Martinus Thomsen

Born into a poor family and with a limited education, Martinus claimed to have had a profound spiritual experience in March 1921.

Born on 11 August 1890 near Sindal, a small town in northern Jutland, Denmark, Thomsen grew up in a house called "Moskildvad".

His education at the local village school was very basic, focusing mainly on verses of hymns, geography, Danish and natural history, arithmetic and the catechism.

[3] According to Martinus, during March 1921 a decisive transformation took place in his life, in that he had strong spiritual experiences that led to a profound expansion of his consciousness.

The cosmic baptism of fire through which I had passed – the closer analysis of which I cannot specify here – 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.

[8] His other books include Logic, Bisættelse (On Funerals), Intellectualised Christianity and 28 shorter works; he has also written a substantial number of articles.

[9] Martinus considered himself a religious messenger, along the lines of the Buddha, Mohammed, and Jesus, and that he had a pivotal role to spread his message of the world's redemption through wisdom and love.

According to Helle Bertelsen, Martinus preached that "God’s spirit or consciousness flows through the entire universe by means of various impulses or streams of energy.

According to Helle Bertelsen, Martinus desired that "his person or work should not be made into an object of any association, new religion, sect, or global organisation.

[10] Martinus drew and painted a large number of symbols, figures, colours and lines, each illustrating specific areas of the cosmic analyses which he claimed are important elements in his overall description of the eternal world picture.

[13] Due to the lack of formal organisation, it is difficult to know how many followers Martinus had in his lifetime, though it is known that 400 people attended his 70th birthday celebration, and 1,200 were present at his 90th.

According to a 2005 report in the Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad, around 2,000 people in Denmark participated in study groups based on the work of Martinus, up from around 1,200 ten years prior.