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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 a cosmic body of this character there are no conditions for the animal, vegetable, and mineral organisms of to-day.(9) The beings whose sphere of action was this Saturn, were at quite a different stage of evolution from that of the present inhabitants of the earth who are perceptible to the senses. In the first place there were beings there who had no physical body like that of contemporary man. We must also guard against thinking of man's present physical embodiment, when mention is made of a "physical body" in this connection. We should instead carefully distinguish between the physical and the mineral body. A physical body is one governed by the physical laws which are now observable in the mineral kingdom. Now man's present physical body is not only ruled by those physical laws, but is also permeated with mineral matter. There can be no question as yet on Saturn of a physical-mineral body of this kind. There is only a physical bodily form, governed by physical laws; but these laws are manifested only through the agency of heat.

Therefore the physical body is a fine, subtle, ethereal heat body; and the whole of Saturn consists of such heat bodies. They are the beginnings of the present physical-mineral human body. The latter has been formed out of the former, because there have become incorporated with the original body the more recently formed gaseous, liquid, and solid substances.

Among the beings of which we are now speaking, who, besides man, were inhabitants of Saturn, there were, for instance, some which did not need a physical body at all. The lowest principle of their nature was an etheric or vital body. On the other hand, they had one principle higher than the human principles. Man's highest principle is the Spirit-Man (Atma); these beings have one still higher. And between the etheric body and the Spirit-Man they have all the principles described in this treatise which are also found in man: the astral body, ego, Spirit-Self, and Life-Spirit. Just as our earth is surrounded by an atmosphere, so too was Saturn; only in this case the "atmosphere" was of a spiritual nature. It really consisted of the beings just named and some others. Now there was constant reciprocal action between the heat bodies of Saturn and the beings we have described. The latter projected the principles of their being down into the physical heat bodies of Saturn. And while there was no life in those heat bodies themselves, the life of their neighbours was expressed in them. They might be compared to mirrors; only there were reflected in them, not the images of the living beings mentioned above, but their conditions of life. Therefore, although nothing living could have been discovered in Saturn itself, yet it had a vivifying effect on its environment in celestial space, because it reflected back into space, like an echo, the life which had been sent down into it. The whole of Saturn appeared as a mirror of celestial life. The very high beings, whose life was reflected by Saturn, are called in occult science "Lords of Wisdom."(10) Their activity on Saturn was not just beginning in the middle period of that evolution, which has been described; in a certain way it had even then already ceased. Before they could be in a position to rejoice in the reflection of their own life from Saturn's heat bodies they had to make those bodies capable of producing such a reflection. Therefore their activity began soon after the beginning of the Saturn evolution. When this happened, the body of Saturn was still chaotic material, which could not have reflected anything.

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