29.3  Regarding the living beings of the universe, they all each constitute the principle of the "human being". In the human kingdom, the kingdom of wisdom and the divine world of the spiral cycle each of these same living beings constitutes a finished human being in God's image after his likeness. But after having outlived this elevated, divine state the being's cosmic ability to manifest and experience in the outer world degenerates. And the being gradually passes into the kingdom of bliss and here lives mainly on its faculty of memory or recollection. From the kingdom of bliss they thus pass into the physical world of a new spiral and form the part of the kingdom of bliss that we know as the mineral kingdom. After this they again undergo evolution through the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom and become finished human beings in the new spiral cycle, and now re-experience once more the highest worlds in this spiral cycle, in order again to degenerate and resurrect in an even higher spiral cycle, and so on continuously for all eternity. In the mineral, plant and animal state the being is thus an unfinished human being. Its mineral, vegetable and animal manifestations constitute in reality merely embryonic stages in its emergence as a human being. These three stages are thus merely unfinished "human stages". Behind these stages exists the eternal, triune principle that constitutes the living being, which is the source of the manifestations and the experiences. This principle is exactly the same for all existing living beings. In itself it is God's image and the foundation of life for all living things.