140. Group B. With the third category, fifth section, we have covered that part of terrestrial humanity which is relatively unresponsive to religious inspiration and influence from the old world impulse and possesses a combination of mental qualities where old religious beliefs, dogmas and ideas seem to be more or less naïve. So all individuals belonging to this part of terrestrial humanity will be stimulated by the new world impulse alone and they will gradually become more and more receptive to it. This will be for them absolutely the only way to the Light and to "conversion". With regard to Group B, on the contrary, we have a number of human beings not yet grown away from the influence of the old world impulse and they are either its faithful supporters or are ready to become so. Therefore for them it will be this impulse which is the only way to the Light and to "conversion".
      We became aware in Group A that there are primitive beings who have just become incarnate from the region of uncivilized nature people and have outgrown the old world impulse. In Group B, on the contrary, we will see represented very highly developed people who can even have the titles of doctor and professor without having outgrown that impulse; they may even be fanatical supporters of those old concepts which, for them, are like unshakeable dogmas. Thus, there will be a fundamental difference in the religious concepts of these two major groups of human consciousness. In reality, this difference will be the same in principle as the difference between a new-born child's intake of nourishment and that of a more mature individual. Just as a new-born child cannot consume and digest solid food but must be fed on liquids or milk, so neither, in their initial zones of development from animal to human being, can terrestrial people absorb religious nourishment from their daily coarse material events and experiences, but in some way they have to be fed with "liquid" nourishment. This "liquid" nourishment is, in Livets Bog, given the name of "divine suggestion". As suggestion is a concept imposed on the individual, not through intelligence, but solely through the faculty of feeling, consequently acquiring an air of reality and a power over that individual's mind without any material or intelligent basis, then the "liquid" nourishment, or "divine suggestion", becomes in this way an imposed religious concept which is not intellectually substantiated, proved or well-founded but nevertheless completely controls the individual. As submitting to such control is the same as having "faith", all the individuals whose religious state entitles them to be called "the faithful" become exactly the same as those whose religions are still upheld by virtue of divine suggestion. To "believe" unshakeably in something which is not proved by the intelligence is, then, one and the same thing as being under "suggestion". So all "the faithful" are, without exception, individuals who cannot yet by themselves manage to attain religious inspiration and understanding from actual daily material events, but have to fulfil their religious need and achieve religious satisfaction by faith. Thus faith becomes evident as a focusing of the consciousness, opening it up for the individual to an inflow of mental and spiritual forces. However, as consciousness itself is energy, and energy can only be transformed through the influence of some other energy, then those spiritual forces reveal themselves as realistic facts, for gradually they completely alter the mentality of a person. So when an individual becomes influenced by divine suggestion - that is to say, when he is given a provisionally unshakeable belief in one or other religious ideal - then a spiritual and cosmic force in accordance with that ideal will at once begin to flow into his consciousness. This force will be at a more or less advanced spiritual level according to the standard represented by that ideal. The spiritual forces flowing in this way through primitive nature people are not of the same quality as those flowing through the person of a more highly developed culture, for the belief of the latter is directed towards an ideal which is of a higher spiritual character than that of nature people. When these spiritual forces are flowing into the consciousness of the individual they are expressed as joy, sometimes culminating in ecstasy, and inspiration or a renewed tendency or desire to aim for the ideal on which that belief is based. When such a transformation of consciousness suddenly takes place in an individual it will then be identical with what we normally call "conversion". And so, cosmically seen, positively the only way the still primitive being can attain satisfactory religious nourishment is by having faith. It is the only way through which he can be supplied with the necessary cosmic power and energy for his further development. To achieve faith in a religious ideal will then be a spiritual condition of life for such an individual. But as faith is not something controlled by the will - which is why it is impossible to superimpose faith on anyone by physical power - then it has to be introduced in other ways. The less intelligence an individual is, the easier it is to have faith. But the easier it is for the individual to have faith, the more open and receptive will he be for spiritual energies without any intellectual justification. So he receives the religious and spiritual energies more in the form of impulses or psychic inspiration than in the form of a real analysis, while exactly the opposite happens in the case of the more advanced terrestrial person. The more developed the latter is, the more impossible it is for him to believe without having some intelligent and reasonable justification. As his development progresses, he can only achieve a receptive attitude for religious nourishment and cosmic power through realistic analyses, genuine facts and personal experiences, this being actually the same as true "knowledge". And this brings us to the difference between Group A and Group B. Group A consists of those whose mentality and growing intelligence can no longer harmonize satisfactorily with the old world impulse; while Group B, on the contrary, consists of those who have not yet acquired enough intelligence to enable them to begin to understand the great and true cosmic analysis of life, and therefore only by divine suggestion or faith can they be guided towards the Light.
      The old world impulse, the only way towards the Light for people from Group B, must consequently be of such a nature that it guides them more by faith than by knowledge, and is therefore a contrast to the new world impulse which will guide people more by knowledge than by faith.
      With further regard to Group B, the faculty of intelligence is not of such an advanced nature that it calls for much more satisfaction than it already has from the old world impulse. Admittedly, we find representatives of intelligence also, such as doctors and professors, but they have not attained their ranks and titles in such intellectual areas as could make them outgrow the state of faith. So their intelligence in the religious field is therefore not yet strong enough to free them from the dominating power of divine suggestion.