Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1540

1540. But just as the spiral cycle is divided into a "zone of life" and a "zone of death", a "zone of pleasantness" and a "zone of unpleasantness", so too is each of the six kingdoms of the spiral divided into a "zone of pleasantness" and a "zone of unpleasantness", which in turn are perceived by terrestrial mankind as "heaven" and "hell" respectively. This "heaven" (paradise) and this "hell" are thus in actual fact two absolute principles on which all possibility for experiencing life depends. If "hell" or the "principle of unpleasantness" did not exist, the "principle of pleasantness" or the "kingdom of heaven" would also be an absolute impossibility. It is obvious, therefore, that the "kingdom of heaven" absolutely cannot be a zone of favouritism in which the Godhead gives preferential treatment to or pampers His favourites, just as "hell" absolutely cannot be a prison or jail in which the Godhead angrily avenges and punishes all the beings that have been unable to win His favour. Such a view of "heaven" and "hell" is the very height of ignorance and can occur only in the "kingdom of death" or the dark half of the spiral cycle. It is a "dead" being's impression of the Godhead's greatest principles of manifestation or analysis of His faculty to create.

Symbol no. 12

Life and Death