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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

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The Saturn body consisted exclusively of heat substance. During the Sun evolution that heat substance is condensed into a state which may be compared with that of our present-day gas or steam. In occult science "air" is the name ordinarily used for this condition. The first beginnings of such a state are seen after the Lords of Motion have begun their activity. The following spectacle is presented to clairvoyant consciousness. Within the heat substance there appears something like delicate formations which are set in rythmic motion by the forces of the etheric body. These formations represent the human physical body at the stage of evolution now attained by it. They are permeated through and through with heat, and are also wrapped, as it were, in a heat envelope. From a physical point of view, man's nature may now be said to be composed of heat structures with air forms embedded in them--the latter in regular motion. Hence, if we wish to retain the foregoing comparison with a plant of the present day, we must remember that it is not a solid plant organism which we have to consider, but an air or gas form,(19) the movements of which may be compared with the circulation of the sap in plants of to-day.

The evolution thus indicated continues. After a certain time another interval of rest sets in; after this the Lords of Motion go on working until their activity is supplemented by that of the Lords of Form. The effect of the latter is that the gas structures, which before were constantly changing, now assume lasting form. This, too, happens because the Lords of Form cause their forces to flow in and out of the human etheric body. When the Lords of Motion alone were acting on the gaseous organisms, these were in perpetual motion, not keeping their form for an instant. Now, however, they temporarily assume distinguishable shapes. Again, after a certain period, there occurs a time of rest; and then once more the Lords of Form continue their activity. But the conditions within the Sun evolution are now entirely changed. For the point has been reached when the Sun evolution has attained its zenith. This is the time at which the Lords of Personality, who attained their human stage on Saturn, ascend to a higher degree of perfection. They advance beyond the human stage; they attain a form of consciousness which contemporary man does not yet possess in his normal course of development on the earth. He will acquire it when the earth--the fourth of the planetary stages of evolution--has reached its goal and has entered upon the next planetary period. Then man will not only perceive around him what his present physical senses enable him to apprehend, but he will be able to see in images the inner psychic conditions of the beings surrounding him. He will have a (clairvoyant) picture-consciousness, although retaining complete self-consciousness. There will be nothing dream-like or vague in his clairvoyance, but he will perceive what is psychic, in pictures certainly, but in such a way that these images will be the expression of realities, as physical colours and sounds are now. Man, at present, can attain to this degree of clairvoyance only through occult training, which will be treated later in this book.

Now this clairvoyance is attained by the Sons of Personality, as a gift of their normal evolution, midway in the Sun period; and it is just on this account that they become capable of acting on the newly formed etheric body of man during the Sun evolution, in a way similar to that in which they acted on the physical body on Saturn. Just as there the heat reflected their own personality back to them, so do the gaseous organisms now reflect back to them, in gleams of light, the images of their clairvoyant consciousness. They clairvoyantly behold what is taking place on the Sun. And this vision is by no means mere observation; it is as though something of the force which mortals call love made itself felt in the images which stream forth from the Sun. If a clairvoyant looks more closely, he will find the cause of this phenomenon. Exalted beings have blended their activity with the light that is being radiated from the Sun. They are the Lords of Love (the Christian Seraphim) already mentioned. Henceforth they act, together with the Sons of Personality, on the human etheric, or vital body. By means of that activity the etheric body advances a step farther along its path of evolution. It acquires the capacity not only of transforming the gaseous forms within it, but of so elaborating them that the first indications of a propagation of living human beings appear. Emanations, so to speak, are driven out (as though exuded) from the gaseous organisms that take on shapes resembling their mother-forms.