“If we desire an answer to the question what is the world or worlds in which we live, we must first of all ask ourselves what it is that we may call ‘world’ in the most intimate and immediate relation to us., “To this we may answer that we often give the name of ‘world’ to the world of people, to humanity, in which we live, of which we form part. But humanity forms an inseparable part of organic life on earth, therefore it would be right to say that the world nearest to us is organic life on earth, the world of PLANTS, animals, and men. Fragments: Four

“In our system the end of the ray of creation, the growing end, so to speak, of the branch, is the moon. The energy for the growth, that is, for the development of the moon and for the formation of new shoots, goes to the moon from the earth, where it is created by the joint action of the sun, of all the other planets of the solar system, and of the earth itself. This energy is collected and preserved in a huge accumulator situated on the earth’s surface. This accumulator is organic life on earth. Organic life on earth feeds the moon. Everything living on the earth, people, animals, PLANTS, is food for the moon. The moon is a huge living being feeding upon all that lives and grows on the earth. The moon could not exist without organic life on earth, any more than organic life on earth could exist without the moon. Moreover, in relation to organic life the moon is a huge electromagnet. If the action of the electromagnet were suddenly to stop, organic life would crumble to nothing. Fragments: Five

“The process of the growth and the warming of the moon is connected with life and death on the earth. Everything living sets free at its death a certain amount of the energy that has ‘animated’ it; this energy, or the ‘souls’ of everything living — PLANTS, animals, people — is attracted to the moon as though by a huge electromagnet, and brings to it the warmth and the life upon which its growth depends, that is, the growth of the ray of creation. In the economy of the universe nothing is lost, and a certain energy having finished its work on one plane goes to another. Fragments: Five

“The influence of the moon upon everything living manifests itself in all that happens on the earth. The moon is the chief, or rather, the nearest, the immediate, motive force of all that takes place in organic life on the earth. All movements, actions, and manifestations of people, animals, and PLANTS depend upon the moon and are controlled by the moon. The sensitive film of organic life which covers the earthly globe is entirely dependent upon the influence of the huge electromagnet that is sucking out its vitality. Man, like every other living being, cannot, in the ordinary conditions of life, tear himself free from the moon. All his movements and consequently all his actions are controlled by the moon. If he kills another man, the moon does it; if he sacrifices himself for others, the moon does that also. All evil deeds, all crimes, all self-sacrificing actions, all heroic exploits, as well as all the actions of ordinary everyday life, are controlled by the moon. Fragments: Five

Later on one of G.’s Moscow pupils added to this that, speaking with them once of cosmoses and of different time in different cosmoses, G. had said that the sleep and waking of living beings and PLANTS, that is, twenty-four hours or a day and night, constitute the “breath of organic life.” Fragments: Ten

G. returned to the enneagram many times and in various connections. “Each completed whole, each cosmos, each organism, each plant, is an enneagram,” he said. “But not each of these enneagrams has an inner triangle. The inner triangle stands for the presence of higher elements, according to the scale of ‘hydrogens,’ in a given organism. This inner triangle is possessed by such PLANTS, for example, as hemp, poppy, hops, tea, coffee, tobacco, and many other PLANTS which play a definite role in the life of man. The study of these PLANTS can reveal much for us in regard to the enneagram. Fragments: Fourteen

“There is still another system of classification,”‘ he said, “which you also ought to understand. This is a classification in an altogether different ratio of octaves. The first classification by ‘food,’ ‘air,’ and medium definitely refers to ‘living beings’ as we know them, including PLANTS, that is to say, to individuals. The other classification of which I shall now speak leads us far beyond the limits of what we call ‘living beings’ both upwards, higher than living beings, as well as downwards, lower than living beings, and it deals not with individuals but with classes in a very wide sense. Above all this classification shows that there are no jumps whatever in nature. In nature everything is connected and everything is alive. The diagram of this classification is called the ‘Diagram of Everything Living.’ Fragments: Sixteen

‘The square next below is — PLANTS. The next — minerals, the next -metals, which constitute a separate cosmic group among minerals; and the following square has no name in our language because we never meet with matter in this state on the earth’s surface. This square comes into contact with the Absolute. You remember we spoke before about ‘Holy the Firm.’ This is ‘Holy the Firm.’” Fragments: Sixteen