There is great confusion in our present age about people's talent for affection or sympathy, their marital state and sexual views. This shows itself in a state that creates a very great deal of sorrow, anxiety, envy, jealousy, unhappy love and even murder or killing. Vows of fidelity and marriage certificates are ignored to a great extent. In addition there are the sexual derailments, perversities, sadism, kleptomania, pyromania and the like. Something also causing great confusion among people is the fact that there are beings who feel an intimate affection or sympathy for their own sex. People are here wandering in a fog. They see and hear but they understand nothing of what they are seeing or witnessing. What is the explanation of all this?

What is it we are really witnessing? We are witnessing people's eating of "the tree of knowledge". What is the tree of know­ledge? The tree of knowledge is everything that lives, moves and has its being around us: human beings, animals and plants, right down into micro-cosmos and up to planets, suns, stars and galaxies or, in brief, everything in Nature itself or the universe surrounding us with which we can at all come into contact. This is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. All our experience of life is an eating of details from the immense structure of this universe. This eating is the same as a reaction of our contact with this universe. What else could the tree of knowledge be? And what else could be the eating of this tree? And from where do we acquire knowledge? Is it not precisely through contact with the surrounding beings and things, the manifestations and appearance of Nature? How could we live and acquire knowledge without this relationship? It is true that the Bible expresses the tree of knowledge in a slightly different way. Eve says to the serpent, "We may freely eat of all the trees in the garden, but the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we must not touch. If we eat from that tree, we shall die" (Gen. 3:2-3). But to this the serpent answers, "You will not surely die, but if you eat of the tree of knowledge you will be able to know the difference between good and evil like God himself?" (Gen. 3:4-5). But it was precisely this they should do. How otherwise could they become Man in God's image after his likeness? A human being who does not know the difference between good and evil cannot be a perfect or finished human being in God's image after his likeness. A human being in God's image cannot be an unconscious being. It seems as if the Biblical quotation belonged to an earlier sect or religious view where it was regarded as sinful to occupy oneself with the purely material. One has regarded the material world as the tree of knowledge and seen its wars, murderous manifestations, sorrows and sufferings, and has therefore assumed that one should not pursue that form of existence, but keep to the pursuance of the spiritual, the worship of gods. The quotation was thus already out of date when it came into the Bible. So people should eat of the tree of knowledge. The serpent did not beguile Eve but guided her. The serpent therefore becomes evident as the first revealed expression of the principle of Christ or world redemption.

How did God create Man? God's creation of Man was not something that could be done in one day. God's creation of Man is a process spanning millions of years that began all the way down in the mineral kingdom and has now been led through the plant kingdom up to the incipient human being in the animal kingdom. It has not yet become perfect or finished in God's image after his likeness.

The being's physical body is time- and space-dimensional. This in turn means that it is perishable. Everything that has a beginning must just as absolutely have a finish or an end. And this is why the concept of "death" has come into the world. The unfinished human being believes that living beings are mortal. It does not understand that what it calls death is only a separation or a liberation of its I and superconsciousness from its physical body, and that it, after this liberation, still lives. But after its liberation from the physical body it cannot still have the manifestation and experience it had by means of it. It can no longer physically talk with physical beings, its friends and acquaintances. But, simultaneously with the development of its physical body, a spiritual body behind the being's physical body was also developed. And in this body the being still lives after death. But with this body it cannot correspond in a normal way with physical beings. Its physical relatives, friends and acquaintances therefore mourn for the being, which they more or less believe has totally ceased to exist. But friends who are bound to each other in great affection will meet again in a new physical life. The same is also true of enemies who have not made peace with each other before they die: they likewise will meet in order to live out their animosity and have it replaced with peace. No war or evil whatsoever can cease except by virtue of peace.

When it is said that God creates Man in his image it is, as mentioned previously, not a living being God creates, but a special form of manifestation and experience, a special way of behaving towards the surroundings. "Man in God's image after his likeness" is thus a special kind of behaviour or way of being and the ensuing state of life-experience for a living being, not the creation of the living being itself.

In order to become a master of that behaviour or way of being that is God's image after his likeness, the eternal I's must go through many different experiences of life and forms of behaviour and ways of being. Through being bound to mineral matter the mineral form of life arises; thereafter many lives must be gone through in the plant form of life; then through the animal form of life, in order here to be transformed into the human form of life or the finished human being or Man in God's image after his likeness, so becoming a totally spiritual being.

But in order to be able to experience, which is the same as to sense, the object of experience must be a combination of contrasts, which is precisely what all created things are. In order to become "the human being in God's image after his likeness" and to be able to experience and manifest the very highest light of life, the being must have lived through the contrast to this light, which means darkness. Light is here manifestations of culminating love, and darkness is manifestations of culminating hate. He who has not experienced darkness cannot experience light. Therefore all I's, in order to acquire the ability to manifest the behaviour or way of being known as "culminating love", must have lived through the behaviour or way of being known as "culminating hate". These manifestations cause suffering. Suffering brings into existence the capacity for universal love or that capacity that makes one gradually incapable of bringing oneself to harm any living being. The beings' experience of darkness is thus a vital necessity for acquiring the ability to experience and manifest light, which is the behaviour or way of being that turns the I into the human being or the being in God's image after his likeness.

All living beings must thus live through the culmination of darkness in order to acquire the ability to experience the culmination of light. What then is this darkness? Darkness constitutes the killing principle, which is in turn the same as the destruction of all life. It creates mutilation, death and destruction. This is in turn experienced as the culmination of suffering, unpleasantness and pain. And this darkness has thus been made a vital necessity in that the beings' organisms are pursued as food for other beings. The beings must thus pursue the organisms of other beings as food, just as their own organisms are being pursued as food for other beings. And here in this darkness absolutely nothing whatsoever in the way of universal love exists. That such an existence in itself must be culminating evil for the beings is a matter of course. This darkness, seen in God's great process of the creation of Man, is indeed evil, indeed suffering or darkness, but it is an unavoidable initiation that gradually transforms the being into a human being in God's image after his likeness, which in turn means a God-man. Darkness can thus be expressed as an unpleasant good.

But how can beings endure living in this darkness, this plane of life devoid of universal love? The beings could not possibly live here if the way had not been cleared for the light of God's spirit in this world of darkness. But it has been seen to that the beings can receive and be pervaded by the eternal light of God's spirit and thereby acquire stimulation and encouragement to live in hell itself or the world of darkness.

The term "Adam" does not symbolise one being, but an entire series of beings. It was beings who were to be turned into Man in God's image after his likeness. The Adam-beings were thus spiritual beings who were ready to incarnate in physical matter. They were in the sixth kingdom of the cosmic cycle, which, in "Livets Bog (The Book of Life)", is called "the kingdom of bliss". They had now lived through the total perfection and culmination of love of this cycle to the point of total satiation. Their highest wisdom and talent for love, which they had acquired in this cycle, were therefore now degenerated. They had long since stopped being able to manifest themselves in the outer world, which here means the spiritual world. Their awake day-consciousness consisted only of the experience of the memories from the now out-lived and accomplished spiral cycle's highest zones, kingdoms or spheres. They were thus without any kind of consciousness beyond their ability to recollect or remember. These Adam-beings had therefore now to go through a physical process in which they could again develop themselves physically and thereby acquire a new spiritual consciousness. The Adam-beings were thus I's with their eternal superconsciousness and their body of memory. Their other bodies of manifestation had degenerated. And it is these talent-kernels that were now to be developed in the physical world.

But the Adam-being was not any kind of male being or female being. It was double-poled, as are all beings in the spiritual worlds. In the spiritual worlds one does not marry. As we will see, this phenomenon belongs only to the physical world. But this Adam, which means those beings who were ready for incarnation in physical matter, developed itself out of the kingdom of bliss and became a plant being. Through the plant organism, however, the being could only "sense vaguely". The other physical senses were as yet not to the fore. The plant could thus only vaguely sense pleasantness and unpleasantness. It could begin to open itself to the warmth of the sun and close itself because of the cold of the night. It was thus, from a physical point of view, still merely a sleeping being. It was really awake and day-conscious only in its inner world of memories, which it experienced, in a culminating feeling of pleasantness, as bliss. The plant-being was thus this "sleeping Adam" from whom God removed a rib (Gen. 2:21-22).

When the Bible says that God removed a rib from Adam, it means only that God carried out an internal process in Adam's organism or body. It was neither bloody nor performed with a knife or scissors. But it nevertheless transformed Adam, which means the Adam-beings, into an entirely different state of being. They became "Eve-beings". The transformation took place quite gently and unnoticed by the beings themselves.

That Adam was not a man is clearly evident from the fact that women would then have had to exist at the same time as him. What is the use of creating a male being in a world where there are no female beings? We see here that it was not only a question of creating a woman but also, to just as great an extent, a question of creating a man. It would have been no use to create a woman when no man existed. The Adam-beings were thus transformed into Eve-beings, which thus constitute one-poled beings in the form of male beings and female beings. And through this the beings were predestined to be able to live in darkness or the so-called "evil". As the beings were thus created as male and female beings, they had, through this, become organs for the release of the life-giving and stimulating power of God's spirit in their organisms. This power is released when beings of the male and female sex perform the so-called act of mating or intercourse with each other. Through the satisfaction of this act this power gave rise to a culmination of a feeling of pleasantness or sensual pleasure that was the very highest experience a being could have. And this was really not so remarkable, since this feeling of pleasure was the feeling of the vibrations of God's spirit itself in their bodies.

As a male and female being could thus release this divine all-outshining and life- giving feeling of pleasure in each other, the female being became a vital necessity for the male just as the male being became a vital necessity for the female. The divine experience in the act of mating or intercourse became the absolute principal foundation of life for the two beings. It gave them encouragement and the desire to live. And this was, to the very highest degree, necessary, because the beings were now, through many, many lives to live in the darkness of life. They would thus live among beings who were deadly and totally devoid of universal love. They had at best affection for only one being of the opposite sex with which they could mate and, with this being, experience the divine highest feeling of pleasure. It had affection for or attraction towards other beings only in such cases where it was necessary for it to be in a flock with other beings in order to save its life. The beings here had to kill other beings in order to consume their organisms as food. And they themselves were at war with hostile and warlike beings like themselves, which, in the case of human beings, could not be avoided, since this was their religious nature and form of worship. As the real light in this hell, there was thus only the mating or intercourse of a being with a being of the opposite sex. Between these two beings there was thus an affection or sympathy that also held good for the offspring of the two beings. The state of mating or intercourse of these two beings, which among unfinished human beings is called "marriage", was thus for these beings something sacred, a small home of peace, a small oasis of light in the midst of Armageddon or hell. Here the beings could experience the spirit of God itself, even if they were quite ignorant of what they were really experiencing through their act of mating or intercourse with a being of the opposite sex. As yet they did not have the intelligence and the emotional or the intuitive powers to be able to experience the Godhead mentally and day-consciously. Imagine how divine it is that the act of mating or intercourse is a way for the passage of the spirit of God right into the beings' night-black mental world here totally anonymously stimulating and maintaining the guidance of these beings through the culmination of darkness forward to that world of light where the spirit of God rises out of the darkness of anonymity, like a sunrise over the beings' dark mental thought-mountains and mist, creating life's highest world of sunshine for the human being in God's image after his likeness.

The mating urge and marriage thus comprise a divine structure through which the spirit of God can lead and direct the beings' development, creation of consciousness and behaviour or way of being towards becoming beings with God's behaviour or way of being, which is the same as beings in God's image after his likeness. This behaviour or way of being is recognised by the fact that it is a joy and a blessing for the beings in the surroundings of the originator, whether animals or human beings, just as one must also take part in transforming matter into something of logical use and pleasure. But it is to such an existence that the Godhead brings up human beings by letting them act freely according to their own judgement. They grow up to this divine existence on the basis of the fact that where they have no knowledge, they act wrongly. The wrong way of acting brings suffering to its originator. Where they have real knowledge, beings act correctly. And where beings act truly correctly, they experience a correspondingly happy fate. And with this eating of the tree of know­ledge in connection with the sufferings caused by the wrong ways of acting, the being cannot avoid acquiring a talent for recognising what is evil and what is good. With this development of understanding and feeling there emerges a new capacity in the being. It is this capacity, according as it is developed, that leads the being to being incapable of bringing itself to harm any living being. This is the incipient capacity for neighbourly love.

But in order for this capacity to become perfect and to be manifested, the being must be transformed. It must get out of the Eve-state or the marital state of mating or intercourse; one-poled beings are not created for the state of universal love. They are created only to have intimate affection or sympathy for beings of the opposite sex. Man and woman should stay together and be one flesh. If either of the two parties loves a being outside the marriage as they love themselves, they commit adultery and break the law of mating or of marriage. They thereby create unhappiness and suffering. Just as the Adam-being had to be transformed into an Eve-being in order to be able to experience the spirit of God in the darkness, so must the Eve-being now be transformed into a human being in order to be able to experience the spirit of God in the light. This transformation or change of the Eve-being is the same as the transformation of the sexual poles. When the Eve-being has reached the highest developed ape-stage and its organism can begin to be developed into a human body, what happens is that its stagnant pole begins to develop. In the man it is thus the feminine pole that begins to develop, just as it is the masculine pole in the woman that begins to develop. The being thereby becomes double-poled. It grows away from being a male being or female being. It gradually ceases to be a man or a woman, and marriage and the one-poled act of mating or intercourse naturally also cease, and the being, through this transformation of the poles, becomes the incipient human being. And with the growth of the opposite pole in the being and the experience of its dark karma, it gradually acquires humane talents and behaviour, just as it also gradually acquires the ability to love its neighbour as it loves itself. Here beings of its own sex are no exception.

The double-poled state and the sufferings or dark karma thus lead to universal love and thereby also to loving beings of one's own sex. But this happens only when marriage and the one-poled state begin to be outlived in the being and thereby begin degenerating. Marriage is, as previously mentioned, based exclusively on an affection or sympathy between beings of opposite sexes. The beings, as long as they have this pole-structure, cannot therefore possibly become Man in God's image after his likeness. This being must be able to fulfil the true, great law of life that commands that one shall love God above all things and one's neighbour as oneself (Mat. 22:37-39). As long as the being cannot do this, it is not all-loving and not a finished human being in God's image. Its domicile in evolution or in God's creation of the human being is temporarily at the end of the animal kingdom, where universal love is just in its very first weak beginnings. Here the general mental atmosphere between the beings, apart from the spouse and the offspring, is mainly cool or even unloving or charged with war. Here marriage, with the act of mating or intercourse, is still to a certain extent a vital necessity as happiness, stimulation and encouragement for the being's zest for life. The spirit of God in the culmination of the highest existing feeling of pleasure or well-being in the act of mating or intercourse is still the unfinished human being's more or less outstanding source of light and unconscious meeting with the warmth of God.

But it was not the purpose of life that these beings should continue living in a world devoid of universal love and acquire only such a relatively small and limited experience of the almighty God. It should not continue being able to experience God only through marriage and the act or mating or intercourse. It should not continue experiencing God only through a spouse and so through only one being. It will become free, and realistically experience God in all other beings with whom it might come into contact in its environment. Why should it otherwise develop itself to love its neighbour as it loves itself?? It is thus God's plan that the finished human being will come to experience the spirit of God in the form of "the highest fire", and thereby life's greatest or culminating feeling of pleasure or well-being, light and warmth, in any finished human being whatsoever with which it might come into contact, and without any kind of binding marriage and production of offspring, and likewise without the male or female state being a condition. A kingdom consisting of such beings can only be a kingdom of love. And is it not precisely such a kingdom that for thousands of years has been heralded for mankind under the term "the kingdom of heaven"? This kingdom is thus a world where the human beings live in universal love, which means that they love one another.

It is not difficult to see that this world of love is under development. There are already many people who are finished with waging war, murdering and killing; indeed, they cannot even kill animals because they absolutely do not have the heart to harm living beings. We also see how the nations are working towards creating care for sick people and invalids, as well as granting pensions to people who have reached the beginnings of old age. We also see that there are many people who wish to take part in creating help for the hungry and suffering populations of the, as yet, underdeveloped countries, and likewise for the unhappy people in refugee camps. We also see that there is great goodwill towards helping people in areas hit by natural catastrophes like earthquakes, cyclones and floods. In many areas people feel sympathy for and want to help others who are suffering and in distress. What kind of sympathy is this? It is not the sympathy of falling in love or mating. It is not marital interest that promotes this sympathy. But it nevertheless exists as a living, unshakable fact. We judge people according to this sympathy. Those people who have a lot of this sympathy we term highly developed; and those people in whom this sympathy is present only to a very small degree we term primitive or less developed, and in the worst cases as unloving or brutal and aggressive. It should be a matter of course that it is more pleasant and far healthier and more beautiful to exist in a sphere or zone populated by the former beings than in a sphere or zone populated by the latter. And this new sympathy is nothing less than neighbourly or universal love, which is in the process of developing.

One can thus begin to see that such a sphere of love has already reached a certain distance forward in its evolution. And it will continue forwards to its culmination in the human being's behaviour or way of being. It will make the human being love its neighbour as it loves itself. But when all people thus develop themselves to radiate such divine love to every­thing and everyone, this will inevitably make family love, brotherly love and love for one's spouse fade. When every human being radiates a love and warmth to its neighbour that is greater and absolutely unegoistical, marriages – and family love will thereby be outdone by universal love. But when there thus arises between people a love that ultimately far outshines family or marital love, this latter form of love becomes totally superfluous. The principle of marriage or the mating urge exists, as previously mentioned, only as a temporary organic structure through which the spirit of God or the very highest life-force could be received by the beings in the darkness, beings who were still totally without universal or neighbourly love. Through the beings' organic structure as male and female, two such beings of opposite sexes could perform "the act of mating or intercourse" with each other. Through the culmination of this act the two beings experienced a culmination of a feeling of pleasure that cannot be outdone by any other feeling whatsoever. This feeling was nothing less than the very highest life-force of life pervading the being in question. This force was nothing less than the spirit of God. By virtue of this divine spirit the beings were stimulated and given the courage to live in the darkness. They could not yet experience this divine force, this divine light as realistic experience in any other way whatsoever than through the act of mating or intercourse with a being of the opposite sex. It was the only way in which they could experience life's very highest feeling of pleasure or the experience of the, for them still unknown, divine spirit. They lived in the world of darkness. All beings were still quite devoid of universal love. The only way to the light was thus exclusively through the mate of the opposite sex and the off-spring to which this act gave rise. All other beings were, as previously mentioned, more or less hostile. Here the beings had to fight or live in a war in order to be able to maintain life. Failing that only death awaited them. A world of beings without any kind of talent for love whatsoever can only be a kingdom of non-love and thereby a world of darkness or suffering. But with the growth of universal love, marital love will gradually be supplanted, and mankind will be in God's image after his likeness.

But we have already mentioned that the Adam-beings were transformed into Eve-beings in order thereby to become predestined to being able to experience and manifest darkness, and thereby develop to live in light. As they had no trace of universal love they absolutely had to create and live in darkness. But without the spirit of God through the act of mating or intercourse they could not possibly live in the darkness. But there is that divine quality about darkness or suffering that it creates in the human being the ability to love. With the development of this ability the beings will come to experience God, not only through a being of the opposite sex but through all beings, regardless of gender. As previously mentioned, the beings are under transformation from the one-poled state to the double-poled state. This means that the beings thereby gradually cease being male and female beings. They become totally double-poled and thereby neither man nor woman.

When two world-epochs overlap each other, the one degenerating and in decay, and the other being the beginning of a new, deepening view of life and behaviour or way of being, it is not so surprising that great confusion prevails among people. People do not understand what they are witnessing. They see that moral views that were previously regarded as unshakable foundations of life, foundations for culture and rightful ways of living and behaving are now viewed as unimportant and are ignored. These moral views or religious ideals once suited the, as yet, very minimal powers and cultural capacity that people in long lost times possessed. Had the moral teaching been given in a higher form it would absolutely not have been understood. But people do not remain standing on the same step. They develop from primitivity to intellectuality, from inhumanity to humanity, from brutality to love. When people were at the inhuman and brutal stage and did not have the talent for anything else, it would have been no use to give them ideals of love. It was not that for which they were ready or hungry. As evolution proceeds, people become more and more receptive to a higher culture, humanity and morality. And mankind is then brought further forward by the new moral precepts. And now mankind is within the first weak beginnings of such a new world culture with its spiritually scientific view of the Godhead and the eternal world picture.

It is "the death of Eve" that, to a particular degree, is making its presence felt. The death of Eve is the same as the transformation of the Eve-beings or the one-poled beings into double-poled beings. This in turn means the transformation of man and woman from "animal" into "human being". We see how the feminine area is growing within man, and the masculine area is growing within woman. With this transformation, human tendencies began to develop already in the advanced ape-being. But the human powers to which this transformation of the poles gives rise in beings, have so far, to a marked degree, given rise only to such human abilities as intelligence and unintellectual feeling. It is this situation that has brought about people's very pronounced development in the materialistic, scientific area. The transformation of the poles has not so far to a very great extent affected the principle of marriage or intercourse among people. But this is changing. As sufferings give rise to the capacity for universal love in the human being, this capacity also begins to make its presence felt in the human being's mentality and daily behaviour or way of being. And we thus here have the real and absolute universal love that is analogous with the love of God. It is absolutely unselfish. It seeks nothing for itself. With it the being gladly gives its life in order to save the lives of others. That this love is the great goal for God's creation of the human being becomes evident in this expression of the law of life: Thou shalt love God above all things and thy neighbour as thyself. This law or commandment would be quite pointless if this divine ability did not develop in the human being. It also shows that people will develop into an epoch of life other than the epoch of marriage, one in which one does not marry. Is there not quite another command to people in the epoch of marriage? Is it not said: Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh? And is it not said to the woman that the head of the woman is man? Does it not mean precisely that she is or should be one with him? If she, outside the marriage, loves another man as she loves herself, she commits adultery and is therefore an unfaithful woman. And is it not the same with the man? If he, outside the marriage, loves another man or woman as he loves himself, he commits adultery and is unfaithful towards the one with whom he should be one flesh. We see here that the Bible expresses guidance for two epochs of life. In the one, marital love is the highest command. In the other, universal love is the highest command. And this is expressed as that love that turns the being into the human being in God's image after his likeness. People are thus now between two great world epochs, one that is dying and one that is about to be born.

In some people the ideals and precepts of the old world epoch are still very strong and vigorous. They are thus people who are strongly one-poled. For them marriage is still an untouchable sanctuary and the highest light. But it is difficult for beings with such an attitude to find a partner with the same, as yet not outlived, attitude to marriage. For there are already many beings for whom marriage is no longer the absolutely only thing, though they can certainly fall in love. And during such a period of being in love they absolutely do not see each other's true mental standard. They are then both so sexually charged that they see and experience each other during the act of mating or intercourse as mutual, pure, infallible angels. That they in this situation, cannot get married and start living together quickly enough is quite natural. But when they have been together sexually for some time and as a certain satiation makes itself felt, and the sexual light fades, and they thereby get to see each other as they really are, what they see in many cases is a very great disappointment. It sometimes becomes apparent that one party to the marriage into which they have entered is extremely devoted to marriage while the other has outlived marriage almost to the point of loathing. Then the marriage is unhappy and, as a rule, ends in divorce. They try again and again to enter into new marriages, but with the same result. We see so much trouble in marriages, so many divorces and so much marital infidelity that we have called this sphere "the zone of unhappy marriages". It is very difficult for a really matrimonially inclined person to find a spouse who, as far as marriage is concerned, is on the same wavelength as he or she is, once the period of being in love is over. The being who has grown away from marriage also finds it difficult to take the morality of marriage and its ensuing commitments seriously, if he or she, despite his or her condition, marries. Many spouses fail their spouses and any children they might have.

But even if mankind lives among cultural disintegration and chaos, massacre and war, there is nevertheless, behind this great cultural upheaval a sunrise in people's hearts. This sunrise is the growth and unfolding of the talent for neighbourly love. A sympathy or love that has nothing whatsoever to do with falling in love or marital love has, after all, long since begun to emerge in daily life. We have already mentioned that there were beings who could feel intimate affection or sympathy for beings of their own sex and that this also contributed to confusing people's view of life during the present change of culture. The appearance of this new talent in the human mentality has been incomprehensible to the greater part of mankind, in which this talent has not yet progressed so far in its development that it has manifested itself beyond a more or less ordinary feeling of sympathy and helpfulness towards people who are in need, and which we have already touched upon in the section called "Universal love and the kingdom of heaven". But universal love is not a whim or a temporary helpful hobby like many other hobbies people can have. It is an absolutely growing, lasting reality. It constitutes the beginnings of the unshakable foundation for the coming absolute human consciousness, freed from all animal and devil-human nature. This in turn means the consciousness that transforms the living being into the human being in God's image after his likeness.

How could any being become a human being in God's image after his likeness without this highest talent of consciousness? Can a human being in God's image exist with a severely limited unfoldment of love, a love that is sinful when unfolded to a being who is not one's spouse? Can a human being in God's image be a being who might be jealous and thereby hateful? If a spouse is not so, he is already influenced by that universal love growing in his mentality that will one day turn him into the human being in God's image. Is it not precisely the nature of universal love "rather to give than to take", just as it is the nature of marital love or falling in love "rather to take than to give"? Universal love is unselfish; it is therefore absolutely unconditional, while marital love is egoistical; it demands reciprocation of love from its object. Failing that, it releases jealousy or hate towards the mentioned object. And from this hate stems all the evil in the world. One here well understands Christ when he talks about beings who do not marry.

Many people are already so advanced in development that universal love not only shows itself in ordinary practical goodness and helpfulness; it begins to show itself from a higher plane. It begins to create the urge in the being for more or less intimate caresses. It seeks satisfaction through warming contact with other beings, that is, through caressing. As it is not a marital love that the being seeks to satisfy, it is not aimed at any opposite sex. This in turn means that its object is not any male or female being. It is neither "the man" himself nor "the woman" herself that is the animating object for caressing for the developed human being. It is in reality the being behind the female or the male body that animates the desire to caress. But what is the situation regarding such a manifestation of caresses among people where the overwhelming majority are male and female beings? Here there is not really any room for the intimate caresses of universal love. It has also up to now led to terrible darkness for those beings in whom this talent for universal love had begun to be a part of their nature. The object of this desire to caress is not restricted to a being of the opposite sex. Indeed, it is, in its first stages, directed particularly towards beings of the same sex. And it is precisely this that has aroused dismay, scorn and ridicule, slander and persecution, and even imprisonment and punishment for such beings who have begun to deviate from the flock.

Where does this terrible aversion, which in some people borders on nothing short of hatred and persecution, come from? This, the being's antipathy towards intimate affection or sympathy for one's own sex, has its roots in Nature's own structure of maintenance. The animals have to some degree the tendency to kill beings of their own species that are abnormal and that deviate more or less from the norm and are incapable of coping with the vital necessities of their species. And it is this tendency we can see recurring all the way up in the as yet very strongly one-poled human being, who is still totally devoid of the desire to intimately caress beings of his or her own sex. Indeed, they can literally hate and persecute such a being. But gradually as the development of the poles proceeds and emerges in more and more people, and it has likewise become evident that this transformation from the one-poled state to the double-poled state is a natural process and a vital necessity for the being's transformation from animal to human being, one will, in quite another way, understand and be sympathetic towards beings in this stage of evolution than one has previously been able to be.

The above-mentioned transformation will take place within the framework of a moral basis suited to the transformed state. And one will come to recognise that being "homosexual", which is the same as being double-poled, need not mean that one is a pariah, that one is derailed, one is perverse, one is a sexual criminal, one is subject to a wrong habit, one is peculiar, one is abnormal or infested with some of the other mental peculiarities people seem to connect with the mentality or psyche of the homosexual or the double-poled being. As long as the homosexual or the double-poled being is not a finished human being, it will naturally be encumbered with vices and derailments just like the one-poled beings. But to regard vices and derailments or other unfinished sides of the human being as belonging particularly to the double-poled human being is absolutely wrong and is, in itself, a derailed view. Homosexuality in its purest form is thus not any kind of vice or derailment. It is organically anchored in the double-poled state and neighbourly love, and is that foundation of life without which a real world of light, in its totally purest form, would be an absolute impossibility.

But what would the world look like if universal love did not become a talent in the human being? It would continue being the domicile of an animal, killing world; indeed, it would even become a devil-world in its purest form. If the effects of the sufferings the human being inflicts upon other beings did not return to its originator and become its fate, that originator would become a devil-being permanently culminating in devil-consciousness. All devil-consciousness, all war, hate and persecution, jealousy, envy, intolerance and the like are exclusively attributable to a lack of universal love. But as all suffering, precisely because of karma, gives rise in the being to the talent for neighbourly or universal love, no being, and thereby no mankind whatsoever, can continue living in the epoch of darkness, war or Armageddon. The growing universal love among mankind will thus lead it forward to constituting a real kingdom of love on earth where "everyone loves everyone else", as opposed to life on earth today where "everyone is at war with everyone else". In this coming world kingdom all nations and states will be united in one state or one kingdom. This kingdom will have one common government for all existing nations. In this world state every­thing will be so perfectly organised and governed that money will be abolished. The only currency will then be the human being's capacity for work. No one can pay with anything else whatsoever. I will not go further into this future kingdom here, but refer the reader to the fourth chapter of the first volume of my main work, "Livets Bog", where this kingdom is described in detail. I will mention here only that all manual work will be carried out completely automatically by machines. No human being will here carry out any kind of heavy and fatiguing work whatsoever. As the human being will here contribute only a number of working hours corresponding to the needs of its own life, working time will become something quite different from what one is used to today. It will barely exceed two hours per week. And this will give access to a standard of living covering the modern needs of a very high cultural stage. But without universal love people would perish completely in a devil-world's darkest chaos, Armageddon or hell. It is therefore not good to persecute the beginnings of the growth of universal love in people.

Through Moses and Christ it is not difficult to see that these two great beings were God's instruments for guiding mankind through two great epochs of life that differ from each other. Moses was the great prophet of the epoch of marriage, while Christ was the total representative of the now incipient epoch of universal love, and thereby a world-saving son of God. Moses was the one-poled expert on law and punishment, but Christ is the human being in God's image after his likeness. He is the model for God's creation of the human being in his image after his likeness. As he is, so shall everyone become. Without being a Christ-being one cannot possibly be a finished human being in God's image after his likeness.

When people are in the process of developing into the double-poled state, and the male state and the female state cease, whereby the one-poled act of mating or intercourse and marriage also cease, what will then replace people's physical form of existence? People's growing double-poled state is the beginning of the transformation of the human being into a spiritual being. And spiritual beings have no use for physical organisms, as the substance of the spiritual world automatically forms itself according to the being's thought. With merely the capacity for thinking and its will, the being on the spiritual plane can shape substance completely and totally according to its wish. It here thus creates with its capacity for thinking without the aid of any material body whatsoever. Gradually as the human being progresses so far in evolution that it can no longer be born of woman but is nevertheless still not totally finished with the physical plane, it has in the meantime trained its capacity for thinking on the spiritual plane so much that it can, not only in spiritual substance, create a copy of its previous physical body, but also, with its thought and will-power, let this body, materialised by thought, continue existing and clothe itself in suitable physical substances, so that there arises, at nothing short of lightning speed, a physical body. And the being can then temporarily experience and manifest itself on the physical plane. It can, just as quickly, disintegrate this temporary physical body and thereby disappear.

In the human being's last epoch as a physical being in its completely evolved state it can thus, with its thought and will-power, be alternatively a physical being and a spiritual being at will. It can, furthermore, as long as it is in its physical materialisation, materialise and dematerialise physical things and objects. It has, in this high spiritual perfect state as the human being in God's image after his likeness, access to a wealth of cosmic or occult powers. With these powers it is able to manifest phenomena that cannot be produced by the unfinished human being's usual methods of creation. It is these phenomena that are called "miracles". Such finished human beings can also materialise themselves physically on other planets and, there, with their superterrestrial knowledge, help as yet primitive human beings forward in spirit and the creation of culture. It is quite natural that such materialised superterrestrial human beings are regarded as gods and angels by the populations for whom they have materialised themselves and whom they have helped. How else could people be able to understand these beings? In many places the Bible points out such superterrestrial beings who have materialised themselves here for terrestrial human beings.

Who were the three men who visited Abraham in the Grove of Mamre and who were regarded as God and two angels (Gen. 18:2)? Afterwards the angels went to Sodom and Gomorrah, which were facing a great release of dark karma and were to be destroyed. Lot invited them into his house, but they preferred to stay in the street. He then compelled them strongly and they went into his house and he made them a feast. But before they went to bed the men from the city, the men of Sodom, people from all around, surrounded the house. Then Lot went out to them and asked them not to harm the men. But then the men crowded in on Lot and wanted to break down the door. Then the angels reached out their hands and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. And the men outside the door of the house were struck with blindness by the angels. After that the angels saved Lot and his daughters before they destroyed the city and its surroundings, which they had actually come to destroy (Gen. 19:1-2,24).

It is these beings who are God's organs and instruments for his creation, guidance and government of mankind. It is these beings who form the divine organic unity or fusion of those beings who constitute world redemption. They constitute God's organs for experiencing human beings and are in the same way his organ of manifestation for human beings and also for all beings in the mesocosmos. It is to this unity of beings that all living beings' prayers to God go and are heard. It is these beings who, as we have previously touched upon in quotations from the Bible, can reveal themselves to people and be present, either materialised or non-materialised, to help people in their difficult situations. They are behind mankind, guiding its entire situation and fate, so that it will come to fulfil God's plan for creation, which means that it will finally become mankind in God's image after his likeness. These beings thus constitute that part of the consciousness and sensory instruments of God with which he experiences people's manifestations, just as he also, through them, as mentioned, governs and guides mankind. The same beings thus constitute that area of God accessible to human sensory perception and appeal to him through prayer. They are spiritual beings and therefore non-manifested on the physical plane. They are personally anonymous but can, in given situations, materialise or reveal themselves to human beings, as for example the being who spoke to Moses through the burning bush, and likewise the three beings who, as God and two angels, visited Abraham in the Grove of Mamre, together with the many other revelations and visions that are expressed as God and angels in the narratives of the Bible. The beings in the very highest of these revelations are all beings who, through the development of their universal love on the physical plane, have made their way to being finished human beings in God's image after his likeness. They have thus progressed so far as to become one with God. They are the face of God. Therefore, in those situations where they materialise or reveal themselves to people, they are expressed as identical with God. This is why it is said in the Biblical narratives that "God" spoke to this or that person. "God" visited Abraham; "God" spoke to Abraham; "God" spoke to Moses and so on. Other beings, more or less developed in universal love, are, in the narratives about revelations, called "angels". And is it not precisely these angels the Bible refers to in the following, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb. 1:14)?

With this we have been given a little insight into the divine process of life that is expressed as "God's creation of Man in his image after his likeness". We have seen that marriage and the act of mating or intercourse were only temporary and secondary in relation to the real, primary life for which they constitute a preparation. In order to develop into being able to experience life in the very highest worlds of light beyond all physical existence, people must first live through life in the deepest darkness, a darkness where there exists no universal love whatsoever, a darkness that is therefore the domicile of the culmination of hate and animosity, a sphere or zone where killing is a vital necessity in order to live. But we have seen that God has created conditions to ensure that the being will not walk alone or in solitude through this darkness. He said, according to the Bible: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper who shall be with him" (Gen. 2:18). And with "the creation of Eve", which means the transformation of the beings into the one-poled state, two beings of opposite sexes could, through mating and the act of mating or intercourse mutually, through each other, receive the shining and warming spirit of God as a culminating, all-outshining highest feeling of pleasure. In the midst of a world of culminating darkness, where universal love does not exist and where killing is a vital necessity in order to live, they thus experience a ray from the eternal region of light of the spirit of God beyond all earthly weeping and gnashing of teeth; a ray of light from a world where there is neither the lamentation of death, nor cries nor pain. In the midst of the animal kingdom and the domain of the devil-sphere, in the midst of a world of hostile beings, "the highest fire" became, in their mutual sexual connection, a temple of light where they acquired zest for life, strength and power to continue their wandering through life on the killing, thorn-covered road from the animal kingdom to the real human kingdom, from devil-being to god-man in God's image after his likeness. It was thus good that the being was not alone on its way through this darkness. How could it have come through this without "the highest fire": the spirit of God in the act of mating or intercourse?

However this affection or sympathy applied only to the mating partner, the being of the opposite sex, and the offspring. But this sympathy was not universal love. Through this sympathy the being could not become the human being in God's image after his likeness. Here a real love was called for, a love that was totally unselfish, a love with which one could love one's neighbour, which means all beings with which one comes into contact. But as this love can become a talent in the being only by virtue of the effects of the sufferings it has inflicted on other beings, it was thus an unshakable condition that it had to go through life's zone of culminating darkness in order to have its capacity for universal love developed. But in order to come through this darkness, as we have touched upon, God's shining and life-promoting spirit was likewise an unshakable necessity. And this condition was thus met through the mating of the beings and their act of mating or intercourse. But gradually, as neighbourly love developed, the affection or sympathy for mating or intercourse would become more and more superfluous. Universal love would, with time, become all -outshining or supreme. It was therefore necessary that the beings were freed from their one-poled state so that they could also love beings of their own sex. The beings, as universal love developed in them, became gradually more and more double-poled; and with the double-poled state the human talents began making their presence felt more and more. These talents grew faster than universal love. The being thereby came to experience an epoch in which it had human talents but was still a more or less unloving being: it acquired devil-consciousness. With this it was given the opportunity to unfold an area of suffering that was far greater than that of the animals. It could therefore receive a dark karma that was correspondingly darker than that of the animals. It is in this state that the unfinished human being is called "devil-man".

And through this dark karma the universal love of the being grows to its culmination, and the being thereby becomes the finished human being in God's image after his likeness. It is then purely double-poled and can love its neighbour as it loves itself, thereby totally fulfilling the law of life. From having been a being that lived in darkness and could maintain its passage through this world of killing only by virtue of the spirit of God in the form of "the highest fire" in the act of mating or intercourse with a being of the opposite sex, being otherwise at war with or feeling enmity towards everyone else, it is now, in its finished state as the human being in God's image after his likeness, a being freed from the birth and death of reincarnation. It can freely, through materialisation and dematerialisation, reveal itself at will on the physical plane in situations where it is God's organ of speech to beings in need. It can speak through the burning bush, and it can speak through the light on the road to Damascus. It can be God's instrument as a world redeemer for the mankind of a planet, just as it can have other great cosmic missions, being one with the great organ-structure constituting the primary consciousness of God, which is God's main organ for all living beings in the mesocosmos. It is God's very organ for the governing and guiding of the whole of mankind in its wandering through darkness to his eternal flood of light in the highest cosmic or spiritual worlds. Here universal love sparkles and shines as the eternal light of God in the form of "the highest fire" from being to being, as a meeting with God, turning every contact with its neighbour into a culminating or highest feeling of pleasure, well-being and bliss. And God's creation of Man in his image is hereby complete. We are in that kingdom that through all times has been promised the finished human being in God's image after his likeness. We are in the kingdom of heaven.