451. It is with this discovery and by the power of that organism's more advanced development connected with the incipient growth of the "I consciousness" and mental abilities, that the degenerating "cosmic consciousness" in the being has a fresh outburst, a kind of last spasm.
      In the weak beginning of "I consciousness" there is a slightly greater possibility than in the ordinary, primitive animal consciousness of a "quickening" of the declining "cosmic consciousness", so at this point a "revival' of it is achieved in the form of "instinct".
      That "instinct" constitutes the inborn "cosmic consciousness" of the intellectual zones of a previous spiral, is seen by the fact that, as previously mentioned, the being is in principle adjusted to the outside world in all its details and happenings in the same way as a "cosmically conscious" being who is much further ahead in the spiral. All the said details and events are regarded as "expressions of life". This attitude is purely automatic and therefore reveals itself as "C knowledge", which, again, can exist only as the result of previous day-conscious reasoning.
      Through the various extinct species of "nature people" and right up to the present day's most primitive type of terrestrial man, indeed further on and deep into the so-called civilized races, this previous "cosmic consciousness" is evident in the form of "instinct". Thus, everything which can be connected to the term "religiousness" is empowered by this aspect of consciousness in the beings in question. All creeds and the sects and communities founded upon them also rest absolutely on the foundation of that previous, but now unconscious, "cosmic consciousness". And furthermore, being so unconscious of it gives rise to the fact that religious and spiritual affairs can only be a matter of faith. This faith is actually correct in principle as long as it allows the beings to see all details – that is, all movements in existence – as "manifestations of life' or as the forces of Nature and as being the achievements of mighty transcendent beings known as "gods", a "Godhead" or "Providence". As long as a being still firmly "believes" in the existence of such beings, he is under the influence of his previous "cosmic consciousness", indeed, he is in principle analogous with the beings beyond "the great birth", only with the difference that the latter are "day-conscious" in higher phenomena while the former being is merely a "believer".