Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1836

1836. When the terrestrial human sphere up to now has been, and still is, the culmination of the killing principle, and is thus the spiral cycle's winter zone, the death sphere of consciousness or the experience of life, the sphere of the culmination of suffering and darkness, it is due exclusively to the fact that the release of the mental light and warmth of the highest fire, the eternal flame of the spirit of God himself, has been reduced or restrained as much as possible by the terrestrial beings' pole constellation as male beings and female beings. Here its capacity is such that it has lost its character of universal love. Its flame has been reduced as much as is possible without it being extinguished entirely. It can therefore only just reach beyond the area that is a necessary prerequisite for it being able to continue glowing softly. This limited highest fire, flame of life or universal love exists here only as the sympathy for the opposite sex that culminates in "amorous love". Where the glow of this flame or fire can be advantageous to marriage alone, marriage of course culminates. This state is present particularly in the animals and the first primitive human beings. Here the heavenly light in its limited state does not go beyond their interest in the vital act of copulation, just as their sympathy does not go beyond their interest in their sexual partner of the opposite sex. Only when confronted with this being can the flame to a certain extent give a feeling of bliss, just as it is a certain degree of this feeling of bliss, minus the sexual desire, that is felt or reveals itself in the being's parental or familial love. Beyond the sphere of these objects, the highest fire's limited flame almost cannot glow in these above-mentioned male and female beings. The entire great sphere of life that is situated beyond this is therefore identical to cosmic darkness for all beings. Here roar the deadly breakers of the drive for self-preservation, egoism and hatred. The beings kill and murder, and must themselves be killed and murdered. The heavenly flame is very low on the horizon in the night sphere of the spiral cycle in the same way as the sun is low in the sky during the culmination of physical winter.