Born near Maribor (now in Slovenia), Jakob Lorber (1800-64) trained as a teacher and for a while intended to become a priest, but in the end he decided to dedicate himself entirely to music. Greatly influenced by the violinist Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840), he composed various chamber music works in romantic style. He lived most of his life in Graz, Austria. Interested in spiritual matters, he read the works of various authors, including Jacob Bohme (1575-1624) and Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). He was still in bed, early on the morning of 15 March 1840, when he heard a voice order him: ‘Get up, take your pen and write!’ From then on, he dedicated the rest of his life to transcribing the revelation he received—as he asserted—from God Himself. These dictations covered about 10,000 pages. Some of his friends learned about them and eight volumes were published during his lifetime, although they received little mention. Lorber died without completing The Great Gospel of John, the missing chapters of which (making up the eleventh volume) would be revealed later by Leopold Engel (1858-1931), co-founder, with Theodor Reuss (1855-1923), of an Order of the Enlightened. On his deathbed, Lorber received the last sacraments from a Catholic priest: like Swedenborg, he never abandoned his Church of origin.
Lorber’s writings include various categories of texts. The Great Gospel of John was intended to complete the canonical Gospels, and takes the form of a detailed story of the life of Christ, narrated by Jesus Himself: ‘The time has come to show the true inner meaning of such texts to all who are worthy of participating in this knowledge,’ Jesus explains; God Himself delivers the complete version of the Gospels to mankind. Other teachings on human history develop the opening chapters of Genesis. Human history is an ascent through matter, starting from the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms. In truth, the creation was a result of the fall: in the end, even Lucifer—the fallen angel— will be able to return to the source. Another category of Lorber’s writings takes the form of the restitution of some allegedly lost early Christian texts. Lastly, there are a few works on the creation of the universe.
During the nineteenth century, there was significant interaction between Lorber’s readers and spiritualists. Lorber’s works were progressively published, thanks mainly to the support of an ardent reader—Gottfried Mayerhofer (1807-77)—who in turn received divine messages from the Inner Word. The spread of Lorber’s works was promoted in particular by a publishing house active in Bietigheim (Wurttemberg) for over a hundred years. Repressive measures during the Nazi period and World War II drastically interrupted the movement’s work: in 1935, there were between eighty and one hundred ‘Lorber circles’ in Germany, although the number dropped significantly after the war. According to a survey conducted by Matthias Pohlmann, in 1993 there were—in Germany—fourteen ‘Lorber circles,’ plus others active in other countries. The ‘Lorber circles’ do not regard themselves as a separate religious denomination, and do not require any break from original religious affiliations, even if occasionally—in some circles—the Last Supper is celebrated. As Kurt Hutten has noted, all sorts of groups are interested in Lorber, from practising Christians to believers in aliens, from vegetarians to fans of the occult. Moreover, with his model of the Inner Word, Lorber has become a role model for many subsequent revelations in the German-speaking world (Neuoffenbarungen).
