Esoteric Evolution - 3

The Foundation of the Physical Body

Old Saturn

Working on human corporeality

from spiritual substance to physical materiality

The Old Saturn state

Everything began with the creation of the physical body

The Spirits of Personality and Egoism

The mystery of good and evil

The gifts of the highest hierarchies

The Triune God or Trinity

First (highest) hierarchy

Second hierarchy

Third hierarchy

Source

In this chapter I will show how according to ancient tradition in the distant, primeval time of the creation in the Old Saturn period the basis was laid for what later on Earth would become our physical body. The subsequent chapters will contain the development of the etheric body, astral body, and the I with the corresponding states of consciousness.

It will become evident that the entire evolution of corporeality, of the planetary states, and of human consciousness was and is only possible because high creative, spiritual beings radiate spiritual forces from themselves. With these forces they formed, in addition to the planetary states, also our different bodies and gave us an I. Thanks to their offering, their gift to human beings, we can take our path of development through the seven different conditions of consciousness and achieve ever higher spiritual levels of consciousness.

Because we will repeatedly meet them, I will begin with an overview of the names and ranks of these high, creative, spiritual beings which, because of their lofty development and standing, were called "Gods" in oriental religions and were worshipped as such. In western esotericism they are called "the heavenly hierarchies" or briefly "the hierarchies." As divine-spiritual beings they create and act by order of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The first hierarchy is closest to the divine Trinity; the third hierarchy is closest to humanity. The Trinity works creatively through all nine heavenly hierarchies.

God the Father

God the Son

God the Holy Spirit

1 Seraphim - Spirits of Love

2 Cherubim - Spirits of Harmony

3 Thrones - Spirits of Will

4 Kyriotetes - Spirits of Wisdom

5 Dynameis - Spirits of Movement

6 Exousiai/Elohim - Spirits of Form

7 Archai - Spirits of Personality, Time Spirits

8 Archangeloi - Archangels

9 Angeloi - Angels

Before we continue, I want to point out that in the development from Old Saturn to Earth the high, creative, heavenly hierarchies worked especially on the development of the future home of humanity, the planetary state and the human body - the body through which human beings can go through a developmental process on earth.

Only when the body has reached the state that it can become the bearer of the spiritual essence of the human being, can the latter take possession of this and pursue the path of human development on earth. Until that time, they still live with soul and spirit completely in the spiritual world, which envelopes this work, and their consciousness is still deeply, trance-like unconscious.

In addition, it is important to know that the corporeality of humanity and the different planetary states that eventually led to that of Earth, experienced four different phases of material densification. This densification occurs consecutively via:

Warmth substance
Air- and light substance
Fluid substance
Mineral matter

On Old Saturn the creation begins in a sphere of spiritual warmth that can hardly be called "substance." On Old Sun the air- and light element is added to this. On Old Moon the element of fluidity.

And finally on Earth the solid mineral element, physical earthly materiality is added.

Because of this development we human beings presently on Earth bear all four elements in us - the warmth of Saturn in our soul and blood (due to which our body maintains the basic temperature of our body at a constant 36.5 to 37 degrees Celsius), the air element in the in- and outbreathing of the lungs, the water element in the blood and the fluids of the various organs, and the mineral element in the sturdiness of our physical body with its skeleton and bones.

Now let us go to the conditions on Old Saturn.

In his wonderful lectures entitled The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World (GA 110), Rudolf Steiner relates how within the divine Trinity the idea arose for a new solar system in which human beings could enter onto a path of development. To bring this to realization they communicated their goals and plans to the highest hierarchy of creative spiritual beings, the Seraphim.

The Cherubim took these thoughts up out of their high wisdom and elaborated them so that they became achievable. The Thrones brought all of this to realization by letting something of their own being that possesses spiritual warmth and spiritual fire power flow out into the universe.

During this work these high beings saw the whole future human evolution before themselves, including the construction and development of the later physical body. They knew that one day, in the far distant future, a human being, a human spirit would have to incarnate in that physical body and live in it.

The thought images these high hierarchical beings had before them can be compared to a painter who has formed an image for himself of the painting he wants to paint. Even before he takes up the paintbrush, he sees in his mind what he wants to create. The same thing happened in that primeval time to the beings of the first hierarchy. They "thought" the creation.

The radiation by the Thrones of their being created in that sphere of "warmth" a kind of "warmth substance." In this primeval beginning, this warmth substance formed the precursor of the earthly condition we are familiar with today. Everything that developed in the planetary phases after Old Saturn has come forth from that first condition of warmth.

However, with our current earthly eyes we would not have been able to see this warmth substance on Old Saturn. It was still a precursor, as it were, of materiality and was still of a purely spiritual nature.

Now, in this sphere of warmth the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, planted the first seed of what would later become the human physical body.

In the course of the Old Saturn period, together with other high, creative beings, they worked this seed into the basis of a body that consisted of warmth substance. It is in this seed that the deeply unconscious trance consciousness mentioned above was living. This consciousness, no matter how deeply unconscious it still was, was also brought in by high creative beings.

For our understanding of esoteric evolution, it is important to realize that the creation on Old Saturn thus began with the beginnings of the physical body. The human body was the first body that was created.

All the rest in the creation, the realm of plants, the realm of animals, and mineral substance arose only later, yes, these even came forth out of this primeval corporeality of the human being, the way it came into being on Old Saturn. More about this in later chapters.

As I have already indicated, in the course of the Saturn period, in addition to the Thrones, other high creative beings also worked on the warmth-substance body and developed it further. Just as the Thrones these beings formed part of the spiritual, cosmic hierarchies. The spiritual or cosmic hierarchies are, as I have already mentioned, the implementers of the plan of creation of the Triune God.

Their creative work on the human being and the cosmos is wholly in the service of the divine Trinity.

To give a general impression of what occurred in the early period of creation in that sphere of warmth on Old Saturn, I will make a brief sketch of the work of these high spiritual beings.

After the Thrones, the high Spirits of Wisdom (Kyriotetes) worked on the then-existing seed of the becoming human body. They did it in such a way that in this seed wise order was imprinted.

This means that in this way they laid the basis for a well-considered structure of the physical body.

Because these beings did that at the time, we also find in our time purposeful order and wisdom in the human body, just as in all of nature. Think, for instance, of the incredibly complex structure of the brain, the eye, the ear, the heart, and the organs of the metabolism that work and collaborate with each other so magnificently. In all this order and wisdom, we can recognize the work of the Spirits of Wisdom, the Kyriotetes, that they began on Old Saturn.

Besides the Spirits of Wisdom, the Spirits of Movement or Activity (Dynameis) laid the element of movement, activity, into the seed of the physical body. This enabled us later to walk, use our hands, and our organs could function. Thereupon the Spirits of Form (Exousiai) gave the becoming body, which was at first a kind of mobile cloud of warmth, a limited form. With this they laid the groundwork for what would later become the form of the physical body.

In that primeval time, in the warmth substance on Old Saturn the basis of the sense organs was also worked out, the ear, the eye, etc., and the larynx. This work was done primarily by the Archangels. Beyond the sense organs and the larynx there were not yet any beginnings of other organs at that time. It indicates how important the sense organs are for the development of the human being.

In addition to those mentioned above, there were also other high spiritual beings who were actively involved with the design of what later became the physical body. Among them are the Spirits of Personality or of "our own self," who belong to the rank of the Archai, the Spirits of Time.

They are also called the Spirits of Egoism. These spirits saw to it that such elements were laid into the basis of the physical body that we human beings could later, in the Earth period, become independent persons, unique personalities. Human beings who not only could separate themselves from their surroundings but could also orient themselves entirely to themselves - in other words, could be "ego-centric." Thus, in the very beginning of the creation the potential of egoism was already implanted in the human being. Why?

The path to becoming autonomous human beings in which the spirit comes to development implies the necessity that out of our I, our personality, we can make two different gestures.

The one gesture moves out of the surroundings to yourself, to you as a person. The other goes out of yourself to the surroundings, to other people. Both movements, the one to you as well as the one from you to the surroundings, are necessary to become an autonomous human being. Not only that, but also to become a free human being.

For only to the extent that our I become free - in other words, that we overcome our ego, our egoism, but still remain ourselves - can the spiritual Self unfold in us and eventually become creatively active. But this does require that we first have to be an I-being, possess our own personality that is self-oriented and can stand on its own feet. Otherwise, no unique, personal autonomy and independence can come about. Neither can the potential in a subsequent step of development to freely bestow love on another person.

The Spirits of Personality or Spirits of Egoism have educated us humans to autonomy from Old Saturn through all planetary states, to becoming human out of our own personality, our own I.

These spirits are also called the "good Asuras." Their aim is to make the human being autonomous and free, so that the spiritual Self can develop in the right way in us.

But in the time of Old Saturn there were in addition to the good Asuras also high Spirits of Personality that had become "fallen angels," spiritual beings who did not continue to develop, and remained stuck. In esotericism they are also called "evil Asuras' or spirits of temptation or darkness.

These evil spiritual beings want to make the self-centeredness, the egoism, of people so strong in the course of evolution that they get trapped in this egoism. Their goal is to prevent the spiritual Self, which bears freedom and love, from being born in the I.

In this way these beings try to make the task of human beings impossible, to prevent it.

This brings us to one of the most profound mysteries of becoming human, namely to the fact that already in the very beginning of creation the tendency to both good and evil was laid in human beings!

Esoteric Christianity shows that this is so because without the working of both opposing spiritual forces, we could never bring the spirit, our spiritual Self, to development in ourselves. And therefore, we would never be able to reach the future phases of Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan.

Spiritual development in the sense of esoteric Christianity means that as human beings we have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad in us. Only then do we grow spiritually and do we become truly free.

In the practice of our evolution this means that we not only - while preserving our sense of I - have to learn to overcome our egoism, but we also have to learn to know and deal with the forces of evil in us that are connected with it, the forces that want and practice evil.

This is the reason why both the good and the evil Spirits of Personality have their roles to play in the divine plan of creation.

Finally, toward the end of the Old Saturn period the creative beings of the highest hierarchy, the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, once more but now in a completely different way, make their gifts to the becoming human being, so that the human developmental process can happen in the right way.

First, the Seraphim, also called the Spirits of All-encompassing Love, filled the surface of Old Saturn and the developing physical body with their lofty power of love. As a result, the whole of creation was permeated by their being of love, and in the becoming human being the seed was laid of the capacity of all-encompassing love.

Thereupon the Cherubim let the capacity of the intellect, the later capacity to think, stream out into the becoming creation.

With the extremely dull consciousness human beings possessed on Old Saturn, they were still completely unable to use this intellect. It rested in them merely as potential, a seed ready to be developed when the time for it had come.

Finally, the Spirits of Will, the Thrones, who had filled such an important function at the beginning of Old Saturn, again made gifts from their own being. They permeated the body of warmth-substance, which was to become our physical body and laid the seed in it for the much later development of Spirit Man, Atma. By this gift of the Spirits of Will, our spirit, our spiritual Self was in later stages of evolution able to work in the body, and was thus able to stimulate us to development from inside us. Eventually, when we reach the Vulcan period, our spirit, our Atma or Spirit Man, can come to complete development and creative work out of our deepest essential being.

The Old Saturn state is concluded and passes over into pralaya. Much later it reemerges from this as Old Sun. That is the subject of the next chapter.

Old Saturn

Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World (GA 110).