13.18  Out of the kingdom of bliss and forward to the outer world and into a new spiral cycle. Though the being whilst in the kingdom of bliss is not conscious in the outer world, that is in the world that we on the physical plane call the "spiritual world", but is awake day-conscious only in the kingdom of bliss, its other bodies of the basic energies are still functioning, even though their capacity is more or less almost at their minimum. Although the being in its world of memory or kingdom of bliss is consciously cut off from the outer world, it is not so with regard to energy. Its body of intuition still has a strong capacity. This shows that the being still has its cosmic consciousness, but that this is decreasing. Since the being has no day-consciousness on the outer plane of existence, because here the being's bodies of the basic energies have not such a capacity that they can carry an awake physical day-consciousness, then the function of intuition like the function of memory, exists here as an introspective function of knowledge in support of the function of the body of memory. The being's memories from the lower planes in the completed spiral cycle can in certain cases be more or less imperfect. The living being experiences many situations on the lower planes that it never gets the solution to or experiences the main purpose of. Such imperfect experiences can give only correspondingly imperfect memories. When the being in the kingdom of bliss experiences such imperfect or incomplete memories, then it can, through its still eminent intuition, experience the missing conclusion or core image of the imperfect memory. In this way the imperfect memory-experiences become completed, and become just as perfect as the normal memory-experiences. In the kingdom of bliss the being cannot possibly experience anything but the absolute truth or reality. No shades of illusions can here darken the reality or the bliss. The faculty of intuition also has the purpose to promote the release of the "highest fire", which here is turned inwards towards the being itself and gives it the highest happiness or experience of bliss. As we shall indicate later in other symbols, the "highest fire" constitutes the release of the whole sexual principle through the two pole principles, the "male principle" and the "female principle", which is the basis for the being's entire sympathetic disposition and its consequential sympathies and antipathies. Here in the kingdom of bliss the being's body of intelligence has the mission to create contact between the being's body of memory and its body of intuition during the above-mentioned perfecting of the imperfect memories. The body of feeling, as indicated in the symbol, is latent or at its minimum, just as the body of gravity is in its next smallest state of unfoldment. These two bodies are subject to a certain organic combination and, as we have mentioned before, underlie the foundation of the being's display of energy. Here they unfold themselves at their minimum. This is understandable as the experience of bliss does not demand any particular display of energy. Since the energy of feeling in another organic state underlies the display of love, one also understands that here it is latent, as the being of bliss has neither a day-conscious life nor a physical body in the outer world, and therefore cannot be in contact with any being whatsoever in that world in which it, with its present sensory organs, is totally unconscious. But in the symbol we see that here in the kingdom of bliss the being's experience of life takes a turn in another direction. At the same time as the being in its inner world culminates in its experiences of memory or bliss, and in its outer world is without day-conscious experiences, its body of instinct begins to generate within the being a day-conscious resurrection on the physical or material plane of existence. We see in fact that it is already so advanced that it will culminate in the next plane of existence. In the same way the body of gravity is also increasing, while the bodies of intelligence and intuition are decreasing. Finally, in the last part of the kingdom of bliss, the body of memory also decreases. This means that, with the decreasing capacity of these high spiritual bodies, the memories of the epoch of light experienced in this spiral cycle fade out.
      While the capacity of the bodies that are the primary in the being's spiritual day-consciousness is thus decreasing, the capacity of the bodies that are primary in the being's physical day-consciousness is increasing. The being is thus on its way out of the kingdom of bliss. Through its day-conscious experience of memory in the kingdom of bliss, it has reached its sphere of memories from the animal kingdom or dark zone of the experienced spiral cycle. Because of its now abundantly great satiation with memories of light and bliss from the spiral's region of light, this sphere of memories is enormously shining and radiating with the energy of bliss. This strong experience of darkness, appearing as bliss, creates so to speak a longing or a desire for the experience of darkness in the outer world. The energy of this desire is transmitted to the being's very developed body of the energy of instinct, and the developing bodies of the energies of gravity and feeling. The images emanating from the desires caused by the being's ecstatic memories are transferred by the body of the energy of instinct and recreated automatically by the body of the energy of gravity in the outer matter of gravity and feeling, which, in their particular combination with the other basic energies, constitute so-called "physical matter". This matter extends from culminating fire or heat to culminating cold or frost. Since the energy of feeling here in the last stages of the kingdom of bliss is latent, or at its minimum, the energy of gravity will be excessive in relation to the energy of feeling. This in turn is the basis of the appearance of the physical "stage of fire". The passage of the spiral cycle from its spiritual to its physical region thus takes place through a "stage of heat". It is this stage of heat that gradually culminates in the solar and galactic systems. But here the body of feeling begins to grow out of its latent stage, and, in its organic connection with the body of gravity, it begins the process of cold and heat, which forms the basis of all physical life experience and manifestation or creation. In the hottest region of the heat-process, and in the coldest region of the cold-process, the being of bliss cannot have any day-consciousness. These two regions constitute that which, in "Livets Bog" we have called the "mineral kingdom". The mineral kingdom is a transitional stage between the spiritual part of the spiral cycle and the physical part of the same cycle. Here the being's awake day-consciousness is not yet on view in this incipient physical world. It still appears only in the being's inner world or the kingdom of bliss, and it can experience only memories from the dark zone of the past spiral cycle, whereby its desire to experience darkness or the contrast to that experience of light by which it is very much being satiated with its memories of bliss is maintained. And the day-consciousness of the memories continue to be primary in the being's mentality through the first kingdom of the new spiral cycle, which is the plant kingdom of this spiral cycle. But in the animal kingdom it becomes more and more secondary, until it ultimately becomes latent, or minimal, in the human kingdom of the new spiral cycle. With the development of the sun in the space of the universe the spiral cycle has crossed the boundary of the physical plane of existence. In the region for the culmination of fire and cold in this plane of existence we find, as stated above, the "mineral kingdom". This kingdom is not a plane of existence as in its region no awake day-consciousness is functioning. The functions that occur here are solely automatic instinctive functions in a combination of matter, consisting of a surplus of energies of ecstasy, gravity, and feeling in its latent form. We call the functions in the cold region of this matter crystallisation. We see this crystallisation appears in the form of pictures. Thus we know the frost flowers or ice-fern on our window-panes in frosty weather during the winter. At times we can see the most perfect plant drawings expressing many different forms of vegetable spheres and details. These pictures formed in mineral matter are to a certain extent reflections or copies of the memory-pictures or gold copies of the beings of bliss, transferred to the physical plane's cold region by the experience's surplus energy of ecstasy, promoted automatically by the being's growing faculty of instinct. And we have here the first beginnings of the coming "plant kingdom" of the new spiral cycle. Because of the change in the combination and capacity of the energies of gravity and feeling or the energies of cold and heat, to the advantage of growth and development towards to the physical world, the being begins to form an organism in this world. It is these first organisms that we know as plants or vegetable forms of life, and we have now arrived at the plant kingdom of a new spiral cycle. But the being still has its awake day-consciousness in the kingdom of bliss, and to the same extent as it begins to get awake day-consciousness on the physical plane, the experiences of memory degenerate. As we have already hinted, the being, through the plant body, can experience only by virtue of its body of instinct. And thus this experience includes only the ability to "have an inkling". The physical day-consciousness of the plant is only an experience of "pleasure" and "displeasure" without the being being able to comprehend or have knowledge of the causes or details of these experiences. But the plant organism evolves through the influence of the physical world and becomes an animal organism, and the being thereby becomes an "animal" and begins to get a much more extensive day-conscious experience, through which it begins to learn the facts of life. Thus it continues its existence in the new cycle according to the same principles as in the previous one, but in new variations. Here the being also becomes the "human being in God's image" and experiences itself as being "one with God" and so on continuously through an infinity of cycles with the consequent permanently maintained faculty to experience life, which thus guarantees eternal life or conscious existence.