Chapter IV. The Evolution of the World and Man
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of remote antiquity bear to the celestial bodies composing the present solar system. The relationship of the four planetary incarnations previously mentioned, can here be only briefly sketched; for the events, the beings and their destiny on Saturn, Sun and Moon were in truth, just as varied as they are on the Earth itself. Therefore only a few characteristics of these conditions can be chosen to illustrate just how these earth conditions have evolved out of earlier ones. In this connection, one should bear in mind that the further back we go the more dissimilar to the present ones do these conditions become. And yet they can only be described by making use of ideas borrowed from existing conditions of the earth. If, for instance, light, heat, etc., are mentioned in connection with these earlier conditions, it must not be overlooked that they are not exactly the same as that which we now term light and heat. And yet such terminology is accurate, for the clairvoyant observer of earlier stages of evolution perceives something that has developed into the light and heat of the present time. And one who follows the descriptions thus given by occult science will, from the inner relation of these things, easily be able to form such perceptions as correspond to those events which have taken place in a primeval past. Of course there will be considerable difficulty in treating of those planetary conditions which preceded the Moon incarnation. For during the latter, conditions prevailed which bore, at least to a degree, some resemblance still to earthly conditions. When one attempts to describe these conditions one finds that such resemblances to the present time form a certain basis on which were specially unfolded. The present jupiter, however, arose in consequence of the presence of beings possessed of qualities which can only be matured on the future jupiter of the whole evolution. A dwelling place appeared for them on which they can already begin in anticipation of this later evolution. In the same way mars is a planetary body on which dwell beings whose lunar evolution was such that further progress on the earth could bring them nothing. Mars is a reincarnation of the old Moon at a higher stage. The present
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