853. The beings in whom this mental thaw, the sexual degeneration, is so advanced that it becomes visible in the mental attitude and behaviour of these individuals have therefore over the centuries been persecuted as pariahs who really had no right to live at all. Until now it has been largely the fate of these beings to endure external persecution, degradation and capital punishment at the same time as inner permanent pangs of conscience, shame, inferiority complex, fear and terror based on ignorance of their own true nature. In truth, these first "Adams" and "Eves" have felt the full weight of the curse of the Fall on their heads. And in certain countries in the world people are still blinded by the same ignorance. But despite prison and execution, despite threats of "eternal damnation" and "hell", the Godhead's ever-radiant, eternal message: "Let there be Light" reaches further and further across the Earth. The great promises are being totally fulfilled one after the other. The "Helper, the Holy Spirit" is, through the new cosmic world impulse, beaming more and more strongly into the sphere of the Earth, and is manifesting more deeply and profoundly than ever before. Human beings are coming into possession of a knowledge and understanding about life and existence that far supersedes what they had dared to imagine and what they could have a mere inkling of. The "Fall", that is to say, the eating of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil", has undergone a phenomenal development; indeed it has actually become organised, creating its own temples in the form of modern schools, universities and colleges. This eating of the "tree of knowledge" has become an extraordinarily strong rival to the eating of the "garden's" ordinary and permitted fruits, that is to say, the state of one hundred per cent marriage. Where is the marriage partner who, side by side with his or her interest in marriage, does not have another sphere of interest created by daily life itself through practical experiences and supplemented by officially authorised teaching? Where is the marriage partner who is not, beside its sexual sphere, a little or very much a scientist, artist, teacher or philosopher? Are not the ordinarily acquired manual trades, by which the great majority of human beings must maintain their existence, also related to science and art? No, the terrestrial human being is no longer in the animal Garden of Eden. To wake up in the morning and go out into the countryside without the slightest danger of breaking any legal or moral law, to find food for oneself and one's offspring wherever it is convenient, simply following one's innate, natural urge and with only the animal state of mating as the sole sphere of interest or consciousness, is a form of life that terrestrial human beings have abandoned long ago and is a state that would be "hell" if they were to be forced to live in it.