The fact that the being is not conscious of its unshakable connection with the Godhead mentioned above during its embryonic states in the spiral and while reincarnating and during its other unfinished mental states is a matter of course. The strong, solid, religious belief in the Godhead a being can have is nevertheless an inkling, borne by its religious instinct, of the existence of this Godhead. But this inkling cannot become absolute knowledge through the religious instinct. It cannot likewise become absolute knowledge through intelligence or feeling alone either. That is why people to an outstanding extent become materialists, become godless during the degeneration of their religious instinct and during the beginnings of the epoch of the development of intelligence. But with the subsequent incipient development of humane feeling or neighbourly love caused by suffering, and the incipient development of the faculty of intuition ensuing from this, materialism and godlessness disappear because of an incipient experience of real, absolute day-conscious knowledge – brought about by this faculty of intuition – of the Godhead's existence and the being's own unshakable cosmic or eternal connection with this highest being.