The biblical story of the creation of man is a beautiful symbolical rendering of this event. First, there was the creation and then the animation. Man originated in a special realm called the Spiritual realm. See “Creation”. It originated as a spirit seed which could not come to consciousness of its own accord in this realm because the pressure therein was too strong for it to do so. It therefore originated in this realm as an unconscious spirit seed, unaware of itself, its abilities and powers. In order for it to awaken it has to descend into a realm which was lower lying and therefore has a lower pressure. In this realm it could gradually awaken to self-responsibility.

Influences from without is therefore the road to self-awareness for the human spirit. The lower lying realm that it had to descend into is the World of Matter, the material world of which the Worlds of Ethereal and Gross Matter are part. Through experiences in these realms it would gradually awaken its abilities, grow strong and one day would be able to make its way back to the home it left so long ago as an unconscious spirit seed. This time however, it returns as a mature conscious spirit not as a seed.

In order for it to descend and experience in the World of Matter, it needs a body of the same substance as the realm in which it finds itself. In the Ethereal realm, it acquires an ethereal body in order for it to pass through this realm. On earth, it acquires a physical body for it to be able to live here. Man on earth therefore, has within him all the bodies of all the layers that it has been obliged to pass through on its descent down to here. Man as such is spirit as its core is spirit. Being spiritual, its essence is eternal, indestructible. What is transient are all the material bodies it acquires on his journeys. Man on earth therefore consists of what has been described in the Bible as the Breath of the Creator (the spirit).

From Genesis 2:7 we read, “..Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breath into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” This as it is, coming from the Creator must be eternal and this corresponds to the spirit. It is said that God formed man of the dust from the ground. What does this statement mean? Formed from the ground refers to the formation of man’s physical body as we all agree. It actually refers to the evolutionary process leading eventually to the formation of man’s physical body. This physical body therefore is formed from the dust of the ground which allegorically was referred to as the formation of man from the dust of the ground. It is actually the evolutionary development of his physical body. “God breath into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being.”

The breath of life made man a living being. It can be inferred therefore that without this breath of life man on earth would be lifeless, only a physical body, without a life of its own. This breath is the animating force for what was formed from dust of the ground. This animating force must be distinguished from what was formed from the dust of the ground.

On the one hand we have this form which was formed from the dust of the ground and which was therefore lifeless. On the other, we have the breath of life which turned what was hitherto lifeless into a living form. The distinction is therefore made between the spirit, the life-giving force, and the physical body which is lifeless. On earth, or even in the entire material creation, we have a combination of the two. The spirit of man in his garment or covering. The covering on its own is lifeless and formed from the substance of the region in which man’s spirit finds itself, and the core, the spirit itself which gives life and movement to this garment. On earth the formation of man’s physical garment occurred through the process of evolution. See “Evolution.”

In order for man to achieve his destiny of maturing to a fully conscious human being, he had to descend to the lower lying World of Matter. At a definite stage in the ripeness of the spiritual seed, it was expelled or ejected from the spiritual realm toward the World of Matter. Meanwhile on earth, through the process of evolution, there arose in time the most highly developed animals that formed a basis for the incarnation of man on earth.

At a point mid way in the development of the World of Matter, when the ethereal spiritual human being had descended so far as to reach the earth and the most highly developed animals had developed the physical to the highest level, when the noblest pairs of these animals mated, a human spirit incarnated into the developing body in the womb instead of another animal.

This was the combination of the immortal spirit spark with the perishable physical body which had been made from the dust of the earth through the process of evolution. Through evolution therefore, the physical body was prepared, and when the time came, the spirit merged with this physical body. This was the entrance of human beings on to the earth. Those who then incarnated formed the basis for the entrance of the others as they formed small human colonies which expanded as time went on. Through further evolution, the animal body that was inherited was gradually converted into a human one.