According to occult science, the earth passed through an earlier planetary condition, called the “Moon-state,” before it became “Earth.” During this condition man was not yet human in the present sense of the word; but there were on the old Moon other beings, not possessed of the present human form and differently constituted, who nevertheless were then at the evolutionary stage which man has now attained on earth. We may therefore say, that on the ancient Moon-planet which has perished, and out of which the earth afterwards originated, there lived beings who were man’s predecessors. In Christian esoteric language they are called Angel-beings (Angeloi) and the beings immediately above them--Archangels (Archangeloi). The latter were human at a still earlier period than the angels. What are called angels or Angeloi in Christian esotericism, and Dhyanic beings in Eastern mysticism, were “men” during the Moon-period. Now these beings, during the present earth-period, are a stage farther advanced than man,--those of them, that is to say, who completed their evolution on the Moon. Only at the end of the earth’s evolution will man have arrived at the stage which those beings had reached at the end of the Moon-period. When the earth-state of our planet began, and man appeared on earth, these beings were not able to appear in an external human form, for the human body of flesh and blood is essentially a product of earth, and is only adapted to the beings who are now human. The beings, who are a stage farther advanced than man, could not be incarnated in human bodies when the earth was beginning its evolution. They were only able to take a part in the government of the earth by illuminating and inspiring people in primeval times in the condition to which these attained when clairvoyant. Indirectly, then, through these clairvoyant people, the angels intervened to guide the destinies of earth. Thus the ancient Egyptians still remembered a condition of things during which the leading personalities of the nation were clearly conscious of their connection with what are called gods, angels, or dhyanic beings. Now what sort of beings were these, who were not incarnated in a human form of flesh and blood, but influenced mankind in the way we have described? They were man’s predecessors, who had progressed beyond the human stage. There is in these days much misuse of a word which may in this connection be applied in its true meaning, the word “Superman.” If we really wish to speak of “Supermen,” it is these beings who may rightly be so called, who were human during the Moon-period, the planetary stage preceding our earth and who have now outgrown humanity. They were only able to appear in an etheric body to clairvoyants. It was thus that they came down to earth from spiritual worlds, and ruled there even as late as post-Atlantean times.