralling revelations. The writer asks much time and patience of the reader, necessary factors in order to reach own feeling and thinking, separate from ‘established values’. The novel takes us into a multitude of actual life situations, in which the great questions of life demand an answer. The characters bring visions of the sciences, religions, and social thinking. Frederik invites the reader to study all the visions, and to compare them with the own original feeling in order to reach ‘knowledge’. The main character of the story formulates it as follows: ‘I want to carefully present proof, build my university stone by stone. I lay one layer after the other on the foundation, and you will see, I will make it like this!’