The Processes of Creation and Evolution

Chapter VI of the Loom of Creation

by Dennis Milner

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PLEASE NOTE: This chapter has been posted on Aether Force to give a full background to the origination of the ethers concept disclosed by Rudolf Steiner. It is very esoteric in nature from the school of Anthroposophical thought. The ethers themselves are discussed in the later part of this chapter.

We have compared the viewpoint of objective mysticism with some of the main features of human experience in a generalised way and have found considerable compatibility. However, if objective mysticism were to make a really positive contribution to human development, the factors and forces involved in existence would have to be much more clearly defined, so that mankind could learn to work with them at a detailed and effective level. In particular, we shall require later in this book a much more detailed understanding of the nature and behaviour of the forces involved to be able to interpret our experimental results. We therefore try now to expound, to the extent that we are able to understand and interpret them, the processes of creation and evolution as portrayed by objective mysticism, and thus define more clearly the forces at work.

The Plan of Creation

If we penetrate to the forces and impulses that underlie human existence, we come to the activities of a world of Spiritual Beings, that we have called the Father-Son stream of evolution. The higher members of this stream of evolution, known as the Spiritual Hierarchy, have the task of bringing into being and organising the prodigal son stream of evolution. There have always been people who were aware, to a greater or lesser extent, of the existence and activities of the Spiritual Hierarchy, more so in ancient cultures than now. The mythological-cosmological-religious cultures of Egypt, Sumeria and early Greece, and to a lesser extent that of the Romans, were dominated by their belief in a world of gods that ruled over creation and life on earth. The Hindu religion gives particularly extensive accounts ofa world of Spiritual Beings whose activities underlie our material world. The Jewish Kabbalah gives similar accounts. Within Christianity the stream emanating from Dionysius the Areopagite gives detailed descriptions of a Spiritual Hierarchy comprising Cherubim, Seraphim, Archangels, Angels etc., and their functions. The great medieval mystics were aware of them, as, more recently, were Swedenborg and Blake. Such heirarchies have also been described by a number of contemporary writers. Modern depth psychology has no direct awareness of these Beings. Working from observations of human behaviour however, it arrives at the conclusion that a range of definable archetypal forces are at work in the collective unconscious mind of humanity. These archetypal forces are closely related to the forces of the gods as portrayed in mythology. Most recently Mme. Blavatsky and other Theosophists such as Alice Bailey have given extensive accounts of the Spiritual Hierarchy and their activities, but primarily from an eastern viewpoint and often using Sanskrit terminology. Steiner has given the most extensive and detailed accounts in language and terms comprehensible to modern western man.

Although they exist in realms ofcreation higher than man, the same basic principles of evolution that underlie life on earth apply equally to these higher realms. Man is essentially a spiritual being who evolves as a result of undergoing experiences in the physical world through the medium of a physical body. Though of a spiritual nature, these Higher Beings also evolve by undergoing experience in relation to a world of ‘substance’, the nature of the ‘substance’ however, varying with their level of evolution. As a result of his experiences, man is given the opportunity to evolve, but the response to this opportunity varies, so that a hierarchical structure arises in human society. In this way some men are able to perform more advanced tasks than others. Likewise the Beings of the Father-Son stream comprise a Hierarchy working at different levels.

Although there are many levels in the evolution of man and of the Beings of the Father-Son stream, there are three major stages of development. There is the stage of being created, which can go through many phases, e.g. on earth Nature has created in ascending order minerals, plants, animals and man. There is the stage in which the created being becomes independent, conscious of itself and of its power i.e. becomes an Ego-being. This comes about by the being exerting an influence on the world around it and becoming conscious of the fact that it is doing so. This is what man is doing now – developing to become an independent self-conscious Ego-being, through growing awareness of his activity in relation to the world around him. In the third stage, the created Ego-beings have become sufficiently conscious of themselves and of the plan of evolution to contribute out of their own volition to the furtherance of this plan. From being created, they have become creators, or from being receivers they have become givers. A man on earth is more advanced, the more aware he is of the pattern of evolution and the more he gives as a contribution to this plan.

These principles apply right up to cosmic levels. Thus, for example, objective mysticism sees the earth as a planet on which beings (particularly man) predominantly receive. As a result man learns to become independent by his interaction with the physical world. By contrast our Sun (and all Suns) are regarded as the centres of activity of much more highly developed Beings, far in advance of man and far beyond the need for human physical bodies. They work with much more powerful forms of substance and can give out warmth, light and other forces in our solar system, so bringing about the development of plants, animals and human beings on earth.

Man is essentially a spiritual being emanating from spiritual worlds and if he can centre his consciousness on his spiritual, as opposed to his worldly life, he can come to know to some extent the nature of the Higher Beings and their activities. As he reaches up to ever higher levels he finds, at the top, Spiritual Being or Godhead of such exalted nature that it is beyond his capacity at his present state of development to form any real comprehension of it. The essential feature of the Godhead is that it manifests three qualities – Love, Wisdom and Will and a fourth quality of generative partition. Through the latter it procreates beings who possess these qualities for themselves. The Godhead has thereby generated the Beings of the Spiritual Hierarchy who possess these qualities in varying degrees, according to their level of evolution. They are also the qualities which humanity, as the prodigal sons, are called upon to evolve.

The way in which the humanity-prodigal-son, stream of evolution is brought into being is that the Spiritual Hierarchy exerts its spiritual qualities as forces in a cosmic ether, i.e., as etheric forces, to bring to manifestation a world of substance. It creates vehicles, or bodies, into which the spiritual Egos of the prodigal sons incarnate. These then learn, in freedom and independence, to live in and master this world, and thereby to acquire for themselves the spiritual qualities which have been built into it.

The Spiritual Hierarchy isolates the prodigal sons from knowledge of their existence and activities by creating physical bodies with sense organs. This restriction allows only perception of the created world of substance, and does not allow perception of the forces and Beings which bring the substance world into being. But in itself the physical body is only an inert ‘instrument’ for the perception of the substance world. Behind the substance world lies the activity of the Spiritual Hierarchy, manifest as etheric forces in the world ether. For man to experience and to acquire the qualities inherent in this etheric world, he too must be a being of etheric forces. Thus, permeating the physical body, is a body of etheric force activity which brings about etheric functioning of the physical body i.e., the physical body ‘lives’ in accord with the etheric activity of the Spiritual Hierarchy. The spiritual Ego of man has to be able to form an inner life of its own from the experiences gained through the physical and etheric bodies, and to do this it is equipped with a third, ‘astral’, body. This astral body comprises the faculties of thinking, feeling and willing, but to begin with, these faculties are operated by the Spiritual Hierarchies so that man manifests a pre-ordained or built-in ‘instinctive’ or animal-like behaviour and intelligence.

The Spiritual Hierarchy creates and organises these bodies so that they live and function in the material world. Then the human Egos enter into them and begin to take them over. The Ego is initially an unconscious spiritual entity that exists in the world of Spiritual Beings, who bring to manifestation the ‘worlds’ in which the bodies of man live. The Ego undergoes experiences in these worlds through the activities of the physical, etheric and astral bodies. These experiences arouse in the Ego impulses to come to know, understand and respond, i.e., to acquire for itself the qualities of thinking, feeling and willing and thereby to develop its own existence as a spiritual entity.

At the present time man is only a short distance along this path of development. We experience ourselves as physical, living, bodies, but we cannot in any way lay claim to these. They are supplied for us by Nature and we use or misuse them. We also experience ourselves as having an inner life provided by our astral bodies of feelings, thoughts and will impulses. But again we did not bring these into being; we can only learn to make use of them. What we experience as ‘being ourselves’ is the extent to which, from the circumstances and experiences provided for us by the Spiritual Hierarchy we, as Egos, develop the qualities of thinking, feeling and willing for ourselves; that is, the extent to which, from these universal experiences, we develop an individual soul life which has acquired these qualities. This is entirely under our own control and is our own responsibility and it is what makes each of us what we are as persons. Our inner life is thus partly provided for us i.e., given by the astral body, and partly what we acquire, take over, and develop for ourselves i.e., soul life. (In general, however, in this book the terms astral and/or soul will be used interchangeably to denote the totality of inner life).

The higher members of the Father-Son stream, who create the worlds in which man experiences his existence, comprise three Hierarchies which, according to their degree of evolution, create at cosmic, solar-system, or development-of-humanity, levels. Within each Hierarchy are three groups ofbeings, each group working with, or manifesting, at the relevant level, the three basic qualities of the Godhead of Love, Wisdom and Will. The Higher Beings also possess the power of generative partition, whereby they procreate lesser beings or off-spring i.e., ‘sons’ and ‘prodigal sons’.

The First Hierarchy is so highly evolved that it is in direct contact with the Godhead and is able to manifest the qualities of the Godhead within the cosmos. These Beings receive from the Godhead the impulse to bring into being within the cosmos our solar system and to plan and guide its creation. The highest members of the First Hierarchy are able to receive the impulse for our solar system from the Godhead, and to guide this impulse into being, because their development is such that they are able and willing to sacrifice and give themselves entirely for the cosmic purpose. They are therefore ‘Beings of Cosmic Love in Creation’. They work entirely for creation and for the beings so created. To the next group of the First Hierarchy is entrusted the task of formulating the plans for the fulfilment of the objective received by the Beings of Cosmic Love in Creation from the Godhead and of maintaining these plans, and thus the evolution of the solar system, in harmony with that of other systems of evolution within the Universe. These Beings are thus ‘Beings of Cosmic Wisdom’ (or ‘Cosmic Harmony’). The next group of Beings in the First Hierarchy have the task ofwilling into being the ‘substance’ in which the plans for the creation of the solar system are worked out and thus they are ‘Beings of Cosmic Will’.

Beings of the second Hierarchy, although highly evolved, have not attained to the level of the First Hierarchy. Thus, whereas the First Hierarchy receives the directive for our solar system from the Godhead and plans and guides it at cosmic level, that is, from above or without, the Beings of the Second Hierarchy are active as Creators of, and within, our solar system under the guidance of the First Hierarchy.

The basic material of the cosmos is a universal cosmic ether. While the cosmic ether is inert and does not itself manifest anything, its properties are such that the Spiritual Hierarchy can shape it and form it. Thus our world comes into being, and thus are created the conditions and the human bodies in which the prodigal sons can undergo their experience and evolution. The procedure is this: Beings of the First Hierarchy first enclose a space in the cosmos in which the solar system is to be formed. The Beings of Cosmic Will then sacrifice, or pour, into this space some of their Spiritual Will or Will Activity. This ‘energises’ some of the ‘neutral’ cosmic ether to a state of ‘spiritual/ etheric warmth’. This spiritualised ‘will’ or ‘warmth ether’ then forms the basic substance in which the solar system is created by the subsequent activity of the Hierarchies. The function of the highest members of the Second Hierarchy is to see that this creation of the solar system is in accord with cosmic law, i.e., they incorporate cosmic wisdom into the solar system. These Beings are thus ‘Beings of Solar Wisdom’.

The next rank of Beings incorporate movement or ‘life’ activity into the basic will substance; they are therefore ‘Beings of Solar Will’ (or ‘Solar Activity’). Members of the third rank of the Second Hierarchy give themselves to the formation of the living, active, will substance into the entities of the solar system. In particular they form human physical bodies. They are ‘Beings of Solar Love in Creation’.

The First and Second Hierarchies had evolved to become Creators at the beginning of our solar system. The Third Hierarchy had not evolved that far however. By their activity in the development of the human stream of evolution its members evolve themselves, to become Ego-beings on their own path to becoming creators. This they do by working on the human physical bodies (differentiated out of the world substance by the Beings of Solar Love in Creation) so as to make them into living active puppet bodies suitable for the prodigal sons. Thus the first members of the Third Hierarchy work on the physical entities, under the guidance and impulse from the Higher Hierarchies, the aim being to make bodies which will respond to changes from without i.e., entities with the beginning of personality. These Beings are therefore ‘Beings who engender personality’, or human will. Because they are working on the entities, eliciting a response from them, perceiving the extent of this response and adjusting accordingly, these ‘Beings of Personality’ experience the results of their actions. In this way they become aware of themselves, and of what they are able to do. That is, they experience their own powers and their own being in the same way that man now experiences his powers and his being by working on the physical world. Thus at this early stage of man in our solar system, the Beings of Personality achieve Ego-hood. Under the guidance of the Higher members of the Spiritual Hierarchies, the second group of the Third Hierarchy then works to bring inner activity into the embryo human entities.

The intention is to arrange matters so that in response to outer changes the entities have an inner experience. These Beings, experiencing a response to their activities, become aware of themselves and of their powers and now attain to Ego-hood. The last members of the Third Hierarchy to achieve their Ego-hood do so by bringing into activity in the human entities the principle of inner light, or thinking; they are thus ‘Beings who engender human wisdom’.

All the members ofthe Spiritual Hierarchies thus work together at their various activities according to their level of evolution, with Higher Beings intervening in the work of the lower members to adjust the plan only when necessary. As the plan of evolution progresses, the members of the Spiritual Hierarchies learn from the results of their endeavours and thereby themselves evolve. Man, who is now attaining to independence and Ego-hood, will become the next member of this Creative Order. The Highest Beings of the First Hierarchy, the Beings of Cosmic Love, although highly evolved, in effect transmit the quality of Love from the Godhead; they are not able freely and independently to give Love out of themselves. Man, as a result of his suffering and experience, has the opportunity and the task of developing the freely and independently given Love of the prodigal son. Thus men, when their task is complete, will become ‘Beings of Love and Freedom in Creation’ in a Fourth Hierarchy. Below man there are lesser evolved beings who as yet play smaller roles in the evolutionary pattern and are represented in folk lore as fairies, gnomes etc.

The primary objective of the creation of our solar system is thus the creation of suitable vehicles and an environment in which man, as the prodigal son, can evolve. Then the individual human spirit, or Ego, through the experiences of its bodies, begins to develop its own spiritual life in the spiritual qualities of Love, Wisdom and Willing, although at present at the lower level of feeling, thinking and willing.

Man has to develop his inner life and his spiritual/soul qualities in freedom and independence. Thus the solar system is created so that man is subjected to two primary opposing experiences. On the one hand he is subjected to the activities and forces of the Spiritual Hierarchy. But if these were the only experiences he underwent then he could only evolve as a member of the Father-Son stream, albeit at a slow rate because he is incarnated in a physical body. This allows, through the sense organs, only limited perception of the resu!ts of the activities of the Spiritual Hierarchy. Thus man is subjected, on the other hand, to conditions and forces which urge him to become an independent individual, and not to respond to and follow the impulses of the Spiritual Hierarchy. The way that this is done is that from the beginning of the creation of the solar system, at each stage of development, some of the members of the Spiritual Hierarchy become ‘Spirits of Adversity’ and subject man to impulses opposed to those of the ‘normal’ Spiritual Hierarchy. At each phase of creation the spirits of Adversity ‘grasp’ some of what has been created and hold it back, so that it does not respond and continue along the normal evolutionary path. In this way there arises a world of ‘left behind’ Spiritual Beings and of ‘left behind’ etheric force states of the cosmic ether. A continuous struggle then takes place in this ‘left behind’ material, or substance, between the Spirits of Adversity who have the task of striving to contain this material as an independent world of their own, and the Spiritual Hierarchy, who strive to advance evolution. In this way it becomes possible, by balancing the slowly evolving ‘left behind’ and the ‘advancing’ forces of evolution, to create an environment, the earth planet, which manifests the right conditions for the evolution of humanity.

The first objective in the evolution of the humanity stream was the creation of physical bodies for man, and the material that ‘remained behind’ gave rise to the almost inert physical-mineral kingdom. The second objective was the incorporation of etheric force bodies into the physical bodies to make them living entities. That which remained behind at this stage became the living plant kingdom. The next objective was the incorporation of the inner experiencing astral bodies, and the entities remaining behind from this stage became the living, inner experiencing animal kingdom. Then came the incorporation of the individual spiritual Egos to give rise to the spiritually creative individuals of humanity. The remaining behind principle operating at all levels of evolution also creates a world environment in which man lives and learns to work with each stage ofevolution that has taken place.

Thus man experiences himself as living in two worlds, an outer material world which brings to him experiences through which he can learn and evolve, and an inner spiritual world. If he becomes dominated by his experiences of the left behind, or retarding, materialist forces, he becomes himself a ‘materialist’ who slows down or retards the evolution of man. If he becomes dominated by the spiritual forces that

strive to bring him into inner activity, then he becomes filled with ‘pie in the sky’ ideas which do not relate to his experiences of life i.e., he becomes an ‘out of this world’ idealist. Man’s spiritual and soul life and his material body and environment have been so created that, if he is to follow the path of evolution intended for him, he must all the time be seeking the path of true relationships between his experience in the material world and the spiritual understanding and spiritual development which these provide, consistent with his level of evolution.

The Processes of Creation

The Spiritual Hierarchies work in the same way that man does, in that there is first a period in which th y spiritually ‘plan’ their future endeavours. This is followed by a period of external  manifestation of effort, which in their case is the creation of man and the solar stem. Then there is a period of withdrawal for inner contemplation of the result thus far achieved: during this period the manifest world reverts back to the unmanifest state . This is followed by further external creative endeavour, when the previous stages of development are recapitulated in improved form in accord with the rethinking an replanning, and a new stage of evolution is inaugurated.

In the initial spiritual state of creation the Beings of the three qualities of Love, Wisdom and Will come into a relationship with each other in which they create the plan for the evolution of humanity. These highly evolved Beings of the First Hierarchy inwardly ‘brood’, or contemplate, and formulate the plans and stages by which the objectives of the solar system are to be achieved. At the end of this period
of activity, the world of the prodigal sons exists, as initially formulated, in a state of spiritually conceived ‘ideas’. The plan then becomes externalised in four major stages. The first three of these stages give rise to the inauguration of the physical body of man, the incorporation of the etheric body and then the addition of the astral/soul body. In each of these stages the body, or bodies, inaugurated in previous stages,  are advanced to a further level of development. Each stage of creation is brought about by the entry into the world ether of an etheric force which brings to manifestation all of the material aspects involved in that particular stage. At the end of these three stages ofcreation the vehicles, or bodies, by which the human Egos are to develop the qualities of Love, Wisdom and Will, exist as part of an interweaving continuum of Higher Beings and etheric forces, so that in a fourth stage a further force enters into creation which individualises these bodies (and at the same time individualises all other material beings and substances in the world system). This force makes the human bodies individual entities, cutting the human Egos off from awareness of the Spiritual Hierarchies and their activities and thus allowing them to evolve as the prodigal sons.

Thus, four basic, primary, spiritual impulses have emanated from the Spiritual Hierarchy to enter into creation. The first of these, that of the ‘Beings of Cosmic Will’, gave rise to a ‘warmth’ state of the cosmic ether. The second spiritual impulse acted on some ofthis warmth ether to evolve it to a second level, i.e., a higher state of the cosmic ether; the third spiritual force then acted on some of the second etheric force state to evolve it to a higher, third, etheric force level and the same process was repeated to evolve a fourth etheric force. Four etheric force states have therefore come sequentially into existence in creation, as a result of the spiritual activity of the Spiritual Hierarchies. At the same time, the Spirits of Adversity have at each stage grasped or ‘frozen’ some ofthe etheric force state of the cosmic ether which has then become ‘left behind’ in creation. This ‘left-behind’ material has given rise to the world of substance.

Thereby, after the initial creation of the warmth etheric state, each stage of creation has brought about, on the one hand, an etheric force emanation from the Spiritual Hierarchies, and, on the other hand, a substance state from the Spirits of Adversity. So, at the same time as more evolved spiritual forces have brought about more evolved states of the cosmic ether, so have more highly evolved material states come about. The cosmically creative forces of the Spiritual Hierarchies and the grasping, retarding, forces of the Spirits of Adversity oppose each other in the world of matter and thus bring about all the metamorphosing phenomena of the world of substance, such as form, colour, life processes etc., etc.

The first spiritual force produces energy, or warmth activity, in the world ether and is thus known as the warmth etheric force. This energy or force incorporated in the human being is the basis of the will activity of the physical body. At the same time it is also the basic energy of the physical world and against this man is forced to work and create in order to exist; thus he develops his own will. The function of the second force is to make man a thinking being in relation to processes taking place in an external world. To this end it introduces light into the world and is thus known as the light etheric force. On the one hand light acts in, and lights up, the external world. On the other hand, within man ‘light structures’ arise which form the basis of the nervous system, with its sense organs and thinking organ, so making man conscious of his external surroundings. The grasping, retarding activity of the Spirits of Adversity acting on this higher level etheric force, or etheric state, produces a more densified, gas-like, state. At the same time the light etheric force ‘frozen’ into the left-behind material world gives rise to the light bearing electricity.

The third etheric force brings about the physical/ etheric basis by which man can lead an inner life of feelings which he has to raise to the level of Creative Love. This withdrawing inwards of man is opposed by the raying-out light etheric force which brings to man awareness of his environment. Thus man’s existence begins to fluctuate between external experience and inner activity. A similar interplay begins within the environment and the left-behind entities, between the ‘drawing-in’ activity of the new force and the raying-out of the light etheric force. This gives rise to the growth and decay of forms and entities in the world, as the inter-weaving of the forces causes one or other of them to dominate the situation. Again, this higher ether grasped by the Spirits of Adversity results in the appearance of a more substantial material state, bringing about a coherence to a liquid-like state. Within this ‘left-behind’ state the frozen-in, inter-relating activity between the light etheric force and the new etheric force gives rise to the inter-relationships of physical substances that modern science classifies as chemistry. Thus this etheric force is known as the chemical etheric force.

The fourth etheric force is that of ‘procreative partition’ i.e., the basic force of evolution which causes the God-head/Universe to strive to subdivide into endless forms and beings which then evolve to take on a life of their own. Thus, out of the previous inter-weaving, inter-flowing stage of creation, individual substances, forms and entities separate. The human Ego can then enter a human body in which it comes to experience itself as an individual being in relation to other individual beings and things of the world. Since the objective of this force is to give rise to entities which can develop an individual life of their own, it is known as the life etheric force.

What we now experience in our material world began in a comparatively rudimentary form and has only arrived at the present state by undergoing many subsequent developments. When, for example, the creation of the light etheric-gaseous state is referred to, it is not the gaseous dense state that we experience now, but a fore-runner of the present substantial state, for the original state has undergone subsequent phases of densification. Likewise, the human physical body started as a tenuous wraith-like entity and by undergoing subsequent stages of densification has now become the fully developed body that we experience.

The retarding principle operative at each phase of creation gave rise to the substances and entities of the left-behind kingdoms of Nature. The nature and properties of these substances and entities are determined by the stage at which they became left behind. The mineral kingdom is the material left-behind at the first tenuous creation of the physical bodies, out of the inert cosmic ether that has subsequently undergone the three stages of densification. This kingdom thus spans from inert-gaseous materials, which represent the lowest degree of formation from the basic inert unformed cosmic ether, to varying degrees of response or activity, which, as living responses, are the property of the more advanced plant kingdom. The basis of the plant kingdom arose when some living, physical, entities had not sufficiently advanced to take up an inner experiencing astral body in the next stage of creation of the animal world. Thus plants span from near mineral, with very elementary uni-cellular forms of life which are almost like living crystals, to highly complex organisms which approach animals in their functioning and response behaviour. There is also development in depth from primeval roots, corresponding to the further development during each stage of creation, of each state that has been left behind at earlier stages. The animal kingdom arose when some of the entities which had developed as far as physical, living, feeling bodies were not sufficiently advanced to take up an Ego in our present stage of evolution of the human being. The animal world therefore spans from near plant-like i.e., a group living-response behaviour, to near human, i.e., towards behaving as individually responsive Ego-beings. Again there is development in depth from primeval species left behind at the various stages ofcreation within this span of behaviour.

The material world as we experience it with our sense organs only came into being when the fourth individualising, solidifying, etheric force entered into creation. This gave solidity, or material substance, to what otherwise existed as retarded or ‘congealed’ etheric force activity, itself activated by spiritually conceived ideas. The first aspects of creation to respond to this solidifying force were those least imbued with the vivifying spiritual/etheric activity of the Spiritual Hierarchies and most under the domination of the Spirits of Adversity i.e., the least evolved. Thus the mineral world, left behind in the first stage of creation, appeared first, then the plant world, followed by the animal world and then man. However, the first and foremost objective of creation, and that which began first at spiritual and etheric levels, was the creation of the human being.

In the remaining behind activity of the Spirits of Adversity at the various stages of evolution, the etheric forces have become incorporated or congealed as substance. Thus the material world contains all the formative etheric forces used by the Spiritual Hierarchies. As man comes to understand this world he can ‘free’ and ‘redeem’ these forces, which are otherwise active in Nature, as in heat, light, energy and the forces that determine form and functioning such as foods, medicine etc. The remaining behind aspect of evolution therefore provides the material basis for man to live, and to learn to work with, the creative forces on his path to becoming a creator himself.

At first the activity of the Spiritual Hierarchies is manifest as an interweaving throughout a continuum of basic world substance. However, this is rather like initiating an educational system by putting children (the prodigal sons), highly evolved teachers and school builders (the Second and Third Hierarchies) and even more highly evolved educational planners (the First Hierarchy) all to work in a confused medley, in which each experiences the totality of problems involved. Thus, as the plan progresses the interweaving activities become differentiated, i.e., Beings, forces and substances are separated out to achieve the right balance necessary for the eventual development of conditions as we now experience them on earth. In this way the differentiation occurs between a world continuum and the planetary system that we now observe. Since each stage of creation results in the creation of a major planet the stages are named after that planet.

The first, warmth ether force, or Old Saturn, externalised stage of evolution

Initially the Spiritual Hierarchies work at a spiritual or mental, level, of ‘ideas’, to formulate the plan by which man and the solar system in which man will evolve, are to be formed. Then there takes place the first stage of the externalisation of this plan as ‘substance’ which, in a much more highly evolved form, man now encounters as the physical world. For reasons that will become apparent this planetary stage of evolution is known as the Old Saturn stage. The Beings of Cosmic Will ‘pour out’ their Will substance into the cosmic ether to occupy the region in the cosmos which is now taken up by the solar system. The Beings of Solar Wisdom and the Beings of Solar Will work into this Will substance to incorporate into it movement, or life activity. This provides a continuum of living active Will substance. This etheric ‘warmth’ is an externalisation of the spiritual warmth of the Spiritual Hierarchies and it forms the basis of man. Thus, as he evolves man becomes a free and independent being who generates spiritual/etheric/physical warmth within himself. This warmth activity does not manifest immediately throughout the basic world substance, but spreads outwards from a central source. Thus, when man today ‘frees’ the now highly evolved, warmth state from the mineral world it has the property of spreading out in all directions (in contrast, for example to gravity which draws in from all directions).

The first stage in the formation of the entities that are to become human bodies then takes place. This is the beginning ofthe creation of a physical ‘spiritual organ’ for man i.e. the human head, and this occurs by the differentiation of the continuum of warmth into spherical entities. These ‘warmth spheres’ are then worked on to elicit from them a reflection in response to the external impulses of the Spiritual Hierarchies. It has been mentioned previously that this particular task is carried out by the Beings of Personality who thereby attain to Ego-hood. The first tenuous stage of development of the ‘puppet beings’ which are to become the vehicles for the prodigal sons of humanity thus takes place. In his description of this stage of development Steiner states ‘Picture to yourself a mulberry or a blackberry, composed as it is of ever so many tiny berries. To the supersensible observer Saturn looks like this in the evolutionary epoch here described. It is composed of the single Saturn Beings who have no life or soul of their own but ray back the life and soul ofthe Beings that dwell around them.’

It is at this stage, with the first creation of the material world, that space and time as we know them come into being in the sense that there are now tenuous entities which can be related to one another in position so that space exists, and since changes take place, these are manifest as a sequence of events occurring in the entities, so that time comes into being. Activities such as those taking place within the human soul and the world of the Ego (spiritual creative activity) which, although linked to events in the material world, do not actually take place there, are not subject to this space and time. The Spiritual Hierarchies’ plan for the creation of the world and man exists in the spiritual world outside of space and time. The externalised happenings react back and register in relation to this plan in the spiritual world. There thus exists a sort of World Memory (usually known in the Eastern terminology as the Akashic record), so that after each stage of evolution the Spiritual Hierarchies can contemplate the progress achieved in earlier stages. It is by entering into a state of consciousness that enables them to perceive the events engraved in the Akashic record that objective mystics claim to be able to perceive the events outlined here.

The Light ether force (Old Sun) externalised or material stage of evolution

The first stage of creation has resulted in the formation within the otherwise inert world ether of tenuous spherical entities of energy or warmth which reflect changes imposed on them from without. The Spiritual Hierarchies then withdraw from external creative activity into a spiritual state in which they contemplate the results of their labours and replan further evolution in the light of what they have achieved. As a result they then turn the fruits of their external activity into inner spiritual awareness and thereby evolve their abilities as Creators. At the same time the warmth entities absorb their external experience into themselves, in much the same way that a child at school first performs actions e.g., calculating, modelling etc., at the behest of the teacher and then absorbs this ability into itself and makes it its own, becoming thereby a being that can calculate and model. The warmth entities were willed into being by the Spiritual Hierarchies and caused t o respond by reflecting changes in the external environment (a mineral-like response). By taking this experience into themselves they become beings of inner will and response. Some warmth entities however, do not attain to making response an inner activity. These remain behind as an ‘environment’ in which the evolved warmth entities exist. Eventually, after the further stages of evolution, the ‘left behind’, unresponsive warmth substance becomes the mineral kingdom.

The next stage of development of the physical body is the inauguration of the mechanism for acquiring wisdom. To this end the Spiritual Hierarchies introduce a new impulse into creation. This is a more evolved force i.e., a more developed state of the basic world ether, brought about by evolving some of the warmth etheric state to the higher light etheric state. Where the left behind light ether works as force in the world ether it condenses it down to a gas-like, substance, state. The light ether force working within the warmth entities creates the beginnings of the organs of ‘inner light’ i.e., luminous-gaseous structures which are the beginnings of the nervous system and the sense organs. The light ether force also acts on the left behind warmth entities to cause luminous-gaseous structures to arise in the environment.

The evolved warmth entities then comprise a spherical envelope or integument of warmth etheric state, within which luminous-gaseous forms occur as an inner response to the arising of luminous-gaseous structures in the environment [fig. 24, page 78]. This functioning of the ‘physical-substance’ body is brought about by the activity of the etheric formative forces permeating the ‘physical’ entity. Embryo man now comprises a tenuous physical body and the beginnings of an etheric force body by means of which, when fully developed, the incarnating Ego will be able to experience and function in the world. These entities are beginning to respond to impulses from without, by changes in a developing inner life, in somewhat the same way that a plant responds in an inner way to changes in the environment. At the same time they are beginning to have a dim perception of the environment around them. The light etheric state, like the warmth etheric state, also manifests from a central source outwards, so that when man now derives light from the material world it also has the property of spreading out in space.

The left-behind light etheric force acts to condense the basic world substance down to the more substantial gas-like state. Thus, whereas the first stage of etheric/material creation had occupied the solar system out to the orbit ofpresent day Saturn, this compression reduces the substance aspect to the size of the present day orbit of Jupiter. However, in the same way that some of the warmth material has been ‘left-behind’ in evolution, so some of the Creative Beings have not advanced as far as they could have done. For their evolution they have to continue to work with the left-behind material. Thus much, but not all of the left-behind warmth ether and the Beings working with it are gathered up and form the planet Saturn in the solar system. It is for this reason that the first planetary stage of creation is known as Old Saturn, and present day Saturn, although more evolved than at this stage, nevertheless represents a less evolved state of evolution, or one that has remained behind, compared to the earth planet. The Saturn Beings however, continue to play a part in the evolution of man; they work remotely, through the etheric forces, on the entities (in much the same way that the Sun now works remotely on man on earth) to elicit a response from the etheric force body, so as to shape the sense organs that will enable man to become aware of the left-behind material in his environment. Because in this stage the light etheric state appears, much of which later separates off to form the Sun, this is known as the Old Sun planetary stage of evolution.

The Chemical ether force (Old Moon) planetary stage of evolution

At first in the third planetary stage ofevolution there is a recapitulation in improved form of the two previous stages. The features that were imposed on the embryo human entities in the previous stage have become inwardly absorbed during the period of withdrawal, so that the ‘inner light’ is raised to the level whereby the entities become able to form inner pictures in relation to the light forms of the environment. That is, they attain to something like the consciousness that modern man has in dreams, only the pictures are directly related to the experience of the environment and are not independent of it as in dreams. Also, the plant-like exchange between the entities and the
gas-like environment has become incorporated as an inner response to the environment, so that ‘breathing’ arises in the entities. This creation of inner life activity is associated with the incorporation of a new etheric force into creation which evolves the physical and etheric bodies and the environment to a higher level. A further component, the astral body, is added to the human complex which gives it the beginnings of inner spiritual activity.

The action of the new etheric force is to ‘draw in’ towards a centre. The incorporation of this force in the entities makes the physical-etheric bodies into developing centres of existence from which the Egos will eventually be able to work. The lives of the entities then begin to comprise two parts, namely experience of an outer world through the activity ofthe light etheric force in the environment and in the developing nervous system of the body, and the beginnings of an inner life attained by withdrawing from this outer experience. The astral body is added to this physical/etheric complex, so that from the physical-etheric activities an inner spiritual life of thinking, feeling and willing will be able to develop. In this way the entities begin to develop a relationship between an inner and an outer existence.

At the same time the various groups of the Spiritual Hierarchy and the Spirits of Adversity work with this force in the environment. The ‘drawing-in’ property of the new etheric force opposes the raying-out light etheric force, so that fluctuating, interflowing forms arise, corresponding to the inter-weaving activities of the Spiritual Hierarchy and the Spirits of Adversity. This force further condenses the substance state of the Solar system and these fluctuating forms thereby attain a liquid-like state [fig. 25, p. 103]. There thus comes about the beginnings of what later become the rhythms in man, animals, plants and the elements of Nature. These fluctuations are necessary to bring about ever changing relationships ofwhich man can become aware, and thereby himself become a being able to create relationships. At the same time further senses are added to the human entities by the action ofthe new etheric force, so that the entities not only perceive through the effect of the light etheric force, but also taste and hear the environment.

Some of the entities have not developed sufficiently to take up an astral body and these remain behind as physical-etheric complexes. They do, however, become centres of activity of the new drawing-in etheric force. Structures arise in the environment which ray-out when under the dominance of the light etheric force and ‘draw-in’ when under the dominance of the new etheric force. These are the bases of the plant kingdom whose life cycles are a response to the environmental etheric force fluctuations. The new force also enters into the material of the world that has remained even further behind at the physical substance state. Thus physical substance also develops so as to ‘draw in’ and ‘ray out’. It is the interaction ofthe drawing-in and raying-out behaviour of different substances that gives rise to chemical behaviour, and so this force is known as the chemical etheric force.

The creation of the ‘puppet theatre’ and the ‘puppets’, in which the Egos of the prodigal sons are to undergo their experience and gradually take over, is approaching completion and the stage is nearly set for the drama of humanity to commence on earth. The members of the First Hierarchy had always supervised creation from a distance, intervening only when essential. The first two groups of the Second Hierarchy, the Beings of Solar Wisdom and the Beings of Solar Will, now work to perfect this stage of evolution, to ensure that it truly manifests cosmic wisdom. Then, when the Ego-man comes to experience the world he will be experiencing this wisdom and as he comes to understand the world he will thereby acquire wisdom for himself. The third group of the Second Hierarchy, the Beings of Solar Love, have now evolved to the level whereby they are to become responsible for guiding the evolution of man on earth, and they are to lead the Ego-men into unison with the vehicles that have been built up for them. Working under their direction will be the Beings of the Third Hierarchy, who carry out the tasks necessary to bring the development of man about. Only very rarely, when their higher qualities are essential, do Beings higher than the Beings of Solar Love intervene directly in further evolution.

The substance and the Beings of Saturn had separated out during the recapitulation phase of this stage of creation. With the introduction of the chemical etheric force the region ofcreation of material substance has become further condensed. Within this region the Beings of Solar Love and other relevant members of the Hierarchies have worked to further the development of the embryo human bodies and their environment. However, the conditions of warmth, light and chemical etheric states that have been created, are not suitably balanced for the ill)mediate development of man. They are the product of the intense activity of the highly evolved members of the Spiritual Hierarchy, whereas the Ego-man will need to experience vehicles, and an environment, in which changes take place at a slow pace suited to his level of development. Neither are the conditions suitable for the further evolution of the more highly evolved Beings of Solar Love, for whom they are too dense or coarse. At this stage therefore the Beings of Solar Love gather up the excess warmth and light etheric force and form their own planet, the Sun, from which they can project the etheric forces onto the earth. In this way, having worked to create the organs of consciousness within the entities, they can now work externally to stimulate man to bring these organs into use. Other High Beings who are more evolved than man but less evolved than the Sun Beings, separate off and form other planets suitable for their development within the solar system: that which remains is known as the Old Moon planet.

The human entities are then worked on by the Beings and forces in this Old Moon planet, on which they exist, to bring about experience of their environment, while the Sun forces operate to produce inner awareness of these experiences by inducing the dream-like inner imagery. These processes work independently of each other to produce alternating states of consciousness, corresponding to the beginnings of the rhythm of day and night and, on a longer time scale, of life and death.

The Life ether force (Earth) planetary stage of evolution

During the period of withdrawal the solar system has reverted to the unmanifest state and the Spiritual Hierarchies have withdrawn into an existence of purely spiritual activity. Then, when manifestation begins again, there is a recapitulation in advanced form of the previous three stages of creation. As with the earlier planetary stages of evolution, qualities that were previously imposed have become inwardly absorbed; a further new etheric force enters into evolution, and the Ego begins to enter the human complex.

In the previous, Old Moon, stage of evolution embryo-man had experienced interflowing, interacting relationships through the activity of the etheric forces. This has now become an inner activity. Within the nervous system it arises as the ability to form inter-relationships between the inner images i.e., the beginnings of the processes of association and dissociation in the brain which are involved in thought activity. Embryo man had also experienced a liquid flow exchange with the environment and this likewise becomes inwardly incorporated. Thus a liquid circulation system is formed within the body which interacts with the external environment and the processes of nutrition thereby develop. The astral body, which had previously caused a response to an experience determined by the feeling it invoked, also becomes inwardly incorporated. It thereby becomes possible for man to lead an independent inner life unrelated to external impulses.

Once again some ofthe entities are left-behind in evolution. Thus, in addition to the mineral world and the plant world, there now arise entities which have physical-etheric-inner experiencing body complexes but in which, unlike the potentially independent inner experience of man, these entities respond directly to external and internal impulses. This is the animal kingdom. In it, with the exception of higher animals that have come closer to Ego-hood and individuality, a comparatively fixed pattern of behaviour arises in response to particular stimuli. Animals thus live in accord with built-in patterns ofbehaviour i.e., instinctively. However, these patterns are built in by Beings much superior to man, so that in this respect e.g., the weaving of webs by spiders, the manufacture of honeycombs and honey by bees, the complex organisation of life in a community of ants etc., etc., animals express an intelligence greater than that as yet attained by man.

The function of the new etheric force is to create, out of the interftowing, interacting gaseous-liquid environment, entities having an independent life of their own. For this reason this etheric force is known as the life etheric force. Individualisation comes about by the activity ofthe normal Spiritual Hierarchies, as a result ofwhich individual living forms cohere within the inter-flowing environment. Independence is brought into being by the Spirits of Adversity. As they grasp some of the life etheric force and cause it to remain behind, so they make it independent of the living activity of the normal Spiritual Hierarchies, but in so doing they make it negative life etheric force, or a force for death. As the more powerful etheric force is grasped by the Spirits of Adversity it brings about a further condensation of the world of substance – to the solid state. Acting within the gaseous-liquid human entities, the negative life etheric force makes them more substantial. A rigid skeleton appears within them and a firm skin around them, so that they become self-supporting, independent beings. As the Ego comes to enter into these vehicles it then experiences ‘my body’ in relation to the rest of the world i.e., it experiences itself as an ‘I’. This individualisation also cuts off the prodigal sons from awareness of their origins and forces them to make their own independent way forward.

The bodies of man arise from an interaction between the on-going living activity of the normal Spiritual Hierarchies and the remaining behind negative-life, or death, activity ofthe Spirits of Adversity. The Ego thus experiences an earth life which treads a path between life and death. As the Egos enter these bodies or vehicles they use up the on-going spiritual forces associated with them to the ends of their own spiritual development; this causes the bodies to decline and revert back to the mineral world. The Egos then live in two worlds, one when they are incorporated into the physical bodies, experiencing the physical world, and the other when the body declines and they revert back to their spiritual origins and there work out the fruits of their experiences. Thus life and death arise.

During the recapitulation stage Saturn, Sun and the other planets separate off. The negative form of the life etheric force has condensed some of the substance down to the solid state and at the same time has pulled substance together to form the comparatively small earth within the solar system. The etheric structure of the earth now comprises four etheric forces. These are the warmth and light etheric forces which try to expand material and entities outwards to gaseous and warmth states of substance; the condensing, inward-drawing chemical etheric force which creates liquid; and the negative-life etheric force which creates solid and a stronger inward contraction. However, at this stage the deadening, mineral creating, negative-life etheric force is too strong for the vehicles and activities of the Egos, so the excess deadening force and mineral substance is separated off, as the earth’s Moon, to achieve the right balance of conditions necessary for the life ofman on earth. The earth then takes up a configuration in which, while all of the etheric forces work throughout the earth and its atmosphere, each force has its sphere of activity within which it is dominant. The earth’s negative life etheric force field is dominant in, and brings into being, the solid earth. The left-behind chemical etheric force is dominant in, and brings into being, the liquid periphery of the earth. The earth’s warmth and light etheric forces are dominant in, and bring into being, the gaseous-luminous earth’s atmosphere.

The left-behind, or negative, aspect of the life etheric force acts within the environment of the earth to bring to manifestation the material world which we now experience with our senses. The more material, less spiritual, kingdoms enter into manifestation first, so that the mineral world, plants and animals materialise in that order and prepare the environment for the vehicles ofman which are the last to materialise. The ‘solidification’ process also slows down the rate of evolution to make it suitable for the development of man and it also creates areas of solid land on which man can come to live, build and work out his destiny [fig. 26, p. 103]. At the same time the individualisation process gives rise to discrete minerals, plants and animals in the environment, so that what started as a continuum of creation has become a world of separate things and beings.

The Sun, as the centre of the Solar System, is the primary source of activity of the life etheric force and it causes substance to become incorporated in the individualised living forms of plants, animals and man. The Earth, the planets and the Sun then take up their relative movements. The beings at the periphery of the earth are then alternately subjected to the deadening, mineralising action of the earth’s negative-life etheric force field, which tries to reduce everything to this state, while during periods of sunlight the Sun force tries to raise substance up into individualised living forms. The alternating action of the Sun’s life etheric force produces ebb and flow in the etheric forces. These give rise to ‘life cycles’ and the rhythms of day and night and of the seasons. Although life is due to the combined ebb and flow of all the etheric forces, it is the Sun’s life etheric force that calls this ebb and flow into being.

In addition to the creation of suitable physical conditions for man the relationship between the physical/etheric bodies and the astral body is further developed, so that man not only experiences his environment independently from his inner awareness of the experience, but his inner awareness becomes completely severed from his experience. Thus man acquires the potential to become a free being, leading his own inner life. But this means that as the Ego enters and utilises these bodies it can contravene the pattern of life built into them by the Spiritual Hierarchies. The Ego can go its own way, and furthermore the Spirits of Adversity deliberately subject it to impulses which draw it hither and thither away from the path of evolutionary advancement. Thus in order to evolve and progress, it has to strive to find the true path for itself. This freedom from control by the Spiritual Hierarchies, and the ability of the Ego to go its own way, however, also introduces the possibility for it to live in disharmony with the evolutionary system, and this manifests as error, fear, illness and conflict.

Man has to lose awareness of the spiritual basis of his existence so that he can go his own way unimpeded. However, complete and free independence would leave man with absolutely no sense of direction or awareness of the nature and purpose of his existence, and therefore with no stability. Some contact with the spiritual forces leading and guiding human evolution is therefore maintained. In the ancient civilisations this is apparent in the mythology and cosmological religious teachings which formed the bases of these cultures. They represent a still retained dim awareness of the Spiritual Beings and forces guiding evolution forward during this last phase of the ‘being created’ stage of human existence. Against this background the Ego gradually learns to control its vehicles and to use them to become an ever more independent being on earth. However, this is only the beginning: Ego-man has to go forward on the path to becoming a Creator. It is only by doing this that the Ego fulfils itself, by fulfilling the potential that has been built into the vehicles and its circumstances in the world on which it finds itself. But the emerging independent Ego-man is by no means yet able to create the path forward himself. He has to be guided towards this path by the Spiritual Hierarchies, by provision of a spiritual force which, if men seek it, will give them a sense of direction and sufficient understanding of, or feeling for, the purpose of creation. To this end the most advanced of the Beings who create out of Love within the solar system (The Highest of the Beings of Solar Love), who give of themselves entirely for the purposes of evolution and for the development of man, incarnated in a human body as the Christ Being. The task which the Christ Being had to accomplish for mankind, thereby evolving further himself, was to eschew human egotism and live an existence on earth in harmony with the Will of the highest of the Beings of Solar Wisdom who pre-eminently controls evolution in the Solar System. Then, while experiencing the circumstances of life and the suffering of man, Christ, through His Teachings and Way of Life, created a spiritual connection between the Spiritual Beings guiding human destiny and the conditions of human existence on earth.

By this means the Christ introduced a new spiritual force into the human situation. Since that time men have been in the position whereby, as they attain to Ego-hood, they can utilise the spiritual and material forces and substances provided for them by creation in two ways. They can work for their own ends, in which case they experience disharmony, disease and discontent. Alternatively, they can seek to use their Ego-hood in the fulfilment of the ends of creation, by rejecting egotistical human beliefs and strivings and by seeking ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’, which lead them to spiritual forces enabling them to work in harmony, health and happiness towards fulfilment of the aims of creation.

According to objective mysticism the E arth period is one of inner or spiritual development and those ofhumanity who do not attain to the required end will be left behind as another lower kingdom, intermediate between the animals and the advanced, spiritually creative humanity, i.e., animal-men, at the end of the earth evolution. The ones who remain behind will be those who have made little effort to develop themselves, who have become dominated by egoistic, materialistic, or illusory idealistic impulses. It is not in any way predetermined, or necessary, that any person be left behind; each individual’s destiny is entirely in his own hands. Those that go forward will have developed the power of ‘Love’ – not love as humanity experiences it at present, in which a person loves, or does something for love, for the sake of the experience they get in so doing – but a much more highly evolved Love. In this case what advanced humanity then do in the world is a manifestation of Love in creation. Such of humanity as attain to this end go forward to future planetary stages of creation which are of a more spiritual nature. Objective mysticism portrays the evolution of man as descending from the spiritual to the material world, reaching its mid-point with the Christ Event and now proceeding slowly back to the spiritual, with the evolved humanity playing increasingly more spiritually creative roles in evolution.

Summary of the processes of creation

The literature of mysticism is not at first easy to comprehend. This is because the way of mysticism gives rise to an expansion of consciousness and thereby to awareness of a complexity of forces and Beings in addition to the already wide and complex range of our normal sense experience. Thus, at first, the new dimensions opened up by a study ofmysticism complicate, rather than simplify, a search for understanding. However, there is a compensation in that, when the viewpoint of objective mysticism is pursued to the ultimate origins of human evolution in the solar system, the primary purpose of human existence and the main features which it thereby incorporates are simple to grasp. They provide ultimate meaning and purpose where otherwise none exists. We have tried to condense the main features of the scheme of creation of objective mysticism, as we have expounded it, in three diagrams, [figs. 27 to 29]. If these are studied, pondered over and grasped, the text will soon become clear on re-reading. (Ample references are also given in the Appendix which will fill out and expand the skeletal outline presented here).

The stages of the creation of man are summarised in fig. 27. Firstly there is purely spiritual activity by the Spiritual Hierarchies in which the plan for the human stream of evolution is brought into being. This plan is then to be materialised by the Spiritual Hierarchies as they exert their spiritual qualities as forces in the cosmic ether. The essence of the plan is the creation of a physical world and physical/etheric/astral bodies so that the spiritual Egos ofman can experience, and learn to live in, this world. By working with the forces ofthe material world man is then essentially working with, and so acquires for himself as an independent being, the spiritual qualities possessed by the Spiritual Hierarchies.

The materialisation of the plan takes place in four stages. In the first of these, entities of warmth are created which form the basis of the spiritual/etheric/physical will energy of man. In the next stage the physical body aspect of the warmth entities is developed further by making it more substantial, i.e., by densifying part of it to a gas-like body. The etheric force aspect is further evolved by the addition of a light etheric force structure. These etheric structures respond to fluctuations in the etheric forces of the environment, and interact with each other, so that living activity arises in the body. The light etheric force structure forms the basis of the nervous system which will give man awareness; through this he will be stimulated to think and thereby to acquire wisdom.

In the third stage ofcreation a new (chemical) etheric force enters which carries the evolution of the physical and etheric bodies a stage further. It densifies the physical body to a liquid-like state and brings the gaseous body into inner activity, so that what had previously been simply responsive in the previous stage now comes under inner control as ‘breathing’. The entities have now advanced to the stage at which they can become vehicles for a spiritual, thinking, feeling, willing astral body which is thus incorporated in them. At this stage the astral body has built into it by the Spiritual Hierarchies a thinking, feeling, willing pattern of instinctive, animal-like, behaviour, but it affords the beginnings of inner experience which the Ego will later take up.

In the fourth stage of creation the life etheric force enters. This makes the physical body more substantial, or solid and it individualises it so that it develops a rigid skeleton and a firm skin and becomes independent and self-supporting. The life etheric force also raises the living activity of the etheric body to a higher level, by raising the response to the liquid state in the environment of the liquid-like body formed in the previous stage to an activity controlled from within, so that individually controlled nutrition begins. The astral body evolves from externally controlled, or instinctive, inner activity to develop an independent inner life. The bodies of man are now completed, the individual Ego can enter them, learn from the experiences and activities which they provide and then gradually assert itself as an individually independent spiritually creative being.

Man then experiences himself between two poles, the material and the spiritual. By working as a material being in the material world he becomes an effective Ego-being. But in working with the material world he is working with the ‘left-behind’ material of creation and if he is dominated by these experiences, he becomes himself a retarding ‘materialist’ force in evolution. On the other hand man also experiences himself as a being in whom live spiritually creative ideas for carrying existence and evolution forward. But if these ideas do not relate to reality then he pursues illusionary paths: for example, many aspects of philosophies, political systems, religious teachings, scientific theories, psychological viewpoints etc., are not derived from, and do not conform with, the facts of existence and to this extent lead to spiritual degeneration in man and in society. The essential feature of human existence is that man has all the time to be seeking the path between the material and the spiritual i.e., ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’.

The stages of the creation of the Earth and its beings are summarised in fig. 28.

There is firstly the spiritual development of the plan for the creation of man and the solar system. Then the plan begins to become incorporated externally as substance in which the spiritual activity becomes manifest as warmth activity in the cosmic ether. Essentially this follows the stages for the creation of man as outlined in the previous diagram, except that at each stage some part of what has been created remains behind to form the various kingdoms of Nature. Thus ‘warmth substance’ entities are first created; they incorporate various degrees of will response or activity. In the second stage form and the beginnings of function i.e., an exchange of activity with the environment (the beginnings of living response) are induced in the entities, to give rise to the basis of the plant world. Those warmth entities which have not attained to a sufficient degree of response to make this an inner property, and thus proceed to the plant-like stage, evolve further as ‘substance’.

In the third stage inner activity evolves to independent activity, giving rise to the basis of the animal world. Animals, unlike plants that rely entirely on Nature, have a degree ofindependent responsibility in actively pursuing their life cycle. In the animal, life is also evolved to a higher state so that the organic living response of plants becomes a complex system of inner organs of function. An astral body is added to the physical-etheric complex so that to a stimulus an inner experience arises. During this stage the material which had been left-behind as physical substance evolves further i.e., it becomes more substantial or dense. Plant-like entities which had not evolved inner response to a high enough level to take up an astral body, and thus evolve to inner experience, remain behind as the basis of the plant kingdom and these evolve further in complexity.

In the fourth stage man comes into being, with the evolution of these bodies to a higher level. In particular the astral body develops from being under external control to becoming independent, so that man can lead a life of self-generated spiritual creativity as the Ego takes over the human complex. Thus we now experience ourselves as spiritually active thinking-feeling-willing inner beings inhabiting bodies provided by Nature. These bodies comprise warmth, gas which we exchange with our environment by breathing and liquid and solid which we exchange with our environment through nutrition. In this way we comprise, and experience through our various bodies and forces, all of the spiritual and etheric forces and material substances in the solar system: that is, man is a miniature world system interacting with the total world system, or a microcosm within the macrocosm.

Fig. 29 summarises the relationships between the Spiritual Beings, the spiritual qualities, the etheric forces and the physical world. On the one side the normal Spiritual Hierarchies work into the cosmic ether with the spiritual qualities of Will, Wisdom and Love to bring into being a world which manifests these qualities as living activity. On the other side the Spirits of Adversity try to grasp what has been created, to with-hold it from the normal Spiritual Hierarchies and to make ofit an independent world. The physical world in which we live and which we experience with our sense organs is a narrow band of interaction between these two opposing streams of spiritual activity. In this world we struggle with adversity and thereby develop for ourselves the spiritual qualities of willing, thinking and feeling.

 

The four basic spiritual qualities of Will, Wisdom, Love and generative partition have entered sequentially into creation to bring into being the warmth, light, chemical and life etheric forces. Each higher etheric force is a more evolved state of the cosmic ether derived by spiritualising to a higher level part of the lower etheric state. At each stage part of what is created is grasped and held back by the Spirits of  Adversity to form an independent world of material substance. As each successively more powerful etheric force is grasped so the material world becomes more substantial.

All four etheric forces are present to some extent in all manifestations of the material world, but the nature, form and activity of the substance is dependent on the balance of the forces involved. The mineral world is that part of evolution that became left-behind at the first stage of creation. As such, it is the most cut-off from the living activity of the normal Spiritual Hierarchies, or the most ‘dead’ part of creation. The higher kingdoms of Nature respond to a greater or lesser extent to the etheric force activity of the normal Spiritual Hierarchies and the form and function of this response is determined by the interaction and dominance of the forces involved. Essentially the warmth etheric force is a manifestation of Will as warmth, or energy, in the cosmic ether and it divides the manifest state into spherical formations of activity. Where substance manifests as spherical formations, as in mulberries, raspberries etc., there is a dominant warmth etheric force influence active in the shaping of the substance. The light etheric force produces luminosity which gives rise to awareness, thinking and wisdom. As such it manifests as a raying-out action. Thus raying-out forms in Nature are substance under the dominance of this force; typical examples of such forms are the raying-out structures of trees and bushes as seen bare of leaves in winter. Within man this raying-out formation has become inwardly incorporated and at the same time inverted (making it more independent). It is the structure of the nervous system that permeates the body and ends in the sense organs and the brain, and is the physiological basis of awareness. The function of the chemical etheric force is the creation of centres of inner life. As such it manifests as a drawing-inwards and it gives rise to circular disc formations. In Nature those leaves which are nearly round show the round disc formation typical of chemical ether.

The function of the life etheric force is to individualise and give substantiality to substances and entities within the inter-weaving cosmic activities of the Spiritual Hierarchies. As such it permeates and creates the physical, substance, world that we experience with our sense organs. The left-behind aspect of the light etheric force gave rise to a gas-like state, while the left-behind aspect of the chemical etheric force brought about a liquid-like state. Gases and liquids as we know them now did not, however, come into being until they were permeated and given substance by the left-behind aspect of the life etheric force. A gas is thus the left-behind light ether stage of creation ‘grasped’, but not over-powered, by the left-behind, deadening aspect of the negative life etheric force. Liquids arise where the left-behind chemical etheric force is grasped, but not over-powered, by the negative-life etheric force. Where the life etheric force in its negative form is dominant in the left-behind physical world, solid substances arise. The function of the negative form of the life etheric force is to make independent, or shut-off, substances and entities from the inter-weaving cosmic activities of the normal Spiritual Hierarchies. As such it manifests a cutting-off, planar, or, in more complete form, a cubic or squaring action, as in the formation of the cubic structures of crystals.

Fig. 25. In the third stage of creation the chemical etheric force densifies the world ether to a liquid-like state. Interweaving, interflowing forms appear with a tendency to become rounded, while into these chemical etheric forms rays the light etheric force. Flight Over the Ocean
by Gerardo Dottori Reproduced (by kind permission of the artist) from ‘Cosmic Art’ by Raymond and Lila K. Piper (Ed. Ingo Swan) Hawthorn Books, New York, forthcoming.

Fig. 26. In the fourth stage of creation the life etheric force condenses the interflowing forms down to the substance state of the
material world as we now experience it. Solid land forms arise amidst the flowing liquid substance of the oceans. This provides the
environment for the womb of life which is to arise under the influence of the raying down etheric forces from the Sun. Fragment of a World
Gerardo Dottori Reproduced (by kind permission of the artist) from ‘Cosmic Art’ by Raymond and Lila K. Piper (Ed. Ingo Swan) Hawthorn Books, New York, forthcoming.

Colour key to Figs 32a and 32b.
Red-warmth ether dominated outer atmosphere
Yellow-light ether dominated inner atmosphere
Blue—-chemical ether dominated oceanic periphery
Brown-negative-life ether dominated solid earth
Green-zone of etheric force interaction in which life processes are enacted.

Fig. 32a. Idealised equilibrium state of the earth’s etheric structure of four concentric interpenetrating spheres. The domains show the
regions where each ether is dominant, but they all interpenetrate and each ether is present to some extent in all zones. The physical earth boundary lies in the chemical ether zone. (Within the body of the earth is a further sub-division of etheric structure not considered here).

Fig. 32b. In the morning under the action of the Sun the chemical ether is drawn up out of the earth and the warmth and light ethers
penetrate down through the atmosphere, to bring about circulation and growth in the plant . At night the ethers revert to their equilibrium
state (as in Fig. 32a). Thus there arises a rhythmic ‘breathing’ of the etheric forces of the earth. This breathing is stronger in Summer, when the Sun’s influence is more powerful, than in Winter when the equilibrium state is much less disturbed, from ref. 198 .