44. But, as the living beings, having passed through both halves of a spiral, are so far developed as to be able to enter into a new continuous spiral of much greater dimensions in developing from light to darkness and from darkness to light, so the descending as well as the ascending curves of those same beings will together be established as an unbroken ascending course. This ascending course is identical with that which we in ordinary terms call "evolution".
      In symbol No. 1 we can witness that course which is symbolized by the steps appearing at the bottom of the symbol. From the dotted line on the left up to the dotted line on the right we have a "spiral section". This is divided into a row of steps. These should symbolize the particular main stages in which the spiral section appears, based on the Creative Principle's two radiations. These main stages will again be established as the kingdoms, or planes of existence, through which living beings are led by evolution. Within a spiral section there are six of such kingdoms. Of these kingdoms terrestrial mankind has perception or knowledge of only three, which are depicted by the uncoloured figure inside the step formation. These are the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom, which are respectively marked on the symbol as No. 6, 1 and 2. No. 2 is the kingdom to which terrestrial mankind still belongs; but for all human beings this is degenerating very strongly in favour of the real human kingdom, which is expressed as No. 3 in the section and towards which the Creative Principle's light radiation is leading terrestrial mankind powerfully by means of all the main religious and spiritual movements together with the great new world impulse. We cannot go into closer cosmic analysis of these kingdoms at this point as it has no relevance in the Introduction, but we will return to it in later sections and symbols of Livets Bog.