In reality people live according to the principle expressed in the Bible as the "curse" of the ground because of "sin", where, among other things, God said to Adam, "Because you have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it', cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread...", just as God said to Eve, "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you!..." Here we do not need to explain in greater detail the overwhelming extent to which the fulfilment of this prophecy has controlled mankind in the past and has power over mankind in the present too. "Sin" – which means ignorance and mistakes in one's way of living and behaving, and the unpleasant or unfortunate effects that ensue from this – is, from a mental point of view, simply an element the human being swims in, as fish swim in water. That human beings hope and pray for a lighter and happier future, have dreams or ideas about an ideal existence that forms a contrast to their present dark and trouble-filled state of fate, is a matter of course. Throughout the world there is a prevalent hunger or longing for a contrast to the mental darkness, the mentally oppressive thought climate in which the strongest and most clever exploit the weakest and less talented, and where a tolerable existence can sometimes be secured only through a deadly dangerous struggle with those in power who are inhumane and morally still very unfinished. It is thus absolutely natural that unfinished and therefore hard-pressed human beings have dreams about ideal existences in which they are freed from all the unfortunate phenomena that are detrimental to life or the "curse of sin" that the unfinished human being cannot be freed from on the physical plane. Since this biblical curse enables the human being to imagine a dream existence that becomes absolute reality on the spiritual plane every time it has passed through physical death, the "curse" here turns out to be a blessing.