“The first races of men were spiritual, and their protoplastic bodies were not composed of the gross and material substances of which we see them composed now-a-day. The first men were created with all the faculties of the Deity, and powers far transcending those of the angelic host; for they were the direct emanations of Adam Kadmon, the primitive man, the Macrocosm; while the present humanity is several degrees removed from the earthly Adam, who was the Microcosm, or “the little world.” Seir Anpin, the mystical figure of the Man, consists of 243 numbers, and we see in the circles which follow each other that it is the angels which emanated from the “Primitive Man”, not the Sephiroth from angels.
Hence, man was intended from the first to be a being of both a progressive and retrogressive nature. Beginning at the apex of the divine cycle, he gradually began receding from the center of Light, acquiring at every new and lower sphere of being, (worlds each inhabited by a different race of human beings), a more solid physical form and losing a portion of his divine faculties.
“In the “fall of Adam” we must see, not the personal transgression of man, but simply the law of the dual evolution. Adam, or “Man”, begins his career of existences by dwelling in the garden of Eden, “dressed in the celestial garment, which is a garment of heavenly light”, (Sohar, ii., 229 b); but when expelled he is “clothed” by God, or the eternal law of Evolution or necessarianism, with coats of skin. But even on this earth of material degradation – in which the divine spark, (Soul, a coruscation of the Spirit), was to begin its physical progression in a series of imprisonments from a stone up to a man’s body – if he but exercise his WILL, and call his deity to his help, man can transcend the powers of the angel. “Know ye not that we shall judge angels”, asks Paul. (1 Corinthians 6:3).
The real man is the Soul, (Spirit), teaches the Sohar. “The mystery of the earthly man is after the mystery of the heavenly man…the wise can read the mysteries in the human face.” (ii., 76 a). This is still another of the many sentences by which Paul must be recognized as an initiate. For reasons fully explained, we give far more credit for genuineness to certain Epistles of the apostles, now dismissed as apocryphal, than to many suspicious portions of the Acts. And we find corroboration of this view in the Epistle of Paul to Seneca. In this message, Paul styles Seneca “my respected master”, while Seneca terms the apostle simply, “brother”.
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 