VIII. Man's First Ancestors

With incarnation in physical matter a most important change came over the souls themselves. As long as the souls remained unconnected with the material world, no outward material occurrence could affect them. All influences affecting them were purely psychic, or clairvoyant. Thus in their life they shared the astral influences of their surroundings, and it was in this way that they took part in, or experienced, everything that existed at that time. The impressions made by stones, plants, and animals, then also existing in a purely astral (Soul) form, were felt as inner experiences of the soul. On entering the plane of our earth, something quite new was added. Outer material events brought influences to bear upon the soul, which had thus robed itself in a garment of etheric matter. At first these influences consisted of motions in the outer material world which caused corresponding activity in the etheric body. In the same way as the vibrations of the air now affect us in the form of sound, so were those etheric beings affected by the vibrations of the etheric matter surrounding them. Such a being was, in fact, a single organ of hearing. This sense was the first to be developed; but from this we see that the separated organ of hearing was formed at a later period.