Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/1874b

1874b Immortality of the soul....

April 4, 1941: Book 28

The construction of a human being always requires the same components: body, soul and spirit. The body.... the external form.... performs the functions which are determined by the soul. Consequently the body is just the agent through which the soul's will is accomplished. At the moment of death the soul no longer needs an agent for service as it did on earth.... i.e. in the visible work of creation.... because it changes its environment and moves into regions where nothing externally visible needs to be done. The body, which was just the instrument for the earthly path during which the soul should have formed itself into the carrier of the divine spirit, becomes unnecessary.

The spirit, the third component of the living being, lies in fact dormant in every human being and only becomes active when the will of the soul pays more attention to the spirit than to the body, that is, when the soul considers the earthly demands less important than the demands of the spirit, which always amounts to earthly needs becoming secondary. Although body, soul and spirit belong together they nevertheless can have separate goals. The soul can direct its will more towards the demands of the body, but it can also disregard those and make its will available to the spirit within itself. And it is precisely this direction of will that decides its life in the beyond, i.e. the state the soul finds itself in after the earthly life, which can be blissful or distressing. The earthly life, the function of the body, is therefore just a temporary condition for the soul. The soul impels the body to all actions on earth but it has by no means ceased to exist when the body cannot perform its function any longer. The soul has indeed left the body because it moves into regions where it no longer requires an exterior form.

But to consider the soul dead as well would be a completely wrong concept of its essence.... because the soul is something that cannot pass away. Indeed, when the human body is dead the soul can no longer determine it's functions; it can, due to a lack of maturity because it had not given enough consideration to the spirit within itself, also fall into a state of inactivity; but it can never 'cease to exist'. Because the soul is something spiritual that is everlasting, while the body consists of earthly substance, of matter, and is therefore subject to constant change and finally disintegrates into its components as soon as the soul has left the body....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna