The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Hyperborean and Polar Epochs

[ 1 ] The following remarks from the "Akashic Chronicle" lead back to the times that precede what has been described in the last chapters. The venture undertaken with these messages is perhaps even greater in relation to the materialistic way of thinking of our time than that which was linked to what has already been described in the previous explanations. The accusation of fantasy and groundless speculation is so obvious in the face of such things in the present. If one knows how far it can be from the scientifically educated in the sense of the present time to take these things even seriously, then only the awareness that one reports faithfully in the sense of spiritual experience can lead to their communication. Nothing is said here that has not been carefully checked by the means of spiritual science. The natural scientist should only be as tolerant of spiritual science as it is of the scientific way of thinking. (Compare my "Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert", where I believe I have shown that I appreciate the materialistic-scientific view). ^{1In 1914 a new edition of the work was published, supplemented by a "Prehistory of Western Philosophy and Continued to the Present", under the title "Die Rätsel der Philosophie in ihrer Geschichte als Umriß dargestellt", complete edition 1968.} However, for those who are inclined towards these matters of the humanities, I would like to make a special remark with regard to this edition. Particularly important things are discussed below. And it all belongs to times long past. Deciphering the Akashic Chronicle in this area is not exactly easy. The person who has written this does not claim to be an authority of any kind. He merely wants to communicate what has been researched to the best of his ability. He would appreciate any corrections based on factual knowledge. He feels obliged to communicate these processes in the development of mankind because the signs of the times urge him to do so. Moreover, this time a large period had to be described in outline so that an overview could be created. More detailed information about much of what has now been merely hinted at will follow later. - It is very difficult to translate the drawings in the "Akashic Chronicle" into our everyday language. It is easier to communicate them in the symbolic sign language that is customary in secret schools, the communication of which is not yet permitted. Therefore, the reader may accept some of the obscure and difficult to understand things and struggle to understand them, just as the writer tried to find a generally understandable way of presenting them. You will find some of the difficulties of reading rewarded when you look at the deep secrets, the meaningful human riddles that are hinted at. A real self-knowledge of man sprouts from these "Akashic Records", which are as certain realities for the secret researcher as mountains and rivers are for the sensual eye. An error of perception is of course possible there as well as there. - It should only be pointed out that in the present section only the development of the human being has been discussed initially. Naturally, the development of the other kingdoms of nature, the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, runs alongside this. The next sections will deal with these. Many things will then be discussed which will shed a more understandable light on the discussions about man. Conversely, however, the development of the other earthly kingdoms cannot be discussed in the spiritual scientific sense until the gradual progress of man has been described.

[ 2 ] If one goes back even further in the development of the earth than has been done in the previous essays, one arrives at ever finer material states of our celestial body. The substances that later became solid were previously in a liquid state, even earlier in a vaporous and steamy state, and further back in the finest (ethereal) states. Only the decreasing heat caused the substances to solidify. We shall now go back to the finest ethereal state of the substances of our earthly dwelling place. When the earth was in such an epoch of development, man entered it. Earlier he belonged to other worlds, of which we shall speak later. - Only the immediately preceding one will be mentioned. It was a so-called astral or soul world. The beings in this world did not have an external (physical), bodily existence. Not even the human being. He had already developed the consciousness of images mentioned in the previous essay. He had feelings, desires. But all this was decided in a soul body. Only the clairvoyant eye would have been able to perceive such a human being. - And indeed, all highly developed human beings at that time had such clairvoyance, although it was quite dull and dreamlike. It was not self-conscious clairvoyance. - These astral beings are the ancestors of man in a certain sense. What is called "man" today already carries the self-conscious spirit within it. This united with the being that emerged from that ancestor in the middle of the Lemurian period. (This union has already been alluded to in the earlier essays. When the course of development of the human ancestors up to this time has been explained here, the matter will be discussed in more detail). - The soul or astral ancestors of man were placed in the fine or etheric earth. They absorbed the fine substance - like a sponge, to put it crudely. By thus permeating themselves with matter, they formed etheric bodies. These had an elongated elliptical shape, but limbs and other organs to be formed later were already predisposed by delicate shades of the material. The whole process in this mass, however, was a purely physical-chemical one; only it was regulated and controlled by the soul. - When such a mass of matter had reached a certain size, it split into two, each of which was similar to the entity from which it had arisen, and in which the same effects took place as in the latter. - Each such new entity was again as endowed with soul as the mother being. This was due to the fact that not only a certain number of human souls entered the earthly scene, but a tree of souls, as it were, which could give rise to countless individual souls from its common root. Just as a plant always sprouts anew from countless seeds, so does the life of the soul in the countless shoots that result from the ongoing divisions. (However, from the beginning there was a limited number of soul types, which will be discussed later. But within these species the development proceeded in the manner described. Each type of soul sprouted innumerable shoots.

[ 3 ] With the entry into earthly materiality, however, a significant change took place in the souls themselves. As long as the souls themselves had nothing material about them, no external material process could have an effect on them. All effect on them was purely spiritual, clairvoyant. In this way, they lived with the spiritual in their surroundings. Everything that existed at that time was experienced in this way. The effects of stones, plants and animals, which at that time also existed only as astral (soul) entities, were felt as inner soul experiences. - In addition, something completely new occurred upon entering the earth. External material processes exerted an effect on the soul, which itself appeared in material clothing. At first it was only the movement processes of this material outer world that caused movements within the etheric body itself. Just as we today perceive the trembling of the air as sound, so these etheric beings perceived the vibrations of the etheric matter surrounding them. Such a being was basically a single organ of hearing. This sense developed first. But you can see from this that the separate organ of hearing only developed later.

[ 4 ] With the progressive condensation of earthly matter, the soul being gradually lost the ability to form it. Only the already formed bodies were still able to bring forth their own kind. A new kind of reproduction appears. The daughter being appears as a considerably smaller entity than the mother being and only gradually grows to its size. Whereas previously there were no reproductive organs, now there are. - But now it is no longer just a physical-chemical process that takes place in the entity. Such a chemical-physical process could not now bring about reproduction. The outer substance is no longer such that the soul can give it life directly, precisely because of its condensation. Therefore a special part is separated inside the structure. This part withdraws from the direct effects of the outer substance. Only the body outside this separate part remains exposed to these influences. It is still in the same condition as the whole body was before. The soul continues to work in the separate part. Here the soul becomes the carrier of the life principle (called prana in theosophical literature). Thus the bodily human ancestor now appears equipped with two limbs. One is the physical body (the physical shell). It is subject to the chemical and physical laws of the surrounding world. The second is the sum of organs that are subject to the special principle of life. - Now, however, a part of the soul's activity has become free. This no longer has any power over the physical part of the body. This part of the soul's activity now turns inwards and forms a part of the body into special organs. And thus an inner life of the body begins. It no longer merely lives with the shocks of the outside world, but begins to feel them within as special experiences. This is the starting point of sensation. At first, this sensation appears as a kind of sense of touch. The being feels the movements of the outside world, the pressure exerted by the substances and so on. The beginnings of a sensation of heat and cold also appear.

[ 5 ] This marks an important stage in the development of humanity. The physical body is deprived of the direct influence of the soul. It is completely handed over to the physical and chemical world of matter. It disintegrates at the moment when the soul, in its effectiveness, can no longer control it from the other parts. And this is when what is called "death" actually occurs. With regard to the previous states there can be no question of death. In the division, the parent entity lives on completely in the daughter entities. For in these the whole transformed soul-power works as before in the mother-form. Nothing remains after the division in which there is no soul. Now it is different. As soon as the soul no longer has power over the physical body, the latter is subject to the chemical and physical laws of the outer world, i.e. it dies. Only that which is active in reproduction and in the developed inner life remains as soul activity. This means that offspring arise through the power of reproduction, and at the same time these offspring are endowed with a surplus of organ-forming power. In this surplus the soul being always comes to life anew. Just as in former times the whole body was filled with soul-activity during division, so now the organs of reproduction and sensation. We are therefore dealing with a re-embodiment of the soul life in the newly developing daughter organism.

[ 6 ] In theosophical literature, these two stages of human development are described as the first two root races of our earth. The first is called the polar race, the second the hyperborean race.

[ 7 ] Imagine that the emotional world of these human ancestors was still a very general, indeterminate one. Only two things were already distinct from our present-day sensations: the sense of hearing and the sense of touch. Due to the change in both the body and the physical environment, however, the entire human body was no longer suitable for being an "ear", so to speak. A special part of the body remained capable of experiencing the subtle vibrations from then on. It provided the material from which our hearing organ gradually developed. However, pretty much the rest of the body remained an organ of touch.

[ 8 ] It is evident that the entire process of man's development to date is connected with a change in the Earth's thermal state. It was in fact the heat in his environment that brought man to the stage described. Now, however, the external heat had reached a point at which further progress of the human form would no longer have been possible. A counter-effect against the further cooling of the earth now occurs in the inner structure. Man becomes the producer of his own heat source. Until now, he had the degree of warmth of his surroundings. Now organs appear in him that enable him to develop the degree of warmth he needs for his life. Until now, its interior was permeated by circulating substances that were dependent on the environment in this direction. Now he was able to develop his own warmth for these substances. The bodily fluids became warm blood. He had thus attained a far higher degree of independence as a physical being than he had previously enjoyed. The whole inner life was heightened. Sensation still depended entirely on the effects of the outside world. The filling with its own warmth gave the body an independent physical inner life. Now the soul had an arena inside the body where it could develop a life that was no longer merely a co-living with the outside world.

[ 9 ] Through this process, the life of the soul was drawn into the realm of the earthly material. Previously, desires, wishes, passions, pleasure and suffering of the soul could only arise again through the soul. What emanated from another spiritual being aroused inclination, aversion, aroused passions and so on in a particular soul. No external physical object could have had such an effect. Only now did the possibility arise that such external objects could mean something to the soul. For it felt the stimulation of the inner life awakened by its own warmth as a feeling of well-being, the disturbance of this inner life as discomfort. An external object that is suitable for contributing to the maintenance of bodily well-being could be desired, wished for. What in theosophical literature is called "kama" - the body of desire - was connected with the earthly human being. The objects of the senses became objects of desire. Man was bound to earthly existence through his desire body.

[ 10 ] Now this fact coincides with a great world event with which it is causally connected. Until now, there was no material separation between the sun, earth and moon. These three were one body in their effect on man. Now the separation occurred; the finer materiality, which includes everything in itself that had previously given the soul the opportunity to have a direct vitalizing effect, separated itself as the sun; the coarsest part emerged as the moon; and the earth with its materiality held the middle between the two. Naturally this separation was not a sudden one, but the whole process took place gradually, while man advanced from the state of procreation by division to that last described. Indeed, this process of man's further development was brought about precisely by the world processes mentioned. First the sun drew its materiality out of the common world body. This deprived the soul of the possibility of directly animating the earth matter that remained behind. Then the moon began to form. This brought the earth into the state that permitted the characterized sentience. - And in connection with this progress a new sense also developed. The thermal conditions of the earth became such that the bodies gradually assumed the solid boundary that separated the transparent from the opaque. The sun, which had emerged from the earth's mass, was given its task as a giver of light. The sense of sight arose in the human body. At first, this vision was not as we know it today. Light and darkness had an effect on man as vague feelings. Under certain conditions, for example, he found the light pleasant, conducive to his physical life, and sought it out, strove towards it. At the same time, the actual life of the soul still took place in dreamlike images. In this life, color images rose and fell that were not directly related to external things. Man still related these color images to spiritual effects. Bright color images appeared to him when he was touched by pleasant mental effects, darker images when he was touched by unpleasant mental influences. - What has been called "inner life" so far is that which has been brought about by the appearance of intrinsic warmth. But we can see that it is not yet an inner life in the sense of the later development of mankind. Everything proceeds in stages, including the development of the inner life. In the sense meant in the previous essay, this true inner life only emerges when fertilization with the spirit occurs, when man begins to think about that which affects him from outside. - But everything that has been described here shows how the human being grows into the state described in the previous section. - And we are actually already moving in the time that was characterized there when we describe the following: The soul increasingly learns to apply to external physical existence what it previously experienced within itself and related only to the soul. This now happens with the color images. Just as previously a sympathetic impression of something spiritual was linked with a bright color image in the soul, so now a bright impression of light from outside. The soul began to see the objects around it in color. This was linked to the development of new visual tools. In addition to the vague sense of light and darkness in earlier states, the body had an eye that no longer exists today. (The legend of the Cyclops with one eye is a reminder of these states). The two eyes developed when the soul began to connect the external impressions of light more intimately with its own life. As a result, the ability to perceive the soul in its surroundings was lost. The soul became more and more a mirror of the outside world. This outside world is repeated as imagination within the soul. - The separation of the sexes went hand in hand with this. On the one hand, the human body only became receptive to fertilization by another human being; on the other hand, the physical "soul organs" (nervous system) developed, through which the sensual impressions of the outside world were reflected in the soul. - And thus the entry of the thinking spirit into the human body was prepared.