Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 2, sect. 629

629. However, this way of worshipping God is but a stage on the way, a zone in the cycle, and thus does not constitute a final or complete form of mental development or a perfection of conscious life and this is confirmed by the fact that the beings in question do indeed grow out of the above-mentioned zone of feeling. They become satiated with ceremonies and have transcended the dogmas. And that their fate is just the same as that of the other beings living outside this zone, gradually enlightens them to the fact that they are in no respect whatsoever being favoured by Providence. They meet with just as many accidents, wars, bodily injuries and mental and physical suffering as all those beings who are not "saved" and have not received "absolution" or "forgiveness of sins". It is inevitable that this must gradually create mystery, doubt and defection from dogmas and beliefs and must give rise to longing and searching for a new solution to the riddle of life and a new "why and wherefor". Even Jesus was exposed to such new questions and had to promise that for the "generations to come" there would be an answer through the "Comforter, the Holy Spirit". We see too that holy shrines, churches and temples, however much beauty and holiness they may have provided for people, will certainly not be able to give their followers the absolute lasting satisfaction concerning the solution to the mystery of life. And by degrees we also become more and more aware that "ecclesiastical shrines" have acquired an extremely prominent competitor. For there has arisen another form of shrine. This we could call the "shrine of learning". This consists of all the universities, colleges and schools. These "shrines" are gaining a stronger and stronger following and have to be built up in bigger and bigger edifices. They have to comprise an ever increasing number of faculties and areas of instruction; they must provide more and more educational materials and aid-resources in the form of laboratories, optical instruments, telescopes, microscopes and so forth. There are millions and millions of beings throughout the world who congregate here, searching for enlightenment and qualifications in realistic knowledge and skills, while at the same time more and more empty places remain among the pews and seats inside the "ecclesiastical places of worship". And the "flames of war" – which those shrines are there precisely to oppose – blaze to an overwhelming degree through their windows; bomb explosions, the rattle of gunfire and of death, rule the continents of those zones and the sound of preaching is drowned.
But the cycle continues. The beings are alive and cannot be nourished by dogmas which have now become a heap of ruins. They cannot live in a world of stone – even if it is embellished with crystals and frost patterns. Those beings are of flesh and blood. Therefore they want to feel the details of life outside as actual facts with the same warm pulsation of the heart and the blood as has long since been true for them within their own inner selves. Consequently they have to put behind them the world of dogmas, the world of faith; they must go out and away from that zone. The laws of life determine that they have to go forwards and upwards towards the absolute light, towards the eternal truth and far in the distance the solution to the mystery of life.