NEUOFFENBARUNGGod’s work through spirits (3 March 1847)
1. Therefore, if someone has understood the matter only a little, there can be no matter at all in the most actual sense, since matter itself is only an effect of the forces, which effect appears in a kind, condition and form, and just by this it can be recognized in itself that the acting forces do not work without intelligence; because wherever in a thing or in a being a certain form, kind and quality can be discovered, there also nobody can deny the intelligence of the force working in it.
2. Of course, a pious pilgrim, for instance to Maria-Zell, will make the remark and say: "Our dear Lord does all this; why should there be other intelligences? That is certainly quite right; for thus says the Lord: "Heaven and earth, and all that is in them, I have made, and – take note – still make; but if one goes too far with this making, then I would have to make many things in the world, which I have not actually made, and also do not make now; but have left such making to humans, so that they would also have something to do. Of course, they do it only with my power given to them, and I do it therefore indirectly, and that is also as much as if I had done it. But just as I let countless things be done by the hands of humans, I also let those things be done by the power of love and wisdom in My angels and spirits on earth, as well as on other world-bodies, which cannot be done by humans.
3. People can build houses and prepare clothes and make tools, but they cannot make matter. They cannot make grass, bushes or trees, and just as little an animal; but the thoroughly living spirits and angels can, because they are equipped for the purpose with that power out of Me, to be able to accomplish such things in My name.
4. But how individual intelligences can and do work in one and the same way, other intelligences again in another way, and all this under the direction of higher spirits, we want to show in several easily comprehensible examples as clear as day and tangibly.
5. Consider once a spider; in this little animal you will find two united intelligences. The first is the recognition of the food it likes; to use this food in itself for a double purpose, namely for the nourishment of it's animal being, and for the preparation of that sticky juice from which it spins it's web, that is just the one intelligence. The second intelligence is the spider's peculiar art of pulling the thread out of itself, attaching it to small hooks, and spinning, or rather weaving, a web, then covering this web with a pearly, sticky sap in order to catch those animals that give it new food. From this way of acting, everyone must see that the spider must obviously have an intelligence; and the intelligence is the same thing that naturalists call instinct, admittedly somewhat incorrectly, because instinct is, in a way, an inner drive to have to carry out a certain task in a certain way. But what the scholars call instinct, is no longer intelligence of the animal, but already direction or guidance on the part of higher spirits; for it is obviously two different things to possess a certain skill and to carry out a certain business according to this skill. But with the possession of such ability, the necessary execution is not yet connected, but added to it, another instinct must come, and there the possession of such abilities and skills in a being or in a psychic property is just the intelligence, while the need to be active according to such inherent intelligence, is not laid down in the being itself as an instinct; but this is necessary guidance from higher and more perfect spirits, which, for example, indicate to our spider the place, where, and the time when it should put it's peculiar skills to work; for if this were not the case, a spider would either never spin at all, or continue to spin, and would not even spare the face of man, and spin a web over his eyes, which, however, is never the case; but it must spin where it is compelled to spin, and where it's propertyity is expedient, if it connects with the propertyity of the matter there, and gathers it into itself for a higher life.
6. Thus also the silkworm spins it's thread, and that because it collects in itself from the food and from the free propertyum in the air those intelligences, from which it then achieves that skill and in a certain way comes to that insight, to first prepare in itself that tough juice from the food taken to itself, and then to spin this juice around itself like an egg, when it has reached the right maturity.
7. Here, too, it is exceedingly clear that the ability to do such work and the need to do such work at the right time and in the right place, are essentially two different things, just as it is certainly two different things if someone among the people is an artist, either a musician or a painter. The musician always has within him the ability to play a concerto or another piece of music, just as the painter has the ability to paint a piece; but does the musician, because of such artistic ability, play one concerto after another day and night, and does the painter never lay down his brush and his paints? Behold, although both artists carry the same ability in themselves all the time, the sound artist will produce something from his permanent artistic ability only on a given occasion; just as the painter will paint a piece only when someone has ordered such a piece from him, or when he imposes upon himself the duty to paint one either for sale or for his own pleasure. The first is here the same as the intelligence of the artist, the second however a request from whatever side to put such intelligence into the work.
8. But if people already set up directors for larger productions of the artistic abilities of individual people, who set the time, for example, of a concert, determine pieces and then conduct them, how much more necessary are directors among such innumerable artistic intelligences, where it is a matter of the preservation and expedient continuation of entire worlds!
9. Since this subject is of utmost importance for your clear understanding in this matter, we will continue very significantly in this area.