Darkness

Darkness is Martinus’ term for the contrast to light in the living being’s experience of life. In its mental culmination, darkness corresponds to hatred, while light corresponds to absolute love. Martinus presents darkness not as an independent power opposed to the Godhead, but as a necessary contrast through which life can be sensed, experienced and developed. ^[1] ^[2]

Darkness as a cosmic contrast

Martinus describes all sensory perception as an experience of contrasts. A thing becomes accessible to the senses by differing from its surroundings; in the same way, light can be experienced only against darkness, and darkness only against light. The contrast is not limited to physical sight. On the mental plane, light is the culmination of love, while darkness is the culmination of hatred. The quality of a being’s experience depends on the relation between these two aspects in its mentality and way of living. ^[3]

Martinus writes that both contrasts are present in every experience, though one may dominate. A life in which darkness predominates becomes an experience of a region of darkness; where light predominates, the being experiences a region of light. ^[4]

Without darkness there would be no differentiated experience, no formation of consciousness and no experience of life. The contrast is therefore a condition for the living being’s ability to sense and to experience the universe. Martinus states that the being gains the ability to experience knowledge, beauty, love and bliss through having experienced the contrast to these realities. ^[5]

The principle of hunger and satiation

The movement between light and darkness is connected with the principle of hunger and satiation. A being cannot remain permanently in one relationship to the two contrasts. When it has become satiated with darkness, it develops a hunger for light; when it has become satiated with light, it hungers for darkness. Martinus describes these alternating desires as the driving force of the living being’s passage through life. ^[6] ^[7]

The being’s wishes, desires and longings participate in determining its movement through the cycle. Terrestrial humanity is described as increasingly satiated with the darkness expressed in war, illness and suffering, and as beginning to hunger for neighbourly love, peace and a higher form of existence. ^[8]

The alternating relationship to the contrasts is eternal. Beings in the spiritual worlds eventually become satiated with the highest forms of light and then develop a hunger for the opposite experience. They are consequently led towards the physical world, where they again become satiated with darkness and begin to hunger for light. ^[9]

Darkness in the spiral cycle

Martinus places darkness in the sequence of the spiral cycle, where the living being passes through six kingdoms or planes of existence. The plant kingdom and animal kingdom belong to the Godhead’s secondary consciousness, while the perfect human kingdom, the kingdom of wisdom, the divine world and the kingdom of bliss belong to its primary consciousness. The passage through these kingdoms renews the ability of both the Godhead and the living being to experience life. ^[10]

The culmination of darkness belongs to the meat-eating plants, the animal kingdom and the unfinished terrestrial human being. In this part of the spiral, the animal tendencies of self-preservation, force and killing have not yet been transformed by sufficient neighbourly love and cosmic knowledge. Martinus describes this plane as the region of darkness and unhappy fate, with suffering as its culmination. ^[11] ^[12]

The unfinished terrestrial human being is therefore still situated between animal and human forms of life. Martinus describes the recurring experience of the darkness of the animal kingdom as giving beings knowledge of what is evil and what is good, so that they can gradually change their way of being. ^[13]

Darkness, evil and the killing principle

In Martinus’ analysis, darkness is often experienced as evil because it appears as hatred, egoism, violence, war, illness and suffering. He rejects the idea that these realities are caused by a devil who is independent of the divine order. Darkness is necessary in the absolute sense because it provides the contrast through which consciousness, understanding, wisdom and love can develop. ^[14]

At the same time, this cosmic necessity does not make every dark action life-giving. In the dark zone, beings act from insufficient knowledge and insufficient neighbourly love. They seek to preserve themselves through force and may kill or consume other organisms. Martinus calls this the killing principle and describes its culmination as a world of war, mutilation and death. ^[15]

Martinus also includes the morality that defends hatred, war, murder, punishment, meat-eating and righteous indignation among the expressions of the dark radiation. He contrasts this with the morality of forgiveness and love of one’s neighbour. The dark radiation is described as having culminated on Earth, while the light radiation is still developing. ^[16]

In this later phase, Martinus describes light world redeemers as guiding terrestrial humanity with ideals founded on the light radiation, including the pure essence of love and opposition to the killing principle. ^[17]

The root of this darkness is, according to Martinus, a lack of cosmic knowledge and neighbourly love. A being cannot use abilities it has not developed, and therefore adapts its conduct to its limited capacities. Where the being can love only itself, egoism becomes the primary motive, and force becomes the means of defending its existence. ^[18]

Darkness, fate and suffering

The dark way of being creates dark karma and unhappy fate. In Martinus’ account of the law of cause and effect, the effects of hatred, bitterness and violence return to the being that released them. ^[19]

Martinus describes a life overshadowed by the effects of mistakes as a life in darkness. The effects may appear as disappointment, bitterness, hatred and vindictiveness towards other beings, or as illness and distress resulting from a wrong relationship with one’s own organism. When bitterness is directed at others, it becomes a new mistake and a new source of unhappy effects. ^[20]

Martinus does not describe this process as divine punishment. In his account, the consequences are an education in the laws of life. The being learns through experience what it should and should not do, and gradually develops the sympathy necessary to love its neighbour as itself. ^[21]

This education can be painful because suffering functions as a danger signal. In Livets Bog, Martinus compares pain with a bell that rings when the individual is moving away from the natural way. Pain turns the being back from a destructive course and helps it acquire the qualifications needed for the real human kingdom. ^[22]

Martinus states that suffering develops sympathy and humaneness and changes the being’s conduct. As humaneness grows, the being becomes less able to create the same harmful effects for other living beings. ^[23] ^[24]

The epoch of darkness and the way to light

Martinus calls the culmination of terrestrial darkness the epoch of Doomsday. It is expressed socially through war, terror, destruction and the misuse of technical power. These events reveal the effects of the killing principle and show that war cannot create lasting peace. A peace maintained only by superior force is, in this analysis, an enforced ceasefire rather than the real peace produced by neighbourly love. ^[25] ^[26]

In The Road to Initiation, the journey through darkness is pictured as a passage through zones of death, hatred, war, poverty, illness and destruction before the gate of wisdom is reached. ^[27]

The experience of the consequences of violence awakens a longing for another way of living. The being begins to hunger for light and neighbourly love, while the dark morality of hatred and revenge is contrasted with the morality of forgiveness and love. ^[28] ^[29] ^[30]

Martinus describes the transition as a movement towards the real human kingdom. The being that has become satiated with darkness begins to seek a way of living that is a joy and blessing to other living beings. The culmination of this development is associated with the experience of love, wisdom and peace. ^[31] ^[32]

No eternal hell

Martinus explicitly rejects the idea of an eternal hell. He describes hell as a symbolic expression of the consequences of darkness and states that there is no eternal hell in the cosmic world picture. ^[33]

In the cosmic analysis, darkness is nevertheless experienced as hell when ignorance, hatred and killing reach their culmination in the physical zone. The being passes through this region as part of the eternal cycle and, through hunger and satiation, eventually develops a hunger for its opposite, the light. ^[34] ^[35]

Because the being survives the destruction of its physical organism and carries its experiences onward, darkness cannot finally destroy it. The experience of dark fate becomes part of the development of sympathy, humaneness and wisdom. In the long course of the spiral cycle, the being becomes a finished human being in God’s image, able to live in love rather than in the killing principle. ^[36]

References

[1] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 13.8

[2] The Eternal World Picture 4, section 34.5

[3] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 13.8

[4] Livets Bog 5, section 1793

[5] The Eternal World Picture 4, section 34.5

[6] Livets Bog 3, section 711

[7] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 17.20

[8] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 17.20

[9] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 17.20

[10] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 17.20

[11] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 19.20

[12] Meditation, section 3.10 (*)

[13] Meditation, section 3.10 (*)

[14] The Eternal World Picture 4, section 34.5

[15] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 19.20

[16] Livets Bog 1, section 40

[17] Livets Bog 1, section 41

[18] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 19.20

[19] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 19.20

[20] Vejen til paradis, section 1.1 (*)

[21] Meditation, section 3.12 (*)

[22] Livets Bog 1, section 86

[23] Meditation, section 3.12 (*)

[24] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 19.20

[25] Meditation, section 3.12 (*)

[26] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 19.20

[27] Vejen til indvielse, section 1.2 (*)

[28] Livets Bog 3, section 711

[29] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 17.20

[30] Livets Bog 1, section 40

[31] Meditation, section 3.12 (*)

[32] The Eternal World Picture 1, section 13.8

[33] Article 1807

[34] The Eternal World Picture 4, section 34.5

[35] The Eternal World Picture 2, section 17.20

[36] Meditation, section 3.12 (*)

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