It should also be mentioned here that such explanations as these are by no means intended as proofs of the assertions of occult science about the evolution of the four principles of man's being. The proofs are drawn from spiritual research, which shows that the physical body has behind it a transformation, enacted four times, into higher degrees of perfection, and that man's other principles have been perfected to a lesser degree, as has been described. It is desired merely to indicate here that these communications made by spiritual research relate to facts which are visible in their effects even to ordinary observation, in the degrees of perfection reached by the physical body, etheric body, and so forth.
If we wish to draw an approximately true picture of the conditions prevailing during the Saturn evolution, we must take into account the fact that while it lasted, there were virtually, as yet, none of the things and creatures existing which now belong to the earth and are included in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. The beings of these three kingdoms [pg 122] were formed during later periods of evolution. Of all the earthly beings physically perceptible today, man alone existed at that time and of him only the physical body existed as described. But there are at present belonging to the earth not only the denizens of the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms, but other beings as well, not manifesting in a physical embodiment. Such entities were also present during the Saturn evolution, and their activity on the Saturn scene of action brought about the subsequent evolution of man.
If the organs of spiritual perception are directed, not to the beginning and end, but to the middle period of evolution of this Saturn incarnation, we find there a condition which consists principally of heat. Nothing is to be found composed of gaseous, fluid, or even solid constituents. All these states appear only in later incarnations. Let us assume that a human being, with the present organs of sense, were to approach the Saturn condition as a spectator. None of the sense-impressions possible to him would confront him there except the feeling of warmth, or heat. Suppose such a being approached this Saturn; he would only sense, upon entering the space occupied by it, that it was in a different degree of heat from the rest of surrounding space. But he would not find that portion of space by any means equally warm throughout, for warmer and colder parts would alternate in the most complicated manner. Radiating heat would be felt along certain lines. And not only straight lines, but regular figures [pg 123] would be formed by the variation in heat. Something like a cosmic being, organically constructed in itself would be discerned, appearing in changing conditions, and consisting only of heat.
It is difficult for a man of the present day to form an idea of anything consisting only of heat, for he is not accustomed to think of heat as something self-existent, but as a perceptible quality of warm or cold gaseous, liquid, or solid bodies. To one who has adopted the physical conceptions of our time it will seem particularly absurd to speak of heat in the foregoing manner. He will, perhaps, say: “There are solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies; but heat only denotes a condition assumed by one of these three bodily forms. If the smallest particles of gas are in motion, the movement will be felt by heat. Where there is no gas, there can be no movement, consequently no heat.”
To an occult investigator the fact appears differently. To him heat is something of which he speaks in the same sense as he speaks of gases, of liquids, or of solid bodies. To him it is simply a still finer substance than gas. And gas to him is nothing but condensed heat, in the same sense that liquid is condensed vapour, or a solid body condensed liquid. Thus the occultist speaks of heat bodies just as he does of bodies formed of gas and vapour.
If we are to follow the spiritual investigator into this region, it is however necessary to admit that there is such a thing as psychic perception. In the world, as it presents itself to the physical senses, [pg 124] heat appears entirely as a condition of solid, liquid, or gaseous bodies; but that condition is merely the outward appearance of heat, or the effect of it. Physicists speak only of this effect of heat, not of its inner nature. Just let us try then to leave entirely out of consideration any effect of heat received through external bodies, and to realize merely the inner experience which comes from saying the words: “I feel warm,” “I feel cold.” That inner experience is the only thing capable of giving an idea of what Saturn was during its period of evolution described above. It would have been possible to pass right through the portion of space it occupied; no gas would have been there to exercise pressure, no solid or liquid body from which light-impressions could have come; but at every point of space occupied, one would have felt inwardly, without any external impression: “Here there is such and such a degree of heat.”
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 [pg 125] 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 [pg 126] 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 [pg 127] 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.