viii. The Hyperborean and the Polarean Epoch

The soul or astral ancestors of man were transported to the refined or etheric earth. So to speak, they sucked the refined substance into themselves like a sponge, to speak coarsely. By thus becoming penetrated with substance, they developed etheric bodies. These had an elongated elliptical form, in which the limbs and other organs which were to be formed later were already indicated by delicate shadings of the substance. All processes in this mass were purely physical-chemical, but they were regulated and dominated by the soul.