II. The Elemental Kingdoms of Nature

Now, what does the plant-world do? You will understand what takes place in the case of a plant, if you bear in mind the following: You have always been told that the Ego works upon the man's other bodies and transforms the astral body into the Spirit-Self. To the same degree that this takes place, do the laws of the plant kingdom stream into the human nervous system. When the human being has reached the next stage of clairvoyance, the laws of the animal kingdom will permeate his glandular system, and when he works upon the transformation of his physical body, the laws of the human kingdom itself will flow into the human body. All this should be thought of as applying to the waking state and to the various stages of a higher clairvoyant consciousness. Thus we can say that the human being has reached, at the present time, a stage where the Ego permits the laws of the mineral kingdom to stream into the blood. But it is able to do this only during the waking state because the mineral laws can enter the blood only while man is awake. While he is asleep however, the blood must also be cared for. And because this blood has been worked upon, throughout four successive stages (of evolution), three other powers must now step in with their activity. The first of these is a power which is the most closely related to the way in which the Ego works upon the blood—but it is a power which has not descended as far as the physical plane. The blood would be given over to death, did not another Ego work upon it, while the human being is asleep. Another Ego which has remained on the astral plane, and now intervenes by taking over the work upon the blood. If we observe the human blood, this “special juice”,[^3] we find that while the human being is awake, the Ego of man is active within it, here on the physical plane. During the night however, the blood is worked upon by an Ego which dwells upon the astral plane. For there are such Egos.