Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1594

1594. Since their reproduction is organically tied to sexual gratification, these beings will quite automatically promote the survival of their species by virtue of their sexual pleasure. But because beings grow out of their parents' own flesh and blood, the very first feeble beginnings of a sphere of interest that lies outside the purely sexual possession of the opposite sex arises. This sphere of interest is reflected in a desire to protect their offspring until they have become old enough to fend for themselves. This form of interest in and love for beings regardless of their sex is the "neighbourly love" of the spiral cycle or the highest worlds in its latent state, indeed, so latent that it can be borne here only by a carrier wave of "selfishness". Here it thus indeed occurs as a mere continuation of the beings' own selfish nature or love of themselves and their consequent desire to protect their own flesh and blood, even if this, in the form of offspring, is separated from their own physical body. This "parental love", to which we will return later, is but a mental continuation of pregnancy.