291. It is obvious, however, that if the whole of life does in fact constitute a chemical process, then it is impossible for human beings to reach perfection as long as they still know only about the reactions of purely physical substances. As our entire mental world is made up of the chemical reactions of energies to exactly the same extent as in the physical world, human beings cannot, in the long run, continue to rest content with a knowledge only of the working of physical substances and forces. They must also learn to know all the true reactive faculties of the power of the mind. In this respect we can just as little blindly leave it to Providence to protect us from dangerous mental energies, as we can leave it to that same Providence or to some "non-physical" beings to protect us physically.
      This is not by any means to deny that such help exists – on the contrary. As we shall return to later in "Livets Bog" such assistance does exist to a high degree, but its purpose is not to give human beings such extensive protection that finally they can totally neglect to acquire knowledge of the difference between dangerous and harmless mental forces or thought-materials. Help or protection of this kind is organized in the same way and follows the same principle as the protection given by parents to their offspring. Just as this protection is not intended to shield the offspring once they become adult, in the same way help and protection from Providence against dangerous or poisonous mental or non-physical forces is available only in those situations which, in the area of the psyche, are due to a kind of childish ineptitude on the part of an individual, analogous to that represented in his physical existence as an infant. But the nearer he approaches the years of discretion, the more that protection is reduced both mentally and physically. If it were the opposite, an individual would never be able to face up to life itself. If he continued to have unlimited mental and physical protection his whole life, either through parents or "guardian angels" (non-physical beings) then, accordingly, he would be quite cut off from having any genuine life-experience. Everything would just be deflected by these protective beings and therefore the individual in question would continue to lead a purely infantile existence.