On the Origin of Species

To begin with―

In the very, very long ago, when form on the earth was only just beginning to exist, the Great Almighty God developed His wonderful scheme―that all created things should ultimately become part of Himself. 

At the first, there was no such thing as evil because the form on the earth―though alive―was not a real intelligence―or even made up of separate entities. 

That took place very gradually indeed and took millions of years to accomplish. 

First of all came creatures that just crawled about―

Later on, some things that stood upright and were of enormous height and rather like huge jellyfish―with just the very faintest glimmer of intelligence in them. 

Again―after many years―beings came to be developed with definite limbs and heads with brains inside them―though absolutely undeveloped. 

Then was the time for teaching, so the Great Almighty God sent wonderful spirits from other planets to work on the earth and teach these rudimentary, uncivilised egos. 

They must have had a disagreeable job because these creatures were awfully hard to teach―

The earth was not at all a nice place to live on then. 

It was half-dark, thick and steamy―quite unlike what it is today. 

As time went on, these earth creatures gradually became more developed, but only on certain lines. 

They were animals―not men―as we understand the word. 

They came to realise that if one was stronger than another, he could get more to eat and brute force was their way up. 

You will understand how absolutely impossible it was at that time to teach those egos anything spiritual at all. 

The Great God knew that and patiently watched the evolution of all those souls. 

For―mind you―they were souls from the very beginning. 

At last came the time when they were developed enough to be considered a nation and then one of these great spirits took the office of king and rifled in the ordinary way. 

But in between all this development there had been very long rests―when evolution stopped entirely―and all the egos on the earth were put to a kind of sleep and the great spirits returned to their real homes. 

 I am afraid this will sound nonsense to you, but it is so hard for me to explain. 

You see, do you not, that evil, as it is called, had its origin in the very earliest dim ages of the world's history and was simply a finding out of the egos of their own powers. 

At that time, they had no conception of good and evil. 

They simply found out that they could obtain certain benefits to themselves by behaving in a certain way. 

So for thousands and thousands of years, all the egos on the earth were a cruel and savage race―simply because it was their development. 

Then gradually some became a little better, and the Great God knew then that the time had come for further teaching. 

And so it went on―

Age after age―

Until the earth reached that wonderful stage on its journey called the Golden Age. 

That was the time when the egos had arrived at the stage when they could distinguish between good and evil―when their King―the Manu―was a mighty spirit who ruled his people wisely and well and who was in direct communication with spirits on this side.

That state of things lasted a very long time and then came events, which led to the downfall of the people of that time. 

Evil conquered, and the great majority of the inhabitants of the earth were drowned in a mighty flood. 

The Manu had done his very best for the people, and seeing that the doom was inevitable, he took the remnant of the people who were still trying to follow the upward path and led them to a place of safety. 

Evil only becomes evil to be responsible for, and avoided, when knowledge of higher powers comes, too. 

Up until then, although the results were the same, it was not evil, as you understand it, but merely a natural consequence of the primitive struggles of the primitive ego.

―The Witness