Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1668

1668. The terrestrial human being is thus a being that, because of its half-sex state, finds itself in the zone of the culmination of darkness. It has arrived at this zone by virtue of the evolution of its drive for self-preservation, which in turn is to say its drive to protect itself. The vital, momentary experience of the paradise or the divine luminous existence that the being lived in before the transformation of its poles began also comes within this self-protection. This momentary experience of a luminous existence is the absolutely last remnant of the experience of real life, and can occur normally only through the act of copulation or the being becoming "one flesh" with a being of the opposite sex. This divine experience of light thus appears here in an extremely reduced or diminished form. From being a permanent experience of life, a permanent unselfish loving connection with all other living beings, it is now merely a tiny, weak glimpse of light that – even though it is enough to permeate the body with an intoxicating feeling of well-being for the seconds that the actual sexual climax lasts – has, however, no mental details. The being here has absolutely no intellectual, day-conscious idea of the core analysis of its experience. For the being it is but a vital satisfaction of an undetailed desire, which is perceived only as a feeling of "sensual pleasure". The heavenly world thus constitutes here merely a momentary "feeling of sensual pleasure" at the peak of being a half-sex being. For every such momentary experience of sensual pleasure both days and nights can pass where the individual lives in the physical world and is wakingly day-conscious only in the details that have to do with the satisfaction of its other vital, bodily desires, such as food, protection from other beings and the climate. Since the culmination of this form of existence is one hundred per cent a life-and-death struggle, the being's entire experience of life, with the exception of the brief moment that it is "one flesh" with a being of the opposite sex, will thus be absolutely impenetrable darkness. As to life's experience of light (the act of copulation), it does not give the being any wakingly day-conscious, cosmic details. The experience of light is simply a "feeling of pleasure" analogous with the feeling of pleasure one has when enjoying a good meal, but simply multiplied and intensified very much. A lesser degree of the ability to experience the luminous existence cannot exist, for it would then be so weak that it could not determine the continuation of the cycle. Complete annihilation would then take place. But, because of the laws of the cycle, this annihilation cannot possibly occur.