Not until we come to the last chapters of this work can we deal with those methods by which man acquires [pg 108] the faculty of looking back, by means of occult perception, upon those earlier conditions of the earth which are now under discussion. For the present we shall merely intimate that the facts concerning the primeval past have not passed beyond the reach of occult research. If a being comes into corporeal existence his material part perishes after physical death. But the spiritual forces, which from out their own depth gave existence to the body, do not “disappear in this way.” They leave their traces, their exact images behind them impressed upon the spiritual ground-work of the world. Any one who is able to raise his perceptive faculty through the visible to the invisible world, attains at length a level on which he may see before him what may be compared to a vast spiritual panorama, in which are recorded all the past events of the world's history. These imperishable traces of everything immaterial are called in occult science the “Akashic Records.”
Here it must once more be repeated that investigations of the supersensible realms of existence can be carried on only with the aid of spiritual perception, and consequently can be instituted in the sphere now under consideration, only by reading the Akashic Records above-mentioned. Nevertheless, what was said earlier in this book in a similar instance holds good here. Supersensible facts are only to be investigated by supersensible perceptions; but once investigated and communicated by occult science, they may be grasped by the ordinary powers of [pg 109] thought, if these are honestly exercised without bias. In the following pages the various conditions of the earth's evolution, as given by occult science, will be detailed. The transformation of our planet will be traced down to the conditions of life in which we now find it. Any one who surveys what comes before him at the present time merely through the evidence of his senses, and then lends an ear to what occult science has to say on the subject, namely:—how that which now lies before him has been evolved from a far distant past,—will be able, if his thought is genuinely unbiased, to say to himself: “In the first place, what occult science reports is quite logical; in the second place, I can, if I assume the reports of occult investigation to be correct, understand how things have become as they now appear.” By “logical” is not meant, in this connection, of course, that errors might not be made from a logical standpoint in some description given by occult research. We are here speaking of “logic” as it is understood in the ordinary life of the physical world. Just as a logical demonstration is accepted there as it is in physical research, even though a single investigator, in a certain domain of facts, may make illogical statements, so is it also with regard to occult science. It may even happen that an investigator who possesses the power of vision in supersensible spheres may make mistakes in a logical presentment of them, and may be corrected by another who has no supersensible perception, but has, none the less, a capacity for sound thinking. In reality, nothing [pg 110] of any weight can be said against the logical deductions of occult science. And it ought to be unnecessary to insist that nothing can be adduced, on purely logical grounds, against the facts themselves. In the domain of the physical world it can never be proved by logic, but only by ocular demonstration, whether or no there is such an animal as a whale; similarly, supersensible facts can be known only through occult perception.
But it cannot be sufficiently emphasized that an obligation is laid upon the explorer of supersensible regions, before he determines to approach the invisible worlds with his own power of perception, to acquire first of all the aforementioned logical faculty, and this is none the less essential if he recognizes that the world, manifest to his senses, will become comprehensible if he accepts the communications of occult science as correct. All experiences in the supersensible world are nothing but an uncertain—nay, a dangerous—groping in the dark if we despise the method of preparation which has been described. Therefore in this book the facts concerning the supersensible processes of the earth's evolution will first be given, before the path leading to the attainment of supersensible knowledge is dealt with.
We have also, it is true, to take into account that the man who, by sheer thinking, comes to accept what supersensible research has to impart, is by no means in the same position as one who listens to the account of a physical occurrence which he is unable to see. For thinking is in itself a supersensible activity. [pg 111] Materialistic thinking cannot of itself lead to supersensible phenomena. But if thought is directed to supersensible matters through the accounts given of them by occult science, it grows by its own activity into the supersensible world. What is more, one of the very best ways of acquiring supersensible perception is to grow into the higher worlds by meditation upon what has been communicated by occult science. For such a mode of entry insures great clearness of perception. For this reason such thinking is regarded by a certain school of occult investigation as a most valuable first step to take in occult training.
It will be readily understood that it is impossible to mention in this book all the details of the earth's evolution, as it has been spiritually perceived by occultists, in order to illustrate the way in which the supersensible world is reflected in the manifested. Nor was this what was intended when it was said that the unseen may everywhere be demonstrated by its manifest effects. It was meant rather that everything that man encounters may, step by step, become clear and comprehensible if he brings manifested events under the illumination of occult science. Only in a few characteristic instances will reference be made in the following pages to confirmations of the invisible by the manifest, in order to show how this may be done everywhere in the course of practical life, if desired.
Pursuing the evolution of the earth backward according to the above method of scientific spiritual investigations we arrive at a spiritual condition of our planet. But if we go farther back along this path of research we find that everything spiritual had previously passed through a kind of physical incarnation. Thus we come upon a bygone physical planetary condition, which was afterwards spiritualized, and subsequently transformed into our earth by repeated materialization. Our earth is therefore presented to us as the reincarnation of a very ancient planet. But occult science can go back still farther; and it then finds the whole process twice repeated. Thus, our earth has passed through three previous planetary conditions separated by intermediate spiritual conditions of rest. The physical substance, however, proves to be finer and finer the farther back we follow the incarnations.
Now man, in the form in which he is at present evolving, makes his first appearance upon the fourth of the planetary incarnations which have been described, the Earth proper. And the essential characteristic of his form is that it is composed of four principles, the physical, etheric, and astral bodies and the ego. But that form could not have appeared if it had not been prepared by the preceding events of evolution. The method of preparation was that, in the earlier planetary incarnation, beings were evolved who already had three of the present four principles of man: the physical, etheric, and astral bodies. These beings who, in a certain [pg 113] sense, may be called man's ancestors, had as yet no ego, but they developed the three other principles and their mutual relationship to such a point that they became sufficiently mature to receive an ego. Thus man's ancestor attained to a certain degree of maturity of his three principles during the earlier planetary incarnation. This condition became spiritualized; and out of it a new planetary condition was formed in which man's matured ancestors were contained, as it were, in embryo. Because the whole planet had passed through a process of spiritualization and had appeared in a new form, it offered those embryos, with their physical, etheric, and astral bodies, which were contained therein, not only the opportunity of again evolving up to the level on which they had previously stood, but the further possibility, after having arrived at that level, of reaching out beyond themselves through receiving the ego.
The evolution of the Earth divides itself, therefore, into two parts. During the first period the Earth itself appears as a reincarnation of the previous planetary state. But that recurring state is a higher one than that of the previous incarnation, in consequence of the intervening period of spiritualization. And the Earth contains within itself the germs of man's ancestors belonging to the earlier planet. These were first developed up to the level they had previously reached. The attainment of this level marks the end of the first period. But now, owing to its own higher stage of evolution, the Earth is able [pg 114] to carry the germs still higher, that is, to qualify them for receiving the ego. The second period of the Earth's evolution is that of the development of the ego in the physical, etheric, and astral bodies.
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.