Contemporary science views our planet as an insignificant speck of dust in the vastness of space, with its four kingdoms as a random assemblage of atoms. Yvan Rioux presents a radically different perspective, demonstrating an indissoluble relationship between Heaven and Earth. Over aeons of existence, the four kingdoms have manifested a creative power that perpetually brings forth new expressions. With the goal of bridging science and spirit, Rioux helps revive the old intuitive awareness of an intimate communion between the outer perceptible life of nature, the inner life of the soul and the majestic spiritual formative forces that preside as architects - an organic whole where all levels co-evolve. The earth, nesting in its solar system, is connected with the Milky Way and the twelve constellations. The impact of the stars as an influence on human behaviour has been known for millennia. In the original edition of Rudolf Steiner's Calendar of the Soul, twelve illustrations of the constellations, made by Imma von Eckardstein, were published for the first time. These intuitive drawings differ greatly from the traditional ones, but Steiner stressed their importance for our modern consciousness. The images invite us to comprehend formative forces in their various guises in the kingdoms of nature. By exploring the gifts of each constellation, the author uses Imma's drawings as a template to elucidate the emergence of twelve basic forms as the common denominators of all creatures, leading eventually towards the human form. 'The [new] images of the zodiac constellations represent actual experiences connected with the waking and sleeping of particular spiritual beings. In these images we have a knowledge that needs to be renewed at this time...' - Rudolf Steiner (1912)

How are the internal and external forms of the human organism shaped? How does human consciousness emerge? These are questions to which conventional science has no answers. In The Seat of the Soul, Yvan Rioux invites us to consider new concepts that can explain these phenomena. His exposition is based on the existence of external `formative forces' - or morphic fields - which, he argues, create the human body or organism in conjunction with forces that resonate within us from the living solar system. The psyche - or soul - emerges progressively as an inner world of faculties that in time learns to apprehend and understand the outer world. In his previous book The Mystery of Emerging Form, Rioux explored the formative forces of the twelve zodiacal constellations. In this absorbing sequel, he investigates how such activity from the planetary spheres works within us, as `life stages' or metabolic processes. Through seven chapters, he explores the impact of each of these planetary spheres on our complex organic make-up and psychic activity. The link between organs and tissues, he says, produces five specific `inner landscapes' in relation to the external rhythmic environment. Rioux also gives a description of Rudolf Steiner's seven `planetary seals' from a biological perspective. According to Steiner, these seals are: `...occult scripts, meaning that, as hidden signatures, they show their ongoing etheric impacts on the seven stages of our metabolism'. Between Steiner's indications concerning human physiology and the ancient Chinese view on the subject, there is a convergence of ideas - as synthesized here - that breaks through the boundaries of modern reductionist science, offering exciting perspectives for understanding the human being. `The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.' - Novalis