Notes from Mathilde Scholl 1904–1906

GA 91 — 23 September 1906

29. The Spiral and Duality, Power and Revelation

If we fill a spherical container with a liquid and allow it to flow out at one point, a jet will initially stream out from the center. However, since the liquid does not tolerate any gaps, liquid flows in from all sides to replace the emptiness at the center. The result of this convergence is a vortex at the center, and the jet flowing out becomes a spiral. The same law applies to all liquid or gaseous and finer substances, and it is through this outflow in spiral lines that the substance becomes a force. Wherever spiral movement arises in a substance, the substance orders itself rhythmically, and through the spiral movement certain arrangements, transformations come about. This law applies everywhere in the whole cosmos, in the largest as well as in the smallest.

When a thought, an expression of consciousness, arises from the cosmic primal substance and primal force, this thought emerges as power in all directions from the one primal force, and from the center, in which a vortex arises – through the endeavor to fill the gap that has arisen in the primal force – the primal force now emerges in an infinite number of spiral lines. The same would happen to a liquid contained in a spherical vessel, if we could arrange it so that it would come out at all points of the sphere at the same time.

The same process can be more easily demonstrated with an ice ball, which we allow to evaporate through heat. As in every sphere, the force is also at the center. The substance evaporating on the surface exerts its effect on the center of the ice ball, but we cannot observe the vibrations of the ice particles in the ice ball because we do not have the organs for it. But according to the law that vibrations propagate in all directions, the heat vibrations must penetrate to the center of the ice ball from all sides and cause a vortex in the finest substance particles there, and a spiral-shaped expression of force from the center to all sides of the surface. While this movement in the substance of the ice ball was stimulated from the outside by the warmth, the movement in the primal substance and primal power is not stimulated from the outside, but arises from the will of the whole power.

The nebulae observed in the vault of heaven, which run in spirals and emerge from a vortex, are an expression of the working of the primal power through spiral emergence from itself. The primal power always remains the same, it is eternally one. This is based on the law that a vacuum is not possible anywhere. Everything that the Primordial Power emanates into space, that is, all the forces from its interior that it sends out through its thoughts, following its own will, to its periphery for objective formation, all these forces must, according to the law that there is no void, flow back into the center of the Primordial Power. We can most easily observe how this law works in a circular expanse of water. If we cause a movement from the center to one side of this water surface, then the water first flows out of the center in a current (a > b). But then, at the same time, the outflowing water flows along the periphery to both sides and the outflow (a \rightarrow b) is complemented by an inflow (c \rightarrow a). The following movement thus arises:

This is the two-dimensional image for all expressions of power in the cosmos. — In the vault of heaven, we recognize this in the spiral nebulae – on Earth, we recognize it in the spiral line that it describes around the sun. The spiral force is always present in that which surrounds the spiral. What we see moving in a spiral is the expression of this force. The expression of the force appears everywhere as substance, as form. Thus the earth, in its condensation, is also a substance, which comes into being through the spiral expression of a higher force.

In the human being, we find the expression of the spiral outpouring and inflow of the life force in the heart. Physicists now know that the physical atom also comes about through a spiral vortex. The physical substance on earth is the expression of an infinite number of spiral vortices in the atoms. Just as the whole earth is the expression of a spiral force, so too is every physical atom the expression of such a spiral force.

Where the spiral-shaped cosmic forces express themselves, they show themselves as substance. In the physical world, we initially recognize only the expression of the spiral-shaped cosmic forces as substance. Then, in observing life in the substance, we find that the other side of the substance is the power. The physical substance is the one pole of the divine primal power. It is the end of the expression of power, the beginning of which lies in the one eternal. The eternity of the beginning lies in its immutability, the eternity of the end of force lies in the changing eternal transformation of things, the last expression of force. The very diversity of the physical world is the greatest expression of the power of the one, unchanging primal force. The greater a force, the more effects it can produce.

Thus the power in the whole cosmos is the same. All effects in the cosmos are effects of this one force in many gradations of its expression. The law by which this force proceeds is the spiral movement.

This is the rhythm of the world, which repeats itself in infinite gradations down to the physical atom and to the arrangement of all physical atoms into physical forms. Everything that is physically formed is the expression of this universal spiral movement of the one primal power, which is always replenishing itself from within. The law according to which it always remains the same can be called the law of abundance, which does not tolerate emptiness. In the physical cosmos, we therefore see the manifestation of the primal power as substance. All substance is a manifestation of power. Behind it is hidden power.

Now we know that the elemental force revealed itself in number. Number is the first expression of the revealed elemental force. As the first manifestation of the elemental force, the number units emerged, from which all other numbers are built, the (3), the (4), the (5) - or as shapes the , the and the . These were the numbers and figures that the Primordial Power structured out of itself. These are the numbers of all revelation. With the number (5), the , the elemental force had reached the outermost level of manifestation, because all other, higher numbers are complements of the (3), (4), (5) through the first one or among themselves.

The following can be observed with these numbers: the next number after (5), (6), is created by doubling (3), (7) by combining (3) and (4), (8) by (2 \times 4), (9) by (4 + 5), and (10) by (5 + 5).

The (10) is the number of completion, of return to the one original power. The two is not to be found in any of these numbers that arise from the original power. The two is not in the series of descent and not in the series of ascent of the numbers. Nevertheless, it is there, it is the other extreme pole of the original power, the number of all revelation.

When it reached the number (5), the elemental force had revealed itself to the utmost possibility of manifestation. At the number (5), the perfect split of the elemental force had occurred. It had parted into the two, which manifests itself in the power and substance and in all complementary contradictions of the world. Two forces in the world always form a force by complementing each other. The dichotomy in the whole physical cosmos is the highest expression of all manifestation, while the return to the primal force consists in the confluence of the divided forces. The two cannot appear in the descending or ascending numerical series, it can only appear at the point that connects the two at the extreme end. All dualities – light and shadow, negative and positive, male and female, good and evil, life and death – express revelation. Their confluence expresses the power of revelation, from which that which is revealed emerged.

To reveal is to turn one's inner self outwards. All development was such a turning outwards of the hidden forces within. Ascent consists in the integration of these powers - in the union of the manifested powers with the unmanifest, hidden powers into a unity. This first union of duality took place in man, where the manifested world and the hidden power of the spirit form a unity, an individuality, an indivisible power, for the first time.

The working out of this power in the whole world appears most clearly in the plant kingdom, which is, of course, the most perfect expression of the working of the spirit. The plant develops from a seed, in which there is a whorled arrangement of the substance (the same is the case in all germs of life). From this it emerges in a spiral. The stem is the direction of the spiral towards the light, which it evokes out of the darkness (this is the manifestation out of the hidden). The conclusion of plant development, which proceeds according to the descending or ascending numerical laws, is the unfolding of all its structures, the leaves and flowers, in a dichotomy. Every leaf, even the needles of conifers, is a bisection, symmetrically arranged. Usually, this symmetrical arrangement is also characterized by a midrib (corresponding to the backbone of vertebrates). This symmetrical arrangement, the bisection, is characteristic of all living things on earth in their full development. Before it unfolded into symmetry, it described the spiral line. Symmetry represents the end of the spiral line – further development now consists of combining the symmetrical, which happens in plants by the converging of the halved forces in the seeds, which in turn form units. Those plants that do not develop symmetrically, that is, do not fully reveal themselves, that remain in unity, such as mistletoe, the leek family, have remained in the spiral and do not reveal their power. This is because they are not really earth plants, but moon plants. They cannot yet go beyond the descending spiral. That is why they are also harmful to human development.

The arrangement of these plants shows unity and the spiral (for example, in the seven layers of the onion), but never duality, duality, revelation. But to ascend to the higher unity, everything must pass through duality.

These plant entities are therefore an atavism and represent past conditions that have been overcome in the rest of the plant kingdom. But because unity represents both the past and the future, it is precisely from the kingdom of uniformly ordered plants that express unity, such as lilies or lotus flowers, that the symbols chosen for man's ascent, for man's future. There they represent the overcoming of the division of forces – the union of substance and power, the union of the manifested with the divine primal power. Thus we see in the plant kingdom the whole development, the duality of manifestation and the unity from which it emerged and to which it returns.

Duality everywhere represents life in the present, in substance, in manifestation. And unity symbolizes life in the past and life in the future, that which has not yet been manifested or that which has returned from manifestation to union, the primal power before manifestation and the power newly created from the confluence of duality.

In humans, all organs that occur in pairs are directed towards the present. What is present in odd numbers is either an atavism or a pointer to the future. Eyes and ears are the organs of the present, with which he lives in the sensory world. The chakras of the spiritual person are not paired organs, with which he develops into the spiritual world, into the future. The physical development of man was only possible because the spiral force within him condensed into the spinal cord and the spinal column and into the brain and manifested itself symmetrically in the sense organs. The spinal cord with the brain (the snake) is the symbol of unity; the sense organs are the symbol of duality, with the exception of the organ with which he physically absorbs food and expresses his spirit. The mouth is the organ that symbolizes the connection between the physical and spiritual in man. Here we find how the physical and spiritual complement each other in one organ. The paired sense organs have yet to find their complement. They attain this through the complement of their activity by uniting with the forces that flow into them.

Just as man takes in physical nourishment through the mouth, transforms it, builds himself up from it and, through the building of his other organs, enables them to express the spirit - and finally concentrates the developed powers again and expresses them in the word , which connects him again with the primal power -, so he must also transform the air, which flows in through his respiratory organs, and again pass it into a higher power, which connects him with the primal power when he exhales. - He must transform the light that flows into him through his eyes into his own light, and the sound that he absorbs through his ear into his own sound.

Finally, he must combine all these individual powers and express his spirit fully in the living, sounding, luminous, productive word. Then he has transformed the life breathed into him by the Creator into his own life, the light into his own light, the sound into his own sound, the food into spiritual productivity, matter into spirit, substance into power, duality into unity. In this way, after man has brought the unfolded life back into the life force itself, the beginning has been made for his complete entry into the spiritual primal force and primal substance. This path runs along the same spiral line in which the primal force descended for manifestation. In order for man to take this path, he must first learn how the primal force has also come to unfold in him. He must follow the workings of the power within himself and recognize them in all the details of their manifestation and progression.

Man has two systems in his organism. One is the system of the present, the other is the system of the past and future.

The system of the present is the spinal cord, the brain and the sensory organs, through which the human being has formed and developed in the present, revealed himself. The system of the past and future is the heart and the organs connected to it, which serve breathing and the circulation of life. The self has been formed through the system of the present, it rests in the human being in the brain, in the forebrain between the eyes behind the bridge of the nose. The snake is the symbol for the ego because it was the first animal to develop a backbone at the same time as the human being developed his backbone in the brain, the organ aligned with the ego.

Now the further development consists in the fact that the system aligned with the ego through the backbone and the brain reconnects with the system that connects the human being with the currents of the primal power. These two must unite to form a new unity. Breathing connects the human being with the spirit. Through the living breath that the Creator breathed into him, he became an I. The same power that gave him the I is this power of God. The substance in which this power of God, the power of the I, reveals itself, is the air. So, by breathing, man appropriates more and more of this divine power, the more he aligns his breathing with the rhythm of the divine power. He must now connect the spiritualizing divine power, through which his ego develops, the power of the future, with the divine power that predisposed the ego in him, that lies in his passion, in his blood, in his heart. The development of the heart made it possible for him to be independent in the physical world. He received his own life through the heart and the blood circulation. On the one hand, there is the system of the past, the unity from which the human being developed. On the other hand, the other system, the system of the development of the I, was built up from the spinal cord and the brain. The spinal cord and brain are substances condensed from the blood, as is the entire skeleton, which originates from there. In the course of further development, the human I must again move into the organ from which it originated.

Just as all manifestation must return to the Godhead, so the I must return to the heart after it has manifested itself in the spinal cord and brain and in the sense organs. To do this, [the human being] must adapt to the general rhythm of the spirit. With inhalation, the human being must learn to unite his I more and more with the life organism.

A further developmental process is that he learns to unite the life process with the I in such a way that - just as his blood is now continually purified by inhaling and the unusable substances are removed when exhaling - he by uniting the I with the heart when inhaling, he connects the life forces with the I and transfers them into the system that expresses the I in the present - the spinal cord and brain - in order to flow out again there with the exhalation. Then the separate powers in man have become one power again, through which he is simultaneously in contact with the primal power – and constantly draws new life from there – and with the world of revelation, into which he radiates the primal power that has been transformed into his ego, and where he brings it to effect and development. By consciously choosing this path, the human being learns to live and grow consciously in the spiritual world and to participate there as a conscious part of the Godhead, in order to express the will of the Godhead. Then he breathes in life, but also breathes out life. He is then no longer a destroyer in the world, but a giver of life, a redeemer and a liberator.