- 15 - depths of darkness comprehensible to you. This is true also of your earthly darkness. You mortals experience darkness where light totally disappears. The more the light fades the greater the darkness becomes. It therefore owes its being to the withdrawal of light, but what it consists of is beyond your comprehension. You also know from experience that a mixture of all colours produces white and that all colours are contained in the ray of light; you know, further, that black is merely the absence of all colours. Translate these human observations to the exile of the fallen spirits from all contact with light and, consequently, with all colour, and you may form an idea of the impenetrability of the gloom to which they were consigned, even if you cannot conceive of the true nature of darkness. The Holy Scriptures contain frequent references to this battle of the spirits and to the overthrow of the evil ones. Christ himself says: Luke 10: 18: ‘I saw Satan toppled like lightning from heaven.’ The Apostle John had a vision of the battle of Michael and his legions with Lucifer: Revelations: 12: 7-8: ‘Then a battle ensued in heaven; Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels offered resistance. But they were not victorious and could no longer remain in heaven.’ Peter writes: II Peter 2: 4: ‘God did not spare even the fallen angels, but drove them down to hell, into the caverns of darkness, where they will be held captive until they turn their hearts to God again. • The original Bible contained as its first report an account of the spirit Creation and of the defection of part of the spirit world that was similar to the description I have given you here. Subsequently, however, it was deleted. In considering the defection of a great part of the spirit world, men may well ask: How was it at all possible for spirits, high in rank and enjoying perfect happiness, to fall? The reason in the case of these spirits was the same as that which so often leads your own souls astray: the craving for more. He who has much wants still more, and he whose power is great desires to see it augmented, even at the risk of losing everything at one stroke. Do you not see the same thing exemplified in the great leaders in the history of mankind, and in a small way in everyday life? At God’s behest Ezekiel sang a lament about the king of Tyre. In it, he pictures in stirring words the reason for the king’s defection from God as a spirit at the time of the great spirit revolt under Lucifer, which he had participated in as a follower and, in consequence, had been defeated: Ezekiel 28: 12-19: ‘You were the image of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Your robes were covered with an array of precious stones: sardius, topaz and jasper, chrysolite, beryl and onyx, sapphire, ruby and emerald. Wrought in gold were your edgings and ornamentations; they were prepared on the day that you were created. You were an anointed, protecting cherub; I had appointed you thereto. You dwelt on the holy mountain of God and walked amid fiery stones. You were
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