But on the other hand, our intellect, of itself, cannot come to grips with certain matters, because it lacks the ability to do so. These matters lie outside the sphere of technology and include the recognition of God, values, a sense of right and wrong, the inclusion of ethical and moral considerations, intuition, a striving for balance and much more besides. For this we require a conscious, strong spirit, which should guide the development of our intellect in a sensible, upbuilding direction as well as able to place the preservation of nature and the greater good above any egotistic considerations – which sadly on the whole it fails to do!

Thus it is largely accepted as inevitable and usually with mere shrugging of the shoulders that the earth is plundered, poisoned and overtaxed on an unimaginable scale and that our way of managing things economically brings enormous instabilities worldwide and untold suffering for billions of people. Furthermore, basic human rights are violated in many countries, which, of course, does not stop us as from being all too willing to do business with these regimes.

On a different scale, it does not disturb us greatly that our car consumes, on average, seven times as much fuel as would be technologically feasible and that this wastage is accepted naturally as part and parcel of our personal status. Nor do we seem overly concerned that our energy consumption together with our electricity generation heats up the planet dangerously and leaves nuclear waste which will remain life-threatening for a million years or so, and that tens of thousands of people starve every day, while we in affluent societies fill the petrol tank with valuable foodstuffs turned into biofuels – and much more besides!

We are also mostly unwilling to deal with the fact that millions of people, especially the young ones, are sinking away into the illusory virtual worlds of computers and the Internet, and in so doing lose their reference with nature, which is an essential basis for a healthy life.

We human beings are therefore heading towards an enormous crisis, because the one entity that matters and which alone is in a position meaningfully to direct our intellectual actions, that is, the spirit, is too weak to be able to assert itself against the egotistical striving of our intellect, which is driven by self-interest and a love of ease.

But this is not yet everything: The more we allow our intellect to prevail alone, the more brilliant we believe ourselves to be. Let us be honest: Do we not consider ourselves with our abilities as the crown of Creation? As the human generation that is at its peak proficiency, towering far above the ‘underdeveloped’ generations that preceded us? And this in spite of the fact that the repercussions of our great failure confront us everywhere glaringly, and that in the final act of lunacy we are on the verge of destroying the very basis of our existence! This, at a time when the ability to recognise God, which would be self-evident in a truly advanced mankind, may never have been as feeble as just at the present time!

In short: We are in our psyche in exceptional need of help – without generally being aware of it. Only during especially clear moments does our inner voice still penetrate sometimes to our day-consciousness and we long for a helper, a clear signpost through the chaos of the present time. At the same time we still allow our intellect to overshadow this clearly perceived need. This gives rise to an unholy brew, which even makes it even more difficult for those human beings who long for and actively seek this signpost. That very situation is described in the second lecture of the Grail Message:

It is just this last sentence that poses the greatest challenge to us human beings, endowed, as we are, with the ability to make free decisions! Because here too, we must in all honesty accept reality, which tells us very clearly that if we are to receive genuine help, we must open ourselves to this help, accept the logic contained therein and finally adjust our whole lives to it. This means that we have to change in many respects – and thoroughly question our own conceptions or expectations. The lecture ‘The Call for the Helper’ therefore continues:

From the very beginning there are warnings in the Grail Message regarding ‘spiritual acrobatics’ and occult training. This is because genuine spiritual ascent does not lie in the attainment of certain ‘paranormal’ skills or in a demonstration of ‘mind’ control over the physical body: