Symbol 1 – The Spirit of God upon the Face of the Waters

Symbol 1 – The Spirit of God upon the Face of the Waters presents the Godhead as the creating and sustaining principle behind the universe, and shows the spiritual impulses through which the conditions of experience and existence are maintained.

Visual composition

The upper light centre, from which rays emanate, represents the creating “Something” or Godhead. The flaming cross represents the Godhead’s perfect manifestation or creation. Below it, the radiating sea or ocean represents the Godhead’s all-penetrating creative spirit, consciousness, will and omnipotence.

Within this radiating field, the lighter and darker marked areas or waves represent world impulses. These impulses establish and maintain the conditions of experience and the planes of existence of living beings. The many circles represent suns and Earths throughout the universe, together with the conscious mental life of the beings inhabiting them.

The Earth and the world impulses

The double circle near the centre represents the Earth and terrestrial mankind. Three world impulses are shown in relation to it: one below, which is disappearing; one that still largely dominates the Earth’s field; and one above, which is beginning to gain access. The first is associated with primitive humanity’s religious consciousness. The second is the impulse from which Buddhism, Christianity and Islam developed, called the “old world impulse” in Livets Bog. The third is the emerging “new world impulse”.

In its parallel discussion of the world-impulse symbol, Livets Bog describes large and small circles as representing different humanities and the double circle as representing humanity on this Earth. It presents the image as a concentrated representation of terrestrial mankind’s relationship with the creative impulses.

Meaning of the title

The title refers to the biblical image of God’s spirit moving upon the face of the waters. Martinus identifies spirit with consciousness behind the universe’s creative processes.

He further describes the image as consciousness behind movements, transformations and creative processes. The same expression is described as the mental force or macroelectricity flowing through the universe and through the large organisms to which the Earth belongs. In the explanation of the symbol itself, it is also called the eternal Godhead’s all-embracing blessing, in which living beings exist and have their being.

Place in the world picture

Symbol 1 presents the relation between the Godhead, the universe and the living beings within it. Its circles represent suns and Earths. Livets Bog further applies the same symbolic scheme to larger communities such as solar communities, Milky Way communities and planet communities, presenting the creative principle as operating in macrocosmic and microcosmic forms.

The symbol presents world impulses and circles representing cosmic communities and their conscious life as expressions of the creative principle.