XVIII. What is seen on looking back into Man's previous Lives between Death and the new Birth (II)

From the Archangel Hierarchy Man receives for his ether-body what, in this body, corresponds to the Form in the physical body, which he owes to the Archai. Even as the physical body is adapted by its form to the Earth, to be the vehicle on Earth for Man's Self-consciousness, so is the ether-body adapted to the conditions of extra-earthly, cosmic forces. In the physical body lives the Earth; in the ether-body lives the Star-world. All that Man bears within him of inner forces, so that, while being upon Earth, he yet frees himself from the Earth in posture, movement and gesture—all this he owes to the creation of the Archangels in his ether-body. As the Earth-forces live, by means of its formation, in the physical body, so in the ether-body there live those forces, which from all sides, from the circumference of the cosmos, stream in towards the Earth. The Earth-forces that live in the physically apparent formation of the body are such as make the form a comparatively fixed and final one. The outlines of the man remain—with some subordinate changes—fixed for this entire earth-life; his aptitudes for movement harden into set habits, and so on. With the ether-body, all is in continual motion, reflecting the changes in the constellations of the Stars during human earth-life. Even with such changes in the heavens as day-and-night, the ether-body adapts its form accordingly; but also in accordance with the particular changes which take place between its own birth and death.