Bernhardt proclaimed that he was
"bringing no new religion" and did not wish to "found either a new church or any sect" and that he merely wished to give a "clear picture of the automatic activity in Creation"
. According to the doctrine of the Grail movement everything other than God is "created by the divine radiation of a life-giving energy, which gradually cools down and becomes denser as it gets further away from the source. The distance from the centre of this radiation thus determines spheres of substance—from spiritual to material. Different beings of creation reside in different spheres". One of the most significant spheres is the "Sphere of Divine Substantiality" which contains the "Grail Castle" and acts as a "radiation node" that connects God and the Universe, with the material world being the "densest". Bernhardt taught that that God cannot and would not interfere with his creation. One of the most important cosmic laws is that of "Law of Gravitation", which also applies to the spiritual realm, suggesting that the "human spirit can either rise up based on good desires and good thoughts or fall down into denser matter", with the movement instructing followers to keep their thoughts pure. Another important cosmic law is the "Law of the Attraction of Homogeneous Species" which states that as atoms are attracted to each other, so are spirits and thoughts that are similar to each other are attracted. The final cosmic law, the "Law of Reciprocal Action" states that everything in the Universe is connected to everything else, and that actions have unavoidable consequences. Bernhardt taught that "unconscious human spirits are driven out of one of the immaterial spheres, the ‘Spiritual Sphere’, in order to become conscious of themselves and to return to higher spheres as conscious spirits." In order to become conscious spirits, they must remain within the "World of Matter" in a physical form. According to Grail doctrine, human spirits are deeply enmeshed in matter and lack the ability to contact the higher spheres. After death, humans spirits reach the "ethereal sphere" which despite its name is also material. From the "ethereal sphere", the spirit undergoes a cycle of reincarnation, causing it "to lose its awareness of its origin and the purpose of its time in the material state", which Bernhardt taught is the root of evil. Bernhardt taught two beings descend from the highest sphere, Jesus, the Son of God, and Imanuel (also known as Sir Parsifal in the spiritual realm), the Son of Man, that latter of whom rules the Grail Castle.
Abdruschin is an incarnation of Imanuel, both as Bernhardt, as well as a "an ancient prince in the Middle East who lived about three thousand years ago". Bernhardt taught that Jesus's teachings had been corrupted and that his Grail Message was in contrast able to restore people's abilities to reach the higher spiritual spheres. The Grail Movement is
millennialist, with Bernhardt teaching that the coming of the
Day of Judgement and
Paradise where evil and Lucifer would be vanquished by the Son of Man was coming imminently within his and his followers lifetimes, with Bernhardt declaring there had been a "Cosmic Turning Point" in 1929, with Bernhardt and his followers making preparations for the coming of Paradise during the 1930s. Bernhardt suggested that he would receive the assistance of
144,000 human spirits. Bernhardt's death without his prophecies being fulfilled (which he blamed on "144,000 spirits and the whole of humankind fail[ing] to answer [his] call") caused his followers to become disillusioned, and the movement subsequently regarded the timing of the coming of the Day of Judgement as uncertain. Bernhardt's teaching were
ethnocentric, regarding the German language as the most pure language and the white race (and more specifically the Germans) as the most advanced of all peoples, though Bernhardt strongly rejected antisemitism. Bernhardt regarded Vomperberg and its Grail Settlement as the "centre of the word, the ‘Mountain of Salvation’, the ‘Place of Light’, and the biblical
Mount Zion". == Organization and practice ==