Venus
500
On the sixth planet, in the further development, everything is eliminated which is meaningless, that which shows itself on the lower mental plane as nonsensical, illogical. This sixth planet is the planet of the Logos, of the word, because the word gives meaning.
501
The state of Venus will be such that also the plant kingdom will have disappeared; the lowest kingdom will be the animal kingdom transformed once again; three human kingdoms of different degrees of perfection will be found going upwards.
502
In this sixth round, on the sixth globe, in its sixth stage of development, corresponding to the sixth race, something important will be decided. There everything will have reached the devachan state, which is capable of development out of all kingdoms. If then someone is not so far along that he can be raised up to the devachan stage, then he remains in the animal state. This is decided by the number 666, the number of the beast.
When of these 343 - 7 x 7 x 7 stages 666 = 6 x 6 x 6 = 216 will have passed, thus after 5 planets (Saturn, sun, moon, earth, Jupiter) in Venus, when in this again 5 life states have passed, thus in the 6th life state of Venus and in the 6th form state of this 6th life state, then everything will have been separated from the earth evolution, which cannot come to perfection; the number 666 = 216 is therefore the critical number of the evolution (apocalypse).
"A critical condition occurs, however, (although a smaller one than in the just designated time point) also when the evolution ratio is 666, e.g. in the 6th subrace of the 6th root race of the 6th planet, Mars and Mercury being included, thus the following cycle arises:
1. saturn
2. sun
3. moon
4. mars
5. earth
6. mercury - this influence is a great one in the next 6th subrace. Mankind will then already come to a critical point of its development.
503
Towards the middle of the sixth root race, in the last third, there will no longer be a physical body. There the whole man will be ethereal again. He will pass into the finer materiality. But this will not happen if man does not bring it about himself. For this he must first transition to food which he prepares himself in the laboratory. So that to the same extent that man no longer takes his nourishment from nature, but from his own wisdom, from the God within, he also hastens towards his own deification. When man will begin to feed himself, the foundation will also be laid for something higher, namely, that he can reproduce himself. He gradually creates a life for himself out of the mineral world.
504
505
The origin of the planetary seals goes back to the Munich Congress of the Theosophical Society in May 1907. For the program booklet of this congress Rudolf Steiner drew five different planetary seals, also called "vignettes" by him, one for each day of the congress, starting with Saturday - Saturn, then Sunday - Sun, Monday - Moon, Tuesday - Mars, and as last Wednesday - Mercury. Two more seals, Jupiter and Venus, were added four years later, during the design of the Stuttgart Branch House in 1911, where all the seals in the meeting room were painted in gold on a dark blue background. Rudolf Steiner, as with all his artistic works, largely refrained from a more detailed explanation of these planetary seals. They are to be understood as pictorial-imaginative representations of the successive stages of planetary development, which reveal their meaning even through meditative contemplation.
506
Life levels - rounds: see details below.
507
On the sixth stage the physiognomy transitions to the raying out of itself. A being, which stands on this stage, forms the things of its environment in the way that it formed itself earlier. This is the stage of forming.
508
See 134 - 140
509
The next state of consciousness, to which the human being develops on another planet, the "Venus", differs from the previous one in that the soul now can create not only images, but objects and beings itself. This happens with the self-conscious object-consciousness or superpsychic consciousness. Through the picture-consciousness man can perceive something of supersensible beings and things, and he can influence them by awakening his picture-conceptions. But in order that, for example, what he wants from such a supersensible being should happen, it must set its own forces in motion at his instigation. Man is therefore master of images, and he can cause effects through these images. But he is not yet master of the forces themselves. When his self-conscious awareness of objects will be developed, then he will also be master over creative forces of other worlds. He will not only perceive and influence beings, but create them himself.