Overview, Page 4

It is these three elements that we find in the Elohistic account in Gen 1,2. There is water, air (“wind” or “spirit”) and fire (heat, represented by the concept of “brooding,” like a hen “brooding” over the eggs in her nest). This “heat” is related to what mysteriously causes the human body, for instance, to regulate its own temperature; it is not the “heat” spoken of by the so-called physical sciences, which include mineralization in all the elements so that “heat” is merely more active solids. At the time of Gen 1,2 in the third Epoch of Earth evolution, “Form” did not yet exist, for the Elohim were only recapitulating the prior stages. But Earth evolution came under the special province of this order of the second rank of Hierarchies, the Authorities, Exusiai or Elohim, appropriately “named” by Steiner the “Spirits of Form.” At all levels the Hierarchies truly reflected what came from above so that the highest levels were indeed involved through the agency of the respective lower levels. In the same manner, the Yahweh-Eloha, from the Moon, truly reflected the spiritual light of the Christ from the Sun. The material reality of moonlight is merely the earthly reflection of the higher spiritual reality.

In the earliest stage of Earth evolution, the Polarian, the Earth was of an enormous size, made up only of fire or heat but containing all that became our present solar system. The second stage, the Hyperborean, was a period of densification and shrinking, and the Sun separated out from the rest to provide the higher spirits an abode, leaving the lower beings a denser home. In the third stage, the Lemurian, the Moon also separated out, taking the lowest beings and the densest materialization with it, along with Yahweh-Eloha, the primary guiding Spirit in the Formation of the Earth. The formation of the other planets from the original fireball is beyond the scope of this overview. Only after the separation of both the Sun and the Moon could human beings descend to the Earth, but their form was grotesque and comprised as yet nothing solid. Not until Gen 3,17 was there an “Adam,” which means “hard human being.” The progressive densification prior to that time had resulted in no bones and thus no ability to rise upright.

The physical, etheric and astral bodies of human beings were progressively bestowed during Earth evolution in the first three Epochs (but nothing solid). Thus, in the third, that of Lemuria, human beings were huge in dimension (not unrelated to the “giants” or “mighty men of old” in Gen 6,4). Through the passions and desires of their astral bodies, and the fluidity of their denser etheric and physical bodies, they were able to control the Elements, and their uncontrolled passions brought about mighty catastrophes of fire that eventually destroyed ancient Lemuria. The account of the fall of the human astral body is given in Gen 3, where we witness the transition, after the “deep sleep” period (Gen 2,21) intervening between Lemuria and Atlantis, from the fluid to the earliest solid condition of humanity in “Adam.” The human being was originally both male and female (Gen 1,27 and 5,2).

The separation of the androgynous human being into different sexes (Gen 2,18-25) came toward the end of Lemuria, corresponding with the “Fall.” As yet, the human being had no indwelling Ego, hence, like an animal, no consciousness of sin. But from what would have been the rank of an Archangel, Lucifer, meaning “light,” disobedient to the higher spirits, desired to bring the “light” of the “tree of knowledge” to the human being. The account of this Fall of the human being and the Archangel Lucifer is given in Gen 3. By virtue of this, the human being’s astral body was no longer pure but rather infected by “original sin,” a sin invested in it through the Luciferic spirits before it even became a responsible being conscious of sin.

Prior to this time, the human being dwelt in the bosom of the gods and rather fully perceived their presence and divine guidance. Death was unknown for consciousness was uninterrupted. But by virtue of this fall, the human being was severed from the “tree of life” (Gen 3,24), and began to experience pain, suffering, toil and death (i.e., returning to dust, Gen 3,16-19). Only at this point, did a human being’s consciousness leave it periodically in the phenomena of both sleep and death. Its continuity did not cease, but rather only its consciousness. It was here, through the infection of the astral body and consequential infections of the etheric and physical bodies in turn, that karma and reincarnation began. Through the divine Virginal Wisdom, however, the governing spiritual powers, had anticipated the infection of the human astral body and consequently also of its etheric body, and had held back from the incarnating human being the higher element of its etheric body. Thus the higher etheric body of the original Adam did not descend until the Virginal Wisdom caused it to descend as the pure and unspoiled, primal etheric body of the Nathan-Jesus child in Luke’s Gospel. When Luke’s teacher, Paul, spoke of the “First and Second Adam,” it is this of which he spoke.

By this time the Sun, Moon and other planets had separated from the Earth, leaving it far smaller than at the outset of the Polarian Epoch of Earth evolution. However, it was still larger than at present, and much of its water content was still in the form of vapor. Mists largely enshrouded the Earth during the Atlantean epoch. The “Nephilim” (Gen 6,4) were still large (i.e., giants), though not very solid; their name derives from the Greek “nephos” meaning “cloud or mist.”