Animal kingdom

Introduction

Animal kingdom is a stage in the sequence of living forms described in Martinus's world picture, following the Plant kingdom and preceding the unfinished human being's transition into the real Human kingdom. In Martinus's analyses, the term denotes both a kingdom of living beings and a mental zone in Consciousness governed by the killing principle and self-preservation, while feeling, intelligence and humane capacity are beginning to develop. The terrestrial human being therefore belongs to the animal kingdom in some respects and to the human kingdom in others. ^[1] ^[2]

The animal kingdom in the evolution of living beings

Martinus presents living beings as evolving through a scale of forms: mineral, plant, animal and human. Every human being has passed through an epoch in each of these kingdoms. The animal kingdom is one stage in the living being's eternal development. The next step is the finished human kingdom, whose beings fulfil the law of life by loving God above all things and their neighbour as themselves. ^[3]

In The Eternal World Picture, Martinus describes the animal kingdom as the plane in which the plant being's physical body has developed sufficiently to bear waking consciousness. The animal begins to experience physical existence as fact rather than only as a vague pleasant or unpleasant sensing. Sight, hearing, smell, taste and feeling become increasingly developed, while instinct remains prominent and intelligence passes beyond its latent stage. Survival, nourishment and propagation are the primary conditions of animal life. ^[4]

This development gives the animal a degree of self-will and the ability to take part consciously in maintaining its life. The transition from the Plant kingdom is therefore also a transition from the instinct-dominated life of the plant to a life in which Feeling and Intelligence are more developed alongside the energy of gravity. Martinus treats the development of these capacities as the foundation for the later emergence of human consciousness. ^[5] ^[6]

The killing principle and animal consciousness

The central condition of life in the animal kingdom is what Martinus calls the killing principle: living beings obtain nourishment through the flesh and blood of other living beings, and beings pursue, kill or defend themselves against one another. This produces fear and horror, but it also awakens a desire for protection and deliverance. Martinus interprets the cry of terror as the first rudimentary form of prayer to Providence. ^[7]

The animal's self-preservation is the life condition appropriate to that stage. In the animal, the principle that each being is closest to itself is an automatic expression of the organism's needs. The unfinished terrestrial human being, however, has acquired Intelligence without having completed the development of Neighbourly love. Intelligence can therefore remain in the service of older animal tendencies instead of being used for the whole. ^[8] ^[9]

Martinus uses animal both for the animal forms whose evolution lies between the plant kingdom and terrestrial mankind and for the animal area in human mentality. A person can therefore have developed human abilities while still acting from animal consciousness in another area. The terrestrial human being is a transitional being: the animal nature is habitual and automatic, while the newer human nature generally requires conscious effort. ^[10]

The terrestrial human being as a transition

The terrestrial human being still has an animal body and remains subject to many of the animal kingdom's organic laws, including its mammalian form of reproduction. At the same time, religious, moral and idealistic tendencies show that a higher nature is emerging. These tendencies gradually weaken the desire for revenge, killing and dismemberment and strengthen the ability to act for the benefit of fellow beings. ^[11]

For Martinus, the boundary between animal and human is therefore primarily a boundary in mentality. The human being is human to the extent that humane abilities have developed, and animal to the extent that self-preservation, anger, hatred and persecution still govern behaviour. The transition is not made in a single lifetime. It takes place through many lives, as the being acquires experience and its capacities are transformed through reincarnation. ^[12] ^[13]

The animal kingdom is accordingly the setting for the cosmic birth of the human being. The higher human consciousness cannot be born in a kingdom where it already exists; it must arise within the zone where it is still absent. Martinus uses the image of the stable to express that the terrestrial human being, the emerging son of God, is born amid animal surroundings and traditions, through an animal organism and through successive terrestrial lives. ^[14] ^[15]

The animal kingdom in the spiral cycle

In the Spiral cycle, the animal kingdom is the turning point from darkness to light. Martinus describes the kingdom as the place where an entire spiral cycle is both coming to its culmination in darkness and giving birth to the next cycle's light. The transition into the real human kingdom is a transformation from the killing principle to its contrast, whereas movement through the higher kingdoms is a gradual refinement of light. ^[16]

The animal kingdom is the zone in which the being experiences the contrast between darkness and light in a concrete, waking manner. The mineral and plant kingdoms lead toward the culmination of the killing principle; the animal kingdom contains that culmination and the beginning of its transformation. The subsequent real human kingdom, wisdom kingdom and divine world express progressively higher forms of light and love. ^[17] ^[18]

Martinus describes the plant and animal kingdoms together as the school in which beings are shaped through personal experiences of darkness and light. Here they acquire the ability to experience life in a new spiral cycle. Once the being has gained the necessary knowledge through this zone, it can enter the next four divine kingdoms, where existence is increasingly in contact with God, light, love and bliss. ^[19]

From the killing principle to neighbourly love

The transformation becomes visible when former ideals cease to provide pleasure. Martinus uses the image of Valhalla to describe a stage at which killing and dying for the sake of glory could be regarded as the road to heaven. In the later phase of the animal kingdom, terrestrial mankind has become satiated with such ideals. Killing is experienced as catastrophe, while humaneness, fellow-feeling and Neighbourly love awaken as new objects of longing. ^[20]

This change is the beginning of the real human kingdom. The individual no longer finds the same satisfaction in domination and revenge, yet the humane abilities are not fully automatic. Love, religion, morality and idealism exercise the will and gradually convert what was previously an animal habit into a human capacity. The process is driven by experience, including the suffering that follows the misuse of intelligence and the violation of life's laws. ^[21] ^[22]

The real human kingdom is reached when the being's mentality is sufficiently transformed that neighbourly love becomes the natural basis of daily life. In that kingdom the killing principle is finished, while the animal kingdom is the physical culmination of that principle and the threshold from which the light of humaneness begins to dominate. ^[23]

Animals, food and respect for life

Martinus connects the animal kingdom's killing principle with the human being's relation to animals. In The Ideal Food, he describes terrestrial mankind as a transitional being whose physical body and ingrained habits still belong largely to the animal kingdom. Because the human nature is newer, acting for the benefit of others often requires an effort of will, whereas anger and self-advantage arise automatically. ^[24]

He applies the fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, to animals as well as human beings. The habitual consumption of blood and meat is analysed as a field in which the human being has not yet brought the animal tendency under the influence of thinking and love. The movement away from animal food is consequently described as a gradual evolutionary development, in which suffering and the growing ability to feel lead the individual towards greater respect for the living being's right to life. ^[25] ^[26]

Martinus distinguishes the pure animal, which acts according to the conditions of its stage, from the transitional human being, who has begun to develop faculties that make a different way of living possible. The animal kingdom is thus the field in which the being learns through experience why the killing principle cannot be the permanent foundation of life. ^[27] ^[28]

The animal kingdom as a stage of divine creation

The animal kingdom is both a zone of darkness and an instrument of creation. Through it the living being develops physical senses, feeling, intelligence, self-will and the first humane tendencies. Through the consequences of animal behaviour it gains knowledge of suffering and of the need for a higher form of existence. Through reincarnation, the being receives new organisms appropriate to its continuing development, so that the transformation from brutality to humaneness can proceed across many lives. ^[29] ^[30] ^[31]

Martinus describes this entire process as God's creation of the human being in his image. The animal kingdom is the place where the contrast between animal and human is lived through, and where the emerging human being gradually becomes conscious of the law of life. Its final direction is a passage into the real human kingdom, where the experience of life is founded on universal love rather than killing. ^[32] ^[33]