Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1316

1316. The entire spiritual or mental structure of "The Old Testament" was thus in reality based solely on the principle of selfishness transformed into material laws and phenomena. This principle then gave rise to the beginning of the "business principle" that today dominates or rules the world to an all-overwhelming extent. The "business principle" – which in itself is highly divine, since it stipulates "the same value for the same value", and would, if the opposite were the case, mean "sponging" off society or existence – thus became the principle through which the beings, during a considerable part of their evolution, could camouflage their rather exaggerated selfishness and desire to acquire the good things of life at the expense of their neighbour. It became a means whereby this exorbitant satisfaction could literally be camouflaged down through the millennia. It became a means whereby people by "legal means" let this animal tendency in the terrestrial human being be cared for and protected by an as-yet imperfect authority. The exorbitant satisfaction of the exaggerated egoistic desires – which previously had to be attained by an undisguised, raw, personal or individual brute force through murdering, killing and oppressing others or through other warlike measures glorified by the religions of the past and essential to the attainment of "paradise" – found thus in the "business principle" a kind of open channel into a higher mental sphere where one officially began to attain a higher view of the Godhead, a view that demanded the abolition of murder and killing and that one should give rather than receive, indeed, even love one's neighbour as oneself. This view of the Godhead and this attitude to one's neighbour were simply an outrage to such a worshipper of ancient gods, to such an admirer of raw force and strength, to such an admirer of the gods of blood vengeance and oppression, while to the remaining terrestrial human beings within his tribe who were more developed and had therefore a slightly more friendly attitude towards the new view of God and morality, it was not something he could accept out of hand without further ado.