631. The type of consciousness for the individuals in the "climate of feeling" is based largely on "belief", that is to say, on the assertions, "dogmas", traditions, customs and habits of other people rather than on studied, intelligent analyses; and the form of consciousness for beings in the "climate of intelligence" is based more on intelligent documentation than upon a mere belief in other people's assertions. But as individuals from the "climate of intelligence" have no "ability for cosmic sensory experiences", then their established facts can only remain synonymous with those realities which can be sensed or experienced, weighed or measured by purely elementary physical means. Consequently such people do not want to hear about those problems or areas of life which lie on a higher plane than just that of the above mentioned physical facts or phenomena. They themselves are not able to sense anything which lies above these things. Therefore they can only gain access to them through reports from other beings. But as by nature they are not able to "believe", then they are naturally compelled to be born "sceptics", "doubters" and "dissenters" about everything in the existence of spiritual or cosmic life. And so they also repudiate "immortality" or "reincarnation". They are absolutely resistant to any real solution to life's mystery. Their consciousness can only adjust to the daily material problems of life. But in such matters they may also be very competent. Therefore the best of them may well become capable scientists in areas which are purely material. The great strategists and commanders are also to be found in this zone. But as their intelligence, that is their ability to analyse, is thus limited by the boundaries of physical life, they lack a general view of the structure of the world itself. Their analyses and knowledge can therefore only be regarded as the first feeble elementary beginnings of a genuine spiritual science. But, as mentioned before, only the most outstanding beings of this climate can thus be considered as researchers or scientists. The large remaining number of beings in this group use their intelligence for their own advantage, that is for satisfying their particular material desires. And many of these beings have become inordinately efficient in this area, indeed, some are simply geniuses. As they do not, however, believe in any higher precepts whatsoever concerning retribution or spiritual responsibility for their actions, but on the contrary only accept that materialistic analysis which is most relevant and seems to be the most profitable for them – namely "every man for himself" – then their genius will, to a large extent, involve, legally or illegally, the financial exploitation of other people. In this thought-climate, then, are found the most downright "swindlers" or "imposters", the most coldly calculating "criminals" and "gangsters". "Robbery" and "profiteering" thus constitute a great part of the atmosphere in this type of thought-climate.
      So as we have seen, neither of the two thought-climates described above are perfect but, on the contrary, they are predestined to create discord and thus to promote the "killing principle". The "climate of feeling" contains within its sphere those beings who, cosmically seen, are ignorant and therefore have to uphold their lives by faith, which is synonymous with suggestion, and the "climate of intelligence" contains beings within its sphere who are also ignorant, cosmically seen, but nevertheless possess so much incipient elementary materialistic knowledge that they can begin to base their lives upon it.
      While the former beings experience a very flourishing or vigorous – but "artificial" and unintellectual – spiritual life, they are by nature correspondingly less outstanding in the materialistic field – indeed, at times they regard materialistic phenomena as "sinful" or, at best, as necessary "evils". The opposite is the case with beings from the "climate of intelligence". Such beings have no real higher spiritual life, for they cannot accept phenomena which lie outside the ruling of physical weights and measures, but on the other hand they have a far too intense mental attitude towards purely materialistic matters which they regard as the "one and only salvation". Thus the highest intellectual life of such beings does not reach further than a physical horizon. But as the solution to the whole of life's mystery lies, so to speak, beyond this horizon, it will be impossible for them to document their materialistic facts' absolute relationship to and place in life's great basic cycle or spiral. Therefore the inferences that might be drawn from the highest consequences of material facts – that is, their connection with the cosmic life of the Universe – do not give those beings anything at all which is spiritually inspiring, for they are only able to imagine materialistic solutions in terms of weighing and measuring. Hence they are able to appropriate only "dead" solutions. They cannot, through material facts alone, obtain those higher solutions in the form of "expressions of life". And therefore the Universe does not appear to them as a "living" world. They cannot imagine any other form of life than their own material condition and so they very often fall into the belief that they themselves and their fellow beings here on Earth are the only real expressions of life in existence. Thus, the Universe is for them a lifeless world, an immense desert of energy, movement and creation – without a Creator! And as the ultimate consequence of this must be that it is the dead who create the living, the created thing creates its creator, the house creates the builder, and bread creates the baker and so on, then this group of beings cannot possibly be described as truly "intellectual".