this is copyed text from www.martinus.dk, and audio here can be followed on site there. choose READ MARTINUS WORKS, Livets Bog, volume 1, AND write in sect.33 yourself to find just this text. it will be easier to read on the site of martinus.dk - so clip this link into the browser: http://www.martinus.dk/en/ttt/ Chapter 2. The Divine Creative Principle, The chief factor in X2. 33. In order to understand the new spiritual world impulse mentioned above it will be necessary to dwell on a great spiritual or cosmic fact, the manifestations of which show themselves in innumerable ways in the universe, and whose effects are of such an all-controlling nature that this same fact becomes the absolutely indispensable condition for the whole of evolution, and thereby constitutes the leading basic principle in every form of life experience. In Livets Bog I have given this powerful principle the name: "Divine Creative Principle". With regard to this principle's higher cosmic analysis it should be pointed out that it is absolutely eternal in its nature, and, like the other great general principles of existence, it is not the result of previous thinking and is therefore similar in being nameless in the highest analysis, but by virtue of the effects of this principle it can be identified as being the chief factor in that great cosmic reality which later in Livets Bog is described as "X2". 34. As already noted, this Creative Principle is the fundamental basis for all development and life experience, but in order to understand it one has to be able to look out over so wide a cosmic horizon that this principle can be viewed in its entirety and in its most far-reaching consequences. We have such a field within each of the cosmic evolutionary sectors which in the present book are expressed under the definition "spirals of evolution", each of them precisely forming a whole within which all the leading universal cosmic facts or principles are equally manifested. Within such a field the Divine Creative Principle reveals itself as two diametrically opposing tendencies. These mutually control each other so that one tendency takes over in the first half of the spiral while the other does so in the latter half. By this means the living being's life experience within the two halves of the spiral is in the form of extreme contrasts. this is about The dark radiation. The necessity of contrast. 35. While in the first half of the spiral the effects of the Creative Principle have the purpose of developing an individual's love or desire for matter, so in the latter half the tendencies of that same principle have the purpose of developing the individual's love towards all living beings in existence. The consequence of this is that, in the first half, with an increasing stimulation towards the desire for material things, the individual actually becomes more and more bound up with those things created, in other words, entangled in matter. And to the same extent as this entanglement is taking place, so the individual's love towards other living beings deteriorates. And at the point where this deterioration culminates, the individual will come to experience the strongest feeling of his own I's separation from other living beings in existence. This feeling will be recognized as the same as what we call the "sense of individuality". So in the first half of the evolutionary spiral, the power of creation - with its stimulation of the individual's desire for, and concentration on material things instead of on living beings - will cause a renewal of that sense of individuality, being the same as the "sense of an I". This continual focus on material things, instead of on the other I's, gradually obliterates any feeling for those other I's, to the advantage of that same individual's own I. Through this, that same individual in the first half of the spiral will not only appear with a body dense and full of matter but also with a kind of rising culmination in self love, an egoistic and insatiable desire to seize physical matter from its fellow beings, yes, even that very stuff from which they have built up their bodily structure. It is this basis which supports that form of life experience which, for example, stimulates the beast of prey and, in a later part of terrestrial mankind's consciousness, promotes cannibalism and meat-eating. Of course, it must be thoroughly understood here that in these written lines there is not in any way the least grain of reproach or attack on anyone; indeed, considering the basic effects of the Creative Principle in the first half of the spiral cycle, these circumstances exist to a great extent as a condition of life and must therefore support that instinct in living beings of self-preservation. When the individual is quite lacking in sympathy with his surroundings and therefore, to the same degree, is in no state to consider or to sacrifice himself for his fellows, such an egoistical existence stimulates such tendencies which we describe as hate, envy, jealousy, ruthlessness, lust for power, pride, self-satisfaction, and boastfulness, the universal consequences of which in the form of murder, manslaughter, war, mutilation, suffering and illness promote the culmination of "unpleasantness" (all we have learnt to know as "evil") and this again constitutes the darkness in the spiritual world of existence. So here in Livets Bog I have called the effects of that side of the Divine Creative Principle the "dark radiation". As this radiation has the purpose of stimulating the experience of darkness for living beings, and so determines in all of them a development of those faculties without which any experience of light would be an impossibility, this dark radiation, or so-called "evil", in its deepest cosmic analysis constitutes a divine blessing. In this connection it will be well to remember that whatever the form of experience, it is precisely and solely conditioned by a previous experience of its contrast or opposite. No living being in existence, therefore, will be able to experience anything without having experienced its opposite beforehand. For example, how could we experience black if we had not experienced white? How could we recognize light if we had not experienced darkness? And how could we know that something was pleasant if we had not previously experienced something unpleasant? All sense perception, and with it every possible form of life experience, depends, therefore, on the conditions of contrast in existence. Without these, no life and no consciousness would be possible; an all-embracing death would reign, an everlasting "nothing". But as it is an actual fact that the universe does not constitute an eternal death, but an eternal life - not a "nothing" but a "something" - it will also be a fact that the Creative Principle's dark radiation will become the first essential divine basis for the living beings' journey towards the light. 36. While the effects of the Creative Principle in the first half of the evolutionary spiral have the purpose of allowing living beings to culminate in the experience of darkness and thereby making it possible later on to experience light, in the last half of that spiral, or evolutionary section, the purpose of that same principle has the opposite effect of allowing the individuals to culminate in the experience of light. These latter effects appear, therefore, as an undermining of the individual's strongly developed desire for material things experienced in the first half of the spiral. This undermining in that same individual consequently awakens an interest, or a love, towards the other living beings in existence. Thereby these beings become the fundamental point for the said individual, and material things only of secondary importance. But when material things in this way become as nothing and fellow beings as everything it is the same as saying that the said individual comes to experience a feeling of his interrelationship with all other living beings in existence. Their well-being is his own well-being. The culmination of this will be identical with that feeling which allows the individual to experience himself as being "one with the Father", which constitutes the greatest contrast to the Creative Principle's results in the spiral's first half, where the individual, with his love of material things instead of other living beings, experiences the greatest separation from the latter, which is the same as the greatest separation from the Father. As the effects of the Creative Principle in the last half of the evolutionary spiral promote the development of unselfishness, or "universal love", and so liberate the individual from all strife and suffering and bring him into the harmony, peace and happiness of the universe - the highest form of cosmic light - to this side of that principle I have given the expression the "light radiation". 37. The Divine Creative Principle's total unfolding over the whole universe therefore manifests itself in the form of a light and a dark radiation. Consequently, living beings' eternal evolutionary journey goes through one zone where the dark radiation dominates and next through a zone where the light radiation animates all things. Therefore, those two zones together make up an area of development in which the life experience of living beings will arrive at a culmination of cosmic darkness and light in exactly the same degree. When a living being has passed through such an area, it has developed its qualities so greatly, that its life experience can be brought further on into a new area of the same kind - but of course in a higher form - and so it proceeds continuously. Through this process the eternal life of living beings comes to shape itself as an experience of alternating periods of light and dark - the "days" and "nights" of eternal life. In this way, the Divine Creative Principle through the power of its two contrasting poles, sends its spiritual "days" and "nights" throughout the universe just as, in the same way, it has allowed the suns, in connection with their planets, to send days and nights into the physical world. 38. As both the contrasting radiations from the Creative Principle complement each other to make a whole - which again is to be recognized as constituting the absolute and conditional chief factor in every form of life experience - so that principle, in its dark just as in its light radiation, becomes identical with an all-controlling divine blessing. This makes the eternal existence of living beings a growing experience of greater and ever greater heights in cosmic spheres of consciousness with a widening view of lighter and happier regions of the planes of existence in the Godhead's eternal kingdom. 39. As the people on Earth, in their development, have already entered that half of the spiral when the light radiation from the Creative Principle begins to show itself, so to the same degree all of them begin to be inspired by this radiation. Therefore the viewpoint in their consciousness is such that essentially they can only recognize this radiation as being divine, while on the other hand the dark radiation is shrouded in mystery for them. But, as we shall see later, this is quite natural. Concerning mankind's moral development, the Creative Principle is actually manifested through specially initiated beings, or beings who are so advanced in evolution that through their own personal experience they have acquired a view of life and its laws in such dimensions that they are able to shape the morals and idealism on which the civilization of mankind can be built. Each of such genuine spiritual reformers or builders of civilization is identical with that kind of being who in ordinary life would be called a "messiah" but who here in Livets Bog has been termed a "world redeemer". Such beings are recognized by the fact that their mission always results in the community acquiring a new and more complete spiritual civilization which releases it from the primitive traditions, superstitions and resultant sufferings of the old outworn civilization. 40. As development can only take place through living beings experiencing darkness as much as light, then in the first half of an evolutionary spiral, the task for world redeemers is the moral instruction of mankind based on the Divine Creative Principle's dark radiation, while in the last half of the same spiral the redeemers will guide mankind's development with ideals founded on that principle's light radiation. In this way the world redeemers are inspired in the first half of an evolutionary spiral by the dark radiation from the Creative Principle, while in the last half, on the contrary, they are inspired by the light radiation of that same principle. As mentioned before, because terrestrial mankind has crossed the boundary into the last half of a spiral and has already been guided for thousands of years by the light radiation's world redeemers, while the direct leadership by the dark radiation's initiated beings is of a far older date, for terrestrial mankind these latter beings will fade away deep into the darkness of the past. But the aftermath of their existence still lives on in the form of ideas such as "Lucifer", "Ahriman", "Devil" or "Satan", in the same way as the colossal animals which lived on Earth in a long-vanished past are now referred to as "dragons" in fairytales. But just as there is no lack of proof that these animals did exist because of the discoveries of fossils and skeletons, neither is evidence lacking that dark world redeemers also existed in the zone of the Earth, in that the world's morals, founded and established by them, still in our day rule over the development of the people, and dominate them to a far greater extent than does the commencement by the light world redeemers of a new cultural foundation which, with its few thousand years of duration, is from a cosmic viewpoint only just at the beginning or in embryo. This is better understood when one sees that all concepts which stimulate and defend ideas of hatred, war, murder, killing, punishment, meat-eating, "righteous indignation", or "holy wrath", can be identified as being details in the moral standard of the dark radiation. Naturally, included in this is every form of worship which results in the sacrifice of animals and human beings. So this moral standard is in complete contrast to that of the light radiation, from which we know such concepts as: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do; "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"; "Avenge not yourselves - vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord". Thus terrestrial mankind finds itself at a point in that evolutionary spiral section where the light radiation is in embryo while the dark radiation from the same principle is strongly in decline. This decline is quite fundamental in that the Globe has already passed the culmination of the dark radiation which was long ago accepted in mankind's consciousness as a natural capacity. Thereby the mission of the dark world redeemers to the earthly zone is rendered superfluous. As it is the mission of world redeemers to implant in mankind's consciousness both the dark and the light radiation from the Creative Principle in such a way that the effect can become a natural aptitude for living beings, and so promote a culmination, then one can understand that the mission of each dark or light world redeemer is finished - in other words lacks the necessary conditions - at the point where those radiations have already culminated. 41. As the Globe belongs to just that zone where the radiation of darkness has culminated, and became a natural capacity for its population, it is clear that the existence of dark world redeemers has now become a total impossibility in the earthly sphere. However, it is quite different with the Creative Principle's light radiation which is only in embryo in that same sphere. Therefore, we can also realize that terrestrial mankind's present development is being led forward by light world redeemers. Such beings will be known as those persons who are the source of the present-day leading world religions, and their identity as "Light", or belonging to the light radiation, will be confirmed in the same degree by their wisdom and teaching, proclaiming the pure essence of love and thereby dissociating themselves from anything which manifests the principle of "killing" or any of those details mentioned regarding the Creative Principle's dark radiation. As it lies outside my task to define or give information about the separate individualities among these great benefactors of mankind, here in Livets Bog I will not go into detail about them, but would point out that each of them in his own way and each to a certain extent has been inspired by, or initiated into, the great interplanetary principle's light radiation which will now be the conditioning factor of power in the cosmic administration of the Earth and its future course of evolution. 42. Thus, the people on this Globe - for as long as they have belonged to the concept "people" - have been led in their development by "older brothers", first by the dark and now later by the light world redeemers, but on account of people's primitive standards their view of these their cosmic leaders has sometimes taken on quite a fantastic form. Generally these special beings have been met by their contemporaries with great mistrust and misunderstanding, and then later when the divine effect of their mission was made plain, posterity has met them with such unshakeable faith and unreserved recognition that the result has been worship. And the more these beings became of the past, became myths, legends and traditions, the more belief in them changed into superstition. There was free scope for the play of primitive imagination, and eventually these beings became recognized and worshipped as pure godheads. This fantastic adoring and worshipping of "older brothers" in development instead of the true Godhead became at a later time one of the great hindrances in the development of those communities in question, and it is, of course, just as applicable today for thousands of people within the world religions. But this hindrance will not be repeated to such a degree in the new world civilization, because through the new world impulse people's consciousness will become directly focused on the Father or the Godhead. Before we continue in our analyses of the Creative Principle it will be useful to get a firmly concentrated view of what has already been analysed in the Introduction concerning that principle. We will get this view by going over the description with the help of Symbol No. 1. Symbol No. 1. The Cosmic Radiation of the Globe. 43. According to the particular and mutually combined conditions under which the two radiations from the Divine Creative Principle manifest themselves, living beings will appear at highly differing stages or grades. Thus they can find themselves at a stage where the dark radiation is on the increase and the light one is correspondingly decreasing; and they can find themselves at a stage where the opposite is the case. Such an evolutionary zone in which both these opposite standards come to a complete unfolding, or culmination, is called in Livets Bog an "evolutionary spiral". In the first half of such a spiral the dark radiation from the Creative Principle arrives at culmination while the light radiation from the same principle is reduced to a latent state. In the last half of that spiral it is the opposite, in that the light radiation has its culmination and the dark one becomes latent. As the conditions between the two radiations described here result in the living beings in the first half of a spiral evolving from a spiritual to a material state and in the last half it is the opposite, then these two halves will be expressed for the individuals as their "descending curve" and their "ascending curve". 44. But, as the living beings, having passed through both halves of a spiral, are so far developed as to be able to enter into a new continuous spiral of much greater dimensions in developing from light to darkness and from darkness to light, so the descending as well as the ascending curves of those same beings will together be established as an unbroken ascending course. This ascending course is identical with that which we in ordinary terms call "evolution". In symbol No. 1 we can witness that course which is symbolized by the steps appearing at the bottom of the symbol. From the dotted line on the left up to the dotted line on the right we have a "spiral section". This is divided into a row of steps. These should symbolize the particular main stages in which the spiral section appears, based on the Creative Principle's two radiations. These main stages will again be established as the kingdoms, or planes of existence, through which living beings are led by evolution. Within a spiral section there are six of such kingdoms. Of these kingdoms terrestrial mankind has perception or knowledge of only three, which are depicted by the uncoloured figure inside the step formation. These are the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, which are respectively marked on the symbol as No. 6, 1 and 2. No. 2 is the kingdom to which terrestrial mankind still belongs; but for all human beings this is degenerating very strongly in favour of the real human kingdom, which is expressed as No. 3 in the section and towards which the Creative Principle's light radiation is leading terrestrial mankind powerfully by means of all the main religious and spiritual movements together with the great new world impulse. We cannot go into closer cosmic analysis of these kingdoms at this point as it has no relevance in the Introduction, but we will return to it in later sections and symbols of Livets Bog. 45. Across the step formation there is a conical figure which expresses the mutual conditions between the dark and light radiations through a spiral section. The violet areas at the sides express those cosmic realities which later in Livets Bog are described as X2, in which the Creative Principle in its highest analysis proves to be the dominating factor. Between these two areas we see that the Creative Principle's light radiation (expressed by the white area going from the middle of the first kingdom No. 5 at its highest or culminating point, through kingdoms No. 6 and No. 1) is steadily decreasing, so that it appears in the middle of kingdom No. 2 in its most latent form, thereafter increasing again through kingdoms No. 3 and No. 4 and then reaching a new culmination in a new kingdom No. 5. Following the Creative Principle's dark radiation, which is expressed in the symbol by the black area, we see that it has its culmination where the light radiation is latent, and its latent form where the light one is culminating. Thus, existence for living beings is created by alternating periods of experiencing darkness and light. And one evolutionary spiral with its light and dark halves becomes in this way the expression of the individual's highest experience of the principle of "day and night". Evolutionary spirals should be regarded as the "days and nights" of eternal life. These "days and nights" have only 6 "hours", but each single "hour" constitutes no less than one of the above-mentioned kingdoms or planes of existence. And then again each of these "hours" has its thousands of "minutes", one indicating a living being's single life. The "seconds" in these "minutes" can again be identified with the individual's single years of life. With reference to the above passage, we get a first faint intimation of the enormous panorama of time represented by one evolutionary spiral. We have before us a panorama compared with which people's ordinary maximum conception of time is lost in the purely microscopic. As well as this, the "spiral days and nights" become absolutely the only division of time that can be used in cosmic sense perspectives. 46. Just as we have seen here that the Creative Principle is the foundation for the development of the individual's highest experience of time, so - with the divine interaction between the light and dark radiation - it is also the foundation for all other forms of contrasting appearances in existence and thereby shows itself to be the fundamental basis for all things being accessible to the senses. 47. As we have mentioned before, the relationship of living beings to the Creative Principle's two radiations will be expressed in stages or grades. That particular grade which the single individual comes to represent from these radiations, constitutes that same individual's highest and finest expression of his spiritual standard. And so with regard to the two radiations, the above-mentioned principle gives a special cosmic halo around the individual; to this I have given the name "cosmic radiance". This radiance is accessible only to the most outstanding occult senses and can be perceived only from that plane of existence which here in Livets Bog is called the "divine world". One should not, therefore, confuse it with the ordinary clairvoyant vision of the "astral aura" also surrounding living beings which in reality is the screen behind which the cosmic radiance is hidden. 48. As the earthly Globe - which we will come to know more about later on in Livets Bog - constitutes a "living being" so it, too, has its cosmic radiance. And it is to this I have tried to give physical expression and make it accessible to physical sight on the present symbol's main figure. We see this Globe surrounded by a radiating cruciform body from which a dark halo is visible. This radiating body expresses the Globe's representation of the Creative Principle's light radiation, while the dark body expresses the Globe's unfolding of the same principle's dark radiation. In this way there is depicted here the combined value of these two radiations and their present-day relationship to the Globe. The radiating body around the Globe is the whole basis for the so-called "good" in earthly existence and the dark one for the so-called "evil". These two bodies gradually change character in that the radiating body, as we already know, is on the increase and the dark one is decreasing. In order to obtain a little insight into this process of change it will be useful to point out that about two thousand years ago the radiating body consisted merely of a faint light rim around the Globe, while the very dense darkness - which now lies directly outside the shining cruciform halo - at that time nearly filled out the whole field of dark radiation. This process of change will develop during our time and onwards with a very strongly increased speed through the power of the previously mentioned new spiritual world impulse, so that in three thousand years the light body of radiation will have long out-distanced the area of the very dense darkness within the dark radiating halo. This will gradually indicate to terrestrial mankind that the "good" and the principle: "Love one another", meaning sacrifice, altruism, tolerance and honesty has by then neutralized "evil" on Earth so strongly that all the misfortunes and sufferings prevailing nowadays, such as war, murder, killing, illness, poverty, strikes, lock-outs and unemployment will have ceased, in the same way as all poisonous and dangerous animals will be no more. The Earth will consist of only one kingdom - "the United States of the World" - "One flock and one shepherd". The real human kingdom (kingdom No. 3) which is still not of this world, or at least is present only in embryo, will have become a terrestrial fact by that time and will be the absolute ruler over all material matters as well as spiritual phenomena. 49. It remains now to point out kingdom No. 2 on the symbol, where we can actually witness how the Globe, from a cosmic viewpoint, has just passed the culminating zone of the dark radiation and in its evolution is now on its way to an increase of the light and a decrease of the dark radiation from the Divine Creative Principle. The people of the Earth have thus an immensely long and brilliant epoch of evolution awaiting them, an epoch in their development where they will awaken to a consciousness about their own eternal nature and be liberated from their dark, unconscious earth-bound existence and will come to experience beautiful and divine planes of existence, shining and sparkling scenes of past and future world perspectives in a culmination of love, intelligence, intuition and bliss. Chapter 3. The New World Impulse. The Divine Creative Principle is accessible for sensing. 50. As we have mentioned earlier, the Divine Creative Principle in its highest nature is nameless or like an X, and it is only accessible for sensing when it incarnates in living beings and there becomes visible as the main regulating factor in their mental lives or consciousness. In the Introduction we can only consider the principle's incarnation in that group of living beings we call "mankind"; but the same great principle is, of course, present in just as high a degree in the consciousness of all other living beings, as much in those who rank below mankind in development as those who rank above. 51. We have already seen that the influence of the dark radiation has long since become a fundamental factor in mankind's manifestation and mental life as a natural capacity and aptitude and now begins to be undermined by the Creative Principle's light radiation. This undermining is constantly in progress, so the light radiation will at last be able to take over the position which the dark radiation possesses at present, and in the same way, as a natural faculty and aptitude, will become the fundamental factor in human beings' manifestations and experiences of life. But in order that this undermining can take place, the light radiation from the Creative Principle has to be clothed in that kind of energy or matter which can be comprehensible for human beings' sense perception. This means simply that it has to be transformed into thought pictures which are precisely so adjusted that they are neither too high nor too low in order to be suitable for their brain power. One has to remember here that the brain of the human being is responsive only to mental images of a certain specific intensity. Mental images which by nature are above this intensity become blurred, unrealistic and quite inaccessible to the individual, while mental images lying below that intensity are also blurred, becoming primitive and dissolving in naïvety. And so the Creative Principle's light radiation, in order to become accessible to people, has to be transformed into mental images of such a suitable intensity or "wavelength" as can tune in to their brain organs according to their development and experience. That kind of mental image in which the Creative Principle's light radiation is incarnated in our day is identical with what we call "religious thought". And where this religious thought is of such a nature that it forms independent systems, these systems can be recognized as identical with those which are expressed as "religions" and these split again into "religious sects" and "church or religious communities". As the individual's brain organ changes with development so that it is gradually able to take in mental images of greater and greater intensity, so it is also able to receive the Creative Principle's light radiation in correspondingly stronger and more refined forms of mental images. And thus we see too - as we have begun to explain in the Introduction - that mankind has little by little changed religions, or ways of faith, in that religions which had previously been fulfilling, stimulating and uplifting for individuals, gradually became outmoded or naïve, and new world concepts arose which later on in the same way became antiquated and primitive, and this continued in accordance with the extent to which people were able to take in mental images of a more radical and refined material or "wavelength". 52. But as the Creative Principle has manifested itself in the form of religions, and each of these has animated their respective communities of people for thousands of years and only after a certain time span has given way to a new release of this principle, we will see that this release only takes place intermittently. This again means that the unfolding of the Creative Principle - just as with other forms of unfolding in conscious energy - manifests itself rhythmically and periodically. Each such single rhythm, or periodic unfolding, will be expressed as an impulse in that it stimulates new creation and motivates the perfection of living beings' manifestation and spiritual life. And as in the case of mankind each of these rhythms or impulses has given rise to new religions, new cultures, and new world concepts and further, according to cosmic analyses, are interplanetary and reach far beyond the boundaries of this Earth - indeed out to other globes and humanities in other worlds - so in Livets Bog these rhythms have the name of "cosmic world impulses". 53. If the Earth, as mentioned previously, is now proceeding towards the reception of a new and strong spiritual world impulse, this means that it is on the way to becoming the object for a new and strong release of the Creative Principle's light radiation which, in line with the earlier impulses from that principle, will begin to stimulate and perfect mankind's development and spiritual life for thousands of years. 54. As well as the above-mentioned world impulses, there are other forms of impulses from the Creative Principle which are suitable for "living beings" which - with their appearance in microcosmic or macrocosmic forms - lie respectively below or above the human sphere of consciousness. The life and existence of such beings must naturally seem quite fantastic and incomprehensible compared with the ordinary idea of "living beings" held by people on Earth. Therefore, in the Introduction, we will not go into the extensive material necessary to elucidate these factors but must be content to refer to the passages on "cosmic world analyses" in Livets Bog. But in order to give the student of this book a first impression of the extension and huge dimensions in which we here witness the Creative Principle, we must mention that some of the macrocosmic beings come to light for us in the form of what we call "globes", "solar systems" and "milky ways", and that the recognition of the identity of these realities as "living beings" will be seen as some of the first absolute principles for the cosmic seeker of Truth. 55. Just as mankind and all other known forms of living beings live under the light and dark impulses from the Creative Principle, stimulated and carried forward in eternal evolution, so do the macrocosmic beings also live under those impulses, carried forward in a continuous process of development. But as these beings in relation to human beings appear in gigantic forms, so the impulses from the Creative Principle which have to promote their particular development also have to appear of gigantic proportions. One must not, therefore, think because the impulses from the Creative Principle which touch mankind are almighty from a cosmic viewpoint, that a possible world redeemer from such an impulse is almighty or omnipotent. On the contrary, such a being, although naturally appearing to earthly human beings as having a superior cosmic consciousness, is still limited and attuned by the particularly suitable world impulse of that time which it is that being's task to manifest. In order to understand this better, one has to learn to distinguish between our own connection to the Creative Principle in the form of "world impulses" and these macrocosmic beings' connection to the same principle. 56. In the same way as mankind as a whole comprises a "community of human beings", so, too, do the groups consisting of globe beings, solar beings and milky way beings, each within its own spiral section and sphere of consciousness, also comprise a community of living beings. These again will be expressed respectively as globe communities, solar communities and milky way communities just as the suitable impulses from the Creative Principle for each of these communities will constitute respectively globe impulses, solar impulses and milky way impulses. Again in the same way as the Creative Principle's impulses towards the community of mankind are released through world redeemers, so do the same impulses find their release through specially initiated beings for those macrocosmic communities. 57. As the redeemers for the community of mankind, as well as the human beings themselves in that community, appear "in miniature" compared with the macrocosmic beings, so none of the redeemers of that kind will in any way whatsoever approach the necessary power to promote redemption for macrocosmic beings, however great, almighty and divine these redeemers may appear in mankind's consciousness. They can only be "redeemers of human beings" and they have the title of "world redeemers" in Livets Bog only because the aim of their mission is always towards mankind collectively throughout the whole world. 58. The connection between the macrocosmic community of beings and the Creative Principle, on the contrary, can be released solely with help from beings of their own category of development and belonging to their own individual spiral section. So, as a redeemer, a globe community must have a globe being, a solar community a solar being and a milky way community a milky way being. And thus we come to distinguish between world redeemers, globe redeemers, solar redeemers and milky way redeemers. Just as world redeemers are adjusted for the Creative Principle's stimulation in individuals among the community of mankind, so too are the globe redeemers adjusted for the promotion of the Creative Principle in individual globe beings in the globe community; also solar redeemers and milky way redeemers are respectively adjusted to the individual solar beings and milky way beings in the solar communities and milky way communities. Therefore the seeker of Truth, regardless of how improbable it may appear to him, must adjust his mind to the fact that the universe is full of life and that the macrocosmos as well as the microcosmos consists of "living beings" and that those macrocosmic beings' identity as "living beings" is no more improbable than, for instance, those "cells" in our own organism, those myriads of small particles whose identity as living beings has already been established by science. Just as these small beings find themselves inside our bodily system which constitutes their world, so we also find ourselves, by virtue of the same laws, inside those macrocosmic beings' physical systems or organisms which for us is our world. And, following cosmic analysis, as terrestrial mankind as a whole constitutes the brain organ of the Earth, or globe being, and each single individual constitutes one of the brain cells, then it will be easy to understand that one terrestrial man can just as little be a redeemer for a globe being, as one of the cells in our own body could be a redeemer for us. It is impossible for a living being to appear as a redeemer from the Creative Principle for a being in which it is only a cell or some other lesser bodily matter. None the less, there are millions of people throughout the world who nowadays through ignorance and superstition invest their world redeemers with just such unreasonable and impossible dimensions. And it is precisely in order to remove and prevent this superstition that already in the Introduction we have felt obliged to touch on these subjects which otherwise come in later sections of Livets Bog. It is, in fact, necessary for every individual who wishes to appropriate full and divine cosmic consciousness - which in reality is the same as the biblical expression the "Holy Spirit" - to cleanse himself, or free himself, from all superstition. 59. There can hardly be any other factor in existence to which people have attached more superstitious belief than to their world redeemers. In many cases they have actually confused them with "globe redeemers" or "solar redeemers" in that their superstition has acknowledged them to be the spirits of the world or even of the sun, an identity which is just as unreasonable and impossible as if one of the brain cells in a human being's body should be thought able to contain or express the entire manifestation of that same human being. And on account of superstition, mankind's perception regarding its world redeemers has been still further carried away from real facts even to the point where such a being is acknowledged to be the Godhead Himself and is worshipped as such. That the above-mentioned misconceptions by human beings regarding their world redeemers are of no small measure, one is witness to when, through the power of cosmic consciousness, one experiences that world redeemers have still nearly a whole spiral section, or more than five vast kingdoms or planes of existence to cover in development before reaching that sphere of consciousness where a globe being finds itself. It would be more than double the number before reaching a solar being's plane of existence, not to speak of a milky way being whose form of life experience would still have about eighteen kingdoms or three spiral sections through which to develop. This evolutionary difference becomes still more fantastic in dimension when one accepts the fact that already in connection with the second spiral section all human phenomena appear in miniature, in the same way as relevant details in that same section (like a globe's life span of millions of years) have to be classed in the third section as being of a microscopic nature. Within the boundaries of this perspective the world redeemer becomes only a tiny godhead and from the same perspective the acclaim and worship of mankind has a serious resemblance to heathenism and idolatry. But when it is evident that within the boundaries of the same perspective, heathenism and idolatry are in reality the same as "true worship of God in embryo", this acts as a very extenuating circumstance, for the above-mentioned acclaim by living beings of a world redeemer is born of love and admiration for that being on account of his manifestation of the greatest demonstration of divinity yet shown to all mankind. And as people's faculty of intelligence until then could not nearly measure up to their faculty of feeling, then the disharmony we call "superstition" would necessarily arise in their consciousness. Superstition is actually a factor which arises when an individual's feeling becomes so prominent that through it he can experience realities which he still has not enough intelligence to express in reasonable images or to analyse accurately. Therefore, he has to provide the experiences of his superior emotions with images which would appear as the most probable to his very much inferior intelligence. Such images thus arise, in reality, neither from common sense nor from intelligence, but are feeling images. And so wherever these disharmonious images make their strongest appearance they will be recognized as "superstition". 60. Concerning terrestrial mankind's relationship to world redeemers, the real fact of the matter has been that it gave people a true sensation of the Godhead, an emotional experience which they had not the intelligence to be able to analyse or describe correctly. Therefore they had to be content with expressing these emotions with the most notable part of the poor intelligence material at their disposal, and as this wholly centred on the world redeemer, it was impossible for them to grasp the matter in any other way than by believing he must be the incarnation of the Godhead Himself. All ideas of greatness, therefore, were invested in him; he had to be the Almighty. But as people were so minded because of superstition, then the world redeemer truly became for them the same as the Godhead made manifest in a form sufficiently toned down as to be a source of inspiration for all human beings and a shining guiding star in their temporary section of the course through eternal evolution. And so, in this way, superstition had become a divine blessing. But gradually, as people's intelligence grows and they become able to give their emotional experiences of the Godhead wider and more rational expression, so the importance of the world redeemer becomes limited and little by little takes its natural place in their understanding of existence - and superstition vanishes. Still, it can happen that superstition is so fixed and crystallized that its dissolution is not always easy to balance with the individual's development of intelligence; and in the same degree as this is the case it becomes in some respects like a form of dogma, a temporary hindrance to that person's development; but of course no greater than can gradually be conquered, thus ensuring that the genuine and true experience of God can become actual fact. 61. As mentioned before, the release of the creative principle takes place through rhythms or impulses appearing at certain intervals. The last great impulse of this kind for terrestrial mankind was of such a nature that it slowly split up into three lesser impulses, each of which in turn gave rise to a religion. Because each of these religions aimed at being propagated to all people, they are called "world religions" as distinct from those existing before which were more in the form of "national religions" or "faiths", each aimed at a particular people, nation or State. Of those three world religions, which in the form of "Buddhism", "Islam" and "Christianity" have carried development of the Creative Principle forward to our day, Christianity became the off-shoot through which the continuing new world impulse could be realized, and which will now unite all races on Earth. This off-shoot of the old world impulse has spread out to the western lands and peoples, and by its fusion with the all-prevailing dark radiation from the Creative Principle, or the "power of the sword", it crystallized into a definite form. Under this form it was possible to invest the pure light impulse with such adaptability and sharpness that it was able to drive through the armour of darkness which represented the concept of sound reason and justice held by the West's uncivilized barbarians at that time. When a fine hand does coarse work, gradually a protective layer of hard skin is formed on the over-exerted parts; just such laws are also valid in spiritual areas, so in this case we must imagine the old world impulse as the fine divine hand. This "hand's" contact with coarse barbarianism produced a "hard skin" which guaranteed its suitability for constantly dealing with barbarism and undermining it as a result. The protective "skin" of the old world impulse is identical with that reality known over the whole of the western world as "Catholicism". This will not be difficult to understand when one takes into consideration that people in the West were still governed by the Creative Principle's dark radiation to such a degree that their greatest heroism was by the use of the sword, by revenge and by conquering and plundering other states and countries, while the condition for their place in the Light after death was directly stipulated to be not by dying a natural death from old age - but by being slain by the sword. Confronted with such a totally dark state of consciousness and such concepts of reason and justice, the pure, light world impulse with its diametrically opposing ideas, its prohibition of revenge, its teaching to give rather than to take, to love one's enemies and to turn the right cheek when struck on the left, could not possibly be acceptable as ideal or rational, if they had not been combined with much of those primitive people's own habitual concepts, for instance the sanction to use physical strength. 62. And in association with the pure, light world impulse represented by Jesus of Nazareth throughout nineteen hundred years, it is impossible to avoid realizing the fact that in the form of Catholicism it simply has had to use such methods as excommunication and burning at the stake in order to be able to push its way through at all. It was obliged to usurp power over kings and emperors, for in many cases in those days such persons were in reality brigand chiefs and gang leaders. So in order to penetrate through that armour-plating of darkness the light world impulse had itself to put on armour. And thanks to Catholicism, barbarism received its death-blow, while millions of people appropriated so much from the light impulse that it enabled them to begin to understand it in such pure essence as emanated from the mouth of the Nazarene. They could thus begin to distinguish between this pure essence and the "hard skin" which it had incurred subsequently by its contact with the dark radiation. This had again resulted in such people deviating more and more from the fixed "crystallization", beginning to progress independently and wishing to eliminate the intermixed element of darkness. Among such people are those we call "reformers". The effect of those reformers was that schisms occurred within the "crystallization". New religious tendencies appeared, each of which is to be recognized as one of the "religious sects" previously mentioned. The value of these sects would naturally be in relation to their source and would be more or less pure or impure according to how much their source had been pure or impure. But these sects - apart from the possible inspiration they may have been able to give to some of their members - have outwardly only created dissension and disturbance, in that each one of them aimed at winning over the whole world and each one proclaimed itself to be the one and only salvation. This easily led to the waging of war with each other, especially as the majority of members of such a sect still had not overcome what we express as the concept of "intolerance". In this way those sects became very extensively an expression of spiritual unrest, creating groups or associations which, indeed, if it had not been for the new world impulse coming into force, would have developed into religious communities warring against each other in such a way that growth towards "one flock and one shepherd" would have been impossible. And it is precisely on account of this spiritual or religious unrest that the new world impulse from the Creative Principle can now begin to find a foothold in the world. 63. Among the symptoms of this new world impulse one can mention those powers reflected in new architecture, modern music and art. Here one must take into consideration that these realities are still only in the first feeble embryonic stages and one day, when they reach their culmination and become "classic", they will far outshine all hitherto existing forms of music and art. Furthermore the new world impulse is also expressing itself in this century's strongly rising development of intelligence which is concentrated in what we call "science". This is another dawning result of that impulse and is already such a strong factor that without it mankind would not be able to lift itself out of the old primitive notions and prejudices with which its present world concepts are bound up. Science has thus been one of the main factors of assistance in enabling the new world impulse to reach the dawning of its first entrance into the zone of the Earth. But the new world impulse also has symptoms of an unpleasant kind. These are reflected in the great political movements and revolutions of later times, along with sexual abnormalities, unhappy marriages and mental illness, a great many of which realities would be classified as reactions which necessarily arise when the new world impulse clashes with the old concepts or ideas about life. As already mentioned in Livets Bog these reactions have been called the birth-pangs before the birth of the new world impulse. 64. Concerning the new world impulse there is one more point to mention: that while the world picture was shown only in a fragmentary and symbolic form of words through the old world impulse because of mankind's primitive standard of intelligence at that time, there were in it gleams of light on some important subjects and points of morality. However, through the new world impulse that same world picture becomes manifested in its entirety, in fully intelligible chains of thought, visible and satisfying not only for human feeling but also for the now rapidly growing intelligence and the dawning of intuition. It will thus be manifested in all details in a form of teaching which is able to turn the great commandment: "Love one another" into a science, and by this means gradually prove and guarantee that the only real necessity for terrestrial mankind is the transformation of that very commandment into a natural faculty and aptitude; that it is the key to all the power of cosmic sensing. In other words it is the talent to see God and thereby the source of all true beauty, joy, inspiration and perfect creation. 65. And so the fundamental and final result of the new world impulse will be that mankind's latent spiritual faculties of today will be brought forward to a fully usable condition, so that people will gradually be able to sense spiritually as easily as they now sense physically. They will come to experience the "Great Birth" which is the entrance or gateway leading to the true experience of life, the experience of immortality and the experience of feeling one with all living beings. "The Prodigal Son", in the form of mankind, will - through the new world impulse - be received by the Father; the shadows of darkness in the form of sorrow, illness and mutilation shall be no more, but the victory of love shining over all things will become an actual fact and will bring with it a lasting "Peace on Earth". Symbol No. 2. Impulses of the Creative Principle. World impulses. The Creative Principle's sign or hallmark in Livets Bog. A picture of terrestrial mankind's relationship with the creative impulses. 66. As we have mentioned in the foregoing section, the Creative Principle releases itself through impulses of greatly differing sizes. It releases itself through impulses just as suitable for macrocosmic as for microcosmic beings. To those impulses suitable for mankind we have given the name "world impulses". Symbol No. 2 is a material expression of terrestrial mankind's relationship to these world impulses. We must, then, imagine the whole symbol as an expression of a section of the universe itself. In this the Creative Principle appears as an unshakeable basis for all formation of contrast or creation of opposing conditions, and therefore as the determining main factor in every form of life experience. At the top of the symbol that principle is expressed in the form of a shining body marked with a flaming cross - the Creative Principle's sign or hallmark throughout Livets Bog. From this shining body we see ring-shaped radiations spreading out. These are the expression of world impulses. On their way through the universe they pass through species of humanity in both large and small worlds. These are shown on the symbol as large and small circles. Approximately in the middle of the picture appears a circle with a double circumference. This represents mankind on this Earth. We see further that three impulses are going through these terrestrial people, namely one at the bottom which is about to disappear completely from them, one which nearly fills the space, or dominates them, and one at the top which is beginning to gain a foothold. Of these three the first one lies at the root of primitive mankind's religious and divine worship, and the second one indicates that impulse from which Buddhism, Islam and Christianity gradually developed and which in Livets Bog is expressed as the "old world impulse". The third, on the other hand, expresses the "new world impulse" which now in our time is vigorously in the process of being born on Earth. We thus obtain here a solidly concentrated picture of terrestrial mankind's relationship to the creative impulses. 67. Consciousness and mental life of terrestrial mankind, so do they also constitute the regulating basis of spiritual life for other humanities. On the symbol we also see that there are humanities far in advance, as well as far behind or at the same stage as terrestrial mankind. That is to say, there are humanities for whom the new impulse, which terrestrial mankind is only now about to receive, has long ago become fundamental, just as there are humanities which are only now about to receive the impulse of which terrestrial mankind has only a few remnants left, in the form of primitive people's religious worship. 68. The symbol can also be used to show the huge macrocosmic creative impulses. For example, if one would like the symbol to express "milky way impulses", one only needs to imagine the circles as representing single "milky way communities". If the symbol should express "solar impulses" one could in the same way let the circles represent "solar communities", just as one could let them be "planet communities" if one would like the symbol to represent "planet impulses". But of course one must understand here that the impulses have to be considered of such dimensions that the previously mentioned "world impulses" would vanish into the invisible or into microscopic detail. We have thus witnessed that the Creative Principle in all its divine manifestation does not in any way constitute a reality limited by time, space or evolution, but unfolds itself freely through the whole universe in macro-forms as well as in micro-forms and details, whereby - through the power of its specific nature as the basis for all conscious life - it determines the individual's eternal sense of existing. Chapter 4. An International World State in Creation. 69. Through the foregoing chapters we have now achieved a general view of the world situation as it has shaped itself for terrestrial mankind around the nineteen-thirties. We have thus witnessed how the general perception of life has become antiquated. And as this is naturally a basis for the formation of moral development, it means that terrestrial mankind is now going through a crisis concerning morality, a crisis which has already led to an increasing decline in that attitude of revenge and conquest which belongs to an old civilization; it has turned people's eyes away from ancient traditions and superstitions, and has aroused longings in them for a new and better civilization, for a purer view of life free from militarism and war and for a world full of spirit, art and love. Moreover, we have seen in those chapters the guiding, divine forces behind all culture and creation of consciousness, the final analysis of which, under the concept of the "Creative Principle", we concluded was the main factor in the nameless reality we shall learn to know later on in Livets Bog under the term "X2". We mentioned that the said forces manifested themselves in the form of rhythms or impulses, each of which always left behind a new spiritual basis, and thereby a new and better civilization for individuals. Furthermore, we learnt that the Earth's present spiritual basis, or world religions, have originated from such an impulse, which is now slackening off, or becoming outdated, and consequently a new impulse is already making its influence felt, and that terrestrial mankind is in the process of experiencing a world civilization's fall and a world civilization's birth. In this chapter we are now going to illuminate the more direct circumstances, or local details, in this great upheaval within the consciousness of terrestrial mankind. So we will point out here those realities in the terrestrial community that are imperfect and consequently on the decline, and those which are under development; those which have led to suffering and pain, and those that lead to harmony and happiness, or constitute the absolute, unfailing road to World Peace. 70. In order to understand properly the state of consciousness of living beings, one will have to learn to understand the conditions of life under which they live. These can be of a greatly differing nature and (as shown later on in Livets Bog) will thus divide existence into various planes or kingdoms. Concerning this, we already know that terrestrial mankind still belongs to what we call the "animal kingdom" as well as in some degree also representing the future "real human kingdom". As terrestrial mankind thus finds itself in evolution, partly belonging to the animal kingdom and partly belonging to the human kingdom, it is also partly subject to the conditions of life of the animal kingdom and partly to those of the human kingdom. The daily life of terrestrial mankind thus comes to manifest itself as a struggle between these two conditions for maintaining life. Since the animal kingdom appears as the culmination of a material or physical state of being, each creature's conditions of life in the said kingdom will thus be dependent on its material or physical position, which again, in the case of animals, means the greatest physical strength, the sharpest teeth, claws or beak. In the case of terrestrial mankind, on the other hand, the animal position constitutes the largest armed forces, the best swords, rifles, guns, bombs and so on. This again means that where these realities are available or present to the greatest extent, there the strongest form of material power will exist. This power in the animal kingdom is a condition of life as only the strong can progress and be successful, but within that part of terrestrial mankind's consciousness still belonging to the animal kingdom this same power becomes the highest ideal, and hence at that same level of consciousness morally justified. The heroic figures representing this moral level are those who, by virtue of their strength, have triumphantly vanquished the weak in many ways, making them serfs, slaves or subjects, capturing their properties and subjugating their countries and their native soil. But when heroic figures with this kind of morality have this kind of nature, the fact demonstrates that the weak - still within the same level of consciousness - have no rights and that any concept of justice should be one invested with power alone. Thus, in the animal kingdom, "might" is the same as "right". Those people who have no power have no rights but are subjected to those who are in power. And now we are at the core of the dark radiation's morality. 71. As we already know that also a light radiation comes from the Creative Principle and, moreover, that this has already influenced the earthly zone over a short period of time and that this influence has the aim of developing a new kingdom on Earth in which the condition of life certainly is not "might" but "right", then we shall see that the said influence is identical with a gradual increase in the undermining of animal-like conditions of life. As this undermining leaves those concerned with tendencies which are contrary to the nature of the animal kingdom and which aim towards the conditions of life of the human kingdom - or the development of making "right" into "might" - so these tendencies are seen as being identical with the factors separating terrestrial mankind from the living beings we generally call "animals". But these tendencies are not yet so pronounced that they have entirely changed terrestrial man into a fully developed or perfect human being. He is still largely a living being subject to the conditions of life of the animal kingdom, and hence, as we shall see, to a certain degree he is bound to live under the concept "might is right". 72. As we mentioned before, over a short period of time the Creative Principle's light radiation has been in evidence and has consequently caused a corresponding effect; it has resulted in a combating of the animal principle which makes "might" a "right". This combat has then developed into a system which, in its most obvious concentration, appears to us as the concept "State power", the final aim and object of which, in the form of "law and judicial administration", is to provide every citizen with help and support on the principle of "making right into might". State power thus constitutes the present most fundamental result of the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation. But we must here remember that, even if it does intend to make "right into might" for each individual, this is still a problem only for the future, a problem which, in its present stage, State power is very far from being able to solve. It stands quite powerless against the large areas in terrestrial mankind's manifestation of the animal principle of life by which "might", in a corresponding degree, still appears as "right" in daily life. So it follows that to a great extent people in general strive for "might" rather than for "right". 73. But as "might" has gradually changed for civilized beings to become identical with material values, and these are represented in a form we call "money", striving for money becomes an ideal for terrestrial mankind in those areas where it is still subjected to the conditions of life of the animal kingdom. Terrestrial mankind's fight for existence is thus mainly a struggle for money. And it is in this, the struggle for valuable goods or money, that the animal instincts and tendencies still existing in mankind are released, making "might" into "right", allowing the strong to exploit the weak and letting the clever manipulate the less clever, and so on. And here it is that State power has started to intervene, has started to counteract such exploitation, thus becoming the strongest factor in keeping in check some of the worst and most crude animal instincts. 74. But, as State power can only advance on the basis of previous experience, such experiences have first to take place. When such experiences have taken place and they appear to be in opposition to what is considered as being justice or morality at the time in question, then State power will institute new laws and prohibitions against the repetition of these same experiences. But this again means that State power finds itself a step behind the course of events. 75. Thus there will be a level of consciousness in life where material events or manifestations cannot yet be reached by the law or the power of the State, and that is where they appear so masked or disguised that they have not yet been sufficiently perceived by the majority of terrestrial mankind as being at variance with a true right or moral standard. At this level, the life principle of the animal kingdom that "might" is "right" can consequently reach its full and most expanded form of genius. But, as State power has, in fact, reached so far that it combats or guards against the old, primitive, original forms of seizure of goods such as simple physical robbery, plunder and assault, then the above-mentioned manifestation of animal tendencies cannot find adequate release along these lines, and consequently must find other ways, ways which have not yet been experienced sufficiently or understood as immoral, and in the face of this State power is still comparatively helpless. These ways have gradually taken on a fixed, concentrated form which again, under the disguise of "commerce" or "buying and selling", can be released on that side of terrestrial mankind's daily life which we call the "business world" Within this world, it is possible to cloak "robbery" and "plunder" in such refined mental or intellectual forms that to the ignorant masses they simply shine as moral ideals, being authorised and protected by law. Later on, of course, they become exposed when people gradually experience pain and suffering from the true identity of those disguised realities. Thus, the business world actually appears as constituting a refined form of terrestrial mankind's struggle for valuable goods. This is war transferred onto another plane, but the results are the same as those of ordinary war, namely ruin, poverty and oppression for the vanquished, and wealth, luxury and power for the victors. Terrestrial mankind's daily fight for existence has thus gradually taken on the form of commerce. 76. And so the "business principle" has become fundamental to terrestrial mankind's whole instinct of self-preservation. It dominates the entire material world. Everything is business. Nations are trading, political parties are formed on business, citizens are forced to make deals; life itself has become an article of commerce. Life is bought and sold. As the whole of existence, by virtue of cosmic laws, can only be maintained on the basis that every value is balanced by an equivalent value, then the business principle, in its finest analysis, is of a noble and cosmic nature, and only becomes ignoble and antisocial when it reaches the point where large groups of the community's strong and healthy individuals are prevented from being able to pay value for value, or when large groups of individuals are enabled to "buy" themselves out of that said divine reality. Such conditions will always come about in cases where something is paid for by a price that does not reflect its real value. Thus, one can talk about an excess price as well as a cut-price. In both cases there will be a profit, but in the first case it falls to the seller, while in the latter case it obviously falls to the buyer. Such a profit is an unpaid commodity, or a "something" for which there is not a paid "something" in return, and consequently, when this surplus is transferred to the buyer's or seller's "private property" it must create a corresponding deficit in the whole world economy - as we will realize from what follows. The more often that kind of depreciation in world economy takes place, the more outstanding the arrears and the more accumulation of unpaid values there will be. These accumulations are again identical with all that comes under the idea of "private capital". Not included in this is whatever individuals possess of daily vital necessities such as food, clothing and shelter, for these cannot be expressed as capital until they overstep the boundaries of necessity and thereby assume the character of profit. When someone has, for instance, 40 suits of clothes in the cupboard, but the necessary number is only 4, the other 36 suits constitute capital. But as these 36 suits are actually quite unnecessary to the individual in question, they represent something worthless, for being "private capital", they are untouchable for the rest of the community. The same thing is valid when an individual has an annual income of, say 100,000 kr., while the necessary income for his healthy, and cosmically seen normal necessities of life in the same period is only 5000 kr. The remaining 95,000 kr. is then, cosmically seen, unnecessary capital for the said individual, at the same time as it constitutes as private capital a corresponding deficit in the "housekeeping accounts" of the general community. remark, that this is the values from the 1930s, when this book was written. now continiues from book. Now, objections may very well be raised here to the effect that the private capital of such a person would, after all, benefit the community, as he might give food and work to many of his fellow men, but we must reply to this that anything which benefits the community in such a way would naturally have to be deducted from the private capital, which - when it comes to it - represents useless profit. However, it is quite right that a person with a large private capital is able to provide food and work for many of his fellow men but, as it is not yet a general rule that this is the owner's actual intention regarding his property, but on the contrary it is more generally considered by the representative of capital that work power is a "necessary evil" or an unavoidable means for the maintenance and increase of private fortune - an "expense", therefore, which like other expenses must be kept down to the minimum - then that part of private capital from which the community will benefit in the form of food and work will be only a small fraction. Here we give an example. A man has ten individuals in his employment. With the help of the abilities and work power of those ten individuals, he is able to carry out a piece of work which gives him an income of 150,000 kr. a year. From this amount, the workers receive 5000 kr. in wages while 30,000 kr. go in taxes, rents and other working expenses. To the person concerned, only 5000 kr. is necessary (cosmically seen) for his own healthy and natural necessities of life. So the sum total of all his expenses is 85,000 kr. This amount deducted from the income gives a profit of 65,000 kr., which - as the "private capital" of the employer - is lost to the community. This means, therefore, that with the help of ten fellow men, he is able to reduce the capital of the community by 65,000 kr. or to make his fellow men in the community poorer by that amount. To obtain food and work for ten of its members in this way it would have to give 65,000 kr. as a bonus to the employer. When the owners of capital "give food and work to others", it is therefore not free of charge, but costs the community enormous sums, sums so large that sometimes the community is unable to pay them. As we shall see later the result is "destitution". This example shows that everything gained as "profit" and existing as "private capital" is thus identical with "bonuses" the community has had to give to the owners of capital so that people can be permitted to earn a few of the barest necessities for the maintenance of life. The product which gave the employer the profit in the above example, could therefore have been given to the community cheaper by 65,000 kr. Every profit of this kind, whether large or small, will now become a further liability for the community because, just like power, such profit makes it possible for its agent to oppose the payment of his levies such as "wages" and "taxes" due to the community, and to reduce them as much as possible, thereby enriching himself still more, and so the process continues. As this is the general principle in the present business world and thereby the general principle of terrestrial mankind's instinct for self-preservation, it is not so difficult to see that people appear in two sharply defined camps, one made up of those who have appropriated valuable goods as "private wealth" or "private capital" and another made up of those who possess nothing. As valuable goods represent power, the camp which has appropriated them will represent the stronger material power and will appear in the world as "money power". Since the camp which possesses nothing is made up of a great multitude of people, it will in reality form the true community. Because of its majority this camp also becomes a power, though much inferior to "money power". This power represents the dawning power of the community or "State power". 77. As the money power camp thus possesses the valuable goods, that is to say, all the necessities of life, then the other camp is forced to buy the necessities of life from the first. But just as the example showed, the people with the money power are not interested in this kind of trade unless it is based on acquiring new valuable goods, and that can only take place by overcharging. As the people from the opposite side have basically nothing to offer but their skill, or work power in exchange for their necessities of life, and the other people must receive from this payment "an excess price", the result will be, therefore, that any work done can only be bought by money at a "cut-price" and that any necessities of life, according to the above, can only be sold at "an excess price". The result of this is that the valuable goods or necessities of life will inevitably accumulate in one of the community's above-mentioned two camps, while at the same time they will disappear from the other one, which again causes superabundance, greed and idleness in the former camp, and poverty, malnutrition and servitude in the latter. But, as poverty, malnutrition and servitude are identical with ruin, the facts mentioned here mean that one part of society is undermining the other. The whole of the terrestrial community is sapping itself. Everything which comes under the concepts of wealth, greed and idleness constitutes, then, good fortune which definitely can only be maintained on the basis of the ruin of the community. 78. But, as life in its divine nature is beyond ruin, the community cannot die; only a system can die. The present system of the community is thus "dying", annihilating itself. This is all the more noticeable now, for the general principle in the present order does indeed mean that any terrestrial person coming into the world without being heir to capital will be an oppressed person or someone who, in reality, is subject to the power of money, and as such, in the form of slavery, is forced to pay "an excess price" for his existence, in other words his daily necessities of life. But, as every kind of life is searching upwards towards freedom and light, so every form of oppression will animate a struggle against the yoke. And the means for fighting against terrestrial mankind's material oppression in the first instance will be money. With money one can buy oneself out of money power's servitude and oppression. The most important or most central factor in the terrestrial community's consciousness will therefore be "money". According to how much money one has, one is free, one is placed higher and higher on the material social ladder and the more one will be admired, honoured and respected. So to be the owner of a fortune constitutes an ideal for terrestrial people. And consequently, all upbringing and education is also based on making the individual as well qualified as possible in the struggle for material gain. To be qualified to acquire money thus constitutes a condition of life in terrestrial mankind's instinct of self-preservation, as it is indeed the only means by which it can liberate itself from oppression and poverty. But, as becoming a capitalist is the universal goal, or a goal for which every terrestrial person is trained, then those who have already reached this goal cannot be blamed at all, especially because, as a rule, it is only owing to force of circumstances and not to voluntary renunciation of valuable goods on their part that those who are opposed to capitalism today are not capitalists themselves. If the people in question had had the same conditions as the capitalists, they would in the same manner have appeared as owners of wealth. But when these facts are so rooted in education and conditions of life, it must mean that they originate from people's religious or moral standard and this means it is a question of development. That is to say, this condition will only change in proportion to the gradual development of the whole of the terrestrial community. It would not, therefore, be of any help even if people with money gave away the valuable goods to the other part of the community, or if the valuable goods were suddenly equally distributed between all the individuals of the community. Before a day had passed, the conditions would be exactly the same as previous to the distribution, in that a great number of individuals would then be ruined and others would be rich and prosperous. The real fact of the matter originates in the whole of terrestrial humanity not yet having entirely grown away from the animal kingdom. And to the same degree as it has not grown away from this kingdom, it will also be bound to show the tendencies of the same kingdom, its manifestations and its conditions of life. Therefore, no blame can be placed on the present social order - neither on the power of money nor the power of the State, neither on the rich nor on the poor, neither on the criminal nor on the priest; for the social order in question is compelled solely to be an expression of exactly that level of evolution which the average terrestrial consciousness has reached. Just as we cannot demand that a four-year-old child should manifest anything but the behaviour of a four-year-old child, and an eighty-year-old person the behaviour of an eighty-year-old person, so one should not demand either that the whole of terrestrial humanity should manifest a higher step in evolution than that which it has reached so far and which is precisely and fundamentally expressed by its present condition of life and social position. That this condition of life and social position may be of an unpleasant and painful nature does not mean that it is at variance with the divine world plan or with the concept: "Everything is very good", for it is just as natural that terrestrial mankind - in evolving out of the animal kingdom and into the real human kingdom - must traverse all the intermediate grades in the zones of experience in order to become grown-up in real human existence, as it is natural for every child that is born to go through all ages and zones of experience in childhood for it to be able to grow up into an ordinary life. Just as the little child - not yet knowing that a hot stove cannot be touched without the bare hand getting burned - does touch it and burns itself, so is it with terrestrial man himself. His social order and conditions of life express the fact that he is in a zone where, in many areas, he is "burning" himself, which again means that he is experiencing the fact that he should have acted differently in those areas. So, if the terrestrial human community has arrived at this conclusion, it is actually due to the pain and suffering caused by its own wrong actions solely concentrating on the animal principle: "Every man for himself" or "better to take than to give" which - as we have just noted - has been the general principle in terrestrial mankind's instinct for self-preservation. 79. The terrestrial community is just coming to a realization that the present basis for the existence of peace and security no longer lies in physical power alone, for this crushes everything, regardless of right or wrong; but that this physical power, on the contrary, when inextricably bound up with "right", will prevent all forms of dissension, war and mutilation. The knowledge terrestrial mankind is gradually acquiring through its dark experiences will then, in the very highest degree, animate a combination of physical power with real "right" and morality and with the law of existence itself. The road to the "Great Peace" thus goes exclusively through this association of "right" with "might", and to the degree that terrestrial mankind succeeds in fusing true "right" with "might", so to the same degree will peace exist on Earth. 80. This fight of terrestrial mankind to unite "right" with "might" has been taking place every since the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation began to influence the Globe, and, caused by the present experiences of mankind and the new world impulse, it will now take place in a quick process of change and at a speed many times faster than hitherto. This fight, then, has developed from the animal instinct of self-preservation with its condition: "Every man for himself" and on the basis of the fact that within the animal kingdom no other protective principle exists. In the animal principle of self-preservation there is, as mentioned above, no sense of rightness. "Might" alone dominates. And those living beings who were most highly qualified to forward the said principle necessarily had to conquer and become masters of the other living beings in the animal kingdom. These former beings became the founders of the present terrestrial human community. They became its "Adam" and "Eve". And as they did not yet know any difference between "good" and "evil", but were inspired wholly by the single idea, or instinct: "Every man for himself", and this again, in the evolutionary zone in question, was in fact the law of existence which they were not yet sufficiently developed to be able to break, they lived a "life of paradise", which means, in true contact and harmony with their own kingdom. And, as this kingdom was the true animal kingdom it became a "Garden of Paradise" for all those living beings. 81. But as the Almighty, in accordance with eternal law, continuously leads living beings forward and upward towards greater and greater light nearer to perfection, its message was also heard by the first ancestors of mankind. Its beam was over all living beings in the form of the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation. Then it was that the "light of justice" shone for the first time on the Earth, and in this light the first "Adam" and "Eve" saw that they were "naked". But this realization was the first feeble glimpse of a kingdom which was not of this world. And by this glimpse or first realization of "right" instead of "might" their accustomed animal way of life or the principle "might instead of right" was revealed to them for the first time as being "sinful". The animal was thus transformed into a "dawning human being". And through this change began its adversities and its disharmony with the kingdom to which for centuries it was still to be bound. The animal had thus begun to acquire the first feeble form of "human" consciousness. And as this form of consciousness in the said beings is always in the process of expanding, it therefore indicates that at that time they were moving further and further away from their harmony with the animal form of consciousness. They were on their way out of the "Garden of Paradise". This exodus, or "Expulsion" from the "Garden of Paradise" in its final analysis is the same as the evolution of the said living beings from the animal kingdom to the human kingdom, just as the "Fall" may similarly be identified as the collective manifestation of the tendencies they inherited from the animal kingdom appearing in contrast to the dawning of human tendencies. And those living beings who are thus on their way out of the animal kingdom can now be recognized collectively as constituting terrestrial humanity. Today, terrestrial humanity is as strongly as ever before on its way out of the "Garden of Paradise" or in other words on its way towards abandoning the condition of animal happiness. 82. But when, as a result of the dawning of the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation, people's habitual way of life and instinct of self-preservation became more and more antagonistic to their changing state of mentality and became a greater and greater "Fall", their ability to forward or fulfil the animal condition of life began to degenerate. And through this degeneration arose their real sufferings. The Earth had been "accursed", so to speak. And as the transformed beings now aimed at an ideal different from the animal way of life, there arose disharmony between the manifestations of the animal and the manifestations of the dawning human being. There was: "Enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman", and this "enmity" will finally make the individual: "Crush the head of the serpent" or gain complete mastery over the animal consciousness in himself, but thereby he will himself: "Get his heel crushed", which means that this mastery cannot possibly come about without pain and suffering. Degeneration takes the form of "crushing" his animal faculties or that "foot" which bore him to the peak - or highest form of genius - of the animal kingdom, fulfilling its supreme ideals of greatness. And, because of this, terrestrial man, considered as an animal, already finds himself "limping". He is not an animal in the purest sense, but he is not a finished human being either. He is a wounded refugee between two kingdoms. At present he finds himself in a "no-man"s land". He is a homeless son of God. 83. So the conditions experienced by terrestrial man at present are not as "paradise". The highest material happiness he can attain is wealth and luxury, but as this happiness can definitely exist only on the basis of other people's poverty, need and misery, it will continuously result in hatred, crime, strikes, lock-outs, revolution, war and mutilation, and this means unhappiness for the whole of the terrestrial community and incontestable proof of an imperfect social order, the conditions of which are still, to a great extent, that: "Man shall gain his bread by the sweat of his brow". This is one half of the animal kingdom's degeneration or ruin which, in connection with the other half manifesting itself in sexual abnormalities, unhappy marriages, irresponsibility and unfaithfulness, entails that, to an increasing degree: "Woman must bear her children in pain". A state of "accursedness" in the form of the degeneration and ruin of the animal kingdom, is thus brooding over the community of terrestrial mankind. 84. The condition of terrestrial mankind manifests itself largely as "darkness". This darkness is in the first instance the result of the "Fall" or of animal manifestations, and in the second instance this result is of a deeper nature because it develops a knowledge of "good" and "evil". The "Fall" constitutes then, in its deepest or cosmic analysis: "To eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil". As the "Fall" is thus the same as manifesting oneself in contact with the animal life-principle, this said principle is obviously identical with that "tree of knowledge". To manifest "might" instead of "right", "to take rather than to give", to live according to the idea: "Every man for himself" and other expressions of the animal life-principle will all be identical with those "apples" which became "forbidden fruit" during and after the Creative Principle's light radiation came into being, and the enjoyment of which - within the initial area of the said principle - led to "expulsion" from that form of happiness and harmony upon which the animal kingdom is based. 85. And so the animal kingdom is that "Garden of Paradise" from which the prospective human being has to be "expelled". This "expulsion", however, is not a "punishment", but appears, on the contrary, as the highest expression of eternal love occurring behind all phenomena. And out of this love, laws, just as eternal, determine that living beings will be guided forwards and upwards, experiencing more and more beautiful forms of existence. And in order to influence all human beings to abandon that state of animal harmony and happiness in which they lived in the animal "Garden of Paradise" and to prevent them from being excluded from growth towards greater light and perfection, no other means could exist that this - to let a stronger light from a higher kingdom begin to radiate into the animal kingdom. This higher kingdom constitutes the "real human kingdom", and its radiant light streaming in over the Earth will thus be recognizable as the "voice of the divine Father" directed towards "Adam" and "Eve"; in other words the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation. 86. In contrast to a stronger light, a weaker light will more or less be an expression of darkness. Thus the animal kingdom's "light", or form of consciousness, has to appear as darkness or imperfection in contrast to the real human kingdom's form of consciousness or stronger light. And to the same degree as people begin to feel or experience the form of consciousness belonging to the real human kingdom, so this form becomes an ideal for all individuals and just to that same degree the longing for this kingdom grows, while in a corresponding degree they feel antipathy towards the animal form of consciousness. As this longing and this antipathy appear as the releasing factors for a transformation from animal to human, and this transformation is identical with "the Expulsion from Paradise", so this "expulsion" will in reality not be expulsion, but will come about solely upon a basis of all the human beings' own wishes and free will. The darkness caused by this transformation or "expulsion" is not the outcome of being "accursed" either, but on the contrary, in its cosmic analysis, it is to be considered as identical with an education which will enrich the individual with those qualifications which make him capable of living so closely in contact with the laws of the real human kingdom, that later on he can be born as one of that kingdom's own beings and can appear as a "divine human being". That this "education" is at times of a painful nature is simply because, cosmically speaking, it also has to act as a "danger signal". It is like a "bell that rings" when the individual is going astray, and the more the individual strays from the natural way, the louder will it "ring". From a cosmic aspect, all the pain in the world, physical as well as mental, constitutes, therefore, the greatest form of protection for all living beings; it is a guard rail to prevent the individual from falling into the abyss of eternal death. If it were not for pain, no individual would be sustained in an eternal existence; no living beings would ever be brought back from the wrong road, but would continue on it, which again would be the same as an eternal silence, for without pain, no contrast to life, and without contrast - no manifestation, no road towards perfection, no evolution, no experience of existence, but a universal equilibrium preventing any form of movement. An eternal death would be the master of life. But thanks to pain, the opposite is a fact. Life is the master of death, and pain a divine blessing. Pain shows the way to God, to Truth and to Life. 87. Until the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation began to take effect, terrestrial mankind had been living in a "paradise zone of consciousness", but in essence this was guided by the dark radiation from the same principle, while the animal instinct of self-preservation - or the animal manifestation in this zone - had not yet become the "Fall" but existed, on the contrary, in the form of "heroic deeds", and "idealism". This zone does not have any real importance for this Introduction, but we will come back to it later on in Livets Bog. However, here we are going to give a brief outline of the direction in which evolution will guide mankind out of the last part of the animal kingdom where it still finds itself, and lead it forward to the birth on this Globe of the "real human kingdom", thereby abolishing those factors which at present prevent this same kingdom from "being of this world". We are now going to indicate those factors which are the conditions for a "new Garden of Paradise" and an all-embracing peace on Earth. 88. With the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation, a new power or form of energy began to manifest itself. This new power was the dawning of "love". And gradually as it began to influence people, life came to mean more than "self-preservation". Parallel to that instinct there began to arise a new interest in other people's "right to live". But this interest naturally appeared only in a very feeble or elementary form in relation to the instinct of self-preservation. Gradually, however, as this interest was nourished at certain intervals by world redeemers, by increasingly stronger and stronger new impulses from the Creative Principle's light radiation, it then became a factor with which human beings could associate. It evolved into religion and morality. And these associations have gradually developed to form the great religious communities now existing all over the world. Every community of this kind is based upon the highest idealistic concept of the people concerned. The nature and character of this idealism will therefore express the same people's highest temporary standard of development and so must change accordingly as the said standard moves smoothly forward towards perfection. And, as this idealism is gradually inspired, or guided, by the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation, in a correspondingly rising degree it will be expressed by humanity's interest in other people's "right to live", in other words "neighbourly love". 89. Before modern means of transport were invented and communication between different continents was still almost impossible, or at least very difficult, terrestrial people on these continents lived isolated from and independent of each other. And as the daily struggle for existence was not quite the same on each continent, the experiences of these people were also of a different nature; this necessarily resulted in their concepts of morality and idealism being different too, deviating from each other in different parts of the world. So each continent had its special forms of religion, idealism and morality. Gradually, as the light radiation increased, the most advanced religions took a direction towards "internationalism", and the followers of these religions believed that their special religion ought to grow and envelop all peoples of the world, while the other existing religions were considered "heathen" and their adherents "infidels". But, as it was only the inner core of these religions that was of universal or international nature, while the outer forms and adaptations were founded just for the specific people among whom each of the said religions had arisen, so a religion of this kind could never be quite satisfactory to any people other than those to whom it was directly adapted. And the various so-called "world religions" therefore appear sharply opposed to each other and not one of them would be in a position to fulfil the conditions absolutely necessary for a religion which should be a special religion for the entire world and for terrestrial mankind as a whole; but as they do possess international ideas and tendencies within themselves, as mentioned above, each of them influences terrestrial humanity towards aiming at unity, towards "one flock, one shepherd". And each of the religions, communities and religious societies within the whole of terrestrial humanity is, in fact, comparable with the scattered, single parts of a nebula, condensing and eventually coming to constitute a solid body. This solid body is the absolute union of all terrestrial people under one religion. 90. But a religion capable of attracting the interest of all terrestrial people must be of such a nature that it inspires the most outstanding representatives of science as well as representatives of the most primitive ignorance. It must be able to give infallible answers about life and experiences in the West as well as in the East. It must satisfy all nations. But a religion which has to satisfy such enormous demands cannot be of a limited nature. It cannot be aimed at a certain people, a certain science or a certain area of experience. It cannot be partial to anyone or anything. It must let every conceivable possibility for development remain open. Hence, such a religion must not only be of international, but also of universal nature. It cannot be merely an idea of Truth. It must be Truth itself, otherwise it will fail. It will be a dividing power instead of a uniting one. It will cause dissension between its supporters and non-supporters. It will put a barrier between "believers" and "non-believers", between "saved" and "lost". It will defeat its purpose by creating nationalism instead of internationalism, selfishness instead of unselfishness, and thus become a source of discord instead of a basis for the fulfilment of terrestrial mankind's wish for a lasting peace. Thus, a religion that is to make mankind - divided as it is into races, nations and religious communities - into "one flock", can therefore, be formed only by a factor which is absolutely identical for all people, regardless of whether they belong to a white or a coloured race, or whether they are primitive or civilized. It must show all things having their valid place in the divine world plan and thereby it will make everything and everybody intelligible to each other. Such a religion cannot be a "fabricated" religion, but can only be absolutely "life's own religion" (see Section 15) or the Eternal Truth itself in an unveiled manifestation. This again means the same as a religion having an outstanding knowledge in harmony with all experiences of life's eternal laws, its deepest problems and the divine world plan. A religion which realizes life's highest predicaments and has to be so strong that it can gather and unite mankind's greatest interests and thereby become an unshakeable basis upon which the coming human kingdom can rest. This religion cannot be a myth, a legend, an assumption or a theory, a combination of traditions and dogmas; it cannot be a conviction which has become an authority just because it is Buddhist, Islamic or Christian; neither can it be a conviction which has become popular just because it is either Eastern or Western, because it is European or American, because it is materialistic or religious. It can only be a conviction which is authoritative because it is an analysis of fact, and has its roots in terrestrial mankind's daily life and genuine experiences. The spiritual basis that will make all people on Earth "one flock", or one unit, cannot thus be formed from a belief in the Godhead, but from an experience of the Godhead. It must be the very vision of the Eternal Father. Just as the individual has learned to experience day and night, summer and winter, sea and land, so he must also learn to experience the one great God, the only great "Shepherd". Solely in this experience lies all wisdom, happiness and harmony. And only through this experience can World Peace be conveyed to all earthly zones, and the divine real human kingdom arise. To experience the Godhead is then the same as to experience His manifestations. These will again be expressed as the living beings' daily existence or experience of life. But the individual will have no faculty to experience daily life with all its phenomena - its so-called "crimes", mutilation, war, accidents, poverty, need and illness, as well as its light sides - as identical with the manifestations of the Godhead until he realizes the true identity, position and purpose of these factors in the divine world plan, and thereby becomes aware that they have a divine mission and lead to a divine and sublime goal, and that they are all, without exception, in the closest contact with the concept: "Everything is very good". To attain this ability to see life from so wide and uplifted a view of the horizon that the whole of the world plan becomes visible and becomes knowledge will then constitute the common spiritual interest, the absolutely one and only religious basis that can unite all terrestrial people into one nation, one kingdom, "one flock". 91. The spiritual basis upon which all terrestrial people are able to unite cannot be a religious belief but has to be a religious knowledge. Just as two and two make four for people all over the world, so too, must life's highest and most importance analysis be of an international nature, and the same for all people. As long as this is still not the case, but Catholics believe that the universe is Catholic, Muslims that it is islamic, Buddhists that it is Buddhist, and Jews that it is Jewish and so forth, this will merely imply that the religious basis of the people mentioned above has not become knowledge, but on the contrary only appears as an idea formed by each of those people's wishes and desires; for if this were not so, it would, like the sum of two and two, be international in character. Absolute knowledge, or science, which means an analysis of facts, cannot be of a national or individual nature, for if it were so, it could not be true knowledge; it would, on the contrary, only appear as identical with a supposition or an imaginary fact that might exist. If there were individuals who believed, for instance, that two and two made three, five, six or seven and so on, none of these results would be science, but, on the contrary, only individual presumptions of the nature and existence of the true sum. It would be the expression of insufficient talent in that special area and would have to be changed so that the suppositions in question were raised to a scientific level, and then the true result, the figure four, would appear. While the former figures were expressions of individual ideas and would have to be altered, the figure four, in the above example, is an expression of an analysis of fact and cannot be altered. Two and two make four everywhere in the universe and through all epochs, whilst the other results exist only in certain areas of consciousness maintained by ignorance. Just as the recognition of the fact that the sum total of two plus two would have to be altered as long as it was still an erroneous and imperfect assumption, so it is with terrestrial mankind's recognition of the greatest mystery of life or the Eternal Truth. This is still largely appearing as two plus two equals three, five, six or seven and so on, and thus comes to reveal itself correspondingly as mere individual concepts of the Truth - or of the true value of life - thus becoming a religion for a people whose attitudes have been in harmony with such a concept. Hence, to some people this true value appears as Catholic, and to others Buddhist and so on, in accordance with the special perceptive abilities possessed by the people in question. But, just as little as the real total of two plus two can be an individual answer, or can be Catholic, islamic and so on, just so little can the real analysis of the supreme laws of life, or the Eternal Truth, be individual, be eastern or western. The Eternal Truth, or the absolute analysis of life, is the same throughout the universe, it is the same for all individuals regardless of their supposition and imagination about that Truth and whether they know it or not. And it is this eternal unchanging analysis of the Truth, this true value of the collective manifestation of life, its movements and vibrations, which all terrestrial people and all nations must be made to know and to accept. This alone possesses the necessary stability within itself to bring about peace for mankind over the whole world, to direct the spiritual course of an entire globe up towards the eternal regions, towards the summit of life, happiness and universal love. 92. As any action which is expedient and has a certain purpose in itself is called a "normal" action, while any action which is purposeless or inexpedient is called an "abnormal" action, we have here a yardstick by which we can measure whether a concept of life or a knowledge of life's highest mystery is identical with the absolute or unchangeable analysis of the Eternal Truth, or whether it still represents only an imaginary value, analogous to two plus two make three, five or six and so on. If this knowledge reveals vibrations, movements or manifestations in life which are quite purposeless or inexpedient and thus correspondingly exhibits purposeless areas of existence, this only reveals that the said knowledge is not identical with the true or unalterable analysis of life, but on the contrary, merely produces an assumption which has to gradually give way as the analysis of the true facts or the true knowledge of life springs forth. In this analysis no kind of purposeless manifestations, movements or unplanned areas are to be found, but the contrary, where everything is revealed as being absolutely purposeful and every single reality works in complete accord with the other realities of the universe. This creates an outstanding interaction in harmony with the clearest sense or intelligence - thus showing us that all life or existence constitutes a divine, intelligent world plan, unveiling every detail as being in the most complete harmony with the concept: "Everything is very good" - the microcosmic as well as macrocosmic, the so-called "evil" as well as the so-called "good". A knowledge that shows existence to us in this way can never at any time be changed, but will stand out as the eternal, unshakeable result of all vibrations, movements and phenomena of life. It is the highest disclosure of the Eternal Truth that can possibly be given. It is the analysis of the very facts regarding the revelation of the mystery of life. It is the absolute knowledge of the universe, of the Godhead and of living beings. The revelation of such knowledge is the main factor in the Divine Creative Principle's new world impulse now radiating over the Earth. But in order that such knowledge should really become a united, practical basis for all nations the world over, it will be necessary for them to go through similar or related experiences. The contrast between nations will have to be softened. The human beings' desire for spiritual knowledge will have to be brought to bear on the same questions in the East as in the West and vice versa. An association of all nations can therefore only be based on a common interest, a common goal - changing the common imperfection to perfection. The common interest which all nations must thus be brought to attain is already visible as identical with their present growing joint interest in creating a way out of strife, away from the zones of war, suffering, ignorance and superstition. All aims and interests of the nations are now getting visibly more and more concentrated on following the creation of mutual harmony, spiritual as well as material, and thereby absolute World Peace. The leading principle for the development or the creation of such a mutual and fundamental interest has been material and technical expansion. On account of this development, with railways, ocean liners and aeroplanes conquering the distances between continents, mutual contacts have been made between the various nations. With the aid of technical instruments, terrestrial mankind's outlook expanded and science was born. By means of schools, universities and teachers, education and scientific experiences are spreading throughout the world in the form of civilization and culture. Primitive races now participate in the pleasant as well as the unpleasant experiences of civilized people in their perfections and imperfections. They learn to read and write. They gain access to modern knowledge about history, geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics and technology. The less civilized races are gradually being given the same opportunities as more cultured people to take examinations and degrees and to qualify for diplomas and apprenticeships. Their contact with civilization in all these ways will bring about a crumbling of their old superstitious ideas. And on the basis of the same contact, as they also come to know the unpleasant experiences of civilization - its vices and diseases, its unfortunate social order with its greed and extravagance still tolerated, its poverty, homelessness, starvation and misery as well as its mutual exploitation of individuals - so these less civilized people will relatively soon, spiritually and materially, reach the standpoint of the more cultured people regarding the demand for justice and for receiving an absolute knowledge concerning eternal realities, in other words a knowledge of life and its laws. 93. Terrestrial people all over the world are thus having the same experiences, facing realities which lead them towards making a united religious foundation, towards a true knowledge of the universe. In addition to this, as mentioned before, the distances between continents have been very much shortened through modern means of communication. Furthermore countries are to a great extent being inevitably joined together by radio, telegraph, telephone, the world press, international leagues, associations, trading companies, travel organizations and so on. Consequently we see before us a strongly growing development towards a pronounced unification of all countries and peoples - or an international World Kingdom in its creation. The countries are already infiltrating each other so much materially and economically through exports, treaties and federations - or have progressed so far in their coalescence - that a single nation's collapse or crisis cannot in many cases take place without entailing a misfortune or catastrophe in the rest of the world. Terrestrial mankind, like a great nebula, with its different races, religious societies, sects and nations, is rapidly condensing into a compact, solid body, into one kingdom. This kingdom, embracing the entire planet, will then be ranked under those types of kingdoms which, later on in Livets Bog, will be described under the term "planetary kingdoms". Here on Earth that kingdom is indeed still only in its embryonic stage, but by virtue of the new world impulse, it is now being guided towards its final birth, towards its true existence as a reality. 94. As a religious concept and life style is the basic foundation for people's moral and physical behaviour, the above-mentioned spiritual course towards unity cannot be brought about without causing a corresponding reflection in the material world. And so we see here that all phenomena, experiences and events are aiming at unity. Just as terrestrial people aim for a common spiritual foundation, so they are also aiming for a common material foundation. As this expanding development is supported by the advancing growth of unselfishness and universal love caused by the Divine Creative Principle, so all actions based on selfishness - and therefore harmful to the community - will come to dissolution or disintegration as, too, will dogmas and superstitions. The most conspicuous material mark left already by the light radiation is the factor we mentioned earlier in this chapter under the term "State power". State power is thus an institution of unselfishness, and the energy or power functioning and emanating from it is universal love. Hence, it is its task to ensure protection and justice for the single individual within the community. But as terrestrial people are not yet perfect, their universal love, and with it their State power, cannot be perfect either, but must be limited by the standard of justice and morality accepted by the general public of the time. To the same extent that the spiritual qualifications of human beings develop their unselfishness and universal love, to the same degree will their State power also develop in the form of a system of law and justice, and to the same degree as it develops to be more and more protective to single individuals, so it becomes more and more an expression of love. The system of law and justice in the form of State government is thus not the final and finished result of the development of unselfishness and universal love in the community as a whole; it aims at a far higher goal. 95. To aim at a higher goal always means to overcome obstacles and terrestrial people have indeed all kinds of obstacles to overcome before their system of law and justice reaches a better form than that which we now call State government. These obstacles are the results of a still remaining animal instinct of self-preservation in terrestrial mankind, based entirely on selfishness or egoism, being the opposite of the basis for State power which is unselfishness or universal love. Of these two forms of energy, unselfishness and selfishness, the latter constitutes by far the largest part of the material in people's consciousness. In daily life this will then express itself as everything coming under the concept of "private interest", while unselfishness, on the other hand, expresses itself in everything coming under the concept of "common interest". Private interest represents vestiges of the animal instinct of self-preservation, that is: "Every man for himself", while common interest constitutes the dawning humane consciousness in individuals, that is: "It is more blessed to give than to receive". These two factors are the real concern of terrestrial mankind's consciousness. Since private interest still appears as the greatest factor in the consciousness of terrestrial mankind, this factor will also be outwardly the strongest and most conspicuous. And we recognize it therefore as the principle basis for that reality we mentioned earlier under the concept of "money power", the greatest material power within the terrestrial community. Just as these two factors - selfishness and unselfishness - in the consciousness of the individual terrestrial person are to be described as constituting respectively the basis for so-called "evil" and so-called "good", so the same two factors will also become the basis for a similar split in the total conscious mind of terrestrial mankind itself. And there the results of selfishness or money power will be "evil" and the results of unselfishness or State power will be "good". This analysis will also easily be confirmed when we see what these two realities mean to the whole of terrestrial mankind. Selfishness, in the form of money power, will thus signify to the community excess price on all necessities, commercial credit, poverty, suffering and misery, which again, as we have already mentioned, lead to hate, revolution, war, mutilation and illness. Unselfishness, in the form of State power, on the contrary, means to the community the development of law and justice for every citizen, free education, schools, hospitals, help to the needy, sick and old, development of protection against robbery and looting and against shameless profit, the establishment of a police force, the development of transport, the laying out of parks, the building of museums and the like. And, on account of State power, social assets will be continually accumulating and increasing. All this does not mean, of course, that all the representatives of money power are to be stamped as "criminals" and that all the representatives of State power are "saints"; on the contrary, many high-minded individuals are certainly found among wealthy people, just as among the executives of State power there can be ignoble ones. But this does not change the system of the community in the course of development it has now taken and in which State power is evolving and money power is degenerating. The fact that within the money power area there are human beings with high-minded tendencies dawning within them who therefore become philanthropists and give financial help is, of course, of considerable benefit to society and can alleviate much temporary suffering and misery; but this does not change the system, it does not eliminate the cause for the appearance of these factors and cannot prevent them from appearing in thousands of other cases. It only works as a temporary anaesthetic on the local or sick part in the body of the community. As mentioned before, it is a patch over one of the many holes in the system of the community. But now, as the said system has been patched up so much in this way, and is so mended and flimsy that each new patch could cause formations of big holes nearby (besides there being holes so large that they cannot be patched up at all) then the system must perish, and the eternal life behind it will push a new system into being. Nor can it be prevented that there are people among the representatives of State power who are ignoble, as long as the spiritual basis has not yet become fundamental and mankind still cannot see clearly the moral code, the ways and the conditions under which the new coming system of the community is to be born. But such individuals within the money power as well as within the State power who - by reason of dominating selfishness in their own consciousness - gradually become obedient advocates of egoism, possessiveness, exploitation and war, will comparatively soon be exposed as antisocial individuals. They are blind politicians. They fight for division instead of unity. They fight for the way to happiness but do not see it, and, like bewildered domestic animals in a fire, run straight into the flames instead of allowing themselves to be rescued. They go against nature, they disagree with world energies thus making their goal altogether hopelessly unattainable. And so evolution takes its course and the great creation of World Peace is brought to fulfilment. The fundamental factor in world evolution will therefore be that State power, in the form of the system of law and justice, approaches perfection, while money power degenerates. State power, then, is actually the same as "right coming into existence". 96. Gradually the energies from the new world impulse will now build up the intelligence of individuals and the majority of terrestrial people will have their eyes more and more open to the social evil still remaining to be overcome by State power, so that the Great Peace can come to rule on Earth. Thus they will gradually understand that before peace can become fundamental, all the last existing remains of the animal life-principle will have to be removed from terrestrial mankind's consciousness. People must learn to see that these remains constitute the "forbidden fruit", the enjoyment of which at the moment keeps them away from the "Garden of Paradise" or the state of complete happiness. Furthermore, this "fruit" must be expressed as identical with everything that comes under the concept of "fighting against the unification of "might" with "right"". All terrestrial people's experiences at the present time - in other words the "direct speech of life" - in connection with the Divine Creative Principle's light world impulse, of which this book is an expression, shows that this is the only way to eliminate the state of terrestrial human suffering. The present collective experience of the whole of terrestrial mankind will thus gradually bring all its concentration to bear on this factor - the unification of "might" with "right". But as "right", within terrestrial mankind's community is the same as State power, and "might" within that community is the same as money power, the unification of "right" with "might" means that State power must have possession of the money power. Only "right" alone can possess the valuable goods. As "right" is represented by State power and this again stands for common interest or unselfishness, while money power is the expression for private interest or selfishness, then the consequence will be that unselfishness appropriates "might" or the valuable goods. When the spirit of unselfishness controls the valuable goods and thereby has the power, only then can peace reign. Selfishness controlling "might" - as is still the case in the terrestrial community - can create only that spirit which makes war and strife into actualities. The spirit of "right" must therefore be made the ruler of the world. "Right", which has now reached its highest manifestation in the form of State power, constitutes nothing more than a reality which is ruled by "might". It must become a reality which rules "might". 97. So "right" or State power, is still far from being perfect, especially because it is only of a national character. And that means that any kind of State power or system of law and justice is concerned with just a single territory where the frontiers have been fixed as a consequence of previous selfishness and plundering during military occupations, which sometimes have left behind repercussions in the form of smouldering and fermenting dissatisfaction that can again give rise to war. In this way, the whole of terrestrial humanity is divided up into many "State powers" which are the same as "nations". But as these nations are chiefly independent, which here means that they represent a specific people, its morals and character, then just like individual terrestrial persons, they become the expression of selfishness, and more or less the manifestation of: "Every man for himself". Nations can be compared to individuals - they have a character, and can be moral or immoral. Accordingly, all the nations of the world could be expressed as a community, the single "individuals" of which are the nations. But there would be a difference between this "community" and an ordinary community in that the former is still without a system of law and justice. It has no government. There is no police force. The single "individuals" (nations) are at the mercy of themselves and must help themselves by their own power and strength. If this condition were transferred to a single State, what would be the result? It would simply mean that the single individuals could do exactly as they pleased at their own discretion and in accordance with their own power and strength. The weak would be struck down. Peace would be impossible. Everyone would have to carry a gun or be armed in some way. Every home would have its defenders and its firearms. And it is precisely such conditions which would dominate a "community" whose "individuals" were the nations. Here, as mentioned before, there is no police force. The single "individuals" have to "bear arms", which therefore means permanent armed forces. Every "human being" (each nation) would have to assert its rights. Every person would do his own policing. Within such a "community", everyone must yield to the strongest, to "might" rather than to "right". Here no notice is taken if a single "individual" (a single nation) is conquered and destroyed. If we consider terrestrial humanity as a whole in the above-mentioned way, in the form of a State, the individuals of which are nations, we will then see that this "State" finds itself at the evolutionary stage of the people of the Stone Age as regards administration, social order and living conditions, and the only stronger development it shows is in its manifestation of animal-like cruelty. So all "individuals" have evolved to that stage of carrying weapons (the armed forces) which are not only "sharper" than the flint tools of the Stone Age people, but represent, moreover, a very extensive and eminently evolved system of murder, in which all ways and means of the "killing principle" have been developed with genius. Added to this, all the "individuals" (the nations) - within the areas of exploitation and greed - are each of them equipped with a correspondingly developed intelligence which, under the concept of "business", manages to disguise the manifestations of theft and covetousness into appearing as heroic deeds and ideals. So we are here witnessing that within the terrestrial human community there is still a large area in which the animal kingdom or "might is right" exists nearly in pure essence. "Right", or the absolute "humane" principle of life - "right is might" - is thus still far from having reached full perfection, or its final goal which is to embrace all aspects of terrestrial mankind. 98. As the people on Earth have concentrated themselves into nations, and each single nation constitutes in principle an individual in a common, larger nation which does not yet have any basic government, any system of law and justice, any police force, and which, concerning social order, is on the evolutionary level of Stone Age people, while as regards murderous weapons or means of conquest it represents the highest product of genius, then we have reached the core, or basic cause, of terrestrial mankind's material state of suffering. This state of suffering is due to the absence of a supreme world government, of an international court of justice and of a supreme authority which can deal with, protect and guarantee the freedom and right to live of individual nations, individual peoples and individual races. But in order that an authority or system of justice of this kind can become fundamental, it has to develop in such a way that it will eventually come to possess all valuable goods. As long as it does not possess the valuable goods, it does not have the power, and therefore can never become a perfect administration of justice, but is bound to be a slave of power instead of a master of power. But an administration of justice which is the slave of power instead of its master will never be able to carry the law of existence into full effect, and so mankind will remain without harmony and World Peace as long as there is no international world government representing the whole of terrestrial mankind, possessing all valuable goods and thereby constituting "right" united with "might". All power from the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation is therefore based on guiding the whole of evolution in the material as well as in the religious field towards a common basis, towards unity. And in this development, "right" - or the whole system of law and justice throughout the world - has, as mentioned before, reached the point we call "State power". As State powers constitute mainly units or areas which are national, sometimes separated by wide rifts and lack of mutual understanding and co-operation, this will then mean that terrestrial mankind's collective system of law and justice is still like a nebula, consisting of scattered particles. It is a machine which has not yet had the cog wheels assembled. And just as a machine cannot be used until it is assembled, so also the terrestrial system of law and justice cannot establish harmony, security or peace for mankind as long as its individual parts - the State powers - are not united to constitute "an inseparable, coherent, international world power - an insurmountable barrier to injustice", and thus a guarantee for the kingdom of peace on Earth embracing the whole planet. The first great fundamental step towards world harmony, towards peace on Earth, would therefore be the development of a world authority. The law and the court room can never in any way become a guarantee for justice, peace and security as long as they constitute a law court only for individuals. There must also be a law court for nations. It must develop so that it is able to compel nations to acknowledge their responsibility. Every nation is, after all, an element in the whole of terrestrial humanity's conditions of life and existence, and it cannot justifiably continue to be irresponsible in its actions against other nations. 99. It becomes obvious as an unavoidable necessity that all State powers, or all systems of law and justice, are on the way to develop into one concentrated international authority, into a law court or World Court, common to all peoples and nations. This is because ordinary systems of law and justice have a national character, without any particular authority as regards international affairs where they can only function through friendly agreements, provisional treaties or alliances. But as the national system of justice cannot provide a guarantee that these are observed, the nation is forced to maintain permanent armed forces in order to insist, through bloodshed, that its rights, or supposed rights, are respected. But in doing so, its system of law and justice is furthermore forced to be inconsistent. Actions which it has to punish as "criminal" or "immoral" in one case, it will have to recognize as "heroic deeds" and "idealistic" in other cases. So we witness that through its schools, churches and temples, the nation educates the people in religion and neighbourly love, teaches the single individuals that they should not kill, should not commit murder, while the entire existence and maintenance of that nation is based outwardly - concerning other nations - on the killing principle, or on the ingenious refinements of a whole system of murder. At the same time as the State - through its system of law and justice - punishes and chastises every one of its citizens who, either directly or indirectly, injures or causes the death of a fellow citizen or in other ways becomes a nuisance to his fellow beings, because of the absence of a World Court or world authority, that State is forced by means of so-called "military conscription", to compel young male citizens, even before they are of age, to receive ordinary, basic training in becoming obedient servants of the killing principle when facing the "enemy". Here they learn to make use of swords, revolvers, machine-guns, torpedoes, poison gas, as well as deception, robbery, looting and so on. This is actually the same as saying that all those actions which these young men have been brought up to regard as "immoral", "criminal", and "punishable" when directed against compatriots of their own country, they now learn to recognize as pure and glorious "heroic deeds" when directed against the "enemy", against members of another nation, against the fatherland of other people, bringing it to "silence", submission and degradation. And it is obvious that as long as the State or the nation is forced to practise law and order in this way, then it will have a neutralising or restrictive effect as regards the development and progress of its own citizens' spirit, culture and moral values. 100. Based on forces from the new world impulse, the development of universal love is strongly increasing in individuals and so the above-mentioned neutralizing, or restriction, has not caused their moral development to cease entirely, but on the contrary, has brought about an undermining of their pursuit of "nationalism" in favour of an awakening interest in "internationalism". As "nationalism" in reality constitutes the "selfishness of the nation" and "internationalism" is the "unselfishness of the nation", the above means that the selfishness of the nation is decreasing, while its unselfishness is growing. But simultaneously with the growth of the nation's unselfishness, there grows also its demand for, and its interest in, a different way of settling the nations' disagreements from the one now existing in the form of war. But just as individuals cannot give up settling differences among themselves by fighting and injury while belonging to a society at a Stone Age level without any system of law and justice, neither, in the same way, can nations relinquish the settling of their differences among themselves by drastic and ruthless measures as long as their mutual relationships, regarding organization and reciprocal understanding, are also still at a Stone Age level. But, as conditions are now such that the inhabitants of each of the various nations have grown forward to a cultural stage far in advance of that of Stone Age man, they are not able to continue tolerating the fact that relationships between nations still have to remain at a Stone Age level. And their higher culture now begins to force them to see also that the nations' means of settling affairs in the form of wars is criminal, in the same way they realised long ago that the same means of settlement between man and man are criminal, and they have therefore accepted the development of the national system of law and justice. Therefore the present direction that evolution is taking, which is the growth of internationalism or universal love, will gradually neutralize those methods of settlement between nations which release war and mutilation, in favour of all those tendencies which, without any bloodshed, and in peaceful and human ways in harmony with the law of existence, can enable all nations and races to enjoy "right" and justice. And as the fundamental basis for this can only be a World Court based on actual world power united with world law, then such a World Court, such a world authority over all people, has to become a realistic fact before lasting peace on Earth can be fundamentally secured. 101. We are also witnessing now a development that has already created weak tendencies for establishing a world authority. Today these tendencies show themselves under the concept of the "League of Nations".* But this League can, at the most, be considered as only the "embryo of a World Court". It does not possess the valuable goods, and therefore there is no real power behind it. Like the State powers, it is to a very great extent subject to "money power", and therefore becomes its "servant" instead of its "master". Among those "individuals" (nations) for whom it should be a "system of law" it is still only a beautiful "thought", a "paper agreement" that will be respected only within areas where it does not interfere with the supposed proprietary rights of the "individuals" (nations). It is therefore still only a system of law and justice without a police force, among armed "Stone Age individuals" (nations) and thus it cannot practise law and justice anywhere except within an area which does not clash with the nations' system of arming themselves. But this is only natural. There is nothing which is born mature. And a reality so immense as world authority could not come into being except through progressive development. It would be nothing less than a catastrophe for thousands of people if that could happen in a single day. But of course this does not exempt any person on Earth from a duty to work for the earliest possible establishment of such a World Court. The above-mentioned League - or the tendencies for which it is an expression - is thus the beginning of a world authority, and with it the first step in uniting all the States of the world into one single kingdom. But in order that the result of such tendencies, or a League of this kind, can really be a World Court or world tribunal, then the nations, or "individuals", for whom it is to function as a court of law, must surrender their arms to that court of law. As long as they themselves constitute an armed power, and their authority or court of law an unarmed power, the said court or authority can as little guarantee law and justice as the general system of law and justice within a single nation could guarantee security and justice if it were without a police force and the citizens carried weapons. But just as it is forbidden here and now for people to be armed, so in the same way the "individuals" (nations) in the World State will also be prevented from carrying weapons. Only unselfishness, represented in the form of world authority, law and justice, can be the rightful master of instruments of murder. But in order that this may come about, the inhabitants of all countries must come into contact with unselfishness, which in this connection means "internationalism". All forms of development concerning terrestrial humanity will therefore take shape in the direction of internationalism, or unselfishness, which alone can constitute the foundation upon which an all-embracing, divine world kingdom can rest. ____________ * Translator's note: When Martinus wrote this, the "League of Nations", formed after World War 1, had not been superseded by the "United Nations Organisation". 102. As unselfishness, and with it internationalism, founded on the new world impulse, will come to develop among representatives of both the rich and the poor, then "private interest" will gradually decrease in favour of "common interest" which will thus progress and expand. Development will take place in this way; all private enterprise will quite quietly and gradually be ousted by State enterprise. So the appropriation of valuable goods by "right" will not be of such a violent character as perhaps one might at first presume. And when the State powers have become masters of the valuable goods in this way, and at the same time must protect them by an international court of law, then the latter will be representing an all-embracing World Court, a supreme authority which is able with ease to guarantee harmony and World Peace since - by virtue of its very nature - it is identical with a combination of an absolute "might" united with an absolute "right" constituting an insurmountable barrier to poverty, revolution and war. When this court of law becomes a reality, it will then protect nations to the same degree as individuals. And, while the citizens of a civilized state do not need to fortify their homes with machine-guns, nor walk about armed, so too will all nations be able to exist without the need of permanent armed forces. It will, however, be necessary for that all-embracing court of law to have a form of international armed force supporting it; but this force will exist merely as an absolutely impartial "world police". 103. Thus, all the present forms of development concerning terrestrial mankind will result in an international administrative power, or World Government. But because of the concept of "right" which already exists now among people on Earth, it would not be possible for this World Government to develop into any kind of dictatorship, or absolute monarchy, and thus appear as a renewed or strengthened form of the old, autocratic dynasties in which the people were the property of the ruler. The World Court has to be the property of the people, which, in this case, would mean the servant of the people. Its executives and representatives will be elected by the people themselves and in this way can only retain their positions by virtue of qualifications which are in agreement with the people's wishes and in harmony with the concepts of rightness and of morality with which the new world impulse is now enriching the Earth. This international World Government will be exclusively the foundation or skeleton upon which the "real human kingdom" can be built. It is only from this international World Government that lasting peace can proceed, and not from any kind of national court or State power. 104. The World Government will have immense problems to work on, problems that will concentrate on bringing terrestrial mankind (the nations as well as the individuals) into contact with the actual law of existence. As that side of the law of existence which is the absolute basis for a happy existence for the community stipulates that "every value must be paid by a corresponding value", neither more nor less, then the international World Court will have to cancel the general principle of the present system of trade, which actually depends on the stipulation "all goods have to be paid by an excess price", because it is based on - not an earning, but - a profit. Here the term "profit" is to be understood as a value or an amount for which nothing at all is given in exchange, while the term "earning", on the contrary, must be taken to mean payment for work rendered. In one of the examples given in Section 76 it was shown that a man sold a product to the community and that the object of this transaction was not the "earning" (the 5000 kr. required for his natural necessities of life), but on the contrary, the "profit" which, in the case in question, totalled 65,000 kr., for which nothing of any kind was contributed in return. As any product - according to the law of existence - should be paid for only with its real value, then any kind of trade which gives more returns than a natural working wage will be a "cloak" for an unjust appropriation, and thus synonymous with "masked robbery". By a working wage, of course, one should not understand a value running into thousands or tens of thousands of kroner per day or per week for one single individual, for such wages can only be obtained as long as the total world economy of terrestrial mankind's community is completely without any administration. 105. With regard to trade, the World Government will also arrange for every article and every product to go the very shortest way from producer to consumer. It will thus abolish the present quite unrealistic zig-zag system of trade in which, in many cases, goods have to go through numberless detours, reloadings, transportation from middleman to middleman, from firm to firm, before they reach the consumer. As these reloadings, or middleman processes, naturally cannot take place without yielding a profit for the middlemen, and cannot take place either without work, nor be free of charge, then the above system will mean that the goods become many times dearer for the consumer, and also that terrestrial mankind's collective work power will be burdened with this completely valueless work. But to allow a product, a necessity of life, to go through a set of processes which do not change its nature at all, but might even sometimes make it outdated - none the less raising its price and making its goal even more inaccessible - is at variance with nature, with common sense and with intelligence, and thus turns out to be an abnormality. The present middleman system - which in not a single case means a change for the better in the quality of the article of commerce, but on the contrary, in many cases even causes its deterioration, while at the same time raising its price considerably - is thus an abnormality in the business world. And, just as a postal package or letter from Denmark for instance - by means of a well-developed world organization within the postal administration - need not go through a number of competing and profiteering private postal firms in Spain, Norway, England, Africa, India and so on to reach its destination - New York - by which the rate for the same postal matter would eventually run into as many kroner as it is now øre* - so a necessity of life has no need either to pass through a number of private, profiteering-minded middleman firms in order to come from the supplier to the consumer, so raising the price many times. The abolition of this whole middleman system will then mean reduction of prices for the terrestrial community. Some might object that the abolition of the middleman system would put many people out of work, but to this one could say that, just as little as the World State could have any interest in furthering a "career" which consisted of drawing water from a well only to pour it back again into the well, just as little could it have any interest in furthering the middleman system while it exists as a form of career which is not only analogous to the one mentioned but is also a deficit for, and an exceptional undermining of, terrestrial mankind's entire economic status, caused by the rise in the cost of products and the increase of work. As the people belonging to the middleman system thus, in reality, live on values for which they have not rendered anything positive in return, since their work is quite superfluous, then their income source becomes related to "an artificial career". The term artificial career is used to mean all those sources of income by which an individual can sustain life without doing any kind of work in exchange. Among these artificial careers may also be included public assistance, unemployment benefit, gambling gains and inherited valuables. They are all without exception factors which, more or less, exempt the people in question from giving work to the rest of the community in return for their existence, and correspondingly become therefore "careers" which are maintained by other people"s work. It is obvious that such abnormalities will be impossible when the total economy of terrestrial people is under administrative control. The coming World Government will at that time also know how to issue careers which are not only mentally and physically positive for the concerned individuals themselves, but are also positive for the whole economy of the World State and consequently become a mitigating factor in the working and living conditions of all mankind. From today's viewpoint all necessities of life will be unbelievably inexpensive in the World State as they are connected only with working wages - no profit and no multiple artificial careers for other people. Then every able-bodied individual must contribute to the World Kingdom a real plus - not a minus - for his living. The world authority will thus block any source of income which is not a natural and well-deserved working wage, but on the contrary appears in the form of the previously mentioned "profit". Thus, in the World State no able-bodied terrestrial person can live gratis, but must contribute to daily life by doing work that is definitely beneficial to the whole of mankind as well as to himself. 106. As the world authority will thus prevent all those types of profit, with the consequence that no special way of accumulating private capital can exist, then that situation will be abolished which today makes it possible for large sections of the population to evade their obligation to work for the community, being able to accept and enjoy their existence without doing any kind of work in return; so, as they contribute nothing towards their existence, it becomes obvious that they live on other people's labour. But while living on other people's labour, these other people will be forced to do without the full benefit of their work. This again means that the working wages of these latter people are reduced, and their natural leisure time shortened. But because of the existence of these two factors, the reality is that there is a corresponding reduction of the same people's access to the spiritual and material goods of life. And as the people in question consequently have been made artificially primitive, worn out, poor and overworked, we can see before us that group of people appearing in life under the concept of "proletariat" or the "lower classes" Those people who have not done any work for their existence but have had the possibility to live on profit, have had, on the contrary, too much leisure and too much access to the more or less real pleasures of life. And as they have in this way become used to an unnatural life, they will also appear as unnatural. To a large extent they have accustomed themselves to live in luxury, greed and extravagance. They also appear to have overstrained bodies, but this strain is not due to an excessive amount of work, but to excessive "pleasure". This easy access to life's valuable goods allows them to live in a fixed atmosphere of arrogance which consequently quite distorts their concept of life and makes them adherents of the superstition that the "possession of great wealth" and "to be waited on" are expressions of culture and greatness, and that "working" is degrading or unworthy of "good taste". So they are entirely prevented from coming to realize that life's greatest and most natural hallmark is "work", and that a person's real and true greatness can be determined solely by his unselfish and charitable actions. They do not see that offering one's life for work is the greatest "purple robe" of distinction and "halo" of light in which any living being can be shown. In considering this fact it will be the above-mentioned people themselves who therefore should be identified as constituting a "proletariat". This "proletariat" appears on a large scale within that group of people coming under the category of the "bourgeoisie" or "upper classes". 107. However, due to the last centuries of evolution, the contrast between the upper and lower classes has been greatly reduced and we are observing the fact that within the upper classes, there are now emerging more and more figures who are high-minded, industrious and energetic on behalf of the whole of the community, in the same way as better working conditions and circumstances with more freedom than in the past, have gradually arisen to some extent among the lower classes. But this equalizing of upper and lower classes is not yet anywhere near completed, and will only be finished when neither of those two classes exists any longer, which is bound to become a fact under the government of a great world authority. Indeed, because of its power of administration developed in harmony with the law of existence, it will make clear that it is the terrestrial human community alone who can possess the valuable goods, and consequently the latter cannot be possessed by any single individual or by anything else in the form of share companies, commercial credit associations, trading companies or whatever part of terrestrial human society they might represent. But the same authority will then further demonstrate that only the terrestrial human community can be the "employer", while the single individual can definitely only be the "worker". So in the perfect World State, no person will be able to come into the world to be served, but only in order to serve. 108. Since the terrestrial human community alone and not single individuals or companies can possess the valuable goods, the world economy will become perfected, and so, in the World State, it will not be permitted for one part of the world to burn and destroy its overproduction of necessities of life because the poverty-stricken population in another part cannot afford to pay the rate of exchange fixed by credit companies and business magnates, or cover the charges connected with the consignment or export of goods. In all respects, the surplus production of the fertile countries will be used to benefit the underproductive countries. Customs duties between countries will be abolished and the customs services will be changed over to serve as units in the economy's police control of the world domain. That is, they will be given the task of keeping the world government informed as to the financial situation, the surplus production and under production of each country and will thus become a fundamental support for the whole world regulation of the economy. 109. Another exceptional and powerful factor which will also be changed under the world authority, is the advantage of making use of modern machines. By machines, one understands realities by the help of which one is able to produce "work". So this will mean realities which can relieve or exempt terrestrial mankind from some of its rough, daily tasks. As a machine can only gain a foothold and thereby become widespread in the world if it can carry out more and better work than a terrestrial person in one particular field or another, then the consequence will be that sometimes a machine will be constructed to do more than ten times or a hundred times the amount of work a single terrestrial person could do in a similar period of time. In order to exist, the whole of terrestrial humanity over the world has to carry out a certain amount of work each day. By means of a machine this amount will be reduced, and just as much work power released as the machine is constructed to replace. If, for instance, a machine replaces one hundred terrestrial people, this will then mean that these hundred individuals are at the disposal of the remainder of the community so that its collective working hours will thus shorten the daily working hours of those hundred people. As machines are used in their millions all over the world and new ones are continually being invented, this means that terrestrial mankind's conditions of life have been reduced by millions and millions of working hours and are continually being still further reduced. So, on account of machines, terrestrial mankind has gained an enormous fund of leisure time, which is still growing. This indicates that not only can people's working day be shortened, but also that, in addition to the weekly "day of rest", there will be more days off for every single terrestrial person. But, as inactivity is not in harmony with the law of existence, one will still hear throughout the world that "six days shall you work, but on the seventh you shall rest".* This means that the surplus days off which individuals will have cannot justifiably be used for inactivity. But as no physical work can be done on those days, then the work must be of a mental nature. This again means that these non-physical work days will become study days. The coming world authority will therefore establish schools and colleges where, on those days, by law, terrestrial mankind will be obliged to study art, science, languages, social economy, handicrafts, and so on, thus becoming trained free of charge in the special subjects and areas selected by the single individuals themselves as being in harmony with their personal wish, interest and ability, and by these means make contact with the law of existence and be raised to the level of sensitivity for the "coming of the Great Birth". In this way, under the future world administration, the law of existence will be brought into full effect. But, as this administration is not to be found at the present time, the conditions prevailing are quite naturally bound to be the opposite. Admittedly, we are already witnessing the invention of machines and their application and we are also witnessing the leisure time they provide for terrestrial people; but here the difference appears. We are actually witnessing this leisure time as clearly constituting an undermining "cancer" for terrestrial humanity itself, for it is identical with what is so often called in ordinary terms "idleness", expressed by the term "unemployment", now appearing on a large scale in all continents. As unemployment leads to "destitution", we see in our time machines creating destitution, working against the divine world plan, whose aim, as we have just learned, is to allow machines to relieve some of that material pressure which is still clinging to the life of terrestrial mankind in the form of rough, physical work and by that relief making it easier for people to gain access to the regions of spirit and divine knowledge. If we are to discover why it is that machines have not yet been brought forward to complete harmonization with the world plan, we must return once again to those factors which still determine that "right" is not united with "might", and that the terrestrial community - or rather its social economics - still constitutes a colossus sitting enthroned on the principle: "Every man for himself", concentrated in the form of "private interest", and therefore it has not sufficiently developed its "blood" which, in the form of "common interest", shall bind it together into a united body of "right" in pure essence. As "private interest", in the form of "money power" or "private power", owns the world's valuable goods, it has become the controller of all work, and thereby of administration. As private power cannot be interested in the development or the acquisition of power by "common interest" or "common power" - which would mean its own destruction - it encourages those projects which can increase its possessions and supplement it with still more power. But in order to maintain its power and existence, it must make use of an army of workers. As these are living beings, "private power" is forced to provide its workers with food and lodging in the form of more or less narrowly measured wages, if it is to make any profit on their work, in just the same way as a farmer has to provide his domestic animals with food and shelter if he expects them to give him any profit. So, when a machine is invented, private power has considerable advantage in acquiring it, thus being able to dismiss just as many workers as the machine was built to replace, and to increase its "private capital" by the same amount which, in the form of wages, would have been the same workers' prerequisite for life. This circumstance is not exactly flattering for private power's harmony with the law of existence or that great commandment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself", for it reminds one too much of those realities upon which is built "true heathendom" or the world's dark morality. That this circumstance is, nevertheless, a fact, is proved by the growing mass of unemployment now appearing all over the world, which unavoidably has to be the consequence. As unemployment means destitution, then that consequence will result in the deprivation of thousands and thousands of terrestrial people's natural means of acquiring their daily necessities of life through honest work. And again, the unavoidable results of this must be poverty, begging, swindling, prostitution, crime, indolence, vagabondage, lethargy and suicide, which collectively cannot but be identified as being unnatural, as a consumptive disease or a gaping wound in the body of the terrestrial human community. This wound is now growing at such a speed that the masses throughout the world are beginning to see their existence threatened, and through trade unions, political organizations and associations of many varieties they have begun to rise up in opposition. And this resistance will not cease until the valuable goods of the entire world have been collected into a treasury common to all five continents and to the whole of the terrestrial community, protected by world authority and administered by world government, and therefore able to guarantee natural conditions of life, genuine law and justice, humanity and universal love for every living being. 110. All private assets will gradually become the property of the World State as development progresses, so finally there will only remain on Earth but one single property owner or capitalist, namely, united terrestrial humanity. Originally humanity was presented with the world as a gift in order to "bring it into subjection". But when people first received this "gift" they were at the animal kingdom stage, and consequently they received the world - as is obvious from the above - like "animals". That is to say, the strongest and most cunning individuals took possession not only of their rightful share of the "gift" but also a large portion of those parts which rightfully belonged to other individuals - individuals who were inferior in strength and in greed. So terrestrial humanity appropriated the world in the same way as beasts of prey seize a chunk of meat. The strongest animals will take all of it, utterly indifferent as to whether their less powerful fellows thereby starve to death. Since terrestrial humanity has not come to an end of receiving the gift of the world in this manner - existing in our day as the struggle for valuable goods, which again results in private property, capital and wealth for some people, and poverty, need and misery for others - then we have here a proof that terrestrial humanity is still within the territory of the animal kingdom and has not yet succeeded in bringing the world into subjection. It has not mastered the skill of sharing; it has not yet been able to guarantee or organize that every single individual receives his rightful inherited share of the divine gift. Therefore, when all private possessions or valuable goods in the world change over to become World State property, it will simply mean that this sharing has now become part of the culture. As the world, then, is a "gift" for the whole of mankind, naturally this does not mean that some private individual persons have been presented exclusively with the coal mines, others with the oil wells and others again with the gold and diamond mines or other mineral deposits as their "private property" and therefore can have the right to make themselves "business kings" or "magnates" in these fields and so monopolize them, thus hindering the rest of mankind's access to the necessities of life in question. However, as the latter are nevertheless still being appropriated by such "stock exchange magnates" who are only interested in keeping a rate of exchange or price quotation continually rising and falling exactly in accordance with the very highest price the community can be compelled to pay, then here we see once more that "might" is not united with "right". "Might" and not "right" decides the price of the necessities of life. That there were people who had the initiative to set up mining industries and manufacturing concerns is actually a divine fact and disharmony only appears when the people in question at the same time stage "masked robbery", or begin to lay their hands on "profit" in the form of valuable goods for which they do not contribute anything in return. As the world's mineral deposits have come into existence without the cost of a single penny, or a single drop of sweat from terrestrial humanity, it has been given these commodities in the same way as it has been given the air it breathes. Therefore no terrestrial persons will have the smallest cosmic right to take payments for minerals or other materials, for if they did so, they would be receiving valuable goods for which they had not given anything in exchange. Only when they have processed the material in such a way that it has become an asset to terrestrial humanity can payment be due to them. Such payment cannot be a payment for the material itself, but on the contrary, only payment for the work necessary for rendering that material useful. Thus, this work will obviously become the only real value with which terrestrial mankind should pay for the necessities of life. But, as mentioned above, because no terrestrial person has done any work for the existence of material substances on Earth, and those material substances are really the property of all terrestrial people, then they cannot be used as justifiable payment for any work done. Work can only be paid with work. The only genuine method of payment in the world, therefore, is solely a person's useful work or creative product. Thus every normal terrestrial person who comes into the world has a natural, innate faculty for payment. In the World State, this inborn faculty for payment will come into its own properly and will be protected by law, and as explained later any possibility of misuse or exploitation will be entirely ruled out. In the World State, an individual's own personal and useful work effort will then be the sole existing method of payment. Indeed, as the World State gains possession of the valuable goods, money will gradually disappear from the face of the Earth. 111. Finally, no private property will exist; all ships and railways, all factories and workshops, all pits, mines and machines, all products of the soil and other commodities, will be owned by the World State, by the whole of terrestrial humanity and not by a few of its individual members. In actual fact there will be only one commercial enterprise in the world. This enterprise does not have the object of establishing the appropriation of unpaid values in the form of "profit" or "surplus", nor of establishing a basis for a "gratis existence" and idleness for a group of "shareholders" and their families, heirs and relations. On the contrary, the sole purpose of the enterprise will be to maintain the required production of the necessities of life so that the individuals of terrestrial humanity can have an existence free from worries and servitude. As we already know, machines of all kinds will be used to carry out the rough physical work, whereas all other kinds of work will be done by terrestrial people themselves. Every able-bodied individual will have the duty to perform a share of the work which - according to scientific computation - will be necessary for the individual and the remainder of the community, including all its disabled people, in order to make the above-mentioned form of existence possible. This statutory work cannot in any sense have the least hint of drudgery or compulsion, for the high moral and scientific administration of the World State will guarantee for every person, work in those professions and fields in which he or she has a special interest and the most developed talents and qualifications. Born artists will then work in the service of art. Scientifically talented people will work with science, both spiritual and material, while those gifted in handicrafts and artifacts will work in these special areas. So, in this way, every individual will find his own experienced and tested niche and consequently be content in his work. A World State can only have an interest in making work stimulating, entertaining and a blessing for the single individual, and not a necessary evil, as is the case in present times when millions of terrestrial people all over the world see their work only in that light, and even more so because, in addition to their own upkeep, they must also support a string of superfluous and unpaid existences for the staff of capitalist rulers, through which their work becomes the same as servitude; indeed, it looks somewhat akin to serfdom. In the World State the people's work will never be of such a nature. The total amount of work necessary every day for maintaining the existence of all humanity will be scientifically computed, and distributed to all normal and fully able-bodied individuals of both sexes in the form of "normal working days". Everyone will thus be assigned a certain weekly number of those "normal working days" in trades or in areas where, as mentioned above, they have their interests and aptitudes. In accordance with the World State's expanded and perfected economic design which does not allow any able-bodied individual to escape his duty to work, the normal working day in that World State will be far shorter than is the case at present, and this means a great deal of leisure time for everyone, just as there will be - as mentioned above - weekly study days for all individuals for the development of the spirit and of culture. 112. When an individual has performed his obligatory number of normal working days a week, he will be given a receipt which, according to scientific computing, will correctly express the full value of all the working days that individual has rendered to the World State - minus a small, necessary instalment to the childhood, health and old-age funds of the State. Therefore this receipt will represent the individual's only means of payment, providing him with access to all World State establishments - theatres, entertainments, museums, exhibitions, means of transport and foodstuffs, up to a figure exactly balancing the work value for which the receipt in question is valid. As the work-receipt card is absolutely invalid for any other person than the one to whom it is issued, and issue can only take place on the basis of the work value rendered by that individual, and the cards referred to are the only form of payment in the World State, consequently, there could never appear any payment for which there was no security. As all assessments of work value are computed by scientific methods and are thus guaranteed to be exact, and as these assessments equally constitute the basis for those values which can be obtained in exchange, then not a single individual will be able to cause the World State a bigger deficit than the asset which he has already given it. So, as no one will have the opportunity to use up values for which he has not previously given new, full return value in accordance with his work-receipt card, then the World State is thereby guaranteed that its economic standard can never be disorganised or can depreciate, but will automatically be maintained at that standard and balance ensuring the absolute well-being of terrestrial humanity as a whole. 113. In the World State every individual in childhood or old age, as well as during illness, will be exempt from the use of work-receipts for obtaining the necessities of life, because the world administration safeguards these values, replacing them through a fund especially established for this purpose and maintained by small deductions from the people's work-receipts issued during the age of obligatory work. So, in the World State there will be no need for the demoralizing and undignified forms of "public assistance" or "poor relief" which exist today, for all subsidies from the State received by the individual in childhood, old age or during illness consequently exist only as his rightful due. Life in the World State 114. Therefore, as there cannot be any financial crises in the coming world administration - no high prices, no struggle for money and valuable goods, no mutual exploitation of individuals, no "gratis existences", no parasites on society, no unemployment, no homelessness, no need for poor relief or subsidies, no superabundance and no poverty, but, on the contrary, a healthy prosperity and easy access to all material and spiritual values for everyone, then the kingdom of the world will be far from tedious; it will not be a life in servitude and bondage, nor will there be any ideals of wealth and power, but quite the opposite - a life of ideals which can only concentrate on the highest endeavour to represent the greatest effective performance, the most beautiful work, the most perfected creation and the deepest love. In this way, life in the realm of this planet can be only a life in the highest freedom, spirit and culture, a life in the greatest harmony, happiness and joy. 115. As a more detailed description of the very developed and heightened world morality in the realm of this planet belongs to a later section of Livets Bog we can only mention in our Introduction that marriage, although on the decline for many people according to the cosmic laws - of which we shall also hear more in later sections of Livets Bog - will nevertheless be of a somewhat more perfected and happy character than it is at present - for in the World State there will be complete relief from the economic pressure so unpleasantly affecting marriages of today. Apart from minor contributions to funds for childhood, illness and old age, nobody will have anyone but himself to support. So husbands will not have to support their wives. Every woman who is hoping to become a wife or mother will, naturally, also have her own occupation and mission in life computed in normal working days and for which she receives her receipts. 116. As the maintenance for each child is also met for a time by the World State, then parents will not have any financial burden on account of their children. But as the World State will recover its outlay for the maintenance of the child through small, unnoticeable amounts deducted from that individual's work-receipts when he reaches the compulsory working age, this ensures - as mentioned before - that the World State's economy can in no way be depreciated by the incarnation on Earth of new souls. With this background there will disappear from the world the main cause of so many present-day terrible child murders, clandestine births, abortions and so on, all perilous for the existence of mankind. The birth of each tiny new world citizen, therefore, could never in any instance be the source of a father's or mother's financial worry or despair, but, on the contrary, it can be greeted with gladness by the entire World State as identical with the fulfilment of that part of the divine commandment: "Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the Earth and subdue it". 117. Now we have been through all the most important evolutionary factors which at present govern the terrestrial community of mankind. We have witnessed its condition of unhappiness and the cause for this condition, at the same time as having obtained the information for the means to eliminate that cause. In order that these means may become still clearer and more accessible to the sincere seeker of Truth we shall now, in accordance with the present chapter and other chapters in Livets Bog, briefly outline the cosmic analysis of terrestrial mankind's community in the following short summary. The terrestrial community of mankind constitutes a cosmic reality which is in the course of development. In this process it represents a stage expressing a state of transition from "animal kingdom" to "human kingdom". This state will therefore take the form of a fight between the dominating energies of these two kingdoms, which again may be expressed respectively as "selfishness" and "unselfishness". As selfish energies are explosive or disintegrating in their cosmic nature, and unselfish energies are cohesive or uniting, then terrestrial humanity's development will be synonymous with a transformation from a nebulous, divided state into a coherent or condensed unit. In other words, this community may be likened to a star mist which is gradually condensing itself into a radiant sun. In this condensing process terrestrial humanity has progressed as far as to represent quite a number of single, already coherent or condensed, shining clusters. These shining clusters manifest themselves to us in life as "nations" or "State powers". But the process of condensation continues to evolve ever further. In the form of a number of international events, the State powers have already amalgamated so much or become so interdependent, that a single State power's break or exclusion from this coalition is in many cases a "rupture" or a catastrophe. This fact has already become so obvious for the more understanding and intelligent members of terrestrial society, that it has given rise to great international anti-war movements, peace federations, and to the League of Nations, all of which movements continue to expand and constitute forces concentrating themselves more and more on the establishment of a common world administration and World Government, thereby fulfilling the promise given by the world religions concerning "one flock and one shepherd". All this will become even more obviously true and entirely factual when we consider that the present sufferings and difficulties terrestrial mankind is experiencing are all without exception rooted in the animal energy "selfishness", which in this case is the same as "nationalism". Naturally this does not imply that distinctive national features in spirit and culture should be suppressed. Here of course we are only talking about those sides of national features which damage or clash with the welfare and continued existence of the terrestrial community as a whole. As the furthering of unselfishness, in the form of "internationalism" is continually stimulated spiritually and supported by the previously mentioned Divine Creative Principle's new world impulse, then the victory of internationalism as a divine, international World Kingdom, possessing mutual, spiritual and absolute knowledge for its religious basis and a just and perfect world administration founded on this basis, then internationalism should not in any way be considered as Utopia or a problem to be solved in some incalculable, distant future. On the contrary, it is a realistic fact, the growth of which takes place fractionally every day before our very eyes, and no terrestrial man can therefore wantonly be opposed to it or avoid its stimulation. It becomes all the more of a fact because the above-mentioned realities - in other words, the effects of the World State described in this chapter - constitute nothing other than the terminating of all those factors which terrestrial mankind is actually experiencing today as imperfections and deficiencies. As terrestrial mankind mainly consists of normal individuals, and normal individuals carry out only normal actions, and normal actions are those which experience has confirmed as logical, then consequently, with regard to preserving the terrestrial community, the latter will gradually understand how to act logically, owing to its experience of the illogical and the incorrect in its present existence. Otherwise it would indeed have to bear the stamp of abnormality. But as all experiences show that there is nothing wrong with terrestrial humanity's mental faculties, in that, day by day, it continues to develop them, makes use of and learns from everything around it, and cosmically seen, is developing on a normal, rising plane - so then, the World State, in a relatively short space of time, will become an actuality, the creation of which every terrestrial person today is already taking part, either in quickening or in delaying. The great question for every individual terrestrial person is, therefore: "What can I do to be fully in accord with the creation of this divine Kingdom of Peace and with the release of complete harmony and happiness on Earth?" And the answer here - as everywhere else in divine wisdom - is the great commandment: "Love one another!" As the energies or vibrations from the Creative Principle's light radiation through the events of life have gradually shaped the fulfilment of this divine commandment so that it constitutes special factors which influence terrestrial mankind's daily life and actions, and these factors, through the new world impulse from this radiation, will now be further shown as being identical with the Way towards the Light, then we shall pause here to make a survey of them. These factors - the entire display of energy by which divine Providence seeks to bring forward to perfection terrestrial mankind's fulfilment of the great message of Love - are expressed in the following twelve points: 1. The victory of unselfishness over selfishness in all forms (the victory of common interest over private interest). 2. The creation of an international, democratic World Government. 3. The demilitarization of all countries in favour of the establishment of an international, non-political world police force. 4. The development of an international undisguised - not secret - supreme system of law and justice, represented by science's most eminent people in spiritual as well as in material fields, who would be qualified to know the difference between "abnormal actions" and "crimes", knowing the course of evolution and life's eternal laws which would thus guarantee absolute right and justice for all things and all beings. 5. The abolition of private individuals possessing valuable goods in favour of their appropriation by the World State. 6. The abolition of money in favour of the establishment of an individual's personally rendered work as the only value of payment, and the receipt for it as their only means of payment. 7. The establishment of a fund for childhood, old age and illness covering the whole of the World State and founded on the basis of instalments from work-receipts. 8. The employment of machines for shortening material working hours in favour of study days and spiritual research. 9. The abolition of all violence and bloodshed. 10. The abolition of torture and corporal and capital punishment in favour of expert arrangements for internment and education. 11. The development of vegetarian food, of well-being and care of the physical body, including healthy and well-lit housing conditions. 12. Development of intellectual liberty, tolerance, humanity and love to all living beings, to people and animals, to plants and to minerals. These twelve points will be found to be identical with the factors around which the entire terrestrial human power of development is concentrated, and according to which the fulfilment of life's greatest message: "Love one another", based on the new, cosmic world impulse, will now approach its perfect release in terrestrial mankind's daily existence. The above-mentioned points are consequently not a speculation worked out by the brain, or a constructed hypothesis, but, on the contrary, the definition of a true, factual analysis which has come to express itself in thought only on the basis of previous, realistic experiences. No terrestrial person will, therefore, be able to exist without being in contact with these realities, or being surrounded by these energies. 118. To be in harmony with these energies or these twelve points is thus the same as being in harmony with the divine world plan - that is, being a stimulating factor in the creation of World Peace on Earth - and it is the quickest way to the "Great Birth" for every terrestrial person and to the attainment of a transfigured existence. Antagonism towards these points or energies will, on the contrary, mean being in disharmony with the world energies and against the heart of the world religions - it means that one is obstructing terrestrial mankind's release from the dark areas of war and suffering and in this way making oneself an undermining factor for one's own happiness. 119. But as the energies from the Divine Creative Principle's light radiation have long ago become a dominating factor in terrestrial mankind's evolution and thus made it a reality that mankind is developing from the animal kingdom to the human kingdom, and not the opposite, and that this development can undoubtedly take place only on the basis of the fulfilment of the great commandment: "Love one another", and again, that this fulfilment - according to the divine world plan concerning terrestrial mankind - can only be released in the form of the mentioned points, then the expansion of these points together with the consequent creation of a divine World Kingdom will also be manifested as an absolute reality. The important events taking place all over the world in the present century should be defined as a transformation of terrestrial mankind's twilight state into a brilliant, clear existence; they are the animal kingdom's death struggle in terrestrial mankind's body of society; they are the beginning of the cosmic human kingdom's resurrection on Earth. That these great events could not - and will not - take place without bloodshed is quite natural while they still remain identical with a fight which is brought about within that area where hate, revenge and self-defence are at war with slavery, hoarding and avarice. A battlefield expressing the interactions of such energies can only produce corpses. But from these corpses the world will arise in a new, transfigured appearance, and the Earth will become a vibration of reason and love, a harmony of intuition and bliss. next chapter is, Chapter 5, Terrestrial Mankind's Receptivity to the New World Impulse, which can be red on http://www.martinus.dk.