nsation of man's physical body and by the
separation of part of his etheric from his physical body. For some time
after the separations of the moon, man felt himself connected with his
physical ancestors through the group-ego. But this common consciousness,
linking posterity with its ancestors, was gradually lost in the course of
generations. Later descendants had an inner memory of only their more
recent ancestors, no longer of their earlier forefathers. It was only in
conditions akin to sleep, during which mankind came in contact with the
spiritual world, that the remembrance of one ancestor or another again
emerged. Then people thought of themselves as one with that ancestor whom
they believed to be reappearing in them. This was an erroneous idea of
reincarnation, which arose especially in the later Atlantean period. The
true doctrine of reincarnation could be learned only in the schools of the
Initiates. They could see how the human soul passes through the
disembodied state on its way from one incarnation to another, and they
alone were able to impart the real truth of the matter to their disciples.

In the remote past which is now under consideration, man's physical form
was very different from his present form. It was still, to a great extent,
the expression of the qualities of his soul. Man was composed of a softer
and more delicate substance than that which he has since acquired. That
which is now solidified in the limbs was then soft, flexible, and plastic.
The bodily structure of the more psychic and spiritual human beings was
delicate, supple, and expressive. These less evolved spiritually possessed
coarser, heavier, less mobile bodily structures. A high degree of psychic
maturity contracted the extremities, and the Stature remained small;
backwardness of the soul and entanglement in sensuality were outwardly
expressed by gigantic size. While man was growing to maturity his body was
being formed in accordance with what was developing in his soul, in a way
which would appear incredible and fabulous to contemporary ideas. Depraved
passions, impulses, and instincts brought in their train a colossal
increase of matter. Man's present physical form has come about through a
contraction, thickening, and consolidation of the Atlantean human form.
And whereas man, before the Atlantean period, had been an exact image of
his soul-nature the events of the Atlantean evolution bore within them the
causes which lead to the for