II. The Elemental Kingdoms of Nature

Now I have earlier referred to Egos living on the astral plane—namely, to the group-souls of the animals. But in this case we are dealing with another species of Egos, dwelling upon the astral plane, which work upon the human being and vitalize his blood, when the Ego of man has abandoned it. By what means do they accomplish this? And what is it that they bring into the blood? They bring into it that which, ever since the time of Saturn, must always be present in the human body—namely fire, warmth. These are spirits which have never descended as far as the physical plane—spiritual Beings that live on the astral plane and have a body of fire. In the mineral kingdom, everything appears to us endowed with a certain degree of warmth. Warmth is met as a quality of solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies. Now try for a moment to think of warmth as something completely separate, which does not exist as such on the physical plane. But on the astral plane, you would find such a warmth, such a fire, flowing there and thither—such a fire which moves back and forth as a self-contained being—and within it, you would find embodied Beings such as we ourselves were on ancient Saturn. These Beings enter into the blood during the night, and vitalize it with their warmth. But something else must also take place—for the astral body also abandoned the blood, and this body too, is indispensable to it. Thus it is not sufficient if these Ego-beings alone approach man during the night and work upon him with their warmth-bodies—but other beings as well are needed, who can process the blood in the same way as the astral body does. These Beings have their Ego upon the Devachan plane, and this Ego possesses a still higher body, which is not even condensed as far as warmth. The Ego which I described first, did never descend even as far as the physical world, it remained on the astral plane. The second Ego descended even less, it has never entered the astral plane—it has remained in Devachan. It permeates the blood and brings about in it the same that the human astral body does during the day.