eir periods of
activity in connection with Saturn succeed other periods, during which
they live, as it were, in other worlds. At these times their activity is
withdrawn from Saturn. On this account clairvoyant perception sees an
ascent and a descent in the Saturn evolution that has been described. The
ascent lasts until the formation of the heat condition. Then, with the
play of light, the ebb-tide sets in. When the human phantoms have assumed
form through the Lords of Will, the spiritual beings have also gradually
withdrawn themselves. The Saturn evolution dies away; as a phase of
evolution, it disappears. A kind of resting pause occurs.

The human germ at the same time enters upon a state of dissolution; not,
however, a state in which it passes away, but one like that of a plant
seed, resting in the earth in order that it may ripen into a new plant.
Thus the human germ reposes, until a new awakening, in the depth of the
cosmos. And by the time the moment of awakening has arrived, the spiritual
beings described above have acquired, under other conditions, the
faculties by means of which they can further advance the human germ. The
Lords of Wisdom have, in their etheric body, gained the faculty not only
of enjoying the reflection of life as they did on Saturn, but of pouring
life forth from themselves, and endowing other beings with it. The Lords
of Motion are now as far advanced as were the Lords of Wisdom on Saturn.
Then the lowest principle of their being was the astral body; they now
possess an etheric, or vital body; and in a corresponding degree the other
spiritual beings have reached a further stage of evolution. All these
spiritual beings are therefore able to work at the further evolution of
the human germ in a different way than on Saturn.

But the human germ was dissolved at the end of the Saturn evolution. In
order that the more highly evolved spirit-beings might resume their work
where they had left it off, the human germ must once more briefly
recapitulate the stages through which it had passed on Saturn. This, in
fact, is what appears to clairvoyant faculties of perception. The human
germ comes forth out of its retirement and begins to develop by its own
ability, by means of the forces which had been implanted within it on
Saturn. It comes forth out of the darkness as a "being of Will," and
assumes the appearance of life, of soul qualities, etc., up to that
mechanical manifestation of personality which it