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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN

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In the same way that man had been thus carried a stage farther by the evolution of the Earth, so also had this been the case during the earlier planetary incarnations. For man had in some measure existed as early as the first of these. Light is therefore thrown on the present constitution of man if his evolution is followed back to the far-remote past of the first of the planetary incarnations mentioned above.

In occult science the first of these is called _Saturn_; the second is termed _Sun_; the third, _Moon_; and the fourth is the _Earth_. It must be distinctly understood that these occult terms are not to be in any way associated with the names used to designate the members of the present solar system.(8) In occult science Saturn, Sun, and Moon are merely names for bygone forms of evolution through which the Earth has passed. In the course of the following account it will be shown what relation these worlds of remote antiquity bear to the celestial bodies composing the present solar system.

The relationship of the four planetary incarnations previously mentioned, can here be only briefly sketched; for the events, the beings and their destiny on Saturn, Sun and Moon were in truth, just as varied as they are on the Earth itself. Therefore only a few characteristics of these conditions can be chosen to illustrate just how these earth conditions have evolved out of earlier ones. In this connection, one should bear in mind that the further back we go the more dissimilar to the present ones do these conditions become. And yet they can only be described by making use of ideas borrowed from existing conditions of the earth. If, for instance, light, heat, etc., are mentioned in connection with these earlier conditions, it must not be overlooked that they are not exactly the same as that which we now term light and heat. And yet such terminology is accurate, for the clairvoyant observer of earlier stages of evolution perceives something that has developed into the light and heat of the present time. And one who follows the descriptions thus given by occult science will, from the inner relation of these things, easily be able to form such perceptions as correspond to those events which have taken place in a primeval past.

Of course there will be considerable difficulty in treating of those planetary conditions which preceded the Moon incarnation. For during the latter, conditions prevailed which bore, at least to a degree, some resemblance still to earthly conditions. When one attempts to describe these conditions one finds that such resemblances to the present time form a certain basis on which may be expressed in clear concepts the observations made through clairvoyance. It is quite different when the Saturn and Sun evolutions are to be described. In that case, what lies before clairvoyant observation is utterly different from the objects and beings now belonging to the sphere of human life. And this difference makes it exceedingly difficult to bring the corresponding facts of primeval times within the scope of clairvoyant consciousness at all.

Since however the present constitution of man cannot be understood without going back to the Saturn state, the description therefore must be given. And surely no one will misunderstand such a description who keeps in view the existence of the difficulty, and the fact that owing to it much that is said must be in the nature of a suggestion or hint of the facts in question, rather than an exact description of them.

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