In this, our little survey of the so-called "Christian world", we have seen that people more and more give up their affiliation to Christianity. But something similar is also taking place in the other world religions. As the faculty of intelligence is developed, the religious instinct of beings is correspondingly weakened. And, with this weakening, beings lose their ability to believe in out-dated religious ideals and are now more and more led by political ideals.
      What does one then understand by "politics"? Politics is only a variation of the religious principle. This new offshoot of the religious principle is materialistic. It keeps mainly to ordinary physical ideals, the improvement of forms of government and social conditions, the improvement of culture and the creation of public amenities, care for invalids and old people; to a great extent it promotes education and health services and many other cultural amenities and the like, as well as the police and judicial system and thereby law and order in the state or nation, as well as connections with other countries, exports and imports, the military, agreements and contracts. We see here that this variation of religiousness is much more active, even if it is more materialistic, than religion.
      While religion is promoted more by instinct, politics is, on the contrary, promoted by intelligence. It is thus the faculty of intelligence that has created the new variation of religiousness. It had to be developed before the humane faculty could be developed since this could be developed and grow, or be given birth to, only by the experiences of suffering. But the fact that beings thus gained intelligence before they got any particular faculty of humaneness or neighbourly love had the effect that they became experts in the unfolding of darkness or the animal principle to such an excessive degree that they came to appear as beings who were neither animals nor perfect human beings. We have here before us the beings with "devil-consciousness".
      This devil-consciousness had in turn the effect that the strongest people could oppress the weakest. And life in reality became shaped by the principle of "the right of the stronger", even though a legal and judicial system was created. But, since the epoch of doomsday is thus a vital necessity for beings' evolution towards becoming perfect beings of love, we see the emergence of a divine world plan. And the many social amenities that politics has created, and of which it will continue to create more and more, are thus the incipient humane fruits of the horrors of doomsday.
      We see that the politics of one country can no longer be isolated from those of other countries but becomes more and more tied together with the politics of these other countries. And politics thus becomes world politics. It is the effects of this world politics we see in the form of the United Nations Organisation and all the many political unions in the form of business, in the form of agreements about tourism, in the form of agreements about peace and many, many other forms of unions and co-operation. The world is already about to become a united nation in which all nations, the superpowers as well as the small nations, are provinces. The upheavals in Africa, Asia, China and so on are merely links in the creation of that balance into which all states must ultimately come in relation to one another.
      That this cannot take place without war and suffering is due to beings' lack of humaneness. But it is precisely this they develop through their warlike attitude and lack of understanding and knowledge about the divine world plan. There is no reason for those people who will not make war to worry about their future in as far as they themselves live without murdering and killing animals and human beings. One must here remember that it is no vital necessity for man to kill animals in order to live.
      We are thus witnessing the completion of a great divine plan for mankind. It is led gradually forwards towards an increasing evolution of humaneness or love that will turn the world into one state, one people, one nation. All of this will be such an extraordinarily great benefit to mankind that it will far exceed what it has the imagination to grasp today.
      Every human being will be a joint-owner of the earth; no capitalists, no superiors and no subordinates, no businesses, no need for money. Everyone will be protected by everyone else; everyone will love everyone else. The basic tone of the universe, love, will have become the daily atmosphere of life in the world state. The working capacity of the human being will in the state of the future be the same as what a million in assets is today. But world politics will also promote materialistic science, and humanity will promote spiritual science or cosmology so that materialistic science and the science of intuition, the cosmic analyses, will be united in one great divine science, and the world state will be the new paradise on earth or the "kingdom of heaven". People will thus come to experience paradise even on the physical plane of existence. And the prodigal son will again be united with his father.