43. Consciousness – Life – Form

When the development of Saturn began, the human body was in a state of formlessness. It first had to develop the creative ability before a soul could experience its first material life in it. This means that the body first had to develop through the seven stages of creative activity before its soul could live through it. This soul must now come so far that it can communicate its inner movement to each of the seven forms of the body. The first time the body passes through its seven forms, it is still quite lifeless. It only comes to life at the seventh stage, when the body becomes creative. And it must now awaken, because the body expends substance in its creative activity. These must be replaced by the soul. And now a second cycle begins. The substance that flows into the body as a replacement passes through the seven stages from formlessness to creative ability. When it has reached this point, the soul no longer limits itself to the experiences that the movement of the incoming substance brings about, but instead begins a new stage of life. The incoming substance, having itself become creative, begins to fill the body internally. Before, it only made up for what was lost; now it is deposited in the body. And again it passes through all forms from formlessness to creative ability. First it is deposited in the body without taking on form, then it gradually takes on forms, develops powers, fashions structures, gives them a physiognomic expression, etc. During this entire cycle, the soul undergoes its third stage of life. It harmonizes this inner structure and balances what has been disturbed by the inner processes. When the material has been shaped internally, it then proceeds to a fourth stage, in which it allows the outside world to have an effect on it. It can do this because the soul that inhabits it has now matured to experience the impressions of its surroundings in a dull way and thus to repeatedly restore order to the disorders caused by the outside world. In the next cycle, the body no longer stops at organizing itself; it transforms itself under the influence of the outside world. The soul has matured to regulate this transformation. Then a cycle begins for the body in which it perceives the effects of the outside world as sensations. The soul again forms the regulator of this level of existence. Finally, the body has reached its last stage: it can experience the outside world. The soul is now so far that it experiences a next stage, namely the next level of consciousness in a higher world for the Saturn existence. It thus undergoes the dreamless state of sleep during this last Saturn cycle. And it now transfers this to the physical body during the first solar cycle.