326. What, then, is "matter'? And what is it that makes this "matter" "alive'? As previously mentioned in "Livets Bog", all matter can be traced back to the six important basic energies: instinct, gravity, feeling, intelligence, intuition and memory. These great fundamental basic energies exist as sources of power for the I existing in every living being. These energies are so closely bound up with the I that the latter has only to make a wish and the said energies will immediately be set in motion – indeed even the most microscopic of wishes makes these energies assemble in various combinations. As mentioned previously, the I exists on a "divine throne", absolutely supreme above all the energies. The latter, however, lie below it, ready to be taken into use whenever it may suit the existing I's being. Thus, as the I upon this "throne" is outside its six bodies of energy and is connected only to the second principle, "X2", it cannot implement any form of manifestation other than "attraction" and "repulsion". The experience of this function itself is sensed by the I as the very first weak form of sympathy and antipathy. But this sensing has not yet assumed any detailed form. It is as yet an unconscious function maintained solely by virtue of an organ within "X2" which I have named the "fate-element".
      A closer account of this organ will be given later on in "Livets Bog" in the special analyses of "X2". It should just be mentioned here, however, that the "fate-element" is an organ which forms the seat for storing the living being's abilities, skills and talents. Every tendency, every shade of character, every virtue and vice has its root within this organ. These nuances of consciousness, these virtues and vices become developed by an individual's repetition of certain special types of manifestation, each of which, through repetition, becomes a conscious habit – in other words, an independent function. In reality this means that through these many repetitions a tiny organ develops which possesses the capacity to attract and repel the substances or materials necessary for the type of manifestation in question. Usually this function is implemented by the brain, which requires that the individual be day-conscious in order to detail the combination or constellation of the materials concerned. But gradually, as repetitions progress and the said tiny organ becomes more and more developed, it is enabled to promote the combinations of matter or substances linked to the manifestation in question so that the brain can be relieved of this function; it then passes out of the individual's day-consciousness and eventually becomes a function of such independence that it is active whether the individual wishes it or not. A process of this kind is called a "subconscious function".
      The living being has many functions of this kind, such as the functioning of the heart, glands, digestion and indeed the very creation of an individual's physical and spiritual bodies, as well as the virtues and vices manifesting in them of qualities of character, ordinary skills and talents – in short everything that happens in a living being outside his brain work or day-consciousness. This tiny organ which can independently promote a function and so relieve the working of the brain or day-consciousness, I have named a "talent-kernel".
      Such "talent-kernels" cannot have their seat in the physical body, nor indeed in the mental or spiritual bodies for these, too, are a result of "talent-kernels", the result of cultivated habits of mind. And it is indeed on this account that immortality can be proved as a real scientific fact, for in accepting that a created body is the result of previously cultivated habits of mind and that such habits could only come about through a corresponding previous physical existence, it thereby becomes a fact that an individual has lived in a former physical body, that is, he has had a previous physical existence which again has been based on an existence prior to that one, and so on continuously. The "fate-element" mentioned above, with its accompanying "talent-kernels" in which the bodies are rooted, does not exist in these bodies themselves, but on the contrary, presents itself as details of that reality we know as "X2". As this "X", in conjunction with "X1", contains the supreme command over – or forms the foundation of – any kind of creation, any shade of consciousness, any expression that might appear in the manifestation of the living being, then from now on in Livets Bog these two "X's" will be called the "super-consciousness".
      The function of this "super-consciousness" originates in the "fate-element" and does not exist as clear day-consciousness. On the contrary, it exists as an unconscious, entirely automatic function. It obeys the eternal laws on which the "spiral-principle" in evolution is based. The "fate-element" is built up from the seventh basic energy – that is, the "mother-energy".
      As the "super-consciousness" actually constitutes the assembly of an individual's entire functional abilities which are again the basis for its bodily manifestation in physical as well as spiritual matter, then its whole manifestation cannot avoid bearing the mark of those laws. We recognize this mark in daily life as synonymous with the individual's level of development. The eternal laws determine that an individual's manifestation and expression of life take place in an everlasting recurring rhythm from the culmination of a latent state to a culmination of development and then once more moving towards a new culmination of a latent state to a new culmination of development. The manifestation or revelation of a living being's existence thus comes about as an increase and a decrease in growth. These two forms of development can be termed correspondingly "evolution" and "involution".