IV. The Apocalypse and Theosophical Cosmology I

The esotericist does not refer to what rock and metal complexes are as “earth”, but rather he also refers to what belongs to the earth: the mineral world, the plant world, the animal and human world. Then we have to imagine this earth as emerging from an earlier state. You don't have to imagine it like the present earth either, but rather imagine the earth at that time in a much finer matter, not at all in a physical matter, but in a matter that can be imagined something like what we call the human astral body, which envelops and permeates the human being in the form of a cloud. The Earth at that time consisted of such matter. This state has condensed to our present physical state. That is why it was called the astral globe preceding our Earth. The following one, into which our Earth will transform, is again similar to this state in terms of matter; it is also astral. In contrast to the astral globe, the third globe is called the plastic globe, because if you look at the earth in this astral state, it appears undifferentiated to you, a mass in which you can distinguish many fewer entities than in the third globe.