the finer parts, in
particular the human astral body, extricate themselves from those coarser
organisms. They reach a condition in which the higher forces of exalted
Sun-beings are able to act upon them very powerfully. After the interval
of rest they again interpenetrate those parts of man's being which are
composed of the coarser substances. Because they received such powerful
forces during the pause--in a free state--they are able to make those
coarser substances ripe for the influence, after a certain time, of the
Sons of Personality and the Sons of Fire, who have progressed normally.

In the meantime these Sons of Personality have raised themselves to a
level upon which they possess the "consciousness of inspiration." Here
they are not only able--as was the case with clairvoyant
picture-consciousness--to observe the inner state of other beings in
images, but to apprehend the inner nature itself of those beings, as
though in a spiritual tone-language. But the Sons of Fire have risen to
that height of consciousness possessed on the Sun by the Sons of
Personality. Thus both kinds of spirits are able to influence the now more
developed life of the human being. The Sons of Personality act on the
astral body, the Sons of Fire on the etheric body of this human being. The
astral body thereby acquires the character of personality. It now not only
experiences pleasure and pain, but relates them to itself. It has not
arrived at a complete ego-consciousness, that says to itself, "I am here";
but it feels itself upheld and protected by other beings in its
environment. When looking, as it were, up to these, it is able to say,
"This, my environment, keeps me alive."

The Sons of Fire now work upon the etheric body. Under their influence the
movement of forces in that body becomes more and more an inner function of
life. What then results finds physical expression in a circulation of
fluids and in phenomena of growth. The gaseous substances have become
condensed into liquid substances; we may speak of a kind of nutritive
process, in the sense that what is received from without becomes
transformed and elaborated within. Perhaps if we think of something
intermediate between nutrition and respiration in the present meaning of
the terms, we may get an idea of what then happened in this respect. The
nutritive matter was drawn from the animal-plant kingdom by the human
being. We must think of those animal-plants as floating or swimming-