-or
even lightly attached in an element surrounding them, as the lower animals
of the present time live in water, or land animals in air. Yet the element
is neither water nor air in the present sense, but something midway
between the two, a kind of thick vapour in which most heterogeneous
substances move hither and thither, as though dissolved in currents
flowing in all directions.

The animal-plants appear only as condensed regular forms of this element,
often differing little physically from their environment. The process of
respiration exists alongside of the process of nutrition. It is not as it
is upon the earth, but like a drawing in and a streaming out of heat. To
clairvoyant observation it is as though during those processes, organs
opened and closed, through which a warming current passed in and out, and
through which airy and watery substances were also carried in and out. And
since man's nature at this stage of evolution already possesses an astral
body, respiration and nutrition are accompanied by feelings, so that a
sort of pleasure ensues when materials which promote the upbuilding of
man's nature are taken in from without. Aversion is caused if injurious
substances flow in, or even if they merely approach.

Just as during the Moon evolution the respiratory and the nutritive
processes were closely connected, as has been described, so was the
process of perception in close connection with reproduction. No immediate
effect was produced on any of the senses by the things and beings in the
environment of Moon humanity. Perception was, on the contrary, of such a
nature that the presence of things and beings called up pictures in the
dull, dreamy consciousness. These pictures were much more closely
connected with the real nature of the environment than the present
sense-perceptions, which record in colour, sounds, smell etc., so to
speak, only the outside of things and beings.

In order to get a clearer idea of the human consciousness on the Moon, let
us imagine human beings immersed in the vaporous environment described
above. Most varied processes take place in this vapour-element. Materials
unite, substances break asunder one from the other; some parts become
condensed, others rarified. All this happens in such a way that human
beings do not see or hear anything of it directly, but it calls up
pictures in their consciousness. These may be compared with the images of
our present dream-consciousness, as for i