5. Mineral, Plant And Animal Creation

Such things naturally seem paradoxical because they touch upon a reality of which modern man usually has no conception; nevertheless they are absolutely true. Now it corresponds with reality today if memory enables someone to say: ‘When I was nine years old I gave a friend many a sound thrashing.’ One may or may not feel gratified by such a memory, or it may pain one; but it does arise within one. Similarly, in human consciousness expanded through relationship with the metals into an Earth consciousness, this realisation arises: In the process of forming your whole being on Earth out of the heavens, during the descent you separated, cast off the plants from yourself. You also cast off the animal nature; your desire, to begin with, was that in the form of gelatinous coagulation or gristle it should be a product secreted by you. But then you were obliged to realise that pre-existent Earth-forces took this task over from you and reshaped the animal form into different structures which are products of the Earth. In this way, as it were in a cosmic memory, these happenings seem to be actual experiences of our own, just as the other incident I mentioned is an experience belonging to a brief earthly life. As man, we feel ourselves bound up with these happenings.