Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1664

1664. But since this command lies beyond the epoch and mission of "The Bible", it has been veiled by "The Bible" as the will of another source, indeed, as the animosity of a fallen angel towards the divine being. From this we have the terms the "devil", "Satan" or the "Evil One". People have been incapable of perceiving one of the very greatest leading cosmic principles of existence as anything other than a primitive terrestrial human temperament. Here they have created the structure of the universe in their own image and have believed that the above-mentioned structure was sustained by the same low, primitive, ignorance-based traditions as the terrestrial human existence, which is full of misery, sorrow and war, and that the Godhead had to be an absolute hater or enemy of darkness. If they therefore wanted to gain the Godhead's favour, they also had to be an enemy and hater of all darkness or so-called "evil" in the world. But how could the terrestrial human being, who is devoid of "cosmic day-consciousness", this, from a cosmic point of view, "dead" being, perceive existence in any other way than through the traditions and ideas that had to exist in a mental structure from which all cosmic sensory perception was excluded? The single and highest form of life it had as a model was simply its own. And since this form of life was at its peak as regards the manifestation of revenge and hatred or as regards unkindness towards one's neighbour, thereby inflicting on the individual the experience of the disastrous nature of this way of existing, it had to be a matter of course for this being that there was a lack of mental light in the world. The recognition of this lack is a proof that God's command about the creation of darkness has already begun to be fulfilled. That the human beings, with their surfeit of darkness, had no need of a "Bible" that put darkness and light on the same footing in the cosmic world structure is naturally a matter of course. It became the task of "The Bible" to stimulate God's most recent command: "Let there be light". And for this reason all the leading world religions have for thousands of years been focussed only on the creation of light by inspiring people to hate "evil" and love "good", to hate darkness and worship light.