Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1617

1617. The materialistic researcher cannot possibly perceive any religious attitude or belief in a godhead, any belief in an eternal life, any belief in reincarnation or karma as reality. He has no instruments or methods with which he can examine, measure and weigh these phenomena. It is therefore a matter of course for him to view these as superstition. Compared to the religious believer he is thus a "godless" being. At the same time as he has gained great knowledge, and is still acquiring more knowledge in the material area and being enriched by an ensuing great material know-how with regard to making the elements work for him through great engines, he is without support for the tendency in the depths of his psyche or spirit to address Providence, a tendency that he has inherited from the animal. While the religious believer, through his ideas, through his firm belief in a providence, has support for his spirit, the materialistically minded being is completely helpless when it encounters psychic or mental storms or unrest. This being is in this area just as vulnerable as the "animal". Its organic attitude to Providence can be activated only when its life is in danger or when its fate is such that it experiences a crisis in connection with an accident, where neither its materialistic knowledge and know-how nor all other help in the form of other people's sympathy and goodwill are of any help. In this mentally or psychically helpless situation the tendency inherited from the past comes to the fore again, but of course as a linguistically more cultivated cry for help than the unarticulated sounds through which the same tendency finds vent in the animal's cry of terror. In relation to the religiously minded human being, such a materialist is thus, as previously mentioned, to be regarded as "godless". He replaces this "godlessness" with the joy he derives from his research findings and the physical, material knowledge and know-how that ensue from this, whether it be as a competent craftsman, a great inventor, a lawyer or a doctor, a great businessman or whether he has another kind of occupation based on material knowledge and know-how. And it is thus only when he finds himself in the above-mentioned painful situation, where none of these occupations or the physical positions maintained by them can protect him, that he discovers that he needs a providence, and with his cry to this providence seeks to obtain the deliverance or way out that he could not find anywhere else.