The earth passes through two periods at this stage of its evolution. During one of these it allows its substances to circulate around the human souls and clothe them with bodies; during the other, the souls have withdrawn from it, and only the bodies are left and the human beings are in a condition of sleep. It is speaking quite in conformity with facts to say that in those times of a remote past the earth passed through a day and a night time. (Expressed in terms of physical space this means that through the reciprocal action of the sun-beings and the earth-beings, the earth is brought into a movement in relation with the sun; thus there is brought about the alternation of day and night periods described above. The day period is when the surface of the earth, on which man is evolving, is turned toward the sun; the night period, the time when man leads a purely psychic existence, is when the earth’s surface is turned away from the sun. Now it must not, of course, be imagined that in that far-off time the earth’s motion around the sun was like its present motion. The conditions were still utterly different. But even at this early point it is helpful to realize that the motions of the celestial bodies are a consequence of the mutual relations of the spiritual beings inhabiting them. Spiritual-psychic causes produce in the celestial bodies positions and motions which permit the manifestation of spiritual conditions on the physical plane.) If our gaze were turned upon the earth during its night period, its body would appear like a corpse. For it consists to a great extent of the decaying bodies of those human beings whose souls are in another state of existence. The organized watery and aeriform structures of which human bodies were formed become disintegrated, and dissolve into the rest of the earth’s substance. Only that part of man’s body which was formed from the very beginning of the earth evolution by the co-operation of fire and the human soul, and which subsequently became denser and denser, continues to exist as an insignificant looking embryo. Now when the day period begins, the earth once more participates directly in the sun influence, and human souls press forward into the sphere of physical life. They come in contact with the embryos, and cause them to spring up and assume an external form, which appears like an image of man’s psychic being. Something like a delicate fertilization then takes place between the human soul and the bodily embryo.