Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1400

1400. The fact that the being was to "die" thus means that it was to dismiss reality itself and truth itself. "Falsehood", that is to say "death", the opposite of life, was thus to culminate in its consciousness. The being was to become so preoccupied with the "dead" or unreal things that it was to lose the ability to see the true, real living things or the eternal structure of life itself. And it can hardly be denied that this divine prophecy and intention has been realised to the full. The consciousness, mental life or spiritual structure of the terrestrial human being has certainly become a "mystery", the very culmination of superstition. It has now been eating of the "tree of knowledge" (its interest in matter, its interest in the creation of comforts and amenities for itself, the promotion of egoism or the "principle of Cain", the conquest of its neighbour's advantages and goods) for such a long time that it has become completely unable to eat of the "tree of life" (the worship and sensing of life behind physical matter, behind the organisms of its neighbour and its fellow beings, that is, all the other living beings). While it to a very great extent, indeed, almost to the point of culmination, has developed its ability to sense, form and subdue matter, the senses that would enable it to see life or the spirit itself have, on the other hand, degenerated or shrivelled to such a latent state that the individual can no longer realistically understand the eternal structure of his neighbour or his own spirit or consciousness. Indeed, in the worst case he has reached the point of completely denying the eternal structure of this spirit. And in the terrestrial human being at the peak of materialism we thus find today a worshipper of "death" instead of "life".