The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Last Times Before the Separation of the Sexes

[ 1 ] The nature of man before his division into male and female will now be described. At that time the body consisted of a soft, malleable mass. The will had a much greater power over it than was the case with later man. When man detached himself from his parent being, he already appeared as a structured organism, but imperfect. The further development of the organs took place outside the parent being. Much of what was later brought to maturity within the parent being was then perfected outside it by a force that is related to our willpower. In order to bring about such external maturation, care was necessary on the part of the ancestral being. Man brought certain organs into the world which he later discarded. Others, which were still quite imperfect when he first appeared, developed. The whole process had something that can be compared to the working out of an egg shape and the shedding of an egg shell; but one must not think of a solid egg shell.

[ 2 ] The human body was warm-blooded. This must be said explicitly, for it was different in even earlier times, as will be shown later. The maturation that took place outside the mother being happened under the influence of increased warmth, which was also supplied from outside. However, one must not think of an incubation of the egg-man - as it should be called for the sake of brevity. The heat and fire conditions on the earth at that time were different from later. Man was able to use his powers to banish fire, or heat, into a certain space. He could - so to speak - concentrate (concentrate) heat. This enabled him to provide the young creature with the warmth it needed to mature.

[ 3 ] The most developed human organs at that time were the locomotor organs. Today's sensory organs were still completely undeveloped. The most advanced were the organs of hearing, the organs of perception for cold and warm (sense of feeling), while the perception of light was still far behind. Humans were born with hearing and feeling; the perception of light developed somewhat later.

[ 4 ] Everything that is said here corresponds to the last times before the separation of the sexes. This happened slowly and gradually. Long before their actual appearance, people developed in such a way that one individual was born with a more masculine character and the other with a more feminine one. However, the opposite sex characters were also present in every human being, so that self-fertilization was possible. This was not always possible, however, but depended on the influence of external conditions in certain seasons. In many respects man was highly dependent on such external conditions. Therefore, he also had to regulate all his facilities according to such external conditions, for example according to the course of the sun and moon. However, this regulation did not take place consciously in the modern sense, but was carried out in a way that must be called instinctive. And this already points to the mental life of people at that time.

[ 5 ] This soul life cannot be described as an actual inner life. Physical and mental activities and characteristics were not yet strictly separated from each other. The external life of nature was still lived by the soul. Above all, it was the sense of hearing, on which every single vibration in the environment had a powerful effect. Every vibration in the air, every movement in the environment was "heard". The movements of wind and water spoke an "eloquent language" to people. It was a perception of the mysterious weaving and drifting of nature that penetrated people in this way. And this weaving and activity also resonated in his soul. His activity was an echo of these influences. He translated the sound perceptions into his activity. He lived in such sound movements and expressed them through his will. In this way he was brought to all his daily work. - To a somewhat lesser degree he was influenced by the effects that communicated themselves to his feelings. But these also played a significant role. He "felt" the surroundings in his body and acted accordingly. He knew from such emotional effects when and how he had to work. He knew from them where he had to settle down. He recognized dangers to his life and avoided them. He regulated his food intake accordingly.

[ 6 ] The rest of the soul's life was completely different from later. Images, not ideas of external things, lived in the soul. For example, when a person stepped from a colder room into a warmer one, a certain color image arose in the soul. But this color image had nothing to do with any external object. It arose from an inner force related to the will. Such images continually filled the soul. The whole thing can only be compared to man's dream images which rise and fall. Only at that time the images were not random, but lawful. We should therefore not speak of a dream consciousness, but of a consciousness of images at this stage of humanity. In the main, it was color images that filled this consciousness. But these were not the only kind. Thus man walked through the world and lived the processes of this world through his hearing and feeling, but through his soul life this world was reflected in him in images that were very dissimilar to what was in the outer world. Pleasure and suffering were associated with these images of the soul to a much lesser degree than is the case today with the human imagination, which reflects the perceptions of the outer world. To be sure, one image caused pleasure, the other displeasure, one hatred, the other love; but these feelings had a much paler character. - In contrast, strong feelings were caused by something else. Man was much more active and active then than later. Everything in his surroundings and also the images in his soul stimulated him to activity, to movement. Now, when his activity could live itself out unhindered, he felt a sense of well-being; but if this activity was inhibited in any way, he felt displeasure and discomfort. The absence or presence of inhibitions of his will determined the content of his emotional life, his pleasure and his pain. And this pleasure, or rather this pain, was discharged in his soul itself in a vivid world of images. Light, bright, beautiful images lived in him when he was able to develop completely freely; dark, misshapen ones rose up in his soul when he was inhibited in his mobility.

[ 7 ] The average human being has been described so far. The soul life of those who had developed into a kind of superhuman being was different (see page 32). For them, this soul life did not have an instinctive character. What they perceived through their sense of hearing and feeling were deeper secrets of nature which they could consciously interpret. The laws, the wisdom of nature were revealed to them in the roar of the wind and the rustling of the trees. And the images in their souls were not mere reflections of the outside world, but images of the spiritual powers in the world. They did not perceive sensual things, but spiritual beings. The average man, for example, felt fear, and an ugly, dark image arose in his soul. The superhuman being received communication and revelation from the spiritual beings of the world through such images. To him, the processes of nature did not appear to be dependent on dead natural laws as they are to today's scientists, but they appeared to him as the actions of spiritual beings. External reality did not yet exist, for there were no external senses. But the spiritual reality opened up to the higher beings. The spirit shone into them as the sun shines into the bodily eye of man today. In these beings, knowledge in the fullest sense was what is called intuitive knowledge. There was no combining and speculating with them, but a direct observation of the workings of spiritual beings. These superhuman individualities were therefore able to absorb the messages from the spiritual world directly into their will. They consciously guided other people. They received their mission from the spirit world and acted accordingly.

[ 8 ] When the time came in which the sexes separated, these beings had to regard it as their task to influence the new life in the sense of their mission. The regulation of sexual life came from them. All institutions relating to the reproduction of mankind originated from them. They acted quite consciously, but other people could only perceive this influence as an instinct implanted in them. Sexual love was implanted in man through direct thought transmission. And all its manifestations were at first of the noblest kind. Everything that has taken on an ugly character in this field stems from later times, when man has become more independent and when he has corrupted an originally pure instinct. In these older times there was no satisfaction of the sexual instinct for its own sake. Everything here was sacrificial service for the continuation of human existence. Procreation was regarded as a sacred thing, as a service that man had to render to the world. And sacrificial priests were the rulers and regulators in this area.

[ 9 ] The influences of the semi-superhuman beings (see page 32) were of a different nature. These were not developed to the stage that they could have received the revelations of the spiritual world completely purely. In addition to these impressions of the spiritual world, the effects of the sensual earth also arose in their soul images. The superhuman beings in the full sense felt nothing of pleasure and pain through the outer world. They were completely devoted to the revelations of the spiritual powers. Wisdom flowed to them like light to sensual beings; their will was directed to nothing else but to act in accordance with this wisdom. And in this action lay their highest pleasure. Wisdom, will and activity made up their being. It was different with the semi-superhuman beings. They felt the urge to receive impressions from outside and associated pleasure with the satisfaction of this urge and displeasure with the non-satisfaction. This distinguished them from. The superhuman beings. For them, external impressions were nothing more than confirmations of spiritual revelations. They could look out into the world and received nothing more than a reflection of what they had already received from the spirit. The semi-superhuman beings experienced something new to them, and therefore they could become the leaders of men when their mere images in the soul were transformed into images, representations of external objects. This happened when a part of the former reproductive power of humans turned inwards, when brain beings developed. With the brain, humans then also developed the ability to transform external sensory impressions into images.

[ 10 ] We must therefore say that man was brought by semi-superhuman beings to direct his inner being towards the sensual outer world. He was denied the opportunity to expose his soul images directly to pure spiritual influences. He was implanted by the superhuman beings with the ability to propagate his existence as an instinctive drive. Spiritually he would at first have had to continue a kind of dream existence if the semi-superhuman beings had not intervened. Through their influence, his soul images were directed towards the sensual outer world. He became a being conscious of himself in the world of the senses. And this meant that man could consciously direct his actions according to the perceptions of the world of the senses. Formerly he had acted out of a kind of instinct, he had been under the spell of his external environment and the forces of higher individualities acting upon him. Now he began to follow the impulses and attractions of his imagination. And thus the arbitrariness of man came into the world. That was the beginning of "good and evil".

[ 11 ] Before proceeding further in this direction, a few things should first be said about man's environment on earth. Alongside man there were animals that were at the same stage of development as he was. In today's terms, they would be classified as reptiles. Apart from them, there were lower forms of the animal world. Now there was an essential difference between humans and animals. Because of his still formative body, man could only live in those areas of the earth that had not yet passed over into the coarsest material form. And in these regions animal beings lived with him, who had a similarly plastic body. In other regions, however, there lived animals that already had dense bodies and had already developed sexuality and the senses. Later reports will show where they had come from. They were no longer able to develop further because their bodies had taken on denser materiality too early. Some species of them then perished; some developed in their own way to the present forms. Man was able to attain higher forms by remaining in the areas that corresponded to his former constitution. Thus his body remained so flexible and soft that he was able to separate from himself those organs which could be fertilized by the spirit. Then his outer body was so far advanced that it could pass over into the denser materiality and become a protective covering for the finer spiritual organs. - But not all human bodies were so far advanced. There were few advanced ones. These were first animated by the spirit. Others were not animated. If the spirit had penetrated them too, it could only have developed inadequately because the inner organs were still imperfect. Thus these human beings first had to develop in a spiritless way. A third kind was so far advanced that weak spiritual influences could assert themselves in them. They stood between the other two species. Their spiritual activity remained dull. They had to be guided by higher spiritual powers. There were all kinds of transitions between these three species. Further development was now only possible by one part of the human beings forming themselves higher at the expense of the others. First the completely spiritless had to be abandoned. Mixing with them for the purpose of procreation would also have pushed the better developed ones down to their level. Everything that had received spirit was therefore separated from it. As a result, they fell further and further down to the level of animality. Human-like animals were thus formed alongside humans. Man left some of his brothers behind, so to speak, in order to rise higher himself. This process was by no means complete. Even among men with a dull spiritual life, those who stood somewhat higher could only progress by being drawn into communion with higher ones and separating themselves from those of lesser spirit. Only in this way could they develop bodies which were then suitable for the reception of the whole human spirit. Only after a certain time was the physical development so far advanced that a kind of standstill occurred in this direction, in that everything that lay above a certain limit remained within human territory. The living conditions on earth had meanwhile changed to such an extent that any further descent would have resulted in creatures that were not animal-like but no longer viable at all. But what has been cast down into animality has either died out or lives on in the various higher animals. In these animals, therefore, we see beings that had to remain at an earlier stage of human development. Only they have not retained the same form they had when they were separated, but have regressed from a higher to a lower stage. Thus the apes are regressed human beings of a past epoch. Just as man was once more imperfect than he is today, so they were once more perfect than they are today. - But what has remained in the realm of the human has undergone a similar process, only within this human. In many a savage race, too, we see the degenerate descendants of once superior human forms. They did not sink to the level of animality, but only to savagery.

[ 12 ] The immortal in man is the spirit. It has been shown when the spirit entered the body. Before that, the spirit belonged to other regions. It could only unite with the body when the body had reached a certain stage of development. Only when one fully understands how this connection came about can one become enlightened about the meaning of birth and death, as well as recognize the nature of the eternal spirit.