Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/3192

3192 Scrutiny of spiritual results by worldly researchers....

July 18, 1944: Book 42

Worldly acquired knowledge is not sufficient in order to act as a spiritual teacher. And therefore people cannot be called upon for scrutiny or clarification of spiritual scriptures or results if they only possess purely worldly knowledge and then entirely rationally try to ascertain what kind of value should be attached to these spiritual results. Such intended dissemination will always be unsuccessful, because spiritual knowledge can only be gained under certain preconditions, but without knowledge such scrutiny is not possible. However, if these preconditions are met on part of the examiners, then the same preconditions apply again to those who are interested in the results of the scrutiny. These preconditions are: sincere striving for God, for truth and for living a way of life according to divine will, for a life of love.... In that case, however, the human being need no longer investigate but God Himself will guide him into truth.... He will not need earthly knowledge and will still become knowledgeable, the spiritual sphere will be normal and familiar to him, he will not consider it outlandish as a critic and researcher; instead, he will live in this kingdom himself which will no longer belong to the material world but will be purely spiritual. Anyone who wants to investigate the spiritual kingdom can only do so if he completely hands himself over to God and puts the world second. But anyone who purely scientifically tries to examine spiritual subjects as a matter of worldly striving will not come to any results; the area will remain unfamiliar to him, he will purely gather existing results but never provide a truthful explanation because he lacks all conviction himself, which he can only gain by seriously striving for truth without any material or worldly interests. For this reason the world will be unable to employ teachers who research occult fields and pass on their knowledge, for this would be a purely intellectual activity without involving the heart. But spiritual areas can only be investigated by way of the heart. Although the intellect is not entirely excluded, the mental knowledge is conveyed to him from the heart, and this activity of heart requires great love, which not every worldly researcher has. If people therefore believe that they can scientifically fathom knowledge which originates from God, they will always have to take incorrect results into account, for the divine truth, the knowledge about spiritual things, is not a commodity which everyone can lay claim to who does not pay the correct purchase price for it....

God truly will not deny it to any person, yet the striving for God, for highest realisation, for perfection, must drive the person to obtain this knowledge. Then people will be able to achieve greatest success if they pass the gained knowledge on to their fellow human beings with the same aspiration to help them attain maturity of soul. God will always and forever remain the Provider of truth, and God looks into the hearts of people who strive towards it and distributes His gifts of grace according to worthiness and desire.... His spirit descends upon those who love Him and strive to live according to His will. Consequently, these conditions must have been fulfilled first before the human spirit can become enlightened and clearly recognise the correlation between the eternal Deity, Creation and the living beings, and thus can derive knowledge from it which he can also advocate as truth and pass on to his fellow human beings. But such a person will not pursue earthly goals; he will not try to acquire earthly success, honour and fame through his knowledge but only conduct spiritual research for the sake of the pure truth, and if he wants to pass it on to his fellow human being then only as a result of an inner urge to also give him the happiness he does not yet possess. However, the worldly interested investigator will never ever attain the right realisation.... His result will always remain patchwork, he will add to already existing mental knowledge, he will intellectually try to find a connection and he will be mistaken as long as he does not have God as a teacher, but He will not enlighten him as long as he still belongs to the world. For the spiritual kingdom is subject to laws which are impossible for the beings of light to violate, but which they do not want to violate either since their will acts entirely in accordance with divine will. The laws must be complied with both by the Giver as well as the taker, and one of these laws is: Nothing can be achieved without God but everything with Him.... God, however, is love.... Subsequently, someone who wants to be taught by God must strive towards Him with all senses, and to strive towards God means to be active with love. Hence it will never ever be possible to penetrate the truth without love.... And if the worldly investigator is not lovingly active, his thoughts cannot correspond to truth either, because it contradicts the divine law, the requirements God expects of a person and which he must first meet without fail, before the pure truth can be offered to him. And even if he comes across this pure truth in his research, if he scrutinises the knowledge that was conveyed to devout people through God's love.... he will not recognise it as truth, because his thinking is still clouded by the influences of the enemy of truth, to whom he grants power over himself through his lack of love.

God is Truth, and only through love can it be found. Even if the human being searches and investigates incessantly, he will not reach the goal by intellectual means and will therefore also be completely incapable of offering truthful results to his fellow human beings. His points of view will not be convincing and will give rise to doubts and arguments as soon as they form a serious opinion of them. Conclusions can certainly be drawn from existing spiritual information, so that a spiritual kingdom, the activity of spiritual beings, cannot be denied; nevertheless, in order to penetrate the spiritual realm, the knowledge of it is not enough if the preconditions are not in place which allow the human being's soul to enter the spiritual realm. This sphere can therefore never ever become the subject of worldly research, and worldly research is everything that is approached without heartfelt devotion to God, without unselfish acts of love in order to gain possession of the truth, in order to explain a field so that it will be completely clear to humanity and on which a solid teaching can be based, so that therefore the gained knowledge can be structured in a way so that it is accessible to humanity and enriches its knowledge. This will never be possible, for the spiritual kingdom remains closed to those who do not seek God deep within their heart and testify to this through their love for Him and their neighbour....

Amen

Translated by Heidi Hanna