Occult science must now go back still farther in its researches if it is to answer the questions, “How did the three bodies reach that stage of evolution at which they were able to receive an ego within them?” and “How did that ego itself come into being and acquire the capacity for working within these bodies?” It is possible to answer these questions only when the gradual development of the earth-planet itself is studied from the occult point of view. By such investigation we arrive at a beginning of the earth-planet. That method of examination which is based only on the facts of the physical senses cannot arrive at conclusions concerning the beginning of the earth. A certain point of view which avails itself of such conclusions arrives at the result that everything material on the earth was formed out of a primeval essence, or vapour. It is not the purpose of this work to enter more fully into such conceptions of our planet’s origin; for in occult science the important matter is not merely to inquire into the material processes of the earth’s evolution, but first and foremost to discover the spiritual causes lying behind what is material. If we see before us a man raising his hand, we may consider his action in two different ways: we may examine the mechanism of the arm and the rest of the organism, in order to describe the process as it takes place from the purely physical standpoint, or we may direct the spiritual vision to what takes place in the man’s soul and there discover what constitutes the inner motive for raising the hand. In this way an investigator, trained in occult research, sees spiritual processes behind all the events of the physical sense-world. In his eyes all transformations of the material part of the earth-planet are manifestations of spiritual forces lying behind what is material.