the beings superior to man are surging
through the airy-fiery body of the earth. In the fire-earth it is at first
the Sons of Personality who are of importance to man, and when man is
stirred into life by the heat of the earth his sentient soul says to
itself, "These are the Sons of Personality." In the same way the beings
called "Archangels" earlier in this book (in accordance with Christian
esotericism) appear in the air-sphere. It is their influences which man
feels within him as sound, when the air plays around him. And the
intellectual-soul then says to itself, "These are the Archangels." Thus
what man at this stage perceives, through his connection with the earth,
is not as yet a collection of physical objects, but he lives in sensations
of heat which rise up to him, and in sounds; in those heat currents and
sound waves, however, he feels the Sons of Personality and the Archangels.
It is true that he cannot perceive those beings directly, only, as it
were, through a veil of heat and sound. While these perceptions are
penetrating from the earth into his soul, there continue to ascend and
descend within it the images of those higher beings in whose tender care
he feels himself to be.

Now evolution takes a further step, which is once more expressed in
condensation. Watery substance is incorporated into the Earth-body, so
that now the latter consists of three parts,--igneous, aeriform, and
aqueous. Before this happens, something of great importance takes place.
An independent celestial body is split off from the fiery-aeriform earth;
this new body becomes in its later development our present sun.(21)
Previously, earth and sun had formed one body. After the sun had been
split off, the earth still has at first everything within it which is in
and on the present moon. The separation of the sun takes place because
higher beings could no longer carry on their own evolution as well as
their task on Earth within this atmosphere, now densified to the
consistency of water. They separate from the general mass of the Earth the
only substances useful to them, and fare forth to make a new abode for
themselves in the sun. They now influence the earth from the sun, from
outside. Man, however, needs for his further evolution an environment in
which matter becomes still more condensed.

With the incorporation of watery substance in the earth-body a change also
takes place in man. Henceforth not only does fire stream into him and air