975. The fact that what we today call "darkness" or "evil" was at one time a goal that terrestrial mankind desired or longed for just as strongly as they today long for the light, is very clearly substantiated, as we have just seen, by the accounts of the "Fall" and the "prodigal son". Both accounts describe the human being in the light, its fall into "darkness" and its return to the light. But as darkness has therefore at one time been a sought after phenomenon that was absolutely essential for the continuation of life, its existence was a blessing. Since knowledge of darkness is the same as the fruit of "the tree of knowledge", without which Adam and Eve or mankind could not possibly have reached the desired satiation or the culminating experience of darkness that was necessary in order for the light to once again become desired, awake, day-conscious functions or experience, this "fruit" was likewise a blessing. As the "serpent" guided the distressed Adam and Eve, or terrestrial mankind that was hungry for this "fruit", to this very "fruit", the "serpent", which is also called the "devil" or "evil", therefore became mankind's benefactor or helper in its time of need. He was its first "world redeemer". The "seduction" of Eve by the "devil" or the "serpent" was a blessing for mankind. This is further confirmed by God's own words to Adam and Eve after the "Fall", words that have been interpreted as his "curse" upon the Earth. As Adam and Eve (terrestrial mankind) were in a mental state in which their day-consciousness was dying due to a lack of contrasts to their existence in the light, the Godhead's "curse" can be only the expression of a blessing. It was in reality a promise to them that everything that existed as a contrast to the light and that to them at that time were of vital importance to their lives would be the very things to befall them. How beautiful this divine promise must have sounded in their ears. To learn that all those things for which they hungered and thirsted for to such an enormous extent would actually be given to them, could be only a supplement to the great divine promise that had already sounded in their ears: "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth". Was it not the fulfilment of Adam and Eve's wishes that was now being proclaimed? To be promised the fulfilment of one's wishes can be only a message of joy. The whole account of Paradise, with its "serpent", the "fall" and God's "curse" upon the Earth was thus originally one great manifestation of light, a bringing to life for the first time of the divine principle of love itself that governs the whole principle of the cycle and is thus the solid foundation of the universe and thereby constitutes the unfailing ideal or model for any form of absolutely perfect creation, manifestation or consciousness at all. It is nothing less than a phase of the same divine light that no being can live without, and that is therefore, in the form of a "lasting peace", the coveted aim for the entire manifestation of energy of terrestrial human beings.