22.4  For the unfinished physical human being the physical world is the primary one, since it can sense mainly with its physical senses alone. With these senses it can sense only material things. Material things are in turn in their ultimate analysis movement. This in turn appears in the form of a multitude of very different kinds. These kinds appear in turn in the form of matter, substances and created things. Since they constitute created things they have a beginning and an end. They are therefore temporal. Since the unfinished human being can sense only with its physical senses, only these temporal things can become experienced facts for this being. At its primitive stages it has therefore great difficulty in understanding, or cannot understand at all, that something can be without a beginning or an end. With its physical senses it cannot see anything that is eternal. But thanks to the previously mentioned cosmic, organic structure connecting living beings to the Godhead and forming the foundation of the being's first faint spiritual faculty, the faculty of instinct, it can sense vaguely. With this faculty, which is the being's first, faint spiritual faculty in the spiral cycle, it can vaguely sense or have an inkling of things that it simply cannot see exist with the physical senses. Vague sensing is not the same as certainty, but it can give rise to such a strong belief in the sensed object that it becomes a form of autosuggestion. Through this autosuggestion the being's belief in the sensed object becomes so strong that it simply feels the existence of the object as a fact. By means of this faculty to sense vaguely and the belief to which this gives rise, people are led through their first primitive religious stages. Through the principle of world redemption people's sensing and belief is shaped, led and guided towards continuously higher and more perfect forms of religious objects of belief in order finally to reach the final great object of belief – the absolute and only one true, omnipotent, omniscient and all-loving God.
      So besides the human being's realistic physical sensing of temporal objects or material phenomena, a strong inkling, a kind of certainty about the existence of a Godhead and an idea about a spiritual world beyond the physical one entered their lives. So the religious aspect of people emerged in their lives – not through intellectual, poetic ability or through human speculation, but exclusively through a spiritual sense borne by the automatic, cosmic, organic connection that exists between the Godhead and the living being. The fact that this eternal organic connection between God and the son of God could not go on being experienced merely as an inkling that had to be supported by belief, which in itself was merely a form of autosuggestion, is quite natural. How could the being otherwise become the human being in God's image? So in order to advance the people further in their transformation from animal to human being this faculty for vague sensing and the ensuing belief or autosuggestion are weakened or cease totally. This occurs according to the cosmic cycle and the law prevailing here for the epochs of unfoldment of the basic energies. Quite apart from the faculty of instinct or vague sensing the religiosity of the primitive human being was, of course, also borne by a primitive feeling, that is a feeling that is still reflected mainly in antipathy or even unkindness, hate and persecution, egoism or selfishness, a feeling that can be expressed simply by the concept every man for himself. But this primitive feeling, which can still hardly be expressed as neighbourly love or affinity for other beings at all, is to a corresponding degree animal and constitutes the diametrical opposite of the feeling that has become human, and that can be expressed by the concept every man for his neighbour. People on this step are of course unable to fulfil the highest, eternal commandment of the law of life, which says that one should love one's neighbour as one's self and God above all things. Bringing the unfinished human being forward to this totally perfect state can occur through evolution and not through belief or suggestion. The way of being of the totally perfect human being is based exclusively on its own completely awake day-conscious, personally experienced knowledge, its own absolute knowledge, gained through this personal experience, of the darkness of life and the light of life, which are the same as so-called evil and so-called good respectively. But in order to gain this knowledge as absolute, personally experienced knowledge a new faculty has to emerge in the psyche of the human being. And this faculty is the faculty of intelligence. With this faculty, which is of course a spiritual faculty, the being cannot directly sense outer objects, but it can analyse what it can experience with the physical and spiritual senses. Since the spiritual senses of the unfinished human being, with the exception of instinct or the faculty to sense vaguely, are latent, it can sense and experience almost only physically. It can therefore analyse these physical experiences only with the intelligence. As all physical experiences are only material experiences, it will thus with its intelligence be able to experience only material results as realistic facts. But material solutions are only knowledge about matter, the elements, nature's processes of creation, the physical organisms of the living beings or, in brief, mesocosmic, macrocosmic and microcosmic physical phenomena. And it is this physical knowledge we know by the term materialistic science. As this science was based on realistic facts, it did away with that part of the beings' religious view that was based only on things that one could not observe or check with the physical senses. And the beings became therefore materialists and atheists. They thereby distanced themselves from the Godhead as much as is possible with regard to consciousness. They could therefore not include religious objects of belief in their gallery of materialistic facts. While the unfinished human beings, with their religious belief and suggestion, had a temporary foundation for their soul, spirit and morality to rest upon, they have now, with the undermining or dissolution of this foundation by their intelligence, only materialistic knowledge or science to look to. But since this science is based on physical facts alone, which means, knowledge about the mortal, physical bodies of the living beings, as well as about the other materials, substances and movements, about volume, about solid, liquid and gaseous phenomena, about results in terms of weights and measures, about processes of creation, in brief about everything that comes under the concept of physical matter, it cannot in itself constitute the least foundation for the soul, the spirit or for morality. But this is in no way its mission either. It is based only on physical senses and can therefore produce only physical science. But this science is a vital necessity for the creation of the divine, physical human kingdom, where the people attain the great birth and the final epoch in physical incarnation before permanent spiritual existence. How could a physical human kingdom be totally perfect if beings had not come so far as to know about physical materials or substances and were not master over these, so that they could create the physical, material goods that such a kingdom must have in order to be a real paradise for finished human beings in God's image after his likeness? This science has already provided mankind with a multitude of amenities that free it from very heavy, difficult work. But as it can sense and observe only the physical effects but is unable to see or sense the spiritual life of which it is exclusively a result, the physical phenomena will be perceived more or less by this science as something that comes into existence by itself. It has no preconditions whatsoever for experiencing the spiritual, living reality that is the foundation of any physical phenomena. It therefore becomes atheistic and believes only in the results of physical matter, which in themselves are lifeless. In reality they constitute a spiritual text, a language about the existence of the Godhead, the spiritual plane of existence, the eternal life of the beings and the formation of their fate and other spiritual or cosmic phenomena, without which the physical world, and thereby all life, would be an absolute impossibility. The materialistic scientist who has not yet come far enough in evolution to be able to have a well-developed faculty of humaneness or ability to love his neighbour to such an extent that his faculty of intuition is active, cannot possibly understand the spiritual language that is revealed through all physical phenomena. For the time being he must therefore be a materialist or atheist. He can see only the most murderous and devilish weapons as the most effective aids to creating peace and protection for himself and his country. And we have here in such people the maintainers of war, darkness and Armageddon. Weapons, lies and deceit, hate and animosity, irreconcilability with enemies, egoism or selfishness and intolerance still form more or the less the foundation of the mode of existence of these beings. So these beings sow darkness and must reap or experience the seed of this darkness, which then becomes their fate, as long as they go on sowing this seed of Armageddon.