Esoteric Evolution - 4 

The Creation of the Etheric Body

Conditions on Old Sun

In previous chapters we have seen how the evolution of human beings proceeds according to esoteric tradition. This evolution consists of seven different planetary phases that each have their own different states of consciousness.

1. Old Saturn Basis of physical body:Deep trance consciousness						7. Vulcan Development of spirit man (Atma) Transformation of physical body: self-conscious creative all-consciousness
	2. Old Sun Etheric body added: Deep sleep consciousness				6. Venus Development of Life Spirit (Buddhi) Transformation of etheric body: self-conscious life-creating consciousness
		3. Old Moon Astral body added: Dreamlike picture consciousness		5. Jupiter Development of Spirit Self (Manas) Transformation of astral body: self-conscious picture consciousness
			4. Earth The I added, Connection between the three bodies and the Spiritual Self: Clear day-consciousness, self-consciousness

Old Sun: The addition of the etheric body to the physical body

The foregoing chapter contains a sketch of the development on Old Saturn. In the current chapter I will go into the process on Old Sun, the situation where the etheric body is added to the physical body which, however, is then still in a spiritual state of becoming. The etheric body permeated the physical body with vitality, with life, and thus brought it to "life." The etheric body is for this reason also called the "life body."

When in the Old Saturn state all creative tasks had been fulfilled this planetary state passed over into pralaya. Pralaya is the condition in which everything that was created withdraws again into the spiritual world and thus disappears in its external form. This does not mean that it is a period of rest and inactivity. On the contrary. The creative activity of the heavenly hierarchies also continues during the pralaya state. Everything that was brought forth in the previous period is now, in the spiritual world, consolidated and elaborated in such a way that it can develop further in the next planetary state.

In addition, the high, creative, hierarchical spiritual beings who performed their creative work on Old Saturn, were endowed with new creative capacities.

For, just like human beings, creative spiritual beings also develop! They grow and increase their capacities by their work on the creation, especially on the creation of the human being. The latter made it possible for the creative spiritual beings to continue their creative work also in the new planetary situation, Old Sun, and to expand it. In this way the second planetary state was at the same time spiritually prepared.

When after pralaya Old Sun appeared, first of all the developmental process of Old Saturn was repeated in a somewhat different form. Such repetition always occurs in creation; it is a spiritual law. We can also witness it in our time. Think of the fact that a baby, in its development in the body of the mother before it is born, goes through all the previous phases of human evolution. Only after the repetition of the earlier phases has taken place does the corporeality develop in which the new human being can live on earth. Then only the baby can be born.

In the same way the Old Saturn development is repeated in the Old Sun state. At the same time, the beginnings of the physical human body underwent the changes that made it capable of receiving an etheric or life body.

If in our time we were able to look back to the creative work on Old Sun, we would see that the creative spiritual beings that worked on the developing physical body during the first planetary state were then active again. In addition to the Seraphim and Cherubim, these included among others the Spirits of Wisdom, the Spirits of Movement, the Spirits of Form, the Spirits of Personality, the Archangels and the Angels. Individually and together, they led (parts of) the repetition of the Saturn condition, made the necessary refinements to the physical body and, at a certain moment, added the etheric body to it. With the aid of this etheric body, they subsequently laid the basis for the creation of new organs in the becoming physical body.

On Old Sun the warmth substance of Saturn was in part transformed into the gaseous airy substance that was needed for this second condition.

Examples of the work of creation on Old Sun

After the physical body had undergone the necessary changes in the beginning of Old Sun, the Spirits of Wisdom (Kyriotetes) let "life" stream out of themselves, in other words, etheric force, life force, out of which they formed the etheric body of the human being. This etheric body then permeated the becoming physical body and bestowed "life" on it. Thus, an admittedly rudimentary but yet living physical body came into being for the first time in human evolution.

Further, high spiritual beings, the Seraphim and Spirits of Personality, making use of the formative life forces of the etheric body, created the beginnings of new organs. They did this by transforming the sense organs that had been spiritually formed in the Old Saturn phase into a first beginning of what we today call the glandular system, the organs of the metabolism (stomach, bowels, etc.), and the organs of procreation. All these organs originated from the very first sense organs.

The sensory system itself, the beginnings of the eye, the ear, taste, etc., was also further refined and elaborated in the Old Sun period, as was the larynx.

The nervous system that in our time is closely connected with the sensory system was at that time not yet present. It only came into being on Old Moon, when the astral body was added.

An important thing to know is that in the Old Sun period the Cherubim, creative spiritual beings from the first hierarchy, laid the germ into the etheric body for the development of Life Spirit, Buddhi, just as on Old Saturn the Thrones laid the basis for later Spirit Man. Thanks to these germs, we human beings will in the distant future, the sixth and seventh planetary states, be able to develop and express the higher parts of our divine core.

Finally, by a new activity of the Spirits of Wisdom on Old Sun, the first beginnings appeared of what we would later call feelings of sympathy and antipathy. At this stage they are certainly not yet "feelings" or "emotion." But the first beginning of this did then already exist.

All in all, the result of these developments was that in the becoming corporeality, besides the deep trance consciousness of the Old Saturn period, a slightly less "unconscious consciousness" arose in the human being, namely deep sleep consciousness. In our time we are still familiar with this condition of consciousness from the Old Sun period. We fall back into it when we are in a deep, dreamless sleep at night, but also when, for whatever reason—for instance due to an accident or illness—we lose consciousness.

It is interesting to know that today's plants and trees also possess this deep sleep consciousness. The reason is that, in addition to a physical, material body that you can see and touch, they also have an etheric or life body. Because of this, they "live." And everything that lives has consciousness—no matter how unconscious it may be.

In the next chapter our subject will be the third planetary phase, Old Moon. Additional interesting developments then took place in the primeval times of our evolution. But first the Old Sun state passed over into pralaya, back into the spiritual world.

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Sources

Rudolf Steiner, Cosmic Memory, CW 11.

Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Esoteric Science, CW 13.

Rudolf Steiner, An Esoteric Cosmology, CW 94, lectures of June 10 and 11, 1906.

Dankmar Bosse, The Mutual Evolution of Earth and Humanity, SteinerBooks.