Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 3, sect. 965

965. War and mutilation, drudgery and servitude, pain and suffering, all camouflaged as an experience of sunshine and happiness, was the phenomenon that the "serpent" really presented Eve with, and of which she "ate" and made Adam "eat". And the effects of this were immediately apparent. Adam and Eve no longer found themselves in the garden. They were no longer in the presence of God. Their originator, friend and protector was no longer there. They stumbled forwards in the darkness. And the darkness spread over the Earth in the form of degenerating religions and "materialism", a condition in which God's existence was denied and knowledge consisted of only answers in terms of weights and measures. The illusion of "coincidence" is the general conclusion about the universe, an illusion that inevitably promoted the illusion of "every man for himself", thus leading to a continuation of the eating of the "tree of knowledge" or the "forbidden" fruit. And what have been the effects of this? Do we not find this mankind, which is culminating in answers in terms of weights and measures, in technology and materialism and thereby in godlessness, in the process of experiencing its own "nakedness"? Is not the cry for "peace", that is to say, the cry for neighbourly love and the Godhead, the first signs of a subtle undertone beneath the surface of the present-day killing technology that noisily crushes everything to pieces? Indeed, is it not the case that this peace, or this longing for love that exists between the beings, is actually the inspirational force behind the operating controls of bombers, submarines and battleships, triggering off these hellish machines' contacts that bring about murder and dismemberment? War is no longer a sport, an entertainment or an undisguised religion, as it had been for the primitive human beings of bygone ages, when the road to "Valhalla" or to the favour of the Godhead was open only to killers and to those who themselves were killed. Nowadays everyone is fighting against everyone, murdering and mutilating, but absolutely not because they feel any joy in it, quite the contrary. How great are the floods of tears or the pangs of conscience and mental breakdowns in the ranks of soldiers on all fronts? No, fighting or war today is felt to be an absolutely crushing necessity. It is, in reality, not human beings one wants to murder at all; it is war itself with all its horrors, that is to say "hell" itself, that one wants to annihilate. Thus, in reality, battles are fought on every front in order to "kill" or abolish war. One thus murders human beings only where one believes that one is thereby "murdering" or annihilating war. Nowadays it is the war and not the human being that constitutes the evil that is pursued. In earlier times it was the human being and not the war that was the true aim of the pursuit. War was the favourite pastime of the gods and was consequently the standard of morality and the religion of the terrestrial human beings of that time; it was the coveted but "forbidden" fruit on the "tree of knowledge". Today it is the abolition of war that is the standard of morality and the religion for these beings. Today we have discovered the hollowness or "nakedness" that is connected with eating of this "forbidden" fruit. And as the abolition of war will cause neighbourly love to grow, flourish and shine over all things with the atmosphere of radiance and warmth of its peace, Adam and Eve will therefore in reality once again find themselves in the glorious Garden of Eden, in which the presence of God and his speech and caresses are once again daily experiences. And at this point Adam and Eve will have completed a cycle. The "Fall" is thus, in reality, an account that relates that life constitutes a cycle.