“As well as man, and every other living thing upon it, our planet has had its spiritual and physical evolution. From an impalpable ideal thought under the creative Will of Him of whom we know nothing, and but dimly conceive in imagination, this globe became fluidic and semi-spiritual, then condensed itself more and more, until its physical development – matter, the tempting demon – compelled it to try its own creative faculty. Matter defied SPIRIT, and the earth, too, had its “Fall”. The allegorical curse under which it labors, is that it only procreates, it does not create.
Our physical planet is but the handmaiden, or rather the maid-of-all-work, of the spirit, its master. “Cursed be the ground…thorns and thistles shall it bring”, the Elohim are made to say. “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” The Elohim say this both to the ground and the woman. And this curse will last until the minutest particle of matter on earth shall have outlived its days, until every grain of dust has, by gradual transformation through evolution, become a constituent part of a “living soul”, and, until the latter shall reascend the cyclic arc, and finally stand – its own Metatron, or Redeeming Spirit – at the foot of the upper step of the spiritual worlds, as at the first hour of its emanation. Beyond that lies the great “Deep” – A MYSTERY!
It must be remembered that every cosmogony has a trinity of workers at its head – Father, Spirit; Mother, nature, or matter; and the manifested universe, the Son or result of the two. The universe, also, as well as each planet which it comprehends, passes through four ages, like man himself. All have their infancy, youth, maturity, and old age, and these four added to the other three make the sacred seven again.
The introductory chapters of Genesis were never meant to present even a remote allegory of the creation of our earth. They embrace (chapter 1), a metaphysical conception of some indefinite period in the eternity, when successive attempts were being made by the law of evolution at the formation of universes. This idea is plainly stated in the Sohar: “There were old worlds, which perished as soon as they came into existence, were formless, and were called sparks. Thus, the smith, when hammering the iron, lets the sparks fly in all directions. The sparks are the primordial worlds which could not continue, because the Sacred Aged (Sephira) had not as yet assumed its form (of androgyne or opposite sexes) of king and queen (Sephira and Kadmon) and the Master was not yet at his work.”
The six periods or “days” of Genesis refer to the same metaphysical belief. Five such ineffectual attempts were made by the Elohim, but the sixth resulted in worlds like our own (i.e., all the planets and most of the stars are worlds, and inhabited, though not like our earth). Having formed this world at least in the sixth period, the Elohim rested in the seventh. Thus the “Holy One”, when he created the present world, said: “This pleases me; the previous ones did not please me.” And the Elohim “saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (Genesis 1)
The reader will remember that in Chapter IV., an explanation was given of the “day” and “night” of Brahma. The former represents a certain period of cosmical activity, the latter an equal one of cosmical repose. In the one, worlds are being evolved, and passing through their allotted four ages of existence; in the latter the “inbreathing” of Brahma reverses the tendency of the natural forces; everything visible becomes gradually dispersed; chaos comes; and a long night of repose reinvigorates the cosmos for its next term of evolution. In the morning of one of these “days” the formative processes are gradually reaching their climax of activity; in the evening imperceptibly diminishing the same until the pralaya arrives, and with it, “night”. One such morning and evening do, in fact, constitute a cosmic day; and it was a “day of Brahma” that the kabalistic author of genesis had in mind each time when he said: “And the evening and the morning were the first (or fifth or sixth, or any other) day.” Six days of gradual evolution, one of repose, and then – evening! Since the first appearance of man on our earth, there has been an eternal Sabbath, or rest, for the Demiurge.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 