In her vision, Davis saw a proud and pleasure loving woman tormented in hell. The excerpts of what she saw are detailed below:
As I gazed aghast at these awful things, a spirit approached me and I recognised her. She was someone I had known on earth. On the outside she looked far more brilliant than she had been in the flesh. Her body, face, eyes and hands seemed to have a metallic lustre that changed with every movement and every thought.Marietta Davis’ vision was recorded in a book entitled Scenes Beyond the Grave. The excerpts above are from a plain English rewrite of book produced by Dennis and Nolene Prince.
“Marietta, we meet again. But,” and she paused and gazed at me, “I know that you will not stay here, as I must do. You can see that I am now a disembodied spirit. Everyone who inwardly denies the Saviour comes here when they die.
“I can see that strange feelings are stirring your heart. I felt the same! When I discovered where I was I looked and wondered. I was bewildered and anxious, but I also experienced something that you have not yet known. I have a deep sorrow inside that this brilliant exterior would love to hide," she went on quickly, “but I must tell you, I must warn you about it.”
She looked at me urgently. “My life on earth suddenly came to an end. As I left the world I travelled very quickly in the direction determined by my strongest desires. Inwardly I had always wanted to be pursued and honoured – to be flattered by everyone. I wanted to follow the perverted desires of my proud, rebellious and pleasure loving heart. I wanted pleasure without restraint, the freedom to fulfill any passion, to do anything I wanted to live in a world where there was no religion, no prayer, no Sunday church and no one to rebuke me when I did wrong. I wanted a place where all my time was spent in fast living, with no one to stop me.
“So I entered the spirit world with these attitudes and went to the place suited to them. I rushed to enjoy the glittering scenes that you can see and was welcomed straight away, for they could see that I was fit for this place. They did not welcome you because they could see that your underlying desires are quite different.
“I had a wonderful reception. They rushed to greet me and embrace me, shouting ‘Welcome! Welcome!’ I was amazed and confused, but nevertheless excited and energised by the atmosphere of the place. I found myself pulsating with a strange and restless power.
“A phosphorescent light was given off by every part of me. It concentrated about my head like a brilliant crown, and reflected on my face, giving it a wild unearthly glow. As I breathed out, my breath became like a robe that wrapped itself around me, making me look just like all of my companions here. I became aware that some strange force was spreading through my brain, absolutely possessing it.
“So I followed my impulses and abandoned myself to all the attractions around me. I set out to satisfy my cravings for pleasure. I partied. I joined the wild and sensuous dancing. I picked the shining fruit. I plunged into the rushing streams and gorged myself with everything that seemed to be delicious and inviting. But when I tasted these things 1 found they were repulsive and caused me more and more pain. The desires I have are so unnatural that the very things I crave for I detest, and the things I delight in torture me. It creates in me a strange addiction. My appetite is dulled, yet my hunger is not satisfied and cannot ever be satisfied.
“I crave for everything I set eyes on, but when I lay hold of these things I feel only disappointment and agony. With every new experience I feel some strange fantasy, hallucination and intoxication. Strange things happen all the time, and these give me more hallucinations and more fears.
“In myself I seem to have become a part of the whole scene here. I cannot stop myself from saying what everyone else is saying. I laugh and philosophise. I scoff, blaspheme and ridicule. Yet my every phrase, no matter how impure, is full of sparkling wit, glowing metaphors and clever persuasion.”
She gestured around her. “The waving trees, the shining fruit, the objects of gold, the moving phantoms, the deceiving waters - all these things present a dazzling picture, but they only mock me. Inwardly I crave to satisfy my hunger and thirst, but my desire creates a tantalising illusion of cool waters that I can never drink, of delicious fruits 1 can never taste, of refreshing air I can never feel, and peaceful sleep I can never enjoy. I am fully aware that these things around me are nothing but delusive fantasies, but they are a controlling power which dominates and confuses my mind with a cruel magic.
“I am continually attracted to evil. I am the slave of perverted and deceptive forces and the evil that controls them. My will is dying, and as it dies so does my hope of mental freedom. Instead I am becoming convinced that I am a fundamental part of this whole revolving fantasy.”
She looked at me, her eyes full of despair, and pointed around her. “This place, curtained off by that dark cloud, is one great sea of perversion and depravity. Here you will find lust and pride, hatred and greed, ambition and strife, love of self: blasphemies and mad partying. All of these things are here, fanned into a raging fire. If some particular evil is not the specialty of one spirit, there is always another to provide it, so that the total effect is the combination of all these evils. This is where I live and I am bound by it.”
She seized me by the arm and directed my attention to the groups of people milling around. “Here you will find those who exploited the poor, employers who robbed workers of their wages, others who put heavy burdens on the weary. Those who followed false religions are here, together with hypocrites, adulterers and murderers. So too are the suicides - those who were not satisfied with their lives and brought them to an end.
“If people only knew about the dark and awful night that they fall into when they die unprepared, they would try to postpone their death rather than hurry it up - no matter how great their troubles. They would act sensibly and improve their lives. Earth," she added, “is a place of testing for everyone.
She forced me to walk along a path off to the side. “Do you think life is full of grief on earth? Well here, no matter where you look, you find many more new reasons for gloom. Is your hope of finding happiness on earth fading? Well, all you will ever know in this place is unceasing, unsatisfied and unholy desire.”
She paused, a look of pain spreading across her face.
“Not only that, but your senses here are infinitely more acute. On earth there are sins that give your conscience a twinge. But here, those same sins penetrate into the very essence of our existence and the pain becomes a part of us. To compound that, the awareness of suffering and the ability to suffer are far greater here than they are on earth."
She stopped in front of me and looked me in the eye.
“Marietta, I feel it is futile to try to describe our deplorable condition. I often wonder, is there no hope? But I know the answer. How can disharmony live in the middle of harmony? When we were in the body we were warned about the consequences of our lifestyle, but we loved our own ways better than those which are good for us. Now we have fallen into this fearful place. We have caused our own sorrow.”
Her face twisted in pain as she reflected.
“God is just. He is good. We know that our suffering is not the result of a vindictive law of our Creator. Marietta, this misery we endure is brought about by our breaking the moral law. We should have followed it and we would have been safe. We would have lived in peace and wholeness.
“But sin!" she rasped. "You parent of endless troubles! You insidious enemy of peace and heaven! Why do mortals love your ways?”
At this point she fixed her eyes, wild with despair, upon me. I shrank from her awful glare and the torture revealed in her face. Turning around I noticed that many more of the hopeless beings had gathered around her, struggling to suppress their true feelings as they listened to her describing their sufferings. I was filled with horror and turned away to try to escape from her.
This seemed to make her grief even worse and she quickly spoke. “No Marietta, don't leave me. Can’t you bear it even for a short time - to see and hear about the things I am suffering? Stay with me, for I have to tell you more.” Her voice became even more urgent.
“You are shocked by these scenes, but let me tell you this. Everything you see around you is only the surface of even deeper woes. Marietta, there are no good and happy beings living with us. Everything is dark. Sometimes we dare to hope for redemption, still remembering the story of Redeeming Love. We ask the question: can that love penetrate this place of gloom and death? Is there any hope that we might be set free from these desires and urges that bind us like chains? Will we ever be released from these passions that burn like wildfire in this wretched world?”
Overcome by her feelings she began to sob and she did not speak to me again.
A PDF of the original old English version is available here:
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