Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1681

1681. But it is not the task of the biblical account to shed light on the living beings' preterrestrial time in Eden or the light. It has used only words and expressions that can satisfy the simple being's needs, while revealing to the sage who has himself become "the way, the truth and the life" that one is thoroughly acquainted with the innermost nature of life, its sexual changeability and the ensuing eternal spiral cycle. The biblical account about the human being thus began by relating that there was a "garden of Eden" where the beings lived in the light with God, whose voice resounded throughout the garden. And the very first shadow in this superterrestrial or heavenly light was the fact that "it was not good that Adam should be alone". Here there was a shadow, a tiny hint of darkness. The living being here could, despite all the heavenly glory, nevertheless begin to long for something outside the light, something that was the contrast to the light. It could begin to feel a slight inkling of a hunger that could not be satisfied in Eden. Darkness cannot of course be experienced in Eden. But it corresponds precisely to the weak inkling of longing for the light, for the contrast to darkness that exists in the physical world. Here in the zone of darkness, "hell" or the sphere of "death", the beings gradually also feel a hunger that cannot be satisfied by the traditions of the animal kingdom or darkness.