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 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 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.
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