Esoteric History of Man

The Planetary Cycles
Our Earth have gone through a number of incarnations, each incarnation alternates between pralaya, a cosmic night and manvantara, a cosmic day, just as we alternately pass through day and night, life and dead. Pralaya is the non-physical, preparatory stage and manvantara the physical or lower spiritual development stage.

Man have gone through three planetary Earth incarnations (æons) before Earth, and are going through three after Earth before we have finished the complete development cycle. These seven Earth incarnations are called Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and ending with Vulcan. The emanation of Sephira’s in the Kabbalah tree of life corresponds to these planetary cycles.

The Earth development phase is split in two parts: Mars, before the Son incarnates, and Mercury after this incarnation. In a seven pointed star it looks:

The sequence of the planetary development,
Mars is first part of Earth and Mercury last part of Earth development.

Just start with Saturn, and follow the arrows. It follow the week days:

♄ – Saturn	Samedi, Samstag, Lørdag	Saturday
☉ – Sun	Sonntag, Søndag	Sunday
☾ – Moon	Lundi, Montag, Mandag	Monday
♂ – Mars	Mardi, Dienstag, Tyr – Tirsdag, or Tiu	Tuesday
☿ – Mercury	Mercredi, Mittwoch, Odin – Onsdag	Wednesday
♃ – Jupiter	Jeudi, Donar – Donnerstag, Tor, Torsdag	Thursday
♀ – Venus	Vendredi, Freya — Freitag, Fredag	Friday

Until the middle of Earth round, all development have been made under strict guidance from higher hierarchies, first with the development of sentience on the Earth, through the lower ‘I’ is it possible for man to enter the development consciously.

You will not find a human being as he is today on Earth on any other planet. Beings, yes — but not human beings. The Earth exists in order that “I”-conscious human beings could be created. Through the first four Rounds the kingdoms of nature evolved in order that in the fourth man could be made a self-conscious being, who could reflect himself in his body. He will rise to higher levels of evolution, something that few can understand correctly. In the next, the fifth Round, the mineral kingdom will disappear. All mineral matter will be transformed to vegetable matter. Then the vegetable kingdom will reach its culmination and in the next Round the animal kingdom will form the lowest kingdom. During the seventh Round the human being will achieve his highest level of evolution. He will have become what planetary evolution intends. RS

The development of man in these first four phases goes through the four states as described by F.W.J. Schelling:

“Mind sleeps in stone, dreams in the plant, awakes in the animal and becomes conscious in man.”

Old Saturn

The first seed of man was created on the Earth incarnation called old Saturn, and it’s remnants is the Saturn of today.

Planetary seal of Old Saturn

Old Saturn was a planet which was made of warms. The creator is known as Saturn or Cronos or in Christian terminology, The Thrones [Binah].

Saturn – Cronus

The first seed of minerals were created here. At this time man created unconsciously the seed of what would become it’s Spirit Body (Atma). Man had at that time mineral-consciousness.

Man is the first-born of our creative process. But Saturn-man was very different from the man of today. He was for the most part a spiritual being; he would not have been visible to physical eyes. It was a kind of primal mineral, with no etheric body round it; hence we can say that man passed through the mineral kingdom; but to think of it as anything like our present-day mineral kingdom would be quite wrong. On Saturn there was no kingdom other than the human kingdom.  From “Evolution of the Earth”

Old Sun

The old Sun was a planet of Light, where a great part of the minerals of man was connected with the etheric, creating a higher life form with plant-consciousness.

If one looks at how after a pralaya old Saturn changed into old Sun with the spiritual gaze that moves over the planets one notices that Saturn’s warmth atmosphere condenses into air. Man gets an etheric body on the Sun. He is a shining being. Spiritual beings work through the Sun’s astral atmosphere upon the etheric body, ignite it and thereby make it shine. One calls this the sulfuric process.

Planetary Seal of Old Sun

Some of our development wave of Saturn didn’t connect to the Etheric, so they stayed on the mineral-level. Man creates here, under guidance, the seed for the Buddhi layer of the later development. Zeus is connected to the Old Sun.

Old Moon

The Old Moon is a watery planet, with earth like living plants. Here is man connected with Astral stuff, acquiring animal-consciousness.

When the Sun passes over to the Moon, air condenses to water. The Moon’s body is a water body. We notice something very strange about this water body. Single water drops change their position in an extremely lively manner and race around with inner mobility. In some respects one can compare this property of the water drops with mercury. That’s why one calls this principle that’s added on the Moon the mercurial principle. The parts are put together into forms by sounds, somewhat like Chladni’s sound figures. First two came together, then two pairs made four, etc., just as one still finds in new plant, animal and human forms. That’s the female principle. The male principle only arose later from pure earth forces. From “Esoteric Lessons“.

Planetary Seal of Old Moon

Some of our brethren from the Saturn development wave didn’t connect to the Astral so they stayed at the plant-level. Here creates man under guidance Manas. The Old Moon are connected to The Mother, Sophia, or Cthlon.

Earth

On this Earth we have, besides man, the minerals who stayed back on the Old Saturn, the plants who stayed back on the Old Sun, and the animals who stayed back on the Old Moon.

When the moon passed over to the earth, water condensed to earth. The precipitating salt process took place on the earth for the first time through the interaction of fire and water. Man arose from female and male and began to dissolve things again through thinking so that evolution could continue. Man received the erring I on earth. From “Esoteric Lessons“.

The Earth development phase is split in two parts: Mars, before the Son incarnates, and Mercury after this incarnation, which takes place in the middle manvantara..

First half of Earth called Mars

In the first part, called Mars, mankind descend into the Physical, into the dominion of the Cthlonic powers, through a kind of repetition of the first three planetary rounds.

Planetary Seal of Mars,
first part of Earth

Here Man acquires the seed of the Ego, which is needed to become a sentient being. See the table in Dream Interpretation in Esoteric Work

Second half of Earth called Mercury

Planetary Seal of Mercury,
second part of Earth

In the second part of Earth, called Mercury, we ascends again to the spiritual world, and we have been working on it for two thousand years now.

In the second part we develop what we previously have created the seed for together with the Gods, that is Sentient soul (Orektikon), the Intellectual soul (Kinetikon), and the Consciousness soul (Dianoetikon), The three aspects of Isis/Sophia. Those who don’t unite with the spirit, stays back.

New Jupiter

Planetary Seal of New Jupiter

The New Jupiter is known as the New Israel, or New Jerusalem, Paradise or Shambhala, which already exist in embryonic form. Here we will develop Angelic Consciousness. All creation of Old Saturn are one Wave, and it’s our responsibility to get every creation of Saturn, from mineral to man, with us in the development. And this is part of our task now and in the future, and it is a result of the work toward this goal, transforming our astral body to Spirit Self, Manas. The minerals of Earth is transformed to vegetable matter.

New Venus

Planetary Seal of New Venus

On Venus we are transforming the etheric body to Life Spirit or  Buddhi, and on Vulcan we are transforming the physical to Spirit Body, Atma. On Venus the lowest kingdom is the animal kingdom and on Vulcan the lowest kingdom is the human kingdom.

This cycle of seven planets are bound to the Chakras, where Earth corresponds to the Heart, to Christ, who transformed Earth, gave it life, for the new future, called New Jerusalem, the New Jupiter.

The Creation are described by Steiner in “From the Akasha Chronicles” and Max Heindel in “The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception or Mystic Christianity“.

In each of these Earth-incarnation man develops a higher level of consciousness as described:

There are seven grades of human consciousness: trance consciousness, deep sleep, dream consciousness, waking consciousness, psychic, super-psychic and spiritual consciousness. Actually these are in all twelve stages of consciousness;  the five others are creative stages. They are those of the Creators, of the creative Gods. These twelve stages are related to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The human being must pass through the experiences of these twelve stages. He ascended through the trance, deep sleep and dream consciousness up to the present clear day consciousness. In the succeeding stages of planetary evolution he will reach still higher stages. All those which he has already passed through he will also retain within him. The physical body has the dull trance consciousness as this was gained by man on Old Saturn. The human etheric body has the consciousness of dreamless sleep, as this developed on Old Sun. The astral body dreams in the same way as one dreams during sleep. Dream consciousness derives from the Old Moon period. On our present Earth, man achieves waking consciousness. The ego has clear day-consciousness. RS

See The Logos Walks the Earth, and Spirits of Form.