Symbol 81
A summary explanation of symbol no. 81 – The Earth’s Terrestrial Human Epoch. The Earth’s Spiritual World in its Present Epoch
General notes on symbols nos. 78-85
Symbols nos. 78-85 show the Earth’s various epochs of evolution. The Earth is a living being and, like all other living beings, goes through the spiral cycle. In the middle of the symbols we see the Earth’s physical body. The surrounding coloured rings of rays symbolise the Earth’s spiritual world or spheres of consciousness. The large ring of rays shows the Earth’s day-consciousness in the particular epoch of evolution. The circle of jagged figures in the middle of the large ring of rays symbolises the pole structure. During evolution the energies in the other areas grow and occupy the day-consciousness; they then degenerate and fade away into the inner rings.
The Earth’s spiritual world is populated partly by beings that are passing through because of reincarnation and partly by beings that are resident in this area.
Explanation of symbol no. 81
The symbol shows the present state of the Earth, the terrestrial human epoch. It is a planet with outstandingly developed animal beings, that is, human beings, that are at the moment in the process of waking up to becoming humane beings.
The thoughts of the human beings exist on the spiritual planes, even though their bodies are on the physical plane. When human beings die and leave the physical plane, the amount of animal mentality and human mentality they have is crucial. If they have a lot of human mentality and are highly evolved, they will pass over into the humane sphere. If they do not have very much human mentality, they will pass into the spheres that have a very small area of human mentality and a large area of animal mentality.
Martinus' own explanation of the symbol can be found in The Eternal World Picture, vol. 6, which is not yet available in English.