Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/1121

1121 Work of the spirit.... put to the test....

September 28, 1939: Book 20

People's spiritual state is still so confused and their thinking is far removed from true realization. And therefore it is very difficult to give them information about the working of the spirit in the human being, since they don't want to regocnize anything other than what visibly and tangibly appears to them. They completely exclude something from their thoughts, so to speak, which, however, only results in the right solution, and thus it is impossible to explain to them the working of that which, according to their concept, does not exist at all. And it is equally impossible to convince people of the existence of the spirit, since again nothing external points to it, but everything spiritual is only spiritually perceptible or noticeable. The realist demands proof and wants everything to be justified purely factually. A factual justification.... however, proof of the existence of the divine spirit in man would only be possible in such a way that a test on the example would be made.... that man would declare himself ready to fulfil all preconditions for the awakening of the divine spirit.... then he would experience the credibility of this in himself.... Instead, the person who believes to be all too profound rejects the experience of the other and remains spiritually blind. An inner life of the soul is alien to him, external life completely occupies him and his thinking, and his spirit slumbers in the deepest envelope and cannot free itself from it. And almost nothing can bring about a change in such thinking. He who cultivates spiritual thinking is ridiculed, and one is so foolish as to regard one's own wrong thinking as the only right one, and that one mocks and criticizes the world. Even where the endeavour is to lead people to God the same blind state of mind can be found, for even their thinking is too earthly, although the will is good.... yet they lack the depth of faith, for this has to be developed in each person himself and cannot be taught from person to person in a scholastic way.... (interruption)

Translated by Doris Boekers