From the Bible we know the expression "God's spirit upon the face of the waters". We are also familiar with Christ's statement made one night in conversation with Nicodemus: "Unless one is born anew of water and the spirit one cannot enter the kingdom of God". We are also familiar with the narrative of "the holy spirit" that came upon the apostles; and Christ talks about "the spokesman, the holy spirit" or "the spirit of truth" that will preach about things to come and guide people to the whole truth. What is meant by "God's spirit moved on the face of the waters" and "being born anew of water and the spirit"? Water and spirit signify two eternal realities without which the earth and all life on it would never have come into existence. We know these two realities by other terms. "Water" in the biblical narrative is a symbolic expression for what we call substance or matter. There must be something from which God could create the earth. Without matter or substance there would be no creation. Something cannot come from nothing, just as something cannot become nothing. "Spirit" means consciousness, which is the same as the mental area around an I that causes it to appear as a living being. Consciousness is the living being's area of abilities and talents through which its desire, will, thoughts and knowledge are unfolded.

Through our consciousness we experience joys and sorrows, pleasantness and unpleasantness; in brief, everything that we call our fate. From our consciousness we also direct the movements of our physical organism and the actions and forms of creation that are manifested through it. We have abilities and talents; we can develop new abilities while other abilities are degenerating. It is all connected to the experience of life and the changes in our wishes and desires in which the experience of life results. This entire transformation of life, which is a chain of causes and effects creating new causes and new effects and so on, does not of course take place chaotically or through some "nothing", but is due to a particular cosmic, organic apparatus, which I call the "superconsciousness" of the living being. From this superconsciousness the being maintains its "subconsciousness", which in turn consists of two realities, "day-consciousness and night-consciousness", just as it is also from the superconsciousness that it creates its physical body. The superconsciousness is thus the seat of the living being's eternal structure of life. In this area the being's talents and aptitudes are to be found concentrated in talent kernels that survive the death of the physical body and exist behind its manifestation of life and its experience after death. The forces that build up the embryo in the mother's womb in a new incarnation and go on working after birth with the growth and development of the body radiate likewise from the superconsciousness.

Our physical body consists of materials or substances that are subject to processes of transformation from when it is an embryo until it becomes the body of an old man or woman. From physical science we know that this physical body consists mainly of water. In religious symbolic language the term "water" is actually a symbol for matter. But this "water", this material or physical body, is undergoing transformation; that is, it is in motion, for transformation is a form of movement. And this holds true for all substances or matter; they are all manifestations of movement. Even the most solid substances or matter consist of particles that move in an empty space that is many times larger than the particles. It is the same principle we meet whether we study space, with its planets, suns and galaxies, or matter, with its cells, molecules and atoms. When we study the living beings' organisms we discover that they too comprise many forms of movement, both in their inner organic structure and in their outer space. But what is it that creates the movements in all substance? And what creates the movements in the universe?

Substance cannot possibly move itself. The movement in which all substance finds itself is caused by something entirely other than the substance itself. This is a fact because substance is built up according to a plan. It carries out logical processes. The living beings' organisms, which constitute life's very highest and most perfect combinations of matter, are built up as ingenious instruments for the processes of creation. Is it not a fact that substance in particular cases is formed as sensory instruments for sight, hearing, smell, taste and feeling? Why is matter formed as hands and feet, which are also ingenious creations? And as hearts, lungs, kidneys, skeleton and musculature? Is is not precisely in order to fulfil a particular purpose? If only matter existed, it could not be formed in such a purposeful way. There must be "something" whose purpose and aim is fulfilled through this transformation. This "something" cannot be the organism itself, which is merely an instrument and which is therefore not accessible for direct sensory perception. It is invisible, but, through its influence on and creation in matter, its presence can be ascertained.

Without the existence of this "something", movement could not possibly exist in matter. The gigantic movements in the star-worlds of the universe as well as the movements in microcosmos or the world of matter, which are invisible to us, would be an impossibility. And living beings would not be able to exist. This "something" possesses a characteristic by virtue of which it is a living being, namely spirit or consciousness. It is this living being in which we "live and move and have our being", as the Bible says. About the human being the Bible also says that he is "created in God's image after his likeness". Indeed, but are we not also living "somethings" that experience life and manifest ourselves through the "waters" or matter combined in the organs and sensory apparatuses that together constitute an organism? This "something" we know by the term "the I". Every single human being is a living being by virtue of his I, his superconsciousness, his subconsciousness and the consciousness's organs of manifestation. But without the superconsciousness we would have neither a subconsciousness, a day- or night-consciousness, nor a physical body. The I would exist but it would constitute merely "something that is" without creation or experience. It would be stillness or lifelessness. The I must, as Christ said, "be born anew of water and spirit"; it must experience itself in relation to movement. And "water", substance or matter is not sufficient; spirit, or the forming power, must be present to move matter.

Spirit constitutes the force that in all situations moves all matter in microcosmos as well as in mesocosmos and macrocosmos. This force is visible or accessible to sensory perception only through the reactions or movements it produces in matter. All forms of combinations of matter, whether they are physical or mental, have come into existence by virtue of spirit. Since spirit is a force of consciousness it becomes visible as will; and behind what we call "will" there exists a desire, a hunger. A spiritual hunger can be transformed to a satiation only by being satisfied. But how does such a desire or such a hunger arise?

But when all living beings are eternal beings, and the principle of hunger and satiation is an eternal principle of renewal and evolution in the universe, the beings at some time become satiated with the light and long for its opposite, which would then be light for them. This means that we, from the present spiral of evolution's "kingdom of bliss" will at some time begin to send out such forces of consciousness whose effects create the "mineral kingdom" in a higher spiral of evolution, which is the beginning of a new "involution in matter". It is of course difficult for people of today, who are almost satiated with all forms of dark manifestation, to grasp, first, that they once yearned for such forms of life experience and manifestation just as strongly as they now long to get away from them, and second, that they at some time in the future, even if it is such a long time ahead that they cannot put a figure to it, will again yearn for something similar. It is of course not the suffering for which one longs, but power, self-assertion and egoism after a very long epoch of time spent in manifesting neighbourly love, affection and altruism. And as one sows, one reaps; that is, one experiences the effects of one's use of force; from this comes the transformation or renewal of the consciousness. Life is an eternal process of renewal of the Godhead and of the sons of God or the living beings. There is just this one point of difference: the Godhead is in all eternity at his peak in his primary consciousness (in which the beings who, in the spirals of evolution, are passing through the highest worlds are God's instruments for creating and experiencing), whereas the beings that represent the plant, animal and human stages of the spirals constitute the Godhead's secondary consciousness, where at one and the same time the renewal of the consciousness of these beings and the renewal of the consciousness of God takes place. At the same time all these myriads of living beings constitute substance and universes for one another.

So the beings' desire is released by an eternal principle by virtue of which they are drawn towards new spheres and conditions that are never an exact repetition in detail, even if the regularity repeats itself. I have called the above-mentioned principle "the primordial desire", which is not the same as the will. The primordial desire is the eternal desire or hunger for life or the renewal of life and is in itself a guarantee for us that what we call "death" is merely an illusion. This desire has its seat in the individual's superconsciousness, where the same individual's talent kernels are also to be found concentrated in "spiral centres", that is permanent centres of creation for the bodies of the subconsciousness; the bodies of instinct, gravity, feeling, intelligence, intuition and memory. These bodies create the individual's subconsciousness, and through them it can sense, experience and manifest its creative ability.

Physical science and technology have reached immeasurably far in this century compared to what was achieved in these areas in previous centuries of our cultural epoch. This colossal evolution is to a very great extent caused by the discovery and understanding of the use of electricity. The modern human being has merely to press buttons to turn on lights, the radio or television or the motor in a tool. He perhaps cooks his food with the help of electricity, and he takes the tram or electric train to work where he in many different ways uses electricity in machines varying from small, easily manageable devices to gigantic dynamos and engines.

The human being has thus - without knowing it - used electricity long before he discovered it in Nature and got the idea of using it in the service of technology. This is so because being a living being is actually the same as being an electrical being. The world with rays and waves and electromagnetic forces within technology and science will gradually lead mankind forward to becoming less materialistic since it will be realised that matter, any substance whatsoever, is not merely what it seems to be. It consists of particles and empty space, but the "empty space" is pervaded by rays and waves, and the particles are surrounded by force-fields consisting of many kinds of vibrations and wavelengths.

Between the microcosmos, that is the worlds of the organs, cells, molecules and atoms, and the macrocosmos, the world of the planets, solar systems and galaxies, people experience the world, a world which can naturally be called "mesocosmos". And just as it is electrical forces that are behind the movements in the microcosmos and the macrocosmos it is also electricity that is behind the mesocosmic movements. One must, from a cosmic point of view, distinguish between macrocosmic, mesocosmic and microcosmic electricity, which are certainly all mental force or psychic matter but used by living beings in macrocosmos, mesocosmos and microcosmos respectively. When science has evolved sufficiently it will acknowledge the term "spirit" and understand that spirit is mental force or ray-formed matter appearing in three dimensions corresponding to the three cosmoses.

Just as terrestrial human beings can to a certain extent juggle with the earth's physical materials in order through this to maintain their physical life - for example by sowing and reaping the crops of the fields and in other ways extracting their food from physical matter, and by building houses and making tools, machines and so on - so too can they gradually, to a certain extent, juggle with the same earth's mental force, despite the fact that they have no idea that the earth is a living being in whose organism they find themselves. Such knowledge has, however, existed and exists today among people who are initiated into the laws of life. In the past there were initiated beings on the earth who had special tasks in connection with the evolution of mankind. On certain occasions these initiates made use of magic power or force, as they called it. And people of later times have perceived this magic as something "supernatural". The stories told in the Bible about supernatural events in connection with the Arc of the Covenant and Solomon's Temple were very probably electrical phenomena. In the Old Testament description of the building of the temple we are told plainly that there were copper pillars wound around with thread, a moulded basin and many other things which one normally perceives merely as ornament. But it was a gigantic electric element whose discharge during the initiation of the temple was so strong that the priests fell to the ground. A cloud of "the glory of the Lord" filled the building. Perhaps someone will say, "So it was merely electricity." But since the person in question does not actually know what electricity is, and since it is electrical forces that, as divine forces, operate both in macrocosmos, mesocosmos and microcosmos causing all creation, transformation, destruction and renewal in the universe, one can hardly use the word "merely" in this connection.

It is not the intention that electricity should be used as "magic" in the further evolution of mankind. But it was an important factor in some of its evolutionary stages when it was still guided by initiated beings who were incarnated in physical matter.

When we experience physical materials' ability to react, their colours and forms, their transformation, their appearance as solids, liquids and gases, their movement and vibration, all this is due to the invisible force or ray-formed matter existing within these substances, which is the same as mental force or spirit. Regarding the materials in the human being's own organism, they are built up from micro-organisms, which are bodies for living micro-beings, that is beings in underlying spiral cycles. When all these beings find themselves in our organism and not in another organism it is because we, with the electrical vibrations and wavelengths of our consciousness, have attracted precisely these living beings. In principle it is the same cause that is the basis for the fact that we find ourselves as micro-beings in the organism of the earth-being. It is being on the same wavelength as this macro-being that has attracted us. Otherwise we would have been born on another planet.

The living being is, therefore, primarily an electrical being or a spiritual being. And when he begins to understand this and to think and act upon this understanding it will be possible to change much in his life and, with this, in his entire future creation of fate. Not least it can become important that he understands that the term "neighbourly love" has both a microcosmic and a mesocosmic perspective. From the Bible we know only the mesocosmic - our neighbour as our fellow-being in daily life, gradually extended to include also animals and plants. But all the living beings that live and move and have their being in our physical organism are also our neighbours. Why then did Christ not tell us that? Because the people around him and these many centuries after him would have been totally unable to understand him. It was difficult enough to follow much of what he said. But he said that the Father would send "the spirit of truth who would take of his and give to mankind and preach to them of things to come and guide them to the whole truth". Through physical science and the technological evolution preliminary work has now been done so that the human being, when he has become tired of the materialistic view of life, can take this work further as a spiritual science, and in this work the cosmology will be the inspiring factor. But, as I said earlier, in this science morality will come to play an important role, not a morality that with a pointing finger says "Thou shalt not" and "Thou shalt", but a morality built upon the principle of neighbourly love - also to our neighbour in microcosmos. Hate, feelings of revenge, anger, bitterness, irritation, jealousy, sourness, anxiety and depression are mental forces that cause havoc and catastrophe in relation to our neighbour in mesocosmos. These energies or mental forces cause at least as great catastrophes in our own organism as electrical short-circuits. One ought only to know what natural catastrophes a fit of anger can cause the micro-beings that live in our heart and lung area. Or how catastrophic an anxiety neurosis or depression can be for the beings that together constitute our stomach regions. Then people would try to control their minds a little more. At the same time such fits predispose one to illness; indeed, they may even cause the illness. Here too we treat our neighbour badly and must reap what we have sown. But when the human being out of love opens his mind to his neighbour in microcosmos and mesocosmos then the holy spirit of the eternal Godhead will also draw this being towards greater and greater horizons of experience in his eternal evolution.