possessed at the end of
the Saturn evolution.

-------------------------------------

The second of the great periods of evolution that have been mentioned, the
"Sun period," effects the raising of man's being to a higher stage of
consciousness than that which it had attained on Saturn. Compared with
man's present state of consciousness, the Sun condition might certainly be
termed "unconsciousness." For it is approximately that condition which
contemporary man experiences during absolutely dreamless sleep. Or it
might be compared to the low degree of consciousness in which our
vegetable world now slumbers. For occult science there is no such thing as
unconsciousness, but only different degrees of consciousness. Everything
in the world is conscious.

In the course of the Sun evolution, the human being attains a higher
degree of consciousness through the incorporation within it of the
etheric, or vital body. Before this can take place the Saturn conditions
must be recapitulated in the manner described above. This recapitulation
has quite a definite meaning. That is to say, when the period of rest
which was spoken of in the foregoing statement has come to an end, that
which was formerly Saturn issues forth, out of "cosmic sleep," as a new
celestial body, the Sun. But the conditions of evolution have meanwhile
changed. The spiritual beings, whose activity on behalf of Saturn we have
portrayed, have progressed onward into different conditions. Yet at first
the human germ appears on the newly formed Sun in the form it possessed on
Saturn. It has first of all so to transform the various stages of
evolution through which it has passed on Saturn that they may suit the new
conditions on the Sun. Consequently, the sun epoch begins with a
recapitulation of the occurrences on Saturn, adjusted to the changed
conditions of Sun life. Now when the human being has advanced so far that
the stage of evolution it reached on Saturn has been adapted to the Sun
conditions, the Lords of Wisdom already mentioned, begin to let the
etheric, or vital body, pour into the physical body. The higher stage
which man reaches on the Sun may therefore be characterized in this way:
the physical body, already formed in the germ-state on Saturn, is raised
to a second stage of perfection by becoming the vehicle of an etheric or
vital body. This last-named etheric body attains its first degree of
perfection on its own account during the Sun