Short of our own death or near-death experience, what better way to get an intimate taste of the afterlife than a reliable first-hand report by someone who’s died and gotten settled in on the other side… especially someone who happened to be among the most gifted and recognized 19^th-Century authors. In the spring of 1994, Maggy Fischbach of Luxembourg, while preparing a presentation for a congress in Paris, received a three-page fax from Jules Verne, via the Timestream sending station on the third level of spirit (translated from French to English by Greta Avedisian):

It is not without emotion that I am writing these few lines, destined, from what I have just been told, to be presented at the time of a conference in my homeland — France — as well as in Paris where I was, if my memories serve me right, for the final time in the winter of 1896-97, nearly one hundred years ago, according to your calculation of time.

Permit me first to present myself: my name is Jules Verne, and I suppose it is not unknown to you, since it already had a certain golden glow at the time I was living. Indeed, and as strange as this might seem to you, I am good and dead, and yet as alive as you are, if not moreso.

I here state: deaf in the left ear, practically blind and cardiac, with a defective stomach and suffering from rheumatism, with acute gout and diabetes, I was startled to find myself, at the expiration of my earthly life on the 24th of march, 1905, transported from my domicile at six Boulevard Longueville, as it were, without warning and without my being exactly able to describe the circumstances, towards a place that was totally strange to me.

This picture, delivered by spirit group Timestream to the Luxembourg computer of Maggy Fischbach some weeks after this letter was received, shows in great detail the palace in the astral worlds where Jules Verne awakened after his death in 1905.

I suddenly realized with amazement that I no longer had pain — anywhere — and that my blindness had completely disappeared, which allowed me to observe, among other things, that I was in a sumptuous palace bringing to mind the splendid residences of the rajahs, with walls constructed not in sandstone but in resplendent white marble. The opulence of many mirrors reflected the blaze of the solid silver furniture. The mural paintings showed courtiers and girls who were dancing, and I noticed a pleasant freshness emanating from a number of little fountains surrounding luxuriant green plants. My hearing, now completely restored, finally permitted me once more to savor the melodious warble of the countless birds.

I then heard music so soft and sweet that I cried with joy. Slender, fine and exquisite creatures, reminding me of my Honorine when she still possessed all the beauty and freshness of her youth, and who, molded in their orange and blue silk garments which contrasted with their tanned skin, invited me to sit upon the soft pillows and inquired as to my desires and wishes.

They spoke to me in a language that up until then I had never heard but, strangely, I understood immediately — and I was even able to answer them in the same idiom. (It was only later that I was informed that it was the “Language of the River” that each one acquires as soon as one arrives here.)

For a long time I thought I was dreaming, and it was only after weeks and months — which somehow seemed to me to pass like the flight of swallows — that I finally understood that I was deceased.

This image of Jules Verne was received from Timestream within weeks of the letter. “What I can see here far exceeds any fiction that I could produce! – March 17, 1994”

Naturally I searched for friends and acquaintances who were with me during my earthly life. Not one of the Hetzels, nor my dear parents Sophie and Pierre were, unfortunately, known in the palace nor in the agglomerations situated in the clearings of the majestic forests that surrounded my new domicile. I never saw a gardener touch or trim these trees or shrubs which gracefully seemed to adjust their spacing themselves. It even seemed to me that they themselves destroyed the weeds surrounding them by the generations of some enzyme that dissolved the matter and produced some sort of compost.

But I’m getting lost in details, a character trait I have in common with Dickens and Balzac, my favorite authors.

Alas! All beauty, even that which I discovered in Kwapore — for that is what my new home was named — ends in numbing the soul, and perfection is often the symbol of stagnation.

It is only recently that I have gotten wind of the existence of the group Timestream, and still only due to chance: one of the many passing travelers at Kwapore and with whom I was conversing on a gentle night of the full moon on terrace decked with “Jalis,” a certain Arthur Moos, a handsome man with thoughtful face, confided to me — his tongue no doubt loosened by the dry wine accompanying the slices of marrow of a fish with pale pink flesh — confided that he had quit the group of researchers in transcommunication (the word was new to me) because he was embarrassed by some sort of blunder made by his wife, still on earth. He now wandered and searched through the valley of the river, poor wretch, in search of a new hearth. This Arthur reports that my nephew Gaston, son of my dear brother Paul, joined this group in contact with Luxembourg. (the poor boy had spent a few years in a nursing home there where he had “died” in the course of one of the great wars that, I am told, had ravaged Europe after 1910.)

Three companions who were with me at the table and with whom I had formed a bond during those long years spent in the palace, had likewise heard of him: two Englishmen who both had died in London — one a Nathanael Wopping having perished at the time of the great fire of 1666 and the other James Smurl, dying of a hemorrhage during the bombardments of a world war. The third was an Indian who claimed to be the former Rajah of Bikaner, but it would be difficult for me to say if it is true or not. In any case, if he is not of princely descent, he possesses the manners and the style.

A fascinating air voyage brought all four of us here (this time the experiment with the “giant” balloon succeeded!) to be beside the beautiful Swejen and her colleagues of Timestream. 

So here I am, my French friends — and others of course — ready to attempt the experiment to establish a bridge between our world and you, the French researchers.
Be assured: I am in good company. Among throngs of others, Michel Kisacanin, the grandfather of (French experimenter) Monique Simonet as well as the ex-marshal Sebastiano Porta, already involved in this work before my arrival, are all of valuable help to me. (note to Father [Francois] Brune: I am going to buckle up like a Breton.)

My first message has become long and I know it, but it is a vice I share with another new friend here — Konrad Lorenz. He too never knows when to quit!

Jules Verne

– – –

Some details in this letter can be verified easily online, while the less familiar facts and names would take extensive research to verify… which to my knowledge has not yet been done.

In the coming days I plan to publish another fascinating afterlife report from Arthur Moos, whom Jules Verne mentions in his letter.

Other posts in the “Human Story” series:
1 – From the Source of All-That-Is
2 – Physical Life and Spiritual Life
3 – An Ancient Timeline
4 – The Edenites and Their Descendants
5 – The Seven Ethereals
6 – The Afterlife Eden
7 – The Afterlife of Jules Verne
8 – The Afterlife of Arthur Moos
9 – The Afterlife of Sir Richard F Burton
10 – The Afterlife of Anne de Guigné
11 – Afterlife Wrap-Up
12 – Atlantis and the First Epoch
13 – Thoth the Atlantean
14 – Modern Civilization Sprouted from Ancient Pyramids
15 – Hands that Caress and Strangle the World
16 – End of Story, End of Times