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Old Saturn Epoch Details
Physical Body Evolution - The Saturn Stage:
The bare framework fuselage is to the flying airplane as the physical body during the Old Saturn stage is to the human being of today in the middle of the Earth stage of evolution. Like the fuselage on the aircraft factory floor, the physical body of the human being forms in empty space during the beginning of the Old Saturn stage and, at the end of Saturn (1) the first human physical bodies are assembled. Those first physical bodies are like the bare framework of the fuselage -- they have no resemblance to physical bodies of today which are filled and covered with minerals. Like a fuselage, they are merely a framework for what is to come later. The word phantom is used to describe the human physical body at this stage. Just as the fuselage must be assembled in the empty space of the factory floor, the physical body's phantom must be assembled in the empty space of Saturn. The progress of this assembly of the physical body is shown by the expanding triangle enclosing the word "physical" shown in Figure 7.
During the time the fuselage of the airplane is being assembled, we say the airplane is on the factory floor. The phrase factory floor, which clearly points to a location in space, can also refer to the time during which the fuselage is being assembled. For example we would say, "The airplane is currently in the factory floor stage of production." That stage has a certain time during which it occurs as well a location in space at which it occurs and the same name can be applied to both time and space.
Our cosmos had a location in space in which the assembling of the first human physical body occurred, and there was a time period during which this assembly happened. Both the location and the time period are called Old Saturn or Saturn. The reason for the choice of the name Old Saturn is two-fold: the space occupied by the "factory floor" for our cosmos was the same size and location as the volume of space enclosed by the orbit of the planet Saturn today. Two, the planet Saturn was a by-product, a sphere of leftover material from the construction of the Earth, of the evolutionary process as it proceeded through the time periods we call the Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, and Earth stages.
To understand how the airplane fuselage came into being, one needs to know the names of the design and construction teams, and likewise to understand how the physical body came into being, one needs to know its design and construction teams, the spiritual beings of the hierarchies. The Spiritual Hierarchy Table below is reproduced from the On-line Steiner Guide material designed by Bruce H. McCausland. The traditional names are included for reference purposes, but in this review we will use the spiritual scientific names given these spirits by Rudolf Steiner. You will see that each name describes the functions performed that class of spiritual being.
Before we proceed with a detailed description of how the design teams of the spiritual hierarchies created the first human physical body phantom, we must be careful to distinguish that early Saturn form of the physical body from the Earth form of the physical body we are familiar with today, a body which is filled with minerals of the Earth. As we saw above, during Saturn the human being's physical body developed during the course of that entire stage of evolution. What was the nature of the physical body then, if there were no minerals available? In fact, since the physical body moves through each of the four stages, what is its nature, the part that stays essentially unchanged? Its nature is of a phantom that can be imagined as the open framework of an airplane fuselage under construction, or better yet, as a dressmaker's human-shaped wire form unto and into which the minerals of the human body are fitted and attached later during Earth. The key points to note are 1) the physical body is not perceptible by our sensory apparatus, only by super-sensible sight, and 2) the wire-framed dressmaker's form has a solid nature, but the human phantom has no solidity at all. This phantom is thus not sense-perceptible at any time or stage, but the physical body is sense-perceptible when it becomes filled with minerals during Earth. Though we may talk loosely about the physical body as the corpse that is left behind to dissolve into minerals upon death, we must keep in mind that this dissolving corpse nature only comes into being during Earth -- the stage of evolution during which our physical body is infused with minerals (2).
The beginning of our cosmos started with a sacrifice by the Spirits of Will, whose other names of "Radiating Lives" or "Flames" indicates this aspect of their function of creating the very beginning of life in the form of heat. With the sacrifice of a portion of their "body" the Spirits of Will turn the chaos into heat. "Heat" is the best descriptive term that Steiner was able to use to describe this early stage of the cosmos during Saturn at which time no molecules existed to vibrate, no "heat" as described by physicists was possible.
[page 120] In the given world of the physical senses, heat exists entirely as a state of a solid, a fluid, or gaseous body. This condition, however, is only the external aspect of heat, or its effect. The physicists speak only of this effect of heat, not of its inner nature. Let us try to disregard all effects of heat that we receive through external objects, and picture to ourselves only our inner experience when we say, "I feel warm," "I feel cold." this inner experience can alone give us an idea of the Saturn state.
After the Spirits of Will pour forth will from their own being, the Spirits of Wisdom united with the will. From the contribution of the Spirits of Wisdom, will becomes able to reflect life back into cosmic space. At this point the Spirits of Motion permeate the reflected life with the qualities of their lowest body, the astral body. Suddenly it appears as though sensation and feeling activities are radiated out into cosmic space from Saturn. At this point the Spirits of Form take the unified ensouled being of Saturn and divide it into many individuals, ex uno plures, forming "out one, many." The image is that of a fertilized human egg after many divisions have occurred, but each division is another individual. The next set of spiritual beings that communicate their nature to the individual living beings of Saturn, the Spirits of Personality, offer those beings something akin to personality. This aspect of personality is then radiated out into cosmic space as something "similar to the activity of the human personality in the present cycle of life." (Paraphrased from page 123 to 125.)
[page 125] They confer upon the small Saturn bodies the appearance of the character of personality. Personality does not exist on Saturn itself, but only its reflection, as it were, the shell of personality. . . . -- In the whole of Saturn there is no inner life, but the Spirits of Personality recognize the image of their own life as it streams back to them from Saturn in the form of heat.
In the next phase the Spirits of Fire and of Twilight offer their contribution assisted by the Spirits of Love and of Harmony. This results in the onset of a kind of inner life for the first time.
[page 126] In the further course of the Saturn evolution, events ensue that are different in character from anything existing heretofore. While up to the present time everything was a reflection of external life and sensation, now a kind of inner life begins. Here and there within the Saturn world a life of light begins, now flaring up, now darkening. Flickering glimmers of light appear in certain places, and in others something occurs like flashes of lightning. The Saturn heat bodies begin glimmer, to sparkle, even to radiate.
The Spirits of Fire begin a reciprocal activity with the Saturn heat bodies and the human organs of sensory perception are germinated in the heat bodies and begin their evolutionary path, the current development of which allows me to be typing these words and you to be reading them. The Spirits of Fire are provided a boost by the Spirits of Love "who are so far advanced in their evolution as to be able to employ these germinal senses to perceive the cosmic processes taking place in the life of Saturn." This is a high sacrifice by the Spirits of Love which permits the Spirits of Fire to perceive Saturn events and do their part in this construction phase of the Saturn beings. (Page 127)
The final construction phase is assigned to the Spirits of Twilight and involves the evolution of primitive processes of nutrition and elimination by the interaction of the Spirits of Twilight with the Saturn heat beings. Here is Steiner's supersensible perception of this phase of Saturn.
[page 128] The interior of Saturn appears like a billowing and surging of sensations of taste; sweet, bitter, sour may be observed at various points with Saturn, and outwardly, into cosmic space, this all appears as tone, as a kind of music. -- Within these processes certain beings [Spirits of Twilight] again find the possibility of developing an activity upon Saturn. . . . They enter into reciprocal activity with the surging forces of taste present with Saturn, and through it their ether or life body takes on an activity somewhat similar to metabolism. They bring life into the interior of Saturn. As a result, processes of nutrition and elimination take place. They do not directly produce these processes, but through their activities the processes indirectly come into existence.
The contributions of the Spirits of Twilight to the Saturn bodies development allow the Spirits of Harmony to bestow upon them "a dull kind of consciousness, duller and vaguer than the dream consciousness of the present-day human being" -- a consciousness similar to what we have during dreamless sleep, a consciousness similar to that of plants today. This consciousness, which has a vital function to perform in us today, got its start from the Spirits of Harmony way back during Saturn.
[page 128] Even though this consciousness does not excite perceptions of an outer world as they are understood today, nevertheless, it regulates the life-processes and brings them into harmony with the outer cosmic processes.
It is now time to summarize the results of Saturn evolution. Let's take a summary look at the seven stages of process which happened during Saturn, by modifying Figure 9 to show the seven levels of spiritual beings that took the lead at each stage of the seven processes to operate on and to interact with the germinal human beings of Saturn to complete the development of their physical body phantom. The result is Figure 10 Old Saturn Process. The seven stages of development in Saturn are identified by the seven Spirits of Will, Wisdom, Motion, Form, Personalities, Fire, and Twilight. The last two, Fire and Twilight, are aided from the cosmos by the Spirits of Love and of Harmony.
Steiner's summary of the Saturn evolution is below in the next passage. As you read it, recall our airplane construction metaphor. During each phase of the factory floor stage, the design and construction teams will be active, but the design teams will take the lead during the first stages and the construction and assembly teams will take the lead during the final stages. Each team will have a stage during which it takes the lead. That is what in shown for Saturn in Figure 10 above and described by Steiner below.
[page 132, 133] The result of Saturn evolution is the development of the human germ to a certain stage; it has reached that low, dim consciousness spoken of above. It must not be imagined that the latter's development begins only in the last stage of Saturn. The Spirits of Will are active throughout all conditions of Saturn, but to supersensible perception the result in the last stage is most conspicuous. There exists no definite boundary line between the activities of the individual groups of beings. If it is said that in the beginning the Spirits of Will are active, then the Spirits of Wisdom, then another group of spiritual beings, it is not intended to mean that they were only active at that time. They are active throughout the whole of the Saturn evolution, but in the periods mentioned their activity can best be observed. The individual beings have then, as it were, the leadership.
Thus the whole of the Saturn evolution appears like a fashioning, a working over of what has streamed out of the Spirits of Will by the Spirits of Wisdom, Motion, Form, and so forth.In the next passage we encounter the concept of spiritual beings evolving to higher levels upon completion of the Saturn stage of evolution. The importance of this concept is crucial to understanding the evolution of the cosmos. I liken the names of each spiritual hierarchy in the Table of Spiritual Hierarchies below to the traditional names of freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior as applied to classes in High Schools or Universities in the USA. These four designations remain, year after year, unchanged, but the individual students flow through them each year. Students who were sophomores one year become juniors the next year and then seniors. They progress by virtue of their work and studies and application of their knowledge acquired during a school year. Similarly the individual spiritual beings of the hierarchies by virtue of their work and application of their knowledge during a stage of evolution such as Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth, move to the next higher designation. For example, a particular Spirit of Wisdom at the end of Saturn began to operate at the level of a Spirit of Will during their next or Sun stage of evolution. In essence they were promoted to a higher class, or higher level of spiritual beings in the Spiritual Hierarchy. It is essential in order to understand human evolution to grasp this key fact: the cosmos and all the spiritual beings within it evolve as we evolve.
The Spiritual Hierarchy Table
Traditional Names Other Names Spiritual Scientific Names First Hierarchy ~ Spirits of: Seraphim ~ Love Cherubim ~ Harmony Thrones Radiating Lives or Flames Will Second Hierarchy ~ ~ Kyriotetes Dominions Wisdom Dynamis Mohat Powers, Virtues, Spirits of Movement Motion Exusiai Elohim or Authorities Form Third Hierarchy ~ ~ Archai Asuras Principalities or Primal Beginnings Personality Archangels Messengers of the Beginnings, Sons of Fire, Fire Spirits Fire Angels Lunar Pitris Messengers, Sons of Life Twilight
Italicized names are Theosophical terms (Sanskrit).
Spiritual Scientific names by Rudolf Steiner.[page 133] Thus the whole of the Saturn evolution appears like a fashioning, a working over of what has streamed out of the Spirits of Will by the Spirits of Wisdom, Motion, Form, and so forth. At the same time, these spiritual beings themselves undergo an evolution. For example, after having received their life reflected back to them from Saturn, the Spirits of Wisdom stand at a different stage from that at which they previously stood. The fruit of this activity enhances the capacities of their own being. The result is that after the completion of such activity something happens to them similar to what happens to man in sleep. After their periods of activity on Saturn follow other periods during which they live, so to speak, in other worlds. Their activity is then turned away from Saturn.
Seen from the point of view of human development during Saturn, the early working by the Spirits of Will, Wisdom, and Motion represent a descent into materialization into heat bodies, followed by the pivot point when the Spirits of Form take over after which the germinal human ascends into multiple individuals sparkling with fire and prototypical sensory apparatus. That is what is shown in Figure 10. Seen from the point of view of the activity of the spiritual beings, a rise in activity or ascent occurs until the heat body is formed followed by a descent or ebbing of activity as Saturn draws to a close. Here's how Steiner describes it from his clairvoyant perspective:
[page 133] Therefore, clairvoyant perception observes in the described evolution of Saturn an ascent and a descent. The ascent continues until the formation of the state of heat; then with the play of light an ebb tide sets in, and when the human phantoms have assumed a form through the activity of the Spirits of Will, the spiritual beings have gradually withdrawn. The Saturn evolution slowly dies and as such disappears. A period of rest then occurs.
This period of rest is what is called the "seed stage" in Figure 7 above. This signals the end of Saturn. The human physical body phantom has been developed to the point that it will be ready during the next stage, Sun, to accept the building of the etheric body within itself. The seed stage of the human is like cessation of construction and assembly that occurs during the turning over of the finished airplane fuselage prior to the installation of the cables, hydraulic tubes, electrical power and signal cables that will bring the fuselage to life during the next stage of construction. At that point all of the airplane design and construction teams go over their work in a recapitulation of every aspect of the design, assembly, and construction to ensure the quality of their work. One could expect the spiritual design, assembly, and construction teams to do likewise. What is called "seed stage" is only a period of rest for the human beings while the spiritual hierarchies go through this recapitulation and inspection of their work.
During the seed stage or pralaya, the individual germinal humans rest in this stage "in the bosom of the cosmos, awaiting a new awakening."
[page 134] . . . and when the moment of this awakening comes, the above described spiritual beings have acquired, under other conditions, capacities for working further upon the germinal human being. The Spirits of Wisdom have acquired the capacity in their ether bodies not only of enjoying the reflection of life, as they did on Saturn, but also the ability of letting life stream forth from themselves and of endowing other beings with it. The Spirits of Motion are now as far advanced as were the Spirits of Wisdom on Saturn. The lowest principle of their being was then the astral body; now they possess an ether or life body. The other spiritual beings have correspondingly advanced to a higher stage of their evolution. All these spiritual beings, therefore, are able to work upon the further evolution of the germinal human being in another way than on Saturn. ---But at the end of the Saturn evolution the germinal human being was dissolved. In order that the more evolved spiritual beings may continue from the point where they ended their previous activities, this germinal human being has briefly to recapitulate the stages through which it passed on Saturn. This is to be seen by supersensible perception. The germinal human being emerges from its concealment and, through the forces that have been implanted within it on Saturn, it begins to develop through its own power. It emerges out of the darkness as a being of will; it advances itself to a being possessed of a semblance of life, of a soul-like nature and other characteristics, until it reaches the stage of automatic manifestation of personality that it possessed at the end of the Saturn evolution.
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