1581. The kingdom in which such a change in what stimulates zest for life is most strongly marked is the animal kingdom, that is, the kingdom where, from a cosmic point of view, the terrestrial human being still finds himself. We need merely go back in the history of mankind and look at its ideals and perceptions of life. Was being able to kill or murder one's opponents not the highest ideal for the followers or worshippers of the Nordic gods "Odin" and "Thor"? Was being killed not also glorious, indeed, the very prerequisite for finding favour with the gods and entering "Valhalla", the animal kingdom's kingdom of heaven? This attitude to life or perception of pleasure is indicated by the white circular area in the symbol, in the section symbolising the animal kingdom. Nowadays "Valhalla" and its gods, as well as its ideals of killing, which were perceived as vital moral objectives or the key to finding favour in the company of the gods, no longer provide any feeling of pleasure. Today terrestrial mankind experiences the killing principle as a catastrophe. What was previously the road to the "kingdom of heaven" is today the road to "hell". This is indicated in the symbol by the dark circular figure in the section symbolising the animal kingdom. Satiation with the ideals of killing has turned these ideals into something terrestrial human beings find abhorrent and evil. For this reason the opposite of or contrast to today's manifestations of killing are perceived as something very pleasing. In actual fact terrestrial human beings, sometimes still unconsciously, hunger or yearn very much for life-giving manifestations, such as humaneness, fellow-feeling or neighbourly love. This hunger is expressed in their cry for and their efforts to create a really "lasting peace" on Earth. It is something of the perfecting of these ideals that leads terrestrial mankind into the next kingdom of the spiral cycle, that is to say the "real human kingdom". It is this part of this perfecting that is indicated in the symbol by the white circular figure in this section.