VI. Present and Future Evolution of the World and of Mankind

To a stage of seership higher than is needed for gaining knowledge of Old Moon and of the future Jupiter, beings and entities become perceptible which are the further-developed forms of what was present during Old Sun evolution. They are now at such a lofty level of existence as to elude a power of perception whose range is limited to the Old Moon and to the forms deriving from it. Also the spiritual picture of this higher world divides on further contemplation into two. The one part leads to a knowledge of the past Sun evolution; the other manifests a future cosmic form of the Earth, namely the form into which it will have changed when the results of all that has taken place on Earth and on Jupiter have flowed into the forms of yonder world—the forms deriving from the past Sun-condition. In the language of spiritual science, the future universe a higher stage is consciousness is thus enabled to perceive may be designated as the Venus state. Lastly a supersensible consciousness even more highly developed perceives an evolutionary state of the more distant future to which the name of Vulcan may be given. Vulcan is in like relation to Saturn evolution as Venus to Sun and Jupiter to Moon. Thus in considering the past, the present and the future of Earth evolution we have to name its successive stages: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan.