Our lives are to a large extent ruled by superstitions that we have inherited from the past. These superstitions have become so ingrained in our collective consciousness that they have been perceived as truths.  We simply take it for granted that this is how things are and we have rarely stopped to check if they are actually true.

In this well-informed, modern world one would not think that we still live on superstitions, but we do. Let us look at some of these old superstitions that are totally untrue and very bad for our concept of the world, our health, and our general understanding of life.

1. We need animal protein to survive. If we do not eat the flesh of other living beings, we will not survive.

This idea is totally untrue. Eating meat is very bad for us: it is bad for our health, the climate and our karma. It is a huge misunderstanding that we have the right to take the life of another living being in order to eat it. We have no scientific proof for the claim that meat is indispensable in our diet. On the contrary, the latest research from renowned universities in Europe and the USA clearly states that the human body does not need a large amount of protein to survive. The needed protein in the human diet is no more than 30-40 gr. per day and this does not have to come from animals. Valuable sources of protein can be found in vegetables and pulses, so there is absolutely no need for the consumption of animal protein. Unfortunately, these results from the nutrition research have not reached the general public, and many people still eat meat 2-3 times a day and believe that this diet will make them healthy and strong. But it will not. On the contrary, it will make them ill. It is now becoming clear that a diet rich in animal protein will increase our risk of suffering from a whole range of illnesses such as cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, arthritis and cancer. There is no improved health to be found in the consumption of meat. So why are we still eating meat? Why are we still subject to the misinformation about an alleged need for animal protein? Why are we not waking up to the fact that we can simply skip the whole production of meat and in that way improve our health and the health of the planet? It must have something to do with old superstition, as it has no support from science. The science around the benefits of a plant-based diet is solid. There is no uncertainty about this. It is an irrefutable fact that meat is unnecessary and furthermore a serious health risk. So the answer must lie in tradition, old habits and ignorance. But we cannot go on living in ignorance about what type of diet is best for us. We must spread the word about this.

2. We are identical to our physical body and we only live once

The one-life theory has never been proved and nobody has ever been able to prove that nothing survives the death of the physical body. This is founded in the misconception that only what we can see, touch and measure exists. But today it is gradually becoming clear that death is not what it seems, and because more and more people come back from being “dead” during the near-death experience, it is dawning on us that we may not be identical to our physical body. And this is exactly what spiritual science tells us. Behind and before our physical body, we have our spiritual body or astral body, which is identical to our consciousness. Our consciousness is a field of energy and it holds all the information about who we are. We ARE our consciousness, we are NOT our physical body. The physical body is only an instrument that the spirit / consciousness uses as long as it works. Once the body has become useless through injury, illness or old age, the spirit pulls out and moves back to the spiritual plane – its place of origin and eternal home –  for a good long rest. From there it reincarnates into the fertilized egg in the womb, and it creates its new body based on the information it has in its energy field and which it has accumulated over thousands of lives. Once born, it continues its journey of evolution at exactly the place it had reached the last time it died. We are all on an eternal journey of evolution through physical and spiritual realms of existence. This journey can only take place via reincarnation and all life forms reincarnate. Death is an illusion and we are as alive in our spiritual body as we are in our physical body. For that very reason, all fear of death is totally unfounded. We are always alive in our spiritual body.

3. The world is unjust

When we look at the world, we see a lot of different fates being played out. We look at these fates and we see that some people have wonderful fates and others have horrible fates. We see one person born to loving, educated parents. This person lives in prosperity, gets a good education, has friends and lives in a lovely house. S/he gets an interesting job, makes a good living, is healthy and happy and lives to a ripe old age. We also see another person who is born in a war-zone. S/he has to flee from bombings to a refugee camp, where s/he lives in a tent in all sorts of weather, is semi-starved and has nothing meaningful to do. As we believe in the one-life theory, we say: The world is so unjust! And indeed, it would be if these lives were the only ones that those people lived. One happy life, one unhappy life, and these lives are the only ones the beings in question ever have. Then the world would not only be unjust, but also illogical and unloving. What kind of God would allow two so unlike fates to be the only ones the beings experienced? It would make no sense at all and God would be a cruel, unjust, dumb creature that would send his creations to such diverse fates. No wonder that this way of perceiving  things makes a lot of people think that there cannot be a God, or that if there is, then he must be a very unjust God indeed.

But again, it is the one-life theory that blocks our vision. No being alive only lives once. We are all eternal beings on a never-ending journey through physical and spiritual planes of existence in a universe where the basic tone is love.  Our fates are leveled out over a long series of lives and NOBODY gets to suffer more than anybody else when we look at life in the right perspective: one that spans a long number of physical lives.

Our fate is ruled by the law of karma and it decrees that we reap as we sow. Whatever    happens to us, good or bad, is a result of actions we have sowed ourselves in this or   former lives. And karma is not a punishment, it is a loving instruction, teaching us     valuable lessons about how to behave towards other living beings. In this amazing universe, nothing happens by chance and we are all, each and every one of us,             responsible for our fates. It is never somebody else´s fault. Everything that happens to us  is a result of something we have sowed ourselves. Seen in this perspective, the world is totally just, totally logical and totally loving.

4. Only what is visible exists

It is a very widespread misconception to believe that only what we can see, touch and measure exists. We look at the physical world and we think that this is everything that is real. What we cannot see, is not real and it does not exist. But that is a huge misconception. The world consists of two planes of existence: the physical world and the spiritual world. Of the two, the spiritual world is the primary world. The physical world is the secondary world. The spiritual world is where everything has its origin and the physical world is the effect of the creative process on the spiritual level. The spiritual world consists of energy or thoughts.

Let us look at an example. Our thoughts are an example of a spiritual type of matter. We cannot call our thoughts physical, because we cannot see, touch or measure them. They are only inside our head. But still, they are the basis for all man-made things. Not a single man-made things exists that was not a thought in somebody´s head FIRST. Everything manmade started as a construction in spiritual matter: a thought. This thought would probably arise out of a need or a desire for something. It could be: a chair, a table, a car, a computer, a plane, a pencil etc. It is always thought first.

Today, we are coming very close to accepting that invisible “stuff” exists. Our science of physics has defined the electromagnetic spectrum that reflects a world of invisible matter that can hold information and which is extremely useful to us. We know this is true because we make use of this invisible type of matter every day when we speak on our mobile phones, when we roam cordlessly on the internet, when we listen to radio or watch television. Claiming that only physical matter exists is refuted every second in our modern lives. We are up to our necks in invisible stuff that is very useful to us and which has made our lives so much more pleasant.

What we will soon come to realize is that energy and thoughts are one and the same thing. Our thoughts are our life-force. All thoughts hold both information and force. And now that we know that, we can conclude that all the energy in the universe is also thoughts. This means that we are alive in a conscious universe. As having a consciousness is something that defines a living being, we can now see the outline of a higher, conscious being: God. We are tiny quanta of this God and the universe is ruled by the strictest laws.

5. We are alone in the universe

When our astronomers look at the universe they discover more and more stars, solar systems, and galaxies. The further they can see into the universe from their observatories, the more galaxies do they discover. Today it is estimated that there are 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe. But that is only what is observable from Earth. We know that there is so much more that we still cannot observe, simply because our telescopes are not able to discern them. Faced with this enormous amount of galaxies in each of which there are billions of stars like our sun,  it becomes more and more impossible to keep believing that life only exists on this small planet of ours. And indeed, if you ask astronomers today, they will tell you that they have stopped believing that we are alone in the universe and that we are the only intelligent beings in it. It is simply not logical given the enormity of space.

If we ask Martinus he is very clear about this: life is teeming everywhere in the universe and on innumerable planets there are humanities just like ours on various levels of evolution. Some have come as far as we have, some have gone further and some have not come as far and may still be living like we did 2000, 1000 or 500 years ago. But there are also planets where the life forms are very different from the ones we know on Earth.

Martinus puts it like this: “To believe that the universe is nothing but an infinite ocean of the chance play of dead forces and to believe that from this chance play the bit of micro  life, which the earthly humanity constitutes, that is the inhabitants on the speck of dust in the universe, which we call the Earth, should be the only and highest existing life is a  gigantic, cosmic derailment of logical thinking. It is to live in death instead of in life”.       (Livets Bog VI, paragraph 2350).

“A gigantic, cosmic derailment of logical thinking” is what Martinus calls the idea that we  are the only beings alive in the universe.

The five superstitions I have mentioned here are just a few, and the more we study spiritual science and the magnitude of what it reveals, the more we begin to see that the universe is  a magical place with more wonders and love than we had ever imagined. But in order to see this we have to throw our never – proved superstitions overboard and begin to see the bigger picture. The spiritual science of Martinus reveals this bigger picture for us and for that reason we should study it. We are simply not supposed to go on living in ignorance about the spiritual plane of existence.

A good place to start would be here: https://www.amazon.com/Reincarnation-Nutshell-real-Spiritualnutshell-Book-ebook/dp/B07MNT3DX8