1650. Through its two pole principles the living being is thus able to meet the above-mentioned conditions for the experience of life. We already know from previous analyses in "Livets Bog" how the living being's experience of life takes the form of a journey through a cosmic spiral cycle. We also know that this journey through the cycle is set in motion at a given point in time by the activity of one of the being's poles being reduced to latency, the other pole thereby having to carry the consciousness on its own. In this way the two sexes – the "male sex" and the "female sex" – arise. When the masculine pole is to the fore and carries the consciousness and the feminine pole is latent, the being is a "male". When the feminine pole is dominant and the masculine pole is latent, the being is a "female". When the masculine pole in the being has reached its peak and the feminine pole to a corresponding extent has been brought back to its minimum manifestation, the first-mentioned pole governs the being's exercise of will and its entire sensory experience, which then becomes one hundred per cent "masculine"; and the being thereby appears as a corresponding one hundred per cent "male", while the opposite is the case when the feminine pole has reached its peak and the masculine pole has been brought back to a corresponding minimum manifestation. Then the being is a one hundred per cent "female".
      But since the culmination of the "male state" creates satiation with this state, it at the same time gives rise to the desire for the opposite, that is to say exactly the same as what happens in all other situations where satiation sets in. Satiation with the "male state" will thus give rise to the desire for the "female state". This then in turn results in the masculine pole being held back, and the feminine pole taking the lead. And the previous "male being" now becomes a "female being". The same is of course the case when the "female state" culminates in the being. After this culmination the desire for the opposite arises here too, at which the masculine pole is brought forward to its peak, and the feminine pole is brought back to a minimum manifestation. And the being in question that was previously a "female" appears now as a "male". It is true of each of the two sexes that, after the culmination of their sex and by virtue of their desire, they change over to the opposite sex. This sex change is not, however, something the being can carry out as quickly as its replaces one terrestrial life with another. This sex change has its own cycle, which spans two spiral cycles. Every other time the living being experiences being an individual in the spiral cycle's animal kingdom, it is a "male", and every other time a "female", and so on continuously for all eternity.