674. It is not surprising that, deep down, the living beings take this for granted. We can see that primitive human beings, who are still living in the first tender stages of thinking, all without exception take it for granted that Nature is an expression of one or more such cosmic beings. They see "spirits" in trees, stones, mountains, the sun and moon etc. They "believe" in a "god", or "gods". And the only difference between them and "cosmically conscious" beings is that the latter no longer "believe", but they "see" or experience as a fact that Nature is nothing other than an expression of consciousness for large organ functions; it constitutes organisms for large beings. They see that we are all microbeings in a larger organism, whose origin bears the same relationship to us as we do to the forms of microscopic life that our own organism consists of. They therefore see that organisms can exist only as consisting of organisms. Life represents organisms within organisms and, in the same way, beings within beings continuing into infinity. And throughout this entire infinity, this ocean of organisms, the cosmic beings see coherent principles that reveal this infinity to be one single all-embracing living being. This being is, as we have already pointed out several times in "Livets Bog", the one and only absolute, true Godhead.
      We can therefore see that the primitive human being and the most intellectual human being are almost on the same mental wavelength. Both of them see all manifestations of energy as "manifestations of life". It is only at the intermediary stages between these two categories that we perceive manifestations of energy as answers in terms of weights and measures or are buried in the endless chain of cause and effect. In these beings, who are further ahead in the spiral cycle than the primitive human being, the "cosmic consciousness" that they inherited from the previous spiral has as a result of the spiral cycle totally degenerated and is at its most latent stage. This means that the beings at this intermediate stage are as far as they can possibly be from an experience of the Godhead. They are as far as they can be from the traditions of the life of the spirit. They have lost almost all day-conscious sense of the Godhead. They therefore have absolutely no ability to "believe". The factor that directs their will is intelligence. Since, on account of the latent state of their "cosmic consciousness", they are able to experience only physically, they can with their intelligence recognise only physical phenomena, and must by nature deny everything that lies beyond the physical plane, that is, everything that cannot be perceived, weighed and measured physically. And this brings us to the extraordinary state of being where, in the midst of the manifestations of life or its steadfast indications, indeed, despite the reality of our own life, we deny, albeit unconsciously, its existence. The answers in terms of weights and measures that we are expert at producing do not work in favour of life, but in favour of death. They create the materialistic attitude of consciousness.