Hyperborean epoch

The Hyperborean epoch was the second epoch in the current Earth cycle (CoF or globe), and is like an echo of the Old Sun planetary stage of evolution.

The major event that took place in the beginning of the epoch was the separation of the Sun with the Earth body (including the Moon).

Mainstream humanity was still in the early phases of development as an air-being, preparatory stages before the great transformation in the Lemurian epoch.

Nevertheless, the Hyperborean epoch is also called the age of the Sun Men or Apollo-Men, as the advanced 'solar pitris' (or 'fathers') were able to incarnate and form a particularly beautiful race with an upright form and completely transformed body.

Aspects

Earth and nature in the Hyperborean epoch - before separation Sun

• emergence of the albumen-like living slime (see Albumen): "through the working of the formative force of the chemical or tone ether, the substances dissolved in the fluid which were themselves water (element water) arranged themselves in conformity with the music of the spheres. The most important formation of the dance of the substances to cosmic music is albumen, protoplasm, the foundation of all living growth. The albuminous substance, protoplasm, now surrounded and entered into the fine structures, penetrating everything. (1908-03-16-GA102)

Note the separation of the Sun is described by Rudolf Steiner to have taken place at the start, in, or at the end of the Hyperborean epoch. On this site we go with the statement it is at the end of the Hyperborean epoch.. Some descriptions are in general for the early period before Separation of Sun, but it is not always clear, so some descriptions may well be placed into the Polarian epoch.

• The earth, sun and moon, if observed from outside, would have looked like a gigantic brain but softer and slimier, a body filled with life that consisted of millions of interlaced soft oysters that reproduced con­stantly. Each huge oyster reproduced very quickly and generated an offspring of upto a million of its own descendants in a very short time. The older ones dissolved again. (1922-09-27-GA347)
• For a description of these huge oysters, see also Earth and nature in the Lemurian epoch - before separation Moon. The description given there is not timed explicitly, but described as 'before the Separation of Moon' and after separation of the Sun, and so flows from the Hyperborean into the Lemurian epoch.

Separation of the Sun

see: Separation of Sun

• several statements in extracts point to the fact that the hyperborean epoch described was after the separation of the Sun
  • During the Hyperborean epoch .. the Earth emerged out of the Sun .. now the second or Hyperborean Race evolved. (1905-10-25-GA093A)
  • Only after the sun had separated from the Earth did it begin to shine upon it from outside. Therefore, we have a second epoch in human evolution when the human being had an existence as a form made of air as well as a plantlike form. The Polarian age was followed by the Hyperborean age, with a race of human beings who had airlike bodies. The sun had separated from the Earth and now worked from outside. (1909-05-15-GA104A)
  • 1905-03-18-GA090B mentions explicitly that at the beginning of the Hyperborean epoch, the Sun split off, which brought about a terrible catastrophe on Earth

Earth and nature in the Hyperborean epoch - after separation Sun

• the nature of the Earth and its kingdoms
  • Man was still unified with birds and lower mammals, birds separated off and became an own species within the air (not yet as later, but still containing the mammal aspect); basis for later amphibians such as the Ichthyosaurus and others. Initially these flying dragons were beautiful, they only became decadent during later densification (1904-12-27-GA090A)
  • in the hyperborean age the invertebrate animals split off (1907-11-22-GA100)
• the destruction and end of Hyperborean epoch through volcanic fire (source tbc)

Continent and climate

• an area with a tropical temperature around the North Pole, in Siberia, Northern Europe with inclusion of the areas which became sea (1904-07-15-GA092).
• "stretched out its promontories southward and westward from the North Pole and comprised the whole of what is now known as Northern Asia. . . . It was a real Continent, a bona fide land which knew no winter in those early days" (Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine)
• occupied the area now called northern Asia, joining Greenland and Kamschatka, bounded on the south by the great sea which rolled where is now the Gobi desert. Spitzbergen formed part of it, together with Sweden and Norway, and it extended south-westwards over the British Isles. Baffin's Bay was then land, which included the islands now existing there. ... The climate was tropical, and richly luxuriant vegetation clothed the sunny plains. ... Some of the oldest known lands of the earth are remains of the Hyperborean continent: these are Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, the most northerly parts of Norway and Sweden, and the extreme north cape of Siberia. (Powell, Solar system)

Man in the Hyperborean epoch

• descriptions
  • a race of human beings who had airlike bodies and plantlike form (1909-05-15-GA104A), "people were air beings, they were incarnated into air and were autonomeous in a swinging vibrating movement" (1904-07-26-GA090A)
  • "The human formations were bell-shaped and had a tubular opening at the top to receive the tentacles; they opened to the sun. (1906-08-31-GA095)
  • Man consisted of an astral body, working himself into an ether body consisting of two kinds of ether: life ether and chemical ether. (1904-GA011)
  • curious formless pudding-bag appearance (Powell, Solar system)
  • Man before separation of Sun, so first two epochs (from Earth's seven epochs)
    • first in the form of a sort of plant with a warmth body and its chalice opened upward into cosmic space; then this inner part began to light up as a sort or airy gas body took form outside and around the chalice form (1908-09-09-GA106); the view was then of cloud masses with chalice-like formation expanding in an upward direction, the chalice glowing with inner light, but with no firm boundaries dividing them from the collective Earth-mass. Man lived like a light-plant with had a dim consciousness (like the plant-world has today), and Man hung as though nourished on the umbilical cord of the Earth-mother. (1908-09-07-GA106)
• consciousness
  • "consciousness was not yet differentiated, but a general consciousness for all people in the astral shell. The consciousness of the individual remained a part of the common consciousness, and when it withdrew from one entity, it sank into another without interruption .. there was an uninterrupted continuity of consciousness." (1906-08-31-GA095)
• reproduction
  • Man took up the astral in himself so as to form himself
  • "fertilization was not of sexual kind, but carried out by the whole astral atmosphere. If a "tentacle" stretched down, it meant a fertilization of the human being, which could develop again others by it. " (1906-08-31-GA095)
• senses (1904-11-02-GA089)
  • were first able to detect differences in temperature (as air can be compressed into warm and cold) through a sense of feeling, via a temperature organ of the head, which projected like an lantern from the top of the head
    • later this changed into an organ of vision, the single eye of the Cyclops (incandescent and projecting in earlier times, now became the atrophied pineal gland)
  • the sense of touch was added to his physical plane consciousness (to the first race sense of hearing), and began to respond to the impact of water and air as well as of warmth (Powell, Solar system)

• two types in the second root race (Powell, Solar system)
  • one type with "no of trace of sex, but multiplied by expansion and budding like the first race"
  • second type: "slight indications of sexuality began to appear in these 'sweatborn' of the second race, and they showed within themselves adumbrations of the two sexes, and hence are spoken of as androgynes"
• also some backward entities and laggers known as egg- headed (Powell, Solar system). Note: for sweatborn and egg-headed see also the first half of the Lemurian epoch.
• During the first and second epochs the population of the Earth was very limited, and special helpappears to have been given to enable as many animals as possible to be pushed on so that they could become human before the 'door was shut' in the middle of the fourth epoche (Powell, Solar system)

Guidance of mankind

• In the Hyperborean epoch the Sons of the Sun were in position to incarnate, and they formed a particularly beautiful race: solar pitris became the beautiful Sun Men or Apollo-men, who had already attained the upright posture, completely transforming the Hyperborean bodies. This the other human beings were unable to do. (1905-10-25-GA093A)
  • see also related: there is a remarkable statement in 1906-10-04-GA091 about the principle of buddhi or Chrestos in the solar pitris and Sun Heroes, in the second Hyperborean epoch. See Discussion Note [1] on Christ in the future cultural ages and next epochs#3 - Second Hyperborean epoch
• Sun Heroes
  • "In the myths of various peoples we constantly find reference to such ‘Sun-heroes’ who descended to participate in human evolution .. a Man filled by such a Sun-being is something far more than he appears to be." and "for such Man, when a Sun-being descends in order to hold intercourse with one who has been chosen to become an instrument for the further evolution of others, the Sun begins to resound, and the sphere-harmonies to be heard." (1910-09-12-GA123, see Separation of Sun#1910-09-12-GA123)
  • see also Sun Hero as sixth stage in initiation, Initiation in ancient Mysteries#Aspects

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.573 shows the early stages of the Earth in the 'physical' Condition of Form of the fourth 'mineral' Condition of Life - see Three dimensions of Evolution. See also Schema FMC00.057C.

Taken from Iwer Thor Lorenzen's book 'Fundamental problems of evolution', original in DE 'Grundprobleme der Evolution' (1958-60)

Schema FMC00.462A presents the development of Man through the transitions of the separation of Sun and Moon.

At the end of the early text '1903-GA089 - Draft of a spiritual-scientific cosmology - Fragment from 1903/04', Rudolf Steiner describes various aspects explicitly before and after separation from Sun and Moon. The schema organizes these in tabular format to present them in a graphical layout and logic, for reference and study.

FMC00.369 shows the esoteric fish symbol, ichthys in Greek, used by the early Christians in the roman cultural age. It represents the Man-Christ-form, as Man had attained the physical form of the fish when the Sun separated from the Earth, and he had attained that stage of development through the workings of the Sun that was still one with the Earth and Moon, and included the Christ as the highest of the guiding Sun Spirits. The symbol sometimes also refers to the Earth before (or at the time of) the separation of the Sun.

Lecture coverage and references

Helena Blavatsky - Secret Doctrine

The “Hyperborean” will be the name chosen for the Second Continent, the land which stretched out its promontories southward and westward from the North Pole to receive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now known as Northern Asia. Such was the name given by the oldest Greeks to the far-off and mysterious region, whither their tradition made Apollo the “Hyperborean” travel every year. Astronomically, Apollo is of course the Sun, who, abandoning his Hellenic sanctuaries, loved to visit annually his far-away country, where the Sun was said never to set for one half of the year.

But historically, or better, perhaps, ethnologically and geologically, the meaning is different. The land of the Hyperboreans, the country that extended beyond Boreas, the frozen-hearted god of snows and hurricanes, who loved to slumber heavily on the chain of Mount Riphaeus, was neither an ideal country, as surmised by the mythologists, nor yet a land in the neighbourhood of Scythia and the Danube.

It was a real Continent, a bonâ-fide land which knew no winter in those early days, nor have its sorry remains more than one night and day during the year, even now. The nocturnal shadows never fall upon it, said the Greeks; for it is the land of the Gods, the favourite abode of Apollo, the god of light, and its inhabitants are his beloved priests and servants. This may be regarded as poetised fiction now; but it was poetised truth then.

rephrased from the Secret Doctrine, the below is taken from article by Pablo Sender (see 'Further Reading' section)

As the astral forms of the First Root Race floated around, the “spirit of the Earth” (referring to the elemental and nature spirits) was busy at work developing the bodies of the next Root Race. Using the astral forms as a template, nature built a denser, though still ethereal, covering around them. The original astral forms became now a subtler counterpart of the newly developed ethereal bodies of the Second Root Race.

This humanity was called “the boneless,” indicating that it was not yet a physical race. They were “the most heterogeneous gigantic semi-human monsters—the first attempts of material nature at building human bodies” (Secret Doctrine, 2.138). These “semi-humans” showed an instinctive intelligence, but they were still devoid of mind and self-consciousness. They too reproduced asexually, using a method of “budding and expansion.” (Today there are some simple animals, such as flatworms, which reproduce by budding, although this process is mostly associated with bacteria and yeast.) The egg-shaped aura surrounding the ethereal body extruded a small germ from itself, which would feed from its parent and expand until it gradually detached itself from its originator.

In the later part of this Root Race, the “buds” began to look like drops of sweat—“a kind of exudation of moisture or vital fluid.” (Secret Doctrine, 2.132). For this reason, the late second Race was called “the sweat-born.”

The land on which this Root Race developed was called by Blavatsky “Hyperborea,” in reference to the mythical perfect land of the Greeks:

The “Hyperborean” will be the name chosen for the Second Continent, the land which stretched out its promontories southward and westward from the North Pole to receive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now known as Northern Asia. . . . It was a real Continent, a bona fide land which knew no winter in those early days. (Secret Doctrine, 2.7)

...

1904-GA011

[Earth elements and ethers - separation to air and chemical ether]

The further development of earth takes place in such that from the one condition of matter there develop two.

A denser substantiality is secreted, so to speak, and leaves a thinner one behind. The denser substantiality resembles our present air; the thinner one is that which causes chemical elements to develop from previously undifferentiated substance. Along with these, a remainder of the previous substantiality, the living ether, continues to exist. Only a part of it is transformed into the so-called material conditions. We now are dealing with three substances within the physical earth.

[Man]

While the astral human beings in the envelope of earth previously acted only upon one kind of substantiality, they must now act upon three. They act upon them in the following way: That which has become airlike at first resists their activity. It does not accept everything which is rudimentarily present in the complete astral men.

As a consequence, astral humanity must divide itself into two groups.

• One group works on the air-like substantiality and creates in it a likeness of itself.
• The other group can do more. It can work on the two other substantialities;
  • it can create a likeness of itself which consists of the living ether
  • and of the other kind of ether which brings the elementary chemical substances into being. This ether will here be called the chemical ether.

This second group of astral men has acquired its higher capacity, however, only by separating from itself a part of the astral nature — the first group — and condemning it to a lower kind of labor. Had it retained within itself the forces which accomplish this lower labor, it could not have risen higher itself. here we are dealing with a process which consists in the development of the higher at the expense of something else, which is separated from it.

Within the physical earth the following picture now presents itself. Two kinds of entities have come into being

• First, entities which have an airlike body on which the astral being belonging to it is working from the outside. These beings are animal-like. They form a first animal realm on earth. These animals have shapes which, were they to be described here, would strike mankind of today as very peculiar. Their shape — one must keep in mind that this shape is based only on an airlike substance — does not resemble any of the animal forms existing now. At most they have a remote similarity to the shells of certain snails and mussels which exist today.
• Beside these animal forms the development of physical man progresses. The astral man, who has now ascended higher, produces a physical likeness of himself which consists of the two kinds of matter, of the life ether and of the chemical ether. One thus deals with a man who consists of the astral body and is working himself into an ether body which in turn consists of two kinds of ether: life ether and chemical ether.
  • Through the life ether this physical likeness of man is endowed with the capacity to reproduce itself, to cause beings of its own kind to emerge from it.
  • Through the chemical ether it develops certain forces which are similar to the present forces of chemical attraction and repulsion. Thereby this likeness of man is in a position to attract certain substances from the environment and to combine them with itself, secreting them again later by means of the repelling forces. These substances, of course, can only be taken from the animal realm described above, and from the realm of man. This constitutes a beginning of nutrition. Thus these first likenesses of man were eaters of animals and of men.

Besides these beings, the descendants of the earlier beings, composed merely of life ether, continue to exist, but they become atrophied, since they have to adapt to the new terrestrial conditions. After they have undergone many transformations, the unicellular animal beings develop from them, and also the cells which later make up the more complicated living organisms.

The following process then takes place. The airlike substantiality divides itself into two, of which one becomes denser, watery, while the other one remains airlike. The chemical ether also divides itself into two conditions of matter; one of them becomes denser and forms that which we shall here call the light ether. It endows the entities which possess it with the gilt of luminosity. On the other hand, a portion of the chemical ether continues to exist as such.

We are now dealing with a physical earth which is composed of the following kinds of matter: water, air, light ether, chemical ether. and life ether. In order that the astral entities can act on these kinds of matter, another process takes place by which the higher develops at the expense of the lower, which becomes separated from it. Thereby physical entities of the following kind are produced. First, those whose physical body consists of water and air. Now coarse astral entities which have been split off, act on these. Thus a new group of animals of coarser materiality than the earlier ones is produced.

Another new group of physical entities has a body which consists of air and light ether mixed with water. These are plantlike entities, which however are very different in form from the plants of today. Finally, the third new group represents man of that period. His physical body consists of three kinds of ether: the light ether, the chemical ether, and the life ether. If one considers that descendants of the old groups also continue to exist, one can judge what a variety of living beings there already were at that stage of terrestrial existence.

[Separation of Sun]

There now follows an important cosmic event. The sun is extruded. Thereby certain forces simply leave the earth. These forces are composed of a part of what hitherto had existed on earth in the life ether and in the chemical and light ether. These forces, so to speak, were withdrawn from the earth. A radical change thereby took place among groups of terrestrial beings which previously had contained these forces within themselves. They all suffered a transformation. Those which have been called plant beings above, first suffered such a transformation. A part of their light ether forces was taken from them. They could then develop as organisms only when the force of light, which had been withdrawn from them, acted upon them from the outside. Thus the plants came under the influence of the sunlight.

Something similar happened with human bodies. From then onward, their light ether also had to act together with the light ether of the sun in order to be capable of life. But not only those beings themselves which lost the light ether were affected; the others were affected too. For in the world everything interacts. Those animal forms, too, which did not contain light ether themselves had previously been irradiated by their fellow beings on earth and had developed under this irradiation. Now they also came under the immediate influence of the external sun.

The human body in particular developed organs receptive to the sunlight, that is, the first rudiments of human eyes.

The consequence of the extrusion of the sun was a further material densification of the earth. Solid matter developed from fluid; likewise the light ether separated into another kind of light ether, and into an ether which gives bodies the capacity to increase temperature. With this, the earth became an entity which developed heat within itself. All its beings came under the influence of heat. In the astral element a process similar to the previous ones again had to take place; some beings developed to a higher level at the expense of others.

A group of beings split off which were well suited to work on coarse solid substantiality. With this there had developed the firm skeleton of the mineral realm of earth. At first the higher natural realms did not act upon this rigid mineral skeleton. Thus, on the earth there exist a mineral realm which is solid, and a plant realm which has water and air as its densest substantiality. In the latter realm, through the events we have described, the air body had become condensed to a water body. There also existed animals of the most varied forms, some with water and some with air bodies. The human body itself had become subject to a process of densification. It had condensed its most compact corporeality to the point of wateriness. The newly-developed heat ether coursed through this water body. This gave to his body a substantiality which could perhaps be called gas-like. This material condition of the human body is described in works on mystery science as that of the fire mist. Man was embodied in this body of fire mist

[this is upto mid Lemurian epoch before separation moon]

1904-07-15-GA092

internet translation:

The Lemurians did not have what we call memory, imagination, intellect; the Lemurians had developed this only in the germ.

On the other hand, the second human race was endowed with a high spirituality, which only did not sit in the heads of the people, but which is to be imagined like a continuous revelation from the outside.

One called the second human race the Hyperboreans.

They lived around the North Pole, in Siberia, Northern Europe with inclusion of the areas which became sea. And if you think of this land with a kind of tropical temperature, you will get approximately the idea how the land was at that time.

It was originally populated by people who wandered around as single individuals like dream beings. If they had been left to themselves, they would not have been able to do anything. There was, so to speak, wisdom in the air, in the atmosphere.

1904-07-26-GA090A

p 277 (to be further translated still)

In the second Hyperborean epoch, people were air beings, they were incarnated into air and were autonomeous in a swinging vibrating movement. The predisposition for organs was there, but the organs were not yet developed. What did develop, was the organization of the ear. Man was a sounding being, it was as if one could hear him. This has been retained in the teaching of Vischnu. ...

1904-11-02-GA089

The Hyperboreans were made of air matter.

They were able to detect differences in temperature by means of a sense of feeling.

Further condensation of the Earth made bodies more solid at first, and finally incandescent. Outwardly this could look like a flame.

The sense of sight developed, and this happened in such a way that the temperature organ of the head, which projected like an lantern from the top of the head, changed into an organ of vision. This was later going to be the pineal body, atrophied today, but incandescent and projecting in earlier times - the single eye of the Cyclops.

Further condensation of the Earth caused this eye to go through involution, with two eyes taking the place of the one, though they only developed fully in Atlantean times.Up to the third sub race of the Atlantean age there would always still be people who had developed their one eye (the eye of Cyclops) and were using it for clairvoyant vision.

1904-XX-XX-GA090A

The Lemurian epoch is so important, because of this important phase in the middle of the epoch.

Earlier catastrophes were not so violent, as the Earth was not so dense. Hyperborean through redistribution [umlagerung] of the warmth [or heat] by move of the continent from the north pole to the south.

1905-10-25-GA093A

quote A

During the Hyperborean Period the whole again divided: one part severed itself and the Earth emerged out of the Sun.

It is at this point that the Kant-Laplace theory is relevant. The Earth was in a nebulous condition coinciding with the Kant-Laplace theory. The outer appearance seemed like the rings around Saturn.

Now the second or Hyperborean Race evolved.

[editor: reads as if after the separation of Sun]

Gradually the seeds of the Moon-Men appeared on the Earth, the Pitris in various degrees of perfection. They all still had the possibility of reproducing themselves through self-fertilisation.

quote B

During the Age which preceded the Lemurian Age, we have the Hyperborean epoch on Earth, that of the Sun Men, of the Apollo-Men. They were formed out of a still nobler and even more delicate substance.

[parenthesis on Sun pitris]

All esotericism recognises that the Sun was first a planet; it only later became a fixed star. The sequence of stages that the Earth has passed through is: Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, Earth. When the Sun was itself a planet, then everything which is now on the Moon and Earth was still in the Sun. Later Sun and Moon separated themselves from the Earth.

Let us think back to the time of the Old Sun. Then everything which now lives on the Earth, dwelt on the Sun. The beings were then quite differently formed, having only a physical body, much less dense than it is now, and an etheric body. Man's whole way of life was plant-like. The beings lived in the light of the Sun. Light came to them from the centre of their own planet. They were totally different from present-day man. In comparison with present-day man the Sun-man stood upside down and the Sun shone upon his head. Everything connected with reproduction developed freely on the other side. Man at that time stretched his legs, so to say, into the air. The plant has remained at this stage, its roots are in the earth and it stretches its organs of reproduction, stamens and pistil, into the air (plant). This Sun-man developed in seven different stages. His direction on the planet is the same as the growth of the plant on the Earth. Then, with the third incarnation of the Earth he became a Moon-man. He bent over, the vertical becoming the horizontal (animal). The tendency towards a spine developed. The symbol for this is the Tau = T. On the Earth he turns completely round. For this the symbol is the Cross. The symbolism of the Cross depicts the development from the Sun, through the Moon to the Earth. On the Earth the symbol of the Cross was attained by the addition of the upper vertical member above the T. This developed further in the bearing of the Cross on the shoulders.

The Sun-men too had attained a certain high development. There were also Sun Adepts, who had progressed further than the other Sun-men. They passed over to the Moon. There also they had the possibility of being on a higher level than the Moon-men, and they developed to quite special heights. They were the forefathers of the Earth-men, but had hastened much further ahead.

[end]

When now in the second Epoch of the Fourth Round the Hyperboreans lived in their soft forms, these Sons of the Sun were in position to incarnate and they formed a particularly beautiful Race. They were the Solar Pitris. Already in the Hyperborean Epoch they created for themselves an upright form, completely transforming the Hyperborean bodies.

This the other human beings were unable to do. In the Hyperborean Epoch the Solar Pitris became the beautiful Apollo-men, who in the Second Race had already attained the upright posture.

quote C see: Luciferic beings and their influences#1905-10-25-GA093A

Now there came a Sun Hero, similar to those who appeared in the Hyperborean Epoch, represented by Ezekiel as the Winged Lion. This Hero, Who gave the second impulse, is the Christ, the Lion out of the tribe of Judah. Christ is a Solar Hero, a Lion-Nature, a Sun Pitri.

1906-08-31-GA095

internet translation

So it was (also) a fertilization, which was not of sexual kind, but which was carried out by the whole astral atmosphere. If a "tentacle" stretched down, it meant a fertilization of the human being, which could develop again others by it.

The human formations were bell-shaped and had a tubular opening at the top to receive the tentacles; they opened to the sun. This hyperborean primitive man did not die, because a death in our sense did not exist, (because) dying means (today) the pulling out of the consciousness from the body.

But at that time the consciousness was not yet differentiated, it was a general consciousness for all people in the astral shell. The consciousness of the individual remained a part of the common consciousness, and when it withdrew from one entity, it sank into another without interruption. It was, as it were, like when a piece of a cloud detached itself at the front, which was immediately replaced by another one at the back. It was only a metamorphosis, and there was an uninterrupted continuity of consciousness. The consciousness felt it only like a change of the dress. And the whole lived in marvelous beauty, it floated in the most marvelous colors, in an light ether, and gradually condensed.

1908-03-16-GA102

see also: Separation of Sun#1908-03-16-GA102

on the emergence of the albumen-like living slime

It is extremely interesting to look back with spiritual vision to this ancient time [editor: shortly before the separation of the Sun] and see how most varied shapes [editor: of the substances] were formed.

Tone [editor: music of the spheres, tone or chemical ether is meant] created forms in the water [editor: the element water is meant, fluid substances]. …

Something took place then on the grandest scale similar to what happens when you strew fine sand on a metal plate and stroke the plate with a violin bow. The Chladni sound-figures are formed and you know of course what regularly-shaped figures and formations appear. Thus the instreaming music from cosmic space gives rise to most manifold forms and figures, and the substances dissolved in the water which were themselves watery, they listened to the cosmic music and arranged themselves in conformity to it. The most important formation of the dance of the substances to cosmic music is albumen, protoplasm, the foundation of all living growth.

Materialists may think as they will of the mechanical construction of albumen from oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and so on; the original protoplasm was formed of cosmic substance that had been formed from the harmonies of cosmic music.

And thus the substances in the living were organized according to the world-music. The albuminous substance, protoplasm, now surrounded and entered into the fine structures, penetrating everything.

The water, congealed to albumen according to cosmic tone, took its course along the lines which I described as lines of warmth and gradually passed over into blood formation. The congealed water established itself as albumen in the lines of the nerves. And in the first place the albumen formed a kind of sheath, cartilaginous gluten, one might say, as a protection from outside.

All this actually took form from the dance of substances to the music of the spheres.

see also: [[Hints of future etheric force technology#[2] - Cymatics, Chladni patters and Visual audio]]

1909-08-26-GA113

If we now follow up the course of the Earth evolution we may ask how the separate classes of spiritual beings participate in its progress. Spiritual beings at different stages of evolution directed the processes of the separation of the Sun and Moon from the earth, as a result of which that progress came to pass.

We have first to consider a class of spiritual beings which attained a certain stage of evolution during the Old Sun period; they belong to the Old Sun evolution because it was destined to provide a field of action for them. These are beings which separated the sun from the earth during the Earth period, because during Old Sun they were Sun-bound in the same way as humanity is now Earthbound. As we have seen, they needed the Sun for their further evolution and with the Sun they left the Earth in order to work upon the latter from without.

When the Sun spirits had withdrawn the Saturn and Moon spirits were left on the Earth. The development of the Saturn spirits was such that they could direct and guide the separation of the Moon from the Earth; they had passed through the same stage on Old Saturn as the Sun spirits had done on the Old Sun; their maturity had preceded that of the Sun spirits, and they were therefore able to separate the Moon from the Earth and to stimulate from within the inner development of man, who, otherwise, would have hardened and become mummified.

It may be said that the withdrawal of the Sun was brought about by the Sun spirits, and that of the Moon by the Saturn spirits. The Sun is a cosmic symbol for the act of the Sun spirits, the Moon for that of the Saturn spirits. And what is left upon the earth itself Spirits of the Old Moon period.

It will be useful at this point to bear in mind a definite epoch of the Earth evolution; that at which the Moon had just left the Earth. The Earth, from which the Sun had withdrawn still earlier, was then in a very different condition from that of today. If the Earth had then been in an exactly similar state to that of today, the whole process would have been unnecessary.

It was compared to the present mineral vegetable, animal and human kingdoms — very imperfect in that early period. The various continents had not separated off from each other everything was in a kind of chaos. Super-sensible sight would search in vain at that period for the mineral, vegetable, animal and human kingdoms as they are today. These forms have all developed as a result of the influence of the Sun and the Moon from without, and this was the purpose of the withdrawal of these two bodies. The influences which worked upon the Earth from the Sun and the Moon charmed from it, as it were, everything that has since arisen upon it and all that surrounds us today. The outer forms of the minerals, the plants, the animals and of physical man have been produced by the beings which work from the Sun; whereas the beings which work from the Moon have stimulated the soul life of men and of animals. This is an approximate and broad sketch of evolution from the so-called Lemurian epoch on into that of Atlantis. It was during the Atlantean epoch that, very slowly and gradually, the Earth began to wear an appearance more or less similar to that which we see around us today. It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish in the course of the Earth evolution since the withdrawal of the Moon, between a chaotic Earth and an organised one which has been influenced by the Spiritual beings in its environment.

1910-GA013

internet translation

From a certain point of time of the development the earth is compressed so far that only a part is still fiery. Another part has taken on a substantial form, which can be addressed as "gas" or "air". Now also with the human being a change goes on.

He is now not only touched by the heat of the earth, but the substance of the air is incorporated into his fiery body. And as the warmth has ignited life in him, so the air surrounding him excites in him an effect which may be called spiritual sound. His etheric body resounds.

At the same time a part of the astral body secretes itself, which is the first plant of the later appearing soul of understanding. - In order to visualize what is going on in the human soul at this time, one must pay attention to the fact that in the air-fire body of the earth the beings standing above the human being are rising and falling. In the fire-earth it is first of all the "spirits of personality" (Archai) which are significant for man. Likewise in the air body the Archangeloi announce themselves. It is their effects which man feels as sound in himself when the air plays around him. Thus, what man perceives at this stage through his connection with the earth is not yet a sum of physical objects, but he lives in sensations of warmth which rise to him, and in sounds; but he senses in these currents of warmth and in this swirl of sound the "spirits of personality" and the Archangeloi. He cannot, however, perceive these beings directly, but only as through the veil of warmth and sound. While these perceptions penetrate into his soul from the earth, the images of the higher entities, in whose bosom he feels himself, still rise up and down in it.

1921-07-17-GA205

We have an echo of the Old Saturn stage in the Polarian epoch, an echo of the Old Sun stage in the Hyperborean epoch, and an echo of the Old Moon stage in the Lemurian epoch

see the green on FMC00.057C on Recapitulation

1922-09-27-GA347

What kind of conditions must have prevailed at a very early time to endow animals with pro­creative forces they could not have received in a later time when the sun's rays reached them only from the outside?

[Before separation Sun]

There must have been a time when the sun was contained in the earth, when the earth contained more than the bit of sun forces it now preserves through the winter. Indeed, there was a time when the entire sun was inside the earth.

Now you may object that according to physicists the sun is so terribly hot that, had it been inside the earth, it would have burned everything. Well you know this only from physicists, who would be greatly astonished if they could see what the sun really looks like. If they were to construct a balloon and travel up there, they would not find the sun so very hot. They would find it filled with life forces. The heat develops when the sun's rays move through air and other matter.

When the sun was still inside the earth, it was filled with life forces. Then it bestowed upon the earth not only the limited amount of life forces it provides today, but it could supply plants and animals with an abundance of these forces. At that time the ancient oysters did not grow shells, but consisted merely of slime.

Try to picture sun and moon both contained in the earth and oysters that had no shells, but were slime.

When lumps of this substance separated off, new oysters developed, and so forth. They were so huge and lay right next to each other so that you could not have told them apart.

What did the earth look like at that time?

It looked like our brain, whose cells also lie next to each other. The only difference is that these cells die off, whereas at that very ancient time the huge oyster cells were one next to the other, and the sun constantly developed forces, because it was inside the earth.

Yes, the earth was here [drawing], and there was a giant oyster, another one next to it, and many such huge lumps of slime, which continuously pro­pagated. Even in our time oysters multiply at such a fast rate that within a short period of time they can have a million offspring. The oysters in those ancient days pro­created even faster. Hardly had an oyster developed than it had its offspring, which in turn did the same and so on. The older ones had to dissolve eventually.

If you had looked at the earth from the outside, you would have seen that the huge mass of the earth resembled a gigantic brain, only softer and slimier than our brains. You could have observed one of the gigantic oysters reprodu­cing its kind very quickly; and, of course, each offspring in turn could produce a million of its own descendants in a very short time. Clearly the oysters had to defend them­selves against each other, because they were all so close together.

As a curious onlooker, watching from another planet, you would have noticed a huge body in space, a body filled with life. It not only consisted of millions of interlaced soft oysters, but these also reproduced con­stantly.

What would you have seen in fact? You would have seen the same thing - on a gigantic scale, mind you - that you see when you look at the tiny fertilized egg cell out of which human beings develop. There you see the same process in miniature. These minute, one-celled slime ves­icles also reproduce rapidly. Otherwise the human foetus would not be able to grow to its proper size in the first few weeks after conception. The cells are so small that they must reproduce rapidly. If you had looked at the earth at that ancient time, it would have resembled a gigantic creature that contained within it the forces of the sun and of the moon.

.. now I have shown you how we can go back in our imagination to the time when the earth, sun, and moon still formed one body.

Arthur E. Powell - The Solar System

for source PDF and online, see: Atlantean epoch#References and further reading

[Continent, location, climate]

During the ages of unknown length through which the first race lived, the earth was settling down into quieter conditions, and cataclysms were local, no longer general. More land slowly appeared above the surface of the watery desert, stretching out from the promontories of the first continent, and forming a vast horseshoe, the second continent, called the Hyperborean, or Plaksha.

It occupied the area now called northern Asia, joining Greenland and Kamschatka, and was bounded on the south by the great sea which rolled where the Gobi desert now stretches its wastes of sand. Spitzbergen formed part of it, together with Sweden and Norway, and it extended south-westwards over the British Isles. Baffin's Bay was then land, which included the islands now existing there.

The climate was tropical, and richly luxuriant vegetation clothed the sunny plains. We should not connect with the name Hyperborean the associations now carried with it, for it was a gladsome land, full of exuberant vitality. The name Hyperborean took on its gloomy associations in later days, when the land had been swept of its inhabitants by a change of climate, and broken up by many cataclysms.

Some of the oldest known lands of the earth are remains of the Hyperborean continent: these are Greenland, Iceland, Spitzbergen, the most northerly parts of Norway and Sweden, and the extreme north cape of Siberia.

[Second root race]

When the time was ripe for the second race to appear, the nature-spirits built round the chhâyas denser particles of matter, forming a kind of stiffer shell on the outside, and ”the outer of the first became the inner of the second” (The Secret Doctrine, II, 18).

Thus imperceptibly the first race vanished into, merged in, and became the second, and the chhâya, which was all the body of the first, became the etheric double of the second. The second Race shows two marked types, responding slightly to the buddhic consciousness. It shows the duality, which is characteristic of that consciousness, coming out in its physical changes, as in its two senses of hearing and touch, for the sense of touch was added to the first race sense of hearing.

As the Monad passed into the second race, he thus added to his physical plane consciousness the sense of touch, and began to respond to the impact of water and air as well as of fire.

Faint, chant-like sounds issued from the nondescript forms that represented humanity, open vowel-like sounds, inarticulate, faintly indicating the stirrings of emotions moved from hidden springs.

Such consciousness as there was belonged to above rather than to below. There was dreamily quiet enjoyment, arising from within, but little sense of pleasure or pain, stimulated from without. It was the monadic consciousness, awake on the higher planes but not on the lower, and the forms were but slightly responsive, almost senseless, though more responsive than those of the first race.

This race was called Kimpurushas, the children of the Sun and the Moon, ”the yellow Father and the White Mother” (The Secret Doctrine, II, 19), hence of fire and water; and they were born under the planet Brihaspati or Jupiter.

Their colour was a golden-yellow, sometimes glowing almost into orange, sometimes of palest lemon shades, and these gorgeously-hued forms, filamentous, often tree-like in shape, some approaching animal types, others semi-human in outline, very heterogeneous in appearance, drifting, floating, gliding, climbing, crying to each other in flute-like notes through the splendid tropical forests, brilliantly green in the sunlight, with flowering creepers starred with dazzling blossoms-all these make a picture of gorgeous hues, the splendour nature in her exuberant youth, running over with life, movement, colour, outlines sketched in with a giant's hand, colours flung from an overflowing palette.

Of the two types mentioned, the earlier showed no of trace of sex, but multiplied by expansion and budding like the first race.

As the forms became harder, coated with a thicker shell of earthy particles, this form of reproduction became impossible, and small bodies were extruded from them, figuratively termed ”drops of sweat”, since they oozed out like sweat from the human skin, viscid, opalescent; these gradually hardened, grew, and took on various shapes.

There are many traces of this type of reproduction in the Purânic stories, where it is stated that all races were born from the pores of the skin of their ancestors. In process of time slight indications of sexuality began to appear in these ”sweatborn” of the second race, and they showed within themselves adumbrations of the two sexes, and hence are spoken of as androgynes.

Study of the lower kingdoms today reveals all these stages still persisting, and we realise how the nature-spirits have been guided along a single plan, endlessly modified in details but ever the same in principles.

From germs thrown off by these second race ”men” the mammalian kingdom was gradually developed in all its immense variety of forms.

Animals below the mammals were shaped by nature-spirits from the types elaborated in the third round, sometimes aided by human emanations.

It will be recollected that, as a whole, the second race was a recapitulation of the second round, and that the forms in the second round were those known as ”pudding-bags.” The second root race also had this curious formless pudding-bag appearance.

Both the first and the second root races were evolving on the Earth before Mars was deserted, there being available for these primitive conditions on the Earth some entities whom Mars in its later stages was too advanced to accommodate.

Into these races the Barhishads from Globe D of the Moon Chain brought a number of backward entities who served as special coaches for the laggards; many of the laggards repaid the special care bestowed on them, and later on entered the first sub-race of the third root race, as its lowest type. They were known as egg- headed; we shall come to them again when we reach the third root race, in the next chapter.

During the first and second root races the population of the Earth was very limited, and the special help, mentioned above, appears to have been given to enable as many animals as possible to be pushed on so that they could become human before the ”door is shut” in the middle of the fourth root race.

In addition, everything possible was being done to bring forward all of whom anything could be made, before the coming of the Lords of Venus in the middle of the third root race.

Related pages

• Separation of Sun
• Evolution
• Earth's seven epochs
• Reunion of Sun

References and further reading

• Iwer Thor Lorenzen: 'Grundprobleme der Evolution : 2. Heft: Aus der hyperboräischen und frühlemurischen Zeit ; Die Mondenkrise ; Das Wesen der Befruchtung' (1959)
• Pablo Sender: 'The Dawn of Civilization: An Esoteric Account of the First Three Root Races' (2019, article)

Various (unqualified)

• Andreas Delor (publisher) and Pascale Aeby (1966-2012): Atlantis: nach neuesten hellsichtigen und wissenschaftlichen Quellen (8 volumes)
  • Band 8 - Die Hyperboräische- und Polarische-Epoche (2016)
  • Note: Delor published 8 volumes of over 3900 pages in total, the first five focus on Atlantis, volumes 6 and 7 are on Lemuria, and volume 8 is on the first two epochs, the Hyperborean and Polarian.
• Arnold Jafe: 'Thinking in continents: Hyperborea and Atlantis in Rene Guénon's conception of tradition' (2018, paper)
• Harrie Salman: 'Journeying to Hyperborea: an exploration of the spiritual history of northern Europe'
  • four talks given in the Grail seminar in Sweden in 2018