M0140
Animals, Human Beings and Angels
by Martinus
1. Terrestrial human beings are in transitional states extending from the animal kingdom to the human kingdom
The living beings whose consciousness manifests through individual organisms can be divided into three basic types: animals, humans and angels. Of these basic types or main kinds of living beings, the group of animals is the one that is best known to terrestrial human beings. Many people will think that this is odd, because they think that the terrestrial human beings would have the greatest knowledge of the group of humans, since they hold the view that terrestrial human beings themselves belong to this group. But they do not – but there will come a time when they will do. In the terrestrial human beings' consciousness only the side that we call the "good" is human, since terrestrial human beings are in transitional states extending from the animal kingdom to the human kingdom. There is still only very little that a terrestrial human being knows about a truly human state. And when it comes to the third universal basic type – angels – terrestrial human beings' knowledge is confined to concepts based on fantasy and vague ideas.
2. The formation of the terrestrial human being's organism begins in the plant kingdom
There is also a form of life that we call the plant kingdom, and one more that we call the mineral kingdom. This latter, however, is seen by terrestrial human beings as merely substance and not as signs of life, and this form of life has no importance in the analyses that we will be dealing with in this article. As far as plants are concerned, they have only an indirect bearing on what we shall be dealing with here as they do not have individual organisms, but since those beings, which later on in evolution will become animals, begin to develop their organisms from the matter in the plant kingdom, this is where we must begin our series of analyses. This is where the basis of the creation of the organs begins, which together constitute the animal's independent and physically liberated body, this is where the initial tendencies that later will become sight, hearing, smell, taste etc, are developed, and in the last part of the plant kingdom, in particular transitional forms, the stomach and the faculty of digestion is developed. The world of plants is not an expression of individual life and consciousness, which is why one can cut off stems and branches without the plant dying. New stems and branches grow in their place and in many cases one can even get a cut branch to form roots and grow. If one were to cut off a leg or an arm from an animal or a human being nothing new would grow in its place. Here we are dealing with completely different principles behind the formation of organisms than in the plant kingdom. The organisms of plants consist of matter that is organised according to specific laws that, among other things, means that they are able to gemmate. There is not a specific I behind the plant's organism, a macrobeing, as in the case of animals and human beings. The plant does not consist of a being that is free in the outer world and that has an independent physical organism, but the plant's organism consists of a group of beings that are not yet born in the physical world, but should be seen as, in a way, embryonic beings that through evolution in the plant kingdom and transitional forms as insect-eating plants and such like, are gradually reaching the point where they have bodily individuality, after which they are no longer plants but belong to the animal kingdom. The beings in the animal kingdom have become independent and individual from the bodily point of view, they are beings that have been born physically, but they are still not free mentally, there they are still embryos that will only achieve spiritual freedom when, through many incarnations as animals and terrestrial human beings, they have reached the evolutionary step that, in my analyses, I call the "great birth".
3. Out in the wild the animal lives as a flock being
The physically freed animal is mentally one with the individuals of its species, as it was in the plant kingdom physically one with them. In this way there arose what we call flock consciousness. The individual animal is bound to the particular instinct of its species, and all the beings of the species will act in exactly the same way in the same situations. Of course, this holds only for those animals that live their lives in the wild, unaffected by terrestrial human beings. In the case of domestic animals and pets the influence of the terrestrial human being has in many cases disturbed the animal's instinct, but where the animal is able to be in the care of Nature itself it is a flock being that in its behaviour is guided and directed by the flock instinct of its own particular species. Why are there so many vastly different animal species that, besides the shared instincts of procreation and self preservation, are in possession of instinctive forces that are specific to their own species and evolutionary path? Also here we have to look back at the plant kingdom as the point of departure, we have to understand that all living beings have not been in the same outer physical conditions during their plant stage. Some have been subjected to the harsh climate of cold regions, some to a temperate climate and others to a tropical climate. All the various variations of cold and warm, light and dark, damp and dry have so to speak been a kind of mould for the beings' evolution. All these influences of the forces of Nature have contributed to the formation of the outer forms, both in the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, together with the forces in the beings that from a previous evolutionary spiral's kingdom of divine intuition is transformed into automatic functioning in the beings' instinctive talent kernels.
4. The evolution from animal to terrestrial human being
In the transition from the plant kingdom to the animal kingdom there also begins, as well as the development of special organs of digestion, a change in the beings' sexual structure. That is where the "creation of Eve" takes place. This means that the beings that previously in the plant stages had self-fertilisation now appear in independent male and female organisms in which are found the organs of the opposite sex, but in a completely latent state. Adam and Eve in paradise are animals that live in the zone of happy marriages. The fall and the expulsion from paradise begin where the animal is on the point of becoming a human being, that is to say, through all the stages of evolution that I in my analyses call the terrestrial human being. The feminine pole in the male being and the masculine pole in the female being begin to develop and with this development a new state of consciousness begins to exist, at first in cooperation with, but eventually more and more in conflict with the original animal consciousness. The formation of this new consciousness is based on the development of feeling and intelligence in the being, and with the unfolding of these new energies it embarks on new methods in the struggle for existence. As well as the old consciousness based on instinct that was previously dominating, it now has an experimental consciousness through which it can act more freely than before, at the same time as the automatic function that emphasises instinct still exists, but slowly degenerates as the experimental consciousness develops. Through this liberation from instinct with the help of the new area of consciousness, the being, without knowing it, intervenes in the formation of its own fate, it is allowed to experiment, but it also has to take the consequences and learn from them. Its instinct of self-preservation which previously was totally a function of instinct is now directed by the desires and longings of the new consciousness, but since the being is still in the "jungle", it means that with its experimental consciousness it creates an increasingly "intellectualised jungle".
5. The terrestrial human being is beginning to develop an individual consciousness, it has new desires and it is carrying out experiments with matter that place the emphasis on intelligence
With the development of the new consciousness the ordinary animal desires are stimulated and find expression in a new way, in relation to which the killing in the animal kingdom is too small to be counted. Terrestrial human beings are murdering with wild abandon, indeed they have gained the possibility of increasing their ability to kill hundreds of thousands of times through their experiments with matter. As a plant the being was bound to a specific place, together with other beings in a common organism, as animals they were freed from the place and could move their own organism from one place to another but they were still bound to the flock's common consciousness. As terrestrial human beings the beings are not only purely bodily freed, they begin to develop an individual consciousness, they begin to be able to move mentally from one place to another. This means that they can very gradually deviate from the traditional, instinctive or common consciousness of its herd or species. But even though terrestrial human beings have become more free beings than the plants or animals, it does not mean that they can enjoy true freedom. They are bound by the effects of the experiments with their new consciousness. It becomes apparent that the satisfaction of many of the new desires is extremely dangerous, firstly to the surroundings and subsequently as fate for the beings themselves. They manifest refined methods of war – methods which have been constructed with the use of intelligence – both in the great wars and in the daily wars between individual human beings, but there are also some of these new experiments that, even though they can also cause much damage and suffering to the surroundings, first and foremost undermine the beings themselves both physically and mentally. Here I am thinking about the use of tobacco, spirits, narcotics and such like that also belong to terrestrial human beings' experimental area. Through excessive use, these artificial stimulants destroy the physical organism and the nervous system, in fact the destruction can go so far that the terrestrial human being breaks down the talent kernels with which it should build up a new physical organism in its next incarnation, and it is therefore born as more or less physically or mentally impaired, and in the worst case as mentally retarded. The being once again comes out of such a state through coming incarnations, but of course it involves a great impairment of the mental and physical organs that it takes time to overcome.
6. Through godlessness and materialism terrestrial human beings reach the point where they understand that the solution to the mystery of life is not to be found in physical matter
Among all the experiments that thrive in terrestrial human beings' existence is actually one that has great importance through the negative effects that it has on the beings. It is the experiment to live without God. The denial of the existence of God belongs to the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which Adam and Eve or the terrestrial human beings that have been expelled from the animals' paradise, must eat of. For a time they believe that they can manage by themselves, all their scientific and technological experiments go to their heads and they think that they can find the solution to the mystery of life by performing physical experiments, and by weighing, measuring and studying speeds and wavelengths. They become atheists and materialists. But however much terrestrial human beings know about the physical composition and structure of the atoms and galaxies it will not be able to help them with their personal fate. The whole of terrestrial mankind at this point represents a stage in evolution that is symbolised in the New Testament as "the prodigal son that ate together with the swine". They are actually not "swine" or animals any longer, but they still manifest with their behaviour the animal principles and create a mental and physical hell for the human aspects that they also have in them. These human characteristics, which soon allow themselves to be used in life-destroying experiments with the animal forces in terrestrial human beings and soon turn against these forces calling them "evil", gradually become so strong in certain terrestrial human beings that the prodigal son begins his journey back to the Father. This means that terrestrial human beings begin to allow the purely human abilities and tendencies to gain the upper hand in their consciousness. They become seekers and they begin to understand that the solution to the mystery of life is not to be found in physical matter, but in the acknowledgement of the experience of the spiritual forces that set in motion the movements of matter and that exist both before the creation of the organisms and after their dissolution. By these means the being will approach a liberation that will make it into a divine human being. Through the freedom to – with their experiments – become familiar with the laws of life that terrestrial human beings have acquired, they learn over many lives or physical incarnations the results of mixing one's thoughts and feelings on the basis of egoism and lust for power, and one also gradually learns how one can create light and peace around oneself by mixing the energies of one's consciousness as intellectualised feeling or neighbourly love. They have become familiar with the difference between good and evil and as a consequence they have begun to feel "one with the Father" and acquire the divine ability to create that which Christ expressed in the words: "Whatever I do, I do not do of myself, but the Father does through me".
7. Terrestrial human beings are evolving into human beings and are creating a wonderful world
This is the state of the true human being, and in such a liberated being that in no way whatsoever would be able to imagine misusing its abilities, these abilities develop to the point at which the being can use its willpower to gain control over physical matter. It must still incarnate in the physical world but it does not come about through an animal-like act and a birth through a woman, it comes about through the being materialising itself in a new physical organism that the being is able to dematerialise when it is once again going to leave the physical world. Once the majority of beings on the Earth – of those that are at present terrestrial human beings – incarnate and "die" in this way, only then will this world have become the new heaven and the new earth that is told about in the Bible. The new heaven is a new mental state that is freed from all animal tendencies, and the new earth is the organisation of society, the wonderful world, that is created by human beings that make their lives into a radiant work of art that benefits and brings joy to the whole.
8. The world redeemer's statement "You are all Gods" becomes a reality
The aforementioned state is the provisional radiant goal for terrestrial mankind, but there are in this evolutionary spiral even higher evolutionary steps that, in terrestrial human terminology, one can call angels. If terrestrial human beings have difficulty in understanding how life manifests in a true human kingdom it is certainly even more difficult for them to imagine the conditions of existence in the spheres in which the beings have reached the cosmic freedom, of which the "great birth" is merely a tiny beginning. The beings that dwell in these zones have also freed themselves from incarnations in which they materialise in physical matter, they live exclusively in the worlds of thought. These planes of existence consist of the fourth and fifth plane in the spiral cycle, namely the kingdom of wisdom and the divine world, here the beings have become totally liberated, here they have become "Gods within God". Here the "son's" equality with the "Father" has become as great as it can possibly be. This is where the realisation takes place of the expression that the world redeemer used: "You are all Gods". These angels or sons of God are the Father's talent kernels for the creation of new worlds, new combinations of the eternal laws of life. Their sphere of life is the Godhead's awake day consciousness, here the experience of life exceeds all terrestrial reasoning. Every single terrestrial human being is on its way towards these radiant worlds when it seeks to overcome its animal nature and to love its neighbour as itself.
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The article is based on a lecture held by Martinus at the Martinus Institute on Sunday the 14th of December 1952. Inge Laug transcribed the lecture in shorthand and this was then edited by Mogens Møller and approved by Martinus. Translated by Andrew Brown, 2019. Original Danish title: Dyr, mennesker og engle.
Article ID: M0140.
Published in the English edition of Kosmos no. 1, 2019.
© Martinus Institut 1981, www.martinus.dk
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