Cosmic Memory
GA 11
x. Extrusion of the Moon
One must be quite clear about the fact that only later did man assume the dense substantiality which he has today, and that he did this very gradually. If one wants to form an idea of his corporeality on the level of development which is being discussed, one can best do this by imagining it as similar to water vapor or to a cloud suspended in the air. But of course this idea approaches reality in a completely external way. For the fire cloud “man” is internally alive and organized. In comparison to what man became later, however, one must imagine him at this stage as in a state of soul slumber, and as only very dimly conscious. Everything which can be called intelligence, understanding, reason is lacking in this being. Floating rather than striding, it moves forward, aside, backward, to all sides, by means of four limb-like organs. For the rest, something has already been said about the soul of this being.
One must not think however that the movements or vital activities of these beings occurred in an irrational or irregular fashion. On the contrary, they were completely regular. Everything which happened had sense and significance. But the directing force of understanding was not in the beings themselves. They were directed by an understanding which was outside of them. Higher, more mature beings than they, surrounded and directed them. For the important, basic quality of the fire mist was that on the level of their existence which we have characterized, human beings could embody themselves in it, but that at the same time higher beings also could take on a body in it and could enter into a fully reciprocal relationship with men. Man had brought his impulses, instincts, and passions to the point where they could be formed in the fire mist. The other beings mentioned, however, could create within this fire mist by means of their reason and their intelligent activity. These beings had higher capacities by which they reached into the upper regions. Their decisions and impulses emanated from these regions, but the actual effects of these decisions appeared in the fire mist. Everything men did on earth resulted from the regular association of the fire mist body with that of these higher beings.
One can say that man was striving to ascend. He was to develop qualities in the fire mist which in a human sense were higher than those he had previously possessed. The other beings, however, were striving downward toward the material They were on the way to bringing their creative powers to bear on increasingly dense material forms. This does not represent a degradation for them in the broader sense of the term. One must be quite clear on this point. It requires a higher power and capacity to direct denser forms of substantiality than to control those less dense. In earlier periods of their development, these higher beings too had had a limited power like that of man today. Like present-day man, they once had power only over what took place “within them.” At that time, coarse, external matter did not obey them. Now they were striving toward a condition in which they were to direct outer events magically. Thus they were ahead of man in the period described. Man strove upward in order that he might first embody the understanding in more refined matter, so that later it could act toward the external; they had already incorporated the understanding into themselves at an earlier period, and now received magic power in order to articulate the understanding into the world around them. Man was moving upward through the stage of the fire mist; they were penetrating downward through the same stage, toward an extension of their power.
Those forces especially, which man knows as the forces of his lower passions or impulses, can be active in the fire mist. Man, as well as the higher beings, makes use of these forces at the stage of the fire mist. These forces act in such a way within the human form described above that man can develop the organs which enable him to think, and thus to develop a personality. On the other hand, these forces work in the higher beings at this stage in such a manner that they can employ them impersonally to create the arrangements of the earth. In this way, forms which are images of the rules of the understanding, come into existence on earth through these beings. Through the action of the forces of passion, organs of personal understanding develop in man; through the same forces, organizations filled with wisdom develop around him.
One should now imagine this process to be somewhat further advanced; or rather, one should represent to oneself what is written in the Akasha Chronicle concerning a somewhat later point in time. At that moment the moon split off from the earth. This event caused a great revolution. The objects which surround man lost a great part of their heat. These objects thereby entered into a coarser and denser substantiality. Man must live in this cooler environment. He can do this only if he changes his own substantiality. With this densification of substance is connected a change in form. For the condition of fire mist on earth has been replaced by a completely different state. As a consequence, the higher beings which we have described no longer have the fire mist available to them as a medium for their activity. Now they can no longer exercise their influence on those soul activities of man which had previously constituted their main field of action. They have received power over the forms of man which they themselves had previously created from the fire mist.
This change in influence goes hand in hand with a transformation of the human form. One half of this form, together with two organs of movement, now becomes the lower half of the body, which functions mainly as the carrier of nutrition and reproduction. The other half of this form is turned upward, so to speak. The remaining two organs of movement become the rudiments of hands. Those organs which previously had served for nutrition and reproduction are transformed into organs of speech and thought. Man has become upright. This is the immediate consequence of the extrusion of the moon. With the moon all those forces disappeared from the earth through which, during his fire mist period, man could still impregnate himself and produce beings like himself without external influence. His whole lower half—that which one often calls the lower nature—now came under the rationally formative influence of the higher entities. What these entities previously could regulate within man, since the mass of forces now split off with the moon was then still combined with the earth, they now have to organize through the interaction of the two sexes. It is therefore understandable that the moon is regarded by the initiates as the symbol of the force of reproduction. After all, these forces do inhere in it, so to speak. The higher beings we have described have an affinity with the moon, are in a sense, moon gods. Before the separation of the moon and, through its power, they acted within man; afterwards, their forces acted from outside on the reproduction of man. One could also say that those noble spiritual forces which previously had acted on the still higher impulses of man through the medium of the fire mist, had now descended in order to exercise their power in the area of reproduction. Indeed, noble and divine forces exercise a regulating and organizing action in this area. With this an important proposition of the secret doctrine has been expressed, namely, the higher, more noble divine forces have an affinity with the—apparently—lower forces of human nature. The word “apparently” must here be understood in its full significance. For it would be a complete misconception of occult truths if one were to see something base in the forces of reproduction as such. Only when man misuses these forces, when he compels them to serve his passions and instincts, is there something pernicious in them, but not when he ennobles them through the insight that a divine spiritual power lies in them. Then he will place these forces at the service of the development of the earth, and through his forces of reproduction he will carry out the intentions of the higher entities we have characterized. Mystery science teaches that this whole subject is to be ennobled, is to be placed under divine laws, but is not to be mortified. The latter can only be the consequence of occult principles which have been understood in a purely external fashion and distorted into a misconceived asceticism.
It will be seen that in his second, his upper half, man has developed something upon which the higher beings we have described have no influence. Other beings now acquire power over this upper half. In earlier stages of their development, these beings advanced further than men, but not as far as the moon gods. They could not exercise their power in the fire mist. But now that something they themselves had lacked previously has been formed in the human organs of understanding through the fire mist, their time has come. At an earlier time, the moon gods had attained an understanding capable of acting externally. This understanding already existed in them when the period of the fire mist began. They could act externally on the things of earth. In earlier times, the lower beings we have just mentioned had not attained such an understanding which acts outwardly. Therefore, the time of the fire mist found them unprepared. Now, however, an understanding is present. It exists in men. These beings seize upon this human understanding in order to act on the things of earth by means of it. As the moon gods previously had acted on the whole man, they now act only on his lower half, while the influence of the lower entities just mentioned acts on his upper half. Thus man comes under a double leadership. In his lower part he is under the power of the moon gods; in his developed personality, however, he comes under the leadership of those entities which are summed up under the name “Lucifer,” the name of their regent. The Luciferic gods thus complete their own development by making use of the awakened human powers of understanding. Previously they had not been able to attain this level. At the same time they give man the predisposition to freedom, to the discrimination between “good” and “evil.” While it is true that the human organ of understanding has been formed entirely under the leadership of the moon gods, these gods would have left it to slumber; they were not interested in making use of it. They possessed their own powers of understanding. In their own interest, the Luciferic beings were concerned with developing the human understanding and directing it toward the things of earth. Thereby for men they became the teachers of all that can be accomplished by the human understanding. But they could not be anything more than stimulators. They could not develop an understanding within themselves, but only in man. Thus there developed two directions of activity on earth. One proceeded directly from the moon divinities and was lawfully regulated and rational from the very beginning. The moon gods had already served their apprenticeship and were now beyond the possibility of error. The Luciferic gods which acted on men had yet to win their way to such illumination. With their guidance man had to learn to find the laws of his being. Under Lucifer's leadership he himself had to become as “one of the gods.”
Here the question arises: If in their development the Luciferic entities had not reached the stage of intelligent creation in the fire mist, at what stage had they stopped? To what point in earth development were they able to work together with the moon gods? The Akasha Chronicle gives information on this. They could participate in earthly creation up to the point at which the sun split off from the earth. It appears that while they performed somewhat lesser work than the moon gods up to this time, nevertheless they belonged to the host of divine creators. After the separation of earth and sun, an activity began on the earth—the work in the fire mist—for which only the moon gods, but not the Luciferic spirits, were prepared. Therefore, a period of pause and of waiting began for these spirits. The Luciferic spirits could emerge once more from their state of rest when the human beings began to work at the development of their organs of understanding, after the ebbing of the general fire mist. For the creation of the understanding is related to the activity of the sun. The dawn of the understanding in human nature is the lighting up of an inner sun. This is said not only in a metaphorical, but also in a quite real sense. When the epoch of the fire mist had ebbed from the earth, these spirits found within man an opportunity to resume their activity connected with the sun.
It now becomes clear whence the name Lucifer, that is, “the bearer of light,” originates, and why these beings are designated as “sun gods” in mystery science.
All that follows can only be understood if one looks back to periods preceding the development of the earth. This will be done in the next chapters of the “Akasha Chronicle.” The development through which the beings connected with earth passed on other planets before appearing on the earth, will be shown there. In addition, one will become more fully acquainted with the nature of the “moon gods” and of the “sun gods.” Simultaneously, the development of the animal, plant and mineral realms will become entirely clear.