143. The fact that terrestrial people are not all guided by divine suggestion, is due to the question of the development of their intelligence. So it should be understood that in the first zones of existence as terrestrial people, the individuals possess only a very primitive or latent intelligence and are therefore dominated by feeling and not by intelligence. So they cannot analyse or understand very much by the use of intelligence and so all kinds of realities they might witness, but not be capable of understanding or explaining, they will immediately attribute to having a "supernatural" origin, such as gods, spirits and devils, the first of which will become idols. Through these first zones of existence as terrestrial people onwards to stages where individuals begin to be capable of receiving an influence through intelligence, their entire spiritual guidance is brought about not because of their own power or knowledge but by suggestion, which means an influence on the faculty of feeling expressing itself as faith. This suggestion is really comparable to a divine arm carrying the small, still dependent and helpless individual safely through the darkness and forward to stages where it can begin to see by itself, where it can begin to move by its own power, but in this way never left on its own until these faculties have matured. And so divine suggestion - adapted as it is for stages of development where the inspiration of sacraments, christenings and other religious ceremonies are suitable and give peace and harmony - now shows itself as a divine power of love and as a new, fundamental confirmation of the eternal words: "Everything is very good".
      As individuals gradually move forward in evolution, a dawning development of intelligence begins to manifest itself and because of this, they themselves begin to attain an ability for analysing life. To the same extent as they develop this ability, they become less and less susceptible to suggestion and faith and more and more susceptible to knowledge, the desire ever increasing to be able to manage through their own power, through their own learning and through experience. For this reason they are connected to Group A. In Group B, however, all people are in that state of consciousness where, from a spiritual viewpoint, they can be guided only by divine suggestion. They are all individuals in whom neither feeling nor intelligence have developed enough to make the old, ordinary concept of life appear to them as antiquated and naïve, which means that they are all without exception its supporters or are near to becoming so. Thus, all those who have reached this stage of being supporters of that old concept represent a full scale of different religious stages which are reflected as corresponding "religious sects". Looking into these religious sects we will be aware of the many different views, developed in varying degrees, by which these people interpret the old, ordinary concept or world impulse, for every single sect, by its own particular doctrine, is expressing an understanding of, and its relation to that very concept. All those in Group B appearing as members of one sect or another will thus be relegated to the so-called "faithful" or "converted".
      Since these people, as already mentioned, would not have any great need for this book but obtain sufficient spiritual and religious nutrition from the old world impulse, we will not divide Group B into sections but just mention the characteristic features of each of its three categories.