ome into existence, but the
kernel of the parent-being passes over into the offspring. No new being
arises, but the same one in a new form.

Thus the Moon human being experiences a change of consciousness. When the
Sun period draws near, his pictured images become dimmer and dimmer, and
blissful devotion takes possession of him; the harmonies of the universe
resound in his peaceful inner being. Toward the end of this time the
images of the astral body begin to be animated; he begins to be more
conscious of himself and able to experience sensation. Man experiences
something like an awakening from the bliss and tranquility in which he was
wrapped during the sun period.

At the same time another important experience begins. With this new
clearing up of the picture-consciousness the human being sees himself as
though enveloped in a cloud, which has descended upon him like a being
from the cosmos.

And he feels that being as something belonging to him, as a completion of
his own nature; he feels it as that which gives him existence, as his
"ego." That being is one of the Sons of Life. Man feels toward him
somewhat like this: "I have lived in this being, even when I was given up
to the glory of the universe in the Sun period,--only then he was not
visible to me; now he is." And it is also this Son of Life from whom
proceeds the force which, during the Sunless period, acts upon the body of
man. Then when the Sun period again approaches, man feels as though he
himself became one with the Son of Life. Even if man does not see him, he
nevertheless feels closely united with him.

Now the connection with the Sons of Life was such that not every
individual human being had a Son of Life to himself, but an entire group
of people felt such a being belonging to them. Thus people on the Moon
lived segregated into groups, and each group felt in one of the Sons of
Life its common "group-ego." The etheric body of each particular group had
a specific form, in this way these groups differed from each other. But as
the physical bodies shaped themselves in conformity with the etheric
bodies, the differences of the latter were also stamped upon the former;
and the individual groups of human beings appeared as so many species of
people. As the Sons of Life looked down on the human groups belonging to
them, they saw themselves to a certain extent reproduced in manifold
individual human beings. And therein they felt their own egohood. They, so