Old Saturn

Old Saturn is the first planetary incarnation and evolutionary stage in the current solar system, this stage represents the first seed stage of our current solar system with planet Earth. It was made up of the element of warmth, and reached upto the boundaries represented by the orbit of the current planet Saturn. This first planetary stage represents the beginning of the concept of time from the more eternal concept of eternity or 'duration'.

Old Saturn consisted of a dark, non-shining, inhomogeneous warmth body. The warmth was provided through the Thrones who, through their sacrifice (to the Cherubim), provided the warmth substance. The archai reached their 'human stage' of self-consciousness (re: Condition of Consciousness (CoC-4)) and thereby differentiated inner warmth from outer warmth, thereby their 'thoughts' (or the activity of self-consciousness in these conditions) created the first physical form of Man in this warmth. Above that, the Spirits of Form, from the girdle around Old Saturn, sacrificed their then-lowest principle (corresponding to today Man's etheric body), and radiated inward-fructify­ing life-juices, like a fertilizing continuous rain .. that was reflected by Old Saturn.

Aspects

• in the fifth CoL, a separation into two cosmic bodies occurred. In the fifth, sixth and seventh CoF, OId Saturn "was thus orbited by a kind of Sun, just as Earth is today by its Moon". The body that had gone out to act from the outside can be called the OId Saturn soul. (1903-GA089)

planetary body

• dark inhomogeneous warmth
  • inhomogeneous warmth formations (1908-08-08-GA105)
  • trying to observe Old Saturn space you would have seen anything: Old Saturn had no light, it did not shine; only towards the end of its development did it begin to do so. Had you approached it in the middle of its evolution you would only have perceived its warmth, it was like an oven without external limits. (1908-08-08-GA105)

spiritual entities

• Thrones
  • .. having reached level CoC-8 (see Twelve Conditions of Consciousness, and also FMC00.077A on Creation of solar system), they offer their sacrifice to the Cherubim, thus providing the warmth substance for the 'development environment' of Old Saturn (1911-10-31-GA132)
  • .. at the end of the planetary stage, they create the disposition of Man's spirit-man (or atma) principle in the very last cycle (see Man's higher triad)
• Spirits of Form
  • in the chain of beings who sacrifice, the Spirits of Form .. from the mantle surrounding Old Saturn radiated their then-lowest principle, corresponding to today Man's etheric body, and radiated inward fructify­ing matter, life-juices, like a fertilizing, continuous rain. Old Saturn did not keep these radiations but rather reflected them back like a mirror, hence the SoF reflected their own image in the warmth mass of Old Saturn, and the human being there became an image of God. (1908-02-29-GA102). See also Schema FMC00.483.
• Archai
  • .. reach their 'human' stage in terms of Condition of Consciousness (CoC-4), attained self-consciousness and realised the I or Self as the centre of their being
  • .. had breathed in part of the warmth and left behind another part, in order to differentiate themselves from it. Thus left behind them a lower kingdom as inner warmth was differentiated from outer warmth. Generically this process takes place at each planetary stage: not all substance gets spiritualized at the end of the cycle, causing a split into an advanced and a lowered segment or kingdom. See also Schema FMC00.149 on Overview of solar system evolution
  • .. create the physical form of Man (called the 'phantom', see cleansed phantom)
    • the germinal physical body and organs of Man were woven through the influences of the spiritual beings from the various Zodiac signs .. the heart by the Lion area, breast area Cancer, etc. During the Old Saturn evolution the signs of the zodiac slowly revolved, and the human body took on its earliest form, member by member. See 1909-04-18-GA110 extract on the Zodiac page, as well as Zodiac man.
• Archangels
  • During the fifth CoF the archangels developed into an inner life of the soul, the contents of which were taken from Old Saturn events. They were able to do so by using the human bodies which had by that time developed into appropriate instruments for them. This then enabled them to guide events as independently active souls in the sixth CoF (1903-GA089).
• Man - the human being
  • the whole of Old Saturn consisted of forms of warmth alone, and these were the original foundations of the human physical body. Old Saturn did not go beyond this in any way that was fruitful for human evolution. (1908-08-08-GA105)
  • was a mineral entity with only a phantom physical body as a heat-system, and with a dull deep trance consciousness (CoC-1); see also schema FMC00.149 on Overview of solar system evolution

Various

• the beginning of the concept of time as we know it, from the more eternal concept of 'duration' (1910-GA013)
• ancient spiritual science:
  • myth of Chronos and Gaea, his wife: Old Saturn swallowed his children - see full coverage on Greek mythology#Myth of Chronos and Gaea

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.200 is a BBD of Old Saturn as spiritual beings: in the midst a (red-lila) kernel of the Thrones; in the (yellow ring) circumference around them the Cherubim who let their own light-filled being stream forth from this centre or kernel; and around this, the Seraphim enwrapping the whole in a (red wrapper or) mantle of warmth and enthusiasm that rays far out into cosmic space.

See also Schemas FMC00.077A and FMC00.413 with commentary below.

Schema FMC00.199A presents a schematic overview that can be read together with the above FMC00.199.

Schema FMC00.199 provides a tabular overview of the seven CoL in the Old Saturn planetary stage. See Process description under the Discussion section.

Schema FMC00.413 provides a 'spiritual hierarchies evolutionary' view on the Old Saturn planetary stage.

Read this together with the three sources mentioned on Evolution Module 1 - Foundation: GA011-1904, GA013-1909, GA089-1903.

• The middle table shows the evolution of the various spiritual hierarchies, here abbreviated with a three character acronym for the sake of the tabular representation.
• Above a copy of FMC00.414 to show the worlds or planes of consciousness in which the different Conditions of Life (CoL) or rounds rolled off. It shows the two CoL that were most important for Man in bold, with the bodily component for Man added below.
• Below the main table: the hierarchies at the stage of evolution which required them to then split off on another planet in the next CoL. This is a natural consequence of the cosmic fractal and the underlying principle that causes the constitution of a different solar system with various planets in each planetary stage of evolution.
• On the right, the situation when the archai go through the human stage CoC=4 in the fourth lowest mineral CoL. It shows how the human being was then the lowest part of their being.

Notes:

• On the left: at the start of Old Saturn there were 11 types of being above Man. Observe this implies two levels more than the Seraphim, here added in light grey.
• The red line shows the fructification or bestowing process whereby the highest creative hierarchies participates in the evolution of the CoC-4 stage hierarchy. Rudolf Steiner describes those in red, but not the one in dark red which ought to have been the logoic intervention underlying the change in direction of the Old Saturn evolutionary cycle (from descent to ascent).

Schema FMC00.193 is a metaphoric illustration that can be used as a reminder of the beautiful imagination sketched in 1911-10-31-GA132 and the nature of sacrifice (and the arising of warmth on Old Saturn).

Schema FMC00.201 is metaphoric imagery for the warmth formation structure on Old Saturn stage.

"Old Saturn at that time consisted solely of human germs which were clustered together like the tiny berries which form a blackberry. In this way the Saturn-globe was a great berry made up purely of tiny berries which were the human beings." (1908-02-29-GA102)

See also Schema FMC00.077A taken from Creation of solar system.

For the spiritual beings in blue at CoC=8 to 10 on Old Saturn, see Schema FMC00.200 above. Observe CoC=8 versus the two above, takes place at the border of the second outstreaming and the pure emanation.

FMC00.291 provides explanatory background for the principle of the two opposing etheric streams as per FMC00.051, on the left for Old Saturn. See Process description in the Discussion area below.

Lecture coverage and references

1903-GA089

from: Draft of a spiritual-scientific cosmology

During the time when it was at its physical level, therefore, Old Saturn had a differentiated body consisting of subtle ether bodies; angels and archangels were active in this just as vital and nerve energies are active in the human body today. And where the latter has its sensory instruments on the outside, so Old Saturn was covered, as it were, with nothing but senses on its surface; these were not receptive, however, but reflective. They mirrored everything which made an impression in the surroundings of the cosmic body. The luminous SoF shone on to the surface of Old Saturn, and their light was reflected in many ways by that surface. Sound came to Saturn from the SoM and then went out again into space as a manifold echo; finally the aroma of the SoW radiated to the Old Saturn surface, which reflected it in many changed ways. The soul life of that spirit on Old Saturn consisted in the perception of all those reflections.

We can call that spirit the actual spirit of the planet Old Saturn. For only one of its kind existed, just as in a human being on Earth there may be a rich variety of parts, senses and so on but only one self-awareness. The whole of Old Saturn was the body of that planetary spirit.

Old Saturn evolution proceeded in seven cycles in which soul life unfolded. In each of the seven cycles the planet went through the seven forms from formlessness to creative ability. [see Three dimensions of evolution, CoL and CoF]

In the first cycle the Thrones were the soul element that gave direction, in the second cycle the SoW, in the third the SoM, in the fourth the SoF and in the fifth the planetary spirit of Old Saturn itself. This did not have full clear consciousness from the beginning of Old Saturn evolution but only gained it in the fourth cycle. It was also only then that it was actually able to experience events on the planet as a soul. During the fifth cycle it was then able to be active as soul itself. During that cycle the archangels developed into an inner life of the soul, the contents of which were taken from Old Saturn events. They were able to do so by using the human bodies which had by that time developed into appropriate instruments for them. This then enabled them to guide events as independently active souls in the sixth cycle. The same was then the case for the angels in the seventh cycle.

In the fifth cycle the planetary Old Saturn spirit would have been unable to be active as soul in the way described if it had remained within the Old Saturn body. The consistency of that body would not permit this. The Old Saturn spirit therefore had to leave the Old Saturn body and act on it from the outside. A separation of Old Saturn into two cosmic bodies thus occurred in this cycle, though one of them, the one which had gone out, must be called Saturn soul. It was, as it were, a prophetic foretelling of the next planetary embodiment, the Sun. In its fifth, sixth and seventh cycles, Old Saturn was thus orbited by a kind of Sun, just as Earth is today by its Moon.

• Something similar had to happen for the archangels in the sixth cycle. They left the Old Saturn mass and orbited it as a new planet, known as Jupiter in occult science.
• In the seventh cycle something similar happened for the angels. They withdrew their mass from that of Old Saturn and orbited it as an independent planet. This is called Mars in occult science.

[see Schema FMC00.413]

Similar processes had already occurred during preceding Old Saturn cycles.

• In the third cycle the SoF guided soul development. In the fourth, they left the planet and orbited it as a bright, independent planet which is called Mercury in occult science.
• In the third cycle the same situation occurred for the SoM, who became independent as a planet called Venus.

In Sun evolution, the human body which had been automatic came alive in itself. This happened because the light which previously shone on to Saturn from the luminous spirits in the periphery was now being taken up into the constituents of the Sun body itself. The Sun became a luminous planet. The perfected human bodies were developing luminous life. Sound now came in from the surroundings and the cosmic aroma was flowing from the spirits connected with aroma.

A transformation had come for the spirit of the planet Old Saturn. It had multiplied. One had become seven.

Just as a seed is one, and there are many seeds in the ear of corn that grows from it, so did seven scions come from the one spirit of the planet Old Saturn during the transition to the Sun level.

And its life also changed. It developed the ability to gain perceptions of a region that was one level lower. This became possible because a number of human bodies had remained behind in their development, staying at the Old Saturn level. This made them unable to receive the luminous life of the Sun. They became dark spots within the radiant Sun planet. The seven Sun spirits which had evolved from the spirit of the planet Saturn perceived them as a world of nature which was below them. Thus the seven spirits lived on the Sun’s surface; beneath them they beheld a world with entities which had bodies, only these were one level lower than the human bodies on Sun. The latter, however, gave them the nourishment they needed through the light they radiated. Where the Saturn bodies had only been reflecting the Saturn spirit’s own essential nature back to it, the Sun bodies held the position relative to the Sun spirits which today the Sun with its light holds for the plant world.

With regard to bodily organization the human being was at the level of plant nature during Sun evolution. It would not be right to say that he actually went through the plant stage himself at that time. For the kind of plant world we have today could only develop under the specific conditions which we have on Earth. To use an analogy we may think of the Sun human body as a plant form which was turning organs towards its own planet that were similar to those which plants today develop as their flower. And just as today’s plant receives its light from an outside sun, so did the human Sun plant receive its light from its own planet, which, of course, was Sun. Today a plant puts its root down into the soil; on the Sun body this aspect was turned towards the sounds and odours that were coming in; the human being took these in and processed them inwardly. We might call today’s plant a human body which has remained at the Sun level and turned round completely. It is therefore chastely extending its organs of growth and reproduction upwards to the Sun, whilst the human being today hides them and lets them face downwards.

1904-GA011

The work of these spirits is succeeded around the middle of the fifth Old Saturn cycle by that of the archangels, who, at this stage, still have a dull image consciousness, similar to the Old Moon consciousness of man. They attain the stage of humanity only on the next planet, Old Sun. Their work here is therefore to a certain degree still unconscious and dreamlike. But it is through them that the activity of the 'sensory germs' from the previous cycle is enlivened. The light images produced by the archangels shine outward through these sensory germs. The ancestor of Man is thereby elevated to a kind of shining entity. While the life of Old Saturn is otherwise dark, Man now shines in the general darkness.

The Archai on the other hand, were still awakened to their human existence in this general darkness.

The human being himself can make no use of his luminosity on Old Saturn. The luminosity of his sensory germs could not express anything in itself, but through it other more exalted beings are given the possibility to reveal themselves to the life of Old Saturn. Through the sources of light of the ancestors of Man, these beings radiate something of their nature down to the planet. These are exalted beings from among those four ranks of which it has been said above that they have grown beyond all connection with human existence in their development. Without any necessity for them to do it, they now radiate something of their nature out of 'free will'. Christian esoteric teaching here speaks of the revelation of the Seraphim. This condition lasts until the middle of the sixth Old Saturn cycle.

After this begins the work of those beings which at this stage have a dull consciousness such as is found in man today when he is in a deep, dreamless sleep. These beings are the angels (in theosophical writings they are called Lunar Pitris).They attain the stage of humanity only on Old Moon. On earth they, as well as their predecessors, the archangels, have already grown beyond the stage of humanity. These angels develop in the ancestor of man a kind of understanding, of which however, in his dull consciousness, he himself cannot yet make use. Through this understanding, exalted entities now again reveal themselves, as previously the Seraphim did through the sensory germs. Through the human bodies, understanding is now poured out over the planet by those spirits whom Christian esoteric teaching calls Cherubim.

Around the middle of the seventh Old Saturn cycle a new activity begins. Man has now reached the point where he can work unconsciously on his own material body. Through his activity in the utter dullness of Old Saturn existence, Man produces the first germinal predisposition to the true spirit-man, who reaches his full development only at the end of the development of mankind (in theosophical literature this is called atma). It is the highest member of the so-called higher triad [editor: Steiner uses 'monad of man']. In itself it would be quite dull and unconscious at this stage. But as the Seraphim and the Cherubim reveal themselves out of their free will in the two preceding human stages, so the Thrones now reveal themselves, those beings who, at the very beginning of Old Saturn existence, radiated the human body out of their own nature. The germinal predisposition of 'spirit-man' (Atma) is completely penetrated by the power of the Thrones and retains this power through all subsequent stages of development. In his dull consciousness at this stage man as yet cannot realize anything of this germinal predisposition; but he develops further, and later this germinal predisposition becomes clear to his own consciousness.

This work is not yet completed at the end of the life of Old Saturn; it continues into the first Old Sun cycle. One should consider that the labor of the higher spirits which has been described here does not coincide with the beginning and end of a smaller cycle (of a round), but that it continues from the middle of one to the middle of the next. Its greatest activity is developed in the periods of rest between the cycles. It increases from the middle of a cycle (Manvantara) onward, becomes strongest in the middle of a period of rest (Pralaya), and then ebbs in the next. (It has already been mentioned in the preceding chapters that life by no means ceases during the periods of rest.)

1908-02-29-GA102

We will consider in particular those beings who participated in the structure of our cosmic system when the Earth began its evolution in our universe as Saturn.

[warmth body of Old Saturn]

The Earth began its evolution as Saturn and advanced through the Sun and Moon evolutions up to its present formation. Everything on that Saturn cosmic body was, however, quite different from the nature of our present earthly planet. On Saturn there were no solid rocky masses, what we call the mineral world in the modern sense, nor was there water in the modern sense, not even air; what was present at that time could only be compared with warmth among our elements today, with “fire,” as one says in occultism. You would certainly not get a right idea if you thought that this Saturn fire looked like the modern flame of gas or candle. To have the right conception you must call to mind what pulses up and down in your own body — you must recollect the fundamental difference existing between a lower creature of the animal world, which has preserved certain stages of evolution, and the human being. A lower creature has the warmth of its surroundings. An amphibian has no inner warmth of its own; it has the warmth of its surroundings. It is as cold or as warm as its surroundings. Man has his own internal, equable warmth, as indeed he must have. His organism must ensure that when it is cold outside, he can nevertheless maintain his warmth at a certain temperature, and you know that when disturbances such as fever etc. enter this warmth, the health of the whole body is disturbed as well. The point is that man has an inner degree of warmth and he must think of some underlying force that creates it.

This force is not water, not the solid, not air, it is an element for itself, and this element alone was present on ancient Saturn, the first embodiment of our Earth. If you had gone for a walk at that time in universal space — naturally that is a phantasy but it helps to form an idea of the condition — you would not have seen Saturn, for in the earliest stage it sent out no light at all. To shed light the cosmic body must first become a sun, or be united with a sun and so become luminous. If you approached ancient Saturn you would have noticed in its neighborhood that there was warmth, you would think that there was a space filled with warmth, you would enter a space like an oven. The existence of ancient Saturn would have been realized through this force of warmth alone. It was a rarefied material sub-stance of which modern man can scarcely form a right idea — least of all a learned physicist — but it was present, a condition finer than gas, finer than air, and all that existed of man at that time, namely, the first rudiments of the physical body, consisted of this substance. If you could eliminate today everything except the warmth of your blood then you would have an idea of those first rudiments of the human being. That, however, could not be done, since one cannot live like that. Today with our mineral kingdom, fluid kingdom, etc., we cannot live as the human being lived on ancient Saturn. At that time one could do so. But today you must think away all that you have of juices, tissues, solid parts, even the air that you take in as oxygen. You must conceive solely and alone that which remains over — naturally in quite a different form — namely, the warmth contained in your blood: a physical body consisting only of warmth! It is a horrible idea for a modern natural scientist — but therefore one that is all the more correct and real.

Such was the rudimentary germ of man — his physical body. All the other beings which are on the earth today animals — plants — minerals — were not in existence on Saturn. Saturn at that time consisted solely of human germs which were clustered together like the tiny berries which form a blackberry. In this way the Saturn-globe was a great berry made up purely of tiny berries which were the human beings. If we were to examine the surroundings of Saturn somewhat as we test our earth's surroundings and find a mantle of air in which are structures of mist, clouds etc., we should find nothing of a material nature. We should find in the Saturn mantle spiritual substance, spiritual beings, and these were at a much higher level than man in his first rudiments.

We will now occupy ourselves with a definite order of beings who were linked with the Saturn existence. There we find the Spirits of Will, then the Spirits of Wisdom, Spirits of Movement, of Form, of Personality, and so forth. To-day we will turn our attention especially to the Spirits of Form for the reason that they have played an important role in the beginning of our evolution. From the whole ranks of spiritual beings who were present in the atmosphere and environment of Saturn, we will therefore select the Spirits of Form and be clear that they have gone through an evolution up to today, just as all beings go through an evolution. As man received his etheric body on the Sun, his astral body on the Moon, his ego on the Earth and has become more and more perfect, so have the Spirits of Form passed through their evolution.

[SoF]

These Spirits of Form had no physical body on Saturn, their lowest member was an etheric body which one can compare with the etheric body of man; thus we should have to think away completely the physical body in the Spirits of Form, and think of the lowest member of their being as the etheric body. Then these beings had an astral body, an ego, spirit-self or Manas, life spirit or Budhi, spirit man or Atma and an eighth member which is a stage higher than man can reach in the course of his evolution through the Earth's embodiments.

These Spirits of Form therefore act externally on Saturn through their etheric body as man on Earth works externally through his physical body. They possess no hands through which they can work, no feet with which they can walk, for these are members of the physical body. But their etheric body manifests in such a way that they continuously ray in fructifying life-saps from the Saturn atmospheric mantle, which are of very rarefied matter.

We can picture Saturn as we have described it, and from the environment — continuously and from all sides — fructifying life-saps streaming down like rain from the etheric bodies of the Spirits of Form. The nature of Saturn was such that it did not retain these fertilizing life-saps but rayed them back like a mirror. In this way arose the mirror pictures of Saturn of which I have spoken in earlier lectures, but now more exactly.

You can picture the warmth substance of Old Saturn perpetually receiving the rays of the etheric body of the Spirits of Form and raying these back again. We can form a rough picture of it, if we remember how the rain drips from the clouds down to earth, collects in the earth and rises up again as misty vapors. We must not however imagine this as having an interval of time, but picture the process as a continuous one; the rank luxuriant life-saps stream in and are reflected, so that the rudimentary physical bodies appear like mirror-pictures.

They actually consist of mirror-pictures. You can form an idea of what was present on Old Saturn as the physical germ of man, if you imagine a person standing before you and you look into his eye; you send your light into the eye of the other, and your picture comes back to you rayed out of his eye.

So it was with the Spirits of Form in the environment of Old Saturn. The SoF sent their life-bestowing saps down into the warmth masses of Saturn and their own form, their likeness, was reflected; this mirror likeness was the first rudiments of the human physical body. Man was thus, even on Old Saturn, in the most literal sense a likeness of his Godhead.

1908-03-14-GA266/1

(see more on Mystery of silver), also see schema FMC00.077A above.

On Old Saturn the warmth element was an element in and of itself, a fine state of matter for which we can form no physical imagination, finer than gas and air, a state such as the warmth of our blood today. The foundation for human bodies at that time consisted of this warmth.

Spiritual beings surrounded this Old Saturn like a mantle, among which were the Spirits of Form. They have also undergone an evolution. On Old Saturn they had as their lowest member a body that can be compared to the present-day etheric bodies of human beings. Then they had an astral body, an I, spirit-self, life-spirit, spirit-man being, and a member that is one degree higher than what a human being can achieve. From the mantle around Old Saturn these SoF radiated inward fructify­ing matter, life-juices, like a fertilizing, continuous rain. Old Saturn did not keep these radiations but rather reflected them back like a mirror, as the Earth gathers the rain and then lets it rise again as a mist. The SoF reflected their own image in the fire-mass of Saturn, and the human being there became an image of God. The myth of Chronos and Gaea, his wife, tells us that Saturn swallowed his children.

1908-08-08-GA105

[general introduction]

.. and we shall best understand what entered evolution at this point if we consider what the evolution of Man had been previously.

Once more we will remind ourselves that the Earth passed through an incarnation, that of Old Saturn, when conditions were primeval; then, after having passed through a state of rest, it entered the Old Sun incarnation, then the Old Moon incarnation, and lastly that of our Earth.

Man in the course of his evolution has been connected with all these embodiments of the Earth. As we know him he is a very complicated Being; he consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I, and these four principles play one into the other in a very complicated manner.

If any being in our physical world had only a physical body it would be a stone — a mineral; in fact our mineral kingdom here on the Earth does only possess a physical body. A being possessing in addition to a physical body an etheric body has a plant-nature; our vegetable kingdom consists of such beings. A being having physical etheric, and astral bodies is at the animal stage; and only that being which in addition to these possesses an I is at the stage of human existence on Earth. Now it is only a rough way of speaking to say that Man has these four principles within him; and we shall understand how sketchy it is if we cast a glance over his long, very long, evolution.

Let us enquire which of these four principles is the oldest? It might easily be supposed that as the human I is the highest, that which first makes Man, Man, it would be the oldest principle; but this is not the case. Neither the I nor the astral body nor the etheric body was owned first by man, but the physical body — it is the oldest.

[Old Saturn and Man of 'warmth']

The first rudiments of the physical body were formed as far back as on Old Saturn, but you must not imagine that this body looked then anything like the body of today. When you consider the present physical body you observe in the first place something solid, a skeleton, that firmly constituted part described as “solid”; next you observe fluid constituents of many kinds; further, the physical body is permeated by air or gas; lastly, you find in it something which, considered occultly, is substantial — namely, warmth, inner warmth.

Let us now consider Man as regards this inner warmth and his outer environment. His warmth does not depend upon his environment, in a cold environment he does not, like the minerals, become cold, he is not forced to regulate himself according to his environment, he has within him the source of his own heat.

Were you now to think everything solid away from Man, also everything liquid and everything gaseous; if you imagine his physical body formed only of warmth, such warmth as pulses in your blood, you will have what was present on Old Saturn.

But that body was not formed as it is now, it had only the most rudimentary germs of a form. This was particularly the case in the middle of the Old Saturn period, for Old Saturn had initial, middle, and final conditions.

• It would be very difficult to describe the early condition of Old Saturn, because few people have developed the capacity which would enable them to 'think' of the conditions of Old Saturn before it became condensed to the consistency of warmth.

When in spirit you transport yourselves to those times of a primeval past, you must not imagine that had you been able to observe Old Saturn from somewhere in space you would have seen anything. Old Saturn had no light, it did not shine; only towards the end of its development did it begin to do so. Had you approached it in the middle of its evolution you would only have perceived its warmth, it was like an oven without external limits, but which limited itself: you would have entered an area of warmth.

You must not imagine this body of warmth as being uniform or homogeneous; if you had been sensitive to differences of warmth you would have found that there were lines of warmth within it in all directions, that they stretched on every side; you would have “felt out” warmth formations. The whole of Old Saturn consisted of forms of warmth alone, and these were the original foundations of the human physical body. Old Saturn did not go beyond this in any way that was fruitful for human evolution.

1909-04-13-A-GA110

L3 synopsis:

• On Old Saturn inner warmth becomes outer warmth. Production and dissolution of warmth; inhalation and exhalation of warmth — exhalation as fire; resemblance to expansion and contraction in breathing.
• The Rishis teaching: warmth, sucked in becomes the I of the Archai. The Archai beginning to leave the exhaled warmth outside without re-inhaling it leads to manhood consciousness, objective consciousness and consciousness of self.
• Old Saturn dissolved by the Thrones. Pralaya or night. The karma of the archai on Old Saturn brings Old Sun into existence. Warmth divides into light and smoke or air.

1909-04-13-B-GA110

from the synopsis of L4:

• The eggs of warmth on Old Saturn were created by the thought of the Archai; now-a-days thought goes no further than the astral.
• Evolution is a system proceeding from taking and to giving. On Old Saturn the Thrones gave their own warmth to the Archai, similar to the silkworms. The Archai gave personality to the warmth.
• The expansion of the Archangels. They are met by Cherubim. In the Sun-nights when in the atmosphere light has left the air, in the air the Cherubim reflect the figure which becomes the germ of the animal kingdom.

In the following extract follows the key paragraph (SWCC)

.. suppose that all those Archai on OldSaturn had remained at the stage of their normal evolution and had continually inhaled and exhaled warmth. They would have accomplished their regular Old Saturn evolution and the consequence would have been that in the course of time all would have been withdrawn again into inner warmth, and Old Saturn as an external planet of fire would have been received again into the spiritual realms of the World. This might have happened. We would then never have had the Old Sun, Old Moon, and Earth conditions, for then all that had been breathed forth would have returned to inner warmth, would have been received again into the spiritual world.

I shall now make use of a trivial expression which will make this more comprehensible. It pleased certain Archai better to draw in again only a part of that exhaled warmth, not all of it was drawn in. They left some of it behind, so that when inhaling, some of the Old Saturn eggs did not disappear completely, but remained. Thus two states or conditions developed gradually on Old Saturn: inner warmth, and along side of it outer warmth incarnated in the Old Saturn eggs.

The Archai left some of that out-breathed warmth to take care of itself, as it were; they left it outside. They actually had to do this in order to become 'men' on Old Saturn. 'To become men' means: to attain consciousness of self, and this is only possible when you differentiate yourself as ‘I’ from what is outside you. ..

.. the Archai, became I's, attained consciousness of self, through having pushed a part of the Old Saturn essence outside into an existence of merely outer warmth. They said to themselves: I must allow something to stream out of me, and leave it outside, so that I am able to differentiate myself, so that my self-consciousness may be lit by that external element. Thus they created another kingdom near to them, created a mirrored image of their inner life in that outward life.

Thus it came about that at the end of the Old Saturn stage, the Archai were not in a position to allow Old Saturn to disappear. This would have happened if they had inhaled all the warmth; but they could not breathe in again that which they had exhaled out of themselves. The field which had offered them the possibility of gaining consciousness of self had to be left to itself. No condition of Pralaya could have arisen for Old Saturn through the Archai alone. Higher spirits, the Thrones, had to come into action in order to dissolve Old Saturn so that a Pralaya might take place.

The Archai had attained self-consciousness, had breathed in again a part of the warmth, had realised the Self as the centre of their being, and left behind them a lower kingdom. Now entered the Thrones and dissolved that which had been left behind, and Old Saturn entered into a sort of planetary night.

1909-04-14-GA110

from the synopsis:

• Old Saturn was as large as a globe having as its centre the sun of to-day and reaching as far as present Saturn.

1910-GA013

describes the appearance of time

With the appearance of the Old Saturn heat, our evolution for the first time passes over from a purely spiritual, inner existence into one manifesting externally. It will be especially difficult for the present-day consciousness to accept the statement that with the Old Saturn state of heat what is called “time” first makes its appearance, for the preceding states are not at all temporal. They belong to the region that in spiritual science may be called “duration.”

For this reason it must be understood that in all that is said in this work about such states in the “region of duration,” expressions referring to temporal relationships are only used by way of comparison and explanation.

What precedes “time,” as it were, can only be characterized in human language by expressions containing the idea of time, for we must also be conscious of the fact that although the first, second, and third states of Old Saturn did not take place one after the other in the present sense of the word, we cannot do otherwise than describe them one after the other. Indeed, in spite of their duration or simultaneity, they are so inter-dependent that this dependence may be compared with a sequence in time.

1910-GA013

[Archai going through human stage]

In this state of Old Saturn, beings now intervene who likewise have the astral body as their lowest member, but who have developed it to such a stage that it has the effect of a present-day human ego. Through these beings, the ego looks down upon Old Saturn from its environment and communicates its nature to the individual living beings of Old Saturn.

Thus something is sent out into cosmic space from Old Saturn that appears similar to the activity of the human personality in the present cycle of life. The beings who bring this about may be called the Archai. They confer upon the small Old Saturn bodies the appearance of the character of personality. Personality does not exist on Old Saturn itself, however, but only its reflection, as it were, the shell of personality.

The archai have their real personality on the periphery of Old Saturn. Just because these archai let their being be reflected back by the Saturn bodies in the manner indicated, the fine substance just described as “heat” is imparted to the latter.

In the whole of Old Saturn there is no inner life, but the archai recognize the image of their own inner life as it streams back to them from Old Saturn in the form of heat.

When all this occurs, the archai stand at the stage at which the human being is at present. At that time they pass through their human epoch. [editor: on the stage this is also called CoC-4: Condition of Consciousness level 4]. If we wish to look at these facts with an unprejudiced eye, we must imagine that a being can be “man” not merely in the form borne by man at the present time. The archai are “human beings” on Old Saturn. They do not have the physical body as their lowest principle, but the astral body with the I. Therefore they are not able to express the experiences of this astral body in a physical and ether body like that of the present-day man; yet they not only possess an I, but are fully aware of it, because the heat substance of Old Saturn brings it to their consciousness in reflecting it back to them. They are “human beings” under conditions different from the earth state.

[A kind of inner life begins whereas upto now only reflection]

In the further course of the Old Saturn evolution, events ensue that are different in character from anything existing heretofore. While up to the present time everything was a reflection of external life and sensation, now a kind of inner life begins.

Here and there within the Old Saturn world a life of light begins, now flaring up, now darkening. Flickering glimmers of light appear in certain places, and in others something occurs like flashes of lightning. Old Saturn heat bodies begin to glimmer, to sparkle, even to radiate. Because this stage of evolution has been reached, again certain beings have the possibility of becoming active. These are beings who may be called archangels. Although these beings have an astral body of their own, they are unable, at this stage of their existence, to stimulate it; they would not be able to awake any feeling or sensation if they could not work upon the heat bodies that had reached the Old Saturn stage already described. This activity exerted by them gives them the possibility of becoming aware of their own existence. They cannot say to themselves, “I exist,” but rather, “My environment permits me to exist.” They perceive, and their perceptions consist in the activities of light described as taking place on Old Saturn. These activities are in a certain sense their I. This gives them a certain kind of consciousness that may be designated as picture consciousness. It can be thought of as a kind of human dream consciousness, only we must think of the degree of intensity of this dream consciousness as being much greater than in human dreaming, and we must realize that we are concerned not with unreal dream pictures surging up and down, but with dream pictures that have an actual relationship to the play of light on Old Saturn.

Within this reciprocal activity taking place between the archangels and the Old Saturn heat bodies, the germinal human organs of sense are started on the path of evolution. The organs through which the human being at present perceives the physical world flash up in their first etheric inceptions. Human phantoms, as yet manifesting nothing but the primal light images of the sense organs, can be recognized within Old Saturn by means of clairvoyant perception. These sense organs thus are the fruit of the activity of the archangels, but the archangels are not the only beings who participate in the formation of these organs.

Together with these archangels, other beings enter the field of Old Saturn, beings who are so far advanced in their evolution as to be able to employ these germinal senses to perceive the cosmic processes taking place in the life of Old Saturn. These beings may be called Seraphim. Were they not present, the archangels could not have the consciousness described above. They behold the Old Saturn processes with a consciousness enabling them to convey these processes to the archangels in the form of images. They forego all benefit they themselves might reap by perceiving the Old Saturn events; they renounce all enjoyment, all pleasure; they sacrifice all this in order that the Spirits of Fire might have it.

A new Old Saturn period follows these occurrences. Something else is added to the play of light. It may seem madness to many when we speak of what here presents itself to supersensible cognition. The interior of Old Saturn appears like a billowing and surging of sensations of taste; sweet, bitter, sour may be observed at various points within Old Saturn, and outwardly, into cosmic space, this all appears as tone, as a kind of music.

Within these processes certain beings again find the possibility of developing an activity upon Old Saturn. They may be called the Angels. They enter into reciprocal activity with the surging forces of taste present within Old Saturn, and through it their ether or life body takes on an activity somewhat similar to metabolism. They bring life into the interior of Old Saturn. As a result, processes of nutrition and elimination take place. They do not directly produce these processes, but through their activities the processes indirectly come into existence. This internal life makes it possible for still other beings to enter the sphere of this cosmic body, beings who may be designated Cherubim. They bestow upon the Angels a dull kind of consciousness, duller and vaguer than the dream consciousness of the present-day human being, a consciousness similar to that he possesses in dreamless sleep. This consciousness is of such a low order that man is not aware of it. It is present, however, and differs from day consciousness in degree and also in kind. Plant life at present also has this 'dreamless sleep consciousness'. Even though this consciousness does not excite perceptions of an outer world as they are understood today, nevertheless, it regulates the life-processes and brings them into harmony with the outer cosmic processes.

At the Old Saturn stage under consideration, the angels cannot perceive this regulating process; the Cherubim, however, perceive it and are therefore the actual regulators. All this life-activity takes place in the human phantoms, already characterized. These phantoms therefore appear to spiritual perception as though endowed with life, but their life is only a semblance. It is actually the life of the angels. These angels make use of the human phantoms, in order, as it were, to unfold themselves.

1939 - Valentin Tomberg

see also Christology and interpretations for a commentary on this: Christology and interpretations#Example

Short extract from 'The Four Sacrifices of Christ and the Appearance of Christ in the Etheric', here SWCC to fit site terminology and topic context.

Note: for broader perspective, see also Schema FMC00.413 and Logoic principle

If we consider cosmic development as it is described in "An Outline of Esoteric Science", many important questions arise. And one of these questions is this: at every cosmic level, on the stages of Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon and Earth, a hierarchy went through something similar to the stage of humanity; on the other hand, the human phase of humanity itself is bound up with a sacrifice, which we refer to as the Mystery of Golgotha.

Did the preceding stages of experience of human-ness in the world, the stages where the archai, the archangels, the angels passed through their human phase, occur without a corresponding sacrifice?

The answer is: a deed of sacrifice did actually take place on all the cosmic stages; it was each time an intensification of the sacrifice.

The Mystery of Golgotha was the only event that was bound up with a passage through death. But it had different stages, in which the sacrificial events were, so to speak, repeated, which had taken place at earlier cosmic stages.

What, then, was important in the Old Saturn evolution?

The beings who were then passing through their human phase did so through being placed in-between cold and warm. During the Old Sun evolution the beings passing through the human phase were placed between light and darkness. That is the difference.

The descending Old Saturn development up to the middle of the Old Saturn evolution consisted in the process whereby the principle of hardening through the cold grew ever stronger. After the middle of the Old Saturn evolution an ascent began, whose outcome was that Thrones .. at the end of the Old Saturn evolution laid the germ of the human being — the spirit-man (or atma) — into the physical bodily nature.

The transformation that took place in the middle of the Old Saturn evolution, the change in the direction of development, was not just a turning in a circle. Nothing whatever in the world merely turns — everything in the world consists of deeds of beings and groups of beings. When, therefore, an ascent occurred in the Old Saturn evolution, then this was a deed. And the deed that was done, was carried out by a mysterious being who, in the middle of the Old Saturn development, in the iciest cold, effected the transformation of this cold into warmth of will. This is how one should imagine it: The trial of the Saturn evolution lay in the fact that will was, so to speak, spellbound or imprisoned in immobility.

1936-1950 - Maximilian Rebholz

Maximilian Rebholz writes in his essay on the Elementary Kingdoms (SWCC) how the part of the substance (here: warmth) that is not fully 'processed' by the hierarchy that goes through the human stage experience (here: the archai), falls back in evolution and gives rises to a lower kingdom that 'drops' vis-a-vis the same substance that went through the evolution with the archai.

... Up till now, we have only considered the elementary kingdoms as the forces which reveal themselves as shapes in the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom and the animal kingdoms. Now however, in GA009 (Theosophy), perhaps it is not described in detail, yet it is hinted at, that also matter, the material element, arose through a process of condensation – "like ice from water" – from the three elementary kingdoms.

In order to understand, that both things exist – that only a part of the elementary kingdom has developed in the line which we have so far followed, whilst another part has become matter – we return again to the presentation of the Old Saturn evolution in GA110.

The task of the Archai was to re-spiritualize the warmth that they separated out of themselves at the end of the Old Saturn evolution. At least, this is what should have been. But – as Dr. Steiner went on to describe – the Archai were not able to transform back all the warmth. A part thereof remained externalized, and had to become spiritualized back by the Thrones themselves, at the transition of Old Saturn into the great Pralaya, that lies between the Old Saturn and Old Sun evolutions. This part reappeared in the Sun evolution as a backward, lower kingdom of nature, and this part became condensed in the further course of cosmic evolution and became present-day matter.

.. the other part, that had been spiritualized again, continued to live in the Archai in spiritual form (though it did descend while incarnating) ...

.. in the meantime, the part that had not been re-spiritualized by the Archai, condensed to materiality and turned first into astral materiality, then into an etheric one, and finally into the material of the lower worlds.

We thus have a splitting of the original unified sacrificial substance of the Thrones into two streams:

• one which kept developing in spiritual form and turned into Man's essential substance (the Self), and
• the other part that was left behind, which went on a downward path of development and became present-day matter.

This is the secret affinity of the human being to the Old Saturn warmth that became condensed into earthly matter – an affinity to we shall return later.

Let us now assume, that the sacrificial substance of the Spirits of Wisdom too, which came into existence on the Sun as the first elementary kingdom, suffered a similar splitting. In that case, the part that remained behind of this elementary kingdom would have turned into present-day ether; for – as a young elementary kingdom, its condensation is not yet sufficiently advanced.

and Rebholz adds quotes that the substance of the SoW is the ether as in the etheric life body added on the Old Sun, and similarly for the SoM on Old Moon. See Schema FMC00.147 on The elementary kingdoms

Discussion

Note 1 - Process description

Use Schemas FMC00.077A and FMC00.291 above for the explanation below.

The Old Saturn stage starts with creative spiritual beings that had developed to high maturity (CoC 8-10) in a previous solar system evolution. We find them in a hollow sphere called a zodiac, that consists of the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim (First Hierarchy or H1). Their influences vary depending to the area: different spiritual beings in different areas work different influences, denoted by Zodiac signs. Zodiac signs are pointers to these different directions from where spiritual beings are active and send their particular influence. The reason they are symbolized by animal signs will follow from this explanation.

At this stage, from without

• the Thrones sacrifice their being and emanate warmth from which a warmth globe will arise.
• The light which springs forth from the fire substance sacrifice of the Thrones, is accepted by the Cherubim, and they uplift themselves and grow to a higher level.

On Old Saturn, or rather ‘within' the Old Saturn sphere:

• the 'inhabitants' Archai that go through the human stage of waking consciousness (in short: CoC-4, for Condition of Consciousness 4 out of 12, see FMC00.064)
• above them, the beings of the Second Hierarchy (H2) hover above the Archai and are part of their evolutionary development (SoW as directors, SoM executors, SoF upholders of what is built).

What follows now is the foundational process from which the globe Old Saturn consisting of warmth substance, rose. How does this process work?

Whilst the Thrones (CoC-8) emanated their warmth as their sacrifice (and hence provide some base building material) .. the 'inhabitants' Archai that went through the human stage of waking consciousness (in short: CoC-4) were met by the Seraphim (then at CoC-10) .. coming to meet them to offer their spiritually vivifying influence.

Or again: CoC-level 4 is the ‘human conscious stage’ living in an environment where CoC-level 8 is able to sacrifice its lowest level of being to CoC-level 9. However it is a CoC-level 10 hierarchy that comes to ‘offer help’ and enrich the CoC-level 4 ‘human stage’.

The formation of the globe of warmth of Old Saturn arose from spiritual beings working from two sides: H2 from inside, and H1 from outside. Between these two streams of soul-warmth and inner-warmth (perceptable), through a slow and gradual process, something new arose: the germs of Man's organs were woven through the influences of the different spiritual beings from the various Zodiac signs .. the heart by the Lion area, breast area Cancer, etc (some names got transformed through the ages). What is called the physical body today had its first foundations during the earliest Old Saturn planetary stage. Whilst Old Saturn itself was being formed, the different signs of the Zodiac slowly revolved, and the human body member by member, took on its earliest form. This original life of the germinal physical body, this inner motion full of mobility, is brought to a standstill again by forces from the Zodiac from the region of the Lion.

The CoC-10 role in evolution

Each planetary cycle of evolution has a descending followed by an ascending arc, and one may wonder what 'technically' causes this 'change in direction'. For the Earth stage of evolution this is the Christ Impulse given at the Mystery of Golgotha. This note shows how to look for this pattern in the previous planetary stages of evolution.

With reference to Creation of solar system - Schema FMC00.077A, and/or Creation of solar system - Schema FMC00.077B the following extract of Old Sun#1909-04-13-GA110 is repeated here in shortened form:

The archangels were helped in this out-spreading by the fact that there were beings out in the universe who came to meet them. ... Those beings who came out of spiritual space to meet the archangels, we call Cherubim. They are Beings of an exceptionally sublime nature; they have power to receive the archangels, so to speak, with open arms. When the archangels spread outwards, the Cherubim came to meet them, out of the Universal All. Thus, all round the globe of Old Sun, we have the approaching Cherubim.

... In the schools of the first Postatlantean initiates, these Cherubim, approaching Old Sun on four sides, were given names, which later became the names, Bull, Lion, Eagle, Man.

The aspect presented by Old Sun, was that of its human inhabitants, called archangels, passing out into universal space, and the four kinds of Cherubim, coming from four sides to meet them. On account of this, the Archangels were enabled to stay in the spiritual region which surrounded Old Sun longer than they otherwise could have done. For the influence of those Cherubim upon the Archangels was vivifying in the highest degree, in the spiritual sense.

Related pages

• Evolution
• Overview of solar system evolution
• Creation of the solar system