xv. The Life of the Sun

On the Sun planet, man and the other beings mentioned in the course of the discussion of Saturn passed through another stage of their development in the second great cosmic era. The rudiment of the later physical body of man, which had gradually developed on Saturn, emerges like a plant from the seed at the beginning of the Sun cycle. But here it does not remain in the same state in which it was previously. It is permeated by a second, more delicate, but in itself more powerful body, the ether body. While the Saturn body of man was a kind of automaton (quite lifeless), now, through the ether body which gradually permeates it completely, it becomes an animated being. Man thereby becomes a kind of plant. His appearance, however, is not that of the plants of today. Rather in his forms he already somewhat resembles present-day man. But, the rudiment of the head like the plant root of today, is turned downward, toward the center of the Sun, and the rudiments of the feet turned upward like the blossom of the plant. This plant-man organism has as yet no capacity of voluntary movement.[^1]