Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/4466

4466 Influence of matter on humans....

October 21, 1948: Book 52

Directed matter exerts great influence on the human being insofar as the spiritual bound in it urges him to unite with it, which therefore has the effect of the human being's desire for its possession. The spiritual bound in matter pushes itself into the human being's love.... it seeks to make itself indispensable to him, it strives to unite with the human being because it thereby feels stronger in its resistance against God. For it also senses the resistance the human being still has against God, or it pushes towards people who still resist God in their immaturity. And these people are also easily influenced. They themselves have the greatest desire for matter, and thus like-minded things come together which are only on different levels of development. But the human being is in danger of sinking from his already higher level of development if he chains himself to matter, which is why he cannot be warned enough to strive for matter and is constantly admonished to overcome it. The spiritual in matter can indeed also be willing to serve and help the human being in his ascent development, just as conversely the human being can help the spiritual bound in matter to ascend. But then it concerns objects of use which do not kindle the human being's greed for possession, thus do not awaken the wrong love in the human being for material possessions. As soon as matter serves the human being the resistance against God is already broken; but matter which does not fulfil a serving purpose will often awaken an increased desire in the human being to possess it, and it is this matter which is regarded as a danger for the human being's soul, for its influence on the soul is great and can have such an effect that the soul itself sinks to the stage where it is embodied in matter again. Then the bound spiritual has achieved what it wanted.... it has drawn the free spiritual down to itself and, as it were, strengthened its own power.... the human being has fallen prey to the influence of God's adversary, who has influenced his will to use it in the wrong direction, who constantly presents dead matter to him in order to persuade him to relapse, because thereby he increases his kingdom, his power and violence and it stimulates the God-hostile beings into constant resistance. What turns towards God is lost to him, and this he tries to thwart with all means. Matter itself, i.e. the spiritual bound in it, is still in bondage to him in its immaturity, although God's adversary cannot have a determining effect on the spiritual. But since the spiritual itself has not given up its resistance to God, it also pushes towards people who are in the same resistance, who are pointed to matter by God's adversary, to whom he puts matter before the eye as a lure of the world. The human being can evade this influence or resist it with his will, yet he often uses the freedom of his will wrongly and gives in to the urge of the enemy of his soul. For this reason the battle against matter is the actual battle the human being should wage in earthly life, for once he has overcome it his ascent is also assured, because then there will be nothing holding him back on earth and then his soul can soar into spiritual spheres, because then nothing will hinder its flight upwards and thus there will no longer be any danger, and at the same time the human being then helps the spiritual substance in matter to ascend, which he uses, and thereby helps it to be of service, whereby the spiritual substance in matter can release itself from every form until it has finally also reached the last stage and can serve as a human being in free will....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers