Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1421

1421. But is this authorisation so absolutely unshakeable? Well, as long as the individual, from a mental point of view, lives completely in harmony with its organic structure, the satisfaction of which is one-hundred-per-cent pleasure, the individual will disregard or even persecute the slightest deviation from this way of seeing things and this way of thinking. Indeed, would it not be highly immoral to think anything else? Should not a man love a woman, and a woman love a man? And has it not been written, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh". And does not the same law command that the woman acknowledge that "the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the church is Christ"? It is, indeed, true that this was once prescribed for terrestrial human beings in a bygone epoch. It was once the very highest ideal. It belongs to the Law of Moses, which represents the authorisation of the principle of revenge or retribution – "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth". It is the basis of the normality that promotes the survival of the species in a way advantageous to the killing principle or the animal tradition. But the animal tradition is of course merely a series of steps on the "ladder of evolution". And we have already seen that the beings do not die on the steps, but climb them. Thus the beings must leave the traditions, normality or moral laws of the various kingdoms. Fish cannot go on living in water for ever. They must, like their predecessors, leave the water at some point, become beings that can live on dry land and breathe air. But this transformation occurs neither miraculously nor suddenly. It can take place only gradually through a process of growth in many small steps. But just as fish cannot remain in the water, but must become beings that can walk on dry land and breathe air, so must every being leave its present step sooner or later.