Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/241/en

In the ancient Persian epoch the I awakened within the sentient body, the as-yet undifferentiated third member of the human being, the astral body. At this stage of advancing consciousness the force of the old instinctive clairvoyance dimmed, and there grew in its place the capacity — under the guidance of the Mysteries and out of the living experience of cosmic-earthly relationships — to work upon earth, plants, and animals in a transforming way. The sacral-magical relationship of the Atlanteans to the active spiritual creative forces in earth and cosmos transformed itself into a sacral-artistic one. It was the high art of the ancient Persians, building upon the cultural achievements that had gone before, to work — out of an instinctive directness with the spirit, in the process of becoming settled — upon the soul-nature of certain animal species in such a way that this soul-nature opened itself toward the human being. But in doing so the entire physical-bodily organisation of the animals was transformed in its depths. In their turning toward the animal, human beings shaped out of their inner experience, in the outer world, a work of art: the domestic animal. From the very beginning, domestic animals appeared alongside their wild kindred in an extraordinary abundance of forms. The natural disposition of the animal organism was reshaped as a whole toward particular metabolic capacities, as a rule at the expense of nerve-sense activity. The becoming-domestic-animal consisted in the art of maintaining embryonic plasticity throughout the whole of life. Domestic animals do not flee from the human being — on the contrary, they seek his attention and are in need of it.