974. But what is the purpose of this abundance of satiation? Why does the son of God have his desire for light or mental sunshine fulfilled to such an extent that this very sunshine turns his life into a desert, in which in his feebleness he has to cry for help? And why is his desire for darkness or "evil" satisfied equally abundantly so that here too he experiences the same desert state and, in his feebleness, has to cry for help and release? Would it not be more perfect to allow him to experience light and darkness, rain and sunshine, in a permanently suitable combination, so that the "desert" could never arise in his consciousness? No, for how could that possibly come about? Who can demonstrate a more perfect form for the structure of life than that which exists? If an individual experiences both light and darkness in such abundance that these two phenomena culminate, each in its own period, as automatic functions – from the state of being "knowledge A", to "knowledge B" and thereafter to "knowledge C", at which point they have become entirely functions of the subconsciousness* no longer engaging the day-consciousness, and as such are no longer awake conscious thoughts – the day-consciousness would then inevitably be correspondingly deprived of thought and would lack material with which to occupy itself. But such a lack is the same as mental hunger. This mental hunger arises after every culminating experience of both light and darkness. After the culminating experience of light the being's mental hunger can be satisfied by only those kinds of thoughts that constitute a contrast to light and that therefore belong to disharmony or darkness, just as the opposite is the case after the culminating experience of darkness when the hunger can be satisfied by only the kinds of thoughts that constitute a contrast to darkness or disharmony. Terrestrial mankind has therefore to a greater or lesser extent passed the culminating experience of darkness and is consequently to a correspondingly greater or lesser extent hungry for peace, harmony and light. Darkness is no longer able to satisfy terrestrial mankind's mental hunger. It is longing for every form of contrast to darkness. And the light is now the strongly desired aim of its struggle. But if it had not been allowed to experience darkness to such an extent as is the case, they would never have managed to have had the horizon of its awake day-consciousness expanded with the knowledge of the true worth of the light, harmony and peace.
 
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* "overbevidsthedsfunktioner" (meaning "functions of the superconsciousness") has been corrected to "underbevidsthedsfunktioner" ("functions of the subconsciousness") in accordance with the original manuscript.