In the previous volumes of this work we have already seen how the entry of the being into this changing state of darkness and light is promoted by the pole structure. This structure leads to the being first becoming one-poled and as such an animal being; this gives rise to the animal kingdom or the epoch of darkness. After that the double-poled state is developed in the being, and it becomes a being of light, and the epoch of light arises. So when the being has passed the epoch of light, and is about to experience the epoch of darkness again, it experiences this as a new variation of the same principle as the previous experience of the epoch of darkness. This is of course equally true of the being's experience of the epoch of light. There is thus no limit to the number of variations light and darkness can be revealed or manifested in. When the being has lived through an epoch of darkness and an epoch of light, it has lived through a section of life that we have termed a cycle. But since every new cycle appears in a new and higher variation we have termed this life cycle of beings a spiral cycle.