arnation. Thus we come upon a bygone physical planetary
condition, which was afterwards spiritualized, and subsequently
transformed into our earth by repeated materialization. Our earth is
therefore presented to us as the reincarnation of a very ancient planet.
But occult science can go back still farther; and it then finds the whole
process twice repeated. Thus, our earth has passed through three previous
planetary conditions separated by intermediate spiritual conditions of
rest. The physical substance, however, proves to be finer and finer the
farther back we follow the incarnations.

Now man, in the form in which he is at present evolving, makes his first
appearance upon the fourth of the planetary incarnations which have been
described, the Earth proper. And the essential characteristic of his form
is that it is composed of four principles, the physical, etheric, and
astral bodies and the ego. But that form could not have appeared if it had
not been prepared by the preceding events of evolution. The method of
preparation was that, in the earlier planetary incarnation, beings were
evolved who already had three of the present four principles of man: the
physical, etheric, and astral bodies. These beings who, in a certain
sense, may be called man's ancestors, had as yet no ego, but they
developed the three other principles and their mutual relationship to such
a point that they became sufficiently mature to receive an ego. Thus man's
ancestor attained to a certain degree of maturity of his three principles
during the earlier planetary incarnation. This condition became
spiritualized; and out of it a new planetary condition was formed in which
man's matured ancestors were contained, as it were, in embryo. Because the
whole planet had passed through a process of spiritualization and had
appeared in a new form, it offered those embryos, with their physical,
etheric, and astral bodies, which were contained therein, not only the
opportunity of again evolving up to the level on which they had previously
stood, but the further possibility, after having arrived at that level, of
reaching out beyond themselves through receiving the ego.

The evolution of the Earth divides itself, therefore, into two parts.
During the first period the Earth itself appears as a reincarnation of the
previous planetary state. But that recurring state is a higher one than
that of the previous incarnation, in consequence of the intervening period
of