14.21  As can be seen this symbol represents seven cosmic spiral cycles. The middle one of these, marked by a D in a cruciform figure, symbolises the spiral cycle in which we find ourselves, and which we have called the "mesocosmos".
      The white area emanating from the plant kingdom of this spiral cycle and continuing through its animal kingdom symbolises terrestrial mankind's still limited knowledge or science of life itself. It knows that plants are living just as it naturally also sees the animals and the human beings as living beings, but of any kind of life outside of this, which means: the immortal spirit, it has no absolute knowledge. On the other hand, it has materialistic knowledge that extends from animal and vegetable material down into the mineral material or the microspheres of the atomic world. But this knowledge is based only on an outer material view and research. The "living Something" itself that directs the movements, the transformation and the creative processes in the material, is inaccessible to physical sensory perception. Therefore, the results of materialistic science are only material results, which means results in terms of weights and measures, wavelengths, or, in short, conclusions or knowledge of time and space, but not conclusions or knowledge of the "Something" that experiences and creates time and space.
      The three spiral cycles to the left of the mesocosmic spiral cycle, marked A, B and C in figures with a dark circumference around a white area in the middle, a round white figure with a circle and a round figure with four heart-shaped figures respectively constitute our physical or bodily microcosmos. The C spiral with the heart-shaped figure constitutes the domicile of the microlife in our organism that belongs to our organ-beings and such like. The B spiral with the white figure containing a circle is the domicile or living space of the forms of microlife that constitute the cell-beings and the like in our organism. The A spiral with the round figure with a white area in the middle of it is the domicile of the microlives that we call substance or matter.
      The first spiral cycle to the right of the mesocosmic spiral, marked E in a star-shaped figure, is the domicile of the planets or globes. We have called this the "spiral of planets or globes". The next spiral is that of the solar system, marked with the round radiating figure and the letter F. The third spiral to the right of the mesocosmos is called the milky-way spiral and is marked with the letter G in a white figure containing two black circles. These three spiral cycles constitute our macrocosmos. We thus find ourselves in the region of the organic structure of the Earth. This in turn finds itself in the region of the structure of the solar system, which in turn finds itself in the region of the milky-way's structure and so on continuing upwards to infinity in the great spiral cycle above the milky-way spiral cycle, which we have called the "supermacrocosmos". In the same way we have called the spiral cycles below the "spiral cycle of substance" the "supermicrocosmos". But these supercosmoses are not shown on the Symbol no. 14. They are, however, shown in the symbol the "Cosmic Spiral Cycles II", to which we shall return later.
      As the symbol shows, each spiral cycle consists of the six kingdoms of the basic energies. As the symbol also shows, these kingdoms occur directly above one another. Thus the plant kingdoms, the animal kingdoms, the human kingdoms and the other kingdoms in the spirals appear respectively directly under one another. That these kingdoms appear in this way is a vital factor for the living beings. The forms of life in the lower spiral kingdoms constitute the microlife or material for the building up and existence of the forms of life or living beings, in the higher spiral kingdoms. The plant kingdoms, the animal kingdoms, the human kingdoms, and all other kingdoms of the basic energies in the spiral cycle are respectively microlife for the plant kingdoms, the animal kingdoms, the human kingdoms, etc., of the higher spirals, just as the beings of the higher kingdoms in like fashion constitute the macrolife or macrobeings for the beings of the correspondingly lower kingdoms of the basic energies. If the different kingdoms of the basic energies were not placed in the same order in the spirals, no life experience would be possible. Since the microlife at the same time is material for the building up and existence of the macrobeings' bodies or organisms, then it is important which microlife the macrobeing gets as material for this building up and existence. How, for example, could the beings in the cosmos that we belong to and that constitutes our mesocosmos manifest themselves in an animal organism and thereby appear as an animal or as an unfinished terrestrial human being, if this organism were not built up of microlife from the animal kingdoms of the lower spirals? How could we be animal beings if we did not have access to the life of the animal kingdoms of the lower spirals as material for the existence of our organisms? If we could get material from only the microlife of the lower spirals' plant kingdoms, we could build up only a vegetable organism and so appear only as a plant being.
      Our present animal body, and thus a much more perfect organism, would be an impossibility. The existence of the animals and the unfinished "animal" human beings would not be possible. But how could beings that today belong to the most supreme spiritual worlds create their lofty revelations if they for their material could get only animal microlife from lower spiral kingdoms? In this case they could appear only as material physical beings and not, as is now the case in organisms that are built of the superfine thought-materials consisting of the most supreme spiritual microlife of the most noble thought-materials of the basic energies from the highest spiritual worlds or kingdoms. Here we see the divine ingenuity of the structure of the spiral cycle principle, which gives each of the living beings access to just the specific microlife suitable for its specific state of life experience, and consequently the most perfect material for the attainment of their specific form of life experience. Neither spiritual nor physical existence would be possible if the kingdoms of the basic energies in the spiral cycles were not, in principle, arranged in accordance with the structure as shown in this symbol.
      No living being, except the Godhead, can thus exist without being a microbeing in a macrobeing, this macrobeing constituting its cosmic home or living space. How could it live without having a space or a world in which to have fulfilled the conditions necessary for it to experience and manifest itself? But this same being must pay for this living space or this world where it can have experiences by being itself a macrobeing for microbeings. Its organism cannot exist without being a living space or a world for experience for the microlife within it, which we call organs, cells and matter. If these organs, cells and that which we call substance or matter were not life or living beings, i.e. manifestation of life, then an organism could not possibly be alive. But how could an organism built up of something lifeless be alive? Just because everything is alive, including the materials or substances that the terrestrial human beings believe to be dead matter, then an "I", by means of its faculty to create, can create contact between its own life and the life of the substance. The life of the substance is signified by the fact that it is in itself movement, just as the life of the I is movement. If substance in itself were not movement, the I's movement could not possibly come into contact with or connect with the substance, and all creation of organisms would be an absolute impossibility. And without an organism there would be no possibility for experiencing life. It is thus just as necessary for manifestation or creation, and so for the experience of life, that substance is alive as it is necessary that the I is alive.
      Just as disharmony between the I and other living beings' I's can arise, in the same way disharmony between the I and its own microlife or microbeings can arise. The former disharmony we know under the concept of "war". The latter we know under the concept of "illness". The harmony between the living being's "I" and other living beings' "I's" we know, on the other hand, as "peace", which in its highest appearance is the same as "neighbourly love", while harmony between the I and its microlife or the microbeings in its organism is known under the concept of "health", which is the highest bodily well-being. The highest form of life experience is thus to live in harmony with one's fellow beings and also to live in harmony with one's microbeings or the microlife in one's organism. This total harmony in one's experience of life is the same as "God's image" or the Godhead's way of life. "God's image" or way of life is thus the same as a culminating harmony with all living things. Since the culmination of such a way of life is a created thing, it cannot last for ever. Just as with all other created things it has its beginning, its culmination and its end. But as the I is eternal, then it quite automatically works towards a new culmination in God's image or way of life, and so on for all eternity. It is a matter of course that between these epochs of culmination there must be an opposite epoch where the experience of life culminates in the opposite principle, namely in darkness. Since darkness is disharmony between the living being's I and its outer and inner relationship to its fellow beings or its "neighbour", and the means whereby it comes to live in war and suffering or illness, then this condition in the being's consciousness causes experiences that engender knowledge of how to live in order to be in harmony with life and thereby be able to experience life in culminating harmony or the eternal light or culminating love. The experience of darkness thus becomes a means of renewal of the living being's faculty to experience life, so that it again and again can return to the primary way of experiencing life in God's image after His likeness. It is an epoch of renewal that the beings experience in the plant and animal kingdoms of the spiral cycle, to which the unfinished terrestrial human being still more or less belongs. Through the real or perfect human kingdom, the kingdom of wisdom, the divine world and the kingdom of bliss the beings experience the spiral cycle's primary culmination in the experience of light or God's image, and through the principle of the spiral cycle the living beings are thus guaranteed the eternal experience of life.
      In the explanation of Symbol no. 14 we have begun to show that the mission of the spiral cycles is to be an ingenious system of cooperation between all living beings in the entire universe. We have seen that no living being can exist or experience life without having to contribute to other living beings' maintenance of life. Only through doing so can the being form its own experience of life and its fate. Just imagine what divine culminating love is revealed to us here. In order to experience life by means of other living beings, it must render help to other living beings. It must be a macrobeing and so contribute opportunities for its microbeings' experience of life, just as it must be a microbeing in a macrobeing's organism and so in turn be guaranteed its own eternal life experience. Can the balance of justice or equal rights for the cosmic life conditions of all living beings be more perfect? Here do we not see culminating love in the most profound cosmic analyses and structures of life?