Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent design – A New Theory of Evolution – Ole Therkelsen

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1. My book: "Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design. A new Theory of Evolution"
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   WHAT IS SCIENCE?
   Science is the documentation of facts on the basis of our senses and their extension by various measuring instruments. Scientific results must be capable of being reproduced and confirmed by measured data drawn from experience or experiment, i.e. by exact quantification. Science is defined on the basis of a specific mode of investigation in which every hypothesis must be empirically verified.
   
   IS MARTINUS’ SPIRITUAL SCIENCE A TRUE SCIENCE?
   Natural science describes the manifold observations that are made in nature. In contrast, Martinus explains how everything in life plays a meaningful role. If we wish to compare Martinus’ spiritual science with recognised academic disciplines, we have to turn to the humanities, which incidentally used to be called “spiritual sciences” in many European languages (for instance Geisteswissenschaften in German). The humanities are concerned with finding and acquiring an understanding of meaning. However, they see meaning purely as the product of human activity. The special feature of Martinus’ cosmic analyses is that they also show a meaning in nature outside of human activity. Martinus has created a spiritual science showing that all of nature is a product of conscious life, and that everything in nature has a meaning.
   Martinus was no philosopher who thought up ideas and set up hypotheses. He said quite modestly that the eternal laws and principles of life existed before he was born and that he was merely endowed with a faculty of sensing that enabled him to experience them. He tells us that after having acquired cosmic consciousness in 1921, it took him three years to obtain a complete overview of the world picture and get it all to fall into place.
   It is interesting to read about how Martinus acquired cosmic consciousness and experienced the cosmic laws and principles of nature. But the essential thing for the spiritual investigator must be to determine whether what Martinus writes is true and agrees with the facts of reality or fails to do so. Martinus himself or the way in which he gained his knowledge are entirely secondary. The formulation of the law of gravity is more important than the story of how Newton (1642–1727) sat under an apple tree and saw an apple fall to the ground, inspiring him with his brilliant idea. German chemist Friedrich Kekulé (1829–1896) solved the problem of the structure of benzene when he saw its molecule shaped like a ring in a dream, but it became science only after his insight had been verified in the laboratory by experiment.
   
   WHAT IS THE STARTING POINT OF SCIENCE?
   Spiritual and natural science are both based on specific starting points or axioms that cannot be proved. This is the case for all sciences. Martinus presupposes the existence of the world, i.e. the existence or constancy of energy, as well as the validity of the law of cause and effect. This starting point, that Martinus shares with natural science, is described in his basic conclusions no. 1 and no. 2 of the 12 basic conclusions of his “solution to the mystery of life” (LB2 §559–560, LB3 §680–681 and EWP3 §32.3–32.4).
   But Martinus breaks out of the framework of natural science when he continues with his basic conclusion no. 3 “Logic or planned activity”. Here he tells us that the investigator must recognize how this expression of nature’s cause and effect reveals a plan that shows itself upon closer inspection to be completely logical and purposeful. For example, is it not obvious that cell chemistry and human physiology act in a completely purposeful way?
   In basic conclusion no. 4, “Consciousness, thinking and the creation of ideas” he goes a step further and concludes that the logic and purpose that we see in nature must be an expression of the existence of consciousness and thinking. So there must be purposefulness and a plan in nature.
   In basic conclusion no. 5, “The existence of the living being”, he goes on to show that consciousness cannot exist as an isolated phenomenon, but can only appear in connection with a living being (LB2 §561–563, LB3 §682–684, EWP3 §32.5–32.7). So the marvellous structure of the universe indicates that it constitutes a living being. Martinus’ symbol of the living being corresponding to basic conclusion no. 5 is shown in Section 3.7.
   
   WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE?
   The crucial difference between natural and spiritual science is that the latter assumes that life is – like energy – an eternally existing phenomenon. From a logical standpoint, there can be only two possibilities: 1. The phenomenon of life originated at a specific point in time. 2. The phenomenon of life has always existed. Who can prove that one of these statements is correct and the other one wrong?
   In contrast to an eternal phenomenon, every temporal thing has a beginning and thus a cause or origin. Martinus’ assumption of the constancy of life and energy leads unequivocally to thinking within an eternal framework. In order to understand the cosmic analyses, it is always necessary to distinguish between eternal and temporal phenomena. An inability to do this inevitably leads to delusional or confused thinking, as Martinus points out in LB4 §1059–1071.
   
   The distinct starting points of natural and spiritual science:
   1. The universe and life are phenomena that originated in time
   2. The universe and the phenomenon of life have an eternal existence
   
   My book: "Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design. A new Theory of Evolution"
   
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2. 1.1 WHO WAS MARTINUS?
   Life is a fairy-tale. When we look back over the millennia, we see that once in a long while a truly extraordinary genius is born, a prophet or world-renewer. I am convinced that our beautiful green and blue planet has received a visit from such a fantastic person in our time, namely Martinus (1890–1981). He was born out of wedlock in the small village of Sindal in north Jutland, Denmark, where he spent his childhood and the early part of his youth. He subsequently worked in various dairies around the province until he acquired cosmic consciousness at the age of thirty. During the last 60 years of his 90-year long life, he created a completely new science and world picture on the basis of his cosmic intuition – an Eternal World Picture (EWP).
   Martinus referred to his work as a science of love. He considered it to be an intellectualised or scientifically based Christianity. So in 1975 he began to call his collected works The Third Testament, because he felt that his spiritual science was in fact the promised continuation of the Old and New Testaments in the form of the divine advocate, the Holy Spirit (John 16, 12–15 and 14, 26). He also used the expression the Martinus Cosmology to designate his work. Cosmology is defined as the branch of philosophy concerned with the origin and nature of the universe. Cosmos stands in opposition to chaos – it implies a well-ordered universe based on laws. In brief, the Martinus Cosmology is a description of an ordered universe. It is a science of life showing that everything has a meaning, every detail is indispensable to the whole, and that in its final analysis everything is logical, purposeful and loving.
   
   1.2 WHAT WAS THE BACKGROUND TO MARTINUS’ WORK?
   In the Preface to his main work Livets Bog (LB1–7), Martinus writes of the profound transformation of consciousness that formed the background to his entire written works. He tells us that at Easter 1921 he underwent the white and then the golden baptism of fire that endowed him with cosmic consciousness.
   
   He writes: “The cosmic baptism of fire that I experienced and which I cannot explain in more detail at this point had left me with new senses that allowed me to perceive the spiritual forces, invisible causes, eternal universal laws, basic energies and basic principles underlying the physical world, not merely as glimpses – but as a permanent condition of wide-awake day consciousness. So the mystery of existence ceased to be a mystery for me. I had become conscious in the life of the universe and had become initiated into the divine creative principle” (Livets Bog1 §21).
   
   This transformation of consciousness and associated new insight became the starting point for an authorship that lasted for 60 years.
   
   1.3 WHAT DOES LIFE LOOK LIKE FROM AN ETERNAL PERSPECTIVE?
   After his cosmic baptism of fire, Martinus discovered that he had gained new senses and was able to see into eternity itself.
   
   He writes: “I saw that I was an immortal being, and that all other beings in existence were eternal realities, who like myself had an endless series of earlier lives behind them, that we had all evolved from low primitive forms of existence to our present stage, and that this was merely a provisional stage along this evolutionary scale, and that we are on our way towards extremely highly advanced forms of existence in the distant future. I saw that the universe consisted of a single vast living being in which all other beings are organs, and that all of us – human beings, animals, plants and minerals – comprise a single family, may be said to be of the same flesh and blood” (Livets Bog 1 §21).
   
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3. THE NARCOTIC-ANIMAL NUTRITION LEADS TO ILLNESS
   The narcotic-animal nutrition, which includes meat and other animal products, beer, wine and spirits and also tobacco and narcotics, is very harmful to health. Although most people regard it as natural and right to eat meat and drink beer and wine, Martinus thinks, that for the people of today it should be looked upon as a burden. The moving away from meat eating will come to consist of a habituation to natural products, so the warped ability to taste can be transformed to again being to react against those substances, which are harmful to the organism. Before becoming used to tobacco and alcohol the sense of taste reacted very strongly indeed against these products. (The Ideal Food, chap. 8-10).
   The transition to the right human food occurs, according to Martinus, not only with ordinary information in the form of the written and spoken word, but also with the learning from experience and the illnesses which come from the undermining of health with the narcotic-animal nutrition.
   Martinus, “And it is this undermining that, in the form of all existing organic illnesses, is the greatest instigator for people’s evolution towards the true human food. As the illnesses increase to the same extent as people’s nutritional aberrations increase, and as absolute health or an existence free of illness is thereby impossible as long as the vice or the narcotic-animal source of nutrition is maintained, all people, through their organic sufferings and illnesses, will ultimately be led to a purer source of nutrition, to absolute health.” (The Ideal Food, chap. 8).
   
   
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4. WHAT ARE THE KARMIC CONSEQUENCES OF EATING MEAT?
   The law of karma is widely accepted in the Orient, while here in the West we talk about the law of fate and the Bible tells us that we shall reap what we sow and that we should do unto others as we wish them to do unto us. A Danish proverb says: “Smile at the world and the world will smile back at you”. Martinus also explains how the law of fate represents a mirror principle (LB4 §1262, LB6 §2128).
   In physics, Newton’s third law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, which implies that every action inevitably has specific consequences. We must bear the consequences of all our actions. If we as parents bring up our children to accept the consequences of their actions, it should be easy to understand that we adults must also assume the consequences of our own actions. Indeed, the whole of science is based on the law of cause and effect.
   Martinus tells us that eating meat has serious consequences for our fate, because by doing so we are the cause of animals being killed. But human beings don’t kill animals because they hate them. Because their slaughter does not involve any anger or hate, animals experience it more or less as an accident. As the law of fate acts as a kind of mirror principle, meat-eaters have no protection from being injured or killed in air or road accidents. Similarly serious consequences come from hunting, fishing and eating animal products from the sea. Meat-eating can also be the cause of drowning accidents or of major and minor accidents at home and at work.
   Martinus in no way reproached people for eating meat. He was everyone’s friend and loved everyone, irrespective of whether they ate meat, were smokers or drank alcohol, but he merely wished to inform them of the consequences of doing so. He recommended that we become vegetarians if we wished to have better health and to be protected from accidents.
   Time will tell if the science of nutrition will confirm Martinus’ analyses of the health-promoting effects of vegetarianism.
   The assertion that meat-eating is the cause of accidents may be confirmed empirically by carrying out a scientific study to identify any statistical correlations between cases of death and injury from accidents and factors such as being a hunter or angler, eating meat and being vegetarian. As far as I am aware, no such study has yet been carried out on the basis of the accident statistics. It should nevertheless be possible to obtain considerable information from hospitals and insurance companies to determine a possible correlation between the occurrence of accidents on the one hand and killing animals and eating meat on the other.
   
   
   DOES MARTINUS HAVE A LOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR THE LAW OF FATE THAT SAYS THAT WE MUST REAP WHAT WE HAVE SOWN?
   
   Martinus argues that something lifeless cannot be the cause of a movement – only something living can (see §3.11). The “I” – the living core of the living being – must therefore be the cause of every movement. As every movement can only go in a curved or circular path, it must necessarily return to its origin – namely the “I”. The core of his argument for the law of fate is thus: As movements can only travel in circular paths, every energy impulse that is sent out must return to its sender – the eternally existing “I”.
   If someone commits a murder, for example, he carries out an action that represents a certain energy concentration, and this is transformed into spiritual matter that propagates out into space (Kosmos no. 2/1996). Thus the principle involved in eating meat is expressed as accidents. Animals experience being slaughtered as an accident. The electromagnet energy ray that is sent out does not represent the concrete action but the principle behind it. Due to the law of movement, no energy impulse can go in a straight line but must follow a curved or circular path. So it must inevitably return to its origin with an effect that corresponds to the one sent out. Against this background, the law of fate can be understood as a law of nature equivalent to the laws of gravity or electromagnetism.
   Martinus tells us that these circular paths can be so immeasurably large that the fate impulses may be on their way several hundreds of years, even though they move faster than light (The Ideal Food, Chapter 6). The fastest speed known in the physical world is that of light. As soon as this is exceeded, the moving body enters the spiritual world. Anything moving faster than light becomes dematerialised: it is converted from the three familiar states of matter, namely solids, liquids and gases, to a fourth state of matter that Martinus calls the spiritual or ray-formed state. And in the reverse direction too, something from the spiritual world that drops below the speed of light is materialised in the physical world. Martinus writes about materialisation in LB2 §361, LB5 §1936, The Road of Life, Book no. 22C and Kosmos no. 3/2005 and no. 8/2006.
   Martinus pointed out that these were neither speculations nor theories. For him they were real facts, because the circular paths of the fate-forming rays can be followed by the cosmic consciousness through space and observed just as easily as physical realities are accessible to the physical senses (The Ideal Food, Chapter 6). The emitted fate energies form part of a being’s body of eternity. More on this topic may be found in EWP1 Chapter 16, where Martinus also explains the symbol of the body of eternity. See also his analyses of this topic in EWP3 §32.13 and LB3 §750–751.
   
   
   IS IT TRUE THAT THE UNIVERSE IS CURVED?
   
   I personally had the opportunity to ask Martinus this question. In summer 1980, a little more than six months before his death, I had held my first lecture at the Martinus Center in Klint and was consequently invited one Thursday evening a few months later, to the weekly tea party with Martinus. I had recently passed my examinations in astronomy at Copenhagen University, where I had to answer a question about the Big Bang in connection with cosmological evolutionary models. If we compare Einstein’s theories of relativity with the cosmological principle that space is essentially the same in all directions, the consequence is that the universe is curved. We have to forgo plane geometry and instead use curved geometry in order to set up a mathematical model to describe the astronomical observations of the speeds of galactic flight. On the basis of this curved geometry, we obtain a model of the universe that contains neither straight lines nor plane surfaces. So energies can only propagate themselves along curved paths.
   At this tea party, I took the opportunity to ask Martinus: Is it correct that the universe is curved? The answer came immediately from the 90 year old: No, it’s the energies that go in circular paths!
   For me, it was a highly thought-provoking answer. After all, we should not confuse cause and effect. The universe curves because the energies can only travel in curved orbits or cycles. The curvature of the universe and Einstein’s relativity theories are perhaps the closest we can get to a scientific proof of Martinus’ analyses of the law of fate and the law of movement.
   
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5. Hello, I would like to answer some question on Darwin and Intelligent Design
   with kind regards Ole Therkelsen
   
   HOW DID THE IDEA OF DESIGN IN NATURE ARISE?
   The idea that nature is designed by a divine intelligence is an old one in philosophy. For as long as people have reflected on nature and man’s place in it, they have proposed arguments in favour of design in nature. Among various possible causes, Aristotle (ca. 330–254 BC) considered the formal cause (idea of design) as the most important. He called the ultimate cause the “unmoved mover” (compare the divine something – X1). A long line can be drawn from Aristotle’s unmoved mover to the argument for God (fifth proof of God’s existence) formulated by medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274). Aquinas was in no doubt that the unmoved mover must be God. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) considered that human conduct and organic nature show purposefulness or purposeful control. He argued that the emergence of an organism cannot be explained on the basis of mechanical causes.
   The Danish physicist H.C. Ørsted (1777–1851), who is best known for discovering electromagnetism, had an intuitive idea of nature that came to particular expression in his philosophical work “Spirit in Nature 1–2”, published in 1849–1850. Ørsted writes: “Nature is not merely something corporeal, it is permeated and controlled by spirit, which follows from its infinite conformity to law”, and elsewhere: “The concept of the world is incomplete if it is not considered as the ongoing work of the eternally creative spirit”. Ørsted points out that natural effects are divine effects, that the laws of nature are divine thoughts and that the universe is permeated by reason. He regards the whole of existence and nature as a kingdom of reason. This is in complete contrast to today’s materialistic science that holds the ideological dogma that there can be no reason in nature. In many points, Ørsted’s cosmic idea of nature is akin to Martinus’ spiritual science (Kosmos no. 6,7,8/1933).
   Like Martinus, French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) makes a sharp distinction between intelligence and intuition. He believed that a life force acts throughout the world whose nature can be grasped only by intuition. Intelligence is characterised by the natural inability to understand life, he said. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1927. Intelligence, which serves purely practical purposes, gives a schematic and mechanical, but consequently also a dead and distorted picture of reality. His main work from 1907 “L’évolution créatrice” was published in English as “Creative evolution” in 1910.
   
   
   HOW DID THE THEORY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN START IN THE USA?
   
   Compared to the philosophical tradition going back over two thousand years, the new aspect of the theory of intelligent design is that the argument from design is now presented as a scientific discovery and method. Already in the 1980s, the creation science movement in the USA put pressure on the country’s legislature and school boards to include the teaching of fundamentalist creation science in biology classes. The expression intelligent design can be traced back to a congress in the USA held in 1988. Shortly afterwards, when the creationist textbook “Creation Biology” was revised, the term “creation” was replaced by “intelligent design”. This textbook, considered to be the first book about intelligent design, was published in 1989 as “Of Pandas and People. The Central Question of Biological Origins”.
   A ruling by the USA’s Supreme Court (1987) decided that creationism was to be considered as a religion in a legal sense, so that publicly funded American schools could not use this viewpoint in their biology lessons. Several attempts to introduce creationism into biology teaching in American schools were declared to be contrary to the constitution.
   Intelligent design is energetically supported by conservative Christian circles in the USA. The movement took its starting point from the ruling by the Supreme Court that prohibited the teaching of creationism because it is not a scientific theory. As a reaction to this ruling, a plan of action known as the Wedge Strategy was formulated by Christian creationists including Phillip Johnson and Stephen Meyer. The strategy aimed to support scientific research, to spread information about intelligent design and to work towards introducing the theory of intelligent design as an alternative to the Darwinian theory of evolution in American schools. Creationism and criticism of Darwinism were to be formulated in scientific terms in order not to conflict directly with the Supreme Court’s ruling. The intelligent design movement began with initiatives and contributions by Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, Michael Denton, Dean Kenyon and Philip Johnson. The main agency for implementing the strategy to spread creationism as intelligent design was the Discovery Institute, a religiously oriented conservative think tank in Seattle (www.discovery.org). The strategy proved such a great success in the USA that intelligent design has become a popular movement. So it is not an isolated phenomenon, but an integral part of the American religious right. A systematic and historical treatment of this topic is given in Larry Witham’s book “By Design. Science and the Search for God”, Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003. In other countries, intelligent design has found particular support in many Christian and alternative circles.
   
   
   HOW IS INTELLIGENT DESIGN PRESENTED OFFICIALLY?
   
   The official position is that the theory of intelligent design is not an expression of creationism. It is presented as a scientific theory that has no connection to the Biblical creation story. It claims to be based only on what can be observed. But the intelligent cause itself cannot be observed, it can only be inferred from its effects in nature.
   The two leading proponents of intelligent design are biochemist Michael Behe (born 1952), who introduced the term irreducible complexity, and theologian, philosopher and mathematician William Dembski (born 1960), who introduced the term specified complexity.
   Michael Behe’s book “Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution” became a surprising bestseller in the USA (Free Press, New York, 1996). In the book he presents the old watch/watchmaker argument in new and biochemical terms. Darwin wrote that if it could be proven that a complex organism had existed that was not formed by small successive modifications then his theory would break down completely. Behe claims that his example with the complex bacterial flagellum does in fact mean that Darwin’s system breaks down.
   Behe insists that the creation of the first living cell could not have taken place gradually and randomly in a primeval soup. The cell with its great complexity must have been made in the great creator’s workshop. Only when the cell with all its microscopic machinery was first put on the rails, could evolution then have occurred by means of mutation and natural selection. But the leading proponents of intelligent design still insist on the idea of the unchangeability of species.
   William Dembski has become best known for his book “The Design Inference. Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities”. (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Dembski claims to have developed an evolutionary algorithm, known as “Dembski’s design filter” that should make it possible to decide whether a system or event is a product of deliberate design or not.
   
   
   IS INTELLIGENT DESIGN A SCIENTIFIC THEORY?
   
   In general, not a great deal has been published about intelligent design, and the current debate almost always refers to the same examples from the books of Behe and Dembski. According to established science, these two authors have not succeeded in presenting satisfactory definitions of the concepts of irreducible and specified complexity.
   Despite its claimed scientific potential, intelligent design has so far made very few contributions to scientific journals, and some of these were subsequently recalled after being declared insufficiently scientific. In view of this and of the theory’s origins, critics claim that intelligent design is merely creationism in disguise or an attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling and insinuate creationism into biology teaching. As a scientific theory, intelligent design does not make any significant contribution to science because it makes no attempt to explain how the intelligent creation of complex systems took place and because it fails to make any predictions like other scientific theories.
   Oxford professor Richard Dawkins (born 1941) has become known as a leading atheist who attacks religion and fiercely defends Darwinism, gaining him the epithet of “Darwin’s watchdog”. He completely rejects the existence of a design in the universe in his book “The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design” (W.W. Norton, New York 1986). Dawkins argues that the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection are perfectly capable of producing a highly complex biological system. The workings of nature could indeed have been made by a blind watchmaker.
   Dawkins’ most recent book “The God Delusion” (2006) calls God an illusion and a delusion. It is a Darwinian’s attempt to denounce belief in a supernatural creator.
   
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6. Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design - A New Theory of Evolution.
   By Ole Therkelsen. Translation Richard Michell, England
   TRANSLATORs PREFACE:
   This is a remarkable book and a timely one. It is topical on two counts. Firstly, 2009 marks a double Darwin anniversary; it is 200 years since his birth and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. Secondly, it addresses itself to the contemporary version of the perennial debate about fundamental issues currently taking place within a postmodern context that is suspicious of overarching narratives, be they religious or scientific.
   
   The title of this book is in itself intriguing, as it juxtaposes three very disparate elements. Darwin is an eloquent symbol for the power of a great idea and its part in creating our modern post-religious sensibility. Intelligent design alerts us to the reluctance among many people, particularly those to whom a religious world-view remains meaningful, to wholeheartedly accept evolution as an explanation of our origins. And Martinus (1890–1981) is, to begin with, the name of a little-known Danish writer.
   
   And yet this book deals primarily with Martinus, using Darwinism and its critics as a foil against which to bring out the stupendous cosmic vision that we owe to this Danish seer. It is time he was more widely known, not least in the English-speaking world.
   Martinus developed a cosmic model that can sharpen our awareness of what it means to be human and deepen the sense of mystery about our existence that a superficial scientism appears to have banished. And yet he was neither a philosopher, nor a scientist nor even an imaginative novelist. He was a man of little schooling who experienced a momentous enlightenment in his thirtieth year which never left him throughout his long life. He spent the rest of it, some sixty years, in expounding his ever-present vision. There seems no better word for it, for his cosmic model claims to be neither theory nor speculation, but a straightforward description of the world in its totality (not just the physical world that is the legitimate object of science) as seen from the perspective of infinity and eternity. It is this latter viewpoint that saves his vision from becoming just another meta-ideology: indeed, it respects our humanistic sensitivities while honouring our link to an open-ended matrix of experience.
   
   It would be easy, if premature, to dismiss his work on the basis of its origin, which smacks of “revelation”, a source that is rightly rejected as a basis of knowledge. However, if we venture to examine his ideas, we will find ourselves seeing our familiar world in a fascinating new light. His cosmic model bears the hallmarks of elegance, harmony, simplicity and coherence that we look for in a good scientific theory. It presents a satisfying explanation of the underlying structure of the universe on the basis of a very few fundamental principles – William of Ockham would have approved.
   
   Moreover, it offers us concepts and approaches that have the power to harmonise the most disparate competing claims of science and religion (in their best aspects) to give us a broad picture of reality. The sheer optimism of his world picture is exhilarating, as is its grounding in the twin elements of eternity and infinity (so troublesome to science and religion alike) and its surprising take on the vexed question of consciousness.
   One aspect of Martinus’ work does need explanation. He places it in a spiritual context, while making a sharp distinction between his spiritual science and religions. He would thus appear to plunge into the morass of untestable assertions that bedevil any discussion of spirituality. And yet, his writings breathe an empiricism that is both astonishing and beguiling – he makes us blink and look anew at what we imagined reality to be. But the avowed pantheism of this cosmic model will appeal no less to those of a secular cast of mind, simply because it transcends such categories and reconfigures them within a broader context. We should not stumble over words, but see what he means by them. After all, he had to draw the words available in his surrounding culture to give expression to a vision that by its nature represents the very crucible of pre-verbal experience.
   
   It is as if Martinus’ personal consciousness had been raised to a point at which we hear the living universe speaking through him about itself. And yet he is no mouthpiece of dubious “higher beings”, but steadfastly remains his own source: he describes reality almost prosaically, if sub specie aeternitatis, and yet in a way that resolves the deepest puzzles of existence in an appealingly human way. Simply to allow these thought pictures to pass before our inner vision is a deeply stimulating experience: there emerges a way of understanding the world which is entirely consistent with our scientific mindset while allowing us to see pre-scientific, religious and mythological world-views as symbolic expressions of a vast underlying reality that surrounds us today as much as it ever did.
   
   He throws detailed light onto our pre-natal and post-mortal existence in a way that weaves the pericope of a human life into a richly meaningful tapestry and shows us how we can resolve the conundrums of time and eternity in an intuitively satisfying way.
   His description of the evolution of human sexuality is perhaps one of his most intriguing contributions. Our contemporary culture, characterized as it is by changing patterns of sexuality and gender, gains in depth when seen from the perspective of a gradual transformation away from the male and female states to a new kind of human being who combines the best aspects of both sexes, in a process that will gradually give rise to a transfigured human body.
   
   His insights into the nature of health and disease are scarcely controversial in an age so aware of psychosomatic relationships. He effectively scotches the myth that ill-health strikes randomly and shows us convincingly that we can indeed be the masters of our fate, and not least of our health. In short, Martinus cosmology is a deeply inspiring well of insights into the human condition and our profound interconnections with the entire cosmos through space and time.
   
   From a humanistic angle, Martinus’ cosmic model offers a perspective that avoids the twin pitfalls of a theistic threat to our hard-won individual autonomy (characteristic of religion) and a narrow interpretation of reality (typical of scientism) that ignores the fundamentally provisional nature of the scientific enterprise. It consequently fits happily into the enlightenment project that lies at the heart of Western culture while lending it wings to expand into breathtakingly limitless dimensions.
   
   Before Darwin, so much of life appeared inexplicable that it seemed reasonable to accept the existence of a deity. In a post-Darwinian world, we can see through the fallacy of explaining the unknown by something even more unknown. The triumphant march of science since his time has bequeathed to us a rich explanatory matrix rooted in a reasoned observation of reality. It has perhaps been less successful in describing a universe in which human beings can feel truly at home. That is where Martinus comes in. His vision gives us the tools to reinterpret our scientific world-view, and not least the powerful explanatory principle of evolution, so that we begin to sense our central role as knowers within an evolving cosmos of which we are, as individuals, an indispensable and eternal part.
   
   Richard Michell, 2009
   
   www.oletherkelsen.dk
   www.oletherkelsen.info
7. Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design – A new Theory of Evolution
   by Ole Therkelsen
   
   CONTENTS
   Part 1 – The Universe and the World Picture
   Chapter 1 Martinus and the world picture
   Chapter 2 Natural and spiritual science
   Chapter 3 The triune structure of the universe
   Chapter 4 The universe and living beings
   Chapter 5 The principles of cosmic creation
   
   Part 2 – Evolution and Conscious Creation
   Chapter 6 Darwinism and intelligent design
   Chapter 7 The physical world – the tree of knowledge
   Chapter 8 Information – chaos or cosmos
   Chapter 9 Evolution as an expression of thought and consciousness
   Chapter 10 Consciousness as a product of randomness
   Chapter 11 Entropy and the accumulation of information
   Chapter 12 Memory and life’s card-index
   Chapter 13 Life’s eternal gathering of information
   Chapter 14 Life within life within life within life…
   Chapter 15 Organs that began as machines
   Chapter 16 The replacement of organisms
   Chapter 17 Heredity and environment. Talent kernels and repetition
   Chapter 18 Design in evolution
   Chapter 19 Design in biochemistry
   Chapter 20 The life urge and yearning in evolution
   Chapter 21 Inner and outer factors in evolution
   
   Part 3 – Defective Genes, Sickness and Health
   Chapter 22 Diseases due to genetic factors
   Chapter 23 Vegetarianism, health and destiny
   Chapter 24 Thoughts, health and sickness
   Chapter 25 The goal of evolution
   
   
   TRANSLATOR's PREFACE
   Richard Michell
   
   This is a remarkable book and a timely one. It is topical on two counts. Firstly, 2009 marks a double Darwin anniversary; it is 200 years since his birth and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species. Secondly, it addresses itself to the contemporary version of the perennial debate about fundamental issues currently taking place within a postmodern context that is suspicious of overarching narratives, be they religious or scientific.
   
   The title of this book is in itself intriguing, as it juxtaposes three very disparate elements. Darwin is an eloquent symbol for the power of a great idea and its part in creating our modern post-religious sensibility. Intelligent design alerts us to the reluctance among many people, particularly those to whom a religious world-view remains meaningful, to wholeheartedly accept evolution as an explanation of our origins. And Martinus (1890–1981) is, to begin with, the name of a little-known Danish writer.
   
   And yet this book deals primarily with Martinus, using Darwinism and its critics as a foil against which to bring out the stupendous cosmic vision that we owe to this Danish seer. It is time he was more widely known, not least in the English-speaking world.
   Martinus developed a cosmic model that can sharpen our awareness of what it means to be human and deepen the sense of mystery about our existence that a superficial scientism appears to have banished. And yet he was neither a philosopher, nor a scientist nor even an imaginative novelist. He was a man of little schooling who experienced a momentous enlightenment in his thirtieth year which never left him throughout his long life. He spent the rest of it, some sixty years, in expounding his ever-present vision. There seems no better word for it, for his cosmic model claims to be neither theory nor speculation, but a straightforward description of the world in its totality (not just the physical world that is the legitimate object of science) as seen from the perspective of infinity and eternity. It is this latter viewpoint that saves his vision from becoming just another meta-ideology: indeed, it respects our humanistic sensitivities while honouring our link to an open-ended matrix of experience.
   It would be easy, if premature, to dismiss his work on the basis of its origin, which smacks of “revelation”, a source that is rightly rejected as a basis of knowledge. However, if we venture to examine his ideas, we will find ourselves seeing our familiar world in a fascinating new light.
   
   His cosmic model bears the hallmarks of elegance, harmony, simplicity and coherence that we look for in a good scientific theory. It presents a satisfying explanation of the underlying structure of the universe on the basis of a very few fundamental principles – William of Ockham would have approved. Moreover, it offers us concepts and approaches that have the power to harmonise the most disparate competing claims of science and religion (in their best aspects) to give us a broad picture of reality. The sheer optimism of his world picture is exhilarating, as is its grounding in the twin elements of eternity and infinity (so troublesome to science and religion alike) and its surprising take on the vexed question of consciousness.
   
   One aspect of Martinus’ work does need explanation. He places it in a spiritual context, while making a sharp distinction between his spiritual science and religions. He would thus appear to plunge into the morass of untestable assertions that bedevil any discussion of spirituality. And yet, his writings breathe an empiricism that is both astonishing and beguiling – he makes us blink and look anew at what we imagined reality to be. But the avowed pantheism of this cosmic model will appeal no less to those of a secular cast of mind, simply because it transcends such categories and reconfigures them within a broader context. We should not stumble over words, but see what he means by them. After all, he had to draw the words available in his surrounding culture to give expression to a vision that by its nature represents the very crucible of pre-verbal experience.
   
   It is as if Martinus’ personal consciousness had been raised to a point at which we hear the living universe speaking through him about itself. And yet he is no mouthpiece of dubious “higher beings”, but steadfastly remains his own source: he describes reality almost prosaically, if sub specie aeternitatis, and yet in a way that resolves the deepest puzzles of existence in an appealingly human way. Simply to allow these thought pictures to pass before our inner vision is a deeply stimulating experience: there emerges a way of understanding the world which is entirely consistent with our scientific mindset while allowing us to see pre-scientific, religious and mythological world-views as symbolic expressions of a vast underlying reality that surrounds us today as much as it ever did.
   
   He throws detailed light onto our pre-natal and post-mortal existence in a way that weaves the pericope of a human life into a richly meaningful tapestry and shows us how we can resolve the conundrums of time and eternity in an intuitively satisfying way.
   His description of the evolution of human sexuality is perhaps one of his most intriguing contributions. Our contemporary culture, characterized as it is by changing patterns of sexuality and gender, gains in depth when seen from the perspective of a gradual transformation away from the male and female states to a new kind of human being who combines the best aspects of both sexes, in a process that will gradually give rise to a transfigured human body.
   
   His insights into the nature of health and disease are scarcely controversial in an age so aware of psychosomatic relationships. He effectively scotches the myth that ill-health strikes randomly and shows us convincingly that we can indeed be the masters of our fate, and not least of our health. In short, Martinus cosmology is a deeply inspiring well of insights into the human condition and our profound interconnections with the entire cosmos through space and time.
   
   From a humanistic angle, Martinus’ cosmic model offers a perspective that avoids the twin pitfalls of a theistic threat to our hard-won individual autonomy (characteristic of religion) and a narrow interpretation of reality (typical of scientism) that ignores the fundamentally provisional nature of the scientific enterprise. It consequently fits happily into the enlightenment project that lies at the heart of Western culture while lending it wings to expand into breathtakingly limitless dimensions.
   
   Before Darwin, so much of life appeared inexplicable that it seemed reasonable to accept the existence of a deity. In a post-Darwinian world, we can see through the fallacy of explaining the unknown by something even more unknown. The triumphant march of science since his time has bequeathed to us a rich explanatory matrix rooted in a reasoned observation of reality. It has perhaps been less successful in describing a universe in which human beings can feel truly at home. That is where Martinus comes in. His vision gives us the tools to reinterpret our scientific world-view, and not least the powerful explanatory principle of evolution, so that we begin to sense our central role as knowers within an evolving cosmos of which we are, as individuals, an indispensable and eternal part.
   
   Richard Michell, 2009
   
   * * * * *
   
   Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design – A new Theory of Evolution
   by Ole Therkelsen
   
   OLE THERKELSEN BLOG
   www.oletherkelsen.info
   
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   www.oletherkelsen.dk
   
   YOUTUBE
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8. On Ole Therkelsen's book
   Martinus, Darwin and Intelligent Design - A New Theory of Evolution
   Foreword
   This book deals mainly with Martinus (1890–1981) and his account of evolution, which offers a third explanation as against Darwinism and intelligent design. The last 150 years have witnessed a dispute between Darwinists and theologians about the reasons for the emergence of complex organisms in nature. This dispute has blown up again because Biblical creationism in the form of intelligent design has been proposed as a scientific theory with the aim of being accepted on an equal footing with Darwinism in scientific enquiry and for teaching biology in schools.
   
   Darwin’s theory explains the evolution of life essentially on the basis of two factors, namely natural selection and random mutation. Among randomly originated variations, the best suited will survive in the struggle for existence (survival of the fittest), so that useful properties accumulate by propagation. Darwin assigned a creative role to this natural process of elimination because it implied a gradual increase of well-adapted organisms at the expense of ill-adapted ones. He said that: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down”.
   
   Intelligent design, which is officially presented as a scientific theory independent of the Bible and religion, aims to prove that Darwinism is wrong! – Its advocates claim to have shown scientifically that cells contain such complex structures (“specified complexity” and “irreducible complexity”) that they could not have originated by successive mutations, all of them with advantages for survival, as Darwinism postulates. This leads to the conclusion there must be some other cause, indeed an intelligent one! – There must be a design in nature. But this is where the argument stops. In contrast to Martinus, the theory of intelligent design does not attempt to explain the motivations and mechanisms behind the formation of complex organisms in nature.
   
   The first five chapters of the first part of this book The Universe and the World Picture are an introduction to an understanding of Martinus’ account of evolution. The second part, which is half of the book, presents the main topic, namely Evolution and Conscious Creation in a total of sixteen chapters. The four last chapters in the third part of the book Defective Genes, Sickness and Health examine Martinus’ analyses of the causes underlying pathological genes and the significance of experience for the future stages of evolution that lie beyond the present human stage: for Martinus claims that evolution has a goal: it is like a one-way street that leads to perfection!
   
   In his two main works, Livets Bog (LB1–7) [The Book of Life 1–7] and The Eternal World Picture (EWP1–4), Martinus explains that natural science is based on intelligence and investigation from below, whereas spiritual science is based on intuition and investigation from above: he tells us that these two kinds of science will in future merge to form a single holistic science.
   
   Martinus has been completely ignored in the public debate that has taken place in Denmark over the past six years about Darwin and God, the theory of evolution and intelligent design. The main focus of the book has consequently been placed on Martinus Spiritual Science because it is essentially unknown in the public arena despite its vast scope and immense perspectives.
   
   Ole Therkelsen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2016
   
   
   Contents
   
   Part 1 – The Universe and the World Picture
   Chapter 1 Martinus and the world picture
   Chapter 2 Natural and spiritual science
   Chapter 3 The triune structure of the universe
   Chapter 4 The universe and living beings
   Chapter 5 The principles of cosmic creation
   
   Part 2 – Evolution and Conscious Creation
   Chapter 6 Darwinism and intelligent design
   Chapter 7 The physical world – the tree of knowledge
   Chapter 8 Information – chaos or cosmos
   Chapter 9 Evolution as an expression of thought and consciousness
   Chapter 10 Consciousness as a product of randomness
   Chapter 11 Entropy and the accumulation of information
   Chapter 12 Memory and life’s card-index
   Chapter 13 Life’s eternal gathering of information
   Chapter 14 Life within life within life within life…
   Chapter 15 Organs that began as machines
   Chapter 16 The replacement of organisms
   Chapter 17 Heredity and environment. Talent kernels and repetition
   Chapter 18 Design in evolution
   Chapter 19 Design in biochemistry
   Chapter 20 The life urge and yearning in evolution
   Chapter 21 Inner and outer factors in evolution
   
   Part 3 – Defective Genes, Sickness and Health
   Chapter 22 Diseases due to genetic factors
   Chapter 23 Vegetarianism, health and destiny
   Chapter 24 Thoughts, health and sickness
   Chapter 25 The goal of evolution
   
   Martinus and his Works
   
   
   THE THIRD TESTAMENT
   Martinus entitled his collected works The Third Testament. It comprises Livets Bog (The Book of Life) in 7 volumes, The Eternal World Picture in 4 volumes (symbols with explanations), Logic, “Bisættelse” (about funerals), Intellectualised Christianity, Collected Articles 1 and 28 shorter works together with numerous articles published in the magazine Kosmos.
   
   MARTINUS (1890–1981)
   Martinus, born in Sindal in the north of Jutland, Denmark, had a very minimal education and spent most of his early working life as a dairyman. In 1921 he experienced a spontaneous transformation of consciousness that enabled him to analyse life and describe its spiritual laws and eternal principles. Martinus writes in the preface to Livets Bog: “I had become my own source of light. The cosmic baptism of fire through which I had passed … had thus left the fact that entirely new sensory abilities had been released in me, abilities that enabled me – not in glimpses – but on the contrary in a permanent state of awake day consciousness – to apprehend all the main spiritual forces, invisible causes, eternal world laws, basic energies and basic principles behind the physical world. The mystery of existence was therefore no longer a mystery to me. I had become conscious in the life of the whole universe, and had been initiated into ‘the divine principle of creation’.”
   In addition to his writings, which provide a scientific basis for loving all living beings, his many symbolic drawings with explanatory texts help the reader to acquire an overview of the cosmic structure of life. Martinus died in Copenhagen in 1981.
   
   
   
   Text on back cover of the book
   
   MARTINUS COSMOLOGY,
   DARWIN’S THEORY OF EVOLUTION
   AND THE THEORY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN
   
   Darwin takes as his starting point a gradual evolution on the basis of mutations and natural selection. Intelligent Design attempts to show in a purely scientific way that a supreme intelligence exists behind all of creation. As against these two theories, Ole Therkelsen, public speaker and former lecturer in chemistry and biology, presents a third explanatory model of the complex organisms in nature, the origin of life and its composition, namely Martinus Cosmology, created by the Danish spiritual researcher Martinus (1890-1981).
   
   Martinus saw the universe as an all-encompassing living being in whom we all live and undergo the experience of life through an eternal evolution.
   Martinus’ teaching has been largely ignored in the creation debate of recent years. It offers an interesting approach with a wealth of perspectives that confirms and corrects aspects of both Darwinism and the theory of Intelligent Design. Martinus argues in favour of an evolution based on the consciousness and experience of the living beings themselves and gives an insight into the future evolution of humanity towards perfection.
   
   The book is addressed to all interested in evolution from either a scientific, spiritual or religious viewpoint. It may also be read as an introduction to Martinus Cosmology.
   
   
   Ole Therkelsen (born 1948) writes from his background as a trained chemist and biologist as well as on the basis of his life-long commitment to Martinus Cosmology. Since 1980 he has given over 2.000 talks on the Cosmology in fifteen countries in six different languages. Many of these talks may be heard on www.oletherkelsen.info
   Right photo: Ole at 11 years of age and Martinus in 1959 at the Martinus Centre in Klint, near Nykøbing Sjælland, Denmark
   
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9. A NEW THEORY of EVOLUTION
   MARTINUS, DARWIN and INTELLIGENT DESIGN
   by Ole Therkelsen
   
   Explanation of front cover
   In connection with his eternal world picture, Martinus (1890-1981) drew a series of symbols in which he uses the seven colours of the visible spectrum to characterise the different forms of energy of the universe. Religious belief is mainly based on feeling, symbolised by the colour yellow. Science is based on the energy of intelligence, symbolised by the colour green, and Martinus’ Spiritual Science is based on intuition, symbolised by the colour blue.
   After passing through centuries of superstition and belief, humanity has now, thanks to the clear light of intelligence, entered the epoch of science and intelligence. But we now stand at the threshold of a new epoch of intuition that will be based on spiritual science. The book’s three topics are symbolised by the three colours yellow, green and blue.
   Science is based on intelligence or thought processes from below, whereas spiritual science is based on intuition or thought processes from above, as Martinus puts it.
   The humane individual whose mature feeling (yellow) and developed intelligence (green) are in balance begins to gain access to intuition (blue).
   The triangle in Martinus’ symbolic language represents the eternally living being.
   
   With kind regards
   Ole Therkelsen
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