Summary of Part of the Foregoing
within him a real ego, which belongs to a super-spiritual world. In the
physical world this real ego is, as it were, concealed by the experiences
of thinking, feeling, and willing. Even in the spiritual world man only
becomes aware of his real ego when he effaces in himself the memories
of everything which he is able to experience through his thinking, feeling,
and willing. The knowledge of the real ego emerges out of forgetfulness
of what is experienced in the physical world, the elemental world, and
the spiritual world.
physical body is revealed in its true nature when the soul beholds it
from the super-spiritual world. Then it becomes evident that that body
first took its rise out of the universal cosmic process during a Saturn
period which preceded the Sun period of the earth. Subsequently, during
the Sun, Moon, and Earth periods, it developed into what the human physical
body is at present.
with the foregoing, man's collective being may be expressed in tabular
form as follows :
physical body in the environment of the physical world. By its means
man recognises himself as an independent individual being or ego.
This physical body was formed, at its first beginning, from the universal
cosmic essence during a long-past Saturn period of the earth, and
through its development during four planetary metamorphoses of the
earth has become what it now is.
The subtle, ethcric body in the elemental environment. By its means
man recognises himself as a member of the earth's elemental or vital
body. This body was formed, at its first beginning, from the universal
cosmic essence during a long-past Sun period of the earth, and through
its development during three planetary metamorphoses of the earth
has become what it now is.
The astral body in a spiritual environment. Through it man is a member
of a spiritual world. In it is situated man's other self which realises
itself in repeated earth-lives.
The real ego in a super-spiritual environment. In this man finds himself
as a spiritual being, even when all experiences of the physical,
elemental, and spiritual worlds, and therefore all experiences of the
senses and of thinking, feeling, and willing, sink into oblivion.