150 @ The Secret Lijie of Naturelike a skin or shell, and becomes a being of its own, continuing to exist
even when severed from its creator. Their offspring, the devas of min-
eral, plant, and animal, split off from their creators, are sent down into
the kingdom of nature, and "as these creations become detached there
is not only the creation of independent beings but of whole worlds."
How such sublime beings might appear to human eyes is indicated by
the prophet Ezeluel in the course of his ecstatic visions when he de-
scribes thrones as many-colored, wheel-like structures built up in such a
way as to form wheels within wheels, multicolored transparent rings,
one turning within the other, the inner one with eyes. In this descrip-
tion, angelologist Robert Sorbello sees a indication of flying saucers, as
does his Dutch colleague, H. C. Moolenburgh, in his A Handbook of
Angels, and as does Billy Graham in his book Angels: all three authors re-
late the UFO phenomena specifically to the higher hierarchies of angels.
Most pertinent, of course, is the role of these beings in the creation
of humans. Steiner describes how early in the long history of the var-
ious cosmic bodies that preceded earth the hierarchies were already in-
strumental in developing what was to become the human being. First
came the physical body, a creation of the highest hierarchy, virtually a
body of fire, exuded from their own body by the thrones, or spirits of
will. Gradually, over eons, this human body condensed through gaseous
and liquid stages into a gelatinous creature swimming and hovering in
the earth's environment until able to descend to such parts of the earth
as were already more or less solidified. As man stepped onto earth and
received the first traces of mineral substance in his physical body, he
gradually acquired his present form but needed, in progressive order, an
etheric body, an astral body, and an ego.
The "will" exuded by the thrones when united with the "life ether"
radiated by kyriotetes from their own etheric bodies (made of cosmic
sun force) endowed the human being with an etheric body. Next the
dynamis, or spirits of motion, with no physical or etheric bodies, their
lowest body being the astral, allowed their astral bodies to surge
through the human etheric body "like sap in a plant." This enabled
man to manifest for himself the soul qualities of sympathy and antipa-
thy, enabling him to feel pleasure and displeasure.